A Bride at His Bidding

by Michelle Smart

  ‘I thought it was a universal term.’ A suggestive gleam sparkled in his eyes. ‘It just means preparing my bed so it’s ready for me—turning the sheets over so I can slide into them.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ she said with feigned brightness. Yes, this was exactly the sort of thing this spoilt man would demand. She would bet that in colder climates he would demand his domestic PA personally warm his bed for him. ‘Of course. Yes. Anything else?’

  ‘I’ll let you know if anything comes to mind while you’re running my bath.’

  I just bet you will.

  She got to her feet. ‘I’ll run it for you now. What temperature do you like it?’ Scalding or ice-cold? she prevented herself from asking.

  He waited a beat before answering, a smile tugging on his lips. ‘Why don’t you run it to the temperature you like?’

  Andreas watched Carrie walk into the house to run him a bath with amusement fizzing in his veins.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself as much as he had that day.

  She waited on him as if she’d been born to serve his whims. Her determination to act the role he’d set for her and act it well had been exquisite to watch.

  The little tells that had betrayed her real feelings had been equally exquisite. When this was all over he’d have to arrange for her to be given an acting award because he was quite certain he would never have seen those betraying signs if he hadn’t been looking for them.

  When this was all over...

  That was a thought to knock the smile from his face.

  He would have to put Carrie out of her misery sooner rather than later, however enjoyable it was to play the role of spoilt playboy, a role that, despite his riches, he’d never had the time or inclination to play before. With Carrie being the one to act the role of slave, the spoilt playboy role had been one to relish. What a shame he would have to put a stop to it so soon.

  Debbie had messaged him earlier with news that made it clear he needed to return to London and start on damage limitation. Whatever Carrie’s reasons for being here, she’d prodded a hornets’ nest.

  He poured himself another glass of wine. Other than shave, it was the first thing he’d done for himself all day. He took a sip, leaned back and closed his eyes.

  His graduation from university had coincided with his parents’ world falling apart. Since then, his life had been one long conveyor belt of obligations. Family, work, responsibility, with Andreas the one holding everyone and everything together. Then, as he’d seen light at the end of the long dark tunnel, his sister and brother-in-law had died and he’d suddenly found himself guardian to his teenage niece. Natalia had been raised in London and was already a weekly boarder at her school in the English capital when her parents died. Andreas hadn’t wanted to uproot her life any further so had uprooted himself instead, moving his life and business from Manhattan to London. Natalia had become his priority.

  He had never begrudged anything he’d done for his family. It was what families did—they loved and took care of each other. But it was only when Natalia had left for university and he’d felt the burden of responsibility lifting from his shoulders that he’d realised what a weight it had been on him. That weight had been there most of his adult life.

  Now Natalia was approaching the end of her first year at university, that flicker of light beckoning his freedom he’d seen before her parents had died was flickering again, brighter than it ever had before. Technically Natalia was now an adult. She still needed him but not in the way she had before. Nowadays she only needed his money and his London home to ‘crash’ in, as she put it, when she went out partying with friends in the city. She was young, working hard and enjoying her life, exactly as she should be.

  He’d promised himself that once she’d completed her first year he would start living his life for himself. He no longer had to worry about being a good influence or role model. He could enjoy the wealth he had created and experience what life had to offer but which responsibility had denied him for so long.

  He never wanted to have any form of responsibility in his personal life ever again.

  His business, though, was a different matter entirely and it was this he vowed to protect from Carrie Rivers’s poisonous pen.

  He drank some more of his wine and reflected that it was fortuitous that Carrie had set her sights on him when he had the freedom to do whatever was needed to stop her. Whisking her to the Seychelles would have been unthinkable a year ago when he’d still planned every minute of his life around Natalia’s schedule.

  Setting his empty glass on the table, he got to his feet, rolled his neck and stretched.

  He would hit Carrie with the truth in the morning. Until then, he intended to extract his last few hours of fun from her.

  * * *

  Carrie marched into Andreas’s bathroom, switched the light on and stopped short.

  Soft lighting revealed a space that wasn’t a bathroom but a marble palace. The walk-in shower alone was bigger than her bathroom.

  But it was the deep, sunken bath she approached, as opulent as anything Roman emperors had bathed in. Half a dozen people could fit in it with room to spare.

  It took her a few moments to work out where the plug was. Then she turned the taps on. A surge of water gushed out, not just from the taps but from tiny round holes the entire circumference, all pouring quicker than she had ever known water to pour before.

  She found bath foam in a cabinet and added a liberal dollop, which immediately filled the room with a delicious warm spicy scent, then adjusted the water temperature some more, resisting the urge to set it on cold. When the bath was run and filled with thick foam, she dried her hands and went back into his bedroom.

  Her bravado almost deserted her as she approached his bed.

  She’d been in his room a number of times that day but this was the first time she’d had to go near his bed.

  She took a deep breath before carefully untucking the sheet. She pulled it back to form a triangle, then smoothed it, trying not to think that only the night before these sheets had covered his naked body.

  Because he did sleep naked. She knew that on an instinctive level she couldn’t begin to understand and the mere thought made her lower abdomen clench tightly.

  You’ve had too much sun, she told herself grimly, lifting his pillow to plump and immediately releasing Andreas’s scent trapped in the Egyptian cotton. She hurriedly put the pillow back down as the scent entered her bloodstream and, for a moment, her pulses soared with such strength she felt dizzy.

  She blinked hard to regain her focus and stared at the pillow as if it could bite her.

  ‘Is my bath ready?’

  She jumped.

  Andreas stood at the threshold of his bedroom, a wry smile playing on his lips.

  How long had he been there, watching her...?

  ‘Yes. There’s fresh towels on the rail. Everything’s ready for you.’ How she managed to get the words out with her heart thrashing so wildly and leaping in her throat she didn’t know.

  ‘Good.’ He stepped into the room, eyes on her as he removed a cufflink from the sleeve of his shirt.

  Suddenly terrified that he was going to strip in front of her, she forced her legs to move towards the door to her own room, sidestepping around his huge figure, which somehow seemed even taller and broader than it did in daylight hours.

  ‘I could do with some water,’ he said as her hand touched the door handle. ‘Can you bring a glass up for me please?’

  A please? That was a first.

  Carrie nodded tightly and hurried out of his room, down the stairs and to the kitchen, resolutely telling herself over and over that she’d had far too much sun that day and that was why her veins were fizzing so. The young kitchen assistant was just finishing for the night, a reminder that very soon the house would be empty of everyone but her and Andreas...

  All she could hope was that this was her last duty of the evening.

 
Her heart still hammered frantically as she walked back up the stairs with his glass of water.

  His bedroom door was ajar. She knocked lightly on it. When there was no response she stepped tentatively inside. His room was empty, the bathroom door wide open.

  ‘I have your water,’ she called. ‘Shall I leave it on the table for you?’

  His reply was muffled by the thick walls. ‘I’ll have it in here.’

  Hoping she’d misheard him, she confirmed, ‘What, in the bathroom?’

  ‘Seeing as that’s where I am, yes.’

  Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Carrie trod slowly to the open door, praying he hadn’t removed all his clothes yet.

  It was a futile hope.

  Andreas was in the huge bath, leaning back, the top of his chest right in her eyeline, facing the door. Facing her.

  Knowing her face had gone the colour of sun-ripened tomatoes, she looked everywhere but him, searching for a decent spot to put the glass on.

  ‘Bring it to me,’ he commanded casually.

  She couldn’t get her feet to work.

  Water sloshed as he sat up and extended an arm. ‘Don’t be shy, matia mou. I only bite if invited to.’

  Flames engulfing her, resisting the urge to throw the water right in his face, she finally put one foot in front of the other, her eyes darting everywhere but at him.

  She couldn’t look at him, not directly. As long as she looked at the beautiful cream tiling around his head she would be fine.

  When she reached his side she extended her own arm to put the glass in his waiting hand, careful not to allow their fingers to brush, then quickly stepped back.

  ‘I’ll leave you to enjoy your bath,’ she said.

  ‘You’re not going to stay and keep me company?’

  Without her meaning them to, her eyes found his and her heart leapt then twisted.

  A breathless, suspended moment passed between them, the only movement the growing ache in her most feminine place and the colour she could feel creeping up her neck.

  And no wonder she couldn’t breathe. The look in his eyes... The gleam...

  This beautiful, ruggedly handsome man was staring at her as if she were a delicacy he wanted to feast on.

  Heat rose in her that she was quite sure had nothing to do with the steamy vapours coming from the bath.

  Suddenly her imagination ran riot, a feast of its own, racing into places she had never been before of naked limbs and soft sighs...

  She’d spent the whole day with this man’s semi-naked body within touching distance and had successfully kept him fully clothed in her mind, just as if she’d been a subject in The Emperor’s New Clothes. Blocking out his near-nakedness had been as hard as keeping that stupid smile on her face but she had done it. Now the veil she’d put over her eyes had been ripped away and she saw him, darkly tanned, a homage to rugged masculinity, and the base feminine part of herself responded to it.

  And then she saw something else in his eyes, something darker even than the desire that swirled and pulsed, and it was this something, this dark danger, that pulled her out of the hypnotic spell he’d cast over her and snapped her back to herself.

  She forced herself to breathe and dragged her lips into a smile.

  ‘You’re a big boy,’ she said in as light a tone as she could muster. ‘I’m sure you can cope with your own company for a while.’

  There was a moment of utter stillness before his firm lips curved into an all too knowing smile. ‘I didn’t think you’d looked.’

  Looked...?

  Suddenly his meaning became clear and her eyes, with a will of their own, gazed down at the water, at the long, muscular legs laid out, covered in foam but not covered enough that she couldn’t see the dark hair between his thighs or his...

  Shocked rigid, she quickly blinked and turned away.

  But she couldn’t blink enough to rid herself of what she’d seen.

  She’d never seen a fully naked man before, not in the flesh, and, even with the bath water and foam distorting the image, she didn’t need to be experienced in matters of the flesh to know that he was in proportion everywhere.

  ‘I’ll be in my room if you need me,’ she mumbled, hurrying to escape from this seductive atmosphere and all the danger lacing it.

  She closed the bathroom door with the sound of his low laughter ringing in her ears.

  Alone in her bedroom she sat on her bed and clutched her still-flaming cheeks, breathing heavily.

  She despised Andreas, had hated him from that moment outside the headmistress’s office when he had stared at her as if she were something dirty he had trodden in.

  He had destroyed her sister! How could she feel such attraction to him? How was it possible that her first real flush of desire should be for her enemy?

  And how was it possible that he could be so aware of it? She’d seen it in those seductive eyes...

  She flopped onto her pillow face-first and gave a muffled scream.

  How could she be thinking these thoughts?

  Too much sun.

  Of course. That was the answer.

  She’d had more sun in one day than she’d had for at least three years. It had addled her brain in much the same way sleep deprivation had addled it yesterday.

  Feeling calmer, she stretched herself out on the narrow bed, closed her eyes and concentrated on inhaling and exhaling in long, regular breaths, the way she had long ago trained herself to fall asleep when her terrified fears for her sister had threatened to stop her ever falling into oblivion.

  * * *

  A loud rapping woke Carrie from the light slumber she had fallen into.

  The digital bedside clock showed it had just turned midnight. She’d been in her room for less than an hour.

  The rapping vibrated through the door again. ‘Caroline?’

  ‘I’m awake.’ She staggered off the bed and took the one step needed to reach the door, straightening her dress, which she’d fallen asleep in.

  She braced herself before opening the door only to find her senses hit immediately with the tangy scent of Andreas’s cologne and the faint spice of his bath foam.

  He was standing in a pair of faded jeans, his torso bare, a smile playing on his lips.

  ‘Were you sleeping?’ he asked with one eyebrow raised.

  ‘Dozing.’ I forgot that working for you meant only sleeping when you gave the order.

  ‘Good. I’m in the mood for a nightcap.’

  Of course you are.

  ‘You want me to get it for you?’

  He pulled a face that said very clearly that that was what he employed her for.

  ‘Give me a second to put something on my feet,’ she added hastily.

  ‘Bring me a tumbler of Scotch—any single malt will do—three fingers, two cubes of ice, and one for yourself. I’ll be on the veranda.’ Then he winked, turned and headed off.

  Taking a deep breath while internally cursing him to the heavens, Carrie slipped her toes into the gold designer flip-flops she’d been given and trudged down the stairs to his den, where he kept his indoor bar.

  How could any normal self-respecting employee put up with this? she wondered. No salary, however large, could compensate for being at Andreas’s permanent beck and call.

  She fixed his Scotch exactly as demanded and poured herself some lemonade. As tempting as the vast array of liquors and spirits was, she didn’t want any alcohol in her bloodstream when dealing with this tricky man. She’d refused wine with her dinner for the same reason.

  She carried the glasses outside, where a fresh breeze whispered over her skin, and found him back at the outside table reading something on his phone.

  She still didn’t have a signal.

  His teeth glimmered white in the moonlight as she put the drinks on the table. ‘Before you sit down, go to my dressing room and get me a pair of swim-shorts. I might want a swim later.’

  Later? It was already the middle of the night. Did the man not plan
on getting any sleep?

  Was she not allowed to get any sleep?

  Then she caught something in his eyes, an amusement that immediately aroused her suspicions...

  Was he...?

  Could he be...?

  Was Andreas playing a game?

  He stared right back at her, the amusement no longer just in his eyes but quirking on his lips, as if he were biting back laughter. But something darker lurked in those light brown eyes too, something that sent fresh alarm bells ringing inside her.

  She backed away slowly, suddenly wary of taking her eyes off him.

  Her job had taught her the importance of listening to her instincts and her instincts were telling her loud and clear that something was off and that some unseen danger awaited her.

  Climbing back up the stairs, she realised that she’d had this instinctual feeling of something being amiss since her interview with him but Andreas had kept her so busy running around after him that she’d had no time to listen.

  She paused at the threshold of his bedroom and gazed around with narrowed eyes. She’d resisted looking too deeply before as there had always been someone around and she hadn’t wanted to seem as if she were doing anything other than what Andreas was supposedly paying her for. The newest members of staff in any organisation always attracted curious glances, whether the work was in a business or domestic environment. It was human nature to watch strangers more closely than people you were familiar with. She’d thought it wise to hold off before she started any snooping.

  Slowly she took all the expensive furnishings in, unsure what, if anything, she was looking for.

  It was just a bedroom. A masculine, richly opulent bedroom for sure, but still, just a bedroom...

  What the heck was that?

  Right at the end of the curtain pole that covered his French doors, a tiny round object winked at her.

  Carrie had been an undercover journalist long enough to know exactly what she was looking at but it still took a few moments before it really sank in.

  The tiny round object was a camera. And it was filming her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ANDREAS SIPPED HIS Scotch as he watched Carrie on his phone.