Catherine Mann – Secrets of the Tycoon's Bride / The Executive's Surprise Baby: Secrets of the Tycoon's Bride (страница 7)
“I guess I was too nervous about meeting all those people to be overwhelmed by the house. I, um…don’t get out much.” Not anymore.
She forced her feet forward and found herself in a soaring circular two-story domed foyer. She slowly turned around in the center of the Mariner’s Compass pattern inlaid into the marble floor like a glossy stone quilt, and then crossed to the wide staircase sweeping up and around the foyer to the second floor.
Had her mother crept up and down these stairs, avoiding the squeaky treads in the middle of the night? If marble treads creaked, that is.
Had the wild streak that had landed Lauryn in so much trouble as a teen come from Adrianna Laurence? Lauryn certainly hadn’t inherited it from her father, a regimented career military man, or learned it from her adoptive mother, a serene saint of a woman who never raised her voice or her hand no matter how obnoxious Lauryn had been.
“Want the ten-dollar tour?” Adam’s voice intruded.
She blinked. “I thought that was a ten-cent tour.”
“Inflation,” Adam replied straight-faced. “If you don’t have cash, I’ll accept a more creative payment.”
His gaze dropped to Lauryn’s lips and her mouth dried. She cleared her throat and looked away. “I’d love a tour.”
She had to get into this house without him dogging her footsteps. Maybe she could convince him to give her a key to drop stuff off for the VIPs and steal a few minutes to explore. “How many bedrooms?”
“Six bedrooms, seven and a half baths, plus servants’ apartments over the garage.”
“This is definitely the kind of house to raise a family in.” Her mother had grown up here, an only child, and according to what little Lauryn had uncovered, had moved back home after one semester at Vassar. Had Adrianna taken the diaries to college with her? Had she brought them home?
“Come on.” He turned and headed through an archway.
Lauryn hustled after him. “Did you make many changes after you bought the estate?”
He strode past a stream of rooms, flipping light switches as he went. “Other than updating the electrical wiring, no. The previous owners kept the place well-maintained. I even bought some of the furniture in the estate sale.”
Lauryn stumbled. She barely caught a glimpse of the book-lined library, home theater, massive kitchen, two-story living room and beamed-ceiling den as she hustled to keep up with Adam. The grandeur of the house blew her mind. She wanted to beg him to slow down, to let her soak up the details like a sponge, to ask which pieces of furniture had been the Laurences’.
Had her mother sat on that sofa or at that writing desk? But asking would require explanations. And explanations could lead to rejection. It was too soon to launch her appeal.
He didn’t stop until he reached a circular sunroom jutting from the back of the house like a peninsula. Three of her tiny apartments would fit in this room alone.
To her right a wall of windows overlooked an expansive pool and patio illuminated by subtle landscape lighting. The left side revealed tennis courts, and beyond the seawall at the back of the property stretched a private dock with a long, low and fast-looking boat floating in the channel.
With one sweep of his hand Adam extinguished the interior and exterior lights and the outside view vanished. Pale moonlight cast the sunroom in a mysterious combination of shadows and wavering silvery light.
“Ready to go?”
No! Not yet. “You’re not going to show me the upstairs?”
He closed the distance between them in two lazy strides, lifted his hand and cupped her cheek. Surprise held her motionless. Shadows sharpened the angles of his face. His thumb brushed over her lips. Desire sparked instantly in her veins and judging by the sudden widening of Adam’s pupils and the flare of his nostrils he felt something, too. The air suddenly turned hot, humid and heavy.
“If you want to get me into a bedroom, you’re going to have to accept my proposal and sign the agreements first.”
Her thoughts screeched to a halt. She could not let herself fall for Adam Garrison. She’d given up bad boys and shallow relationships a long time ago. And while Adam wore designer clothing instead of torn jeans, he was still a heartbreaker through and through.
Been there. Done that.
Tempting, but taboo.
But she had to have access to this house. She’d lost her father and her own identity eleven months ago and possibly shattered her relationship with her mother beyond repair. If she had any chance of getting her life back on an even keel then she had to figure out who she was—who she
There was only one way.
A chill raced through her. She spun away from Adam, wrapped her arms around herself and picked her way through the mottled shadows to stand by the window and stare out at the lights winking across the darkness from the houses on the island across the channel.
“I’ll do it,” she said in a rush with her gaze focused on the rocking boat instead of the man behind her.
Light filled the room once again. “Do what?”
She slowly turned and met Adam’s direct gaze. “I’ll marry you. But only if we live here.”
“I have a condo within walking distance of the club.”
“Have you ever considered you might appear more settled if you lived in a house instead of a bachelor pad?”
He dipped his head. “Good point.”
“I won’t give up my job.”
“Lauryn, you won’t need to work.”
“But I want to.” She took a slow breath and then blurted, “And I won’t sleep with you.”
“You’ll have your own room.”
“No, Adam, I mean no sex. You might be able to be intimate with someone you don’t love, but I can’t.” Not anymore. She remembered all too well the self-loathing afterward. She’d wanted to hurt her father with her brazen behavior, but she’d only ended up hurting and hating herself.
“I’ll get tested if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“That has nothing to do with it. I mean, it is important given the legions you’re rumored to have bedded, but—”
“Legions?”
“You’re not known for your discriminatory tastes.”
“There haven’t been legions.”
“How many then?”
“None of your business.”
“It is when you’re trying to talk me into bed.”
He hesitated and then shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t count or you can’t count that high?”
His chin jutted forward. “How many men have you slept with?”
Her shameful past crept over her. She’d wasted her youth looking for ways to flout her father’s iron-fist authority, and she wasn’t proud of that. She’d been a rebel, but she’d reformed. She’d practically become a nun. “Hey, if you don’t have to answer then neither do I.”
“What am I supposed to do for…relief?”
A slideshow flashed in her mind of ten different ways she could give him sexual relief, but she shut it down. The heat flushing her skin wasn’t as easy to vanquish. “That depends on whether you’re right-or left-handed.”
“And you?”
Her cheeks ignited. “I can take care of myself.”
His jaw muscles bunched as if he were gritting his teeth. He paced to the window, paused and then turned. “Fine. I accept your terms. Do you have a passport?”
For a moment she was too stunned to speak. “Yes. Why?”
“I’ll have Brandon make the arrangements. He and Cassie can set up a quick, quiet Bahamas wedding. Does that suit you? Or do you need a circus?”
Cassie…it took a moment for Lauryn to place the name. Cassie Sinclair had been John Garrison’s secret lovechild from an extramarital affair. Or so the papers reported. Even though Lauryn had never met the woman, she felt a kinship with her. Another outsider. But at least Cassie had known who her parents were. Cassie currently owned and managed the Garrison Grand-Bahamas and had recently hooked up with Brandon Washington, Adam’s attorney—if the club’s scuttlebutt was to be believed.
“I don’t want a big wedding. But why the Bahamas?”
“If we get married in Miami my family would expect to be invited and there’s a good chance there would be a media blitz.”
Avoiding both the media and the Garrison family appealed. “Something quiet in the Bahamas is fine. I’ve never been there.”
“We’ll stay a few days and call it a honeymoon.”