Tycoon's Forbidden Cinderella Read online

  ‘There’s wine in the fridge.’ Audrey nodded her head in the fridge’s direction. ‘It’s cold even though the power’s still off.’

  Lucien took out a bottle of white wine and held it aloft. ‘Will you join me?’

  Audrey would have loved a glass of wine but she was worried she might make a fool of herself again. ‘No, thanks. I’ll stick to water.’ She carried the meal on a platter to the scrubbed pine table and privately marvelled at how cosy it looked in spite of the meagre fare.

  Lucien waited until she was seated and then he joined her at the table. He had poured himself a glass of wine but so far hadn’t taken a sip. He picked up one of the crackers and took a bite and grimaced.

  ‘Sorry, I know they’re a bit stale,’ Audrey said. ‘I don’t think my mother’s been here for ages. I don’t think anyone’s been here, not even the caretaker.’ She sighed and picked up a cracker. ‘She probably forgot to pay him or something.’

  Lucien took a sip of his wine and then put the glass down. ‘Why does she keep the place if it’s empty most of the time? Wouldn’t it be better to sell it?’

  Audrey thought about losing the cottage, losing the one place where she had felt close to her mother. Something tightened in her chest like a hand pressing down on her lungs. She knew it made financial sense to sell the cottage. But if it was sold that part of her life with her mother would be lost for ever and there would be no hope of reclaiming it. ‘I’ve always talked her out of it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Audrey pushed a crumb on her plate with her fingertip. ‘She bought it when she got her first role on television. We used to come down here just about every weekend. I loved the garden after living in a council flat. It was like a secret scented paradise. I’d spend hours making daisy chains with her and flower garlands for our hair. We even used to cook stuff together. She wasn’t a great cook but it was a lot of fun...’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Messy fun...’ She stopped speaking and looked up to see him studying her with a thoughtful expression on his face and her smile fell away. ‘Sorry for rambling.’

  ‘Don’t apologise.’ His voice had a gravelly note to it.

  Audrey looked back down at the crumb on her plate rather than meet his gaze. ‘She wasn’t always so...so over the top. Becoming a celebrity changed her.’

  ‘In what way?’

  She glanced at him again and saw something she had never seen in his gaze before—compassion. It made the walls and boundaries she had built around herself shiver against their foundations. ‘Well...she didn’t always drink so much.’

  ‘Do you worry about her drinking?’

  ‘All the time.’ Audrey’s shoulders drooped. ‘I’ve suggested rehab but she won’t go. She doesn’t see that she has a problem. So far it hasn’t interfered with her work on the show but how soon before it does? I keep worrying someone will smell it on her breath when she turns up for a shoot. Especially now she’s back with your father. Sorry. I don’t mean to blame him but—’

  ‘It’s fine.’ His tight smile was more of a grimace. ‘They’re a bad influence on each other, which is why we have to do whatever we can to put a stop to them marrying again.’

  ‘But what if we can’t stop them? What if they get married and then go through yet another hideous break-up and divorce? What then?’

  His features clouded as if he was thinking back to the previous two divorces. Then his gaze refocused on hers. ‘How did your mother handle the break-ups?’

  Audrey sighed. ‘Badly.’

  He frowned. ‘But wasn’t she the one to end their relationship both times?’

  ‘I guess it doesn’t matter who ends it, a break-up is still a break-up,’ Audrey said. ‘She drank. A lot. She hid from the press at my flat for three weeks last time. I was worried sick about her, especially when she...’ She bit off the rest of her sentence. She hadn’t told anyone about her mother’s overdoses. Her mother had begged her not to tell anyone in case it got leaked out somehow in the press. Why had she kept her promise?

  Because inside her there was still that small child who loved being at the cottage with her mum.

  ‘Especially when she...?’ Lucien said.

  Audrey pushed her chair back and fetched herself a glass of water. ‘Would you like some water?’ She held up a glass but was annoyed to see her hand wasn’t quite steady.

  Lucien’s frown was so deep it looked like he was aiming for a world record. ‘No water.’ He rose from the table and came over to where she was standing in front of the sink. ‘Talk to me, Audrey.’

  She couldn’t hold his gaze and looked at his mouth instead. Big mistake. It was set in its customary firm line but his evening shadow surrounded his lips in rich, dark stubble that looked so sexy she ached to touch it with her fingers. With her mouth. To taste his lips and trail her tongue over their firm contours to see if they would...

  He put a fingertip to the base of her chin and brought her gaze up to meet his. ‘What were you going to say?’

  Audrey’s chin was on fire where his finger was resting. She could feel the heat spreading to every part of her body in deep, pulsating waves. His eyes tethered hers in a lock that had an undercurrent of intimacy, which made her legs feel boneless. ‘Erm... I think I will have that glass of wine, after all.’ She stepped away and went back to the table, poured half a glass of wine and took a cautious sip.

  Lucien came back to his chair and sat down. It was a moment or two before he spoke. ‘My father drank two bottles of vodka every day after the last divorce. I thought he was going to die of alcohol poisoning for sure. I’d go to his house and find him... Thankfully he doesn’t remember how many times I changed his clothes and his bed for him.’

  Audrey swallowed. ‘Oh, Lucien. I’m so sorry. That must have been awful for you to see your father like that. You must’ve been so worried about him. Have you asked him about rehab or—?’

  He gave her a world-weary look. ‘Like your mother, he refuses point-blank to go. He’s been warned by his doctors that his liver won’t cope unless he stops drinking.’

  ‘No wonder you want to stop my mother from marrying him,’ Audrey said, feeling deeply ashamed of her mother’s influence on his father.

  ‘I realise Sibella isn’t pouring the liquor down his throat but he can’t seem to help himself when she’s with him,’ Lucien said. ‘It’s like they’re both hell-bent on self-destruction.’

  ‘Their love for each other is toxic,’ Audrey said. ‘That’s why I’m never going to fall in love with anyone. It’s way too dangerous.’

  He studied her for a moment with an inscrutable look. ‘Never is a long time.’

  Audrey picked up her wine and took another sip. ‘So far you’ve managed not to fall in love. Why do you think I won’t be able to do the same?’

  His gaze flicked to her mouth and then back to her eyes but in that infinitesimal beat of time a different quality entered the atmosphere. A tightening. A tension. A temptation. ‘Maybe you’ve been dating the wrong men.’

  She hadn’t been dating any men.

  She was too scared she would be exploited. Too scared she wouldn’t be loved for who she was instead of who she was related to. Too scared to be so intimate with someone because what if they slept with her and then cast her aside like so many of her mother’s lovers had done? She didn’t want to turn into an emotional wreck who turned to alcohol when her heart got broken. It was better not to get her heart broken in the first place.

  Audrey took another sip of wine. Two sips. Two very big sips, which technically speaking weren’t sips but gulps. ‘Maybe you’ve been dating the wrong women. Safe women. Women you wouldn’t possibly fall in love with in case you end up like your father.’

  His top lip came up and his eyes glinted with his trademark cynicism. ‘Right back at you, sweetheart.’

  Audrey put her glass back down with a little clatter.
‘Mock me all you like but I would hate to love someone that intensely. Your father is like a drug my mother can’t give up. She gets herself clean but then keeps going back to him for another fix. It’s crazy. It will kill her in the end.’ She gave herself a mental slap for the vocal slip and added, ‘I mean figuratively, not literally.’

  Lucien’s gaze sharpened. ‘Has she ever tried to end her life?’

  Audrey tried to screen her features but just recalling the memories of those times she’d found her mother with a half-empty bottle of pills was too painful to block. What if she’d taken them all? What if she hadn’t found her in time? What if next time she took the whole bottle? She could feel her face twitching and her mouth trembling. ‘Why would you think that?’

  He continued to hold her gaze like a counsellor would a nervous patient. ‘It’s better to talk about it, Audrey.’

  She compressed her lips, torn between wanting to offload some of the burden but worried about compromising her relationship with her mother. ‘We have to stop them getting back together, okay? That’s all I care about right now. We have to stop them before it’s too late.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  * * *

  Once they’d cleared away the lean pickings of their dinner, Audrey took one of the candles with her and went upstairs to make up the beds. She put Lucien in the room furthest from hers just to make sure he didn’t think she was going to do a midnight wander into his room. When she got into her own bed and pulled the covers up, she looked at the candlelight flickering on the ceiling and thought of the times in her early childhood when she had lain in this wrought-iron bed with her mother sleeping in the room next door. She had never managed to be that happy since. Nor felt that safe. The happy memories should have been enough to settle her to sleep but somehow they weren’t.

  Or maybe it was because she was conscious of Lucien in the bedroom down the corridor. Would he sleep naked or in his underwear? Her mind raced with images of him lying between the sheets her hands had touched when she’d made the bed earlier. Was he a stomach sleeper or a back sleeper? Did he move a lot or stay still?

  Audrey sat up and gave her pillow a reshape and settled back down. Her chest suddenly seized. Was that a spider on the ceiling? No. It was just the candlelight. She licked her dry lips. She was thirsty. The wine had made her mouth as dry as a sandbox and she would never be able to sleep unless she had a glass of water. Why hadn’t she thought to bring one with her?

  She threw off the covers and smoothed her satin nightgown down over her thighs. She padded out to the corridor to check if Lucien was about but his bedroom door was closed. She tiptoed downstairs as quietly as she could, wincing when she got to one of the creaky floorboards. She froze, her other foot poised in mid-air until she was sure it was safe to continue.

  The kitchen was bathed in moonlight now the storm clouds had blown away. Audrey got herself a glass of water and sipped it while she looked out of the window at the moonlit garden and fields and woods beyond. Lucien was right. The cottage should be sold at some point. Her mother had outgrown it and it was sadly falling into ruin without regular visits and proper upkeep.

  Wasn’t that a bit like her relationship with her mother?

  Audrey knew she was too old to be still hankering after her mother’s affection but it had been so long since she’d felt loved by her. Sibella loved fame and her fans and had no time for anything or anyone that reminded her of her life before her celebrity star was born. It was like that person had never existed. The teenage mum with her much adored little girl was no more. In her place was Sibella Merrington, successful soap star of numerous shows that were broadcast all over the world.

  And where was that once adored little girl?

  No one adored Audrey now.

  She couldn’t be sure if the friends she had actually liked her or the fact she had a celebrity mother. There was always that seed of doubt sprouting in her mind, which made it hard for her to get close to people. She always kept something of herself back just in case the friend had the wrong motives.

  She turned from the window and sighed. See? A few sips of wine earlier that evening and now she was a maudlin mess, getting overly emotional and down on herself.

  Audrey took another glass of water, went to the sitting room and curled up on the sofa. If the power was back on she would have put on a soppy movie to really get herself going. And if there had been any naughty food in the house she would have eaten a block of chocolate. A family-sized block.

  She rested her head against one of the scatter cushions and watched the still glowing embers of the fire in the fireplace until finally, on a sleepy sigh, she closed her eyes...

  * * *

  Lucien was having trouble sleeping. Nothing unusual in that, since he was often working late or in different time zones, but this time it was because he was aware of Audrey in the room down the corridor. Too aware. Skin-tingling and blood-pumping aware. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination but he could smell her perfume on his sheets. And the thought of her leaving her scent on his sheets stirred up a host of wickedly tempting images he knew he shouldn’t be allowing inside his head. He could feel her presence like radar frequency in the air. His skin prickled into goosebumps and his normally well-controlled sex drive stirred and stretched like a beast in too cramped a space.

  You’re spending the night alone with Audrey Merrington.

  Lucien shied away from the thought like a horse refusing a jump. They were in separate rooms. It was fine. Nothing was going to happen. He would make sure of that. If she came tiptoeing into his room with seduction on her mind he would be ready for her.

  To refuse her, that was.

  Not that he didn’t find the prospect of a quick roll around these sheets with her tempting. He did. Way too tempting. Her luscious curves were enough to make a ninety-year-old monk rethink his celibacy vows.

  But Lucien wasn’t going to make a bad situation worse by complicating things with a dalliance with Audrey. Even if her mouth was the most kissable he’d seen in a long time.

  Damn it. He had to stop thinking about kissing her.

  He sat on the bed and sorted through a few more emails but he kept an ear out for her returning upstairs. He’d heard her go down half an hour ago. Why hadn’t she come back up? He tossed his phone on the bed and wrestled with himself for a moment. Should he go down to check on her?

  No. Better keep your distance.

  He picked up his phone again and tapped away at the screen but he couldn’t concentrate. He let out a long breath and reached for his trousers. He pulled them on and zipped them up and then shrugged on his shirt but didn’t bother with the buttons.

  He found her lying on the sofa in front of the smouldering fire, her body curled up like a comma and her cheek pressed into one of the scatter cushions. One of her hands was tucked near her chin and the other was dangling over the edge of the sofa. She was wearing a navy blue satin nightgown that clung to her curves like cling film. A stab of lust hit him in the groin at the shape of her thighs showing where the nightgown had ridden up. It intrigued him that she wore such sexy nightwear when during the day she covered herself with such conservative clothes. He knew he shouldn’t be staring at her like a lust-struck teenager but he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from her. The neckline of the nightgown was low, revealing a delicious glimpse of cleavage. She gave a murmur and shifted against the cushion, her dangling hand coming up to brush something invisible away from her face. Her smooth forehead creased in a frown and she swiped at her face again as if she could feel something crawling over her skin.

  Maybe she could feel his gaze.

  Lucien waited until she’d settled again before he carefully lifted the throw off the end of the sofa and gently laid it over her sleeping form. He figured it was safer to leave her sleeping down here than disturbing her. He stepped backwards but forgot the coffee tab
le was in the way and the side of his leg banged against it with a thump.

  Audrey’s eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright. ‘Oh, it’s you. How long have you been here?’

  ‘Not long,’ Lucien said. ‘I came downstairs for something and found you lying there. I covered you with the throw.’

  She gathered it around her shoulders, using it as a wrap. It made her look like a child bundled up in a garment too big for her. Her brown eyes looked glazed with sleep and she had marks on her left cheek where the piping on the cushion had pressed against her skin. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Four-ish, I think.’

  She tugged her hair out of the back of the throw and draped it over her left shoulder. ‘I hope I didn’t disturb you?’

  You disturb me all the time. Lucien kept his expression neutral. ‘I wasn’t asleep. I was working.’

  She rose from the sofa still with the throw wrapped around her shoulders. ‘I couldn’t sleep and came down for a glass of water. I must have fallen asleep in front of the fire.’ She glanced at the fireplace with a wistful look on her face. ‘I think you’re right though about selling this place.’ Her gaze drifted back to his. ‘It’s a waste for it to be unoccupied for months and months on end.’

  ‘Would you take it over?’ Lucien said. ‘You could use it as a holiday home, couldn’t you?’

  She shrugged and shifted her gaze. ‘I have a pretty busy social life in town and, anyway, I couldn’t afford the maintenance.’

  Lucien was starting to wonder just how busy her social life was. He’d never heard her mother or his father mention anyone she was dating by name. ‘You haven’t thought to bring one of your numerous lovers down here for a cosy weekend?’

  Her cheeks developed twin circles of pink. ‘I think I’ll go back up to bed.’ She made to walk past him but he stopped her by placing a hand on her arm. Her eyes met his and her brows lifted ever so slightly like those of a haughty spinster in a Regency novel. ‘Did you want something, Lucien?’

  He let his hand fall away from her arm before he was tempted to tell her what he wanted. What he shouldn’t be wanting. What he would damn well stop himself from wanting.