Tempted by Trouble

by Michelle Smart

  Indebted to him? He was using everything in his power to clear her name and keep her out of prison, and she was resisting on the grounds of being indebted to him?

  …

  From the blackness of his features, Pippa had offended him. Well, tough. He had offended her, too.

  “I thought you would be pleased,” he said coldly.

  “Pleased?” she echoed. “I already had representation.”

  “You call that representation? A family solicitor who deals with wills and family trusts? May I remind you that you are facing a possible jail sentence? Your notoriety does you no favors—if it went to court, who do you think a jury would believe? And as for the ‘representation’ you had, if he’d had any nous you would never have been charged in the first place.”

  Her resolve hardened. This was her problem and she was going to handle it in her own way. “I am very grateful that you want to help me, but you can let your lawyer return to his family and enjoy the rest of his holiday. I’ve already decided to use a court-appointed solicitor.”

  While she spoke, Marco swirled the burgundy in his wine glass, his jaw clenched. He drained the potent liquid in one swallow then set the glass back on the table.

  His black eyes lifted to meet hers. “A court-appointed lawyer? Have you gone mad? The lawyer I have organized for you is an expert in his field, not some green recruit fresh from law school.”

  “Actually,” she said, the chill in her voice a direct contrast with the simmering fire breathing from Marco, “You will find there are many public lawyers who work in that arena because they believe justice should be freely available to all and not just to those who can afford to pull some hotshot away from his family holiday.”

  “This hotshot could save you from prison,” he ground out.

  “I am not going to prison,” she snapped. “I am innocent and I do not need your help to prove it. You’re going to have to tell him his services are no longer required.”

  “I will do no such thing. What do you expect me to say to him? That Pippa Rowantree is so delusional she thinks she can win an assault case against an upstanding member of the community when her reputation is such that parents warn their children about turning out like her? Is that what you want me to say? That you’re willing to roll the dice and gamble that maybe you’ll find a nice, free lawyer who believes in you and is willing to go that extra mile to fight for you and your innocence and keep you out of prison?”

  That his words contained the ring of truth did nothing to pacify the fury flowing through her. But she would not let him scare her into accepting his help. Her reputation was what it was, consistently turning up to bite her on the bum, but she had yet to let it defeat her completely. This was her mess, and she was damned if she was going to let anyone, particularly Marco, fight her way out of it.

  Pushing her plate away, she got to her feet and leaned down on the table. “I really could not care less what you tell him. For the last time, I am going to do this my way using means that I can afford.”

  “So you’re throwing my help back in my face? Again?”

  There was something in his voice that made her pause, but only for the briefest of seconds. “I never asked for your help. I’m sorry if I sound ungrateful but as far as I’m concerned, you can stick your help and your lawyer up your arse.”

  She reached the dining room door when she heard what sounded like choking. She spun round. He was still seated but his face had gone brick red, as if something had stuck in his throat and he was having trouble breathing.

  She hurried back over to him, ready to pound him on the back. “Are you okay?”

  Another choking noise. Except, upon reflection, it did not sound like a gasp for breath. It sounded suspiciously like a guffaw.

  A tear escaped from one of his scrunched-up eyes and he bowed his head, covering his face with his hands, loud raucous noises escaping from his throat.

  Her suspicions grew. “You had better be choking.”

  The noises grew louder, until he lifted his head and wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he snorted, this time gasping for breath.

  “You’re laughing at me?” She shook her head. All her anger had gone, replaced with the most incredible hurt that Marco—Marco—could find her situation funny.

  “Oh, cara, of course I am not laughing at you. Well, maybe a little.”

  The fury returned with a wallop. “Thank you very much. I’m glad my assault amuses you. Arsehole.”

  She turned to leave when he caught hold of her wrist. There was no trace of laughter as he gazed up at her, the gold flecks in his eyes glittering. “Pippa, you must believe I do not find anything about your situation funny. Nothing.”

  She wanted to believe him. “Then why were you laughing?”

  “Because you told me to tell a lawyer who charges over a thousand pounds an hour to stick his services up his arse. And you said it in that delightfully plummy voice that turns me on so much I can barely breathe.”

  “Oh.”

  For one of the few times in her life, her tongue would not work. All she could do was stare at him, her eyes wide, her heart thumping against her ribcage.

  His free hand snaked around her waist, pulling her closer so she was standing between his legs. She stared at his upturned face. Ringing back at her were eyes that had turned to liquid and a sensuous mouth from which shallow breaths were forming. Oh, but he was beautiful.

  His cheek felt wonderfully warm and smooth. The pads of her fingers tingled as they stroked the planes of his face, the strong jaw, the slight bump in his nose…

  When the hell had she started touching him?

  She yanked her hand away as if it were scalded, wrenched her other wrist free from his grip and took a step away from him.

  In turn, she saw him blink and shake his head. He looked as dazed as she felt.

  She swallowed the moisture that had filled in her mouth and retreated another step.

  “I don’t know about you,” she said shakily, “But I’m going to pretend that never happened.”

  “Pippa.” He spoke her name as if he were dredging it from the depths of him.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Don’t say another word. It never happened.”

  This time he let her leave.

  Chapter Seven

  The sun had long gone down by the time Marco returned home.

  He had worked late then dined with colleagues, anything to delay returning home, delay returning to Pippa.

  His current project, if he pulled it off successfully, would catapult Capello Software to the top of the world’s technological companies. The software his engineers had developed under his personal guidance could be used in every smartphone, tablet, laptop, and PC in the world. He could not afford to take his eye off the ball for a moment. His rivals were circling, another reason he favored conducting this round of the licensing program in Grand Cayman. It was much harder for his rivals to infiltrate his secrets here.

  And now, when he should have been devoting every second of his time and attention on what could be the most important launch of his career, it was his houseguest occupying his mind. It was taking all his strength to hunker down to the job in hand.

  He had almost succeeded, too—until Marnie, his grumpy, underappreciated (or so she often told him) PA, had transferred a call to his office and he had been subjected to Pippa’s clipped drawl snaking through his ear.

  “Sorry to disturb you at work,” she had said, as if nothing had happened between them the previous night.

  She was clearly doing a better job of forgetting about it than he was.

  He’d had every intention of pushing it from his mind, but that was difficult when he could still feel the marks where her gentle fingers had traced his face.

  She was everywhere. He kept catching wafts of her perfume, kept catching what he thought were glimpses of her in the most unlikely of places, although he knew she was at home with Joycy keeping a firm eye on her.

  He’d c
leared his throat. “What can I do for you, Pippa?”

  “May I please borrow your laptop?”

  “What for?” he had asked cautiously, readying himself to refuse.

  “I need to send an email to my lawyer, discharging him, and I want to research some of the public lawyers. I would use my phone but as I’m with a UK provider, the Internet access will cost me a fortune.”

  How churlish would he be if he refused? After all, she had refused the excellent lawyer he had found for her, so why the hell should he facilitate her finding a less-competent one?

  “Go on, then,” he had said with a sigh, against his better judgment. Even a crappy public lawyer had to be better than no lawyer. Any lawyer had to be better than the one her father had set up for her. “It’s on the desk in my office—Joycy has the key. Do not touch anything.”

  “Of course I won’t,” she’d said, sounding annoyed that he would suggest such a thing. “Thank you. ‘Bye.”

  Thus, she had hung up, leaving him staring at the receiver, wondering why he had agreed to let Pippa Rowantree, of all people, use his laptop.

  He drummed his fingers on his desk, debating whether to return home and ensure that she wasn’t rifling through the documents in his home office. You don’t want to check up on her, the sly voice in his head whispered to him. You want to screw her until there are no hours left in the day.

  No!

  That was not going to happen. Not ever. He would not heed that siren call.

  When he could avoid his home no longer, he returned, reasonably assured that she would be fast asleep. To be certain and to work off the excess energy zinging through his veins, he stripped to his briefs and sparred in his gym, hitting the punching bag with all the might his powerful body could force.

  Thwack.

  He reminded himself of all the reasons they could never be lovers.

  Thwack.

  She had no loyalty. She had displayed a shocking lack of loyalty toward him, which she had still not acknowledged, never mind apologized for.

  He could not dispel the notion that Pippa and her boss had shared flirtations that had gotten badly out of hand.

  Thwack.

  She lied to get herself out of trouble. He recalled as if it were only yesterday receiving frantic calls from his aunt, worried out of her skin because Pippa had gone missing, and begging for his help in finding her. Pippa, who was only fifteen at the time, had lied, saying she was spending the weekend with a friend. Her lies had only come to light when Amelia had bumped into the friend’s mother.

  She was located when a hospital administrator called to inform them she had been admitted to hospital with alcohol poisoning.

  Thwack.

  While Amelia and James spent seventy-two hours frantic that their beloved daughter was lying in the bottom of a ditch, and while dozens of police officers were enlisted to find the missing minor, Pippa had been raving it up at a forbidden music festival, drinking so much alcohol her stomach needed to be pumped.

  Okay, maybe “beloved” was too strong a word. And maybe he should replace “frantic” with “mildly concerned,” but still. Marco had assumed that beneath the calm, collected exterior, James Rowantree was in turmoil.

  Thwack.

  When her lies had unraveled, she hadn’t even had the decency to say sorry. Indeed, she had told lie upon lie in a futile effort to escape any blame or punishment.

  Thwack.

  He abhorred liars and she always lied. She had turned it into an art form.

  After half an hour of continuous sparring, sweat dripping from every pore, he took a long shower, changing into a spare pair of knee-length shorts he kept in the basement.

  Except for a dim light in the utility, the house was in darkness. When he reached the first-floor landing, he paused to stare at her bedroom door. Was she asleep?

  He wished he too could sleep. He felt completely drained. Normally able to sleep on command, over the past week he had found slumber particularly elusive.

  Just as he was willing his legs to continue up the next flight, a faint sound caught his attention. Cautiously he pressed his ear to her door, and heard the unmistakable sound of low moaning.

  For an age he stood there, trying to make sense of the noise, until he could listen no longer and pushed the door open.

  For a moment he could not distinguish what he saw.

  Pippa lay on her back, her limbs thrashing wildly, her head tossing from side to side, muttering feverishly.

  It took his stunned brain indeterminable seconds to determine she was in the throes of a nightmare.

  …

  “Pippa, wake up!”

  A commanding, deep masculine voice was breathing in her ear, strong hands pinning her arms by her head.

  She could still see her mother, now just a shape illuminated by the moonlight, being pulled farther and farther away by the malevolent blackness of the sea.

  “Pippa, please, wake up!”

  That voice was there again, cutting through the screams resounding in her head.

  Those screams belonged to her seven-year-old self.

  Opening unfocused eyes, she stared up at Marco’s anxious face, mere inches from her own.

  Perspiration soaked her body. She tried to inhale, but everything inside her felt cold, constricted, her breathing ragged. It took long, long moments before her brain dared believe she was awake and not reliving the night of her mother’s death.

  “Marco?” she whispered, blinking in confusion.

  “I’m here, cara,” he assured her huskily, releasing her arms. He enveloped her trembling body. “I’ve got you,” he added, almost to himself.

  She closed her eyes as his tapered fingers gently brushed her drenched hair off her face. His heart thundered beneath her ear, his strength transmuting through her skin and into her veins. The last of her nightmare faded, the most horrific part, the part where the distant illuminated shape of her mother’s body simply disappeared.

  She blinked again. Like a slowly clearing fog she came back to reality, aware only of his strength wrapping her like a precious treasure.

  Even through the nightmare of watching her mother die and the waking nightmare of knowing it wasn’t a dream, her beautiful mother really was dead, had been dead for eighteen years, was the warm strength and comfort of having Marco there, catching her from the nightmare in his strong arms, and soothing her fears away with supreme tenderness.

  She could feel the strength of his heart, beating under the heat of his naked chest, testament to the fact that he was real. He was taking care of her.

  As she breathed in his clean, spicy scent she became aware that her own heart was thumping madly, her body a mass of noodles pressed against his hardness. Dear God, after the nightmare she had just endured, how was it possible that she could feel desire, enough to fill her mouth with moisture and make the sensitive spot between her legs ache with need?

  Taking a deep breath, she untangled herself from his arms and rolled onto her back, a chill descending on her as she moved away from his heat.

  “You’re cold,” he scolded lightly and rolled her back so she was locked in his arms again and pressed against him.

  His breath was warm in her hair and she struggled to hold on to herself. She was in dangerous territory and unless she pulled away right now…

  “Was your nightmare about him?”

  She blinked as his deep concerned tones filled her senses, distracting her from the unwanted need running through her. It took her a moment to comprehend what he meant. She gave a slight shake of her head. “Do you mean my boss?”

  No, no matter how horrific the ordeal had been at the time, it was not something that would keep her awake at night. If things had gone further, if he had been able to do as he had intended, then things would undoubtedly be different. She could only be thankful it never got that far.

  As was all too familiar to her, emotional distress was more potent and gut-wrenching than physical distress. Bruises and bumps
would eventually fade and heal. Emotional scars had a far greater impact on the psyche.

  Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I was dreaming about my mother.”

  His hand brushing her hair was so comforting she couldn’t help but rub her head against it.

  “Do you dream about her often?” His eyes were warm, the empathy in them enough to make her heart coil.

  “All the time.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “But they’re usually good dreams. I don’t understand it, though—I haven’t dreamt about her, actually…I’d almost forgotten how…” her voice trailed off as the words she sought wouldn’t form. She swallowed and tried again to explain, not understanding why she was unbuttoning. Her mother had drowned long before counseling had become practically compulsory for dealing with any form of trauma. She had learned to keep her feelings contained, rarely spoken about, or even alluded to. Until tonight.

  “After she died I kept getting the same nightmare, reliving the night she drowned. The worst of it is when the dream starts I still forget how it ends—it always starts at the same point, with Mum playing the piano in the atrium of the ship just because it was there and she couldn’t resist. She was such a wonderful player, so, so beautiful.”

  Pippa laughed, but there was no real mirth in it. “She’d had a whole bottle of wine over dinner that night, but she still played like a dream and I remember feeling so proud that she was my mummy. Even my dad was smiling and enjoying it.” He’d held her hand as they watched, and then the three of them had returned to their suite to put Pippa to bed.

  She remembered trying to sleep but her parents started arguing in their cabin, something about her mummy wanting more wine and her daddy saying she’d had enough. After lots of raised voices, her dad had come in to check on her, kissed her forehead, and whispered words of reassurance. Those few minutes together had been enough time for Elizabeth Rowantree to topple over the balcony with nothing but a scream.

  Now completely awake, Pippa closed her eyes and accepted the silent comfort Marco gave. Now that she was off the practically coma-inducing painkillers, the nightmare had found a gateway for release. No doubt her being by the sea for the first time since that dreadful night had triggered it. “The nightmares stopped after about a year, and since then, I always dream that she’s still alive. At least I did until tonight.”