As with most addicts, he’d become an accomplished liar. When she asked him what he’d been up to over the weekend she wanted to be able to see his face. Only then would she know if he was telling the truth.
“Lainey, would you step into my office for a moment?”
Adam’s voice drifted through his open office door. Lainey grabbed her notepad and pen and went through, closing the door behind her. Her heart hammered in her chest as he rose from his desk and crossed the floor toward her. He took the notepad and pen from her fingers and threw them onto his desk, then drew her into his arms, against his body.
Instantly her veins ran with liquid heat and she melted against him, a small moan escaping her as she felt the evidence of his desire for her—insistent against her lower belly. She lifted her face to his, and parted her lips for his kiss and she wasn’t disappointed.
He took her with a hunger that sent her internal barometer soaring. His lips demanded her compliance, his teeth bumped against hers, his tongue probed deep into her mouth. She suckled on his tongue and felt the jolt that burst through him as she did so. Felt him grow harder against her.
Then it was over, as quickly as it had begun. Adam stepped away and Lainey felt a wave of supreme feminine power when she noticed his hands were shaking ever so slightly.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since before breakfast this morning,” Adam said with a rueful smile. “But it wasn’t enough for me. I want more, Lainey. More of you.”
Words choked in her throat. Her body was wound so tight with need for him, for his taste and his touch, she couldn’t force them out.
Adam turned and picked up a slip of paper from his desk and handed it to her.
“Here, this is for you.”
Lainey took the slip and looked down. Confusion dulled the edges of desire as she recognized his personal check. But instead of the sum he’d mentioned last week the amount written in his bold black handwriting was double that. Icy shock chilled through her veins.
Was this what he really thought of her?
She swallowed against the lump in her throat and forced her mind to cooperate. To drag the scattered words that flitted across her thoughts and put them into some semblance of order.
“What…what is this?”
“Your payment, as agreed.”
Her tongue felt thick and unresponsive in her mouth but she knew she had to keep pushing out the words to find out exactly what Adam meant. To find out whether she’d been totally, devastatingly, off track with her understanding of last night—of them.
“But this is twice what we agreed on. Adam, I can’t take this. I…I can’t take any of this. Not after…”
Her voice faded off as she read his expression. His face was a bland mask of indifference, his body language—as he leaned back against the edge of his desk and crossed his arms—the antithesis of a caring lover who wanted to develop what they’d shared into more.
“Not after what?” he probed, his tone devoid of any indication of what he was thinking.
“After this weekend.”
“That’s exactly why it’s twice what we agreed upon. You were—” He smiled a terrible smile, one that sent a shaft of ice like a falling stalactite through her heart. “You were exceptional, Lainey. Far better than I’d anticipated. You went above and beyond the call of duty.”
Adam pushed back up off his desk and walked around to his high backed leather chair, settling himself in it like a king on his throne.
“I’ve decided you’re worth far more than we’d earlier agreed and I want you—exclusively.”
“Exclusively?”
Lainey was confused. If she was in a relationship with Adam it would be exclusive. She wasn’t the type of woman who two-timed.
“Tell Ling to find himself another companion. I’m not going to share. Of course I’ll continue to pay your salary and by day you’ll still be my personal assistant, but by night…by night I want you to be my—”
“Your what? Your whore?” Lainey interrupted, her voice a harsh scrape through the air. “Is that what this is about?”
She stalked over to his desk and shook the check in front of him.
“You’re going to pay me to sleep with you?” Burning tears filled her eyes but she blinked them back, refusing to show her weakness in front of him. “I thought…I thought…”
“Yes? You thought what?” Adam steepled his fingers and looked up at her and in that instant Lainey knew she’d never tell him what her hopes had been for them both.
She tore the check through the middle, then systematically ripped it into smaller and smaller squares. She tossed the pieces like some absurd confetti over his desk and drew in a deep breath.
“It doesn’t matter what I thought anymore. What matters is what I know, and I know I’m no man’s whore. I no longer work for you, Adam Palmer. Not in any capacity.”
With that she spun on her heel and walked with as much decorum as she could possibly muster toward her office where she gathered her things and headed straight for the elevator.
It wasn’t until she was in her car and on her way home that the tremors set in and the tears she’d been holding back scalded her cheeks in a constant river of pain. She pulled over to the side of the road and dropped her head forward, letting the tears fall onto her lap—onto the trousers he’d bought and paid for just like he’d thought he’d bought and paid for every pathetic inch of her.
What had she been thinking? Men like Adam Palmer didn’t dally with the likes of her. Not for keeps. And, while it was something she’d never stopped to examine before, Lainey was definitely a “for keeps” kind of girl.
She reached into her handbag and pulled out a crumpled tissue and dragged it across her face, grimacing at the traces of makeup left on it when she did so. No doubt she looked a total wreck. She hazarded a glance in the rearview mirror and almost wished she hadn’t. The devastation of the past half hour stared starkly back at her.
She had to pull herself together before she got home or her grandfather would know something was awry.
Oh, God, her grandfather. How was she going to tell him that she’d thrown away the money that would almost have settled his debt?
Tears began to build in her eyes again but Lainey resolutely blinked them back. She couldn’t fall apart now. Too much rode on her being strong—for her grandfather and for herself.
She quickly touched up her make up. Hugh Delacorte would be suspicious if she’d arrived home from work looking anything less, although, Lainey realized, he’d probably wonder why she wasn’t wearing the usual type of suit she wore for work. Appearances were all important to a man like her grandfather. Which was what had gotten him into this awful position of trouble in the first place.
Lainey took another peek at herself in the mirror. Finally satisfied she’d repaired the worst of the ravages of her crying she turned her car back on and eased back onto the road home. She’d get through this like she’d managed to get through every other crisis in her life. But deep inside, another piece of her heart shriveled and died.
She needn’t have worried that Hugh would notice the signs of strain on her face when she arrived home. Instead, when Lainey saw her grandfather in his favorite chair in their sitting room she got the fright of her life. He looked terrible. His skin was grey and his breathing labored in his chest.
“Granddad!”
She dropped her things in the doorway and raced to his side, dropping to her knees and taking his gnarled hand in hers. His skin was cold and clammy to the touch.
“Are you ill? I’ll call the doctor.”
Lainey started to rise but her grandfather’s fingers tightened around hers.
“No.”
Even his voice sounded weak.
“But Granddad, what is it? You look terrible.”
“The doctor can’t help me. Not now.”
“Tell me,” Lainey begged, her own troubles pushed to the back of her mind as she searched Hugh’s eyes for some inkling of
what had gone wrong.
And just as suddenly she knew. Without her grandfather even uttering a word she knew that he’d been back to the casino. Sick dread congealed in the pit of her stomach.
“Tell me, Granddad. What have you done?” she demanded, her voice firmer now.
He wouldn’t meet her gaze, instead turning his head slightly and staring outside into his beloved garden.
“I thought it would be all right. I got a call, late on Friday, from the television station. They want me for an anniversary series of Gardening with Hugh. Six episodes, Lainey. You know what that means, don’t you? I’ll be earning again. So I went out to celebrate.”
“Oh, no. Tell me you didn’t go back to the casino, please,” she begged.
“I started well. I was on track to paying Ling back every last cent I owed him, including what I borrowed on Saturday night against what I’ll earn with the new show.” At Lainey’s gasp of horror he faced her, his eyes boring straight into hers. “I couldn’t stand the idea of you having to bail me out of debt. You’re my granddaughter. I’m supposed to protect you, not the other way around. I know you’ve been working for Ling and I know you only went away this weekend to try and earn money to repay my debt. No, don’t,” he raised a hand as Lainey went to speak. “Just hear me out. I know you insisted it was only work, but I also understand how these men work, my dear. And I…well, I wanted better for you.”
Tears pooled in his eyes then one by one the silvered droplets spilled over and tracked lines down his wrinkled cheeks.
“I failed you, Lainey. I’m so very sorry.”
Lainey rose up on her knees, throwing her arms around her grandfather’s shaking shoulders. Even when her parents died she hadn’t seen him so distraught. He’d been her rock. Always staunch, always strong. She knew he’d suppressed his grief to help her, had even used her need of him as a crutch to get him through the dark harrowing days after the accident, but she’d never before seen him break down and weep.
As he began to calm down she dropped back onto her heels, and rested her head on his legs as she had in the early days. His hand rose and his fingers combed through her hair, but this time there was no magical soothing element to his touch.
“How much?” she whispered.
Her stomach pitched as Hugh told her. Even with her job there was no way on this earth she’d be able to meet the sum he’d just mentioned.
“My luck, it just turned bad. Honestly, I was on a winning streak and then—”
“Yeah, I know,” she cut him off, unable to bear him trying to justify his actions again. “Granddad, it has to stop. You can’t keep hoping to win enough money to pay Lee back. Promise me you’ll stop now. We’ll find some way to repay him, to get us back to normal. Maybe I can get an advance on my wages or something.”
She all but choked on the words of reassurance. How on earth would she get an advance on her wages when she’d walked out on her job? Finding another job would be next to impossible once word got around about what she’d done.
“Could you do that? It’s an awful lot of money,” Hugh said, his voice small.
“I can only ask, right? And then we’re going to get you some help, real help, to conquer this addiction.”
Another thought occurred to her. How on earth had her grandfather secured this particular loan from Lee Ling? Lee had made it clear that Hugh would get no more unsecured credit. With the way Hugh had been gambling, he had very little left in the way of security and he’d already borrowed against his car. A ball of lead settled in Lainey’s chest, making it very hard to breathe. She had to ask him.
“Granddad? How did you get Lee to agree to loan you the money? I thought he’d said no more credit until your last debt was paid off.”
“It’s what he does, isn’t it? Loan money?” her grandfather hedged, refusing to meet her eyes, but she could tell from the quiver of his lips that there was more to it.
“What did he demand as security this time?”
The words, when they came, were no less shocking for all that she expected them.
“The house, Lainey. I signed over title of the house to him.”
The house? He’d signed up the only thing he had left of any quantifiable value? The home he had built with his wife, the home Lainey’s father had grown up in? Lainey looked up at her grandfather, unable to speak.
When she’d arrived back here today she’d been shocked at how much he’d appeared to have aged over the weekend, but the look on his face now made her very worried. The strain was impacting on his health, already he’d lost weight. She couldn’t lose him.
As she studied his time worn features Lainey reached a decision. She’d do whatever it took to take that grey worried caste from his face and to make things right again. He was all she had left, and she owed it to her parents’ memory to look after him. She owed it to him.
Nine
Adam vaguely registered the knock that sounded on his door. He assumed it was the temp sent through from the agency and finished off the page of the report he was reading before lifting his head.
Lainey.
Seeing her here was like a punch in the gut. From the minute she’d left his office yesterday she’d plagued his thoughts and was personally responsible for his physical discomfort when he couldn’t purge her from his mind.
He’d been all set to go after her when the contracts department had sent him an urgent e-mail warning of another imminent coup by Tremont Corporation in a deal he’d hoped to close in Melbourne over the coming weekend. Now he had to go there personally and assure his clients that Palmer Enterprises would not only meet Tremont’s offer, but would sweeten the deal with additional benefits. He had to find out who was feeding Tremont information and head them off at the pass. This time, he knew it couldn’t have been Lainey—no matter what her financial reasons were behind her association with Ling.
The interruption and the subsequent time it had taken to sort through the mess of paperwork it engendered had meant he’d had to delegate following Lainey to a low priority, no matter what his hungry flesh demanded.
She was wearing one of those god-awful suits again, but at least she’d left the contacts behind. He thought he’d made it clear he didn’t want her to hide herself from him. Ire rose from deep inside, quashing the words that had begun to form on his lips. The apology he’d promised himself he’d give her if he saw her again. No, he corrected himself, not if, but when he saw her again. He wasn’t in the habit of losing, especially not women who attracted him as strongly as Lainey did.
So what did she want, he wondered. He didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“I was hasty yesterday,” she started, then froze, as if the words were on the tip of her tongue but she just couldn’t get them out.
He fixed his eyes on her throat and felt a tiny exultant swell of pride when he saw the remnant of whisker burn on her skin. He’d marked her, but she’d also marked him. His shoulders still bore the crescent shaped marks left by her nails and inside he still hungered for her as he had for no other woman before.
“Hasty?” he commented.
“I must have been overtired or something. I should never have walked out on you, on my job, like that. I…” she hesitated and shifted uncomfortably. “I’d like to go back to how it was before.”
Adam let his eyes drift up to her face, to meet her gaze. “Before the weekend, or before you quit?” he asked bluntly.
She flinched slightly at his words.
“Which would you prefer?” she asked, her voice husky with nerves.
The sound stroked his senses. She’d spoken like that when she’d begged him to take her the last time they’d made love. He hesitated before answering, allowing the rush of hunger that roared deep inside of him a moment to be brought under control. He would maintain the upper hand in this as he did in all his negotiations.
“I’d prefer you naked and in my bed,” he said in a voice low and imbued with what he hoped was sufficient enticement to
assure her that no matter how often she ran away he knew she’d be back for more.
Her indrawn breath was a dead giveaway and he watched as a slow tide of pink flushed up her throat and across her cheeks, making her eyes glow bright in her face.
“Is that what it will take to keep my job?”
She didn’t break eye contact, and for that he silently applauded her.
“Not necessarily,” he answered with a grim smile. “Think of it as a fringe benefit.”
Adam slid open his top drawer and pulled out the leather wallet that held his checkbook. He casually flipped it open and reached for the gold-nibbed fountain pen on his desk. With quick slashes of the pen he filled it in. He tore it from the book and stood, holding the check out to her.
“I believe this is what I owe you for the weekend, as agreed,” he said with subtle emphasis on the last two words.
As Lainey reached out to accept the check he gave it a little tug. He pulled the check loose from her fingers and crossed out the sum he’d written there. Her eyes flew to his face and she paled under his stare.
“I’m prepared to double that figure again if you’ll come with me to Melbourne this weekend. You do have a current passport, don’t you?”
When Lainey nodded he smiled.
“Good, then what do you say? Double or nothing?”
“Yes. Yes, I’ll go with you to Melbourne. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Green flames burned in her eyes as he stared her down. Whatever it took, the possibilities were endless. A pang of disquiet filtered through his sense of victory—regret that she was prepared to meet his demands for money. But it went a long way toward showing him the extent of her financial trouble that she was prepared to do this.
He wrote out the new amount on the check and countersigned the changes before handing it back to her. She took it gingerly from him, not even checking the sum, and pushed it deep into her jacket pocket as if she couldn’t bear to admit she’d conceded to his request.
She’d always struck him as intensely proud, but that pride had definitely taken a backseat in the face of her need for money. Which reminded him.
Pretend Mistress, Bona Fide Boss Page 8