Cherish Hard (Hard Play #1)

by Nalini Singh

  How was she supposed to let down her guard around a man who liked Cody?

  A man who’d seen what Cody had done to her and still called him a friend.

  That infuriated her the most.

  But at this instant, it wasn’t Sailor who was the focus of her temper.

  “She’s got someone with her.” James physically got in her way, having clearly read her mood and figured out where she was headed.

  He wasn’t a big man, and Ísa was pretty sure she could take him, but she reminded herself that James wasn’t responsible for this, that it was Jacqueline who deserved to be at the other end of Ísa’s volcanic rage.

  “Not one of us,” James added with a mischievous cast to his expression. “Possible contractor, Ginny thinks. Gorgeous as hell, killer blue eyes.”

  Ísa hated gorgeous men right now. Especially ones with blue eyes.

  Fisting her hand by her side, the cotton of her floral summer dress brushing against her knuckles, she said, “I’ll go up and wait” through teeth it took her conscious effort not to grit. “It won’t take me long to say what I have to say.”

  Running up the steps before James could find a way to delay her any further to give her temper a chance to cool—Ísa did not want a cool head right now—she was mentally eviscerating her mother when she took a step up and almost crashed into a big man in a dark gray suit, his shirt a vivid blue.

  “I’m so sorry,” she began… and then the hot, masculine scent of him punched into her system and her eyes met his.

  Blue, so very blue. “Hello, little rabbit.”

  Her heart stuttered, her entire body motionless. So convinced was she that she was hallucinating that she reached out and poked him in the chest. “You’re real,” she said, her brain struggling to shift gears.

  Eyes glinting dangerously, he grabbed hold of her wrist, the grip steely. “Just as real as I was when you were wrapped around me, all slippery wet and naked.” He smelled like soap and aftershave today, but below that was a raw earthiness that was just him.

  Her lips parted, her skin flushed, and—

  An elevator dinged in the distance.

  Ísa’s brain came to a screeching halt, the gear set firmly on FURY. “What,” she said in a tone as frigid as she could make it despite the erotic heat low in her belly, “are you doing here?” The only mercy was that this part of the staircase was hidden from view by the curve of the wall. Two steps in either direction and they’d be back in public view.

  “Had a meeting with your mother,” said the a six-foot-plus symbol of Ísa’s terrible instincts. “Landscaping contract.” A tug on her wrist. “But we have something else to discuss, Ms. I’ll Call You When I Get Home.” He actually had the nerve to sound as if she was the one in the wrong.

  Ísa gave in. She kicked him right in the shin with the pointy tip of her kitten-heeled shoe.

  Wincing, he glared at her. “I bought handcuffs especially for you. Obviously I need to get leg cuffs too.” He’d backed her up against the wall before she realized what he was doing.

  Too furious to worry about someone coming up or down the stairs, she narrowed her eyes. “How’s Cody?”

  His expression turned to granite. “What Cody did that night,” he said, proving he remembered the entire ugly incident, “was an asshole thing to do, but then that’s who he is. Someone needs to teach him a lesson.”

  “Right”—Ísa barely resisted the urge to kick his other shin—“as if you two aren’t creepy best buds.”

  “Spitfire, I was a sixteen-year-old kid who managed to get into a college party.” He pressed his weight into her body, as if reading her violent thoughts on her face. “Cody was just some guy.”

  Wait, what? Sixteen?

  “How old are you?” she said through a bone-dry throat.

  A wicked grin. “Younger than you. You be my cougar, I’ll be your boy toy.”

  She was going to strangle him, honest to God. Now he was playing with her, as if everything was hunky dory. “Are you seriously asking me to believe you two aren’t buddies now? I saw a photo of you at a rugby game.”

  A blank look. “We play for different clubs. I was probably saying thanks for the game. Doesn’t mean I can stand the guy. My parents brought me up to be a good sportsman.”

  Ísa wasn’t ready to let go of her fury. “Right,” she said in a tone that called him a liar. “That’s why you didn’t mention that night when we first met.”

  Thunderclouds across his face. “I didn’t make the connection then,” he said, his voice ominous. “And as for that…” He gripped his chin, rubbed in mock thoughtfulness. “I do believe I was innocently going about my work when a certain redhead decided to use me to scratch an itch. She didn’t seem interested in introductions or talking.”

  He refused to let her break the demanding eye contact.

  “You weren’t innocently working,” Ísa said desperately because he’d just smashed her defenses to pieces. “You were doing a striptease!”

  Pressing his forehead to hers, Sailor ran the pad of his thumb over the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. “Are you saying I set you up by taking off my shirt? That you were rendered helpless by my manly physique? If so…” A slow smile. “I’ll take it.”

  He smelled far too good, and she was losing the thread of why she’d been so furious with him. “You really don’t stay in touch with Cody?” she found herself saying.

  “He’s not my kind.” Open disgust in his words. “Can’t avoid the guy totally though since he plays rugby in the same social league as me.”

  It was no surprise that this strong, physical man would play a game that involved bruising tackles and hard runs.

  A strong, physical man who was twenty-freaking-three!

  Ísa wasn’t into robbing the cradle. Or following her father’s example into multiple marriages with increasingly youthful lovers. “I have to go. If you could please get out of my way, I need to speak to Jacqueline before her next appointment arrives.”

  He didn’t move so much as an inch, his body a heated wall of muscle that taunted her. “That’s it? You just use me and discard me?”

  “You weren’t exactly complaining.” Neither was he acting his age—no one five years younger than Ísa should be this self-assured.

  “I was expecting flowers or maybe a goodbye kiss,” was the unrepentant response.

  Deciding he’d deserved that kick even if he wasn’t guilty of being a slimeball by association, Ísa shoved at his chest. “I’ll buy you pink carnations from the gas station. Now let me go, you rugby-playing lunkhead. I need to catch Jacqueline.”

  Chuckling, he finally lifted away, his fingers unclasping her wrist after one last, teasing brush. “You need better insults, spitfire. Don’t worry, I have a whole catalog for you to study from.”

  “I won’t be seeing you again,” Ísa said firmly over Devil Ísa’s loud protests. “I don’t cradle-snatch.”

  “I haven’t been a baby for a while.” No playfulness this time, just that intense self-possession she’d already noted.

  Her hand closed on the stair railing. “I have to go.” She matched action to words.

  “Hey,” he called up in a quiet voice meant for her alone. “Don’t forget my name. It’s Sailor. Just in case you need to know it for the next time I take off my shirt and you feel the urge to accost me.” A smile that told her they weren’t done yet. “See you soon, beautiful.”

  Ísa had to pause at the very top of the stairs and consciously remember the reason she’d come to the office. Fury poured through her anew the instant she did. Holding on to that fury because she simply didn’t have the emotional capacity to process Sailor right now, she stormed over to confront the Dragon.

  It only made her angrier when she was brought to a premature halt by the security door beyond which lay the inner sanctum, the stupid keycard lost somewhere inside her satchel.

  Where was the damn—

  Fingers closing over the cool, hard plastic, she pulled i
t out and flashed it across the reader.

  Ginny and Annalisa were talking at Annalisa’s desk.

  Taking one look at her, Annalisa said, “I can get you ten minutes.” A glance at her fellow assistant. “Ginny? Doable for you?”

  The other woman nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll get the next appointment a fancy coffee and keep him entertained by making him glue together a random crafty thing.”

  “Thanks, Ginny, Annalisa.” Striding into her mother’s office without knocking, Ísa closed the door behind herself.

  Neither Ginny nor Annalisa would breathe a word of anything they overheard, but this was family business and the two assistants didn’t need to get caught in the cross fire between a dragon and the daughter she expected to be her ruthless reflection.

  Jacqueline looked up, a stunning woman dressed in a long-sleeved shirt of dark green that flowed like liquid over her body. While Ísa couldn’t see her lower half, it was a good bet that she wore a fitted pencil skirt in black, high heels of the same shade on her feet.

  “Ah, Ísa.” A gleam in her eye. “I wondered when you’d come in, the vanquishing Valkyrie.”

  “I knew it!” Ísa could feel steam escaping from her ears. “You planned this!” It was the motivation behind Jacqueline’s manipulative actions that Ísa couldn’t figure out—because while Jacqueline was no maternal tigress, she’d also never been cruel. “How could you do this to Harlow?”

  “You know why.” Jacqueline tapped the gleaming gold and black of her Montblanc fountain pen on the edge of her desk as she leaned back in her executive chair. “I don’t want to give the boy any false ideas.”

  “The boy is your stepson.” He also happened to think Jacqueline was the most wonderful human being on the planet.

  Otherwise-brilliant Harlow had a giant blind spot on the subject of Jacqueline Rain.

  The situation was exacerbated by the fact Harlow’s biological parents had both remarried: for the third time when it came to his father, and for the second time when it came to his mother. Each had created a brand-new family with their spouse, complete with adorable children under five years of age. Harlow had been left in the middle, forgotten and left to fend for himself when it came to the kind of emotional support a parent was meant to provide.

  “Look,” Jacqueline responded in a crisp tone, “Harlow is a highly intelligent young man, I agree. I also happen to like him more than I do many other people in this world, which is why I continue to stay in touch with him regardless of my divorce from his father. However, he doesn’t have my or Stefán’s killer instinct. You, on the other hand, have both.”

  A pleased smile on her face. “Your father and I might not have worked as a couple, but we did our best work in creating you. You’ll build a bigger empire than either one of us.”

  Ísa threw up her hands. “I don’t have the killer instinct! Of either variety!” She also had zero interest in building empires.

  But this wasn’t about her needs or wants.

  Pressing her hands on the aged wood of the desk, she stared down at Jacqueline. “You know Harlow is determined to go into the business world—it’s all he talks about when he talks of his future.”

  Ísa’s teenaged stepbrother might’ve only officially been part of Jacqueline’s family for two years, but those two years had had a huge impact on his psyche. “He also admires you beyond any other adult in his life.” The force of Harlow’s worship was a shining glow. “He wants to be you.”

  “Harlow’s only seventeen.” Putting down her pen, Jacqueline rose to walk around and brace her hip against the side of her desk, causing Ísa to push off the desk and put several feet between them.

  She didn’t trust herself not to strangle her mother right now.

  “And, quite frankly,” Jacqueline continued, “I can’t see it—the boy is great at making robots and writing code, but running a business requires an entirely different skill set.”

  “He can learn.” Ísa waved the flat of her hand to cut off Jacqueline’s reply.

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed… before a smile curved her lips. “You see? The killer instinct.”

  Ísa’s hands itched to wrap themselves around Jacqueline’s swanlike neck. “One thing you can’t deny,” she said instead of giving in to her homicidal instincts, “Harlow won the internship fair and square.”

  The summer internship at Crafty Corners was hotly contested among high school students—her stepbrother had submitted his application under a pseudonym and done a phone interview so as to avoid any accusations of favoritism. “You chose him as the winning candidate.” Only to reverse her decision once she discovered his real identity.

  The one bright spot in all this was that no notifications had been made. Jacqueline hadn’t yet broken Harlow’s hopeful heart.

  “I see I’ll have to talk to Ginny again,” her mother responded a little too casually.

  “Why?” Instincts spiking to code-red status, Ísa folded her arms. “You told her to trust me like she’d trust you.”

  Jacqueline’s smile became that of a dragon, full of teeth. “Take on the vice president position and you can do whatever you want with the internship program. Until then, I make the calls, and I have no intention of granting Harlow the position.”

  Check and mate.

  14

  Criminal Acts… and a Well-Deserved Punch to a Smug Face

  ÍSA REALIZED SHE’D BEEN MASTERFULLY played.

  This had been Jacqueline’s plan all along. But if there was one thing Jacqueline Rain had done well as a parent, it was to raise a daughter who was no pushover. “Trying to mold me into a cutthroat businesswoman will just leave you with the migraine to end all migraines,” she pointed out without budging from her spot. “I don’t have the head or the desire for it.”

  “You have the head,” Jacqueline countered. “I made sure of that. As for the desire, we both know teaching was your rebellion against my lack of maternal instincts.”

  Ísa rolled her eyes. “Hate to break it to you, Mother, but the world doesn’t revolve around you.”

  “Whether it does or not,” Jacqueline said easily, “you only have two options at this point. Take the VP position and appoint Harlow as the intern, or don’t.”

  “You’re truly stooping to blackmail using your own stepson?”

  That dragonish smile returned. “It’s not blackmail, my dear. After all, I’ll be paying you a rather large sum of money for your services.”

  Ísa was surprised to realize she could still be taken aback by Jacqueline’s cold-blooded nature. “And you think I’m like you? You think I’d do this to a child of mine?” Ísa would love her child with fierce devotion—she’d have to be careful not to love too much, that was her problem.

  Ísa always loved too deeply, too openly once she let someone into her heart.

  “You’re very much like me, Ísalind,” Jacqueline said, her smile turning amused. “You might as well admit it. However, since you also inherited my stubbornness and won’t admit anything that might give me a psychological advantage, I’m going to show you.” She straightened. “I want you to see what you’re capable of, what you’re throwing away in your childish rebellion.”

  Ísa tried to think like a dragon—or like a man with demon-blue eyes and far too much confidence. “Aren’t you worried I’ll sabotage you from the inside?”

  “What I’ve built, this company, it’s a family legacy.” Unperturbed, Jacqueline crossed the carpet to Ísa. “You’d never do anything to harm that.”

  Unfortunately, her mother was right. Ísa had too much family loyalty running through her blood to destroy the company out of spite. Especially not when it was Harlow’s dream and might well one day help Catie achieve hers. “There are more senior people in the company.”

  “All of whom know this is a family operation—most of them helped train you through your teenage years. They’re all aware the VP position has always been yours.”

  That, too, was unfortunately true. Ísa
had been groomed to be her mother’s successor since childhood.

  “So, do we have a deal?” Jacqueline held out her hand. “I’ll give the boy a shot. In return, you take on the VP’s job and do it to the best of your ability.”

  “Only for the summer.”

  Jacqueline shook her head. “No.”

  “That’s my offer, take it or leave it.” Harlow would’ve proven himself by the end of that period, of that Ísa was certain—and what Catie needed, Jacqueline would never stint in providing. That was the thing with Jacqueline—she could, at times, have blood full of ice, but she’d also rewritten the rulebook for the entire company after Catie came out of the hospital.

  Many corporations talked the talk, but very few put their money where their mouth was. Crafty Corners, in contrast, did not ever operate out of—or hold external events in—any building that wasn’t fully accessible to all. That single change had wide-ranging implications, one of which was that employees weren’t cut off from the internal promotion track by default because they couldn’t physically make it to important briefings or networking opportunities.

  Staff also had access to company vehicles modified for use by people with disabilities, with a number specifically adapted for specific individuals who weren’t able to utilize the pool vehicles. It wasn’t unusual to find brail text next to printed text in places like the elevators, and all staff, from front line to senior executives, were expected to learn and understand sign language.

  That was only the tip of the iceberg.

  Jacqueline had a standing order that issues of access were to be referred straight to her for immediate remediation.

  All of that was public knowledge. But what only a handful of people knew was that Jacqueline sponsored a program that helped children and teenagers get back on the educational or training track after they’d lost months, possibly years, in a fight for their very lives.

  Maybe all that was why Ísa couldn’t just cut the bond between them. Because, despite appearances to the contrary, there was a speck of humanity inside the Dragon—a deeply, deeply hidden speck. Now that same dragon’s eyes glinted with unhidden pride, as if Ísa had made her day with her mutinous lack of cooperation.