When I'm with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(12)

She didn’t want to specifically mention it presently for fear he’d send her away again.

His expression was bland. He crossed his arms below his chest and shifted his hips, bringing her attention downward to his crotch area. Her cheeks heated. Had he suggested she sit in the chair as he towered over her, his blatant masculinity right at eye level as a subtle power play? She wouldn’t put it past Lucien.

“Why should it matter to you what Ian Noble thinks?” she pushed.

“I own a business in his tower. It matters.”

“But I don’t think your father’s crimes say anything about—”

“What you think isn’t of consequence here. I had to make a decision quickly out there, given what you pulled, and I think it’d be the best—the cleanest—solution for no one here in Chicago to know about our past connection for now.”

She leaned back in the chair, considering. “No wonder you wanted me to disappear so fast last night,” she mused. What was Lucien up to? It made her uncomfortable. She didn’t like to think of Lucien getting himself into any trouble. And yet—this was powerful information that had fallen so unexpectedly into her lap. . . .

He narrowed his gaze, studying her. “Don’t even think about it, Elise.”

“Don’t even think about what?”

His gray eyes flashed. “Blackmail. Don’t give me that innocent look. You were thinking you have something to hold over my head now, something to use to control me. You were thinking that you would promise to keep quiet if I didn’t interrupt this fantasy-of-the-week of yours about becoming a chef.”

“I was thinking no such thing,” she lied hotly.

He laughed softly. “Do you think I’m a fool? I know how you operate. You learned manipulation from the cradle.”

“I’m just trying to make a life for myself, Lucien. A good life . . . an honest one. I’m willing to work hard. Have you truly grown so callous that you would turn your back on a friend?”

“Friend? You never had friends. You had sycophants that thronged around society’s aristocratic darling; you had the bucks lining up, panting to be the next one or two or three you chose for your bed—”

“How dare you!”

“You probably had the most elite drug dealers in the Corsican mafia at your beck and call—”

“I never used illegal drugs—or legal ones, for that matter.”

“My point is, you never had friends, Elise.”

She flung herself out of her chair.

“Well maybe I need one now.”

For a few seconds, they faced off in silence, her breathing slightly escalated. She listened to her heartbeat throb in her ears. He pinned her with his stare.

“I didn’t ask you into my office just now because I want to be your friend.”

She found herself staring at his hard, gorgeous mouth, wondering if she’d imagined what he’d said . . . his tone. She thought about what he’d proposed last night, when he’d dared her to stay there with him. Her gaze skittered to the door he’d locked and back to his face. Her heartbeat grew impossibly louder, until it felt like the thundering drum of it became her whole world. Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

“You . . . you want to be more than friends?” she asked weakly.

His gaze looked hungry as it flickered over her face. “You must know I find you attractive. If you recall, at one time, our parents even wanted us to marry.”

She couldn’t believe she was hearing him say this. Of course she recalled it. “My mother told me you completely dismissed the idea.”

“Naturally, I dismissed it. I was twenty-six when they first mentioned it. You were nineteen. I hadn’t seen you in five years. Do you really think I’d do anything but shoot down the idea before they got too far in spinning their web?”

Elise thought of the four people who were Lucien’s and her parents and his reference to them as calculating spiders.

“No. Of course not,” she said, perfectly seeing his point. If she recalled correctly, she’d been equally as dismissive when her mother oh-so-casually mentioned the topic. Her blood had quickened at the idea of seeing Lucien again—of something happening between them—but as in all things, she would never consider letting her mother notice that something mattered to her. She routinely downplayed romantic interests to Madeline, knowing the firsthand consequence of putting her heart on her sleeve when it came to her mother. It’d happened once, when she was very young, that she’d confessed her childish hopes to her mother about a beautiful teenage boy named Aaron. The day she’d accidentally witnessed Aaron’s body twined around her mother’s voluptuous curves like an adolescent boa constrictor had silenced Elise forever in that regard.

Besides, the scions of old, wealthy families were always contemptuous of their parents’ territory-building through arranged marriage. Defiance was the only defense they possessed. She’d said something flippant and hard every time her mother brought up the topic of Lucien again.

“Why are you bringing up our parents’ ancient wishes now?” she asked slowly.

“Not because I’m proposing marriage,” he said, a slow, sardonic smile shaping his mouth. Damn those dimples.

She blinked. “No, of course not. I realize that,” she assured quickly, embarrassed.