Lee’s response to him was lost in the sound of the front door slamming behind them.
Lainey felt sick to the soles of her feet. He was actually doing it. She knew he’d threatened to do so and realistically she understood he was the kind of man who made good on his threats. But so soon?
Their lives were crumbling around them like a stack of cards. With next to nothing in their bank accounts they had no hope. Her job was all they had left in the way of steady income, provided she still could hold on to it.
She looked at her grandfather. There was no way she could leave him on his own today. He looked ill. The brutal reality of the ramifications of his gambling had finally sunk home. This wasn’t a game anymore.
Adam closed the interoffice message window on his computer screen with a sharp click on his mouse. So, HR were looking for a temporary assistant for him for today because Lainey had called in sick. How convenient. Anger swelled from deep inside and for a moment he savored the taste of it.
How dare she hide from him like this? Didn’t she know it made her look even more guilty?
His informant at the casino had told him that she hadn’t turned up there last night, either. A thought occurred to him. Had she done a runner? Well, there was one way to find out, and find out fast. He called the private investigation firm his cousin, Brent, used when necessary. They were discreet and even better, they were very fast.
By lunchtime Adam was looking over the couriered information that had arrived in response to his call. The information had come at a price but it was worth it. Damning proof spread out before him, of payments made on a regular basis to Lee Ling from Lainey Delacorte’s personal accounts. Accounts which had diminished dramatically in recent months. His eyes blurred with a red haze of fury as he saw a copy of the check he’d issued Lainey only last Friday. A check which had been signed over to Lee Ling. And if that wasn’t bad enough, even the house she lived in was owned by the man.
Adam swept the papers off his desk with a sharp expletive. He’d trusted her with everything here at work. Just how many secrets had she sold? He forced himself to focus on what she might have done to Palmer Enterprises. It was so much easier than acknowledging the awful hollow feeling in his chest or the feelings he’d been struggling to keep submerged as he fought to keep his relationship with Lainey, outside of work, strictly physical.
“Mr. Palmer?” The temporary assistant stood nervously in the doorway. “Is everything okay?”
“Out!” he shouted, then shut his eyes and counted to ten very slowly.
He crossed his office and popped his head around the door to where the temp sat, quite unsure of what she’d done to deserve such outrageous treatment.
“Look, I’m sorry. Just give me a few minutes, okay?”
“Certainly, Mr. Palmer. Would you like me to pick up those papers from your floor?”
“No, I’ll see to them. How about you work through the mail that’s on the desk and prioritize it as you see fit. We can go through it together when I’m done.”
Adam stalked back across the carpet and bent down to the scattered mess of papers on the floor. The anger inside of him had tamped down to a slow boiling pit of lava. He was unused to giving in to outbursts like the one he’d just subjected the temp to. Damn Lainey for reducing him to that as well, he cursed under his breath. But his internal tirade halted as he picked up the historical title search of Lainey’s home, something pricking at his subconscious as he did so.
He studied the paper more carefully, seeing past the wrath that had gripped him the first time around when he’d identified Lee Ling’s name on the title document. Something about the dates didn’t quite marry up. He looked again and sat back on his heels, a gust of air escaping his lungs as he realized the change of ownership was registered only a day after he and Lainey had returned from Russell.
He remembered watching her walk back into his office after discarding his money and her job only the day before. What had happened to make her change her mind?
He looked again at the title, recognizing her grandfather’s name as the previous owner. This put a new slant on everything. He’d frequently recognized the retired television presenter at the casino, not realizing at the time of the older man’s relationship to Lainey. Hugh Delacorte was definitely a high roller, always playing for big stakes. It wouldn’t take too much to find out whether he was equally as big a winner.
Adam’s gut began to churn. Had he been wrong about Lainey all along? Could she really be the innocent party, manipulated by her obvious love and respect for her grandfather and the unscrupulous machinations of a man like Ling?
Could he begin to believe that she’d been telling him the truth all along about everything—even her feelings for him?
All it would take was one phone call to Lainey to find out. He straightened up the last of the papers and shoved them back in the envelope in which they’d arrived before sitting back behind his desk and looking up Lainey’s home phone number in her personnel details.
He punched in the numbers on his phone, listening to the ringtone over the speaker as he drummed his fingers on his desk.
“Hello?”
Just hearing her voice sent a charge of lust through him. He snatched the receiver off its cradle and took a leveling breath.
“Lainey, we need to talk.”
“I can’t talk right now, Adam. Really, I can’t.”
“Not even about your job?”
He heard her sharply indrawn breath and waited.
“What’s the matter, Adam?” she answered, a thread of something in her tone he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Do you think you didn’t get your money’s worth? Please, just leave me alone.”
The next thing he was listening to the rapid beeps of a disconnected call. He slowly replaced the receiver.
It was the crack in her voice that did it for him. She was falling apart. With the pressure he’d put on her, not to mention what trying to meet the demands of someone like Lee Ling would do, it was no bloody wonder.
He grabbed his car keys from his top drawer and strode from the office. One way or another he was going to settle this—for good.
“Mr. Palmer?” The temp shot from her desk as he rushed past her.
“Later. I’ll be back later.”
“But…”
Whatever she’d been about to say was lost as the lift doors closed behind him.
The journey to Lainey’s home gave him a chance to think about what he was going to do. First things first, though, he needed to acknowledge why it was so damn important to him to make sure she was okay. Sure, she’d been his assistant for two and a half years, but she was more than that. So very much more.
Finally Adam was prepared to admit to himself why the whole idea of sharing Lainey with anyone else was anathema to him. He wanted her all for himself and it was more than just wanting. Somehow, somewhere along the line, and despite the very best of his intentions, he’d fallen in love with her. Now, all he had to do was convince her of it—and in the light of the way he’d treated her it was probably going to be the hardest sell of his entire life.
Adam pulled up his BMW behind a late model sedan parked outside Lainey’s address. On the front lawn a Realtor stood with a pair of stakes, a sign and a hammer.
So that was Ling’s game. He was selling their home. Adam’s hands clenched around the leather-covered steering wheel. The man was scum, there was no doubt about it. No wonder Lainey had been so distraught when he’d rung. Her world was falling apart and there wasn’t a damn thing left that she could do about it.
Suddenly, Adam made a change in his plans. He’d been worried all the way over here how he was going to convince Lainey to take another chance on him. Now, he had the perfect opportunity. He got out from the car and went over to the realtor. It only took a few words but before long he was in his car and on his way back to the office, a wide smile spread across his face.
His lawyers would no doubt spin out when they heard what he’d done, but
Adam Palmer didn’t answer to them. He didn’t answer to anyone—except to the woman he loved.
Thirteen
“Callie, I’m heading out and I don’t expect to be back in the office today. You can go back to Mother’s office if she needs you this afternoon,” Adam instructed his mother’s assistant.
She’d been the only one who could work with him this entire week. He’d bitten the head off each of the temps that had been sent to him and he’d tried it with Callie, too, but she’d been a part of the Palmer’s extended family for so long that there was no way she’d let him bully her.
“Can we expect to see the old Adam back in the office when you do get back?” she asked, arching one eyebrow at him.
“I haven’t been that bad, have I?”
She said nothing, just held his gaze.
“I have,” he admitted with a rueful grin.
“Yeah, you have. Now go and sort out whatever it is that’s driving you and everyone around you insane.”
He wouldn’t have taken that remark from anyone but Callie. One of his mother’s more successful pet projects since she’d been fostered at a home sponsored by one of his mother’s charities, she’d been around the family in one capacity or another since she was in her early teens.
“I’ll do what I can,” he conceded as he headed for the elevator bank.
He had to admit, he’d been like a bear with a sore head the entire week. Lainey still hadn’t returned to the office and each day Adam had fought his disappointment that she was still hiding from him. He could only imagine what torment she was putting herself through. But today it would end. Today he’d end her torment and, with any luck, she’d end his, too.
He cursed the traffic that snarled his journey to her grandfather’s house but finally he pulled up outside. He covered the distance from the car to the house in long strides. Now he was here, he couldn’t wait to see her. Couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms again.
Adam jabbed a finger at the doorbell and waited, tapping his foot impatiently. From inside, he heard a rustle of movement and then, finally, the door slowly swung open.
Shock hit him square in the chest as he took in the ravages that had taken their toll on Lainey this week. She really did look ill. She was pale, her green eyes dull and flat, and purple shadows underscored her eyes like bruises.
He lifted his hand to her face, to touch her, to reassure her that everything would be all right, but to his surprise she flinched away from him.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice totally devoid of emotion.
“Can we talk?”
“What’s there to talk about? Really, Adam, can’t this wait?”
“Until when you decide to stop hiding and come back to the office?” To come back to me, he added silently.
“Hiding?”
Ah, Adam let satisfaction lick through him. Now she had some color.
“Well, what else would you call it?” he pressed.
“Look, I’m really not up to this now.”
She started to close the door but Adam put up a hand and stopped the door closing.
“All I want to do is talk, Lainey. Surely you owe me that much?”
“Owe you?” She laughed, but it was a bitter sound that made him feel lower than low. “I owe you nothing. Unless, as I said on the phone, you don’t feel as though you got your money’s worth from me, in which case I’ve got five minutes and a condom somewhere.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. Her deliberate insult showed him more clearly than anything what had kept her away from him. He lowered his voice to a purr.
“Lainey, you know we’d need far, far more than just five minutes.”
Color flooded her cheeks and she pulled her robe tighter around her. He let his gaze linger on her face, refusing to look at her body which he knew was starkly outlined by the thin fabric of her robe. She had to understand he wasn’t here about sex. This was about her.
“Then maybe you just want to throw more accusations at me about my loyalty to Palmer Enterprises and to you,” she continued with a spark of defiance lighting briefly in her eyes.
“I just want to talk, Lainey,” he said softly. “Let me in, please?”
Whether it was the tone of his voice or the humility with which he’d couched his plea, she stepped aside and swung the door wide—gesturing for him to come in.
“You’d better come through to the sitting room,” she said as she closed the door then preceded him down the hall.
Adam noted the stacks of collapsed cardboard boxes here and there. Shelves cleared of the minutiae of what made a home. A roll of packing tape lay discarded on the coffee table, a pair of scissors nearby.
He cursed that he hadn’t been able to come sooner. To have prevented this slow dismantling of the home he knew meant so much to her.
He waited for Lainey to sit down and chose the chair directly opposite her. He wanted her full attention every step of the way. It was vital that she listen, and understand exactly where he came from.
“I’m sorry about the mess. We’re packing.” Again there was that note of total lifelessness in Lainey’s voice.
Adam forced himself to hold back. He knew he could soothe away that worried frown on her face with a few well chosen words but he had other important things to say first.
“It must be killing you to pack up. From what you said when we were up in Russell, I know what this place means to you.”
Lainey nodded, staring down at her fingers tangled together in a tight knot in her lap. “Yeah, but in the end, it’s just a house, right? Granddad and I will find something else. It won’t be like this but it’s people that make a home, and we’ll always have our memories.”
“I know about your grandfather, Lainey.”
Her head jerked up as if she’d been shot. “What? What are you talking about?”
“I know about his gambling. I know that you did everything you could to repay his debts to Lee Ling, even going so far as to act as Ling’s escort at the casino.” Adam sighed. “Even going so far as to sleep with me.”
He looked straight into her eyes. Eyes that now swam with unshed tears. She shook her head, at first ever so slightly, then more vehemently.
“No. It wasn’t like that.”
“What wasn’t like that?”
“I didn’t sleep with you for the money.” Lainey stopped abruptly, her voice choked with emotion.
Adam waited for her to continue.
“You asked me to be your companion. Just like I was with Lee. I never slept with him, nor would I ever have. What I did for him was act as bait.” An expression of disgust crossed her face. “Bait for people like my grandfather, who, coerced by the attention of a pretty woman on their arm, would take more risks, play higher stakes. So, no. I didn’t sleep with you for the money.”
Adam nodded. “I’m glad. I’d like to say it wouldn’t have made a difference but, yeah, it would have.”
“How? How did you find out about Granddad? He made me promise not to tell a soul. He’d be devastated if he thought for a minute that I’d told you. Even last Monday, I begged him to let me tell you. But he still wouldn’t let me—it would have destroyed him if I had.”
Adam bit back a few succinct words he had to say about Hugh Delacorte. If the man had been a man and owned up to his addiction—had taken responsibility himself for his debts and what he’d done to their security—Lainey need never have been in this position. But then again, if Hugh had been the saint everyone believed him to be, Lainey would still be hiding behind those wretched suits and brown lenses and Adam would still be blind to the treasure beneath them.
As awful as it was to admit, Hugh Delacorte had done him a favor, and it was only because of that that Adam was prepared to make a concession for the man.
He drew in a deep breath, letting it go slowly before taking the title search with Ling Lee’s name on it from his breast pocket. He slowly unfolded the sheet of paper and handed it across to Lainey.
“Where did you get this?” she asked, her fingers absently smoothing the paper over her lap.
“I needed to know what Ling’s hold was over you. I needed to know if you could be the mole that was leaking information to Tremont Corporation. Not noble, I know, and my distrust was certainly misplaced. If I hadn’t been so obsessed with you, with everything about you, I wouldn’t have looked so hard for the truth. But you know, I’m glad I did, because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to do this.”
He reached into his pocket again, and withdrew the title search that had been faxed to him only an hour ago. He handed it to her, watching, waiting, barely daring to breathe as she unfolded the paper and read its contents.
“But…I don’t understand. This shows the house is registered to Hugh Delacorte.” She looked at the paper again, her hands beginning to shake. “And the transfer is dated today. Why?”
“I bought the house back from Ling and instructed my solicitor to register it in your grandfather’s name. His debt is repaid. You’re both free now.”
“But why would you do that? My grandfather is nothing to you. I’m nothing to you.”
Adam reached across the distance between them, taking both Lainey’s hands in his.
“You’re partially right, at least. Your grandfather is nothing to me, nothing except the trigger that allowed me to see you differently. To see you, and want you.
“I did it for you, Lainey. I had to give you back what he’d lost. I had to prove to you that I know I was wrong to have mistrusted you and to have treated you the way I did. If I hadn’t been so twisted with jealousy about you and Ling I would have been man enough to own up to how I feel about you. I convinced myself it was easier to throw money at you than it was to admit how you made me feel.
“I love you, Lainey, and I’m deeply, deeply sorry for the hell I’ve put you through while fighting with my own demons in learning to acknowledge that.”
“You love me?”
“More than life itself,” he admitted with a rueful smile.
“But—”
He lifted one hand to press a finger to her lips.
Pretend Mistress, Bona Fide Boss Page 12