CAITLIN CREWS
BAD BLOOD
SHAMELESS PLAYBOY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CAITLIN CREWS discovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve. It involved swashbuckling pirates, grand adventures, a heroine with rustling skirts and a mind of her own, and a seriously mouthwatering and masterful hero. The book (the title of which remains lost in the mists of time) made a serious impression. Caitlin was immediately smitten with romances and romance heroes, to the detriment of her middle-school social life. And so began her lifelong love affair with romance novels, many of which she insists on keeping near her at all times.
Caitlin has made her home in places as far-flung as York, England and Atlanta, Georgia. She was raised near New York City, and fell in love with London on her first visit when she was a teenager. She has backpacked in Zimbabwe, been on safari in Botswana, and visited tiny villages in Namibia. She has, while visiting the place in question, declared her intention to live in Prague, Dublin, Paris, Athens, Nice, the Greek islands, Rome, Venice, and/or any of the Hawaiian islands. Writing about exotic places seems like the next best thing to moving there.
She currently lives in California, with her animator/comic-book artist husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.
CHAPTER ONE
GRACE Carter glanced up from her computer, frowning at the figure that sauntered so confidently into her office high above the cold, wet February streets of central London, without so much as a knock on her door as warning.
And then she went very still in her chair. Something that felt like fire rolled through her, scorching everything in its path. She told herself it was indignation because he had failed to knock as any decent, polite person should—but she knew better.
It was him.
“Good morning,” he said in a low, richly amused and somehow knowing voice that seemed to echo inside of her. He seemed to smolder there in front of her, like a banked flame. She straightened in her seat in reaction.
“By all means,” she said, her voice cool, ironic. “Come right in.”
He was dressed in a sharp, sleek Italian suit that clung to the hard planes of his celebrated body and looked far too fashion-forward for the staid and storied halls of Hartington’s, one of Britain’s oldest luxury department stores, where conservative was the watchword in word, deed and staff apparel. His too-long dark chocolate hair was tousled and unkempt—rather deliberately so, Grace thought uncharitably—and fell toward his remarkable green eyes, one of which was ringed by a darkening bruise. It matched the split lip that failed, somehow, to dampen the impact of his shockingly carnal mouth. His cuts and bruises gave him a faintly roguish air and added to the man’s already outrageous appeal.
And well he knew it.
“Thank you,” he said, those famous green eyes bright with amusement, quite as if her invitation was sincere. His decadent mouth crooked to the side. “Is that an invitation into your office or, one can only hope, somewhere infinitely more exciting?”
Grace wished she did not recognize him, but she did—and this was not the first time she’d seen him in person. Not that anyone alive could fail to identify him on sight, with a face that was usually plastered across at least one or two tabloids weekly, in every country in the world. Showcasing exactly this kind of inappropriate behavior.
She was not impressed.
“Lucas Wolfe,” she said, as a gesture toward good manners, though her voice was flat.
He was Lucas Wolfe, second son of the late, notoriously flamboyant William Wolfe, darling of the paparazzi, famously faithless lover to hordes of equally rich and supernaturally beautiful women—and Grace could not think of a single reason why this creature of tabloids and lore should be standing in her office on a regular Thursday morning, gazing at her in a manner that could only be called expectant.
“All six resplendent feet and then some,” he drawled, his dark brows arching high above his wicked green eyes. “At your service.”
“You are Lucas Wolfe,” she said, ignoring the innuendo that seemed to infuse his voice, his expression, like some kind of molten chocolate. “And I’m afraid I am busy. Can I direct you to someone who can help you?”
“Too busy for my charm and beauty?” he asked, that wicked grin making his eyes gleam, his expression somewhere between suggestive and irrepressible—and surprisingly infectious. Grace had to fight to keep from smiling automatically in return. “Surely not. That would require hell to freeze over, for a start.”
She ignored him, rising to her feet to regain the appropriate balance of power.
“I would invite you make yourself comfortable,” she said with a tight smile, close enough to courteous, knowing her voice would make the words sound sweeter than they were, “except that seems rather redundant, doesn’t it?”
Every instinct she had screamed at her to let this man know exactly what she thought of his kind. Womanizing, useless, parasitic, just like all the men her poor mother had paraded in and out of their trailer when Grace was a child. Just like the father she’d never met, who from all accounts was yet one more pretty, irresponsible wastrel in a long line of the same. Just like every other idiot she’d had to slap down over the years.
But as a member of the Wolfe family Lucas was considered royalty at Hartington’s, given that his family had once owned the company. The Wolfes might not own Hartington’s any longer, but Hartington’s board of directors loved to play up the connection—and as the events manager who was in charge of Hartington’s centenary relaunch in a matter of weeks, Grace was expected to act in Hartington’s best interests at all times no matter the cost to herself.
“I am always comfortable,” he assured her, his voice a symphony of innuendo, his green eyes wicked and amused. “Making myself so at every opportunity is, I confess, very nearly my life’s work.”
She had a huge project to manage, which meant she had better things to do with her time than waste it on this useless, if shockingly attractive, man. Grace hated wasting time. That was the feeling that expanded within her, she told herself, threatening her ability to breathe.
“I’m sorry,” she began, the polite smile she was known for curving her lips, though she knew her gaze remained cool on his. “I’m afraid I’m quite busy today. May I help—?”
“Why do I recognize you?” he interrupted her, languidly, because of course he had all the time in the world.
Grace was horrified to feel that rich voice of his wash through her, sending tendrils of flame licking all over her skin, coiling low in her belly. She felt it, and it panicked her. Surely she should be immune to this man’s brand of practiced, cynical charm—she, who prided herself on being absolutely unflappable!
“I can’t imagine,” she said, which was a lie, but it was not as if she and Lucas Wolfe would ever speak again, would they? She could not fathom why they were speaking now—and why the cynical boredom she’d sensed in him in a chic and crowded hotel bar the night before had changed to something else, something dangerous and edgy. As if a dark fury lurked within him, just out of sight, hidden beneath his well-known and deliberately polished exterior.
But surely not. She was being fanciful.