‘Look, I may not have a heart, but I do have a brain and I’m not stupid. You didn’t come up here by accident, or to look at the view. You came to see what else you could steal—’
‘No.’ Her voice echoed around the empty office. ‘I did not.’
‘Yes, you did.’ The finality in his voice sent a warning chill through her. ‘As whatever you’ve got stashed in those pockets will no doubt demonstrate when we get downstairs.’
She gazed at him dumbly. Something had just hit her. A way to corroborate her story. Desperately she fumbled inside her apron and pulled out the watch.
‘I didn’t break in here to steal from you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I came to bring this back.’
If she’d been expecting flags and a parade, she would have been disappointed. Rollo barely glanced at the watch. Instead his eyes were fixed on her face.
‘That proves nothing. Or rather, given that it contradicts everything you’ve just said, it merely confirms that you’re a liar as well as a thief!’
Her hands were trembling. She felt almost giddy with anger. ‘I’m not a thief.’
He shrugged. ‘Unlike some people, I prefer to tell and hear the truth.’
‘In that case you’re a bully.’
‘Is that right?’ His shoulders rose and tensed.
‘Yes, it is. Ever since you walked through that door you’ve done nothing but make threats and try to intimidate me.’
A muscle flickered in his cheek, and then slowly he held out his phone.
‘So call the police,’ he said softly. ‘Go on. Call them.’
Her pulse gave a jerk. She had effectively backed herself into a corner, and he knew it. But watching his green eyes gleam triumphantly, his smug assumption that she would back down, flipped a switch inside her head. Stepping forward, she snatched the phone from his hand.
‘Fine. I will,’ she snarled. ‘At least that way I won’t have to spend any more time with you.’
‘Don’t be so bloody childish.’
There was a tension in his voice she hadn’t heard before.
‘I’m not being childish,’ she snapped. ‘You’re going to call them anyhow, so what does it matter?’
Their eyes locked—hers furiously defiant, his cool, opaque, dispassionate—and then her mouth curved scornfully.
‘Oh, I get it. You wanted to do it. So who’s being childish now?’
There was a small, tight silence.
Rollo took a slow, deep breath. His chest felt hot and taut. Her stubbornness was infuriating, and yet part of him couldn’t help admiring her. She was just so determined to keep fighting him—even to the point of making this crazy kamikaze gesture.
Glancing from her face to her tightly curled hands, he sighed. ‘You don’t want to do that, Daisy,’ he said at last.
‘You don’t know what I want. You don’t know anything about me or David.’
He met her gaze. ‘So tell me.’
Daisy stared at him in silence. Why was he offering her a chance to talk now? More than anything she wanted to hurl it back in his face. But already her anger was fading and picturing her brother waiting, wordless with terror downstairs, she took a shallow breath and lowered the phone.
‘Why?’ she said sulkily. ‘So you can use it against him.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘That depends on what you tell me. To date, all I know about your brother—aside from his penchant for expensive watches—is that he works in Acquisition and Development. And he’s tall and twitchy—’
‘He’s not twitchy. He’s just a bit nervous.’ She spoke defensively and instantly wished she hadn’t as he turned his penetrating, unsettling green gaze on her face.
‘Guilty people often are.’
There was no short or easy way to refute that statement, so instead she satisfied herself with giving him an icy glare.
‘He’s not some criminal mastermind. He’s shy, and he finds it difficult to make friends with people.’
‘He might find it easier if he didn’t steal from them,’ he said smoothly.
‘It was a mistake.’ Her voice rose with exasperation.
‘So you keep saying. But a mistake is when you forget to charge your phone. Not when you purposely steal something that doesn’t belong to you. That’s called theft.’
‘Not always.’ She looked him straight in the eye, her shoulders set high and pushed back as though for battle. ‘Sometimes it’s called “charging market rent.”’
Rollo gritted his teeth. Not in response to her confrontational remark but because he knew that this time she was telling the truth. David Maddox was clearly not a criminal mastermind. Which was why he’d requested a background check instead of just firing him.
It had taken less than half a day for a file to land on his desk, and the research had been thorough—health records, academic results and employment history. And one line noting the existence of a twin sister who also happened to work for the Fleming Organisation’s hospitality team.
Glancing across at her face, he felt his breath suddenly light and loose in his chest; he felt weightless, off balance, as though he’d been drinking. That was all she’d been. A line in a report. A name without a face.
But no words could ever have conveyed Daisy’s beauty and spirit. Or the way her eyes softened when she talked about her brother. Or that tiny crease she got on her forehead when she was digging in her heels.
His fingers twitched and suddenly, more than anything, he wanted to reach out and touch the curve of her cheek, then carry on touching, his fingers sliding over the soft skin of her throat, then lower still, to the swelling curves of her breasts and waist—
He felt his body jerk to life—muscles tightening, groin hardening.
Sitting watching the camera footage of her breaking into his office, he’d thought she was beautiful but greedy—a woman who didn’t believe the rules applied to her. And it had angered him so much that for reasons he didn’t want to examine, he’d broken with protocol and convinced his security team to let him deal with her personally.
Only now here she was, clutching his phone like an amulet to ward off evil, and he couldn’t seem to hold on to his anger. At least not the vindictive, punitive kind. Instead—and he really couldn’t explain why—he felt wound up, and almost irritated by her reckless stupidity.
Had she really thought she could get away with it?
Then she was not only foolhardy but utterly deluded; there was no way he would ever have fallen for her lies.
Except that he would have done.
His muscles tensed as the truth hit him square in the chest: if he hadn’t watched her breaking in he would have believed every word, trusted each hesitant glance. She would have had him eating out of her hand.
The thought should have repelled him, but instead he felt his pulse accelerate, the blood humming inside his head, as slowly, miraculously he realised that maybe—just maybe—he had found a way to change James Dunmore’s mind.
Gazing blandly over at her, he shrugged. ‘Obviously I’d love to hear your views on social housing some other time, but right now I think we should talk about you.’
There was a startled pause. She stared at him suspiciously. ‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m curious. What do you do when you’re not breaking into offices?’ he said softly.
‘Why do you care?’ she snapped. ‘You’ve clearly made up your mind that David and I are some of kind of Bonnie and Clyde. Nothing I say is going to change that.’
‘Try me,’ he said lazily. ‘I can’t say for sure that it’ll change anything. But what have you got to lose?’
Holding her breath, Daisy watched in mute fascination as he reached up and undid the top button of his shirt, tugging the dark green tie loose to reveal a triangle of sleek golden skin.
Angry, Rollo Fleming was formidable, but she was just starting to realise that anger was not the most effective weapon in his armoury. His charm was far more lethal. And when the chill and distance
left his voice he was at his most dangerous.
‘You said earlier you weren’t interested,’ she said stiffly.
‘And you said earlier I didn’t have a heart.’
His gaze rested on her face—cool, unblinking, unreadable—and her own heart skipped a beat.
‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m giving you an opportunity to redeem yourself. And David, of course.’
Rollo could see she was tempted by his words. He could read the conflict in her eyes, her distrust of him battling with her impulse to protect her brother. He waited, knowing the value of both silence and patience, until finally she sighed.
‘There’s not much to say. I’m twenty-five. I live with my brother, who’s my twin. And I’m a waitress.’ Her eyes flared. ‘Just a waitress. But not through choice. I’m actually an actress, only I’m between jobs at the moment.’
There was a sharp, complicated silence.
‘That’s it.’ She looked up defensively. ‘I told you there wasn’t much.’
Rollo studied her in silence. There was a flush of colour on her cheeks and her eyes were daring him to prove her right.
‘Depends on your definition of “much”,’ he said smoothly. ‘A half-point swing in my commodities portfolio could cost me millions of dollars.’
Daisy stared at him warily. Something was happening around her, silent and unseen.
She narrowed her eyes. ‘What do you want?’
The corners of his mouth curved upwards into a tiny satisfied smile.
‘Let’s just say that I think I’ve found a way for all of us to move on from this unfortunate incident.’
A fresh fear rose up inside her. ‘I’m not going to have sex with you, if that’s what you mean. I’d rather sell my kidneys!’
‘I believe the norm is only one.’ He stared at her impassively, his green gaze colder and harder than any emerald. ‘And don’t flatter yourself, Ms Maddox. I like a woman in handcuffs as much as the next man, but not when the only reason she’s wearing them is because she’s been arrested.’
She bit her tongue. ‘So what do you want, then?’
He scrutinised her for a long moment, almost as though he were trying to see through her or past her. It made her feel taut, trapped—vulnerable, a deer gazing into the headlights of an oncoming car.
Finally he smiled—a smile that tore the breath out of her.
‘I want you to be my wife,’ he said softly.
There was a moment of pure, absolute silence.
She gazed at him in shock, trying to catch up. The last few hours had proved unequivocally that Rollo was a cold-blooded megalomaniac, but now it appeared he was also utterly and irrefutably insane.
‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I think I must have misheard you. I thought you said—’
‘That I want you to be my wife.’ His eyes flickered over her stunned expression. ‘You heard correctly.’
Breathing out unsteadily, she lifted her hand to her forehead, as though to ward off the insanity of his suggestion.
‘What are you talking about?’ she managed.
It must be some kind of trick or trap—another way to make her look stupid and feel small. She stared wildly round the room, hoping to find some explanation. But turning back to meet his gaze she felt a shudder of alarm ripple over her skin.
He was being serious!
She stared at him incredulously.
‘You barely know me. And we hate each other. Why would you want to marry me?’
He paid no attention. ‘Why don’t you sit down and we can talk about it properly?’
He was just like a politician, she thought desperately. Answering a question with a question. Ignoring what he couldn’t answer or didn’t want to discuss.
She opened her mouth to protest but he was already walking past her, and as she watched him take a seat behind the huge glass-topped desk she felt her ribs expand. He looked calm, relaxed, as though he often proposed marriage to young women who broke into his office in the early hours of the morning. But his eyes were alert and predatory, like a wolf watching a lamb stumble around in its lair.
‘Come on. Sit down. I don’t bite.’
It wasn’t an invitation. It wasn’t even an order. It was a dare.
She lifted her chin.
‘Fine. But I can’t see what difference talking will make. Nobody marries a complete stranger.’
Sinking into the soft leather, she felt the tiredness of the last few hours rise up beneath her skin in a wave as, lounging back in his seat, he stared past her, in a way that suggested he was pondering some deep philosophical question.
‘Is that true? Plenty of brides all over the world only meet their husband on their wedding days.’
‘Yes. If they’re having an arranged marriage.’ She glowered at him.
‘But we are.’ He smiled a smile that made her wish that his chair would open up and swallow him whole. ‘And I’m arranging it.’
Daisy felt her skin grow warm; her head was spinning. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not arranging anything,’ she snapped. ‘Look, you can’t want to marry me, so why are you pretending you do?’ She stared at him doubtfully. ‘Is it your idea of a joke? Some way to punish me for...?’
Looking up at him, she felt her words falter in her mouth. For an endless moment he studied her in silence and then, leaning forward, he fixed his eyes on hers with an intentness that seared her skin.
‘If I wanted to punish you, I’d think of something a lot more...diverting.’
Her stomach clenched, and a tingling excitement swept through her like fire through a forest as he smiled slowly.
‘For both of us.’
A hot shiver ran up her spine and she stared at him mutely, her body stilling even as chaos raged inside. Her heart was beating too fast and too loud, and a dark ache was swirling over her skin like a riptide. In an effort to break the spell of his gaze, she pressed her nails hard into the palms of her hands.
‘You can’t just tell someone you’re marrying them,’ she said carefully. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’
The tension in the room quivered, as though she had somehow pressed her foot onto an accelerator pedal, and her eyes flickered involuntarily across to where Rollo sat, examining her with detached curiosity.
‘It does if you want your brother to keep his job. And, more important, to stay out of prison.’
She was out of her seat and leaning across his desk before she had even realised she was moving, her whole body shaking with shock and anger.
‘You unspeakable pig!’ Her voice rose. ‘That’s blackmail—’
‘Yes, it is.’
He wasn’t even embarrassed! Furiously, she glanced around for something blunt and heavy.
‘Why are you getting so bent out of shape about this?’ He stared at her calmly.
‘Why? Why? Maybe because it’s weird and wrong.’ Heat was blistering her skin. She couldn’t keep the shake out of her voice. ‘You’re cynically exploiting this situation for your own ends.’
He frowned. ‘You’re being melodramatic. You and I marrying will be mutually beneficial. As to the morality of blackmailing a thief and a liar, I’m not sure we have time to tackle that right now, so why don’t you just calm down and sit down?’
He lifted his arms behind his head and stretched out his shoulders.
‘Sit down,’ he said again, and this time there was no mistaking the authority in his voice. ‘I didn’t explain myself properly. I need to marry you, but in essence you’ll just be playing the part of my wife.’
She felt a rush of hope. ‘You mean like in an advert or something? For your business?’ He stared at her in silence.
‘No. Not like an advert. We’re going to have to marry legally.’
Daisy searched his face, looking for answers, for a way to escape the certainty in his voice. ‘Why can’t we just pretend?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘That won’t work. It can’t just loo
k like we’re married. It has to be legal.’
‘But no one needs a wife that badly,’ she said almost viciously. ‘Not at two o’clock in the morning.’
He shrugged. ‘I do.’
‘But why?’
‘That doesn’t concern you.’ The certainty in his voice had hardened to granite.
She stared at him, sensing that somewhere a door was closing, a key was turning. Soon there would be no way out of this mess.
She felt her temper flare. ‘Fine. But I’m not marrying anyone—especially you—unless you tell me why you need a wife.’
It wasn’t just curiosity. She needed to assert herself. Needed him to know that she wasn’t just some puppet on a string.
She folded her arms in front of her chest. ‘I don’t need details. Just keep it short and simple.’
She held her breath as his eyes narrowed into knifepoints, and she knew he was gauging how much he needed to tell her. Finally he shrugged and met her gaze, cool and back in control again.
‘I’m trying to close a deal. For a building I want to buy. The owner is old-fashioned...sentimental. He’ll only sell to someone he trusts. Someone he believes shares his values. I need him to trust me and for that to happen he needs to see my warmer, softer side. Marriage is the simplest way to demonstrate that to him.’
She breathed out slowly. There was a kind of warped logic to his argument.
‘But surely I can’t be your only solution? What if you hadn’t found me in your office? What would you do then?’
His eyes were watching hers. ‘But I did find you. And you’re perfect.’
Her heart thudded against her ribs and she felt her cheeks grow warm. ‘I—I am?’
Rollo felt his groin grow hard, his body responding not only to her tentative question but to the flush of colour in her cheeks, the pulse jerking at the base of her throat. She was like a flint striking, sparking against him, catching fire.
And fire burned.
Ignoring the twitch of lust in his groin, he breathed out slowly. ‘Yes. You’re single. And you’re an actress. But primarily, and most important, I can trust you to be compliant.’
Daisy knew she had gone white.
‘Compliant?’ Her hands were trembling.
‘Out-of-work actresses are ten a penny. But I need someone I can depend on. And as your brother’s freedom and future are in my hands I’m confident I can rely completely on your discretion.’
Blackmailed Down the Aisle Page 3
