How To Pleasure A Playboy(17)

Twelve





Lacey eased herself out of the comforter and stood up, moving slowly so  as not to wake Bronson. Her glasses were under the couch and once she'd  put them on, she turned to check he was still asleep.

Bronson was on his side, eyes shut, with his face nestled into one of  the couch cushions they'd used for pillows. Soft morning light was  filtering through the windows, highlighting his cheekbones and the angle  of his jaw. One muscled arm lay on top of the comforter, biceps bulging  even in his sleep.

She stared for a moment, shaking her head with disbelief. What the hell  had she been thinking? Betraying her readers and her father, just  because she'd been horny? She was better than that. Not dating didn't  mean Bronson had been celibate. The man was probably knee deep in  one-night-stands. And she'd just become another notch on his bedhead.

All that stuff about how beautiful she was? Probably a line he fed every  woman he slept with, which is why it had sounded so good. There was no  way she was his type. She wore jeans and her comfortable Doc Martin  boots pretty much every day of the year, and her ancient cotton  underwear wasn't Victoria's Secret, but Lacey's Secret Shame.

In regular life, she looked nothing like the woman in the red dress  Bronson had met at his nightclub. Instead of pretty and polished, she  was a rough-around-the-edges, opinionated journalist with socialist  tendencies she'd inherited from her father. Last night Bronson had made  her feel like the most desirable woman in the world. But he probably  made all the women he slept with feel that way.

Hating the thought, trying to banish it from her mind, she turned away and tiptoed to the bathroom to shower and change.

When she came back out, he was awake. "Morning," he said. "Up already?"

"Going to the library while I still can. It's the best place to work."

"While you still can?" He sat up and ran a hand through his hair.

She swallowed, forcing her gaze from his bare chest. Whatever last night  had been about, the memory of how he'd made her feel made her weak in  the knees. She wanted to hug that memory close. To keep it safe, so real  life couldn't damage it.

"The library's closing in a couple of months. Apparently the land's too  valuable to waste on something that's used every day by dozens of  ordinary people like me. They're going to pull it down and put up yet  another sterile building. Line their pockets with money."

"Gentrification," he said, settling back on one elbow. "The sale will  probably fund other initiatives. The money will trickle down  eventually."

She snorted. "If you believe that, you're the naïve one." She found her  laptop on the coffee table and stuffed it into her backpack, then pulled  on her heavy winter coat.

"As Sydney swells, it has to change. If you want to stop time, you should live in the country."

She sniffed. "Anyway, I have a blog post to write about how awful you  are. Tweets to send, mostly to publicly taunt you. And about a million  comments to reply to."

"Busy day," he said. "I'm looking forward to reading your tweets."

She gave him her sweetest smile. "I don't need to do any of it. If  you've changed your mind about pulling down the Baxter, I'll write about  how wonderful you are instead."

"Wish I could give you what you want, Lace, I really do."

She blinked. It was the first time he'd called her ‘Lace'. That was what  her friends called her, and it sounded good when he said it.

But she couldn't let herself get distracted, or succumb to his charm  again. The Baxter Games were a hundred percent back on this morning.

Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she typed a tweet.

Friday - Day 3: No electricity at the Baxter this morning means a cold shower for #PamperedPlayboy. #TheBaxterGames

She hesitated for only a moment before sending it. He wasn't really  pampered, was he? But if she stopped calling him that, would their fans  wonder why she was going easy on him?

He frowned, looking around. "You tweeted? My phone didn't go off."

"It's floating in a puddle on the kitchen floor. Which reminds me, you  might want to put some shoes on if you don't want wet feet."

"Anything else I should know?"

"Only that there's no hot water and the toilet's stopped flushing again.  And all the bowls you put out to catch the drips overflowed during the  night."

"You're enjoying this."         

     



 

"Remember, you can always leave. Plenty of hot water at your mansion,  I'm sure. One of your housekeepers could whip you up a cooked breakfast  and a delicious cup of coffee. Power's still out here, so you won't get  either."

"You deliberately cut the power, didn't you?"

She shot him a smile and headed for the door. "At least it's stopped  raining," she said over her shoulder. "Although according to the  forecast, we might be in for another storm tonight."

His mouth twisted. "I'll have Carla bring me a tent."

Lacey had thought getting out of the house would mean she'd get some  work done. But even at the library she found it impossible to  concentrate. She was supposed to be writing a blow-by-blow account of  how the bet was going, and their readers liked it when she made a big  deal over the ways her apartment was different to Bronson's luxury  mansion.

Comments had blown up on the piece she'd written about how he'd cooked  dinner, because she'd made it sound as though Bronson would never dream  of doing something like that at home. Now she was feeling bad about  saying that when she didn't know if it were really true. She hadn't  become a journalist to tell lies. But if she admitted how well they were  getting on, would her readers still be on her side?

She stared at her blinking curser, her hands poised on the keyboard, for  a long time. When her phone rang, she snatched it up with relief.

"It's me," said Ally on the other end. "Everything okay, Lace? I just  checked Twitter and saw you've only tweeted once this morning, so I was a  bit worried."

"Oh." Lacey closed her eyes. She had to confess what she'd done. The bet  was tied into their blog, and she'd put her reputation on the line. Her  business partner deserved to know. "I've done something bad."

"What?"

She dragged in a deep breath and opened her eyes to scan the library,  checking there was nobody in earshot. "You're not going to like this.  Thing is … " She braced herself. "I slept with Bronson."

"You what?"

"I have no excuse. It was wrong, and I shouldn't have done it." There  was a stunned silence on the other end of the line, so Lacey kept  talking. "In my defence, he's nothing like he seems on the outside. I  mean, he's so much nicer than you'd think. He's not even pampered. Well,  he has a couple of housekeepers and eats out most nights, but apart  from that, he's-"

"You slept with him?" Ally sounded incredulous. "But he's Bronson Reyne.  How many articles have you written about how awful he is? You called  him the most selfish and immoral man you'd ever met. You said he was  worse than Ghenghis Khan."

Lacey grimaced. "I know. And I've betrayed our readers, and my father. And you, Ally. I'm sorry."

There was another long silence on the other end of the line. Finally,  Ally sighed. "Okay. Well, he's gorgeous, I'll give him that. And if  you've changed your mind about him, he must be nice."

"I don't know what to think. It was only supposed to be a one night  stand that changed nothing. But I've been trying to write a new article  for today, and I can't bring myself to say mean things about him."

"That's a shame. Revenue's back up to where it was when I published the  articles about Max. Better, even. You won't believe how much merchandise  we've sold."

"Great," said Lacey gloomily. How had she got herself into this mess? If  she kept on tweeting and blogging, pretending she still hated Bronson,  it would feel like a lie. But if she softened her tone on the blog, what  would people think? She could hardly confess her hypocrisy to the  world. How could she expect their readers to be as understanding as  Ally?

"Has he changed his mind about pulling down the Baxter?" Ally asked.

"Not even close."

"So he's still going to throw you out of your home." Ally sounded puzzled. "But you're okay with that now?"

"Of course not. The bet's still on. And I'm trying my hardest to get him to lose."

"Oh-kay. By sleeping with him?"

"I'm releasing rats," Lacey said, hearing the defensive tone in her  voice. "And if you've got any other ideas how I can make life unpleasant  for him, I'd love to hear them."

"Here's a crazy idea. Keep sleeping with him. If he falls in love with  you, you can tell him he has to let you stay in your home, or he'll lose  you forever."         

     



 

Lacey let out a hollow-sounding laugh, thinking of how gorgeous Bronson  had looked this morning. "Fall in love with me? I don't think so. We've  got nothing in common. Besides, don't you think he's a little out of my  league?"