Let's Misbehave Read online

  “Please excuse me,” Sebastian said, rising. “I may be able to assist.”

  Gabrielle might not be a lady in all senses of the word, but she was still a woman, and he had been raised to believe that all women deserved respect. He strode towards the window table, reaching it a moment before the stony-faced maître d’.

  “Is this gentleman bothering you?” he asked Gabrielle. His voice, though calm and even, barely concealed his smouldering anger.

  Startled, she lifted her eyes to his. As recognition dawned, she smiled up at him. The smile was polite, grateful, and yet somehow cold at the same time. Then he noticed tears glistening against her long lashes and his blood thundered in his ears.

  “I would be pleased to offer you an escort home, if you wish.”

  She risked a glance at her companion, then beyond him to the maître d’. “Thank you,” she said.

  Her companion’s face was murderous, but he recognised at once that Sebastian was not only a gentleman but well-muscled, too. The fight left him. “Go then,” he spat. “Maybe he’ll be more to your liking.”

  Gabrielle grabbed her bag and rose to accept the arm Sebastian held out to her. She walked the length of the room, chin up, shoulders back. Behind them, the normal hum of conversation resumed.

  They remained silent until they reached the coat check and waited for their coats.

  “Thank you for rescuing me from that boor.”

  “It was my pleasure. My car is just around the corner.”

  “There’s no need. I can take the bus.” The tremble in her voice decided him. Clear as it was that she wanted to escape, she should not be left alone. Brooking no argument, he took her arm and steered her towards the hotel’s front entrance. “Where do you live?”

  “Wardour Street.”

  Outside on the pavement, they turned left towards The Strand, strolling between the hurried passersby towards his car. It was his pride and joy, a new open-roofed Bentley Speed Six, bright yellow with sparkling chrome.

  Her eyebrows arched as he opened the passenger door.

  “You don’t approve?” he asked.

  “Not at all. I approve very much. It’s just not you, is it?” Her smile was cheeky as she slid into the passenger seat.

  He smiled back, pleased to see her cool confidence reassert itself. “Meaning?”

  “I would have expected you to drive something less flashy. A dignified saloon, perhaps. I wonder, do you ever let this baby have her head and race her?”

  When he eased the car away from the pavement, he had to resist the mad urge to put his foot down to prove he was not the boring sap she obviously thought him. As always, his better sense overrode the urge.

  ***

  The day had turned bleak, the sky heavy with grey cloud, and a chill wind whipped at them in spite of the decorous pace. Gabrielle threw back her head and closed her eyes, enjoying the thrill of the wind in her face.

  She didn’t care that it mussed up her neat coiffure or stung tears to her eyes. She loved convertibles, the faster the better. Especially at a moment like this when the yearning chasm opened up inside her.

  She had believed throwing herself into hedonism would override the fear that had grown since her father’s death, the fear that she was unloved and unlovable. More often now there were days like today, when her life simply seemed empty and meaningless.

  She gave herself a mental shake. She needed to stem the flood of emotions threatening to spill over. The confrontation with Roland had left her shaky and defenceless. She must not allow it to get to her. After all, she’d known it would be bad. She’d chosen to meet him in public, somewhere smart where he would be unlikely to make a scene when she broke it off. How wrong she had been.

  At least she had been proved right about Roland: he was all smooth charm on the outside and a bastard inside. Completely unlike the chivalrous gentleman beside her now.

  “I am sorry I disrupted your tea. Will your companions be wondering where you are?” she asked.

  “My parents will understand.”

  “You weren’t out with your fiancée, then? I’m glad. I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea.”

  He glanced at her, catching the belying spark in her eyes, and half smiled. “I am sure Lilly would understand.”

  Gabrielle noted the sudden stiff formality of his tone. ‘I am sure’. As if he didn’t really know. And when he spoke of his fiancée there was no light in his eyes. The kind of light she expected to see in the eyes of a man in love and about to be married.

  Interesting.

  She shifted in her seat to take a harder look at him and felt an unfamiliar frisson of longing. He was not her usual type. He was too staid, too tightly wound, to interest her. Men like that held back all their lives, never living, never feeling. She wanted to feel everything. She wanted to experience every sensation, go places she’d never been. She wanted to taste life. Because only in those thrilling moments of living on the edge was she able to overcome the sense of loss that infected their generation.

  He must have sensed her eyes on him, for he turned to look at her. Driving, even at this speed, had altered him. The wind tousled his sandy hair and his bright blue eyes were alight with excitement. He even laughed to catch her staring.

  Her stomach did a flip. She imagined those eyes bright with mischief, burning with desire. It would be a thrill to be the one to put that look there, to push him over the edge and make him lose his careful control. It could be done. If just this little drive could stir his excitement, imagine what full-blown arousal would do.

  The devil voice inside her head laughed. Before he married and settled down, and allowed that spark to die inside him, Sebastian needed to learn to live.

  And she was going to show him how.

  He missed her grin as he concentrated on weaving past a stationary tramcar.

  They were nearly in Soho when the plan formed in her head.

  The only catch was that Sebastian was an honourable man, soon to be married. He would not be easily seduced. She would have to make the first move, and yet she would also have to play hard to get. He might appear dull, he seemed conventional, but she suspected he would rise to a challenge.

  Sebastian Carr-Phillips, that’s how Pinkie had introduced him. She suspected Pinkie had left out a title. Sebastian had the air of someone born into privilege and money. No doubt he was a man used to getting what he wanted. Maybe, just maybe, that could be her way to reach him. She had to offer him a glimpse of what he could have, make him want it, and then take it away. Men like him usually did not like to be denied. Roland was a perfect example.

  She took a deep breath. She had very little experience at playing hard to get. She usually didn’t need to.

  Perhaps she too was in need of a challenge.

  “What number are you?” he asked.

  “About halfway down. The blue door.”

  He parked in front of her building, and she waited as he dashed around to open her door. As she stepped from the low-slung sports car, his eyes followed the stretch of her legs from the exposed knees to the curve of her ankle. How hard could it be to take him from looking to wanting?

  She held out her hand to him, so he could help her from the car. His fingers were strong and supple and sent shivers of anticipation tingling through her. “Would you like to come inside for a drink?”

  Her flatmate, Marsha, was still at work and the flat would be empty. By day, Marsha had an unexceptional secretarial job. By night, she was a dancer in a club off Piccadilly.

  “No.” He took a step back. He was tempted, though. She noticed the flare in his eyes.

  “I don’t bite, and…I’d rather not been alone right now.” Gabrielle looked up at him through her long lashes, appealing to his chivalry, and it worked. The game was on.

  ***

  Sebastian followed her up the narrow stairs to her first floor flat, admiring the view of her calves, barely clad in flesh-coloured silk stockings, visible below the swaying hem
of her sable Kolinsky coat. Singing in a nightclub must be a profitable occupation if she could afford a coat of such quality.

  Unless her income derived from other sources? In the short time he had known her he had seen her with at least three different men. All wealthy men.

  Yet still he followed her, as though mesmerised. Perhaps he was unable to fight his growing attraction to her because, for the first time in his life, he didn’t want to. Years of denying himself, of controlling his desires, melted away in her presence. Scarcely an hour ago his future had seemed bleak. Now he felt energised.

  Did it matter that she was not the sort of woman who fitted in his life? Did it matter that there could be no future with her–or was that the attraction?

  Gabrielle unlocked a door on the second floor and let him into her flat. The rooms were spacious, with high ceilings, the space emphasised by the minimal furnishings.

  He had expected a flamboyant feminine boudoir, in true Flapper style. Instead, the living room appeared stark.

  The bare wooden floor gleamed. A sofa and a couple of olive-coloured barrel armchairs stood around a flimsy coffee table displaying a wind-up gramophone. The only decoration on the pale ivory walls was a tall mirror in an art deco gilt frame.

  The neat space, so devoid of character, told him nothing of Gabrielle’s personality. He perched on the edge of an armchair while she headed to the kitchen to pour their drinks. As she walked, she removed her coat and jacket, offering him a tantalising glimpse of bare arms and graceful neck.

  “Gin and tonic?”

  “Thank you,” he said. His mouth felt unaccountably dry.

  ***

  Gabrielle returned to the living room with two filled glasses, ice clinking, just as Sebastian stood to remove the jacket of his lounge suit. The starched white shirt made a valiant attempt to conceal his broad shoulders yet still revealed the athletic physique beneath. And also revealed the tension in him. Tightly wound, indeed. He had no idea how much he needed her.

  Or how much she needed him. He might not be her usual type, but the attraction she felt for him was undeniable. What had started as a challenge was rapidly turning into desire, and she was not one to resist desire.

  He sat in one of the armchairs and she handed him a glass, lingering as he took a first sip.

  He relaxed into the seat, eyeing the sparse décor. . “You live here alone?”

  “I have a flatmate. She’s still at work.” She sat in the chair opposite him, purposely crossing her legs so that her skirt hitched up, allowing him a glimpse of thigh.

  Unconsciously he licked his lips. Their eyes met and held.

  Silence hummed between them, and tension grew, desire licking at her belly, heat flaming between her legs.

  If he felt only half the arousal she was feeling, she would win him around.

  Yes. The darkening blue depths of his eyes mirrored her desire.

  She placed her half-empty glass on the coffee table and slid across the space between them, to kneel before him on the floor.

  His pupils flared, but he did not move, did not shift away. She placed her hands on his thighs, her touch firm and deliberate, sliding slowly upwards.

  Only his sharp intake of breath betrayed her effect on him. Still he did not move to push her hands away.

  “You are so tense.” She trailed her palm upwards, rubbing gently against the growing evidence of his desire, moving towards the top button of his trousers. “You need to relax.”

  “I should leave.”

  “But you don’t really want to.” Her voice sounded low and husky. It wasn’t entirely deliberate.

  “No, I don’t want to.”

  Such an easy game, this game of seduction.

  She unfastened the top button of his trousers with shaking fingers, her wrist brushing against his swelling erection beneath the soft fabric. He sat still, scarcely breathing.

  Then slowly, very slowly, she drew her hands away and rocked back on her heels.

  When she spoke, keeping her voice low and sensuous took no effort at all. “Perhaps you should go. You are engaged to be married. It wouldn’t be right.”

  Her heart raced. Would he take the bait?

  His eyes narrowed. “I have money,” he said.

  For the longest moment, she sat stunned. He thought that was what this was about?

  She rose and stepped away, cold fury wiping away all desire. Fury with herself for not realising how he saw her, how low he thought her. She’d believed he understood her, but the misunderstanding was hers.

  “Please leave,” she said, not quite able to control the quiver in her voice.

  Confusion darkened his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…” His expression turned remorseful, which only made her feel worse. It made her feel like the whore he’d believed her to be. That Roland believed her to be.

  Did no-one understand that she couldn’t be bought?

  “Get out.” She made her tone fierce, hard, keeping the tears of humiliation at bay.

  Sebastian stood and headed for the door, pausing on the threshold to say again, “I am so sorry.”

  Chapter Three

  The club sprawled the length of the basement of a building close to The Embankment. Inside, the low-ceilinged room was dark, the air sweet with the scent of dope smoke. Mismatched tables and chairs cluttered the room, bathed in pools of amber light. Framed sheet music hung on the walls, songs signed by their composers. This club, seedy as it appeared to the uninitiated, was the Mecca of London’s jazz scene.

  Gabrielle sipped her martini, letting her gaze rove over the other patrons, the Bright Young Things the newspapers called them, the beautiful, the talented, the outrageous. The people she partied with.

  Beside her, Marsha, dressed as always in masculine attire, swayed enthusiastically to the music. It was a night off for both of them. At least one of them was having fun.

  “You’re subdued tonight.” Marsha leaned close to talk in her ear. “You’re not still thinking about that bastard’s insult, are you?”

  She should never have told Marsha about Sebastian’s hateful misinterpretation of her seduction. Caught in a rare moment of weakness, she'd revealed more than she intended.

  “Of course not,” she lied.

  But she couldn’t stop thinking of him. Nor did she blame him. The fault was all her own. Playing hard to get was not one of her skills, at the best of times. And she really should have known that Sebastian, like too many outside their crowd, would believe the way Flappers chose to live their lives meant they were immoral. He didn’t understand that it was not about the money. It was about freedom

  She chose to live life on her own terms, to have fun on her own terms. She chose the men she slept with for the pleasure they could give her, not for financial gain. Still, society condemned her, approving rather the naïve virgins who waited to be auctioned off into marriage to the highest bidder.

  She would never marry for money, nor would she be told what to do. And she was proud of her choices. So why did she feel strangely empty today?

  Why had the seed of doubt begun to grow, a fear that maybe the choices she’d made were not so right, after all?

  “James Marsden-Lacy is heading this way. Be nice. He likes you, and he’s loaded.”

  Gabrielle cast a look of scorn at her flatmate. It was comments like that which gave Flappers a bad name. There was so much more to life than money. She should know. She’d had it and lost it with her father’s death.

  As James approached, she put on her most inviting smile and rose to greet him, brushing his cheek with her lips. He was one of her oldest friends, from the days before she’d made her name singing in nightclubs.

  Though she’d always made it clear his feelings weren’t reciprocated, James persisted, and it hadn’t hurt her ego to have one of London’s most eligible bachelors dangling after her. And maybe tonight she could find another use for James. Maybe he could scratch the itch.

  She downed the rest of her drink.<
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  And maybe a little loving might drive these demons of doubt away, and ease the tension in her body that had been growing since the moment she’d seen the light and laughter in Sebastian’s eyes and felt the first stirring of a desire so deep it now haunted her.

  “I want to dance,” she said, and James wrapped an arm about her waist and led her towards the dance floor.

  His touch held none of the intoxicating heat Sebastian’s slightest touch had fired in her, but his presence was solid and reassuring, and the hardness of his body through the thin fabric of her dress was provoking enough to drive all other thoughts from her head.

  The dance floor was nothing more than a makeshift space between the tables, already jammed with bodies. James swung her into his arms to the beat of the tango, and she fell against him, laughing.

  The dance floor was so crowded that they were jostled against one another, James taking every opportunity of their closeness to thrust his hips against hers. Not that she needed the added suggestion to understand where he wanted this to go. James was nothing if not consistent.

  Would Sebastian have felt like this?

  To drive away the errant thought, she buried her face against James’ shoulder. She wasn’t usually one for dwelling on what might have been.

  The music slowed and they swayed together sensuously. Then she felt an unexpected sensation, the touch of another hand at the base of her spine. A touch that ignited sparks beneath her skin.

  “May I cut in?”

  Startled, James dragged himself away from her to eye the intruder. “Seb! Hey, mate, I haven’t seen you in years.”

  He appeared honestly delighted to see his old friend, though his arm stayed protectively around Gabrielle. She was glad of the support. The shock of Sebastian’s presence turned her legs weak.

  “Yes, it’s been a while. I have a little unresolved business with the lady. Would you spare her to me for a moment?”

  Emotions warred across James’ face, but he gave in. “Don’t forget me, sweetheart,” he said to Gabrielle, stepping away.