But he hadn’t intended to do that to her. He only wanted to see her more often. He wanted to give her things because she seemed to need them.
He’d had the contract written for months, since the first week she’d started working in the lobby. Her bright smile on her innocent face, surrounded by the dark halo of her sleek bob, all combined to make her a mystery to him. And he liked mysteries.
Yes, there was a shadow behind her eyes, and he wanted to understand it. But he wanted her smiles. Her tears. Her anger. More than the smiles, her anger and her tears were real emotions, not easily faked. He wanted the authentic emotions of someone who so freely gave them.
He had no idea why.
Maybe because he hated it in himself.
Was he manipulating her to get them? Yes, it was possible. He really didn’t know any other way.
Truth was, he’d gotten a pitiful amount of work done since she’d started working for him. She was too damn distracting. He imagined her lush little mouth wrapped around his cock every time he watched her purse her lips in concentration. The other night, when she’d drooled on his lap while she slept, the image of her crying and gagging on his dick had almost undone him.
That wasn’t even to say the times he took her on top of his desk. In his head, it was a montage of filthy scenes, her bent over, him spanking her, then sinking in. Or she would ride him in his desk chair, his thumb in her asshole. Or him burying his face in her hot, wet pussy while she propped her shoes on his shoulders, again, his thumb in her asshole. He had no idea why he was so fascinated with her ass, but he was going to take it in his fantasies, soon.
Amelia looked up at him, stark anger on her face. The fire in her eyes made his dick jump in his pants, and he reached a hand under his desk to rearrange things.
She dropped her eyes back to her computer screen, ignoring him.
He sighed and pushed his hand through his hair, resting it on the back of his neck and squeezing.
He needed to get control of himself.
Amelia had installed some sort of software on his computer so they could communicate without yelling across the office. He pulled it up and tapped out a message to her.
I’m not manipulating you.
He deleted it. No sense in opening that can of worms, and he wasn’t in the habit of explaining himself. Besides, what would he say? He liked her? No. Charlie Delmonico didn’t have feelings like that. Attachments. Sure, he wanted to see her emotions and feelings, but only because he didn’t have any of his own.
At three o’clock he watched as the door to the outside opened and in walked Adam and another man, casually striding into the outer office to greet a suddenly flustered Amelia.
The message screen pinged.
Your three o’clock is here. You went around me to make the appointment?
I didn’t make it.
She looked at him, and he nodded. She sighed and gestured for them to enter the conference room.
As the men filed around his giant table, he realized what had happened. Mack had a self-satisfied grin on his face, and the new guy clapped him on the back. Charlie remembered he was cyber security, which was a fancy word for a fucking hacker.
He’d gotten into their system and given them the appointment himself.
He was grateful for a distraction.
A distraction from the distraction.
Rising, he strode into the conference room and shut the door. Amelia watched them through the glass, and her frustration was evident. For some reason, he delighted in it. For once, she was as lost as he was.
“She’s a ballbuster.” The new guy gestured to Amelia and Charlie’s hackles immediately rose.
“She can be protective of my time.” He was lying. She didn’t give a damn about his time. She’d been pissed and took it out on this guy. “You are?”
“I like a woman with some sass. I wish I’d been on the call.” The man ignored Charlie’s question and grinned wolfishly. Suddenly pissed, Charlie knew exactly where the asshole’s mind was. He shot Adam a look, silently wondering how one of his oldest friends thought he could work with this douchebag.
He shook himself. He worked with douchebags every day. Leaning on the table, he got in the asshole’s face.
“Miss Flores is not up for discussion. Who the fuck are you?” Charlie gritted his teeth through the change of subject before he lost his shit. If this guy was a hacker, he could use him for other projects; he just needed to figure out how to deal with the guy.
“I’m Mack McKenzie, and I’ve been doing some work for Adam, here. He’s brought it to my attention we have some mutual interests.”
“We are taking down Bascom Forrester.” Adam, asserting himself as the ringleader, spoke with a certain amount of smugness. “You have others to bring on board?” Looking at Charlie, Adam simply raised an eyebrow.
He didn’t have any personal relations with the man, by design. Everyone knew he had his little finger in a lot of pies, some legal, some not so much. He was entirely too visible for Charlie to have anything to do with him.
“I do, but I can’t do anything about this for at least a week. I’m in the Caymans next week, wrapping up a few loose ends on a project. After that, I can devote time to this one.” Charlie leaned back and steepled his fingers under his chin. This could be interesting. Far more than scaring punks in back alleys and blackmailing city politicians.
“He’ll be a hard man to ruin. He’s powerful.”
“Are you saying you can’t do it?” Mack sneered at him. Charlie’s patience was running thin. He shot Adam a look, telling him with his eyes to get the guy under control or they’d both be out of here.
“No. I can do most anything. I’m saying it will take a lot of money for the kind of ruin you’re talking about.”
Mack leaned forward. “I have plans to get money, but we need clean money.”
“I can clean the money.” Charlie leaned back in his seat. “One of the other guys I was chatting with can too.” He pointed to Mack. “You can too, if you’re worth your salt as a cybersecurity specialist.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s get together and talk outside of the office. One week. If you’ve got anything to contribute as far as a specific plan, email it to me. If not, we’ll meet at Adam’s warehouse next Saturday night. Eight. I’ll get the others there. We can all meet.” He would give a basic lesson on money laundering. It wasn’t hard, if you had the money.
After ushering them out, Charlie sat down at his desk, ignoring the daggers Amelia was shooting at him, and pulled out his phone.
He sent a text to Luca, the owner of the restaurant and Dean, the guy he’d met at the bar, telling them there was a group opportunity, and he needed them to meet at Adam’s place next Saturday. He sent them the address, then shut off his phone. If they were serious, they’d fucking show.
Now he just needed to figure out what the fuck to do with the woman who was suddenly pissed at him. And figure out why he cared.
Chapter Eleven
Amelia had never flown in a private jet before. Truthfully, she hadn’t flown anywhere in years. Back when she was younger, she’d had different ideas for her future, and it hadn’t been anything to save up for a trip out of state to go see a concert, or something similarly frivolous. But then she’d gotten engaged and all frivolities were over. Then the engagement had ended, so she’d moved in with Gram to lick her wounds. Of course, her grammy was still alive, and when she’d passed, it had been left to her to take care of her great-grandma.
And here she was.
If it weren’t for Charlie, she’d be nearly destitute, working the shitty job, about to lose her house, and struggling to take care of the only woman left who loved her.
She leaned back in the plush leather seat, ignoring the man in the seat opposite her, who watched her carefully.
He was her boss. Nothing more.
Never mind his beauty was almost painful
to look at sometimes. She just had to remind herself he was using her for sex.
But was he? Or was that her excuse to put him at arm’s length?
She looked at him. Yeah, he was still examining her, his eyes raking over her legs now.
They’d changed on the plane before takeoff. She was wearing a short sundress, spaghetti straps, no bra, and a pair of sandals. She felt naked under his gaze.
He, too, had changed into casual island wear. Now he looked like an adult frat boy. His legs were strong, yet lean, in his cargo shorts. The t-shirt he wore stretched across an expanse of muscles she’d never seen on a man, yet she could see clearly defined under his shirt, no doubt as expensive as her designer sandals.
His hair flopped over one eye, an allowance to the casualness of the attire, he hadn’t combed it back into its usual neat style. Instead, it gave the illusion he was carefree.
As if he actually took vacations. For some reason, Amelia didn’t think he played well at all.
“Why do you think I’m abusing you?” He spoke as if the words left a sour taste in his mouth.
So he’d calmed down now and was going to continue the conversation as if the hours between hadn’t happened? Fine.
“Manipulating me, not abusing.” She took a deep breath and forged on. “For sex. You’re paying for all these things for me to have sex with you. It would go right along with our honeymoon thing.” She stated the words in as matter-of-fact a tone as she could muster, but honestly, the words sounded stupid out loud.
“It’s rather expensive, don’t you think?” He was smiling at her. Now he was laughing at her. “I could have any number of women without nearly half the trouble.”
“Then why spend all this money on me?”
He sighed and leaned back in his seat, mirroring her pose. His legs stretched out, and he planted his canvas boat shoes between her sandals.
“Because I don’t want someone in my employ going without. I simply paid for things you needed. It’s what I do.” He paused, still studying her. “I’ll admit to an attraction to you, but you may have read it as more. I’m planning on staying professional, and professionally sometimes, I need a date, or a wife.”
“But I’ve read some of your files. You use blackmail to get what you want in return. I’m not a fool.”
“If you’ve read my files, you also know that I make people disappear as well.” His words were deadly, and a shiver rippled across her skin. Was she taunting a demon? Why would he say that to her?
She didn’t say anything to that, simply looked out the window into the darkness. It was encompassing, inky. As if it were a void.
She felt like that sometimes. Like she was just a black hole, waiting to swallow everything around her into the nothingness that she was. Like now, she was disappearing. If she didn’t come back from this trip, no one would know where she went. Her gram wouldn’t even realize she’d ever been, much less that she was gone.
Was that what people were? Their only consciousness was other people’s feelings for them? Since her gram didn’t know she existed as herself, thinking she was some grand-niece from Regency England, and not Amelia, did Amelia Flores even exist?
“No need to make me disappear, Mr. Delmonico,” she whispered.
“As if I could.” His eyes were on hers, intense and needy. It made her warm, and a trickle of sweat ran between her shoulder blades. She pressed against the seat, squashing it into her dress. “Sleep. We still have a couple of hours before we get there.”
**
Apparently, Amelia slept like the dead, because she awoke in a luxuriously soft bed with sunlight streaming into her eyes. She jackknifed up, awareness hitting her at once. She was still wearing her dress from the night before, but she had absolutely no memory beyond the airplane.
Charlie was lying next to her, and he chuckled at her actions. As intimate as the moment was, she felt a quiver of fear tremble through her bones. Their last conversation had been about her disappearing, hadn’t it?
Yet here he was chuckling at her. It was almost a foreign sound from the normally put-together man, so stoic and powerful. The chuckle was almost roguish and reminded her of a wolf disguised as a sheep to tempt innocents.
She threw the comforter off herself and swung her legs over the side of the bed, needing to sit up and have some space between them. They were in bed together, and she had no idea what had happened.
“You slept like the dead. I did my obligatory duty and carried you over the threshold, joking with the bellman that we would have to do it again, when you were conscious. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were drugged. You sleep hard.”
She did sleep hard. Everyone had always joked that if she slept during a tornado, she’d be carried off to the land of Oz.
But she’d never slept through something like this. A plane ride, presumably a car ride to the hotel, and then the check-in and being carried Lord knew how far.
It was disconcerting, waking up in such different circumstances as when she’d fallen asleep. She could have been drugged. She turned her head to look at Charlie.
Lying in bed, sheets around his hips, he reclined against the pillows and headboard, his chest naked.
And freaking glorious.
She’d imagined him without a shirt, multiple times. He filled out his suits and shirts like a man who saw a gym regularly, but her imagination didn’t do reality justice. He was chiseled from granite, hard planes of sinewy muscle covered with golden skin and the dark hair of a man. His chest was awe-inspiring and the hair tapered into a trail on his belly, disappearing under the sheets in a way that had her mouth suddenly watering like a woman starved.
She swallowed and turned her head back to the front.
A magnificent view of the Caribbean ocean greeted her. Now that she was a bit calmer, she realized the sliding glass door was open and she could hear the waves crashing into the shoreline. She stood and walked to where she could see better.
“I’ve never seen an ocean. I mean, we live on a bay, but I’ve never been anywhere there’s this much water,” she mused quietly. “So blue…” She could hear the rustle of sheets as Charlie stood, and she risked a glance behind her.
He was standing at the closet, naked as the day he was born.
She inhaled swiftly and turned back to the ocean view, the image of his naked rear burned into her brain. The godlike chiseling extended to his backside, where she had never seen a man with the sort of musculature she saw in her boss.
His ass was firm, and his legs powerful. Amelia had no idea what use those muscles on his back would be for, but she imagined exploring the bumps and ridges with her tongue.
“What’s our plan today?” Her voice was strangled, and she cleared her throat to start over. “What are we supposed to do?”
She heard him dragging clothes up his legs and tried again to face him. He was tugging a t-shirt over his head, his rumpled hair popping out of the neck hole.
“We are honeymooners, so I think since the banks are closed, we should practice acting like that while we explore things. I can book us a scuba tour?”
She shuddered. “No, thank you. I saw Open Water and it send scuba diving to the bottom of my bucket list.”
He shrugged as he bent to put on his shoes. “Parasailing?”
“Jurassic Park. The second one.”
Shoes on, he straightened. “What would you like to do?”
She looked over her shoulder at the aqua blue water, the likes of which she’d never imagined she’d see in her lifetime.
“Can we just go to the beach?”
Charlie smiled at her, and it was absolutely glorious. It lit his dark face like nothing she’d ever seen before and gave her a warmth in her chest. She smiled back at him.
“I’ll order us some breakfast and have a picnic lunch prepared. You take the first shower and we’ll go after we eat.” He was still in control, the all-powerful-killer-Charlie-with-a-pl
an. But he was smiling, and she liked it.
Chapter Twelve
Amelia found her impatience building as she waited for room service, while Charlie showered and got ready for his day. She changed into her bathing suit and packed a bag for the beach, hoping she anticipated everything she would need. A towel, sunscreen, a book to read, her phone, an extra pair of shoes, a dress to wear in case they decided to do something different, was all neatly folded and arranged as their breakfast arrived.
She answered the door and oohed and aahed at the arrangement of exotic fruit and cheeses, an enormous omelet, eggs Benedict, and a plate full of bacon was artfully arranged on a wheeled table in the living room. Amelia searched through her purse, wondering how much was appropriate to tip the man who’d brought the food, when he waved her off.
“No worries. It’s taken care of. Please let me know if you need anything, Mrs. Stryker.”
Charlie chose that moment to come out of the bathroom, dressed in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He strode over to Amelia and wrapped his arm around her waist from behind before dropping a kiss onto her shoulder. The shock at his touch and hot mouth on her cooled skin had her stiffening.
“Thank you very much.” He spoke to the man, who winked and smiled.
“I’ll leave the honeymooners to it, then,” he said as he let himself out.
The arm dropped from around her and the heat of him left her backside. “You need to relax and pretend you like me for this trip, or you don’t have much use.”
Then he went back into the bedroom to dress.
He was right. She did need to relax. One of the reasons he’d hired her was to pose as his wife for whatever covert dealings he had. Amelia didn’t need to know and didn’t want to think about what his end goal was, only that she was necessary.
They were on their honeymoon. She could do what was necessary.
After her little pep talk, she sat down to eat. Charlie came out and sat opposite her.
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little off-balance still, waking up someplace so different. I know what my job is; I’ll do better.” She managed to flash him a smile before digging into the fruit plate and loading her own plate with an assortment of mangoes and some other fruit she wasn’t familiar with. She also put some cheese on her plate, and Charlie dished her over half of the eggs Benedict, as well as half of the omelet. She grabbed her own bacon.
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