Dark Alpha (ALPHA 2)

by Carole Mortimer

  “We met again after I made that initial offer,” he reminded softly.

  Nicky swallowed as she too easily remembered every detail of that second meeting. “The only reason I’m here today is because you said there might be a job for me in your company after I graduated,” she repeated firmly.

  His eyes narrowed. “By my calculation you left university two months ago?”

  “I—yes.” She blushed guiltily. “I had the offer of another job with a finance company nearer to where I live, and decided to take that instead.”

  “What happened?”

  Nicky blinked back the sudden tears that stung her eyes as she thought of the misery of the previous two months.

  She had found herself what she had considered a really good job with one of the best finance companies in the city, moved into a new apartment, a much smaller one now that Neil was living in the residence halls at the university. But even so the rent was crippling, when she was also paying Neil’s fees as well as her own student loans.

  But that hadn’t been so bad; she was used to occasionally going without food, and not being able to go out. What she hadn’t expected was to have the senior partner of Jenkins, Simmons and Simmons invite her up to his office to ‘see how she was settling in’. Not just once, but several times.

  She hadn’t even realized why in the beginning, not until he invited her out to lunch—an invitation Nicky had politely but firmly refused.

  After that his advances hadn’t been quite so subtle or casual, but had become outright demands that she have sex with him. If not, he had told her with a knowing smile, she could start looking for new employment.

  Nicky hadn’t been able to stand it anymore and had saved him the trouble of sacking her and just left.

  That had been a month ago, and every job she had applied for since, Lionel Jenkins had somehow ensured she didn’t get it. Even temps needed references, she had discovered.

  Out of money, and options—in a state of pure desperation—Nicky had remembered Lucien Wynter’s job offer of eight months ago.

  She must have been mad to ever think this man, this devil in Armani, would ever help her.

  Oh yes, she recognized the make of his suit now, and that his shirts were of the finest, softest silk. That those black shoes of his would have been handmade in Italy.

  And here she stood, in her inexpensive suit and blouse, out of her depth, out of a job, and shortly to be evicted from her rabbit-hutch of a flat, if she didn’t come up with last month’s rent as well this one’s too.

  Even so, Nicky knew she had been stupid to come here. Stupid and naive, when the man standing behind her, the weight of his hands resting on her shoulders, and the warm hardness of his body so dangerously close to her own, so obviously didn’t have a heart she could appeal to.

  Trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea, Nicky, out of desperation, really had chosen the devil...

  “I asked what happened, Nicky?”

  She winced as she stepped away from that grip on her shoulders, not caring that Lucien’s fingers had probably left bruises on her skin. She just needed to put some space between the two of them. To be able to breathe again.

  “It didn’t work out.” She shrugged as she turned to face him.

  “I want the truth, Nicky. All of it,” he added mercilessly.

  Nicky eyed him warily, sensing—sensing— “You already know,” she realized heavily, her heart sinking at the thought of exactly what Lucien knew. How he knew. “You’ve spoken to Lionel Jenkins.” It was an accusation, not a question.

  Lucien’s expression remained coolly impassive. “I made a few telephone calls, yes, once I knew you were downstairs asking to see me,” he acknowledge derisively.

  Which explained why she had been kept waiting outside for so long.

  “Knowledge is power, Nicky,” he reminded her softly.

  Yes, it was. If that knowledge also happened to be the truth. But if it wasn’t, then it was just malicious gossip.

  She had no doubts that the things Lionel Jenkins would have told Lucien about her would have been exactly what the bastard had told everyone else at Jenkins, Simmons and Simmons. And all the other prospective employers Nicky had applied to since she’d had no choice but to leave her job: that she had kissed him, come on to him, and then threatened to tell his wife and family if he didn’t give her £10,000.

  It was all lies, of course. Every word of it.

  But not one of the people she worked with had been willing to back up her claim of innocence, even though she had found out since that Lionel Jenkins had blackmailed other female employees into having sex with him in order to keep their job.

  Nor had any of the prospective employers of this past month believed her denials of any misconduct on her part. Or her claim that Lionel Jenkins was the one who had tried to blackmail her, not the other way around.

  Probably because of who he was and who she was; Lionel Jenkins was the Senior Partner of the finance company Jenkins, Simmons, and Simmons, and Nicky was a nobody, without family or influential friends. And when it came down to it, it was basically Nicky’s word against his.

  Not that any of that mattered here and now. Not when it seemed Lucien had ensured he knew everything there was to know about that situation before she had even come up to this office on the penthouse floor.

  That knowledge was probably the only reason he had agreed to see her. She had walked out on him after telling him exactly what he could do with his offer of her becoming his mistress. No doubt he considered being able to watch her squirm now poetic justice.

  “I trust you’ve enjoyed your few moments of revenge, Mr. Wynter.” Nicky eyed him scathingly before turning on her heel and marching angrily to the door.

  “I may still want to fuck you, Nicky, but if you walk out that doorway right now you’ll never be allowed to walk back through it!”

  Nicky came to an abrupt halt several feet away from the door, her breathing ragged as she refused to allow the tears stinging her eyes to fall.

  She drew in several more deep breaths before turning. “I can’t think of any reason why I would ever want to do so.” Her chin was raised challengingly.

  He strolled unhurriedly across the room, not towards her, but to resume his seat behind that imposing marble desk, before answering her, those chiseled lips twisted derisively. “Possibly because, at this moment in time,” he drawled confidently as he looked at her across that shiny onyx-colored marble, “I’m the only person in the city currently willing to employ you.”

  Nicky didn’t trust this man, or his supposed offer of employment. And why should she, when Lucien Wynter had allowed her to totally humiliate herself today. First, by initially acting as if he didn’t recognize or know her, when he so clearly did. Second, by allowing her to grovel by asking for a job with his company, when he clearly had no intention of giving her one.

  Not one that she wanted to accept, anyway.

  Her chin rose even higher. “Go screw yourself, Mr. Wynter.”

  “I’m only going to say this once more, Nicky, so my advice to you is to listen very carefully.” The very quietness of Lucien’s voice cracked across the room with the painful force of a whip. “I may have allowed you to walk out on me once, but—”

  “You didn’t allow me to do anything—”

  “—if you walk out on me in anger again,” he continued icily, “I promise you I will never agree to see or speak with you again.”

  Pride warred with necessity inside Nicky.

  She didn’t trust this man.

  Just as she hated the effect he had on her. Even now, her traitorous body was responding, becoming ultra-sensitive, to his every word.

  A response he admitted to sharing—if saying he wanted to ‘fuck’ her could be classified as such.

  “Not even if you were to beg, Nicky.”

  Her chin rose. “I would never beg you for anything—” She broke off as he raised mocking brows, her cheeks heating as she remembere
d that she had begun to beg for release in Petruccio’s. “I am not interested in becoming your mistress, Mr.— ”

  “Maybe you should wait until you’re asked before turning me down?”

  “I’m just letting you know that, not even in your dreams, will I ever consider becoming your mistress!” He was tying Nicky up in knots with his taunting and teasing.

  Lucien wasn’t sure Nicky was ready to hear about the dreams he’d had about her.

  He had surprised even himself with those graphic images. Nicky lying naked on her back, stretched across his conference table like a sacrificial offering. Nicky bent over that same table, her pretty backside raised invitingly. Nicky on the floor on her hands and knees. And always—always—with his cock buried to the hilt in her grasping, clasping pussy.

  Even more incredible, on several occasions Lucien had woken in the morning to find his sheets damp from his own release. Something he hadn’t done—hadn’t felt the necessity to do—since he was in his teens.

  The vividness of those dreams had faded as the weeks, and then months, passed. Only for them to blaze back into full, technicolored life the moment Nicky McKenzie walked into his office.

  To his annoyance, if Lucien was honest with himself. And he always made a point of being that, at least.

  He didn’t want to desire any woman in the way that he apparently still wanted Nicky McKenzie. It was the sort of complication, attachment, he usually—always—avoided.

  This building, his office, his apartment, was his fortress. With his cousin Dair in charge of security there was no way anyone would get in here if the other man didn’t want them to. And for that, read if Lucien didn’t want them to.

  But the moment Dair had phoned and informed him that Nicky McKenzie was downstairs, asking to see him, Lucien had known he was going to agree to see her again.

  If only to know if she still had the same effect on him.

  She did.

  His jaw tightened. “So, Nicky, are you going to tell me what really happened between you and Lionel Jenkins, or are you just going to run away again?”

  No matter what Lucien might think to the contrary, Nicky knew she had only ever run away once in her life, and he didn’t scare her half as much as the people who had been chasing her then. The same people who she had no doubts were still looking for Felicity Bennett...

  She gave a dismissive shake of her head. “You really aren’t that scary, Mr. Wynter.”

  “No?” He arched mocking brows.

  “No,” Nicky assured him. Lucien might be able to seduce her at a glance, but the man her father had double-crossed was capable of burying her body where no one would ever find it. At least, his paid thugs were: she very much doubted that Jack Montgomery ever bothered dirtying his own hands with such tasks. Why should he, when he paid people to do it for him?

  “I would have thought Lionel Jenkins would be a perfect fit for that ‘rich old man’, your friend once referred to, in regard to your becoming his mistress just so he could keep you and pay off all your debts?” Lucien arched one dark brow.

  Nicky gave a pained wince as she realized how accurately Lionel Jenkins’ might fit in with that conversation Lucien had overheard. “Chrissie was only joking that day in the coffee shop,” she dismissed irritably. “And Lionel Jenkins’ claim that I tried to blackmail him is a complete fabrication—”

  “You tried to blackmail him?”

  “I just said that I didn’t,” she held on to her temper with difficulty. “Whatever lies he told you, I didn’t, nor would I ever, try to blackmail anyone. He was the one who threatened me, not the other way around!”

  “Nicky, I haven’t spoken to Lionel Jenkins, nor do I intend to do so,” Lucien sounded bored now.

  “Then one of your minions spoke to him, possibly the cool blonde outside—”

  “I don’t allow my ‘minions’ to talk to men like Lionel Jenkins either.”

  “My God...” Nicky gave an incredulous laugh as she stared at him. “You really do consider yourself to be king of all you survey, don’t you?”

  “If I did then I’d have you on your knees in front of me right now,” he drawled derisively. “But the truth is,” he continued over Nicky’s outraged gasp, “all of my employees sign a contract that contains a confidentiality clause. It prohibits them from discussing me, and this company, or associating with any and all of my competitors. Jenkins believes himself to be of the latter category.” His top lip curled back to show that he didn’t agree with that assessment.

  Nicky could almost—almost—have liked Lucien at that moment. If he hadn’t been quite so outrageous just seconds before.

  “So, what really happened, Nicky?” Lucien leaned back against the black leather seat as he studied her through narrowed lids.

  She eyed him uncertainly. “You’re willing to believe my version of what happened and not his?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t believe you’ve ever lied to me. On the contrary, you’ve always been brutally honest,” he added derisively.

  It was true, Nicky hadn’t lied to Lucien. Not directly. Except that her whole life was a lie. Including the name he knew her by...

  But her past had no bearing on this present conversation.

  “Whereas Lionel Jenkins has something of a reputation where his female employees are concerned.” Lucien’s top lip curled back again with disgust. “He’s just too powerful in the city for most people to challenge him on it.”

  “But not you?”

  “Not me,” Lucien confirmed hardly. “What did he do, Nicky? Try to put his hand down your bra? Your panties? Or maybe both of those things?”

  “This must all seem so trivial to you,” she accused emotionally. “Just one of the perks of being the boss? A little harmless groping of the hired help?”

  Lucien very much doubted Nicky would be saying that if she could see the way his hands were clenched into fists beneath his desk. He didn’t share, and no one touched what he considered to be his.

  And Nicky may not know it yet—may not be willing to acknowledge it yet, Lucien corrected, as he recalled the trembling of her body just minutes ago when he had been standing so close behind her they were almost touching—but Lucien had decided she was going to be his.

  Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow either. But she had walked willingly back into his life, for whatever reason, and by doing so she was going to be his.

  The anticipation would only make her eventual surrender all the sweeter.

  Which was an odd thing for him to think, because he wasn’t usually a man who enjoyed delayed sexual gratification. Wasn’t a man who usually allowed delayed sexual gratification.

  Except he had a feeling that Nicky was going to be worth every minute of that frustrating wait.

  Maybe he was even taking a perverse satisfaction in it?

  If that’s what it was, it now allowed him to sit unmoving, silent, as he waited for Nicky to speak again.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Except it isn’t harmless,” Nicky continued angrily, those dark brown eyes aglow with that emotion. “I’m a person, not an object. And I get to choose who touches me.”

  Lucien’s jaw clenched. “You still haven’t told me where he touched you?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Where, Nicky?”

  She eyed Lucien warily, disconcerted by the steel she could now hear in his tone. “On my bottom a couple of times. And my breasts that last time when he tried to kiss me.”

  “Did he succeed in kissing you?”

  “No!”

  “So you didn’t go to bed with him?”

  “Of course I didn’t go to bed with him!” She glared. “He wanted me to, and when I refused he—he gave me two days to think it over, said that if I didn’t agree to have sex with him at the end of those two days, then I could look for another job.”

  Lucien could feel a nerve pulsing in his cheeks as he listened to Nicky talking. Yes, he was a man who knew what he wanted, an
d he always went for it, but he had never ever used force to achieve it. That was his father’s forte, not his. Ever.

  Although he couldn’t help wishing at this moment that it was; a couple of broken fingers might make Lionel Jenkins think twice before he attempted to blackmail one of his young and pretty female employees again.

  But there were other, more subtle ways of payback than resorting to physical violence.

  He nodded coolly at Nicky. “So you walked.”

  “Yes, I walked!” Nicky hated that he was so calm, so cold, when she was so obviously upset.

  But why shouldn’t Lucien be calm and cold? None of this had happened to him. And it never would. Because he was billionaire Lucien Wynter—

  “When?”

  She blinked. “When what?”

  “When did you walk?”

  Nicky gave an impatient shake of her head. “What does it matter when it happened?”

  “Obviously it matters to me or I wouldn’t have asked,” Lucien answered in that infuriatingly calm voice.

  “I…a month ago.” She couldn’t quite meet his gaze as she made the admission. “I’ve been trying to find a new job ever since. But every time I manage to get as far the interview stage, they contact Jenkins, Simmons and Simmons for a reference, and Lionel Jenkins—” she broke off abruptly as she realized that those cool eyes had become glacial in the past few minutes. “I don’t mean this to sound as if I came to you as a last resort—”

  “Even if you did?” Lucien came back evenly.

  She winced. “I just assumed, after the last time the two of us were together, and the way in which we parted—”

  “When you walked out on me, you mean?”

  Nicky nodded. “I wasn’t even sure you would even agree to see me again and—I’m just making this worse, aren’t I?” she groaned.

  Lucien raised dark brows. “Not at all. I’m just surprised that any woman might consider me as being her champion: the White Knight, riding to the rescue just in the nick of time! The novelty value alone is amusing.” He didn’t look particularly amused. “Or perhaps it was just a case of ‘the devil you know’?” he drawled mockingly—no doubt as another reference to the remark she had once hurled at him.