by Dani Collins
Zoey lowered her hands to stare at him with wild eyes. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this. How could you...you betray me like this? You know how much the company means to me. Why didn’t you discuss it with me? Why deliver it as a fait accompli?’
‘Because I knew you would be against it, especially when you hear who’s behind the takeover.’
Zoey stared at her father, her scalp prickling with unease. ‘And are you going to tell me who this person is?’
‘Finn O’Connell.’
‘Finn O’Connell?’ Zoey gasped. ‘You can’t be serious. Not him. Anyone but him.’
‘I approached him and he jumped at the chance. He’s had his eye on the company for a couple of months, asking me how things were going and so on. That’s why I gave him first dibs.’
‘A couple of months?’ Zoey’s voice came out as a shriek and her stomach churned fast enough to make butter. If what her father said was true, Finn had slept with her knowing he had his eye on her father’s business. He had not said a word to her.
Not a single word.
Not even a hint.
Her father’s betrayal suddenly didn’t seem half as bad when she had Finn’s duplicity to get her head around. Her hatred of him had gone on the back burner after their night of passion, in fact she had even wondered if it could be downgraded to mild dislike rather than pure unmitigated hatred.
But now her rage towards him was a tornado brewing in her body, making her physically shake with the effort to keep it under some semblance of control. Her head was pounding with tension, as if her temples were clamped in the cruel blunt jaws of a vice. She opened and closed her hands, her fingers feeling tingling and slightly numb, as if their blood supply had been cut off in the effort to keep her heart pumping. ‘I—I can’t believe that man would stoop so low.’
‘Zoey, it’s a business deal, there’s nothing personal about it,’ her father said in that same annoying ‘adult to dull child’ tone. ‘Finn is keen to expand his business. He’s done other highly successful takeovers. Anyway, I’ve lost the fire in my belly for the ad game. It’s a perfect time for me to take early retirement, and you should be happy for me instead of harping on as if I’ve mortally wounded you.’
‘You have mortally wounded me!’ Zoey’s voice rose in pitch, her eyes stinging with tears she refused to shed. She would not cry in front of her father. He would see it as a weakness and berate her for it, using her emotional response as yet another reason why he had sold the business out from under her. She took a couple of deep breaths and lowered her voice to a more reasonable level. ‘What I’d like to know is, what happens to me? To my career?’
‘You can work for Finn.’
Over my dead and rotting body. Zoey kept her expression under tight control but her anger towards Finn was boiling inside her belly like a toxic brew. She had never loathed someone more than she did Finn O’Connell at that moment. And she couldn’t wait to tell him so to his too-handsome face. ‘That’s not going to happen,’ she said. ‘Not unless he gives me an offer I can’t refuse.’
But she would refuse it anyway on principle. She would beg on the streets before she would have Finn lauding it over her as her boss. Oh, God, her boss. Could there be a worse form of torture?
‘If Finn O’Connell wants something badly enough, he doesn’t mind paying top dollar for it.’
Zoey gave an evil gleam of a vengeful smile. ‘Oh, he’ll pay for it. I’ll make damn sure of it.’
CHAPTER FIVE
ZOEY DECIDED AGAINST calling Finn because she had a burning desire to see him in person. What she had to say to him was not suitable for a phone conversation. She wanted to see every nuance on his face, read every flicker of his expression, to gain some insight into whether he felt compromised by what he had done. She suspected not, but she had to know for certain. The fact he’d slept with her whilst knowing he was in the process of taking over her father’s business churned her gut.
Why, oh why, had she fallen for his practised charm? Could there be a more humiliating experience?
But when she got to his office the smartly dressed middle-aged woman at the reception desk informed her Finn was working at home that day.
‘What’s his address, then?’ Zoey asked. ‘I’ll see him there.’
The woman gave Zoey an up and down, assessing look, her lips pursing in a disapproving manner. ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you that information. But, if you’d like to make an appointment, Mr O’Connell will see you when he’s next available. However, it might not be for a week or two.’ She gave a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes and added, ‘As you can imagine, he’s a very busy man.’
Zoey ground her teeth so hard she thought she’d be on a liquid diet for the next month. She drew in a breath, releasing it in a measured stream, and leaned her hands on the desk, nailing the other woman’s gaze. ‘Listen, there’s no point looking at me like that. I already have his phone number. What I have to say to him needs to be said face to face.’
‘Then why don’t you just video call him?’
‘And have him hang up on me? No way. I want to see him in person. Today. Within the next half hour, if possible. I don’t care how busy he is, either in his private or professional life, but I am not leaving this office until you give me his address.’
The receptionist arched her brows, her posture as stiff and as unyielding as a bouncer at a nightclub. ‘Your name is?’
Zoey straightened from the desk, furious she was being treated like one of Finn’s love-struck bimbos. ‘Zoey Brackenfield.’
The woman’s expression underwent a rapid change, her haughtiness fading to be replaced by a look of delighted surprise. ‘Oh, so you’re Zoey Brackenfield.’ She shot up from her ergonomic chair and held out her hand across the reception counter, a smile threatening to split her face in two. ‘How lovely to meet you. I just adored the dog food commercial you did a while back. I started feeding my dog that brand because of you. It was just fabulous.’
‘Thank you,’ Zoey said, briefly shaking the woman’s hand. But, compliments aside, she refused to back down and added in a pointed tone, ‘His address?’
The woman shifted her lips from side to side, her eyes beginning to twinkle like fairy lights. ‘I’d be happy to give it to you. No doubt you want to discuss the takeover.’ She picked up a pen and wrote the address on a sticky note and handed it across the desk. ‘It’s about time Finn met his match.’
Zoey took the sticky note with a grim, no-teeth-showing smile. ‘Oh, he’s more than met his match.’ And then she whipped round and left.
* * *
Finn lived in a leafy street in Chelsea in a gorgeous Georgian-style three-storey mansion. There was a small formal front garden with a neatly trimmed box hedge set behind a shiny, black wrought-iron fence. There were three colourful window boxes at the first-floor level, lush with vermillion pelargoniums and yellow-hearted purple pansies and trailing blue and white lobelia. But Zoey wasn’t here to admire the view, even if part of her was as green as that box hedge with envy. If the outside visage was any measure, it was a dream of a house. What a pity such an arrogant jerk owned it.
Zoey pushed open the front gate and marched up the path to the front door and placed her finger on the brass doorbell button and left it there. She heard it echoing through the house and after a few moments the sound of firm footsteps from inside.
Finn answered the door with a welcoming smile. ‘Ah, just who I was about to call. Come in.’
Zoey pushed past him, her chest heaving. She waited until he’d closed the door before she turned on him. ‘You despicable, double-crossing jerk. How dare you buy—’
‘I take it you’ve heard about the takeover?’ His expression was neutral, no sign of guilt, shame or conflict. Even his tone was irritatingly mild.
She clenched her hands into tight fists, her gaze blazing. ‘I’m ju
st dying to hear your explanation about why you didn’t tell me you were taking over my father’s company the night we...we...’ She couldn’t say the words without wanting to slap him.
‘You’ve got it all wrong, babe. Your father approached me and offered to sell only a couple of days ago.’
Zoey stood rigidly before him, her blood boiling. How could she believe him? Why should she believe him? ‘Did you do it deliberately? The whole laptop switch thing, the one-nighter, the secret takeover...was it all just a game to you? Was I just a silly little game to you?’
A muscle in Finn’s jaw flickered just the once, as if he was holding back a retort. He let out a slow breath and made a placating gesture with one of his hands. ‘Look, nothing was deliberate, other than I agreed to buy your father out when he came to me the other day. I couldn’t tell you about the takeover because he didn’t want me to. He insisted on absolute secrecy or the deal was off. If you want to be angry with anyone, it should be him.’
‘I am angry with him!’ Zoey said. ‘But I’m even more furious with you. You should have given me the heads up. I had a right to know.’
‘That’s not the way I do business,’ Finn said with annoying calm. ‘Your father wanted to keep it under wraps and, while I didn’t necessarily agree with it, I respected his decision. Besides, you supposedly hate my guts, so why would I jeopardise the takeover by letting you in on it? You might have leaked it to someone to stop me from—’
‘When did he approach you? Before or after we...we...had sex?’
‘After.’
Zoey wasn’t quite ready to believe him even though she found, somewhat to her surprise, that she desperately wanted to. ‘But he said you’d had an eye on the company for a couple of months.’
‘I’m interested in all of my competitors,’ Finn said. ‘I’ve run into your father a few times over the last couple of months and we talked shop, but I did not at any time make him an offer. He came to my office a couple of days after we got back from New York.’
‘So...so why did you sleep with me?’
‘I slept with you because it was what we both wanted.’ His eyes contained a dark glitter that sent a shiver skating down her spine. ‘And I would hazard a guess and say you want to do it again.’
Zoey coughed out a disdainful laugh. ‘You’re freaking unbelievable. Your ego is so big it deserves its own zip code. Its own government.’ She jabbed her index finger into his rock-hard chest. ‘You disgust me.’ Jab. ‘I hate you more than anyone I know.’ Jab. Jab. ‘You played me right from the start.’ Jab. Jab. Jab. ‘But I won’t let you—’
‘What?’ He grabbed her hand before she could aim another jab at his chest. ‘Tempt you into bed again? You want me just as much as I want you. That night was something out of the ordinary for both of us. That’s why you’re here now instead of calling me on the phone to tear strips off me. What you want to tear off me is my clothes. You couldn’t keep yourself away, could you, babe?’
Zoey tried to pull out of his hold but his grip tightened and a tingling sensation ran down the backs of her legs like a flock of scurrying insects. Not fear, not panic but lust. And how she hated herself for it. ‘Let go of me before I slap your arrogant face.’
Finn tugged her closer, his gaze holding hers in a smouldering lock that sent another shiver scuttling down the backs of her legs. ‘I’m not averse to a bit of edgy sex now and again but I draw the line at violence.’ He placed his other hand in the small of her back, bringing her flush against him, allowing her to feel the potency of his arousal. And she almost melted into a liquid pool of longing right there and then. ‘So, how about we make love not war, hmm?’
Zoey watched as his mouth came down, as if in slow motion, but she didn’t do anything to resist. She couldn’t. She was transfixed by the throbbing energy between their hard-pressed bodies. His body was calling out to hers in a language older than time. The language of lust—full-blooded, primal lust that craved only one outcome.
His lips met hers and something wild and feral was unleashed inside her. She opened her lips to the bold thrust of his tongue, welcoming him in, swept up in the scorching moment of madness, driven by desire so scorching it was threatening to blister her skin inside and out. Her lips clung to his, her free hand grasping the front of his shirt, her lower body on fire. Giant leaping flames of fire raged throughout her pelvis.
Never had she wanted a man like this one. He incited in her the most out of control urges, turning her into someone she didn’t recognise. He turned her into a wanton woman who didn’t care about anything but assuaging the raging desire overtaking her body. She fed off his mouth, her tongue playing with his in a catch-me-if-you-can caper, then sent another wave of heat through her female flesh. Her inner core flickered with sensations, hungry, pulsing sensations that built to a pulsating crescendo.
Finn released her other hand, winding both his arms around her, one of his hands going to the curve of her bottom, pushing her harder into his erection. ‘No one drives me as wild with lust as you. No one.’
‘I’m not sleeping with you again,’ Zoey said breathlessly against his mouth. But I want to so much! Every cell in her body wanted him. Every pounding beat of her heart echoed with the need for more of his touch. Every inch of her flesh was vibrating with longing. Intoxicating, torturous longing.
‘Who said anything about sleeping?’ His mouth came back down firmly, desperately, drawing from her an even more fervent response.
Zoey placed her hands in his hair, tugging and releasing the thick black strands, relishing the sounds of his guttural groans as he deepened the kiss even further. One of Finn’s hands moved up under her top, cupping her bra-clad breast, his thumb rolling over the already tightly budded nipple. Tingling sensations rippled through her flesh, the covering of lace no match for the incendiary heat and fire of his touch.
But somehow through the enveloping fog of desire a tiny beam of reality shone through. She was falling under his spell again, melting like tallow in his arms, and she had to put a stop to it while she still could. If she still could. Her pride depended on it.
Zoey pulled out of his hold and swiped a hand across her mouth as if to remove the taste of him from her lips. ‘No. This can’t happen. Not again.’
Finn shrugged as if it didn’t matter either way and that made her hate him all the more. How dared he not be as affected by their kiss as her? Her whole body was quivering with need. A pounding need that threatened to overrule her self-control. ‘Fine. Your call.’
Zoey stepped a couple of paces away, wrapping her arms around her still throbbing body. ‘You must be out of your mind to think I would sleep with you again after what you’ve done.’
‘All I’ve done is buy a company that was in danger of falling over,’ Finn said. ‘You know it’s true, Zoey. Your father isn’t capable of running the business any more. He’s burnt out and ready to retire and he can do it more than comfortably with the price I paid to buy him out.’
‘But I’m capable of running it,’ she shot back. ‘He had no right to sell it to you without even discussing it with me.’
‘That’s something you’ll have to settle with him. But you and I have other business to discuss first.’ He gestured to a sitting room off the large foyer. ‘Come this way.’
Zoey wanted to refuse but something about his expression told her it would be wise to stay and hear him out. Besides, her job was on the line. She had to know what her options were, if there were options available to her. But her mind was reeling so badly with shock, anger and bitter disappointment she couldn’t think clearly.
What would happen to her career now? She had pictured a long, productive career at Brackenfield Advertising, hopefully one day taking over as director. Proving to her father—and, yes, even proving to herself—she had the ability, drive and talent to do it.
But it had all been ripped out from under her.
All her plans, her hopes, her dreams and aspirations were hanging in the balance.
Zoey followed Finn down the long, wide hall into a beautifully decorated sitting room off the spacious hall. The polished timber floor was covered by a huge Persian rug that only left about a foot of the floorboards showing around the edges of the room. She stood for a moment, struck by the décor, the luxury carpet threatening to swallow her up to the ankles.
There was a fireplace with a marble mantelpiece above and two luxurious white sofas and a wing chair upholstered in a finely checked fabric for contrast. Various works of art hung on the walls—most of them looked like originals—and the central light above was a crystal chandelier with matching wall lights positioned at various points around the room to provide a more muted lighting effect.
The room overlooked a stunning, completely private back garden with espaliered pear trees along the stone boundary wall. Neatly trimmed, low border hedges ran either side of the flagstone pathway, which led to an outdoor eating area, the light-coloured wrought-iron setting in the French provincial style. No expense had been spared in making the property a showpiece. It was stylish, ultra-luxurious and commodious. The sitting room alone could have swallowed up half of her flat and left room to spare.
It occurred to Zoey that if she didn’t keep her job in some form or the other she wouldn’t have enough to pay her rent in the long term. Without Ivy and Millie chipping in now they had both moved out, it made for a very tight budget indeed. She would be able to manage for a few months, quite a few months, but what then? How long could she expect to survive? She certainly wasn’t going to ask her father for any hand-outs, nor bunk down at his house. She would rather sleep under a sheet of cardboard on the streets.
Finn walked over to a cleverly concealed bar fridge in a cabinet below a wall of bookshelves. ‘Would you like a drink?’
Zoey stood at some distance, not trusting herself to be any closer to him. ‘A brandy—make it a double. I have a feeling I’m not going to like what you’ve got to say.’