A Forbidden Affair

by Yvonne Lindsay

  “You can’t possibly be serious about me working for you.”

  “I’m serious, all right.”

  “No.” Nicole took a step back from him, putting one hand out as if she could physically prevent his words from holding any truth. “There’s no way in this lifetime that I’d do such a thing, even if my father didn’t want me at Wilson Wines. It would destroy every last vestige of our relationship together. He may not understand me as well as I’d hoped for, but he’s still my father. I won’t do that to him. I just won’t.”

  Why couldn’t she have stayed angry at her family? That would have made this so much easier, Nate thought to himself. Was there any way he could stoke that anger again?

  “You are talking about the man who said that Wilson Wines was a nice hobby for you, aren’t you?”

  She shook her head, more in frustration, he imagined, than to negate what he’d just said. Nate pursued his advantage in the face of her silence.

  “And you’re talking about the man who, without a word of discussion with you—his right hand at Wilson Wines—gave away a controlling interest in his business to someone who is essentially a complete and utter stranger to both of you.”

  “Stop,” she moaned, wrapping her arms about herself and holding them tight. “I know that’s what he’s done, you don’t need to repeat it. He’s my father. No matter what, he’ll always be my dad. I’ll always be loyal to him.”

  “Really? Why? He’s even given away your family home, Nicole. Again, without any prior warning to you, nor any assurance for you that you will have a roof over your head anymore. Haven’t you asked yourself yet what kind of man would do that to his daughter?”

  Nate was angry, furiously angry. Not at Nicole, who seemed determined to forgive her father anything, but at the man who was at the root of all Nate’s unhappiness. The man whose brutal rejection of his best friend had crushed Thomas Jackson’s spirit and had forced him into dire financial straits. And the man who had withheld his encouragement and support from his daughter for so long that she’d forgive any insult for the chance to earn his approval.

  He pressed on as she stood there silent and pale.

  “You deserve more, Nicole. You deserve so much more. You’re a strong, intelligent and incredibly capable woman. You should work somewhere where you’re valued and appreciated. Think about the team we’ll make. We’ll be the best the business has ever seen.”

  She raised tear-washed eyes to his face and he fought to ignore the spear of regret that penetrated somewhere in the region of his chest. He knew his words hurt her but he couldn’t afford to be soft, not now. If she didn’t give in soon, he’d have to hurt her a lot more. He didn’t want to, but he would, if it came to that. All was fair in love and war. And this was war.

  “Nicole, your loyalty to Charles Wilson is commendable, but sadly misplaced. Work with me. Help me grow Jackson Importers to its fullest potential. Be a part of something special.”

  She swallowed before speaking. “And what’s in it for you? You can’t expect me to believe you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart.”

  He laughed, a short humorless sound that hung in the air between them for only a second or two. “No, I’m not doing it out of the goodness of my heart. I’m a businessman. I play to win, at all times and,” he hesitated a moment for effect, “at all costs.”

  She shook her head again. “I won’t work for you and I’m leaving right now. You’re not the man I thought you were, Nate. I can’t do what you’re asking of me.”

  “Nicole, I’m not asking.”

  “I still have some say in this, don’t I?” she demanded, turning and heading for the front door.

  “Sure, you still have a say,” he said, his words halting her in her tracks. “But so do I, and there’s still a card left for me to play.”

  “I wasn’t aware this was a game,” she said coolly.

  “Not a game at all,” Nate said, smiling, even though his voice held no warmth anymore. “But all the same, I will win.” He gestured toward the video camera still on the tripod in the corner of the room. “Ask yourself this, how would your father feel if he saw our amateur movie? What would hurt him more? Seeing you work for me, or knowing that you’d spent this past weekend in my bed?”

  “Th—that’s not fair,” Nicole stammered, struggling to keep her balance. It felt as if the floor had been knocked out from under her. “I didn’t know who you were then.”

  “I never said I play fair, Nicole. Your father already hates the Jackson name. Already believes your mother slept with my father—it’s what tore Charles and Thomas’s friendship apart, what divided your family and what destroyed mine. I’ll be sure to include a note with the DVD, explaining my parentage. How do you think he’d feel about seeing his daughter intimately engaged with Thomas Jackson’s son?”

  “You wouldn’t!” Nicole uttered the words even though her throat felt as if it had constricted with shock and fear.

  “Oh, believe me. I very much would. I want you, Nicole. I want you in my boardroom, in my office, in the field as well as here—in my home and in my bed.”

  Her skin tautened as his words fell upon her ears. Her nipples hardening even as a rush of warmth spread through her lower belly and her inner muscles clenched involuntarily in reaction to his words. Stop it, she told herself. He wasn’t simply talking about sex. He was talking about her betraying her father. About her walking away from the company she’d hoped all her life that she would eventually take over. The job that was so much more than a job. It had been her way of life—her dream. It had been everything to her father and, ergo, everything to her, as well.

  What Nate was suggesting was appalling. If she quit her job at Wilson Wines to work for Nate, her father would never understand, never forgive her. But could she take the risk that Nate would follow through on his threat and send her father a copy of their illicit weekend? Even as the thought presented itself in her mind, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that Nate would do exactly what he said. Men like him didn’t always play fair or clean—and they rarely bluffed. It would hurt her father if she worked for Nate but it would probably kill him if he saw that video.

  “You’re a bastard,” she said quietly.

  “Oh, yes, no question about that,” Nate answered, a thread of bitterness in his voice that she hadn’t heard before.

  She racked her memory. Her father had rarely spoken about the man who had been his best friend from school, but when he did it had been in scathing terms. Thomas Jackson had never married. Never even publicly acknowledged he had a son. Was Nate even telling the truth about his relationship with the man?

  She was hit with a sudden wave of hopelessness. Did any of her conjecture even matter when right now Nate held all the cards very firmly in those dexterous hands of his? Hands that had done wickedly delicious things to her over the past seventy-two hours. She clamped down on the thought before it took her over again. She had to forget the man she thought she’d grown to know a little these past few days. Had to remember, instead, the hardheaded businessman who had so mercilessly embarked on their time together knowing full well who she was and what being with him would mean to her family.

  Her family. They were what had gotten her into this mess. Them and her blasted impulsiveness. She could see the lines of disappointment carved into her father’s face even now.

  “So, Nicole, what’s it to be?”

  Nate stood opposite her, his hands loosely on his lean jean-clad hips, his chest still bare, his shoulders still showing evidence of their passion where she’d clutched him tightly—her nails imbedding in his skin, lost in the throes of yet more pleasure. Even now, with his intentions out in the open, she still had to fight her desire for him. What did that say about her? She didn’t even want to begin to examine that question.

  She c
ouldn’t do it. She couldn’t let her father see her wanton behavior, especially with the man who epitomized everything her father had fought against in the past twenty-five years. She had no other choice. She had to do as he said.

  “You win.”

  “There, that wasn’t too difficult, was it?”

  She flung a fulminating look at him. “You have no idea.”

  She was damned if she did as he’d demanded, and she was damned if she didn’t. At least this way she could protect her father from seeing the full extent of her own stupid behavior. Her face burned with shame as she remembered that she had been the one to pull out the camcorder in the first place. Furious and embarrassed, she pushed the thought away.

  Nate Hunter Jackson might have won this round but he wouldn’t win them all, she silently vowed. One way or another, she’d get her own back on him.

  “This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. At least with me you won’t be taken for granted, Nicole,” he said.

  She ignored him. Being taken for granted was the least of her immediate worries. “I need to go home and get my things, and pick up my car,” she said with as much control as she could muster.

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  She gestured to the suit she’d put back on this morning. Despite her attentions to it, the garment still looked a little the worse for wear and in need of a professional dry clean.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I need my clothes. I can’t wear this forever.”

  “Personally, I kind of like the idea of you not wearing it.”

  “Personally, I don’t care what you like,” she retaliated. She may have been forced into agreeing to his terms but she’d take a long walk off a short pier before she’d take her clothes off again at his behest. “I need my things—my car, my cell phone charger, everything. And I’ll need to tell my father and brother that I won’t be working for them anymore.”

  “I’ll arrange for your car to be collected. As to your clothes, we can take care of that on the way into work. And, as to your father and brother, I’ll take care of letting them know. There’s no way to break it to them gently, and being blunt would be a miserable experience for you, but will be quite a lot of fun for me. Now, give me five minutes to shower and change. We can have breakfast in the city before we shop.”

  He turned and headed for the bathroom.

  “I’m not hungry,” she said to his retreating back.

  Nate stopped and turned around, his hands already at the button fly of his jeans and exposing his lower abdomen to her gaze. “Not hungry? That’s a shame. I’ll have to have enough appetite for the both of us, then, won’t I?”

  Nicole dragged her eyes from the half open fly of his jeans and up to his face. His eyes burned with a heat that sent an answering response coursing through her body.

  “Yes, you will,” she said through teeth clenched so tight her jaw ached. She forced herself to relax the tiniest bit before continuing. “Because I have absolutely no appetite at all.”

  There, she thought, take that. She spun on one high heel and stomped through to the massive picture window facing the sea in the living room. Even there she was destined for disappointment, she thought. Instead of the rough roiling ocean she’d come to expect from the wild west coast beach ahead of her, there was nothing but a clear-blue autumn sky, rolling deep green water and foaming white crests of waves caressing the sparkling black sand shoreline. It was a complete contrast to the storm of emotion that tossed around inside her.

  She was going to work for the son of her father’s biggest business rival. He’d never forgive her this. Not in a million years. She shouldn’t care, she told herself. He was the one who had summarily dismissed all her years of hard work for Wilson Wines and along with that dismissal had put aside her business and marketing degrees, not to mention the years of after-school and school holiday work experience she’d doggedly labored through so she could understand his business from the ground up. He’d never realized how important the business was to her because he’d never grasped how important he was to her.

  Somewhere along the line, and from a very early age, Nicole had understood that her father’s business was his everything. It was what he poured his heart and soul into every waking hour of every day. She’d thought that if she did exactly what he did, she’d earn his respect. And still he thought it was no more than a dalliance for her. Something to fill in her time before the more important matters of marriage and making babies filled her life.

  Her hands tightened into fists, her perfectly manicured nails biting into the skin of her palms, as all her latent frustration built deep inside her. Getting angry at her father all over again would make it easier to walk away from Wilson Wines…but deep down, she knew the anger wouldn’t last. She loved her father, and she knew that he loved her, even if they’d both fallen short on finding a way to connect. But even now, she refused to believe that it was too late. She closed her eyes to the perfection of the view outside and forced herself to draw in a steadying breath, and then another. Somehow she’d work her way through this. Somehow she’d work her way back to her family again.

  “You ready?”

  Nate’s voice came from behind her. She opened her eyes and turned around. In a tailored charcoal-gray suit, with a crisp white shirt and flame-colored silk tie, he was a world away from the sensual creature who’d filled her weekend with sybaritic delight. A world away, but no less appealing. She ruthlessly pushed aside the admission.

  “I was waiting for you, remember?” she said, scathingly.

  He smiled, the action making something inside her tug hard. She silently cursed him for having this effect on her.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  The drive into the city was interminable. Nicole checked her cell phone for about the sixteenth time since they’d started out on the road. She hadn’t had her phone on all weekend but even now the thing was down to only one bar of battery left. One bar and no blasted reception. Just as they crested a hill, she saw she finally had a signal and, with that, her phone began to vibrate in her hand as one message after the other poured in. By the time it settled down she saw she had six missed calls, an equal number of voice messages and more texts than she cared to count. Before she could do anything about them, though, her phone died—all the beeping and vibrating having drained the last of its charge.

  “Argh!” she growled in frustration.

  “Problem?” Nate asked, infuriatingly calm.

  “My phone just died.”

  “No problem, I’ll get you a new one. It’ll be better that way—start over fresh.”

  “I like this one,” she said doggedly. “It already has everything I need in it.”

  “It has what you needed for your old life—not for your new one. You’ve got a whole new list of people you’ll be working with, communicating with. Besides, that was probably a company-subsidized phone—and you’re not with that company anymore.”

  To her surprise, Nate took one hand off the steering wheel and reached across to take the phone from her hand.

  “Needs updating, too,” he said, giving the technology a cursory glance. “The one I get you will have better programming—and better access, too. I can’t have you out of range whenever you’re at the house.”

  “There’s noth— Wait! What the hell are you doing?”

  His driver’s window rolled down smoothly and he lobbed the phone out onto the road where, to her horror, it was promptly run over by a truck coming in the opposite direction.

  “How dare you? That was mine.”

  “I told you, I’ll get you a new one. That one’s no good anymore, anyway.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  She fought back the tears that suddenly came into her eyes. This was a complete nightmare. Did he have to control e
verything? Maybe it would have been better to bite the bullet, after all, and suffer the consequences of her father seeing the DVD. Even as she thought it, Nicole pushed the thought from her mind. Her father’s health had been declining in recent years. He’d ignored his diabetes for too long and the damage it had wrought on his system was beginning to tell on him, making him look much older than his sixty-six years. She didn’t even want to imagine the impact a major shock to his system would have on his health.

  No, she was in this for the long haul. No matter what it took, no matter the toll on her.

  “The replacement had better be top of the line,” she said, putting as much steel into her voice as she could.

  “Of course. Nothing but the best for you, I promise.”

  “That’s quite a promise. Do you really think you can meet it?”

  Nate flicked a glance in her direction before returning his gaze to the traffic ahead.

  “I’m a man of my word.”

  “That remains to be seen,” she muttered, focusing her attention out the passenger window.

  The way he’d said it, it held more threat than promise, and for some reason that, more than anything, chilled her to the bone.

  Nate watched as Nicole was taken through to the fitting room of the third designer store they’d been to so far this morning. She’d insisted on getting a new wardrobe before eating, which now left him starving—but not for any food. He was hungry for her. For the feel of the texture of her skin beneath his touch, for the taste of her on his lips, for all the little sighs and moans she made while they explored one another’s bodies with intimate precision.

  Part of him wanted to say to hell with work—and clothes—and just head back to the house for another day in bed. Only two things stopped him.

  The first was the office. Jackson Importers was his father’s legacy in so many ways, and when Nate had taken up the mantle as CEO, he’d promised himself that he would invest every energy, every effort, into making the company the absolute best it could be. He didn’t balk at long hours or working weekends, and even when he’d been stuck at home with a stomach bug, he’d still checked in through email all day long. Calling in sick on Friday had undoubtedly raised a few eyebrows. If he missed work on Monday, too, his staff would probably send an ambulance out to his house.