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  She drew in a shaky breath before stepping back and away from him. ‘Thank you for the invitation, Mr Steele, but no.’

  ‘Lucien.’

  She shook her head. ‘I believe I would prefer to continue calling you Mr Steele. Not that we’ll ever meet again after this evening. But even so—’

  ‘Why not?’

  Thia gave a lightly dismissive laugh at the sharpness of his tone. ‘Because you inhabit this world and I—I inhabit another one.’

  ‘And yet here you are...?’

  ‘Yes, here I am.’ And she wouldn’t be coming back again if she could help it! ‘I really do have to go back inside now—’

  ‘And look for your friend?’ he prompted harshly.

  ‘Yes.’ Thia grimaced, very much afraid that she and that ‘friend’ were going to have words before the evening was over. Certainly she had no intention of letting Jonathan get away with bringing her to another party like this one and then leaving her to go off somewhere with the beautiful Simone. Jonathan’s habit of just forgetting Thia’s existence the moment they arrived at one of these parties was becoming tedious as well as a complete waste of her time, when she really didn’t enjoy being here.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘It’s really none of your business,’ Thia snapped in irritation at Lucien Steele’s persistence.

  Those silver eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening. ‘At least tell me where you’re staying in New York.’

  She gave an exasperated grimace. ‘That’s even less your business! Now, if you’ll excuse me...’ Thia didn’t wait for him to reply before turning on her four-inch-heeled shoes and walking away, her head held determinedly high as she forced herself not to hurry, not to reveal how desperately she needed to get away from Lucien Steele’s disturbingly compelling presence.

  Even if she was completely aware of that silver gaze as a sensual caress across the bareness of her shoulders and down the length of her spine and the slender curve of her hips!

  Lucien Steele was without doubt the most disturbingly sexual man she had ever—

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Jonathan demanded the moment she stepped back into the Carews’ huge sitting room. The expression on his boyishly handsome face was accusing as he took a rough hold of her arm.

  An entirely unfair accusation, in Thia’s estimation, considering he was the one who had gone missing with their hostess for almost an hour, leaving her to be approached by Lucien Steele!

  ‘Can we talk about this somewhere less...public, Jonathan?’ She glared at him, very aware of the silent—listening?—presence of Lucien Steele’s bodyguard, Dex, just feet away from the two of them. ‘Preferably in the privacy of your car, once we’ve left,’ she added pointedly.

  Jonathan looked less than pleased by her last comment. ‘You know damned well I can’t leave yet,’ he dismissed impatiently, even as he physically dragged her over to a quieter corner of the room.

  ‘Could that possibly be because you haven’t yet had a chance to say hello to Lucien Steele?’ Thia felt stung into taunting him as she rubbed the top of her arm where Jonathan’s fingers had dug so painfully into her flesh that she would probably have bruises to show for it tomorrow. ‘I noticed you and our beautiful hostess were noticeably absent when he arrived.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ he glowered darkly. ‘And what the hell’s got into you, talking to me like that?’

  ‘Nothing’s got into me.’ She gave a weary sigh, knowing that not all of her frustration with this evening was Jonathan’s fault. Her nerves were still rattled from that encounter with Lucien Steele on the balcony—to a degree that she could still feel the seductive brush of those chiselled lips against her cheek and the warmth of his breath brushing against her skin... ‘I just want to leave, that’s all.’ She grimaced.

  ‘I’ve told you that I can’t go just yet.’ Jonathan scowled down at her.

  ‘Then I’ll just have to go downstairs and get a taxi—’

  ‘It’s a cab,’ he corrected impatiently. ‘And you aren’t going anywhere until I say you can,’ he added determinedly.

  Thia looked at him searchingly, noting the reckless brightness of his eyes and the unaccustomed flush to his cheeks. ‘Have you been drinking...?’

  ‘It’s a party. Of course I’ve been drinking!’ Jonathan eyed her impatiently.

  ‘In that case I’m definitely taking a cab back to your apartment,’ Thia stated firmly.

  ‘I said you’ll leave when I say you can!’ His eyes glittered.

  Thia’s cheeks warmed as she stared at him incredulously. ‘Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?’ she gasped.

  Jonathan’s expression darkened. ‘I think I’m the man who paid for you to come to New York!’

  Her eyes widened incredulously. ‘And you believe that gives you the right to tell me what I can and can’t do?’

  ‘I think it gives me the right to do with you whatever the hell I feel like doing!’ he sneered.

  Thia felt the colour drain from her cheeks at the unmistakable threat in his voice. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, Jonathan.’ Her voice shook as she tried to hold back tears of hurt. ‘But I do know I don’t like you like this. You’re obviously drunk. Or something.’ She wasn’t a hundred per cent certain that reckless brightness in his eyes and the flush to his cheeks had been caused by alcohol alone...

  Jonathan certainly wasn’t behaving this evening—hadn’t been for the past four days, if she was completely honest—like the charming and uncomplicated friend she had known in England...

  She drew in a deep breath. ‘I think it’s best if I leave now, Jonathan. We can talk later. Or tomorrow—’

  ‘You’re staying put, damn it.’ He reached out and grasped the top of her arm once again, the fingers of his other hand like a vice about her wrist as he twisted painfully.

  Thia gave a gasp at the pain he was deliberately—viciously—inflicting on both her arm and her wrist. ‘You’re hurting me, Jonathan,’ she breathed, very much aware of the other guests in the room and the curious sideways glances that were now being sent their way.

  ‘Then stop being so damned difficult! I’ve said you aren’t going anywhere and that’s an end to it—’ Jonathan broke off abruptly, his gaze moving past Thia and over her left shoulder and his eyes widening before he abruptly released her arm and wrist and forced a charmingly boyish smile to his lips.

  Thia’s spine stiffened as she guessed from the sudden pause in the conversation around them, the expectant stillness in the air and the way her skin tingled in awareness, exactly who was standing behind her.

  Only one man had the power to cause such awe in New York’s elite and the ability to possess the very air about him...

  The same man who exuded such sexual attraction that it caused every nerve-ending in Thia’s body to react and strain towards the pull of that raw sensuality!

  Lucien Steele...

  * * *

  Lucien had remained out on the balcony for several more minutes after Cynthia Hammond had walked away from him, giving the hardness of his arousal time to subside even as he pondered the unexpected fierceness of his physical reaction to her.

  Her skin—that pearly, luminescent skin—had been as soft and perfect to the light caress of his lips against her cheek as he had imagined it would be, and he could still smell her perfume...something lightly floral along with underlying warmly desirable woman. The same warmth that had surrounded him, enveloped him, as he’d shrugged back into his evening jacket ready for returning to the Carews’ party as if the woman herself were wrapped around him.

  Lucien couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a visceral reaction to a woman that he wanted to take her right here and right now. If he ever had...

  All the more surprising because Cynthia Hammond, at littl
e over five feet tall, ebony-haired and probably only twenty or so, wasn’t the type of woman he usually found himself attracted to. He had always preferred tall, leggy blondes, and women nearer to his own age of thirty-five. Women who knew and accepted that his interest in them was purely physical, and that it would be fleeting.

  Cynthia Hammond looked too young, too inexperienced to accept the intensity of passion Lucien would demand from her even for the brief time that his interest lasted. And it would be brief—a week or two, a month at the most—before Lucien once again found himself feeling restless, bored with having the same woman in his bed.

  No, better by far, he had decided, that he stay well away from the too-young and too-inexperienced Cynthia Hammond.

  And he would have done so if, when he had finally stepped back into the Carews’ apartment, Dex hadn’t felt it necessary to take him to one side and inform him of the way Jonathan Miller had verbally berated Cynthia Hammond the moment she’d returned to the party, before physically dragging her away.

  Did that mean that Jonathan Miller, the star of one of the television series currently airing on Lucien’s own network, was the friend Cyn had come to the party with?

  Watching the couple as they’d stood together on the opposite side of the room, talking softly but obviously heatedly, Lucien had been unable to stop the narrowing of his eyes when he saw the way Cyn suddenly paled. His fists had clenched at his sides as he’d realised that Miller had a painful grip on her arm and his other hand was twisting her wrist, despite Cyn’s obvious efforts to free herself. The thought of a single bruise marring the pearly perfection of her skin had been enough to send Lucien striding forcefully across the room.

  Jonathan Miller was one of the reasons Lucien was back in New York at the moment. The actor’s behaviour this past few months had become a definite cause for concern and required that Lucien intervene personally after receiving information that the verbal warning he had given Miller six weeks ago, about his drug habit and the affair he was having with his married co-star—the wife of the show’s director—had made little difference to the other man’s behaviour.

  Another private meeting with Jonathan Miller would have to wait until tomorrow. At the moment Lucien was more concerned with the aggressive way the younger man was currently behaving towards Cyn. No matter how intense or demanding Lucien’s own physical needs might be, he would never deliberately hurt a woman—he much preferred to give pleasure rather than pain—and he wouldn’t tolerate another man behaving in that way in his presence, either.

  His gaze settled on Cyn as she stood with her bared shoulders turned towards him. ‘Are you ready to leave now...?’ he prompted huskily.

  Thia’s heart leapt into her throat as Lucien Steele reiterated his invitation to leave the party with him, as he offered to take her away from this nightmare. Away from Jonathan. A Jonathan who was becoming unrecognisable as the charming man she had met two years ago—a man she had thought was her friend.

  But friends didn’t deliberately hurt each other, and the top of her arm still ached from where Jonathan’s fingers had dug so painfully into her flesh just seconds ago, and her wrist was sore from where he had twisted it so viciously. Not only had he hurt her, but he had frightened her too when he had spoken to her so threateningly. And it shamed her, embarrassed her, to think that Lucien Steele might have witnessed that physical and verbal attack.

  ‘Cyn...?’

  She could see the confusion in Jonathan’s eyes and he was the one to answer the other man lightly. ‘I think you’ve made a mistake, Mr Steele. This is Thia Hammond, my—’

  ‘Cyn...?’

  Long, elegant fingers slipped possessively, gently beneath her elbow and Lucien Steele continued to ignore the other man as he came to stand beside her. Thia felt that now familiar shiver down the length of her spine just at the touch of those possessive fingers against her skin, accompanied by the compulsion in Lucien Steele’s husky voice. She could actually feel that compulsion as that voice willed her to look up at him.

  She turned slowly, much like a marionette whose strings were being pulled, her lids widening, pupils expanding, and all the air suddenly sucked from her lungs as she took her first clear look at Lucien Steele in the glare of light from the chandeliers above them.

  Oh. My. God.

  She had thought him mesmerising, compelling, as they had stood outside together in the moonlight, but that was as nothing compared to the intensity of the magnetism he exuded in the brightly lit sitting room of the Carews’ apartment. So much so that even this huge room, the size of a tennis court, seemed too small to hold all that raw and savage power.

  His hair was so deep a black it appeared almost blue beneath the lights of the chandelier, and his bronzed face was beautifully sculptured. His high, intelligent brow, the sharp blade of a nose between high cheekbones, and his mouth—oh, God, his mouth!—were sinfully, decadently chiseled. His top lip was slightly fuller than the bottom—an indication of the sensuality he had exuded when they were outside together on the balcony?—and his jaw was square and determined, darkened by the shadow of a dark stubble.

  It was the face of a warrior, a marauder, a man who took what he wanted and to hell with whoever or whatever stood in his way.

  As if that savagely beautiful face wasn’t enough, his perfectly tailored evening suit—had Thia really had that gorgeous jacket wrapped about her just minutes ago?—and white silk shirt showed the perfection of his widely muscled shoulders and chest, his tapered waist, powerful thighs and long, lean legs encased in matching black trousers above those soft Italian leather shoes she had referred to so scathingly such a short time ago.

  All the trappings of urbanity, in fact—an urbanity that was dispelled the moment she looked at that handsomely savage face!

  A face that was dominated by those amazing and compelling silver eyes surrounded by long and silky dark lashes.

  Those same compelling silver eyes now held Thia’s own gaze captive, hostage, and refused to release her until she acquiesced, surrendered to that raw and demanding power...

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘CYN...?’ LUCIEN QUESTIONED for the third and last time—and that was twice more than he would have allowed any other woman.

  If Cyn Hammond ignored him for a third time then he would take it that she was a willing participant in Miller’s abusive treatment. It wasn’t to Lucien’s personal taste, but that was Cyn’s business—not his. No matter how much he might desire her himself...

  ‘Thia?’ Jonathan Miller looked totally confused by this whole encounter.

  Lucien’s eyes moved past Cyn to the other man, hardening to steel as he pinned Miller with his razor-sharp gaze. Bruises were already forming on Cyn’s arm where Miller had held her too tightly just minutes ago, and her wrist looked red and sore. An unforgivable assault, as far as Lucien was concerned, on the perfection of that pearly unblemished skin.

  ‘You hurt her, Miller,’ he rasped harshly, his own fingers curling reassuringly about Cyn’s elbow as he felt the way she still trembled. An indication that she really wasn’t happy about Miller’s rough treatment of her...

  The other man’s face flushed with anger—an emotion he quickly masked behind the boyishly charming smile that was currently holding American television audiences so enrapt, but succeeded only in leaving Lucien cold.

  ‘Thia and I have had a slight misunderstanding, that’s all—’

  ‘It was your misunderstanding, Jonathan, not mine.’ Cyn was the one to answer coldly and Lucien felt her straighten determinedly. ‘Mr Steele has very kindly offered to drive me home, and I’ve decided to accept his offer.’

  There were two things wrong with that statement as far as Lucien was concerned. One, he knew he was far from kind. Two, he had offered to take Cyn for a drink somewhere quieter than the Carews’ apartment—not to drive her home. Espec
ially if that ‘home’ should also happen to be Miller’s apartment...

  But the details could be sorted out later. For the moment Lucien just wanted to get Cyn away from here. He could still feel the slight trembling of her slender but curvaceous body. Those cobalt blue eyes were dark, there was an enticing flush to her cheeks, her pouting lips were moist and parted, and those deliciously full breasts were once again swelling temptingly against the bodice of her gown as she breathed.

  And Lucien could think of a much better use for all that pent up emotion than anger...

  ‘How do the two of you even know each other?’ Jonathan Miller scowled darkly.

  ‘If you’ll excuse us, Miller?’ Lucien didn’t spare the other man so much as a glance, let alone answer him, as he turned to give Dex a slight nod of his head. He held Cyn to his side by a light but firm grasp of her elbow as he walked away, the other guests immediately clearing a pathway for them to cross the room to the Carews’ private elevator in the hallway.

  ‘What the hell is going on—?’

  Lucien gave a cold smile of satisfaction as he heard Miller’s protest cut short, knowing that Dex would have responded to his silent instruction and, in his own inimitable and deadly style, prevented the actor from attempting to follow the two of them. Lucien’s smile hardened, his eyes chilling to ice as he thought of the conversation he was going to have with Jonathan Miller tomorrow. A conversation that would now include a discussion on the other man’s treatment of the delicately lovely woman at his side...

  * * *

  Thia had no idea what she was doing, agreeing to leave the Carews’ party with the dangerously compelling Lucien Steele, of all people. Especially when he had made his physical interest in her so obvious during the time the two of them had been outside on the balcony together!