Laura Wright - Playboy's Ruthless Payback - Playboy's Ruthless Payback

“Damn right,” Mac said hotly, walking into the room and closing the door behind him.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care if you believe me or not, it’s true.”

Standing just inches from him, she held her chin high as she stared hard into his eyes. “It’s going to take a lot more to humiliate me and screw with my father than tossing my past mistakes, my past humiliations, back in my face.”

He grabbed her shoulders. “I’m not doing that.”

“Bull.”

“I don’t give a damn about your past.”

“I do!” she shouted, her voice cracking with emotion. She dropped her gaze, bit her lip and cursed. When she looked up at him again, she looked like a kid, so vulnerable it killed him. “I hate that part of my life.”

Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Stop that.” He gave her a gentle shake, for the first time feeling the guilt that came with his plan. “Stop it, Olivia.”

This wasn’t how it was supposed go. He was the one who was supposed to make her miserable, then send her back to her father in shame. He should be reveling in the fact that he had access to information about her past that would make her father suffer.

“Damn it.” He hauled her against him and kissed her hard on the mouth. “I don’t care what happened before, and neither should you.” He nuzzled her lips, then nipped at them, suckled them, until she gave in, gave up and sagged against him.

“There’s nothing wrong with this,” he said as his hands found her lower back and raked upward. “Or this.” He dipped his head and kissed her throat, suckling the skin that covered her rapid pulse, grinning as a hungry whimper escaped her throat. “Nothing to be ashamed of, Olivia.”

“You don’t understand,” she uttered, letting her head fall back.

He held her close, his lips brushing her temple. “Help me to, then.”

“I…can’t. I made a promise to myself.…”

He rubbed his face against her hair. “When you were a kid?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“You’re a woman now.” He nuzzled her ear, nipped at the lobe. “Everything’s different.”

On those words, she froze. “That’s the thing,” she said, her voice hoarse. She drew back, her eyes filled with regret. “Nothing’s different. Not at all. I refuse to make any more stupid mistakes with men who just want to…” She didn’t finish, just shook her head.

“Olivia.”

She disentangled herself from his grasp. “Two more days. That’s it. That’s all you’re getting from me, so do your worst because after this weekend is up you’re going to be done. Done with me and done with my father.”

“We’ll see about that,” Mac said darkly before turning and leaving the room.

Eleven

And the winner of the worst night’s sleep contest was…Olivia Winston.

Standing over the stove, she made sure her pan was hot, then carefully cracked an egg into the hole she’d made in the slice of crusty bread. Three cups of extra-strength coffee and all she wanted to do was go back to bed. But maybe that had nothing to do with being tired as much as it had to do with hiding. For someone who had gone into this job thinking it would be easy-peasy, she sure was going through a lot of difficult, trying moments. Not to mention, some sexually charged moments that she couldn’t get out of her head. She’d really underestimated Mac and his desire to bury her father, and she’d overestimated herself, and her needs, in the process. She’d wanted to find out just how Mac was going to get back at her dad, and had basically given him the goods to make it happen.

She flipped the bread. To make matters worse, she wanted more—more of him, more of his touch, his kisses. She was weak and a total disappointment.

She felt him in the kitchen even before she saw him, and wanted to kick herself for the giddiness that erupted inside her at the thought of seeing him again.

“Good morning.”

She spared him a quick smile. “Morning.” He looked good, Saturday-morning sexy in expensive black sweats and dark tousled hair.

“Sleep well?” he asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“No. You?”

He chuckled. “I slept okay.”

“Yeah, guys can sleep through anything. Your brains turn off—so lucky.”

“Maybe our brains turn off, but that’s about it.” Despite his hard, unyielding business-guy attitude, he had this obvious sensuality, this slow, tigerlike laziness that made him seem always ready for bed. “Honestly, the effects of what happened in your room last night are still with me this morning.”

She ignored the pull in her belly. “Me, too—but maybe in a different way.” She laid another slice of bread in the hot pan and cracked an egg. “Listen, Mac, I don’t know if I believe what you said last night about Tim—if you set that up or not—but I can’t worry about it anymore. I’ve spent too many years worrying about the past. Can we just let everything go and concentrate on what we’re trying to accomplish with the DeBolds?”

“Let everything go?”

“Yes. Do you think you can do that?”

“Do you really think you can do that?” he countered, his eyes glittering with heat.

Before she could answer, Harold and Louise walked into the kitchen, all smiles and dressed like models from a Hanna Andersson catalog. “Morning,” Harold said, taking a seat at the island.

“Morning,” Mac said good-naturedly. “Sleep well?”

“Perfect,” Harold said. “Something smells good, but that’s not surprising.”

Olivia glanced at Mac, who was watching her over his steaming cup of coffee, then she turned to her guests. “Eggs in a blanket, bacon and good, strong coffee.”

“Are you trying to fatten us up?” Louise asked, sitting beside her husband.

“Of course,” Olivia said on a chuckle, setting two cups of coffee before them. “But only so you have all the energy you need for what I have planned today.”

“And what do you have planned?” Mac asked, seeming to suddenly realize he’d never discussed plans with her.

Olivia looked at them all brightly. “Ice skating.”

Mac practically choked on his coffee. “Ice skating?”

Louise, on the other hand, looked as though she were about to explode with happiness. “Did you hear that, Harold?”

“I did. I did.”

Clasping her hands together like a little girl, Louise cried, “I haven’t been skating in ten years.”

“Well, then maybe it’s not such a good idea—” Mac began, but Louise cut him off.

“Not a good idea? No, no, no—it’s perfect. Harold and I had our first date on a skating rink. Rounder’s Pond—it was in back of my grandfather’s property, a beautiful kidney bean shape and surrounded by trees. Do you remember that, honey?”

“Of course.” Harold smiled at his wife, then looked over at Olivia. “You have made my wife very happy today. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Olivia beamed as she turned back to the stove. “Now, let’s get you two fed.”

Mac came to stand beside her.

She whispered over the DeBolds’ loud chatter, “You look panicked.”

“And you look happy about that,” he muttered.

Laughing, she took two perfectly cooked eggs in blankets out of the pan and placed them gently on plates. She whispered, “Buck up, Valentine. Ice skating is perfect and fun, and I’ve planned a lovely picnic afterward with hot chocolate.”

“I don’t skate, Olivia.”

“Well, you lucked out then.” She handed him the two plates and smiled. “I’m a great teacher.”

He’d been good at sports. Not the school kind. You had to spend more than a year living in one place to get on an organized team, but he’d killed at street basketball and alley soccer in every community he’d been sent to. He’d never tried hockey though, and before today had assumed that hockey, or anything involving skates, was a little like trying to understand German when all you spoke was Spanish. But he’d jumped into it with both blades. It took him about twenty minutes to really feel his balance, but after that, he was like a demon racing on the ice, even getting an impromptu hockey game going with Harold and some of the guys on the lake.