The Rich List Series: Contemporary Romance Box Set (Millionaire, Billionaire, CEO)

by Hunter, Talia

  Put like that, it sounded cold and calculating. He’d never admitted it out loud before, so why was he suddenly being so honest? He wouldn’t blame her if she thought less of him for the confession, but she didn’t seem shocked. She pursed her lips, thinking seriously about what he’d said. He admired her for that. Most people spoke quickly, without thinking, but not Ally. He’d never met anyone with eyes so expressive he could just about see her mind working.

  Once again, she surprised him. “I think you’ve earned some lunch,” she said.

  5

  How did Max do it? He could transform into Thomas so completely Ally almost forgot it was an act. After lunch, she insisted he pick up from where he left off, acting out more of the early scenes. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Ally had seen some good plays before, sure, and a few movies too. But she’d never been held spellbound like when she watched Max perform.

  The exception was when Thomas had to be subservient to Cora. That was when the mask slipped. It wasn’t that his performance was bad, but the other bits were so flawless that just being passably good felt like a letdown. Like if you’d been reading Shakespeare and then picked up a magazine. You could flip to the best, most interesting article in the world and no matter what, it still wouldn’t be Shakespeare. That’s what it felt like when Max said, “Let me serve you, Cora.” Like the bard had stepped out for a moment and she’d picked up a magazine in the meantime.

  And that’s what she had to fix. Somehow. It might not be quite so scary if only she had any idea what she was doing. All she knew was that the afternoon was slipping away, Max was getting frustrated, and she had to do something. Anything. And with cold fingers of guilt creeping up her spine whenever she thought about how badly she could screw up his career for him, she was ready to do whatever it took.

  “Let’s take a break,” she suggested finally.

  He sat next to her on the couch and she casually shifted over until she was against the armrest and there was no danger of her leg touching his. What was it about being so close to him that sent shivers over her skin? Was it his graceful, confident movements? The way his light eyes made the whole world drop away when they focused on her? Or maybe it was the way he smelled. What was that cologne? Could anything that smelled that good possibly be legal?

  She only knew one thing for certain – she had to keep her goose bumps under control to have any chance of helping him.

  By the way he’d slumped back into the couch, whether or not his knee touched hers was the furthest thing from Max’s mind. He ran his hands through his hair and blew out a deep breath, obviously annoyed with himself. But it wouldn’t do him any good to get worked up.

  “Before lunch we were playing Truth or Dare,” she said. “And I’m ready for some more truth.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  Why it sounded like you’d never been in love, and don’t want to be? Why you think committing to a relationship would mean sacrificing your dreams?

  No, she wouldn’t push him on that subject. Something safer.

  “Tell me about your family,” she suggested.

  “I don’t have any. My mother died when I was fifteen.”

  “And your father?”

  “A mystery man. When I asked about him, Mom would make up crazy stories. He was a famous rock star on tour, or a magician who accidentally made himself vanish, or even a time traveler. She probably had no idea.”

  “So there’s no chance you could ever find out who he is?” Ally couldn’t imagine something so awful. Her father had spent too much time at work and got grumpy when he was stressed, but that was a lot better than never having a father at all.

  Max shrugged. “Maybe his DeLorean broke down and he got stuck in the eighties.” He gave her a one-sided smile, and Ally noticed one of his side teeth was slightly crooked. Her chest tightened. That slight imperfection made his face less impossibly handsome, but for some weird reason, it made him even more irresistible. You wouldn’t notice that tooth unless you were sitting this close to him, so it almost felt like a secret he’d shared with her. Was that totally stupid? Probably. But she still found herself leaning closer to him.

  “What’s a DeLorean?” she asked.

  He sighed. “My brilliant joke is ruined because you obviously haven’t seen Back To The Future.”

  Ally shook her head. She wasn’t very good at movie references, and anyway, she wasn’t about to let the conversation get sidetracked. “What about the rest of your family?” she asked. “Aunts and uncles? Grandparents?”

  “My mother’s parents kicked her out when she was seventeen and they caught her taking drugs. She never spoke to them again, or her brothers either. I’ve never met them, and I’m not even sure if they know I exist.”

  “You’ve never looked for them?” Ally tried to picture what life would be like without family and couldn’t. Her sister might drive her crazy sometimes, but she’d always be there for Ally, no questions asked. Geena hadn’t hesitated to bail Ally out, though it had put her business at risk, and Ally would do the same for her.

  “Mom didn’t exactly speak about them fondly, so I’ve always assumed they wouldn’t be happy to see me.” He put his finger to his chin in a mock thoughtful gesture. “Although Mom wasn’t always the best judge of character, so maybe that was a mistake. Paranoia was a side effect of her drug problem, and it only got worse over time.”

  Ally swallowed. Talking about such a dreadful childhood must hurt, surely? But Max’s blue eyes were clear, his expression open and untroubled. Still, her heart ached for him. She shifted position so she could touch him gently on the arm. “I’m sorry.”

  He watched her hand settle back on her thigh, and his expression sent completely inappropriate shivers up her spine. Could he have been aroused by her touch, just like she was by sitting this close to him? Stop it, Ally, and don’t be silly. He’s not turned on, you probably just surprised him. Concentrate on what he’s saying and keep your hands to yourself.

  She cleared her throat. “Having a drug addicted mother must have been terrible for you.”

  “It wasn’t always bad,” said Max. “She had good times too. Mostly she could control her habit, and when it got too much for her she’d disappear so I wouldn’t have to watch it taking her over. She’d start getting edgy and mean, then she’d vanish for a few days, and when she came back things would be okay again.”

  “She’d leave a child to look after himself?” Ally kept her tone even, though she wanted to exclaim at the unfairness of it. The poor kid. How could she?

  He shrugged. “I got used to making my own choices, which is probably why I hate anyone telling me what to do. Mom wasn’t in danger of winning a Homemaker Of The Year award even when she was around.”

  Maybe that was the missing piece of the puzzle, the reason Max didn’t mind that he’d never fallen in love. He’d been neglected from a young age, so no wonder he never expected anything better.

  “What happened after your mother died?”

  “The state didn’t think I could look after myself, though I’d been doing it for years. Instead I was forced into our wonderful foster system.” He grimaced. “And because nobody wants a troubled teenager, I went into a group home.”

  Troubled teenager? It would have been a miracle if his childhood hadn’t affected him. With a background like his, she’d be a gibbering mess. How on earth had he overcome it and become so successful?

  “Was it bad?” she asked.

  Max ran his tongue slowly across his lower lip. Ally could tell he didn’t want to answer, so the place must have been a hell hole. Hey, she was starting to be able to read his body language. Maybe she didn’t make such a bad dominatrix after all.

  “The best thing about it was that after school and on weekends, they sent me off to a youth center.” She didn’t miss that he’d avoided answering her question. “Mrs. B, the woman who runs the center, became like a real mother to me.”

  “How long were you in the group
home for?”

  “I got paroled once I turned eighteen.” Max leaned back and put his arm across the back of the couch. “Now you’ve asked enough questions. My turn.”

  Crap. After all he’d just shared, how could she refuse without looking suspicious? But how could she answer questions without giving away the fact she’d been a journalist for most of her working life? She’d have to be careful, that’s all. Hadn’t she heard somewhere that the trick with lying was to stick as close as possible to the truth, and try not to overcompensate by talking too much?

  She nodded slowly. “I’ll answer a couple of questions. But don’t ask about work, because my clients expect confidentiality.”

  He tilted his head to one side. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  She blinked. “No.” It seemed a funny question to ask a dominatrix, but when she thought about it, why couldn’t someone in that line of work have a regular boyfriend in addition to their clients?

  “Why not?”

  Ally thought of Barry and shuddered.

  Max raised his eyebrows. “Let me guess. A bad experience? Someone didn’t treat you right?”

  “You could say that.”

  His lips tightened. The thought must have made him angry. He reached for a strand of hair that had fallen over her eye to smooth it back from her face. When his fingers brushed her skin, the tingles she’d gotten just from sitting next to him turned into serious deep-in-the-belly earthquakes. The gesture felt intimate, like a lover’s touch. Too intimate. She jerked her head back. “You don’t get to touch me without permission. Not even my face or hair.”

  His hand dropped and his expression darkened. “It won’t happen again.”

  Well, that killed the mood. Ally dragged in a breath, trying to calm her racing heart. She couldn’t let him see the effect his touch had had on her. “Next question,” she said. “You get one more.”

  “You heard about my family, now tell me about yours.”

  Safer ground, thank goodness. “My parents live south of Darwin. They like the heat. I have a wicked and rebellious older sister and by the time I came along they’d developed a firm ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy that I never really benefited from, being the boring good girl that I was. But being the baby of the family, I was spoiled. That’s probably why I’m in such a mess now.”

  “What kind of a mess?”

  She took a deep breath, cursing herself for letting that little confession slip out. “Oh, I just never seem to have enough cash, you know?” It would be bad enough admitting to someone so rich and successful that she had serious money problems, but there was no way she was going to tell him about her bomb site of a bedroom, the mountain of dirty laundry she couldn’t face cleaning, or the piles of mail she never seemed to get around to opening. “Anyway, you only had two questions, not three.”

  “This is Truth or Dare, right?” He suddenly sounded teasing. “So when do I get to dare you to do something?”

  Although his gaze stayed fixed on her eyes, she felt like he’d raked them over her body. Her face flamed hot, for no good reason. What was he doing to her? He hadn’t made his question sound sleazy or even suggestive, but her mind had instantly flashed up a picture of him challenging her to… No, she had to stop thinking about sex!

  She kept her voice level, and prayed her cheeks hadn’t flushed bright red. “If anybody’s going to issue a dare, it’s me. But I haven’t finished with the questions yet.” She searched for something to keep the focus on him. His work was the safest bet. He was obviously passionate about what he did.

  “Did you always want to be an actor?” she asked.

  “Whenever Mom was going through a good patch and had some money, we’d go to the movies. Some of my best memories come from when we used to load up with popcorn and candy, and sit with our feet on the seats in front. I remember the exact moment when I decided to be an actor. I was watching Titanic. You’ve seen it?” He spread his arms wide, tossed his head back like he was shaking out a mane of long hair, and made his voice girly and breathless. “I’m flying, Jack.”

  She let out a delighted laugh, though she didn’t have a clue who he was pretending to be. Her laugh was tinged with relief at the heat in her cheeks returning to safe levels.

  He grinned back, giving her another tantalizing glimpse of that crooked side tooth. Man, she really needed to pull herself together. How could a tooth send tingles over her body? There had to be something wrong with her.

  “Anyway, it got to the part when Kate says, ‘Draw me like one of your French girls, Jack’. Remember that bit? I watched her lie back on the couch wearing nothing but a necklace, and I thought Leo DeCaprio had the best damn job in the world.” He quirked one eyebrow at her. “Now I think about it, maybe I have a thing for gorgeous women who aren’t afraid to say what they want.”

  “Soooo,” she drawled. “What you’re saying is, you became an actor so you could look at naked women?”

  He widened his eyes into an innocent look. “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?”

  I wouldn’t mind being naked with him.

  Oh god, did she really just think that? Snap out of it, Ally, and change the subject.

  She cleared her throat. “Now you’ve confessed the movie that inspired you to become an actor, I have to admit that I haven’t seen it.”

  “First Back To The Future, and now you’re telling me you haven’t seen Titanic either?”

  “I haven’t seen many movies. My parents were both English teachers and they never took us. They had floor to ceiling bookcases, and even with both of us girls moaning about it nonstop, they refused to get a TV.” She shrugged. “I grew up reading, and drove my sister crazy by always pretending I was either Elizabeth Bennet, or Scarlett O’Hara.”

  “Ah yes.” He looked cocky. “Pride and Prejudice, and Gone With the Wind.”

  She felt her mouth drop open. “You haven’t read them?”

  “Watched them.” He smirked. “Colin Firth played an excellent Mr. Darcy.”

  “That figures.” She rolled her eyes, but suddenly she was wondering how come it felt so comfortable to banter with him. When she got over how gorgeous he was — if she could ever get over it — he was pretty fun to be around.

  “What kind of books do you read now?” he asked. “Fifty Shades of Grey?”

  Why hadn’t she thought about reading that book before she came? She might have picked up some tips and not been so utterly clueless. The fact she’d never gotten around to reading it probably meant she was less prepared for this role than ninety percent of the population would have been. She could only hope he hadn’t read it and didn’t catch on that she had no idea what she was doing.

  Oh crap, hadn’t they made it into a movie?

  “I’m more of a love story type,” she said. “I’m a sucker for a happy ending.”

  “I can’t believe you don’t watch movies.” Max shook his head sternly. “That’s got to change. My friend has an impressive collection, so we can start your education tonight.”

  “What about the movies you’ve been in?”

  “They’re okay,” he said without any trace of ego. “But we’ve got a big library to choose from and there are a lot of better films to see.”

  A shiver ran down her spine at the thought of snuggling up on the couch with him to watch movies. But no, though it sounded tempting, that wasn’t why she was here. She had a job to do, and not just the articles for Liaison. First, to appease her guilt, she had to do her best to help Max. There was a reason he found it difficult to act the part of Thomas, and she suspected it had something to do with his awful upbringing and the way his mother had abandoned him. Maybe he should have hired a shrink to help him play this part, because if her uneducated guess was right, there was no way she’d be able to heal that kind of damage.

  Maybe she couldn’t help him, but she had to try. She’d play the part of a dominatrix to the best of her ability and pray it helped. He smiled and she looked for that sexy cro
oked tooth. There. A private thrill coursed through her.

  Geena had given her a bag stuffed with supplies from the store. She didn’t know what was in it yet, but if the way she felt right now was any indication, she might enjoy finding out.

  * * *

  By the end of the day’s rehearsals, Max thought he might almost be getting used to Ally ordering him about. Almost. He’d probably never really like it, but it was a hell of a lot easier taking orders from Ally than from anyone else. If she’d addressed him with the slightest trace of arrogance or contempt, he’d find it harder to force himself to obey. But although assertive, she was always forthright.

  He could hardly believe he’d opened up to her, sharing all that stuff about his mother. Whenever any other woman had asked, he’d glossed over his past. It was none of their business, and the last thing he needed was to read about it later in the gossip pages.

  So why spill so many secrets to Ally? Was it those bewitching gray eyes of hers? Or was it their easy rapport, the way they’d clicked together so effortlessly?

  Maybe opening up to her had actually helped. He’d done better with Thomas’s submissive scenes this afternoon. Not that they’d gotten to any of the harder ones—the early ones were mild in comparison to the scenes at the end of the script. And the ones he’d rehearsed weren’t up to the standard he expected from himself, not yet. He’d made some good progress, but still had a long way to go.

  “Let’s call it a day. You must be hungry.” He rubbed his stomach. “I know I am.”

  “I decide when we finish,” she corrected. Then she grinned. “And I’m starving. What’s for dinner?”

  “Tonight’s going to be an easy meal. I had the hotel chef make something we could reheat. But tomorrow I’ll cook for us.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You cook?”

  He clapped one hand to his chest as though her disbelief had pierced his heart. “Why do you sound so surprised?”