‘Forget it,’ she dismissed, with a lightness she was far from feeling. She wasn’t one hundred per cent sure what she was feeling at the moment, or thinking. She was too tremblingly aware of Lucien having kissed her just minutes ago to be able to put two coherent thoughts together. ‘You said you had a meeting to get to?’ she reminded him.
Yes, he did. But strangely, just for a few seconds, Lucien had actually been considering cancelling his business meeting and going with Cyn to visit the Empire State building instead. Unbelievable.
Zillionaires didn’t get to be or stay zillionaires, by playing hooky from work to go off and play tourist with a visitor from England. Even if—especially if—that visitor was Cyn Hammond. A woman who apparently had the ability to make Lucien forget everything but his desire to be with her and make love to her.
Something that had definitely not happened to him before today.
But, damn it, Cyn really did look like a tempting stick of candy in that pink top... And it took no effort at all on Lucien’s part to imagine the pleasure of licking his tongue over every inch of that soft and silky flesh...
He nodded abruptly. ‘I can drop you off at the Empire State Building on my way.’
‘It’s such a lovely day I think I’d rather walk,’ she refused lightly, lifting a hand in parting to Ben as they passed through his office and out into the hallway before stepping into the private elevator together.
Just the thought of Cyn wandering the streets of New York dressed in nothing more than that skimpy pink top and those body-hugging denims was enough to bring a dark scowl back to Lucien’s brow. ‘Do you have any sense of self-preservation at all?’ he rasped harshly as he released her elbow to press the button for the elevator to take them down to the ground floor.
‘It’s the middle of the day, for goodness’ sake!’ She glanced at him with those cobalt blue eyes through lushly dark lashes.
Lucien eyed her impatiently. ‘Remind me to tell you later tonight about the statistics for daytime muggings and shootings in New York.’
She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘You still have to tell me what time I’m meeting you this evening, and at which restaurant in the hotel,’ she said firmly.
‘Eight o’clock.’ He frowned. ‘Go down to the ground floor. I’ll have someone waiting to show you to the private elevator that will bring you directly up to the penthouse apartment.’
Her eyes widened. ‘The penthouse? You live in an apartment at the top of the Steele Heights Hotel?’ Thia was too surprised not to gape at him incredulously.
He gave a smile of satisfaction at her reaction. ‘I occupy the whole of the fiftieth floor of Steele Heights when I’m in New York.’
‘The whole floor?’ she gasped. ‘What do you have up there? A tennis court?’
‘Not quite.’ Lucien smiled tightly. ‘There is a full-sized gym, though. A small pool and a sauna. And a games room. A small private cinema for twenty people.’ He quirked a dark brow as Cyn gaped at him. ‘Changed your mind about having dinner with me at the hotel this evening?’ Those silver eyes mocked her.
It didn’t take too much effort on Thia’s part to realise Lucien was challenging her, daring her. He expected her to baulk at agreeing to have dinner with him now that she knew they would be completely alone in his penthouse apartment. And good sense told Thia that it would be a wise move on her part not to rise to this particular challenge, to just withdraw and concede Lucien as being the winner.
Unfortunately Thia had never backed down from a challenge in her life. She wouldn’t have been able to survive the death of her parents or worked as a waitress for the past five years in order to support herself through uni if that was the case. And she had no intention of backing down now, either.
Even if she did suspect that Lucien wasn’t just challenging her by inviting her to his apartment and that the main reason he wanted them to dine in the privacy of his apartment was because he didn’t want to be seen out with her in public.
She knew enough about Lucien Steele to know he was a man the media loved to photograph, invariably entering some famous restaurant or club, and always with a beautiful model or actress on his arm. Being seen with a waitress student from London hardly fitted in with that image.
‘Fine.’ She nodded abruptly. ‘Eight o’clock. Your apartment.’
‘No need to dress formally,’ Lucien told her dismissively. ‘Although perhaps something a little less revealing than what you’re currently wearing might be more appropriate,’ he added dryly.
‘It’s a crop top, Lucien. All women are wearing them nowadays.’
‘None of the women I’ve escorted have ever done so,’ he assured her decisively.
‘That’s your loss!’ Thia felt stung by Lucien’s casual mention of those women he’d escorted. Which was ridiculous of her. The fact that they were eating dinner at his apartment told her that this wasn’t a date, just a convenient way for the two of them to be able to finish their conversation in private. Well away from the public eye...
‘Yes.’ He bared his teeth in a wolfish smile as the two of them stepped out of the lift together, causing Thia to blush as he reached out to grasp one of her hands lightly in his before raising it to skim his lips across her knuckles. ‘Until later, Cyn.’
Thia snatched her hand from within his grasp, aware of the stares being directed their way by the other people milling about in the lobby of Steele Tower even if he wasn’t. ‘I hope you’re enjoying yourself,’ she hissed, even as she did her best to ignore the tingling sensation now coursing the length of her arm. And beyond...
‘It has its moments.’ His eyes glittered with satisfied amusement as he looked down at her.
Thia glared right back at him. ‘You could have told me your reason for firing Jonathan in the time we’ve been talking together.’
‘I do things my own way in my own time, Cyn,’ he bit out tersely. ‘If you have a problem with that, then I suggest—’
‘I didn’t say I had a problem with it,’ she snapped irritably. ‘Only that—oh, never mind!’ Lucien had the ability to rob her of her good sense, along with any possibility of withstanding his lethal attraction.
A lethal attraction that affected every other woman in his vicinity, if the adoring glances of the receptionists were any indication, as well as those of the power-dressed businesswomen going in and out of the building.
All of them, without exception, had swept a contemptuous gaze over the casually dressed Thia—no doubt wondering what a man like Lucien Steele was doing even wasting his time talking to someone like her—before returning that gaze longingly, invitingly, to the man at Thia’s side. One poor woman had almost walked into a potted plant because she had been so preoccupied with eating Lucien up with her eyes!
It was a longing Thia knew she was also guilty of.
Challenge or no challenge, she really shouldn’t have agreed to have dinner alone with him in his apartment this evening...
* * *
Thia looked in dismay at the chaos that was her bedroom in the suite on the tenth floor of the Steele Heights Hotel. Clothes were strewn all over the bed after she had hastily tried them on and then as quickly discarded them. Finding exactly the right casual outfit to wear to have dinner with the dangerously seductive Lucien Steele in—oh, hell—fifteen minutes’ time was proving much more difficult than she