12. Interlude
INTERLUDE
T he drawing room at Prideview had always been Winnifred Lyons’s domain.
It was a shrine to old money and older taste, where everything from the Waterford crystal to the Aubusson carpet whispered of centuries-old refinement.
At this hour, however, with their father long retired, and the staff dismissed for the night, it felt more like a war room to the two Lyons brothers than a sanctuary.
Lucas stood by the carved fireplace, one hand braced against the mantel as he watched his stepmother pour herself a brandy from the decanter. The amber liquid caught the lamplight, throwing fractured reflections across the Persian silk wallpaper.
He’d never noticed how much alcohol his family consumed daily, but over the last week, he’d found himself taking a silent tally.
Wine with lunch. Pre-dinner cocktails. More wine with dinner, followed by port, sherry, or a harder digestif.
Later, scotch, brandy, or something equally strong to numb the mind before bed.
“Lucas?” Winnifred nodded at the bar, a clear invitation.
Lucas found himself shaking his head. “Early morning.”
His stepmother shrugged her hanger-thin shoulders. “Suit yourself.”
“Going to start attending meetings, brother? Should we find you a sponsor?” Daniel sneered from where he sat on the long white divan, swirling his own glass of scotch.
It was the third Lucas had seen him consume that night, and that wasn’t counting the empty bottle Daniel had smashed in the boathouse.
He didn’t want to think about the fact that Daniel had probably put down nearly a fifth while walking around with Marie. Or what he might have done to her under the influence had Lucas not arrived when he did.
No, he really didn’t want to think about that. Mostly because he didn’t want to know what he might do to Daniel if he considered it for too long.
“No.” Lucas watched Daniel toss back half the drink in one go. “Though perhaps you should consider it. What’s that, number four or five tonight? Plus the bottle of wine you polished off at dinner?”
“Boys, please,” Winnifred hushed them as she settled into her favorite wingback chair. “He’s just having a little fun, Lucas. You know Daniel.”
That was the problem. Lucas did know his brother. Just like he knew exactly what he did with women in that godforsaken pool house on a near weekly basis since his brother had commandeered it last spring. What had been about to happen with Marie when he’d bashed in with all the grace of a bull.
He still didn’t understand his reaction.
He had known all week about his brother’s plans to meet up with the pretty young chef in the conservatory.
Had told himself every day that it didn’t fucking matter.
But when he’d passed by the glass outbuilding to find it empty, something in him had snapped.
He’d headed straight for the pool house, knowing that’s where Daniel would have steered the her.
The idea of Marie, impossibly sweet, talented, innocent Marie, giving her body for the first time on a couch where countless women had spread their legs before her, to his brother, who would barely remember her name in the morning, had made Lucas’s blood boil to a vapor.
He hadn’t even considered a reason for his interruption until he was already through the door.
He had never been so relieved as he was when he found them still standing, clothes still on if rumpled. Her adorable kerchief only slightly askew. That red lipstick was smeared over those impossibly full lips, but otherwise, she was untouched.
He’d wanted to murder his brother just the same.
A month-long trip had fallen off his tongue in an instant.
A month with the girl.
Just the two of them.
To be trapped with a woman who was far too young for him, who was obviously in love with his idiot brother, and who had no clue how fucking attractive she was?
It was the last thing he needed. Lucas foresaw a month of multiple showers a day just to rid himself of uncomfortable and likely unavoidable erections.
He’d have to hide that fucking lipstick before he shoved the girl to her knees and demanded she wrap those ruby lips around his cock where they belonged.
That would scandalize her.
A virgin. Fuck .
And yet, given the situation with the Hubbards, perhaps he could work this quandary to his advantage.
He’d have to. It was the only way.
“He’s just annoyed because Marie will be traveling with me for the next month.” Lucas took a bottle of Topo Chico from the wet bar. “We leave in the morning.”
“Oh?” Winnifred glanced between him and Daniel but didn’t look disappointed by the idea of losing her private chef only days after she’d come back from Paris.
“Ondine will stay here to cook for all of you.” Lucas returned to the divan, sparkling water in hand, and ignored Daniel’s glare. “It makes the most sense.”
“Sense,” Daniel muttered as he swirled his drink. “Right.”
“Daniel.” Winnifred’s voice carried the warning tone that had at least tried to cower both boys since they were small. “That’s enough.”
“Is it? I think we’ve just gotten started.” Daniel turned to face them both, glass raised in a mocking toast. “I think this calls for a celebration. To my dear brother, cockblock extreme with impeccable timing.”
Lucas screwed the cap back on his water. “You’re drunk, Daniel.”
“And you’re a controlling bastard. We are who we are.”
The word bastard fell between them like an anvil. It wasn’t a direct hit aimed at the fact that Lucas’s mother had never actually been married to their father. But it wasn’t not, either.
“Tell me, was it difficult?” Daniel sneered. “Watching her face when you delivered your little order?”
“It was business?—”
“Business?” Daniel’s voice cracked with disbelief. “You call stealing the woman I’m falling in love with business ?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Lucas snapped. “You are not in love with her. You barely know her name.”
“Daniel!” Winnifred gasped. “How many times have we heard this before? You are not in love with anyone, much less the cook!”
“The fuck I’m not!” Daniel shouted, standing with a sudden movement that tossed half his drink out of the glass and onto the expensive carpet. “You don’t know. It’s different this time. For one, she doesn’t give me that look.”
“What look?” Winnifred’s tone suggested she already knew the answer.
Lucas shook his head. He was getting a migraine, like he did every time Daniel dropped bombs like this on the family.
The last time Daniel had been in love, it had been with a waitress in the Hamptons who had demanded a million dollars not to release a video of Daniel snorting enough coke to fell a small elephant.
The time before that, a model from Los Angeles nearly talked him into financing a multi-level marketing scheme. Something about bag charms.
“The look that says you think I’m an idiot.” Daniel’s free hand gestured wildly, sloshing more scotch onto the Aubusson. “Marie listens when I talk. She laughs at my stories, even the stupid ones. There’s something about her.”
“Something like big tits and a pretty mouth?” Lucas wondered aloud, though he hated himself for characterizing her like that
Even if it was true. He couldn’t afford to fixate on the precise shape of Marie’s red mouth, like two rose petals curved together.
Or on the fact that her breasts were a legitimate work of art, high and full and with a certain bounce that would be as effective as any hypnotist’s pendulum.
He’d been hard-pressed not to stare when she wore the slinky silk dress that made her look deliciously naked.
But tonight, in the simple black top that clung to her in all the right places, it had taken everything he had not to follow her outside, shove her against the wall of the pool house, and discover the exact weight of one of those pretty peaks when it filled the palm of his hand.
It was going to be a very long month.
Still, he knew his brother, and there was no way he saw any more in Marie Zola than a pretty conquest whose open adoration stroked his fragile ego.
He tried again. “Look, Daniel?—”
“No.” Daniel wheeled around to face him. “You don’t get to ‘Daniel’ me. Not after what you just did. I was this close to closing the deal?—”
“Stop,” Lucas found himself barking. “We don’t need all the lurid details.”
“The point is, you swooped in like some corporate vulture to ruin everything.”
“Oh, God,” Winnifred moaned into her brandy. “I’m going to have grandchildren by a cook and a teenager, aren’t I? My friends’ sons are all marrying Vanderbilts, and I’ll have to say, this one makes eggs in the morning.”
“You have responsibilities,” Lucas told his brother. “The Hubbard situation?—”
“Fuck the Hubbard situation,” Daniel spat. “Fuck that old man, his bratty daughter, and their whole desperate family.”
“Daniel!” Winnifred’s head jerked, causing a strand of blond to fall into her face. “You cannot be serious.”
“What about Emma?” Lucas pressed. “You can’t keep avoiding the problem. The senator is already asking questions.”
Daniel’s face went pale beneath his summer tan. “I said I’d handle it. She’s just being difficult.”
“When? After you’ve destroyed what’s left of our relationship with one of the most powerful men in Washington?” Lucas stood up and crossed the room, reaching the bar just in time to close a hand around Daniel’s as he was about to pour himself yet another drink.
Broken capillaries dotted the end of Daniel’s nose, and the flush in his cheeks indicated he had already overindulged. For a moment, Lucas barely recognized his younger brother. He didn’t look like the charmer everyone knew. He looked like a sad drunk.
“Hubbard is sponsoring a bill that will earmark us billions in federal subsidies,” Lucas reminded him. “ Billions , Daniel. Even a company as big as ours can’t afford to miss out on that. The entire future of Dad’s legacy, this family, your life depends on keeping Hubbard happy.”