Laurey Bright - The Heiress Bride

The noise of the party suddenly seemed very distant. The moon slipped behind a high cloud, deepening the darkness.

Alysia stepped back and felt her legs touch the wall. “By the way, congratulations.” She hoped her voice sounded casual.

“Thank you. Do I get the feeling you aren’t thrilled about my promotion?”

“What my father does at the Clarion, whom he appoints, is entirely up to him…at least for some years yet.”

There was a telling silence while he absorbed the subtle warning. Then Chase enquired smoothly, “Looking to the future, are you? To when your father retires?”

“Are you?”

They remained staring at each other, the gloom making it difficult for her to see his expression.

Chase said, “I’m not a Kingsley.”

“You needn’t worry about your job yet.” It would be years before she was ready to take over the business. Embarrassment at her brief earlier assumption crawled in her stomach.

“Did I say I was worried?” Chase sounded confident, amused. As though he saw her as a puny threat, at best.

“By the time my father retires I’m sure you’ll have found yourself some wider, greener pastures. I promise I won’t hold you back.”

He rocked a little on his heels, his head slanted to one side, hands sliding into his pockets. “You won’t?” he said very softly. She knew he meant: You think you could?

Alysia’s chest felt constricted, her cheeks hot. “You’re ambitious,” she said. “My father may think you’ll stick around out of loyalty to him, but…”

“What do you think?” he challenged her. His voice deepening, he added, “Are you telling me this town isn’t big enough for both of us?”

“Is it big enough for you?” She’d never thought so. Surely this job with a provincial, family-owned paper, however respected and prosperous, was a mere stepping stone in his career path.

He said, “That depends.”

“My father won’t give up control for a long while yet. It’s always been a family concern.”

“And you’re the last of the family.”

Alysia discovered that her hands were clenched. She loosened her fingers, flexed them secretly. “Within the next five, ten years…”

“You think you’ll be ready to take over?” Chase queried.

Alysia’s teeth hurt, and the incipient headache that had begun with her father’s announcement had become an insistent throbbing. She hadn’t meant to go so far. But if Chase Osborne imagined he was in line for editor-in-chief, a title that had always remained in family hands, it was time someone disillusioned him. It had only been fair to spell it out. She took in a quick breath. “If my father wants me, hadn’t we better—”

Chase interrupted. “I didn’t say he wanted you.”

Her discomfort with his dark presence crystallized into a jagged antagonism. Her chin lifted. “You told me—”

“That he sent me to find you,” Chase said. “He wondered where you’d got to.”

“Well, you’ve found me. Now either go back and tell him I’m here and I’m fine, or get out of my way.”

He made no attempt to do so. “All in good time, Princess,” he said lazily. “I’m not your lackey.”

Unaccountably Alysia’s heart was hammering. He hadn’t moved an inch, but she sensed anger behind the deceptively gentle tone. An irrational, atavistic fear made her lash out with words. “No,” she said, her head lifting to an unconsciously arrogant tilt. “You’re my father’s.”

He seemed to be contemplating her, holding himself so still it was uncanny. The moon reappeared, throwing a faint nimbus around his head but scarcely lighting his face except for the glitter of his eyes. He made a short, sharp sound that might have been the beginning of a laugh. “Is that what you think?” he asked her. “He’s my employer.”

“So you jump when he says ‘Jump’ and obediently check up on his daughter when he tells you to. I didn’t know that was part of the deputy editor’s job description.”

“It’s part of being a guest in Spencer’s house,” Chase replied. “He didn’t like to leave the party, as he’s the host. I take it you didn’t want to be found.”

Ignoring the implication that she was neglecting her duties as her father’s hostess, Alysia said, “I didn’t need to be found! I would have been coming back in a minute anyway.”

“Well, then—” at last he moved aside so that she could precede him “—I’ll escort you.”

She swept past him, and Chase followed, not speaking again. But she could feel his gaze like a burning laser right between her shoulder blades.

When they reached the pepper tree he stepped forward and lifted the hanging branch. As she passed under it a cool, spice-scented leaf brushed her cheek. Her bare shoulder came in contact with the fabric of Chase’s jacket.

The house, lit from end to end, was before them, but they were still in the shadow of the tree when he caught her arm, drawing her back to face him.

Surprised, Alysia raised her head. “What is it?”

“Just this,” he answered.

His hand slid about her waist, pulling her against him so that her body curved at the hard bar of his arm, and her head fell back in astonishment before his mouth descended on hers.

He ignored her startled movement, one hand going to her nape while his mouth continued to explore hers in a kiss that was surely too expert.

Too surprised at first to resist, she had let her lips remain soft under his, but now she closed them firmly against the seductive coaxing that invited her to reciprocate. She made herself rigid in his embrace, her hands splayed on his upper arms, feeling the tensing of the muscles when he tightened his hold. As his mouth insisted on a response from her, she counted to ten and refused to give in to the growing urge to kiss him back.

His fingers tangled in her hair and his lips compelled hers apart—until Alysia sank her teeth briefly and quite hard into his lower lip. She heard him give a low grunt deep in his throat before he raised his head and she was free.

Her high heels sinking in to the yielding turf beside the path, she nearly overbalanced. Chase grabbed at her wrist, half holding her off and half supporting her, and as she recovered herself she saw that he was silently laughing. He touched a finger gingerly to his lip and said, “Not quite what I expected.”

“What did you expect, then?” she asked, her voice low but shaking with anger and a peculiar sense of excitement. He surely hadn’t thought she’d capitulate?

“What you tried at first,” he said frankly. “The stone statue impersonation. It was quite effective, too. But this—” he touched his lip again “—is…interesting.”

His tone held a kind of speculative respect.

He hadn’t hurt her. But beneath the experienced technique that had forced her to fight her own arousal, the kiss had been an expression of dominance. She’d deliberately taunted him, admittedly inviting retaliation, and he’d chosen a very male way of showing her that he wouldn’t allow her to get away with it.

Inwardly seething but not deigning to reply or even give in to the temptation to slap him, which would no doubt amuse him further, she turned and walked from him toward the house, but when she reached the steps he was right behind her.

Inside it was warm and seemed stuffy. Her father was seeing people off at the front door. As Alysia and Chase approached he said, “There you are! Come and say good-night to Howard and Mollie, Alysia.”

She expected Chase to leave her. Instead he stayed at her side, and when the Franklins had left he said, “I’ll be off, too.”

“It’s early!” Spencer protested. “The young ones are still dancing—why don’t you two go and join them? I think Alysia deserves to enjoy herself now.”