Once a Bad Girl

chapter Four

‘Who is it? I’m not expecting anyone.’ She heard the familiar moany creak of the button-back leather chair that sat on the other side of her mother’s office, and her heart jumped to triple time as a tall male figure sauntered into view.

‘Hello, Lottie.’

Oh, dear lord. What was he doing here? Chaos reigned in her head, as a super-powered blush hit her cheeks, her neck. ‘Josh….’ she flustered, remembering a second too late that her mother was watching. Her pulse kicked up, right up, as her mouth went dry. He was wearing low-slung designer jeans with strategically placed rips, a second-skin black t-shirt emblazoned with ‘Scarlett, Miami’ in neon pink and trainers that looked like they’d trekked through the Himalayas and barely lived to tell the tale, and he looked just as gorgeously handsome as she’d remembered. He also looked darkly, alarmingly annoyed.

Lottie swallowed down the brick in her throat as he stared down at her. ‘I…I didn’t expect to see you again.’

‘Didn’t expect to? Or didn’t want to?’

Lottie could see Helen watching her with interest. She steeled herself with a deep breath and forced out a smile, a professional smile and wondered what on earth was going on. ‘How are things?’

‘They’ve been better.’

His blue eyes were all ice. She didn’t know what his problem was, only that he had a big one. She had to think quickly. ‘Did you want to schedule a meeting?’ she hedged. ‘I’m going for lunch now, but I’m free later.’ Every second she spent looking at him brought another erotic, sensual image into her head. She was trying her best not to picture him naked, but she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

‘Actually,’ he said, holding up a rolled-up magazine, ‘I haven’t had lunch yet. Think I’ll tag along.’

No! It got a little harder to breathe. She could not have Josh and Barry within 10ft of each other. ‘I’m only going to a place over the road. It’s not great. More of a greasy spoon than a restaurant, really. I’m not even sure the kitchen is clean, which is fine for me, because I’m used to it and I only have the salad. But you might want to give it a miss.’

‘I’ve got guts of iron.’ He moved forward, shepherding her out of the office. He got as far as the doorway, then turned. ‘It was nice to meet you, Mrs Spencer.’

‘You too, Mr Blakemore,’ Helen said airily. ‘Thanks for the advice on the cruise.’

Cruise? What cruise? Lottie craned her neck, tried to see past him, but it was like trying to look over a 6ft wall, one with minty breath and big fists. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she whispered, feeling a horrible combination of attraction and arousal and fear.

One hand met the small of her back and pushed her towards the double doors that served as the entrance to the auction house. ‘You tell me.’

Lottie opened her canvas tote and pulled out her sun hat as she walked out into the fresh air. As soon as she heard the door close behind them, she spun on her heel and made herself face him. ‘Sorry to have to point this out, but I’m really not that smart. So if you could stop growling down my neck for a minute and explain yourself, I’d appreciate it.’ She slapped the hat on her head and adjusted the brim so that at least she didn’t have to look him in the eye. ‘Did you get out of bed on the wrong side this morning or something?’

‘No,’ he fired back. ‘I got into bed with the wrong damn woman. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Or was their offer just too good to refuse?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t cry the innocent with me, Charlotte.’

‘I never pretended to be innocent. And I think the only things I cried were ‘yes’ and ‘please’ and ‘more’. And that’s not explaining yourself.’ She felt suddenly very hurt and shaken, shocked by the implication of his words. ‘Do you regret having sex with me? Is that what this is about?’

He fell silent.

‘You do, don’t you? I can’t believe you felt the need to ambush me at work just so you could tell me that.’ She turned on her heel, and took a diagonal pathway across the road to Giovanni’s, the little Italian across the road from the auction house, desperate to get away from him.

Unfortunately, he didn’t take the hint. Lottie couldn’t believe it when he followed her across the road, sticking far too close for comfort.

‘And don’t,’ she snapped as they were waved to a table under the green-and-white striped awning and given laminated menus, ‘call me Charlotte.’ She yanked out her chair and dropped onto it, then folded her arms and glared at him.

‘You set me up,’ he said, glaring right back.

Lottie blinked. ‘Set you up for what?’

‘Check the damn magazine.’

He slapped it on the table in front of her.

‘I don’t suppose it will make any difference if I tell you exactly where you can stick that,’ she said, waving at it.

His only response was to lift one dark brow.

Lottie shook her head and smoothed the magazine flat with the edge of her hand. He was, she decided, the most pig-headed human being she’d ever had the misfortune to meet. ‘You read Guilty Pleasures?’ Josh did not strike her as their target market. He was more…Men’s Health.

He scowled. ‘I do when I get a call to tell me I’m in it.’

Confused, Lottie touched the pad of her thumb to her tongue then started to flick. ‘Where?’

‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll find it.’

He folded his arms, making tanned biceps pop, and she hated herself for reacting to it. After all, hadn’t he just made it clear that he regretted sleeping with her?

And then she saw it. Badly focussed, the colours muted, but the image unmistakeable. It was Josh’s doorstep. And Josh. And her, wrapped around him like blueberry sauce on vanilla ice cream.

She stared at the photo, her mind a whirlpool of confusion as arousal rose up inside her, hot and sweet, her body instantly remembering how it had felt to have his hands on her like that, to have hers on his naked chest, the warm smell of his skin, the slide of his tongue over hers.

She picked at the edge of the page, hating him for tainting her memory of it. ‘That dress makes my bum look huge,’ she said quietly, not wanting to ask any of the questions burning her insides, feeling hideously violated. Who had taken the photo? Had someone been spying on them?

One large hand slapped down on the table. ‘Your bum is not the problem here.’ He reached across, tipped her chin up and forced her to meet his gaze. ‘Did you set this up, Lottie? Tell me the truth. Did you arrange for a photographer to wait outside my house?’

‘You brought the magazine! You’re the one who seems to know all about it! I could ask you the same question!’

For a moment, they glared at each other, like two boxers waiting for the bell to sound so they could start throwing punches. What was it about this man that cranked her emotions up to the max? Whatever it was—anxiety, attraction, anger—when he was around, she got terrifyingly close to out of control.

‘So you didn’t arrange for a photographer to wait in the bushes by my front door?’ He pinned her in her seat with that fierce, blue-eyed stare.

‘Why on earth would I do that? Are you completely insane?’

‘Apparently,’ he said, beckoning the waiter over. ‘What’s good here?’ He listened, then ordered an extra-large pepperoni pizza, two rounds of garlic bread, a bowl of olives and a lemonade, not diet. ‘And a salad for the lady.’

Lottie couldn’t hold in her temper. ‘So that’s it? You turn up at the auction house, tell me you’re sorry you slept with me, accuse me of being some sort of…paparazzi monger, and then order pizza and it’s all forgotten?’

He rested his elbows on the table and locked his hands together. ‘Oh, I haven’t forgotten. I just haven’t decided what to do about it yet.’

‘Well, you’ll have to go and make your decision elsewhere. I’m meeting a friend for lunch.’

‘I’m afraid you don’t understand, Lottie. This is Guilty Pleasures magazine.’

Lottie leaned forward, clutching her bag in a death grip. ‘No, it’s you that doesn’t understand, Josh. We had a night. A thing. And it was brilliant, for me anyway. I probably won’t need to even think about sex again for the next decade. But unfortunately, though you scratched that itch, you didn’t fix the problems back at the auction house, and I’m not stupid enough to think that you will. I’m meeting an old friend for lunch, and he might be able to help me. I didn’t sign up for this,’ she jabbed the photo with her finger, ‘and I don’t want to know how much you regret what we did.’

‘He?’ Those bright blue eyes flashed with something. ‘I see.’ But he made no move to leave. If anything, he settled his denim-clad backside even more firmly onto the wooden chair. Lottie hoped he’d get splinters.

‘It’s a private lunch.’ She enunciated each word slowly, carefully, as if talking to a little boy with the attention span of a spider. ‘Three is a crowd.’

‘Then go sit over there.’ He waved in the direction of an empty table. ‘I’ve got a pizza to eat, and I’m starving.’

She thought about arguing. A week ago, she would have done. But Josh had already proved himself more than capable of pushing the buttons that switched her from good to bad, and she couldn’t trust herself not to lose her head again. Okay, so maybe Marlene wouldn’t have sold her memorabilia through Spencer’s anyway if she hadn’t gone home with Josh that day, but at least she wouldn’t be plastered all over Guilty Pleasures, and she wouldn’t have added another black mark to the reputation of the auction house.

She’d thought she’d learned her lesson from her last boyfriend. Though was someone really your boyfriend when you only went out with them for three and a half weeks, and the whole thing was a sham anyway? Phil hadn’t been interested in her. He’d wanted to stop his aged mother from flogging his inheritance, and she had unwittingly helped him succeed.

Josh had wanted….what had he wanted? Sex, she thought bitterly. He’d wanted sex. Which would have been fine, because she’d wanted it too, but she wanted to fix things at the auction house more and for the second time in a row she’d let her hormones mess up her priorities.

Well, she wouldn’t let it happen again. ‘Fine.’ She pushed to her feet, held her bag close, refused to look him in the eye lest he should see how close she was to tears. ‘Enjoy your pizza.’

She’d been talking to the drip in the linen suit for 20 minutes solid. Josh scratched his head, folded the last slice of pizza in half and took a bite. What did she see in the chump, anyway? That carefully arranged birds’ nest of pale blond hair was a joke. He wondered if she’d slept with him, and felt a punch of irritation. Why did he care?

What did it matter to him if she’d made those sexy sounds of pleasure for someone else? If she’d let the chinless wonder taste the smooth, creamy skin on the inside of her thighs? This was the woman who’d set him up. Though even as he thought it, something inside him told him it wasn’t true.

He shoved the thought ruthlessly aside. He’d trusted her, and she’d thrown that trust right back in his face, just like they all did. He’d been a fool to forget it. Once bitten and all that. The photo in Guilty Pleasures would be forgotten within a week, sooner if he was caught in a compromising position with someone else, and that could be easily arranged, even if the thought of kissing someone else left him cold. But he wanted payback. He wanted her to feel the same betrayal he’d felt when he’d opened the magazine and seen that photo.

He glanced at Lottie, who gave him a death stare from under the brim of her hat. Now that he felt—a hot, powerful throb. Stroking a hand over his jaw, the rub of beard reminding him that he really should shave, Josh considered his options and spread a napkin over his lap to hide the bulge in his jeans. Whether Lottie had anything to do with that photo or not, the fact remained that if she hadn’t tempted him that day, he wouldn’t have been caught snogging her on the doorstep.

Going to the auction house to confront her had been an impulsive decision, a kneejerk reaction, and he was beginning to seriously regret it. Seeing her again reminded him of exactly how attractive he found her. That was the problem with explosive sex. It was hard not to go back for more.

But could he? Never mind should he, that point was moot. He had a club to promote, and Lottie had her own problems to deal with, and right now she looked like she’d quite like to take a rock to his head.

It was then that inspiration struck, lightning sharp. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He thumped the table in triumph, sending a sauce-smeared knife clattering to the ground. All he had to do now was to get rid of the twerp.

Lottie watched as Josh got to his feet and tucked a £20 note under the edge of his plate. Was he leaving? God, she hoped so. She’d barely heard a word Barry had said, her attention super-glued to the human dustbin three tables back. She’d never seen anyone eat so much. Josh had motored his way through the pizza and the two rounds of garlic bread and the olives. The waiter had obligingly delivered her salad and sparkling water, and Barry had opted for a mountain of spaghetti in a goopy white sauce. Little beige-coloured clams poked out between the strands. They seemed to be giving his jaw muscles an extreme workout.

‘We should do this more often,’ Barry said, smiling widely. ‘Make it a regular thing.’

Lottie poked a curve of fennel. ‘Hmm. Anyway, Barry, the reason why I called you…’ Her heart skittered as a warm, moist hand took up residence on her knee, and she fought back the shudder. She had to keep Barry onside. But she also had to get his hand away from her knee. It made her feel unwell.

‘You know, Lottie, I’m so glad you called. I knew eventually you’d be ready to take things to the next level.’

A tiny bit of bile made its way up to the back of her throat. Turning her head away, Lottie stared at the weathered red brick of the auction house, gritted her teeth, and prayed that Barry wouldn’t move his hand any higher. ‘I was hoping we could do each other a favour,’ she said.

Mid-thigh. Oh, god. She must not slap him.

‘Absolutely,’ he said, with utter sincerity, his fingers making an annoying pinching movement over the fabric of her tailored shorts. He’d overloaded the aftershave, something sweet and fizzy and not pleasant.

Where to begin? Lottie was just trying to put the words together when a hulking shadow loomed over their table, and her insides dropped away. She didn’t need to look up to know it was Josh. With the sun behind him, his upper body perfectly outlined, she could see exactly how broad those shoulders were, exactly how thick those arms. She remembered being locked inside them.

She smacked the groping fingers away from her thigh.

Barry glanced up. ‘Yes?’

Josh folded his arms, rocked back on his heels. ‘Well if it isn’t Barry the Perve.’

Barry shot to his feet, cheeks flaming. ‘Josh Blakemore. Still an arrogant prick, I see.’

‘Still taller than you too, Barry, but let’s not get personal, shall we? Or I’ll ask you if you’ve touched up any more trainee teachers recently.’

‘That was a long time ago,’ Barry huffed out. ‘And it was all a misunderstanding.’

Lottie stared at Barry, then at Josh. Awkward was not the word. ‘You two know each other?’

‘We were at school together,’ Josh informed her. ‘Small world.’

Too small by far. And if she was going to have any chance of squeezing information out of Barry, she had to get rid of Josh. Fast. ‘Well, it’s lovely that you had a chance to meet up again. But if you don’t mind, Josh, we’d like to finish our lunch.’

‘Sure.’

Lottie felt unease slither down her spine, settling into a cold puddle at the base. Why was he agreeing so easily? There was wickedness in his expression, too, the same arrogant twinkle she’d seen far too much of only a week before. But then he turned and started to walk away, easing his big thighs between the tightly packed tables, and she wondered if she’d misread it. Maybe he always looked like that. Maybe she’d thought that look was for her because she’d wanted it to be. Maybe he really hadn’t enjoyed having sex with her that much after all.

Barry lowered himself back into his seat, then took her hand in his small pasty one and squeezed it. ‘Well, that was an unpleasant surprise. He always was a nasty piece of work. It’s all in the genes, you know.’

Lottie didn’t get a chance to ask exactly what Barry meant by that. Josh had executed an on-the-spot pivot that would make a prima ballerina proud, and was headed straight back towards them. The breath caught in her throat at the sight of him, all movie-star cheekbones and action-man pecs, and she squirmed in her seat.

‘Forgot to give you these.’ Josh shoved his fingers into his left pocket, and pulled something out, something small and white. At first, she wondered why he was giving her a crumpled tissue. It took a moment for her befuddled brain to latch onto the fact that it wasn’t, in fact, something she could blow her nose on. The fabric wasn’t smooth but woven, sheer in places, and decorated with tiny flowers.

Lottie buried her face in her hands. ‘Thanks,’ she wheezed, as Josh placed her knickers delicately onto the table. She slapped her hand on top of them and whipped them out of sight. ‘But you shouldn’t have.’

Next to her, Barry made a noise like a pig being strangled. ‘Six months,’ he huffed. ‘Six months of turning me down, and you opened your legs for him?’ He shot to his feet for the second time in under a minute, and nearly sent the table flying. ‘How long?’ One pasty hand wrapped around the paper napkin he had tucked into his collar, ripped it free. ‘How long have you been seeing him?’

Josh cut in before she could figure out an answer. ‘We only met a week ago,’ he said cheerily, scratching his chest, looking unreasonably, infuriatingly pleased with himself.

Why was he doing this? What did he possibly have to gain? ‘Barry, please,’ Lottie pleaded, as the napkin was flung aside, only to be caught by the breeze and draped slowly over his half-eaten pasta and clams.

She willed him to say something, anything, but he didn’t, he just glared at her with those gravy-brown eyes, shook his head, and walked off, linen jacket flapping noisily.

Anger boiled up inside her as Josh settled himself into Barry’s seat. ‘You!’ She poked him hard in the chest with her index finger. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ She jabbed at him again, and he flinched. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?’

‘Saved you from making a horrible mistake?’

She threw her hands in the air. ‘No! Barry works for Christie’s. He told me about Marlene’s memorabilia. I was hoping he might let something else slip.’

‘Then I really did you a favour. Jeez, Lottie, that’s desperate.’

‘I am desperate.’ Sinking back down to her chair, Lottie pinched the bridge of her nose, as if pain could stop the tears, suddenly realising just how far she’d sunk. ‘I’m out of ideas,’ she admitted. ‘I’m seriously considering selling a kidney.’

Josh folded himself into the chair opposite, took her hand in his big, warm one, and started to play with her fingers. ‘I don’t get why the auction house is so important to you. Businesses go under all the time. You’re attractive, smart. You could get another job.’ He set his thumb to her palm and rubbed.

Tingles of pleasure shot up her arm. She tugged her hand away, straightened up in her chair, refusing to be distracted from the fact that she was very, very angry with him. ‘It’s a family business.’

‘But it’s not your business, right? It’s your father’s. Therefore it’s his responsibility.’

He didn’t understand, but then why would he? ‘No, it’s a family business. That means that all of us pitch in, regardless of who’s name is over the door.’

Those blue eyes cut right into her. ‘I see.’

‘Do you?’ Lottie folded her arms, stared at the swirls in the wrought-iron table top until her vision went blurry and her mind dredged up things she didn’t want to think about. How it had felt to have his weight pin her down on the bed. The sheer bliss of having him move inside her. She hardened herself into ice-cold steel. ‘Not all of us have the luxury of swanning around doing whatever we fancy. Some of us have responsibilities. I won’t let my parents down, Josh, and if that means I have to make nice with people like Barry, so be it.’

‘I guess your family means a lot to you.’

‘Of course it does. My parents have done everything for me. I owe them everything in return.’ Lottie grabbed her tote, found her purse, and dug in it for some money. The remnants of clam mountain leered at her. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work. While I still have work to do, that is.’

‘Sit down, Lottie.’

His voice was low and commanding, and apparently her legs couldn’t disobey. ‘What?’

‘Stop talking for a minute and listen. I think I know a way we can help each other out.’

‘You want to buy my kidney?’

He touched her lips with his index finger, bringing up another disturbingly erotic memory of another time, another place. ‘I said, stop talking. Let’s consider the facts. The auction house needs a big client. Am I correct?’

Lottie nodded, and he removed his hand.

‘I can provide you with a big client. I need some splashy publicity for my club. You can provide me with that.’

‘How?’

He tapped the magazine with one long finger. ‘We’re going to feed the monster. We’re going to have a short, very passionate and very public fling.’