Naughty Or Nice

Ten years of wanting. Ten years of waiting. Now Eva Beaumont and Lucas Waring have one chance to satisfy everything they’ve ever wanted from each other… Enjoy their explosively sexy reunion in this enthralling romance from reader favorite Rachael Stewart.

This is my moment. Tonight, among the glitter and champagne and those who are vying for a piece of my business, it’s perfect. Gloriously so. Then Lucas Waring walks in, and one glance from his dark, intense eyes gives me the same jarring bolt of awareness I always felt when I saw him. Careful, Eva. After all, Lucas Waring is the Beaumont family’s worst nightmare…

He used to be my brother’s best friend—before he broke my eighteen-year-old heart. And yet I still feel that want, that aching need unfurling through my body. If Lucas Waring wants my business, I’ll give him a chance…once we’ve finally experienced a deliciously carnal arrangement that’s long overdue.

This time, nothing is stopping me from having what I want. Not my family. Not my locked-down heart. Nice Eva is gone forever. Naughty Eva has taken her place. Only my heart’s about to pull the biggest betrayal of all…

Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.

Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!

RACHAEL STEWART adores conjuring up stories, from heartwarmingly romantic to wildly erotic. She’s been writing since she could put pen to paper—as the stacks of scrawled-on pages in her loft will attest. A Welsh lass at heart, she now lives in Yorkshire with her very own hero and three awesome kids—and if she’s not tapping out a story she’s wrapped up in one or enjoying the great outdoors. Reach her on Facebook, Twitter (@rach_b52) or at rachaelstewartauthor.com.

Naughty or Nice

Rachael Stewart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08722-3

NAUGHTY OR NICE

© 2019 Rachael Stewart

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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To my kids, who will be doing their utmost to get on Santa’s nice list! I know you’re too young to read this—in fact, you’ll always be too young—but I can’t have a Christmas book without dedicating it to you. I love you regardless of your naughty little antics.

To my family and friends for making every Christmas as special as it can be.

And to my gorgeous readers, too… Are you on the naughty or nice list this year? How about joining me and straddling them both? Ho ho ho ;-)

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good read!

Rxx

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

I TWIST MY hands in front of me, the heel of one stiletto grinding into the plush carpet of my father’s study.

I know Lucas is going to follow me here. I saw it in his eyes. That same look I’ve caught several times over in the past few months…the same look I know I sport: want, desire—love.

I’ve loved him for years—long before Mum and Dad became his guardians…long before I really knew what it was that had my heart trying to leap out of my chest, my body throbbing, my tongue tied.

I’m eighteen. It’s my birthday party. It’s as good a time as any to tell him—or so I keep telling myself. I can’t go on keeping it locked up inside. But I’m scared. It doesn’t matter that I sense he feels the same, that I see the way he looks at me when he thinks no one else is watching.

I pin his expression in my mind, focus on it as I grab my flute of champagne and throw back the remainder. The hit of alcohol makes me wince, but I need it—Dutch courage. I return it to the side as I watch the door.

You love him. You can tell him. You have to.

I hear footsteps in the hallway, louder than the music from my party, underway further down the hall, and I take a breath, pressing my hands into my thighs, forcing them to still and hoping their dampness doesn’t mark the bright white of my dress.

The door opens and I can’t breathe.

‘Evangeline?’

His voice sends blood rushing through my body, my pulse rate skittering out of control.

‘Yes…’ It comes out like a whisper, my fear coming through, and it frustrates me. I want to be confident. I want him to see me as a woman, not the little sister of his best friend, Nate.

Get it together.

His head appears around the door, his gaze hesitant as he looks from me to the hallway and back again.

‘Hey.’

He steps inside but pauses, the confident twenty-one-year-old I usually see oddly absent. He’s boyish, uncertain, and my heart turns over.

‘Hey,’ I manage back, breathless.

We don’t move closer. My knees feel like jelly and his fingers tremble a little as he rakes one hand through his hair, his other still hanging on to the door handle.

Take control. You need to do this. You need to show him.

‘Close the door.’

I’m surprised at the confidence I’ve injected into my tone—am surprised all the more when he does what I ask. But his eyes don’t return to me. They burn a hole in the floor at his feet.

I take a small breath. ‘Why won’t you look at me?’

His eyes waver and I can sense the fight in him.

I step forward, my progress slow as the tight minidress restricts my movement, riding ever higher up my thighs. The moment I’d chosen it I’d had this in mind. To confess my love, maybe even seduce him. I want my first time to be with him and tonight would be so perfect.

‘Lucas?’

He shakes his head, but then his eyes lock with mine and I feel their burn. Need is etched in the tightness of his jaw, in his hands fisting at his sides.

‘We shouldn’t be in here…alone.’

‘Then why did you come?’ I press.

Please let him be torn. Please let him confirm what I suspect.

‘I—’

He shakes his head again but his eyes are still fixed on mine. His internal fight is clear in their depths, and he runs his teeth over his lower lip. The move distracting me with the glimpse of his tongue, the mouth I so desperately want to taste.

‘Being alone with you, like this…’ He waves a hand up and down my length, his eyes travelling over me and setting my skin alight.

‘Don’t trust yourself?’ I tease, forcing out the playful jest even though I know how much rides on his response.

I pause less than an arm’s reach away and look up at him from beneath my lashes, not quite ready to reach for him. That fear of rejection is still there.

‘You know we shouldn’t.’

It’s my turn to shake my head. ‘Why?’

‘Because—because of who you are. Of who your family are to me.’

‘In a way, we’re your family too.’

‘Exactly, Eva—they’re all I have.’

I risk another step and hold his tormented gaze. I want to kiss it away, take away the pain of his past, his loss, his loneliness. He never had a father. His mother, although best friend to my own, was hardly ever present, and now she’s been dead almost a year. But I have been here. I’ve always been here for him. I can be enough. If only he will see it.

‘And we will always be here for you. But I have to tell you how I feel. I have to tell you I… I…’ My voice cracks and I curse the show of weakness.

‘Don’t, Evangeline—don’t say it.’

His words are a warning that I can’t abide, and it’s the push that I need.

‘Why?’

‘Because it will change everything.’

‘And why is that so bad?’

He takes a breath and it shudders out of him, but he says nothing.

Now. It has to be now.

‘Lucas.’ I slip my hands over his shoulders, feel him tense beneath them, but there’s no going back. ‘I love you.’

He squeezes his eyes shut, closing me out, and when he opens them again they’re blazing. His hands are reaching out, tight on my hips as he forces me away.

‘I love you too, but not—not like this. I can’t.’

He turns to leave and I move, stepping between him and his escape, so swift that he ends up pressed against me, my back against the door as my lips part on a gasp.

It’s not just surprise—it’s the strange frisson that runs right down my front as my body absorbs his heat, the very hardness of him.

His eyes drop to my mouth and there’s no need for words. His intent sears me seconds before his lips claim mine.

Christ, I’m in heaven.

He isn’t soft, tentative, uncertain. He’s hard, determined, his tongue forcing my mouth apart, demanding entry, coaxing me into doing the same.

I’ve been kissed before, and I’ve kissed boys before, but I’ve never been devoured—not like this.

My body thrums, my breasts prickle against his chest, and the dull ache in my gut swells and throbs with mindless need. My hands are in his hair, clinging him to me, his own rake over my body, feverish, trembling. I can’t believe this is real. I feel drugged, dreaming.

And then he groans into my mouth, pressing me back harder, and I know it’s real. I know this is happening…my dream is coming true.

His fingers drop to my naked thighs, encouraging my dress higher. I don’t know whether I lift my leg to hook it around him or he does, but the hard swell of him inside his jeans presses at the throbbing heart of me and I moan my pleasure.

He curses, his teeth nipping at my lip as he shakes his head once more. ‘I’ve wanted you, so long.’

His confession jerks me alert. I want more of it. More words. More to affirm how he feels.

‘How long?’

‘Too long.’

Happiness bursts within me. Everything’s falling into place.

I find his lips again, desperate to seal his words with my kiss. ‘And you can have me. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.’

There’s a strange knocking sound—one that doesn’t compute with the whirlwind that is my mind—and suddenly I’m thrust away from him. I try to focus through the haze. I see his widened gaze, his alarm clear.

‘Lucas? You in there?’

The handle shifts with my brother’s voice, but the door doesn’t budge. I realise Lucas has turned the latch. It fills me with hope, but hope dies just as swiftly. He looks as if he’s seen a ghost as he stares at me in horror.

‘Lucas! Come on, man. Someone said they saw you head in here… Eva too.’

Oh, God.

He was pale before. Now he looks deathly. His eyes leave me, his head shaking.

‘I’m an idiot. A fucking idiot.’

He says it under his breath and I tiptoe towards him, my hand reaching out. But he moves away from me just as quickly, his eyes throwing daggers. ‘Don’t.’

There are footsteps down the corridor and then my father’s voice. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing… I’m just getting Eva. Mum wants her to cut the cake.’

‘The last place Eva will be is in my study, son.’

Nate gives an awkward laugh. ‘Sure…of course. I’ll check upstairs.’

They move off, their voices growing distant, and I know my brother is protecting us. But I don’t want protection. I don’t want to hide any more.

‘Lucas, please don’t push me away. I don’t want to deny this any more. I know you feel the same. I know you—’

‘You don’t know anything.’

‘You want me—’

‘Yes, I want you.’ He launches the words at me, so certain. ‘But that’s not love.’

‘It is—because I love you.’

‘You don’t love me. You’re infatuated, confused, doped up on hormones.’

My heart starts to split in two, ice running through the middle. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about…’

‘I know you and your family are all that I have. That without you I have nothing.’

I don’t know what to say to that. I know the truth of it. But it makes my reasoning all the more valid. It’s so simple.

‘Then accept that we love one another and that my family will be happy for us. Once they adjust.’

His head shakes violently. ‘No, they won’t. Don’t you see? Nate was banging this door down to stop us. He knows.’

‘But—’

‘No, Eva, he’s already made it clear you’re off-limits and, hell, he’s right. What happens to me a year or two down the line when this…whatever this is…fizzles out?’

‘It won’t.’

‘You can guarantee that, can you?’

‘I… I…’

He rakes both hands through his hair, his torment written in his haunted brown eyes. Eyes I’ve dreamed about for so long.

And then he’s turning away and heading for the door.

‘Please,’ I hear myself say. ‘Don’t go.’

He doesn’t even pause—doesn’t even look back as he unlocks the door and slips away. Leaving me standing there, my heart in tatters, as I realise he means it.

That no matter how much I love him he can never be mine.

CHAPTER ONE

THIS IS MY MOMENT. For the first time in my life I know that I’ve made it. That I stand apart. My family name hasn’t handed me this. Aside from a small investment from dear old Ma and Pa, this is all me.

My baby is finally ready, and companies are clambering over themselves to head up its manufacture, its distribution, wanting to join forces, to conquer the field.

But I have weeks to decide.

Tonight is about enjoying the buzz…feeding it.

The room is fit to bursting with prospective producers and vendors alike. And here’s me, confident in a festive red silk dress that just sweeps the floor, my blonde hair knotted up high, sophisticated, yet softened by the loose locks that fall free. The delicate bubbles of the champagne in my hand are feeding my ego and my mood to perfection.

‘Well, you did it, angel.’

I turn and lift my chin to meet my father’s eye. I can see the admiration in his gaze—something I’ve hungered for since I found I could outrun my brother at fourteen.

It’s not that I’m naturally competitive, but when you’re always deemed the less capable, the girl, it can happen. Even more so when your brother can apparently do no wrong, when in truth he does plenty wrong, and still has admiration dished out in spades.

‘I know.’

He tenses, and I fear he’s read the bitterness in my tone. But, no, his eyes leave me and narrow. Something else has caught his attention.

‘What the hell…?’ he mutters.

I follow his line of sight, but already my nerves sizzle. My father doesn’t ever show unease—he doesn’t do emotion, particularly in a business setting like tonight’s launch party. My launch party.

‘Did you invite him?’

‘Wh—?’ The word dies and my entire body draws tight.

I see him. I see the exact cause of my father’s unease and feel it seep into my very skin. My mood dies with it. The champagne flute trembles in my hand and I know I should look away, but I can’t.

Ten years and still my eyes are hooked on him.

Lucas Waring.

My family’s nemesis.

My heart’s downfall.

‘No,’ I manage to say.

I shouldn’t be surprised—not when the room is full of his peers.

Peers? Are you dreaming?

They’re not his equal. No one is. Waring Holdings has it all and now here is Lucas, wanting…what?

‘He can’t possibly think you’ll be interested in working with him.’

My father speaks my mind exactly. He can’t. But what else?

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

I’m not the eighteen-year-old girl I once was, and I’m not the woman I became soon after that, determined to evade him. I am in control now. This is my night. This is work.

‘Excuse me.’

‘No.’ My father steps into my path. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’

I hold his eye as my lips twitch. What I want to say is Stop treating me like a child, but in my mind that sounds petulant and childlike in itself. Instead I smile up at him. ‘He’s made the effort to come. I should at least see what he wants.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing, Dad. Giving someone as powerful as Lucas the cold shoulder tonight of all nights would send the wrong message to the room.’

My father grunts and swigs his champagne. He knows I’m right. He didn’t get where he is today by letting personal differences get in his way. But then it’s the first time I’m aware of that Lucas has dared venture near any of us in five long years.

Ever since my family shut him out and the blame for the demise of the company he co-owned with Nate seemed to land firmly at his feet.

I questioned it at the time. I continued to question it each and every time Nate screwed up after that. It couldn’t have been down to Lucas—not entirely. But it seems Lucas has suffered the same as me.

Nate’s golden halo failed to shift.

I can’t deny I’m curious as to what truly went down. And I also can’t deny that his presence here tonight only serves to help my cause, my product. It’ll feed the frenzy already taking hold as companies vie for my business.

Or it’ll send them running, because they’ll think there’s no chance in hell you’ll look anywhere else but him.

Not him—his business, Eva!

I give my head a small shake, the loose curls from my updo brushing against the prickled skin of my nape. It loosens up my thoughts, the tension.

‘Why don’t you make sure Mum doesn’t flip at his presence?’ I say, and with another sip of champagne I start to make my way towards him, praying he doesn’t spy me before I’m prepared.

But already his head is turning, as if he senses my approach, and then his eyes are locked on mine and I can feel a startling rush through my system. It doesn’t matter that I’m used to the sight of him on the TV, in the tabloids—that same old zing is in my belly, that heat that only his physical presence has ever instilled creeping into my cheeks.

I want to look away, but I won’t give him that. I am stronger now, wiser, and the better for it. And so I enjoy him, my eyes sweeping over every inch of him. His black hair, long on top. His prominent brow arching over heavy-lashed eyes that narrow on me, dark and intense. I ignore the hiccup to my pulse and cut lower, to his wide, angular jaw with its intentional stubble.

I avoid his mouth entirely.

I don’t need the memory of its brief contact all those years ago. I really don’t.

I move my eyes lower, to the broad set of his shoulders—wider than I recall. Imposing. I don’t dwell on the muscle behind that. Instead I focus on the designer cut of his deep grey suit, the white shirt and his defiantly skinny black tie.

My lips lift at the edges, I can’t help it. Always the rebel…

I lift my eyes back to his and they flicker. There’s something there. I just don’t know what. Unease?

Maybe.

Like hell.

He owns the room. His presence commands attention even when he’s not looking for it. Just like he’s commanding my own, against my will.

A waiter passes between us and he reaches out for a glass, but not once does his gaze release me, and I can feel myself being drawn in like the besotted eighteen-year-old I once was.

Careful, Eva.

‘Lucas…’

I draw his name out, feel it fall softly from my lips, and I see his eyes flit to them. I know they’re red and glossy. The perfect match for my dress and the countrywide festivities, and I imagine him looking hungrily over them now.

If only…

‘I wish I could say it’s a pleasure to see you.’

I’m proud of the steadiness in my voice, its hard edge—it’s what he deserves for what he did to me ten years ago and for the last five, too, if my family are right… In this second I’m not sure which I want to hurt him more for.

Yes, you do…liar.

He watches me with that intense stare that I can’t even begin to read and raises his glass to his lips. Too late I’m looking, remembering, and my betraying tongue sweeps over my own lips…

‘It’s rude to stare.’

My eyes leap and I curse his very presence, his very effect over me. But there’s a tightness to his voice, a flare to his eyes that he cannot hide, and I know he’s not immune to me—not any more. It gives me power and I feed on it.

‘It’s rude to attend a party without an invitation.’

He smiles, the movement small and soft—and, dammit, my insides quiver.

‘I’m used to being welcomed with open arms. Invited or not.’

I raise my brow, the idea of being close enough to embrace him not helping my focus.

It’s a figure of speech, idiot.

I cock my head, masking my unease. ‘Once upon a time that may have been true, but not here, not now, and not with me.’

‘Not with you, or not with your family, Evangeline?’

If I could melt to the floor I would. No one calls me Evangeline—no one. Unless they’re my parents. I am Eva—strong, dependable, Eva. A woman who has proved her worth a hundred times over.

But when he says it, the way he says it, it’s not like Mum and Dad do it. It doesn’t make me feel like a girl, weak and vulnerable. I feel empowered, worthy of so much, catapulted onto a pedestal and ready to be worshipped.

By him. At my feet.

Oh, yes.

I swallow, the bolt through my body jolting me straight.

It scares me. He scares me. And I know I need him gone—that no matter what I said to Dad I don’t dare to entertain him for longer than is necessary.

‘Cat got your tongue?’

‘No,’ I blurt.

‘So?’

I can see a pulse working in his jaw, and his eyes are intense as they watch and wait for my response.

‘Is it you or your family telling me I’m not welcome, Evangeline?’

‘Both.’ I say it and immediately regret it. It’s too personal, too unprofessional, but I can’t think clearly. Not with him so close.

‘Is that your way of asking me to leave?’

I sense nearby heads turning, ears tuning in.

Careful, Eva…

I’m losing myself in the fierce glint of her blue gaze, almost daring her to throw me out. There’s something about the fight in her that I want to provoke.

It’s so much easier than dealing with all the shit buried ten years deep.

‘No, Lucas, I’m not asking you to leave.’

She wets her lips. Again. And the red shines ever deeper, the carnal colour driving a string of sinful thoughts—none of which have a place in this room, with this audience.

Or fit with the reason you’re here.

It’s about business.

Not her.

Not…

A pulse flutters in her throat and she raises her hand, her red-tipped fingers circling over the delicate ripple. Christ, I want to do that—be the person with his fingers over that creamy skin.

I tighten my hold on the stem of the glass, slipping my other hand inside my pocket. Out of trouble.

‘Good.’ I tear my eyes away, looking towards the grand Christmas tree and the big screen that stands proud alongside it, streaming highlights of the product I’m here to secure. ‘Because I think we have a future together…in business.’

I suck the inside of my cheek.

In business? What the actual fuck? Do you want to make it any more obvious you want her in your bed too?

I hear her laugh, and the sound is as surprising as its effect, rippling through my body like an aftershock. I’d forgotten how she can do that—be it with a laugh, a smile or a song when she thinks no one’s listening.

‘Of course, Lucas. Of course in business. What else could you possibly be suggesting?’

She watches me over the rim of her glass, the depths of her eyes alive with suggestion, amusement, confidence. And it’s the confidence that’s my undoing. It’s new. To me, at least. Where there was once a questioning innocence there’s now the maturity of a woman who knows her own mind, her own desires.

And where do those desires lie now?

Ten years ago she made it obvious, but now…

Hell, most women desire me—it’s par for the course. My money and power attract all sorts, even without the body I work hard to hone.

But you don’t care about other women. You only care for her.

Cared—not care. Because that would be damn stupid.

Ten years ago she was forbidden. As the sister of my best friend, as the daughter of the closest thing I had to parents—real parents.

But, let’s face it, here I am now, her family’s worst nightmare, and all that loyalty no longer applies.

Just think what you can do with that.

I look her over, slowly, purposefully, and before I can hold back it’s out. ‘It wasn’t my intention—I came here tonight to secure a deal, to offer you a very lucrative contract… But now I find myself wanting a whole lot more.’

Her eyes widen and the glass quivers beneath her chin, not quite lowering but not quite lifting either. She’s shocked and I seize the advantage.

‘What’s it been, Evangeline—seven years?’

‘Six.’

She says it so certainly it makes me wonder. Has she counted it down to the exact day, the exact moment? Because I sure as hell have, despite my intentional miscalculation. And even then it had been a brief passing—a moment at the Beaumonts’ home before Nate and I flew out on business. But it’s ingrained in my memory. The sight of her with another man—her fiancé. Happy.

‘How is Peter?’

I don’t know why I even ask it. I can see she isn’t married—her bare finger gives that away. And there’s no reason for me to think he’s still on the scene, so why I need the added reassurance is beyond me.

‘I have no idea. We broke up not long after that night.’

My question hasn’t even jarred her, and that tells me enough. She remembers the occasion.

I don’t want to feel the pleasure-filled rush that comes from this, but it’s there anyway—as is the burning need to taste those lips that keep goading me with their illicit colour, their inviting sheen.

‘And Nate?’ I manage to ask. ‘I can’t see him here.’

Her lashes flutter at my change in focus. Moving from one unsettling topic to another. But the need to talk business, to get back to safer ground, is lost on me.

‘My brother had some work to tie up in Hong Kong. He’ll be back for Christmas.’

I nod and ignore the weird ache her mention of Christmas kick-starts inside me. Christmas at the Beaumonts’ was my tradition for so long. I never dwell on how much I miss it, but in that second I feel it. The cold, dull ache of what once existed but is no more.

And Nate still has it all, whereas I—

For fuck’s sake, Lucas, get with it!

‘Good for him.’ I crush the ache, but the bitterness is there in the chill of my tone.

Her eyes narrow and I look away, forcing my shoulders to relax as I sip at my drink, wanting to quash the past just as much as I want it brought to the fore and dealt with.