by Dani Collins
‘Now now, there’s no need to be so dramatic,’ he chided gently. ‘You might be pleasantly surprised in what I have to tell you.’ He poured two snifters of brandy into two ball-shaped glasses and then came over to her to hand her one. ‘There you go.’
Zoey took the glass but wasn’t able to avoid touching his fingers as she did so. The lightning bolt of sensual energy shot up her arm and went straight to a fizzing inferno in her core. Every moment of their scorching night of passion rushed back to her in a flash, as if her skin would never forget the intoxicating intensity of his touch. It was burned, branded into her flesh, and she would never forget it and never become impervious to it. How could the merest brush of his fingers cause such an eruption of longing? She took a large sip of brandy, but it burned her throat, and she began to cough and splutter.
Finn took the glass back from her and patted her on the back. ‘Whoa, there. Better take it a little more slowly.’
Zoey shrugged off his hand and glowered at him, her cheeks on fire. ‘I want to know what you plan to do with the staff, myself included.’
He idly swirled the contents of his glass, his gaze watching the whirlpool he created in a calm fashion before his gaze fixed back on hers. ‘There will, of course, be some trimming—’
‘And no doubt I’ll be the first to go.’
He held her glare with the same implacable calm, his eyes giving nothing away. ‘That will depend.’
Zoey narrowed her eyes to paper-thin slits. ‘On what?’ Whether she had a fling with him? Was he going to hold her to ransom, offering to keep her on the staff if she gave him access to her body? If so, he had another think coming. And, frankly, so did her body, which was already threatening to betray her and jump at the chance of another night in his arms.
One side of his mouth tilted in a sardonic smile, a knowing glint reflected in his eyes. ‘Not on that.’
Zoey suppressed a shiver. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I may be a little ruthless at times, but blackmail isn’t my style.’
He probably didn’t have to resort to blackmail since he only had to crook his little finger and women would flock to him. And Zoey had to be careful she didn’t join them, which would have been a whole lot easier if he wasn’t so impossibly, irresistibly attractive. She kept her gaze trained on his. ‘At the risk of repeating myself, I don’t believe you.’
Finn put his brandy glass down, as if he had lost interest in it. He met her gaze with his now inscrutable one. ‘I had a call from Leo Frascatelli this afternoon.’
Zoey’s heart sank like an anchor. Not just any old anchor—a battleship’s anchor. She had lost the contract. Lost it to Finn O’Connell. Oh God, could her circumstances get any more humiliating? He had taken everything from her—her father’s business, her career hopes and dreams and the Frascatelli contract. If it wasn’t bad enough Finn had bought Brackenfield Advertising out from under her, now she would have to stomach his gloating over winning the account she had hoped would be hers.
She threw him a livid glare, her top lip curling. ‘Congratulations. Who did you sleep with to nail that little prize?’
One side of his mouth curved upwards in a half-smile, his dark eyes shining with a mysterious light. ‘No one. I was just about to call you about the call from Leo before you showed up on my doorstep in a towering rage.’
‘Spare me the brag-fest or I might vomit on your nice cream carpet.’
‘It would be no more than Tolstoy has done in the past.’
Zoey frowned. ‘Tolstoy?’
As if he had heard his name mentioned, a Russian blue cat with only one eye came strolling into the room, the tinkling of his collar bell overly loud in the silence. The cat completely ignored Finn and came padding over to Zoey, winding around her ankles and bumping its head against her with a mewling sound.
‘Zoey, allow me to introduce you to Tolstoy,’ Finn said.
Zoey bent down to stroke the cat’s head. ‘Oh, you darling thing. But you look like you’ve been in the wars.’ Tolstoy purred like a train and bumped his head against her petting hand. ‘Aren’t you a friendly boy, hey?’
‘You have the magic touch, it seems,’ Finn said. ‘He normally hates strangers. He usually runs away and hides, or worse, attacks them.’
Yes, well, look who was talking about having the magic touch. Zoey was still tingling from head to foot from Finn’s heart-stopping kiss. She straightened from petting the cat and met Finn’s unreadable gaze. ‘How long have you had him?’
‘Five months. I found him injured on my way home one night and took him to a vet. They traced the owner via the microchip, but they no longer wanted him. So, I took him in. And paid the eye-watering vet bills.’
‘Oh...that was...nice of you.’
Finn’s mouth flickered with a wry smile. ‘You sound surprised that I can be nice on occasion.’
Zoey elevated her chin. ‘I’m sure you can lay on the charm when you want things to go your way. But just for the record—it won’t work with me.’
Finn waved to the sofa nearest her, his lips twitching and his eyes twinkling. ‘Take a seat. I haven’t finished telling you the good news about the Frascatelli account.’
Zoey sat on the sofa and some of the tension in her body dissipated as the deep feather cushioning dipped to take her weight. Tolstoy jumped up beside her, nudging her hand to get her to continue petting him. She absently stroked the cat, but she fought against the temptation to relax. She was in enemy territory and she had to avoid a repeat of what happened between her and Finn the other night.
Anyway, what good news could there be? She had lost the account to Finn. But why had he found out first and she had not even been told her pitch had been unsuccessful? ‘Are you friends with Leonardo Frascatelli?’ she asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
Finn sat on the opposite sofa, one arm resting on the arm rest. He hitched one leg over the other, resting his ankle on his bent knee in a relaxed pose. His gaze wandered to the cat she was stroking beside her and a flicker of a wry smile passed across his lips. ‘We’re casual acquaintances but he is too much of a professional to allow any nepotism to influence his decision. He couldn’t decide between your pitch and mine, so he’s asked both of us to do it. How do you feel about working with me on the account?’
Zoey stared at him in numb shock, a combination of dread and excitement stirring in her blood. ‘You mean we both won it?’ Her voice came out like a squeak and Tolstoy suddenly started and jumped off the sofa. And, twitching his tail, he stalked out of the room with an air of affronted dignity.
‘Yep, and he asked me to run it by you first to see if you’re willing to share the contract with me,’ Finn said. ‘It’ll mean working together a fair bit but I’m game if you are.’ The enigmatic light in his eyes played havoc with her already on-edge nerves. What would ‘working with him’ entail?
Zoey moistened her paper-dry lips, her heart kicking against her breastbone at the thought of being in Finn O’Connell’s company for extended periods. Could she do it? Could she take on this project—this enormously lucrative project—and come out the other side with her pride intact?
‘I—I’m having trouble understanding how this will work. I mean, you now apparently own Brackenfield Advertising. Am I going to be working under the Brackenfield banner or...?’
‘The Brackenfield banner will no longer exist.’ His tone was brutally blunt. ‘I want you to work for me. The Frascatelli account can be your trial period. If all goes well, you can stay on with me. But if you’d like to explore other options, then that’s fine too. It’s up to you.’
Zoey sprang off the sofa and began to pace the floor in agitation. Brackenfield Advertising would no longer exist? Her job, her future, her career path was now under Finn O’Connell’s control. Could there be anything more galling than to be totally under his command and authority? She spun round to f
ace him, her chest pounding with rage. ‘I didn’t think it was possible to hate someone as much as I hate you. You’ve taken my future from me. You’ve stolen my father’s company from me and—’
‘I paid well above what I should have for your father’s business,’ Finn said, rising from the sofa with indolent ease. ‘It’s not been firing at peak performance for months and you damn well know it.’
‘I’ve done my best, but my father wouldn’t make me a director, so I was completely hamstrung,’ Zoey fired back. ‘Plus, I was always covering for him when he missed a deadline or failed to show up at a meeting. But I had it under control. I was bringing in a more or less steady stream of work and—’
‘Look, all credit to you for caring about your father, but you’re not helping him by covering for him all the time,’ Finn said. ‘He needs to face his demons and get some help before it’s too late. And you’re currently in the way of him getting that help.’
On one level, Zoey knew what he said had an element of truth to it. But she hated him too much to give him the satisfaction of telling him so. She thrust her hands on her hips and upped her chin, her eyes throwing sparks of ire at him.
‘What would you know about my situation? You with your mouth full of silver spoons and oozing with privilege! You haven’t any idea of the struggle it is to keep someone you love from making a complete ass of themselves.’
Something flickered over his face, a quiver of inner conflict at the back of his eyes. ‘I know more about that than you probably realise.’ His voice contained an odd note she had never heard him use before. A disquieting note, a chord of emotional pain buried so deep inside you could only hear its faint echo ringing in the silence.
Zoey opened her mouth but then closed it again when he turned to pick up his brandy glass from where he had left it. He studied the contents of the glass for a moment, then gave her a sideways glance. ‘You speak of my privilege? There are no privileges, no silver spoons, when your parents drink and smoke every penny that comes in the door.’
He gave a grim smile and continued, holding the glass up. ‘See this? One drink was never enough for either of my parents. If they had one, they had to have twenty.’ He put the glass down with a dull thud. ‘And don’t get me started on the drugs.’
Zoey swallowed a tight stricture in her throat, ashamed of herself for making assumptions about his background. From what he had said so far, she was the one who had grown up with the silver spoons and privilege. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise things were like that for you...’
Finn turned to put the glass of brandy down again, his expression becoming masked, as if talking about the past was something he found imminently distasteful. ‘I’ll give you five days to decide what you want to do regarding the Frascatelli project.’
His manner and tone had switched to brisk and businesslike efficiency with such speed, Zoey was a little slow to keep up. She was still musing over his disadvantaged childhood, marvelling at how he had built an advertising empire that was one of the most successful in the world. An empire she was being invited to join...if she could stomach working with him on the Frascatelli project first.
But how could she refuse? It was a project she had dreamed of working on ever since she’d first heard about it. She would have to keep strict boundaries around their working relationship. There could be no repeats of the other night. And her self-control would have to go to boot camp to get back in shape for the months ahead. Finn O’Connell was known to be a demanding boss, but a generous one.
Besides that, she needed a job.
‘I’ll give my answer now, if you don’t mind.’
Finn held her gaze for a long beat, nothing in his expression suggesting he cared either way what her decision was. Zoey drew in a quick breath and released it in a single stream. ‘I accept your offer. However, there are some rules I’d like to stipulate first.’
A marble-hard look came into his eyes and the base of her spine tingled. ‘Come and see me in my office first thing tomorrow and we’ll talk some more. But just to give you the heads up—I’m the one who makes the rules.’
‘But I want to talk to you now.’
‘Not now.’ There was a note of intransigence in his tone and he pushed back his shirt cuff and gave his watch a pointed glance before adding, ‘I have to be somewhere soon.’
Zoey gave him an arch look. ‘A hot little hook-up waiting for you, is there?’
His unreadable eyes flicked to her mouth for a heart-stopping moment before reconnecting with her gaze. ‘Tomorrow, nine a.m. sharp.’ He gave a dismissive on-off smile and led the way to the door. ‘I’ll see you out in case you can’t find your way.’
Zoey brushed past him. ‘Don’t bother. I can find my own way out.’ And she marched out of the room, down the hall and out of the front door, giving it a satisfying slam on her exit.
* * *
Finn released a long breath and scraped a hand through his hair. He wasn’t sure what had led him to reveal to Zoey the shabby little secrets of his parents’ life choices. It wasn’t something he bandied about to all and sundry. Everyone had a right to a little privacy, and he guarded that aspect of his life with religious zeal. He had spent too many years of his childhood wishing his parents were different. And, as Zoey did with her father, he too had enabled his parents at times in a bid to keep some semblance of normal family life together.
But it had backfired on him time and time again. His parents were addicts and they had only ever fleetingly taken responsibility for their cravings. A week or two here and there, a month, once even three months of being sober, but then they would drift back into their habits and he would be shipped off to relatives again. In the end, he had drawn a line in the sand and told them straight out—get clean or get out of his life. They’d chosen to get out of his life.
Tolstoy peered round the corner of the sitting room, his one-eyed stare wary. Finn bent down and scooped the cat up before it could turn its back on him. ‘You’re a traitor, do you hear me?’ He stroked the soft fur of the cat’s head and was rewarded with a rhythmic purr. ‘But she is rather irresistible, isn’t she?’
The cat nudged his hand and purred some more. Finn gave a crooked smile and continued stroking him. ‘I’m glad you’ve forgiven me but I’m not sure if Zoey’s going to.’ He set the cat back down on the floor and Tolstoy sat and gave one of those gymnastically complicated leg-in-the-air licks of his nether regions.
Finn had all along considered Zoey’s position when it had come to the takeover of her father’s company, but he was a man of his word, and since Harry Brackenfield had insisted on secrecy that was what Finn had adhered to. There was a part of him that completely understood her angst and disappointment. Besides, didn’t he know all about having your heart set on something only for it to be ripped away? But business was business and he didn’t allow emotion to muddy the waters. He wanted to expand his own company and taking the best people from Brackenfield was a sure way to do it.
And Zoey was high on that list.
Finn had cut short his time with Zoey just now, not because he wanted to but because he needed to. There was only so much he was willing to reveal about his background and he was surprised he had revealed as much as he had. He wasn’t used to letting people in to the darker aspects of his life. He didn’t get close enough to people to share things he wished he could forget. There was no point revisiting the train wreck of his childhood. It never changed anything other than to make him feel even more bitter about his parents’ lack of love and care for his well-being.
It was one of the reasons he had ruled out having a family of his own. Not because he didn’t think he would do a good job as a father—after all, it wouldn’t be too difficult to lift a little higher than the abysmal benchmark his father had set—but because he genuinely didn’t want anyone needing him, relying on him, expecting him to be someone he knew he couldn’t be. He di
dn’t have the emotional repertoire for such a long-haul commitment. He was too ruthless, too driven, too independent and too self-sufficient.
He enjoyed being a free agent. He had never desired a long-term partner. The thought of developing lasting feelings for someone made him uneasy. Loving someone who didn’t or couldn’t love you back was too terrifying. He had been there as a child and never wanted to experience that sinking sense of loss again. He found that, within a week or two of being with someone, he began looking for a way out once the thrilling, blood-pumping chase was over. Time to move on to more exciting ventures.
But somehow, with Zoey, Finn sensed a different dynamic going on between them. She excited him in ways no one else had managed to do. Her stubborn prickliness both amused and frustrated him, and her feistiness was the biggest turn-on he had experienced. She was whip-smart and sharp-tongued and sensationally sexy, and he knew working with her was going to be one of the most exciting periods in his life. He didn’t normally mix business with pleasure—the pitfalls were well-documented—but this time he was making an exception for an exceptional woman.
And he couldn’t wait to start.
CHAPTER SIX
ZOEY ARRIVED AT Finn’s office the following morning right on the stroke of nine a.m. She had spent a restless night ruminating over her situation, agonising over whether she was being a fool for agreeing to work with him. It would mean close contact, hours of close contact, and who knew what such proximity would produce? Another firestorm of lust? It must not happen. She must not give in to temptation. She must not be hoodwinked by Finn’s charm and allure.
She. Must. Not.
Finn’s middle-aged receptionist-cum-secretary smiled as Zoey came through the door. ‘Good morning, Ms Brackenfield. Finn will be here shortly—something must have held him up. He’s normally bang on time. Can I get you a coffee while you wait?’