“What? I don’t know who you-.”
“-The man,” he says sharply. “This ex of yours. The one you lost.”
“Who? Richard?”
“If that is his name.”
“Why would you think I’m crying over a man.”
A sensual curve forms on his lips. “To weep and run and not want anyone to see you - to be afraid of what they might think if they see you react this way. Something that powerful and humiliating can only be over love.”
I let out a little laugh, but it’s sombre and full of pain.
“I’ve just had the worst day,” I say. “I went to the gym, as you can see.” I swish my hand out, as if presenting my sweatpants dressed body to him like department store mannequin. “I thought about losing some weight, maybe getting fitter, but the people there... I went home, and I don’t know if Liz, my roommate, if she thought I was going to be out longer or at the store or work or something, but I came back home earlier than she thought and...”
“And?”
“...And found her and my boyfriend. On the sofa. Really not being discreet at all.”
Chase brushes my arm with his palm. His other hand comes to rest on my shoulder. “I’m very sorry.”
Is this sympathy he’s showing me?
It’s so unexpected.
His hand leaves my arm and cups my cheek. A spark thunders from the touch of his fingertips and rushes through my body.
I lift my head and stare deeply into his dark green eyes. I feel adrift in an ocean of emeralds, lost and searching for something I can’t name but I know in my deepest thoughts is there.
The lightning touch still pervades my body, like a whirlwind sweeping across my skin and burning every inch with an intense heat, all the way from my parted lips down to my nipples pebbling beneath my bra and to below my waist.
“I can’t understand why a man would do that to someone like you,” he says.
“Someone like me?”
“A beautiful young woman,” he says, almost in surprise.
He called me beautiful. Me? It must be a joke or a game he’s playing. You don’t live my life if you’re a beautiful woman - you live it if you’re plain and ordinary and weathering every day until the next one starts.
“Now who’s lying?” I say, a note of hurt in my voice. I knew Chase was powerful, but I never thought he was cruel.
He frowns. “I am not lying.”
“Yes, you are. I’m not beautiful. I’m not one those people, and I know it. And I’m not that clever and I try to lose weight but it’s just so hard, and for you to stand there and tell me otherwise... It’s cruel. And it’s patronising. And, quite frankly, Mr. Strong, it’s disgusting.”
He stands over me, a face like stone.
The lump in my throat has grown to the size of a wrecking ball.
I just told off my boss. Worse, I called him names and insinuated he was a horrible horrible person. I am such an idiot. No job, no boyfriend, no best friend.
“I’ll get my things,” I say.
I try to turn away to leave, but his hand grabs my arm and stops me. He spins me around and stares down at my misery ridden face.
“Well, aren’t you an interesting one,” he says. “I complement you and you resign? I can’t say I saw that one coming.”
Interesting. My heart leaps for a moment, filled with the connotations of the word: engaging, exciting, arousing curiosity. But then it comes crashing back down to Earth when I realise what he probably meant: strange, weird, peculiar. It’s the sort of thing my father would say.
“Melody. I’m not firing you.”
I glimmer with hope. “I’m not?”
“Do you want to be fired?”
“No!” I say. “Definitely definitely not.”
“Good.”
“But why? I mean, I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything - not that I’m saying you’re a horse, but...” My mouth feels uncontrollable. I beg my brain for my lips to stop moving, but the longer he says nothing, the more I can’t help prattling on. “I’m not meant to be in your office and I’m crying and avoiding and lying-.”
“So we’re agreed,” he says. “A fitting act of discipline is in order.”
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean... please. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I beg you.”
He smiles. “Melody, if you don’t perform the penalty then I’ll have to consider more drastic means of discipline.”
“No, I’ll do it. Whatever it is, I’ll do it. What is it - working late? The file room? Restocking water bottles in the studio?”
“You are going to accompany me to the Wiltshire Charity Ball tonight.”
My eyes widen, my mouth agape. “I’m....I’m what?”
He leans in closer and my body lights up like an inferno.
“You, Melody Watts, are going to be my date.”
I’m stuck to the floor, paralysed in disbelief. Chase Strong is the most ungodly handsome man I’ve ever seen. He could have any gorgeous women he wanted across the entire globe, and, if the rumours were true, he’d had a great deal of them. He’d had movie stars and pop princesses, lingerie models and magazine beauties. What could he possibly want with me?
“A horrible punishment, is it not?” he says dryly.
“Why are you doing this?” I blurt out. “Is it a joke or a game?”
He bears down on me, his face not moving an inch. He’s so gorgeous that I find it impossible to think straight.
“I like to think it’s for the charity,” he says.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Exclusively.”
“You don’t want me,” I say. “This is the Wiltshire Ball. It’s, like, the biggest event of the seasons, no - the year. Everyone will be there - the press, the mayor, all those pop stars on your label. You can have any woman.”
“I don’t want any woman. I want you.”
I want you.
That what he said.
I want you.
How could only three little words make my heart pound against my chest and fill my stomach with butterflies?
“But what about your girlfriend?” I ask.
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“But, but I thought you were dating Mercedes Bell?”
“I’m not.” His voice is terse. “Not anymore.”
I raise my head to look up at him and bite my lip. He’s lying, or at least he’s not telling me everything. I knew he was going out with Mercedes Bell. I’d seen paparazzi pics from the weekend issue of Celeb magazine, both of them arm in arm in LA, on the last stop of her world tour.
He’s lying to me and it drives me crazy, but does that make me a hypocrite?
The cloud of danger sits between us like a dense mist.
If he knew who I was - who I really was - I’d lose more than my job. I’d get dragged into court, maybe even have criminal charges filed against me.
I can’t go with him to this ball. It’s stupid and self-destructive. Every second I’m in Chase Strong’s company, I’m a second closer to being found out and having my life destroyed.
“No,” I say.
“No? What do you mean no?”, he says, shock painting every syllable.
“Work, I have work to do, and-.”
“Stop lying to me.” He grits his teeth.
Stop lying? Lying is all I have left. There are so many reasons I should say no - how I’m the daughter of a man he bitterly hates more than anything. How I’m the sister to his biggest and most despised rival. How his presence is so powerful and dominating and purely masculine that it terrifies me at the deepest level. How every moment I’m with him makes my body shiver and pour with sweat and burn hotter than the sun.
No man has ever had this effect on me. It’s scary and frightening and all I can think to do is flee.
“Is it your boyfriend?” he asks.
“Uh, yes,” I stammer out. “He...he’s going to be there, at the ball. Tonight.” I sigh. “With my
roommate. I can’t face them, not together.”
Chase’s eyes fill with anger. “This man, do I know him? Does he work for me?”
“He’s a cover designer. He works in the art department.”
“Makes little drawings for my CDs, does he?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm.” He muses, scratching his chin. “Then he’s bound to be stricken with jealous rage when he sees you dressed like a princess and on my arm.”
“You...you think so?”
“Of course. I am a powerful man, who makes it my sworn duty to possess anything of great value. To see I have chosen you, he’ll come to you on his knees and beg. And this woman of his, she’ll see me as your date and her jealousy will consume her.”
“Wow. You think quite a lot about yourself, don’t you?”
“I’ve never had any reason to question it.”
He’s right. I hate to admit it, but if I went as the date to the Chase Strong - I’d be the most envied woman in the state. Maybe even the country.
And if it caused Richard and Liz to be filled with jealousy then it would be even sweeter. All the times I’d left them alone in the apartment, begging Liz to look after Richard for an hour here and there whilst I worked late, and she was too polite to say no.
All this time, I thought she was doing it as my friend. Not as a rival.
And then, for them to betray me like they did, and who knows how often it’s been going on...
I have no one, now.
No one except Chase.
“I can’t dance,” I say.
His scans me with his intense gaze. “Impossible. Look at you.”
“When I used to have singing lessons, I had one teacher who was so adamant about being able to dance as well, like a singing dancing all package deal. The singing I always loved, still do...but the dancing... If I get on that floor, I’m going to be treading all over your feet. All my past boyfriends certainly complained.”
His smile reappeared. “You just haven’t had a man who was able to lead.”
“Maybe,” I murmur. “But when that many guys-“
“How many?” he interrupts.
“I’m sorry?”
“How many boyfriends has there been?”
“I don’t think...”
“You’re a young woman. Nineteen, at a guess.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“I find it hard to believe that such a young lady as yourself would have had that many boyfriends. How many? Eight? Ten?”
I couldn’t tell Chase my number. This man is so suave he thinks ten is a small number.
“Three,” I say.
“Only three?”
“Well, technically four, but one was Jim Jonson, the neighbour’s kid, when I was five, so I didn’t think that really counted. Plus, we only went out for an hour before he broke my Barbie.”
Chase lets out a light chuckle. “And the others?”
“One guy in high school, lasted a week. Then a guy in college. Four days. And then Richard. Which has...had been three months. Until he...you know.” My cheeks burn red.
“Betrayed you and broke your heart?”
“Something like that.”
He takes in a sharp breath. “So, you sing?”
“Yeah, since I was a kid.” A full smile beams across my face.
“How fortunate. The charity organisers wanted me to coral a woman from the label’s talent pool to sing a number to the guests. I had someone booked but she...she wasn’t able to make it. Maybe you could take her place?”
“Oh no, not in public. No way.”
His face softens. I expect him to ask further questions but he lets the matter slide.
“You own a record label, I mean, can’t you get someone else to sing?”
“Not at such a late hour.”
“What about yourself?”
“I don’t sing,” he says, tersely.
“But I read in Celeb magazine that you used to do karaoke before you started up-.”
“I don’t sing.”
I shut up. His face is hard and his eyes sharp.
“It’s the donations, I care about,” he says. “Not some silly singing. If you can’t do it, then the matter is irrelevant.”
The look on his face - I find it impossible to reconcile how this man who I have read so much about singing in his past, this playboy heart throb who woos the finest girls and is CEO of a record label for nearly a decade, could refuse to sing. And at his own charity function of all things. I just doesn’t make any sense.
“Enough talk,” he says at last. “Let us go.” He grabs my arm and tries to pull me away.
The effect he has on my body is mind-blowing. Just a touch and a shiver ripples through me.
I gulp and back away.
“I still don’t get it,” I say.
“Get what?”
“Why me? You never said why you want to take some silly little admin clerk nobody with you. You’re really really famous. And rich. And sexy. Why do you want me?”
Chase lets out a baritone laugh. “You know, no one has every asked me why I wanted them before. You really are interesting, Melody.” He wanders over to a hidden closet nestled in the wooden panel underneath a large impressionist painting. “Very interesting, indeed.”
He pulls out an immaculately pressed tuxedo, even more beautiful than the one he’s wearing. He replaces his current tuxedo with the new one, taking extra care over the cufflinks, his hands sensually moving up and down those thick wrists.
After the first cufflink, he turns to me.
“I also lost my date,” he says. “I believe you know Ms. Bell?”
“I...uh...yes. Not personally, obviously. But I’ve seen her on TV.”
I didn’t want to say anymore. She was everything a man could want in a woman - gorgeous, thin, famous, with the sort of blond locks that curl at the shoulders like a 50s Hollywood beauty.
“She’s nothing like me,” I say, my eyes on the floor.
“Exactly. Imagine the look in her eyes when she sees you as my date? If she thought she could order me around like some silly little lapdog, she’s got a lot to learn. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get back at her, but finding you here in my office... it was meant to be.”
“You want to use me?”
His powerful body marches over to the desk and takes my hand in his own. His other hand cups my cheek and lifts my head so our eyes lock.
“Like you will be using me,” he says. “We’re both after revenge and we’ll both achieve that revenge by being on one another’s arm. It’s perfect.”
“I’m not sure.”
“No need to hesitate. Tonight you shall be my princess. Before the night is over, this Richard will be on his knees and begging you to forgive him.”
A shock roars through my body.
He called me a princess.
But it’s revenge, and I may be hurting and depressed and feeling sorry for myself, but I know deep down how wrong this is. But I want these feelings to be over because, more than anything, I’m just exhausted from crying.
Maybe Chase is the key? Maybe what he promises is the elixir to my problems? But the way he makes me feel is so conflicting - being this close to him makes me feel like I’m caught in a spell, full of wonder and admiration. But then part of me is petrified of him and every minute I remain in his company, I know he gets closer to finding out the truth.
Damn it. How can I feel this way?
“You’re in love with him,” says Chase.
“What? No, it’s just, this whole idea, I don’t feel comfortable playing with people’s emotions like that.”
He nods. “I’ve had my eye on you for a while now,” he says.
My lips part. “You’ve been spying on me?”
“Think of it more as observing. Every other woman here makes it a point to bump into me and ask for advice and knowledge. They think it’s going to make me want them, but they’re nothing but sycophants. They’d cheat on
their husbands and partners in a second if I offered them what I’m offering you. Yet you resist. Loyalty is a very impressive quality in a person. And such a person does not deserve a man who would betray them so easily.”
His eyes are locked to mine. One hand brushes down the back of my neck and over my shoulder. I’m paralysed by his gaze.
“But, again, this is another irrelevancy. Our romance will be nothing but a sham. A magic trick to control the audience. After tonight, it will be as if we never said one word to another - no phone calls, no dates, no dinner. You will revert back to being my invisible employee and I’ll return to being your boss. It is for one night only."
I dry swallow. His touch is electrifying, his fingers now tracing my skin. “You’ll forget I ever existed?”
“Completely. It will be as if we never met. And we never will.”
This is perfect. If I can get Chase to forget I ever existed then there’s no way he’ll figure out the truth about my family.
There’d be no reason for him to look into my colorful job application and see all the holes.
I’d finally be able to flee.
Go on. Runaway. It’s all you ever do.
Richard’s voice is in my head. God, he was such a bastard this morning. How could he say such hurtful things?
You tell me that your singing is your world, but every time I’ve tried to get you a gig or an agent, you’ve lied and avoided and run away like a scared little girl. I thought you wanted to spend time with me, but you’d rather be by yourself. Either you never wanted me and you never wanted to sing, or you’re nothing but a coward.
It’s been nearly twelve hours, but his words still sting.
There was no truth in them. He was just trying to hurt me. He just wanted to cover up his affair with Liz and feel big and powerful.
I did nothing wrong.
How dare he think he could talk to me like that?
A renewed vigor courses through my body.
I’m going to make Richard eat those words. All I’ve ever wanted is to be one of those women you see out there, dancing and carefree, laissez-faire and dressed in the most beautiful of clothes, laughing and singing and loving every second of life.
All in the arms of the most wanted man in the country.
I’m not a coward. And if not being a coward takes someone who’s ruthless and brave, then I’m going to take lessons from the best.
Perfect Harmony Page 2
