She shook her head. How could she explain about her parents? About their marriage, their life together. About how it was what she wanted to have. Maybe not their diner, the Love Shack—she’d had enough waitressing to last her a lifetime—but they were so supportive and happy. She and David would never do anything to jeopardise that happiness.
‘He didn’t—we don’t want them to know. They’d only worry. Besides...’ she added, meeting his gaze ‘...I—we can sort it out.’
Rollo studied her face. Wrong, he thought silently. This kind of problem could never be sorted out without professional help. Addicts rarely believed that they had a problem, no matter what pain and chaos they caused to those around them. And sometimes even when they did, it made little if any difference to their behaviour.
‘So when did he tell you?’ he said at last. ‘About the gambling.’
She swallowed. ‘The same day he stole your watch.’
He was silent a moment, considering her answer. Then he said quietly, ‘Selfish of him, don’t you think?’
Her head jerked up. But what had she expected? Had she really believed Rollo would understand? Or care.
Rollo Fleming.
A man who thought nothing of exploiting another man’s moment of weakness or a woman’s affection for her brother. She felt sick, her stomach lurching. She had betrayed her brother’s confidence, and for nothing.
She glared at him. ‘He’s not selfish—’ she began.
But he cut in.
‘He’s your twin. He must have known that you’d step up and sort it out for him.’
He held up his hand as she started to protest.
‘I’m not judging him, Daisy. But addicts don’t think like other people. They lie and deny and prevaricate and make excuses. It’s part of their sickness.’
She watched his face carefully. It sounded as if he knew what he was talking about and she wanted to ask him how. Or maybe who. But his expression was distant, discouraging, as though he knew that she was trying to figure out the meaning behind his remark.
She nodded mutely.
He met her gaze. ‘David is sick. He needs care and support.’
His eyes were cool and untroubled, but his expression had shifted into something she hadn’t expected to see; it was oddly gentle...almost like sympathy.
‘Which is why I’m going to arrange for him to receive professional help at a clinic.’
Daisy’s heart stopped. Unsteadily she pushed back her hair, trying to make sense of his words. ‘Why?’ she said finally. ‘Why would you do that?’
Why, indeed?
Rollo gazed at her taut face. The fine cheekbones and delicate jaw were offset perfectly by her pale, almost-luminous skin. She was very beautiful. But that wasn’t the reason he was going to help her brother.
He didn’t approve of what David had done. Theft was still theft. Nor did he agree with how Daisy had behaved. But he understood their motives better now.
He shrugged. ‘Despite what you think, Daisy, I’m not a complete monster. He needs treatment. As his employer, I feel some responsibility for his welfare. But there is one condition.’
His voice was quiet but she heard the warning note—felt it echo inside her and through her head to the corners of the room.
‘I’ll take care of David but I won’t be messed around. You might not be on my payroll, but you work for me now, and I expect...’ He paused, his eyes pulling her gaze upwards like a tractor’s headlight beam. ‘I demand honesty from my staff.’
Forcing herself to meet his eyes, she gave him a small, tight smile. ‘I understand. And thank you for helping David. It’s very kind of you.’
He nodded. ‘Leave it with me.’
Pulling out his phone, he glanced at the screen and frowned.
‘Right. I’m going to go and change.’ He paused again. ‘Which reminds me—you need to go shopping.’
The change of subject caught her off guard.
‘I do?’
His gaze held hers. ‘There’s a charity fashion show a week from tomorrow. I think it should be our first public appearance. We’ll be ready by then.’
Daisy flinched inwardly. He wasn’t asking, but telling her, and his cool statement was yet another reminder of the fact that she was dealing with a man who always got what he wanted, one way or another.
He stared at her calmly. ‘It won’t be too formal or intimate, and you’ll be visible but anonymous, so it will be the perfect moment to introduce you as my girlfriend. But you’ll need something to wear. Kenny, my driver, knows which stores to go to. Just choose whatever you like and charge it to my accounts.’
‘That’s very generous.’ She frowned. ‘But I don’t expect you to buy my clothes. Besides, I have quite a few back at David’s,’ she said, trying to make a joke.
But he didn’t laugh. Instead he stared at her, for so long and so intently that she wasn’t sure if he’d actually heard her. But then, finally, he smiled coldly.
‘I’m sure your clothing was adequate for your life before, but trust me—you’ll feel more comfortable in something a little more appropriate.’
Adequate! Appropriate!
Hands curling into fists, Daisy gazed at him in angry disbelief.
Moments earlier she had felt...if not close to Rollo, then at least more relaxed with him. Now though, she was remembering just how much she loathed him.
He was so unspeakably arrogant and autocratic.
‘Shouldn’t it be up to me to decide what is appropriate?’ she said tightly.
‘Ordinarily, yes. But that was before you agreed to become my wife.’
He took a step closer and she felt her shoulders tense, priming her for his next move.
‘You told me earlier that I needed to commit. And I have...’
He paused and her skin seemed to catch fire as, reaching out, he stroked the curve of her cheek gently.
‘But in return you need to stop fighting me. That’s only fair, isn’t it?’
The rhythm of his fingers was making her breathing slow so that she felt as though she were suffocating.
‘So when I politely suggest you go shopping, you go shopping,’ he said softly. ‘Or next time, I might not ask so nicely.’
And, leaving her furiously mouthing words after him, he turned and sauntered out of the room.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘SO...’ ROLLO PAUSED and glanced over to where Daisy sat, slumped in one of the apartment’s huge leather armchairs. ‘You prefer coffee to tea, red wine to white and you hate whisky.’
He waited, letting a long silence pass, battling with an irritation that had become familiar to him over the last twenty-four hours.
‘And...?’ he prompted finally as she continued to stare across the living room, her gaze fixed determinedly on the view of downtown New York.
Turning, she screwed up her face as though concentrating. ‘You like red wine too.’ She hesitated. ‘And you prefer your coffee white.’
He gritted his teeth. ‘No. Black.’
Ordinarily he would have already drunk several cups of espresso. But right now he could do with something stronger.
They’d started early—cross-examining each other again and again until the answers felt automatic. Or that had been the plan. A muscle tightened in his jaw. Only instead of knuckling down, Daisy was acting like a teenager doing a detention.
‘Oh, yeah. I remember now.’ Stifling a yawn, she met his gaze, her brown eyes challenging him. ‘Sorry.’
She didn’t seem sorry. On the contrary, she sounded both unrepentant and bored.
Watching her shoulders slump in an exaggerated gesture of exhaustion, Rollo gritted his teeth but didn’t reply. Instead, leaning back against the leather of the armchair, he studied her in silence, trying to decide just how to manage this new, modified version of Daisy.
Since yesterday, when he’d more or less ordered her to go shopping, she had stopped fighting him openly, choosing instead to treat him with the sort of fo
rced politeness normally reserved for teachers or dull acquaintances.
It was driving him mad.
Yet, despite his irritation, there was something about her that got under his skin. He could feel himself responding to her defiance, her stubbornness...her beauty. Shifting against the cushions, he felt his pulse twitch. She was beautiful, but it was more than that. He’d dated a lot of women—models, actresses, socialites—all of them as beautiful and desirable as Daisy. And yet none of them had ever made him feel this way—so off balance, as though his calm, disciplined world had been tipped upside down. As though his life were not his own.
Which, of course, it wasn’t any more.
Running his hand through his short, blonde hair, Rollo pressed his fingers into the base of his skull, where an ache was starting to form. In truth, it wouldn’t be his life for the next twelve months—until after his marriage had ended in a quick, uncontested divorce. A marriage that hadn’t even happened yet.
He breathed in sharply. Having always vowed to stay single, the fact that he was not only going to be married but divorced too blew his mind.
But there was no other way. He wanted that building, and he was going to keep his promise to his father—no matter what the cost to his sexual and mental health.
He frowned. Usually in life, and in business, he got what he wanted through a combination of persistence and money. But he’d been trying to buy this building for nearly ten years, and James Dunmore had made it clear that money wasn’t the issue. He would only do business with a man who shared his values—a man who truly believed that family and marriage was the cornerstone of life.
It was easy for Dunmore to believe—he wasn’t the one having to put his life on hold. Nor was he having to cohabit with a stubborn, sexy minx like Daisy Maddox, he thought irritably. Everything would be so much simpler and smoother if she were like every other woman he’d ever met. Eager, accommodating, flirty. But the woman he’d picked to be his first—his only—wife seemed determined to challenge him at every opportunity.
Even when he kissed her.
Especially when he kissed her.
His breath swelled in his throat, and just like that he could remember how it had felt when her lips had touched his. How she’d come alive in his arms, her body melting into his, hands tangling through his hair, her feverish response matching his desperate desire—
He let out a shallow breath. It was an image he needed little effort to remember, having spent the night replaying it inside his head, his frustration magnified by the fact that the cause of his discomfort was on the other side of the wall, no doubt sleeping peacefully.
Unable to sleep himself, he had lain in the darkness, trying to piece together the fragments of nakedness that she had inadvertently revealed to him. The pale length of her neck and throat, gleaming beneath the harsh lights in his office, the curve of her bare shoulder when she had fallen asleep on the sofa. To that he’d added the scab on her knee she’d got breaking into his office—glimpsed as she’d slid past him on the landing in the T-shirt she wore as a nightie.
He’d picked at those memories until just before dawn when, finally, he had fallen asleep.
Feeling her gaze on the side of his face, he pushed aside the burn of frustration in his groin and forced himself to concentrate instead on the thankfully fully clothed Daisy sitting opposite him.
‘This is boring for both of us,’ he said slowly. ‘But the more committed you are to getting it right, the quicker we can move on.’
Daisy’s brown eyes focused on Rollo’s face. He was speaking to her as though she were a child. She felt her cheeks grow hot.
She shrugged. ‘So I forgot? Big deal. It’s not like anyone’s going to be testing us.’
Last night, after his snooty remarks about her clothing, she had expended so much energy on hating him that she had instantly fallen into a heavy, dreamless sleep. Waking, she had felt calmer, determined to find a better way of managing him. Given that so far every confrontation had ended badly—for her—she’d resolved not to lose her temper. But it was going to be a hard challenge if he carried on being so aggravating.
‘I’m an actress,’ she said stiffly. ‘I know what I have to do to get into character.’
‘Then stop sulking and do it. It was you, after all, who told me that I had to commit to the role. Perhaps you should follow your own advice.’
He gave her a patronising smile that made her want to smother him with one of the sofa cushions. But instead she took a shallow breath and in her calmest voice said, ‘It just feels so soulless and scripted. Couldn’t we just hang out together and talk? That way we’d still get to know each other, only it would be more...’ she searched for the right word ‘...more organic.’
It was a reasonable request. More reasonable, say, than demanding someone replace their entire wardrobe of clothes. But clearly being reasonable was not a concept that was familiar to Rollo.
Fuming silently, she watched him shake his head.
‘Testing each other is the quickest way to learn this stuff. Then we can go out and start putting it all into practice. In public.’
The thought of actually appearing in public as his girlfriend made panic skim across her skin like a stone. She glanced across to where he sat, lounging lazily in an armchair. Even dressed casually, in a faded T-shirt and jeans, he radiated both superiority and authority—the sort of undefinable power that went hand in hand with being an alpha male.
Her breath crowded in her throat as his gaze wandered casually over her face, down over the long white hippyish dress she had bought on holiday with David last year.
But what about her? She hardly qualified as a member of the elite. She had no job, no money and right now a future that didn’t even really belong to her. Changing her clothes wasn’t about to change any of those facts.
She lifted her chin. But why should she change, anyway? She wasn’t ashamed of who she was or where she came from.
‘Good,’ she said, with something of her usual spirit. ‘The sooner we can get on with this charade, the sooner it will all be over. I just wish it didn’t feel so much like school.’ She sighed. ‘It reminds me of cramming for exams.’
‘It does?’ he said slowly, giving her one of his cool, blank looks. ‘Interesting. I wouldn’t have had you down as the swotty type.’
His green eyes were locked on to hers, taunting her. She opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again. It would be so gratifying to tell him that she’d been an A-grade student. That the library had been her second home. But she didn’t think there was much chance of convincing him.
Mostly because it wasn’t true.
‘I suppose you were the top of the class?’ She felt her cheeks grow warm as he surveyed her steadily.
‘If you mean I worked hard, then, yes. But I made sure I had plenty of energy left for...extracurricular activities.’
He gave her a slow, suggestive smile that curled like smoke around her throat. Her heart was banging high up in her ribs and, swallowing, she forced down the traitorous heat rising up inside her.
‘Fascinating though it is to hear about your school days, we should probably press on,’ she said stiffly. ‘I might just get a glass of water first.’
And, standing up, she stalked across the room and into the kitchen.
Rollo watched her leave, his groin hardening as his gaze locked on to the swaying hips beneath her flimsy dress. Clearly, despite having gone shopping, she was determined to wear her own clothes when they were at home.
He shook his head, exasperated by her need to make a stand, and yet part of him—the part of him that would have dug in his heels in exactly the same way—couldn’t help admiring her.
That didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of room for improvement, he thought caustically. Not least in her laissez-faire attitude to the business of becoming his wife. Maybe it was time to remind her of what was at stake here...
In the kitchen, Daisy stared blankly at the gleaming whi
te cupboards. Her mind was tumbling, but that was nothing to the chaos of her body. Her legs felt shaky and a dark, dragging ache like a bruise was spreading out inside her.
Why did he have this effect on her? Or rather, why still? Back in his office, she’d put it down to a combination of adrenaline and heightened emotion. So why was it happening now?
Taking a glass from one of the cupboards, she turned on the tap, watching the water splash into the stainless steel sink. If only she could slip away down the plughole too, she thought dully, filling her glass. If only she could escape so effortlessly.
But who was she escaping from? Rollo or herself?
‘There’s bottled water in the fridge, if you’d prefer. Still and sparkling.’
She tensed, her heartbeat stalling in her chest.
Not him. Not here and definitely not now. She wasn’t ready.
She’d been hoping for a few much-needed moments alone to pull herself together, to talk some sense into what supposedly passed as her brain. But of course, as with everything else in her life since Rollo had walked into it, her hopes were subject to his will.
Turning, she felt her breath catch fire in her throat. He was standing in front of her, closer than she’d thought he would be...so close she could see the flecks of bronze in his eyes.
He was too close for comfort.
Only time would show if it was too close for her self-control.
She smiled tightly. ‘No, I’m fine with tap.’
He stared at her unblinkingly and she felt her pulse plateau. He was stupidly handsome, and being so close to him was making her stupid. Why else would she feel so frantic to kiss him? Her cheeks were hot and, desperate to stop the woman in her responding to his blatant masculinity, she switched into waitress mode.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t ask. Did you want anything?’ She couldn’t resist. ‘White coffee? Sorry, I mean black.’
There was a short, quivering silence and then, tilting his head, he gave her a long, steady look. He shook his head. ‘No, thanks. I’m trying to cut back.’ The corners of his eyes creased. ‘Just in case you didn’t notice—that was unscripted.’
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