THIRTEEN
THE CAR PULLED UPIN front of the high rise, and Luke’s chest tightened the way it did every time he finished a project. He could care less about the parties and publicity. They made it easier to move on to the next project, helped lure the local governments, and generate buzz, but it wasn’t the fame or the pretense of fame that gave him the rush. For him it had always been about making something from nothing, starting with a blank slate and ending up with a beautiful functional building. One that would last long after he was gone.
There wasn’t exactly a red carpet. It was a building opening not a movie premiere, but his PR person had obviously called in the paparazzi. There were six or eight photographers crowding the roped off entrance and it looked like several people including a city councilman were already making their way inside, pausing for photos, hoping to show up on page six in the morning. He turned to Claire to see how she was handling things, but instead of freaking out over the cameras her attention was fixed on the building. She strained her gorgeous neck to look up the side of his building and suddenly the most important thing in his world was what she thought about what he’d done.
She must have felt his gaze on her because she brought her attention down from the side of the building to him. Her smile lit up the dim interior of the car.
“Nicely done, Masters,” she said, eyes alight. “So far so good.”
Her words sent a zing of pleasure through him, and he grinned back at her, ridiculously pleased that she approved. He cupped her face in his hands, brushing a soft kiss over her smiling lips.
“Let me show you the inside,” he said, opening the car door and sliding out to the background of flashing bulbs.
When Claire slid across the seat to the door she must have finally noticed the paparazzi because she froze. He reached for her hand, guiding her from the car, and wrapped his arm around her, tucking her into his side.
“Smile, sweetheart. You look beautiful. They are going to eat you up.”
He felt her inhale and when he glanced down she had her shoulders back and a smile plastered on her face. She still looked beautiful. The green of her dress set off the sparks in her eyes, but the smile she gave the cameras was nothing like the smile of delight she’d given him in the car. She shrugged off his arm, twining her fingers in his, and hand in hand they walked past the flashing lights.
“Mr. Masters! Mr. Masters!” The shouting accompanied the flashing bulbs.
He would have walked past them and saved Claire the ordeal. She was the one who stopped to face the reporters, smiling, shoulders back and head up.
“Evening gentlemen,” he said. From the scattered snorts, the irony wasn’t lost on the photographers. “Thanks for helping me celebrate the opening of 609 West.”
He didn’t elaborate, and they didn’t ask. They weren’t looking for an infomercial, just pictures they could sell.
“And who is your lovely companion?” shouted a man Luke recognized as a photographer from the Star.
“Claire English,” said Luke, raising their joined hands to his lips. “She’s the owner of English Electrical Contractors.” He saw the shock in the reporters’ eyes when they realized Claire was more than just gorgeous arm candy and a flash of real pleasure in her eyes at his acknowledgement.
He swept her through the huge seamless glass doors and into the two story grand entry. Snagging two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter, he led Claire through the crowd, pausing to accept congratulations and make small talk with some of the more prominent members of the city. She moved beside him, gracious and gorgeous, looking every bit as comfortable as any of the models or other beautiful women he’d brought to these functions over the years. The main difference was that when she was done smiling and shaking hands with people, she had something insightful and intelligent to say.
The councilman took her hand, obviously charmed, and she asked him about the proposed green policies, eliciting one of the few genuine smiles of the evening. She talked to his date about the children’s charity she worked with, following it up with a question about their most recent fundraiser. The only indication she was nervous was the way she kept his hand locked in hers all night, and he wasn’t about to complain about that.
Finding a lull in the crowd, Luke stopped on the balcony overlooking the entryway, stealing a moment to pull Claire in for a kiss. It was just a quick brush of his lips over hers. After the hairpin incident, he didn’t trust himself to unleash anything but the barest hint of the hunger he felt for her – not until they were back at his penthouse, and he had a very tight rein on his control. She melted against him, her full breasts pressing against his chest, and his resolve almost left him.
She’d seemed so self-assured, so poised when they were working the crowd together, it was easy to forget that this was a new experience for her. The fact that she’d show him a little bit of her weakness made him even more determined to take care of her, protect her.
“I hate these things,” he murmured against her ear.
“Why do you do them?” she asked.
“Lesser of two weevils,” he said.
She laughed, a bright sound that made him want to do whatever he could to make her laugh like that again.
“What does that mean?” she asked between giggles.
He loved seeing her business smile replaced with a genuine one just for him, and he loved that he knew her expressions well enough to see the difference. A man could make it his mission to make her smile like that.
“Sorry, something from when I was a kid. I thought the lesser of two evils was actually about weevils. Of course I didn’t know what a weevil was, but…” He ran a hand through his hair. What possessed him to talk about his childhood? That was simply something he never did. Ever. “What I meant was that if I didn’t put my time in at events like this, the publicity my PR person scheduled to replace it would be much worse and far less effective. Come on, I see Ed Samson from Samson Construction. His firm was the general on this job . On most of my projects actually. Let me introduce you to him. You might end up working together in the future. Then I can show you one of the upper floors and we can get out of here so I can get back to those hairpins.”
CLAIRE FOLLOWEDLUKE through the grand rooms all night, trying not to cling to his hand like a scared girl. It had been hard not to feel a little star struck. She’d never been to an event like this before – not one with this many politicians and famous or quasi-famous people. But it was the building that impressed her the most. There were things she’d tweak with the lighting, but that was always the case on someone else’s project. It wasn’t enough to diminish the impact of the building. It was beautiful, graceful and understated but with a presence that commanded attention.
Not unlike the man who built it, she thought, glancing over at Luke, all quiet power and coiled energy in a tuxedo that had obviously been made just for him. She’d been itching to get her hands under his jacket all night so she could trace the rock hard muscles she knew it concealed.
She doubted most developers were as involved in the aesthetics of a project as Luke was. She hardly knew anything about him, but she knew how much his buildings meant to him and how much of him went into them. And she loved the way he’d looked to her for her approval. If she hadn’t loved him before, that would have been the thing to tip her over – that her opinion mattered so much to him.
