The Dani Collins Erotic Romance Collection: Mastering Her RolePlaying the Master

by Dani Collins

  Her entire body quivered with an urge to flee, but as usual, she was trapped.

  Porter said nothing as he stared at Eloisa.

  She placed insolent hands on her hips and tossed her wild curls with bravado.

  Ann hadn’t done anything so bold when introduced to him. She’d been too terrified, too conscious she was being sold to a man who looked more wicked and dangerous than her stepfather—which was saying something.

  Thankfully, he hadn’t bothered to let his dark gaze linger on her the way he did with Eloisa. If he had, she hadn’t seen it while she’d stared at his shoes. How did Eloisa stand his scrutiny? He was intimidating, tall and ropy with muscle.

  And yet, as Ann stole her first opportunity to study him without being observed, the sexy slithery feeling in her abdomen returned. He was even better looking in person than in the photos she’d looked up online.

  His father was Spanish, but Porter had been born in South America, which leant warm Latin swarthiness to his skin. His brows weren’t too heavy, but they were intense over smoky gray eyes. He wore a precision-thin moustache with an equally ruthless narrow line of hair that started below his bottom lip and ran into a curving anchor that followed the edge of his strong jaw.

  His mother was French, which accounted for the sensual lips, she supposed, but he was more worldly than that, having grown up around the globe as his father expanded the family oil interests. His accent had held a British boarding-school clip. His clothes were tailored either here or in Milan because his tuxedo fit his flawless build to perfection.

  Everything about his appearance was excruciatingly perfect, from his shiny black hair swooped to the left to his polished black shoes. Even his companions, women of various ethnicities who’d been photographed by online gossip sites sprawled upon him in barely there bikinis, were utterly flawless.

  But when Ann had looked past his brutal handsomeness and money and power, and read the titles he was given, “Sexual Adventurer,” “Master of Kink” and “Lady Killer,” taking her chances with defying Cain and making a run for it looked like the safer option.

  Not that she had much say in the matter now. She curled her sweaty palms into fists, holding her breath, waiting for Eloisa to expose her. Waiting for Porter to speak.

  They only confronted each other in silence.

  Eloisa softened her posture first. She moved toward him with a swish of her hips.

  “Mon bijou, this evening is full of the unexpected.” She sounded amused.

  Ann dug her teeth into her lip so hard she expected to taste blood. Her nerves frayed as she felt the noose drawn a fraction tighter. A damp chill sat on her skin.

  “I certainly wasn’t expecting to see you here.” He glanced toward the closet where Ann was hiding. “Find anything interesting in there?”

  “Only your fiancée.”

  Ann’s inner being drained from her eyebrows to her ankles in a sucking plunge.

  “Is that where she got to?” Porter asked with disinterest, implying he thought she was joking. “People have been asking.”

  Ann’s throat locked around a burst of hysterical amusement. Her stomach flip-flopped and all she could do was stand there motionless, waiting for Eloisa to release the blade on the guillotine.

  “They want to see what kind of woman could leash the infamous Porter Navarro. From the brief glimpse I had, she seems intriguing.” Eloisa slid a familiar hand over Porter’s arm, lifting onto her tiptoes to attempt a kiss on his cheek. Her gaze cut sideways toward the closet from the corner of her swooped lashes. It was a teasing acknowledgment of Ann’s presence.

  Before the kiss landed, Porter set a firm hand on her collarbone and pressed her to flat feet. “What are you doing here, Eloisa?”

  “Ever the Dominant.” She tsked as he brushed her hand from his belt buckle. “I just told you. Like everyone else, I wanted a look at this paragon you’re planning to marry. Is she really a virgin?”

  “According to Cain. Given how plain she is, I can’t imagine any man would touch her without other incentives.”

  As Eloisa tittered, indignant heat crept into Ann’s cheeks. She didn’t know where it came from. Having witnessed how her stepfather had treated her mother, she had little interest in catching men’s attention. In fact, she’d spent the past nine years ensuring Cain found her less than interesting. Repulsive. Raina had helped her disguise the fact she’d grown into the body that had only been starting to blossom when her mother had been killed. Ann couldn’t peel back the layers at this point to reveal that, actually, she wasn’t half-bad. Not with Cain watching her every second, determined to get rid of her and her mother’s oil company in one ruthlessly lucrative stroke of his pen.

  Still, it bothered her to know Porter thought she was unattractive. She feared it meant he’d be callous at best, harsh and vicious as her stepfather at his worst. That closed a door on her. Part of her had wondered if this marriage could be a turn of fortune, but apparently not.

  “That’s another thing that has me curious.” Eloisa came toward the closet again and fussed with her hair. “You can’t need money. Why are you marrying for it?”

  “I’m not,” Porter dismissed with a negligent shrug. “Cain wants to cash out, and if I don’t take this opportunity to absorb his company, someone else will. I like being on top, so I’ll take the steps necessary to stay there.”

  “And consume a virgin along the way? Such a sacrifice.”

  “Hell, no. She can save that for her next husband. Her stepfather has been living in Saudi Arabia so long he thought her virginity would make a sweetener for the deal. It drew interest from others, I’ll admit, but deflowering innocents doesn’t do it for me.”

  “Overdosed in the early years, I imagine. When are you coming to the club? You know people started asking for you the minute you arrived in the city.”

  He swept that away with a flick of his hand. “I won’t be there this trip.”

  “What?” She spun around. “Why?”

  “Reasons that are my own.”

  “Something to do with your brother?”

  He didn’t move, but he seemed to solidify into a hardened substance in a way that made Ann lean her weight back and hold her breath, gaze fixed on Eloisa, waiting to see if she reacted to his subtle descent into dangerous.

  “I’m closing a business deal,” he said in a quiet voice that was deadly enough to lift the hairs on Ann’s arms. “It’s complex and requires a lot of my attention.”

  Eloisa made a huffing noise, affecting disinterest as she checked inside her pocketbook, but Ann sensed the charge of hostility between them. “You said she’s from KSA? Saudi Arabia? That explains the lab coat, but they’re not Muslim, are they? Not the way he drinks. Where is she from originally? I heard England.”

  “I have no idea. Why does it matter?”

  Eloisa offered a smile that held her cheek in a tense bump against her profile. “Just curious.”

  He folded his arms. “The marriage is a formality, Eloisa. Don’t feel threatened.”

  “By whom? You?”

  He lifted a weary brow.

  “Of course I wouldn’t. We have no hard feelings between us,” she declared. Her hand pressed into the small of her back, fingers crossed against her spine.

  Her cheeky signal made Ann smile despite how awful this was. She liked how Eloisa was standing up to Porter. She’d never had the nerve to stand up to anyone, especially a man who exuded so much power.

  Her heart took a little swoop as she regarded him again. He was a quietly dangerous animal, like a panther or a raptor. The kind you wanted to look at through the glass at the zoo, because face-to-face, if he decided to make a move, you’d be gone before you knew what had happened.

  And Eloisa was baiting him, treating this like a joke. Bringing Ann in on the secret as if they were conspirators. In a way it made her feel less lonely, just for second, but she was alarmed. She didn’t want Porter to discover her and think she was aligning with this wom
an. He didn’t seem very pleased with Eloisa.

  “I can see your hand in the mirror,” he drawled. “This isn’t a love match. I wanted to buy the company outright and forego the marriage. Cain has made it a condition, because marriage will unlock her trust fund. It’s pure greed on their part, since the compensation for the rigs and drilling rights should be generous enough to hold them for a few years, but he won’t budge. So I’ll marry her to secure the merger and divorce her as soon as everything finalizes. You have no reason to feel slighted, Eloisa,” he finished in a condescending tone.

  Interesting information to process later. Ann tucked it away and watched Eloisa drop her loose fingers to her side.

  “Why would I feel slighted? We had a lovely affair and went our separate ways. We’re still friends.”

  “That’s the way I remember it.” He strolled laconically across the roses in the area rug, becoming more threatening with each step.

  Ann drew a slow, awe-filled breath at Eloisa’s strength in standing undaunted as he approached to loom over her.

  “And even though I continue to like and respect you—” he began.

  “Do you? Perhaps we have different definitions of that word,” Eloisa cut in with a hint of hardening frost.

  “—I’m concerned about your motives.” He took hold of her chin.

  Ann’s heart raced like a caught bird, fearful for Eloisa. She didn’t want to watch violence, but Eloisa didn’t so much as twinge with apprehension.

  “Rather than calling me and asking for an invite, you fucked your way in here—”

  “Would you have allowed me to come?” she interrupted again. Such insolence.

  “No,” he stated implacably.

  “There you go.” Eloisa jerked her chin from his grip and half turned away. “But how else could I see if she’s worthy of you? I failed to capture your heart and wanted to know who could,” she stated breezily. “That’s understandable, isn’t it?”

  Ann thought she heard genuine heartache beneath. That was bad. If Eloisa regarded her as a rival, it would be very, very bad.

  “Jealousy is a wasted emotion, especially on me. You’ve always known that, and in this case it’s even more misplaced.”

  Eloisa turned to look up at him, lips widening in a flat, tight smile against her still profile. “The mighty will never fall?” she challenged, a rasp of bitterness threaded through her tone.

  “No,” he assured her. “Not for you or any other woman. So there’s nothing to see here. You can leave. Now. As discreetly as possible.”

  “Afraid if I stay, she’ll find out what kind of man you really are and refuse to marry you?”

  He released an impatient sigh, but the way he briefly averted his gaze suggested there might be some truth to Eloisa’s accusation. “This deal has to happen. I won’t let you or anyone else jeopardize it.”

  Warnings seemed to crackle in Ann’s ears at his determination, but before she could fully examine why, Eloisa distracted her, saying, “Promise to come by the club and I’ll leave without a fuss.”

  “You’ll leave because I told you to,” he said with an arrogant look down his nose. “I’ll drop in for a drink if I’m bored,” he allowed with a flicker of patronizing indulgence.

  “Oh, I can tell you’re bored,” she said sweetly. “I’ll ensure suitable entertainment is provided,” she added as further enticement.

  When he said nothing and the silence drew out, she glanced very briefly toward the closet, then cocked her head at him, voice almost leaving a cloud of chill in the air. “No? Not interested in other women? Saving it all for your fiancée? What do you really know about her?”

  This was it. The doors would be flung open. Curdles of dread soured Ann’s stomach as she held her breath again.

  “I don’t need to know anything about her and neither do you. That’s the point I’ve been hammering since I walked in here.” He opened the door to the hall. “Now go. Down the back stairs and out through the kitchen.”

  Eloisa’s response, something about not being his bitch, faded into the noise of conversation from below as they left the door open.

  Ann released a slow exhale and waited a full three minutes, bemused, one hand over the sick knot lingering in her stomach. Porter and Eloisa had speculated on her virginity—which was intact. That only meant she was inexperienced, much as she was with all the ways of the world, but she wasn’t naive. As much as she’d like to believe there would be no repercussions from the unpredictable Eloisa, instinct told her that would be wishful thinking.

  The real question, however, wasn’t what action Eloisa would take, or when, but how her betrothed would react. Porter didn’t have much of an opinion of her to start with, obviously, and he held her fate in his wide hand. Would he care that she had watched his lover coupling, or that she’d eavesdropped on his conversation? Would he tell her stepfather?

  Despite years of wishing she could see her future, she’d learned that things had to play out in their own time. She could only respond when it happened, and then always in a limited way. Unless she made changes.

  She trembled in a kind of shock as she stepped from the closet and slid the other side of the closet open, where wraps and overcoats had been hung by the servants. Fingering through the pockets of one damp raincoat, she found nothing and slid it across to the ones she’d searched before the approaching voices of Eloisa and her suitor had prompted her to step behind the bent door.

  Paris was becoming less interesting and more dangereux. Perhaps not the best place to run away after all, but when would she have another opportunity?

  This isn’t a love match.

  If she bided her time and allowed the marriage, would she gain the trust fund that was rightfully hers and finally be free? She didn’t bother thinking about the greater fortune, the oil company. It might have been started by her father and inherited by her mother, but it had gone to Cain on her mother’s death and Ann had no interest in fighting him for it. Ridding herself of him was worth whatever he may or may not be stealing from her.

  Skimming half of the notes from a cologne-scented pocket—a trick of subtle theft, she’d observed, was slower to be discovered—she tucked her find with the rest up the sleeve of the dress she wore beneath her abaya. A few minutes later, she used the back stairs and the pantry entrance to the dining room to rejoin the reception.

  The band was on intermission. Perched on the piano bench, she hid behind the piano’s raised lid, skirt and slippers blocked by a potted fern. If she had the ability to buy stocks, she would have made a fortune on what she overheard undetected.

  Chapter Two

  Her life might be on the verge of change. Paris might be a delightful switch of scenery from the arid Arab peninsula, but Ann still felt like the fairy-tale princess locked in the castle.

  Porter, or rather his mother, was organizing the wedding—something Ann didn’t care about. She’d never been to a wedding, had had enough of protocol and tradition in KSA and planned to avoid marrying at all.

  Running away was proving challenging, however. Cain had laid the groundwork that she was some kind of sleepwalking mental deficient who needed to be locked in her room at night and turned away from the front door during the day. Of course, Porter had sounded pretty insistent last night that the marriage-merger occur. Perhaps he was as much to blame for her imprisonment as Cain.

  She still didn’t know what to think about all she’d seen and heard last night. Despite the possibility of gaining her trust fund, she couldn’t see marrying Porter. He was too big and scary and powerful. And Eloisa obviously didn’t want them to marry, so why hadn’t she exposed her? The perils closing in on her were so great, Ann could think about nothing except running from them, but she couldn’t get away.

  At least the castle was wide open to her. Snooping through the upstairs bedrooms of the centuries-old mansion, she’d found a laptop no one was using. She hadn’t had online access since arriving here and was feeling the absence, even though
she’d only ever had Cain’s desktop when he was out. Still, she was in the habit of surfing when she was bored, and she was dying to know if sites really were uncensored here in France, as she’d been led to believe.

  The laptop was charging in her room right now while she wandered the back garden looking for possible escape routes. A stone wall rose from the rocky foundation of this river island, making the garden as much of a prison as the rest of the house, but the abundance of water here was such a marvel she paused to absorb it.

  The wall came to a point where the Seine lazily zipped itself together from flowing down either side of what had to be a billion-euro property. The three-story chateau with its gold fixtures and crystal chandeliers was not the greatest luxury here, despite what the occupants might imagine. After more than a decade in a country where they’d had to set towels along the door cracks to keep out the dust during a storm, she gloried in the dank scents of algae and wet earth that filled her nostrils. When she rested her hands on the fur of mossy stones, light raindrops landed in gentle pecks against her knuckles. Water even fell from the sky here.

  As she looked up, rain speckled her glasses and kissed her lips, making her smile. No wonder writers were so taken with springtime in Paris.

  The dogs at the front, sleek pinschers she’d seen from the car when they’d arrived, exploded with vicious barks. The sound made her turn toward the wrought-iron gate she’d half-considered stepping through. It led to the paved stones of the front courtyard, which was fenced to twice her height and guarded by a man in a shack along with the hounds from hell currently lathered into a rabid fury because a toy poodle had dared to trespass. The little creature ran flat out down the side of the house, with the pinschers in manic pursuit.

  Ann sucked in a horrified breath and started forward, terrified for the mite.

  Her approach only scared the pup as he ducked under the gate. He veered into the shrubbery at the side of the house. The big dogs came up against the bars where they snarled and barked, pawing through the uprights, trying to follow.