Taken by the CEO (The Scandalous Wentworths)

by Stefanie London

  Chapter Eight

  Emmaline spent the following two nights getting acquainted with insomnia. Turns out there was a big difference between losing sleep due to mind-bending orgasms versus staying up analyzing reports for your new boss…the provider of said orgasms. One type of sleeplessness had left her feeling blissfully empowered, and the other made her feel like something that had been flattened on a highway.

  “Aren’t you heading home?” Elena asked as she switched her towering pink heels out for a pair of sensible ballet flats. “Janice mentioned she had to send you off at some ungodly hour yesterday.”

  “Just busy.” Emmaline pretended to concentrate on an email. “I’m getting up to speed with the engagement report.”

  “So you’re staying back again?” Mark chimed in. “That’s twice this week you’ve shot me down for a drink.”

  She shook her head apologetically. “I wish I could come, but I’ve got a meeting.”

  “At six forty-five?” Elena raised an eyebrow. “Who the hell wants a meeting at this hour?”

  Emmaline continued to stare at her screen. “The CEO.”

  “As in our new fearless leader, Parker—formerly known as Edward—Wentworth?” Elena grabbed her arm. “The man who also goes by Hottie McHot-Face.”

  Mark snorted. “He’s not that good-looking.”

  “Dream on, Lover Boy, Parker Wentworth is totally scrumptious.” Elena shook Emmaline until she tore her eyes away from the laptop screen. “Don’t you think?”

  What the hell was she supposed to say to that? “I’d prefer our CEO to have good business acumen than to be attractive.”

  “See,” Mark said, nodding. “At least one of you is focused on the right thing.”

  Emmaline tried to smile. “The better he does, the better off we’ll all be…you know, as employees.”

  “I’m sure he can lead the company and look hot while doing it.” Elena sniffed. “Besides, you can’t tell me that a guy that rich and that good-looking wouldn’t be a total catch. Have fun in your meeting.”

  Emmaline shot Elena a look. She knew her friend was trying to wind Mark up, to bait him into confessing his attraction to her by setting Parker up as the competition. But Elena didn’t know how close to home she’d hit.

  “I will. I’ll be sure to tell him that our HR team is full of productive people who don’t engage in office gossip,” she said pointedly.

  “Right.” Mark nodded, clearing his throat and bouncing on the balls of his feet.

  Elena laughed but covered it with a cough. “I’m off. See you both tomorrow.”

  Emmaline waved and gathered up her notes for the meeting.

  “So, about that drink…” Mark said with a charming smile—the kind that was classically attractive and yet did nothing to excite her. “Maybe I could take you out tomorrow?”

  There was a big distinction between “going for a drink” and him “taking her for a drink.” She wasn’t sure she was ready to cross over that line, not when her head was stuffed full of images of Parker. Sure, she wasn’t naive enough to believe anything would continue between them, but still…

  “Why don’t we play it by ear?” She smiled. “I’ll send an email around tomorrow and see who else wants in. It’s been a hard few weeks—I’m sure the whole team could do with letting their hair down.”

  “I was thinking maybe it could be the two of us.” He paused.

  Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.

  He cleared his throat. “Like a date.”

  Shit. “Oh, Mark, that’s very…sweet. But I—”

  “Miss Greene will be occupied tomorrow evening.” Parker’s deep, whiskey-smooth baritone came from behind them and sent a shiver down Emmaline’s spine. “And the night after that.”

  Mark jumped, seemingly unsure of how to respond to Parker’s sudden appearance. He stuck his hand out awkwardly. “Mr. Wentworth.”

  Parker looked like he’d stepped off the pages of GQ magazine. A navy suit fitted his broad shoulders perfectly, a crisp white shirt and blood red tie giving him a handsome and authoritative—although conservative—look. His chestnut hair was lightly styled, but Emmaline knew it would still be soft to the touch.

  “Aren’t we meeting in your office?” Emmaline asked, fighting back the strange mix of attraction and annoyance dueling inside her. “In five minutes.”

  “I had to see Linda, so I thought I’d collect you,” Parker replied as though it was quite normal for the CEO to stop by a random plebeian’s desk. “We’ll walk together. Now.”

  Now. Like he was the master of her schedule. Emmaline raised a brow but didn’t say anything. The last thing she wanted was to tip off Mark about what’d happened.

  “I, uhh…guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mark said, his eyes swinging back and forth between Parker and Emmaline as though he sensed an undercurrent of something.

  “Yeah, tomorrow.” Emmaline stood and walked toward the elevators, leaving Mark still standing at her desk, his brows crinkled. “So I’m going to be busy the next few nights, am I?”

  “Too busy to be having a drink with him,” Parker said.

  Once they were alone in the elevator, Emmaline turned to Parker. Irritation prickled along her skin. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Escorting you to a meeting.” His face was as expressionless as a blank wall.

  “Don’t play dumb. You’re unnecessarily booking meetings with me and turning down dates on my behalf. That’s overstepping the boss-employee relationship boundaries.”

  God, why did she seem to attract men that loved telling her how to run her life? Was there some broken bit of chemistry in her that gravitated toward control freaks? You’d think by now she would have learned her lesson.

  “You can do better than him,” Parker replied. “I’m helping you avoid a mistake.”

  “Don’t you mean another mistake?”

  His eyes flashed then, the unemotional mask slipping an inch. “Was it a mistake that we slept together?”

  “I don’t know.” Lies. As much as she’d been mortified at finding out he was her boss, there was no way in hell she’d trade that night away. Not when she now understood how good her body could feel in the right hands. With the right person. “But you did accuse me of sleeping with you so I could blackmail your family.”

  “I don’t believe I said those exact words.”

  She scoffed. “Close enough.”

  The elevator pinged, and he held the door for her. “If I see a potential for scandal, I have to nip it in the bud. My family name has suffered enough thanks to my…father.” He cringed as if the word tasted sour in his mouth. “I don’t want to do any further damage.”

  “What happened with your father?”

  He blinked at her. “You must be the only person in this company who doesn’t know.”

  “I don’t listen to office chatter.” They walked past a series of empty desks and into his office. “If I want to know something I go straight to the source. Gossip doesn’t help anyone.”

  He motioned for her to take a seat at the small round table off to the side of the office. It flanked the vast window, early evening light bathing the city in a golden glow. The river sparkled like someone had scattered diamonds across the surface of it.

  “My father had an affair with his assistant,” Parker said. His voice had an icy calm to it, the kind that revealed nothing but left you with a strong sense of unease. “He got her pregnant, and they had a son. For years they kept it a secret, but eventually a ‘friend’ leaked the information to the media. My mother found out about it all via the front page of a newspaper.”

  Emmaline cringed. She could only imagine how Parker’s mother must have felt having such a private thing aired for the whole country to see. Walking in on her own husband screwing his business partner had been bad enough, but at least she’d had the shelter of keeping the whole thing quiet from people outside her family. Now she understood Parker’s insistence on knowing whe
ther she was married. Her heart softened a little.

  Don’t get too comfortable. One point of vulnerability doesn’t make up for the fact that he’s already meddling with your life.

  …

  Why was he was telling her about his family’s sordid history? For some reason, he knew she’d understand what his father’s betrayal meant to him. And understanding was hard to come by, with Sydney trying to sweep everything under the carpet and Ian being too caught up in his own life to care. Even his mother had moved on, for the most part.

  But Parker clung to his anger like a life raft, unable to forgive the man he’d once truly admired for turning out to be a giant disappointment.

  “That’s awful,” Emmaline said, her eyes lowered to her lap.

  “It happened years ago.” Parker raked a hand through his hair and dropped down into the seat next to her. “But I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Nor should you.” She pursed her soft, pink lips. “People don’t seem to take the sanctity of marriage too seriously these days. The promise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”

  Ah, so she did understand. The way she said it made him want to bundle her up in his arms and kiss her until the hurt melted away. “It really isn’t.”

  “Why can’t people call off one relationship before they start another?”

  “That’s why I don’t bother with relationships—people inevitably disappoint you.” It might make him cynical, but he preferred to think that it was the smart move. If you invested all your money into a risky stock that crashed, would you do it a second time around? Not likely. “Besides, work keeps me busy.”

  “Speaking of work…” Emmaline nodded toward the bound report sitting on the table. Mercy had printed it out last night, and he’d spent hours picking apart the data and drawing the exact conclusion he’d anticipated—his father had been an abysmally uninspiring and autocratic leader.

  “Right.” He cleared his throat and reached for the report. “What’s your personal take on it?”

  Her lips pursed as she looked at the neat looping cursive in her notebook. “My personal take?”

  “Yes, your opinion.” When she didn’t respond, he raised a brow. “It’s not a trick question.”

  “Well, according to the analysis our team did—”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I know, but the team spent a lot of time pulling it together.”

  He watched her silently for a moment, noting the way she avoided his eyes. He suspected that her opinion might be along the same lines as his. And perhaps it was masochistic, but he wanted to hear her say it. “I don’t care.”

  Her hands fluttered over her notes. “You really want my personal opinion?”

  “That is what I asked for.”

  “People hate working for the Wentworth Group.” Her chin jutted forward as if to say “I tried to keep quiet” and she looked him directly in the eye. “They hated working for your father.”

  “I thought you said you don’t listen to gossip.”

  “It’s not gossip when the numbers back you up.” She reached past him to get the report, her fingertips lightly brushing his arm and sending anticipation skating through him. “If you look at our turnover numbers, you can see that we’ve been bleeding people for the last few years and it’s only getting worse. The average length of tenure is dropping drastically, and while we’re seeing steady growth in job applications, the instances of us having to re-advertise positions is up. This means quality candidates aren’t applying to work here.”

  When she took a breath, her cheeks were flushed. A nervous laugh escaped her throat as if she thought she’d said too much. Been too honest.

  “Tell me more,” he said, leaning forward. “I want to hear it all.”

  Two hours later he’d done nothing but listen to Emmaline talk passionately about staff engagement and the sorry state of the Wentworth Group’s reputation as an employer. The sky had blackened outside, and he’d sent Mercy and her team home ages ago. It was just the two of them.

  A fact he couldn’t seem to shake.

  “It sounds like we’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said, trying not to notice how Emmaline’s blouse gaped ever so slightly as she leaned forward to point to a set of numbers on the report. Her fair, creamy skin was tempting as all hell. As was the tiny dusting of freckles that he hadn’t noticed the first time he’d gotten a peek under her blouse. They were so sparse and so light that you would have to be touching to see them. He wanted to connect them with his fingers, draw lines between them with his tongue. How had he not noticed them before?

  Probably because he’d been so wound up by the thought of taking her to bed that he’d been intent on devouring her whole.

  “Parker?”

  He dragged his gaze up to meet her raised brow and barely contained smirk. “Could you repeat the question?”

  “I didn’t ask a question.” She closed the cover on the report and stood. “I said it’s late, and I should probably get going, but you were too busy staring at my cleavage to listen.”

  “I was staring at your freckles.” He pushed up from his chair.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  “They’re beautiful.” Against every bit of better judgment, he reached out and his hand skimmed over the edge of her blouse as he touched a fingertip to the few dots along her collarbone.

  You’re playing with fire. But the warning evaporated as goose bumps broke out over her skin, evidence that his touch affected her as well.

  “You don’t fool me,” she admonished, but the words came out soft and breathy.

  He traced another dot in the center of her chest, above the shadow of where her small breasts pressed together. A hint of baby pink lace peeked out at him as she drew a deep breath. The urge to rip apart the tiny pearl buttons keeping her covered gnawed at him, but Emmaline wasn’t the hard and fast type—there had been a hesitancy and gentleness behind her passion. A trepidation and curiosity that had haunted him last night as he’d lain awake, staring at the ceiling and touching himself.

  Yes, he wanted her. But he’d take it slow, enjoy it. Enjoy her.

  You’re treading on dangerous ground. Think about what you’re doing.

  “Can’t a man worship all parts of a woman?” His fingers dipped lower, circling a ring of freckles hugging the curve of her left breast. “Not just the popular bits.”

  Her large blue eyes held him captive, bewitching him with their guileless beauty. A memory flickered, Emmaline standing with him kneeling at her feet. Worshiping her with his tongue. Remembering the way her eyes had been, big and round and full of awe, made him hard as stone.

  “We weren’t supposed to see each other again,” she said.

  “And yet, here we are.”

  It was messy. Complicated. Two things Parker avoided at all costs because it was harder to maintain control. He was her boss, and she’d lied to him about her identity. Fooled him. He was also in the process of trying to fix a reputation that had been broken by sex and scandal. But here he was, fingertips on her skin, his body raging with the need to have her.

  This was different. No one would be hurt by them being together, no one’s trust would be broken. They were two consenting adults.

  “Come home with me,” he whispered into her ear as his hand sank lower, his palm connecting with the satisfying swell of her breast. Her nipple was hard, and he brushed over it with his thumb. “Let’s see if I can get another gold star.”

  “I shouldn’t,” she said, but she arched into his hand. “Not with you.”

  He tugged at the hardened bud through the soft, silk blouse, and a moan fell from her lips. The sound flared through him like a firework. Everything about her was so wonderfully responsive, from the pleasure sounds that jumbled in the back of her throat to the way her eyes squeezed shut when he leaned in to press his lips to her neck.

  The flutter of her pulse drove him wild. The need to have her was like a chant drumming in ti
me with his jacked-up heartbeat.

  Take her, take her, take her.

  A button gave way beneath his insistent fingers, and he found lace and skin. As he dragged the edge of her bra down, her breast spilled into his palm and he brought his lips to hers. She was hot, her skin flushed and her breath warm and sweet. Resisting the urge to rush, he pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. A teaser, a promise.

  “Parker,” she warned, but her lips opened and her tongue darted out to meet his.

  “Come home with me.” His lips brushed her ear. “Again.”

  She stiffened beneath his touch, all her liquid softness evaporating in an instant. “I can’t.”

  “If this is about me being your boss—”

  “It isn’t just that.” Her palms were at his chest, pushing him away until cool air rushed between them. “This isn’t right.”

  “It feels pretty damn right to me.” In fact, he would go as far as to say nothing could have felt more right. There was something about her that drew him, that made him forget his responsibilities. That made him forget his problems.

  Hell, with her body pressed against his he could scarcely remember to breathe.

  “I don’t want to do anything that might compromise my integrity here.”

  He raised a brow. “By having consensual sex?”

  “Put it this way, I might not listen to gossip, but other people do. I don’t want my colleagues thinking I’m trying to sleep my way to the top.”

  He opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off.

  “And I’m not looking for a relationship,” she said. “I don’t know whether you believed me, but I did come out of a bad marriage. I’m not ready to jump into anything serious.”

  “I’m not looking for anything serious, either.”

  “I’m also not looking for a friends-with-benefits arrangement.”

  A deep, aching need pulsed through him as her hands came to her blouse to close the button he’d so carefully opened a moment ago. “We’re not friends.”