The Ultimate Seduction

Following voices through a bedroom to the open door of a bathroom, she approached and set her hand on the inner door only to hear a makeup compact click over her mother’s voice. “Are we supposed to believe he’s in love with her? Any fool can see he’s using her for our connections.”

“Any fool except me?” Tiffany blurted, pushing the door farther in while outrage washed over her. It was followed by a stab of hurt so deep she could barely see.

Nevertheless, her vision filled with the flawless image of her mother turning from the mirror. Shock paled her mother’s elegantly powdered cheeks. An automatic defense rose to part her painted lips, but first she had to draw a breath of shock as her gaze traveled her daughter’s appearance and measured the amount of exposure. A trembling little head shake told Tiffany what her mother thought of this gown.

“You won’t be comfortable in that.”

“You mean you won’t,” Tiffany volleyed back and turned to leave. A type of daughterly need for her mother’s bosom had driven her in here, and now she wished Barbara Holbrook had stayed home.

“Tiffany Ann.” The strident voice didn’t need volume to stop Tiffany in her tracks. “He told your father he wanted to marry you. You met him last week. What are we supposed to think?”

Tiffany spun back, thrown by the statement. “He did not.”

Her mother held her lady-of-the-manor pose, the one that had too much dignity to descend into a did-so, did-not quibbling match. Instead, she gave Tiffany another once-over and asked primly, “How on earth did you come to be his guest? I mean, if he had brought a party aboard, I’d understand you being swept along, but obviously he wants us to believe he has a romantic interest in you. What sort of promises has he made you?”

Tiffany heard the strange lilt in her mother’s voice. Concern, but something else. Something shaken and protective...

She felt her eyes go wider and sting with dryness as understanding penetrated. Her mother genuinely believed she was being used—and was too blind to see it.

If her high school diary had been passed around the football locker room, she couldn’t have felt more as though her deepest feelings were being abused. If only she could have defended Ryzard. If only she believed he had deeper feelings for her beyond the physical and amusement with her “great personality.”

God, maybe he didn’t even feel that much for her. Maybe it was all about who her father was. Insecurity nearly drove her to her knees, but she made herself stand proud and state what she’d let herself believe.

“He hasn’t made any promises. He wants me for my body. It’s mutual.”

Dumbly she turned and walked out, floored by what her mother had said about Ryzard wanting to marry her. Was it true? Because if it was, her mother was right. It wouldn’t be love driving his interest in her. They had met only ten days ago.

She tried to swallow away the painful lump of confusion that lodged itself high behind her breastbone.

Ryzard set down his drink as she appeared and held out his crooked arm. “Ready? We’ll see you downstairs,” he said to the men.

“Tiffany,” the ambassador scolded, following her with a swish of skirts. “You can’t speak to your mother like that. She’s been telling me how worried she’s been for you, not just because you dropped out of sight with a stranger—I apologize if that sounds rude,” she added in an aside to Ryzard. “But since—”

“I know. The accident. I’ve been a great burden on them, but can you understand how sick I am of having that define me? I’m better now. It’s time for both her and Dad to butt out of my life.”

She yearned for everyone to leave her alone so she could lick her wounds in private. It pained her horribly that everyone could see how weakly she’d fallen for this incredibly handsome, indulgent charlatan who had soothed her broken ego and wormed his way toward her heart. All in the name of advancing his own agenda.

“Where is this rebellion coming from?” her father clipped in his sternest tone. “You were never like this before. Your mother and I can’t fathom what’s got into you. Letting you go to work has obviously put too much stress on you.”

“Letting me.” She jerked up her chastised head, filling with outrage.

Beside her, Ryzard took her good arm in a warm, calming grip. “If you’ll pardon an outsider’s observation? Every child has to leave the nest at some point, even one who was blown back in and needed you very badly for a time. Your daughter is an adult. She can make her own decisions.”

Despite that statement of her independence, she found herself letting him make the decision for both of them to leave. A crazy part of her even rationalized that even if he was using her, he was also helping her find the state of autonomy she longed for.

As they waited for the elevator, a jagged sigh escaped her. “I can’t do this, Ryzard.”

She meant the banquet, the evening, but he misunderstood.

“Don’t let this upset you. Listen, I visited Bregnovia after finishing university. I could have stayed. My mother wanted me to, but I chose to drift across Europe like pollen in the wind. I was making a statement. They had forced me to leave as a child, but they couldn’t make me stay as an adult.”

“And now you hate yourself for not spending time with them. You think I should go back and apologize?” She looked back down the hall, hating the discord with her family even as she dreaded facing them again.

The elevator car arrived and Ryzard guided her into it.

“I don’t hate myself as much as I should. Everyone does need to leave the nest at some point, draga. But be assured that your parents are operating from a place of love. Your father had some very pointed questions for me. He is the quintessential father who feels a strong need to protect his baby girl.”

With bloodless fingers clinging to her pocketbook, she lifted her gaze to meet his. “Did you tell him you want to marry me?” Her voice sounded flayed and dead, even more listless than the tone she had used to discuss her prospective marriage to Paulie.

Surprise flashed across his expression before he shuttered it into a neutral poker face. “He asked me about my intentions when I called. I said they were honorable. What else could I say?”

“You told me this relationship wouldn’t lead to anything permanent. When did you decide it could?”

He turned his head away, profile hard with undisguised impatience, then looked back, fairly knocking her over with the impact. “What are you really asking, draga?”

The car stopped and she swayed, stomach dipping and clawing for a settled state. “You weren’t ever going to marry, but then you realized exactly how useful my father could be. Is that right?”

“Yes.” No apology, just hardened, chiseled features that were so remote and handsome she wanted to cry.

“We talked about how much I enjoy being used, Ryzard.”

The doors of the elevator opened. His handlers were waiting, one reaching to hold the door for them.

“We need a moment,” he clipped.

“No, we don’t.” Her voice was strangled, but she stepped from the elevator into the bubble that was its own bizarrely familiar shield against reality. Her skin burned under the stares of his people, but she allowed only Ryzard to see how much that tortured her as she turned to glare up at him. “If this is what I’m here for, then let’s do it. I’m probably better on stage than you are. Smile. Nothing matters except how this looks.”

“Tiffany,” he growled.

Arranging the sort of warm, gracious smile her mother had patented, she sidled beyond his reach and asked a handler, “Where would you like me to stand in relation to the president?”

* * *

Talk about land mines. Ryzard felt as though he stood in a field of them as he welcomed his guests and waited for the misstep that would cause Tiffany to discharge. She was the epitome of class though, greeting people warmly as he introduced her, maintaining a level of poise that made his heart swell with pride even as his blood ran like acid in his veins.

We talked about how much I enjoy being used.

He struggled to hide how much his conscience twisted under that. Did she think he couldn’t see what this evening was costing her? He was so deeply attuned to her that he felt her tension like a high-pitched noise humming inside his consciousness, keeping him on high alert. It was fear, he realized with a thunk of dread-filled self-assessment. She would run given an opportunity, and that kept him so fixated on her he could hardly breathe, braced as he was to catch her before her first step.

He ought to let her go if that’s what she really wanted, but he couldn’t bear it when she hadn’t even given him a chance to explain. The way she’d thrown her accusation at him in the elevator had been a shock. He’d answered honestly out of instinct, because any sort of subterfuge between them was abhorrent to him.

But distance was equally repugnant to him, and she was keeping an emotional one that didn’t bode well for sifting through things he’d barely made sense of himself.