Blackmailed Down the Aisle

by Louise Fuller

  She looked up at him uncertainly. His mood seemed to have lightened and she could feel herself responding, her tension easing, so that for one off-balance moment she wanted to smile. And to see him smile back.

  Except that if he smiled she was scared of what might happen. A smile might seem innocuous. Like tiptoeing onto a frozen lake. But at some point the ice would crack and suddenly she would be out of her depth.

  Feeling his eyes on her face, she looked up and met his gaze coolly. At least she hoped she looked cool. She certainly didn’t want him guessing her real thoughts.

  ‘I’m not trying to be difficult,’ she said slowly. ‘Truly. But you’re treating this—us—like some kind of equation. We can’t pull this off by just joining all the dots. We need to try and make our relationship feel as natural as possible. And that’s not going to happen if we just sit here parroting facts to one another.’

  It had to be the strangest conversation she had ever had. Only in some ways, wasn’t it liberating to be able to talk so openly about what she wanted? About what it would take to make their relationship work? With all her previous boyfriends she’d just tried to second-guess everything and failed. Spectacularly. But because she wasn’t in love with Rollo, and never would be, she didn’t care about speaking her mind.

  Half expecting him to argue with her, she was surprised when instead, he nodded.

  ‘That makes sense.’

  He sounded interested—friendly, even—and as something like panic bubbled up inside her she realised too late that being near him had been a lot easier when all she had felt was hostility.

  Particularly given that he clearly deserved her hostility.

  Or she’d thought he had.

  But as his eyes drifted gently over her skin like a haze of summer heat she realised that his charm was something she hadn’t allowed herself to imagine. And, glancing up into his face, watching his beautiful hard features soften, she knew why: it was too dangerous! Especially when that almost smile was making it impossible for her to think rationally, so that suddenly she felt unsure of herself, unsure of how she should respond.

  He was lounging against the worktop, his eyes watching her intently in a way that she didn’t fully understand. All she knew was that it made her feel hot and helplessly wound up.

  ‘We can make this work, Daisy.’

  She nodded, panic muting her.

  ‘It’s very new for both of us. Try and think of it as just another job.’

  Frowning, she found her voice. ‘But it’s not like that at all. When I’m acting I learn my lines and get into character. But only when I’m on stage. I don’t act like Lady Macbeth at home.’

  His gaze was steady and unblinking. ‘That’s a relief,’ he said softly.

  His voice sent goosebumps over her skin and she felt a sharp, gnawing heat inside, like the first flames of a forest fire. She knew she had blushed and she wanted to look away, but she couldn’t move. Instead she held her breath, heart hammering, trying to quiet the turmoil in her body.

  Breathing out, she said quickly, ‘It’s just... We’re supposed to be madly in love.’

  Something shifted in the room—a loosening of tension like the wind dropping. For a moment they stared at one another, and then his hand came up, his fingers smoothing over her cheeks, his touch firm yet tender.

  ‘Supposed to be, yes.’ His hand dropped and he took a step back, his green eyes shadowed and still.

  She swallowed, her breath cartwheeling inside her chest. ‘So we need some...’ She paused.

  She’d been about to say romance, or passion. But passion was clearly a complication she didn’t need to introduce into their relationship. Not if her body’s intense but dangerous response to him was anything to go by. And, as for romance, she wasn’t sure he actually understood the meaning of the word.

  She frowned. ‘We need to have some fun.’

  His mouth curved. ‘Fun?’

  Daisy gazed at him. Was that an alien concept to him too?

  ‘Yes. Fun. We need fun. Not facts. Let’s get out of here and go somewhere we can talk and chill.’

  For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. That maybe he hadn’t even been listening.

  ‘I see...’

  The change in him was barely discernible. His voice was perfectly calm and even, but she could sense an indecision in him that she had never seen before.

  ‘I keep a box at the Met Opera.’ He pulled out his phone. ‘I don’t actually know what’s on, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy it and it’s completely private. I’ll get my PA to notify the theatre.’

  She stared at him numbly. Clearly he hadn’t been listening. Or why would he suggest a night at the opera? It was hardly the most laid-back way to spend an evening—nor would they even be able to talk. It was probably just somewhere he took whatever woman he happened to be seeing at the time.

  Pushing aside the niggle of pain that thought caused, she glared at him coldly. ‘I wouldn’t want you to put yourself out. Besides, I don’t like opera.’

  His eyes jerked up to hers, their expression so cold and hostile that instantly her muscles tautened for flight.

  There was a long hiss of silence.

  Rollo stared at her coldly. Anger was blanking his brain, so that for a moment he couldn’t speak—and besides, he needed the time to bank down his fury. Not just with Daisy for her rudeness, but with himself for trying to meet her halfway.

  For being weak.

  Keeping his eyes unfocused, he stared past her until finally he could trust his voice.

  ‘In that case, I’ll leave you to get on with learning your lines.’

  It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. ‘What do you mean? Are you going somewhere?’

  ‘To the office.’

  She felt his words scoop out a hollow at the bottom of her stomach.

  ‘The office? But I thought you wanted to—’

  ‘Then you made a mistake. As I did.’ A muscle flickered at his jawline. ‘But on the plus side, at least we really are getting to know each other.’

  He turned and crossed the room in three long strides.

  Daisy let out a short jerky breath. She wasn’t quite sure what had just happened. But the emptiness of the room was doing something strange to her body—making her pulse race too fast so that suddenly she needed to do something with her hands.

  Picking up her glass, she rinsed it out and started drying it furiously.

  His words were rolling round her head like marbles in a jar. What kind of person upped and went to work in the middle of an argument? And then abruptly the marbles stilled.

  Going to the office? But why the hell was he going into the office? It was Sunday.

  * * *

  Slumped behind his desk, Rollo stared bleakly out of the window at the city he called home. To the left was the past: the building where he’d grown up—the building he’d been trying to buy from James Dunmore for all of his adult life. To the right lay his future: the penthouse where he was living with Daisy. And, whichever way he looked at it, he needed one in order to acquire the other.

  He wasn’t regretting his decision to coerce Daisy into being his wife so much as reassessing it. Having overridden her objections, he had thought it would be just as easy to maintain her cooperation.

  But, remembering her expression when he’d offered to take her to the opera, he felt a twist of anger low in his stomach. He should have just told her how it was going to be. Instead, driven by some inexplicable need to make their relationship more natural, more spontaneous, he’d let down his guard.

  Let himself be manipulated, more like.

  He gritted his teeth. A long time ago, he had sworn never to make himself vulnerable like that. Never to become his father—a man who had spent a lifetime trying and failing to please one woman.

  Only he’d broken his own rules.

  And there was nobody to blame but himself.

  Daisy might be all soft brown eyes and sedu
ctive curves, but she was also a nightmare on legs. Devious. Wilful. Utterly untrustworthy. And that assessment didn’t even take into account her ability as an actress to slip between multiple personas—one minute, a warrior queen, standing her ground in his office, the next, falling asleep on his sofa like an overtired child.

  But was he marrying all of them or one of them?

  A small draught swept across his shoulders and he heard the door to his office open softly. Around him the air seemed to ripple and tighten, and he knew without even looking round that it was Daisy.

  The light through the window lit up her face and he was struck again by her luminous beauty. But not enough to break the uneasy silence that was filling his office.

  ‘Your doorman let me in,’ she said finally.

  Her voice was brittle, like an eggshell, and she gave him a small, tight smile.

  ‘He recognised me from the other night.’

  He nodded.

  She bit her lip. ‘I can go if you want...’ Her voice trailed off.

  He watched her hovering in the doorway. A different Daisy again—not defiant or afraid so much as apprehensive.

  ‘Why are you here?’ There was no inflection in his voice.

  ‘It’s almost three o’clock.’

  He heard her swallow.

  ‘You didn’t eat much breakfast.’

  Her face was still.

  ‘And then you didn’t come back for lunch. So I brought you some food.’

  Hesitantly she held up a brown paper bag.

  Her eyes were searching his face and he realised that she was worried—worried about him—and shock spread slowly over his chest like a bruise.

  ‘It’s pizza. Four cheeses with extra olives. And a margherita.’ She breathed out. ‘I remembered.’

  She made a small, shapeless gesture with her hand and set the bag down on the floor. Edging backwards, she said quickly, ‘Anyway, I’ll just leave it here and if you feel hungry later—’

  ‘Did they use pecorino or Parmigiana?’

  Daisy stopped. Her pulse quivered.

  ‘Pecorino.’

  ‘Light or heavy on the sauce?’

  She swallowed.

  ‘Light.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He was studying her face, his green eyes utterly unreadable. She held her breath until finally he held out his hand.

  ‘Do you want to eat here or in the boardroom?’

  In the end they decided to stay in his office, sitting at either end of the sofa with the pizza boxes between them.

  ‘I’ve never had four cheeses before,’ she said, nibbling a string of mozzarella into her mouth. ‘I thought it would be too—’

  ‘Cheesy?’

  She almost smiled. ‘No. Too dairy! But it’s actually not.’

  They talked randomly. Nothing personal. Just about food and New York. But all the tension of the past two days seemed to have vanished. Finally he picked up the empty boxes, folded them in half and slid them back into the bag.

  ‘I think that’s probably the best pizza I’ve ever eaten. Where did you get it?’

  Daisy felt a spasm of happiness shoot through her. It felt so much lighter, looser between them—normal, almost.

  ‘Oh, there’s this really great family-run pizzeria near David’s apartment.’

  Rollo frowned. ‘Your brother’s apartment? That’s a bit of a trip from here.’

  ‘I suppose so. But I was out walking anyway.’

  She glanced past him, colour rising on her face.

  After Rollo had left she had been too angry and thwarted and confused to sit down. Instead she had paced round the apartment like an animal at the zoo. But pacing and anger were hard to sustain, and after an hour or so, her strides had started to shorten, her anger fading, until finally she’d stopped walking and sat down.

  She’d felt miserable. And guilty. No doubt Rollo had thought that arranging an evening at the opera—just the two of them in a private box—would be the perfect way to spend some time alone together. And, remembering that moment of uncharacteristic irresolution before he’d spoken, she’d felt her stomach drop.

  It had been a peace offering.

  Only she had thrown it back in his face.

  Worse, she’d been so busy resenting him that she’d focused entirely on why their relationship should fail when she should have been finding ways to make it work.

  She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa.

  ‘I always go for a walk when I’m upset. You know, when I need to think.’ Her eyes flickered past him. ‘It’s just all of this—us—it’s harder than I thought. And I think it’s going to get harder when I have to start lying to people. Not strangers... I mean my parents and David. But that’s my problem, not yours—’

  ‘That makes it my problem too.’

  He was silent a moment, then he said quietly, ‘Are you worried they won’t approve of me?’

  Her eyes widened with disbelief. ‘No, I’m worried they will. They’re going to be so happy for me—and I don’t deserve it. It makes me feel cruel.’

  ‘You’re not cruel.’ His face searched her face, eyes softening a fraction. ‘You’re here for your brother. That makes you loyal. And strong. It takes a lot of courage to do what you’re doing.’

  Was that a compliment? She stared at him, confused. ‘Or stupidity.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re stupid.’

  She grimaced. ‘You never read my school reports. “Could do better” was a fairly universal theme.’

  ‘That’s got more to do with your attitude than your aptitude.’

  His voice was oddly gentle and, looking up, she saw he was leaning slightly forward, his expression carefully casual.

  ‘Maybe a little.’ She smiled weakly. ‘But David’s the smart one. He’s, like, a genius at maths and science. But he paints amazingly too—and he loves the opera—’ Her heartbeat gave a guilty little lurch.

  ‘Perhaps I should have invited him.’

  She shivered, half choked on her breath, cleared her throat. ‘About that—’ She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. ‘What I said to you about opera. It was rude and unnecessary and I’m sorry.’

  There was a fraction of a pause and then she felt his gaze sweep over her like a searchlight.

  ‘I’m guessing you had a bad experience with The Ring Cycle.’

  She gazed at him blankly. ‘The what?’

  ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen by Wagner. Lasts about fifteen hours. I thought it might be why you hate opera.’

  She shuddered. ‘Is that what we were going to watch?’

  Shaking his head, he smiled—a smile so sweet, so irresistible, that Daisy instantly forgot all her misery and confusion.

  ‘No. I wouldn’t inflict that on my worst enemy.’

  ‘Well, speaking as your worst enemy, I’m very grateful,’ she said lightly.

  His smile faded. ‘You’re not my worst enemy.’

  Daisy gazed up at him. His eyes were focused on her face, so clear and green and deep that suddenly she wanted to dive in and drown in them.

  ‘But you hate me...’ For some reason she didn’t understand her voice was shaking, the words dancing away from her like leaves on the wind.

  Leaning towards her, he lifted his hand and touched her cheek. ‘I don’t hate you,’ he said softly.

  Her heart was somersaulting in her chest. It was lucky she was sitting down, because she could feel that gravity had stopped working and if she were standing up, she would simply have floated away.

  His hand was tracing the line of her jaw, his thumb gently stroking the skin. She sat still and mute, hypnotised both by the tenderness of his touch and his fierce, shimmering gaze. Around her the walls were tilting inwards, spinning slowly.

  Throat drying, she took a quick, jagged breath like a gasp. ‘I don’t hate you either.’

  Suddenly she couldn’t be so close to him and not touch him back and, reaching out, she put a hand on his arm. His skin felt smooth and warm, li
ke carved wood. But it was his mouth—that beautiful, curving mouth—that made her body quiver, a hot, humid tension building inside her like a summer storm.

  She breathed out softly. ‘I didn’t bring any dessert.’

  His eyes locked on to hers and they stared at one another in silence. And then he dropped his gaze and, glancing down at his wrist, said quietly, ‘It’s late. We should head home.’

  As they stood in the corridor, waiting for the lift, Daisy felt his gaze on the side of her face. ‘What is it? Did you forget something?’

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  He paused and she felt that tension again—that indecision.

  ‘Thanks for the pizza. It was fun.’ Frowning, he cleared his throat. ‘I just want you to know that I didn’t suggest we go to the opera just because I have a box.’

  She nodded dumbly.

  There was clearly more to his words than their literal meaning, and part of her badly wanted to question him further. But instead she simply reached out and took his hand. ‘And I want you to know that you don’t have to worry. We can make this work.’

  She felt his surprise and braced herself, expecting him to pull away. But after a moment his fingers tightened around hers, and as they stepped into the lift together she breathed out softly.

  It might not be happy-ever-after, but it was a truce of sorts.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘GOOD MORNING, MS MADDOX. I’m Kate and I’ll be your personal therapist this morning.’

  Looking up, Daisy smiled apprehensively at the slim young woman standing in front of her. Back at home she’d had manicures and the occasional facial. But the Tahara Sanctuary was one of New York’s most exclusive spas. Everything oozed sophistication and exclusivity. In fact, it was so exclusive that she had an entire relaxation suite just to herself.

  An hour and a half later Daisy was starting to understand why wealthy people always looked so relaxed. After a salt-and-mint-oil exfoliation and a cleansing herbal bath, she was now enjoying her first ever full-body massage and could feel her stresses dissolving beneath Kate’s expert touch.

  Stifling a yawn, Daisy closed her eyes as from somewhere across the room she heard a soft tap at the door. There was a slight shift in the atmosphere, the cool air mixing with the fragranced heat of the room, and then her body tensed.