Defying the Billionaire's Command

by Michelle Conder

  Carly sighed and closed that email as well.

  A year ago her beautiful, kind and gregarious sister had died of a rare and aggressive form of leukaemia. To add insult to injury, Carly’s über-successful boyfriend had been cheating on her instead of being by her side to support her.

  Not that she’d really turned to Daniel for support during those months. Being an important cardiologist, he was generally busy and, if she was being honest with herself, their relationship had never been like that.

  He had pursued her because he respected her and she had accepted his invitation to go out because she’d been flattered by his attention. Then Liv had become sick and everything had fallen apart. Daniel had become resentful of the time she spent with her sister, questioning her about her movements at every turn and accusing her of cheating on him and using her sister as a ruse.

  No matter what she had said, he hadn’t believed her and then she’d discovered that in fact he had been the one cheating on her. On top of all that, everyone at her hospital had known about it and no one had said a word to her. The whole experience had been mortifying.

  Feeling the sun burning into her skin, Carly yanked on a pair of cut-off denim shorts, dislodging the slender black velvet jeweller’s box that had arrived for her earlier that day.

  Still not quite believing what was inside, she opened it and once more marvelled at the divinely expensive ruby necklace nestled against the royal blue silk lining.

  ‘To match your hair,’ the card had read, followed by a swirling signature that denoted the sense of importance Benson’s grandson, Beckett Granger, cloaked himself in.

  Carly shook her head as she took out the necklace. For a start her hair was more orange than ruby red so if Beckett had thought to impress her with his cleverness he’d be disappointed.

  If he thought to impress her with the amount he must have spent on it he’d be disappointed as well. Carly was too practically minded for lavish jewellery and still wore the diamond stud earrings her parents had bought her ten years ago, much to Liv’s disgust.

  But she did have to give him points for his approach. The necklace was undoubtedly the most expensive attempt a man had ever made to get her attention and she’d had a few offers over the years. Some had been patients, or relatives of patients, others had been doctors—but Benson’s pompous grandson had taken the cake.

  Even if she weren’t still getting over a bad relationship with a doctor with a God complex she would never have gone for Beckett. There was something a little bit slimy about the man. He also had a sense of entitlement a mile wide and at one point, when she’d declined yet another invitation to dinner, she’d been sure he’d been about to stamp his foot.

  Since Benson didn’t want anyone to know about his illness, Beckett believed her to be the daughter of an important friend of his grandfather’s but that hadn’t stopped him from cornering her one night when he’d been two drinks past his limit. His attempt at seducing her had been more a nuisance than anything else, and Carly felt sure he would have been embarrassed about it the following morning.

  It also spoke volumes that Benson trusted his staff with the information about his illness, but not his own grandson.

  Still, the man could have been a god amongst men and she wouldn’t have accepted his attention. She hadn’t exactly sworn off men for ever, but she couldn’t think of anything worse than adding a man into her complicated life right now. Not with the poor judgment she’d shown in the past.

  Her father assured her that all she needed was a plan to get her back on track, maybe finish her surgical studies, but Carly wasn’t even sure she wanted to remain in the medical profession, let alone become a surgeon.

  The ruby necklace lay heavy in her palm, the sun hot on her shoulders. She’d have to get it back to him as soon as possible, but, while Beckett had entrusted it to the postal service, Carly wasn’t so trusting. She’d much rather hand it back in person.

  Spying her cotton shirt under a nearby lounge chair, Carly was about to fetch it when Gregory started yapping as if the grim reaper were bearing down on him.

  Carly frowned at the pretentious little dog. All her life she’d brought home orphaned children and injured animals to take care of, her mother even complaining that she would save a caterpillar from a broccoli stalk if she’d let her, but when it came to Benson’s prized Pekinese she had to admit she struggled. The pampered pooch had more of a sense of entitlement than Beckett, but she supposed it wasn’t entirely his fault. Not with the way Benson doted on him.

  ‘Okay, Gregory,’ she said to him, ‘you’re going to bring the fire brigade if you keep making that racket.’ She frowned as he pulled against his leash. ‘What’s got you so riled up anyway, boy?’

  He was looking off towards the forest and Carly made the mistake of following his gaze because while her gaze was averted he did his funny little twist manoeuvre she’d been warned about and slipped his collar.

  ‘Gregory. No,’ Carly called in frustration. ‘I mean heel. Dammit,’ she muttered as the dog tore off across the lime-green lawn, his caramel and black coat flying back in the breeze. ‘Come back here!’

  The last thing she needed was the Baron’s beloved pet getting lost right before his operation. She’d never forgive herself.

  Muttering a string of curse words, she shoved her feet into her flip-flops and took off after the cantankerous animal.

  Halfway across the lawn she was glad she’d been exercising because she was gaining on him when he ducked through a border of shrubs and into the forested area. Cursing her bad luck, she vowed she’d give him to Mrs Carlisle to make potluck soup with when she got him.

  The Baron would never complain about tofu again!

  The thought made her smile. He’d been complaining about her menu plan ever since she’d arrived, trying to convince her that French fries and battered fish were fine in moderation for a man in his condition.

  ‘Gregory, you little pain in the backside.’ Carly shoved low-hanging branches aside and tried not to scratch her bare arms and legs any more than she had. ‘If you get prickles in your coat I’ll send you to that nasty dog groomer again! Gregory, dammit, come on, there’s a good boy.’ She tried to inject warmth into that last command but she wasn’t sure he bought it.

  A slight movement had her turning left and she stopped at the edge of a clearing. A family of rabbits lay sunning themselves on a small patch of grass as if they didn’t have a care in the world. It was so lovely she forgot about Gregory until he burst out from behind an old oak tree like a bullet from a gun, scaring the daylights out of her and the unsuspecting rabbits.

  ‘Gregory, no,’ Carly shouted, rushing after him. The rabbits scattered, the largest—most likely the mother—dashing through the brush. Cursing the cranky dog for real now, Carly tried to keep pace with them. No way was he going to kill the mother rabbit on her watch.

  In no mood to chase the Baron’s insubordinate dog, Carly didn’t hear the gunmetal-grey motorcycle bearing down on her around the bend in the driveway until it was too late. In what seemed like slow motion she realised that she wasn’t going to be able to stop her forward momentum in time and, irrelevantly, that she was going to die with Beckett’s silly necklace still gripped in her hand.

  Half waiting for the sleek machine to barrel into her, Carly skidded on the gravel and landed on her bottom, rolling down the grassy embankment that ran alongside the road.

  Winded, she lay unmoving, blinking dazedly up at the china-blue sky above.

  She heard a choice curse word before a male head abruptly blocked out the light. The man was little more than a huge outline against the bright sun and then he went down on bended knee, leaning over her.

  If she’d thought she was breathless before it was nothing compared to how she felt staring up into eyes so strikingly blue she could still have been staring at th
e sky. Combine those with chestnut hair that curled forward over his forehead, a square jaw, and strong nose and he had the kind of face Carly bemusedly thought she could look at for ever.

  ‘Don’t move.’ He had quite the voice too. Deep and low with just the right amount of authority to it. Which surely explained why she did exactly as he bade.

  It wasn’t until his large hands ran down her arms and over her legs that she tore her eyes from the way his black leather jacket hugged his wide shoulders and impressive chest.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Checking if you’ve broken anything.’ The cold censure in his voice immediately put her back up.

  ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘No.’

  She hadn’t really expected that he would be—she’d never met a doctor encased in black leather before. ‘I’m fine,’ she huffed, not really sure if she was but, heck, she was a doctor!

  ‘Keep still,’ he growled as she struggled up onto her elbows.

  ‘I said I’m fine.’ She pushed at his hand on her leg and he rocked back on his heels. Carly could feel her heart beating hard behind her chest as he silently surveyed her.

  ‘Good,’ he finally said, standing up so that he once again towered over her. ‘Perhaps you can explain what the hell you were doing running across the road like that. You could have been killed.’

  Carly glanced at the sleek motorcycle waiting in the middle of the road like something out of a Batman movie. A flash of the motorcycle skidding in a graceful arc right before hitting her made her stomach pitch. The man had been riding that thing as if he were in the Indie 1000—or whatever that silly race was called—and now he wanted to make it her fault?

  ‘Really?’ she murmured pleasantly. ‘If I could have been killed it was only because you were driving like a maniac on a narrow, unpaved road.’

  Dare gazed down at the redheaded goddess spitting fire at him from eyes that were too grey to be green and too green to be grey. Olive perhaps.

  ‘I was hardly driving like a maniac.’ He’d barely been pushing fifty.

  ‘Yes, you were and you were also on your phone!’

  She said the last with wide eyes as if he’d been traversing a high wire at the same time.

  ‘Don’t get hysterical,’ he told her. ‘I wasn’t on the phone. I was checking my GPS.’ And in complete control the whole time.

  ‘You had a phone in your hand while you were on a motorcycle! That’s illegal!’

  ‘Calm down, would you? I handled it.’

  ‘Only just. And it’s still illegal!’

  Dare glanced down at her skimpy attire, a smile entering his voice. ‘So what are you going to do? Arrest me?’

  She glared up at him as if she’d like to do exactly that but not in the way he’d just been imagining. ‘Who are you anyway?’ she said haughtily.

  He felt like saying the big bad wolf, given her snooty tone, but a better question was who was she? He glanced again at her cut-off denims and bright pink swimsuit that should have clashed with her bright hair but somehow didn’t, immediately dismissing the notion that she was his elderly grandfather’s guest. She looked more like the pool girl. The very hot pool girl. ‘Who’s asking?’

  Her lips pursed into a flat line. ‘I am.’ She went to push up to her feet and paused when Dare automatically stuck his hand out to assist her. It didn’t surprise him when she tried to ignore his offer of help but Dare was in no mood to put up with some holier-than-thou woman who had just taken a few years off his life when she’d come flying out of the trees and into his path.

  ‘Take it,’ he growled, grabbing onto her elbow as she tried to avoid him.

  The way she wrenched her arm out of his grip as soon as she was vertical made his teeth gnash together.

  ‘I don’t need your help.’

  ‘Listen, lady, it’s only thanks to my quick reflexes that you’re still here at all. You could show a little gratitude.’

  ‘Don’t you “lady” me. It’s thanks to your crappy driving that I now have a sore—’ She stopped as his eyes followed her hands to her bottom as she brushed it off.

  He arched a brow. ‘Behind?’

  ‘Never mind,’ she said primly.

  ‘How did you not hear the bike anyway?’

  ‘This is a private lane and I was chasing after a dog.’ She gave his bike a contemptible glance. ‘I was hardly expecting Evel Knievel to come barrelling down the road.’

  ‘A dog, huh?’ Dare unzipped his jacket and planted his hands on his hips. ‘What kind of dog?’

  He noticed she was staring at his chest, then his flat abdomen, and finally his zipper and heat poured through him as if she’d actually touched him.

  As if sensing his visceral reaction to her she started inching away from him as if he were some would-be rapist and he scowled.

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice had grown husky and she cleared it. ‘A very big dog, if you must know.’

  If she used her brain, Dare thought with rising annoyance, she’d realise that if he was going to grab her he wouldn’t be standing around arguing with her.

  But even as he thought it his eyes dropped to her high breasts pushing up against the straps of her one-piece suit and those long, lightly tanned legs shown to glorious perfection in cut-off denims. He’d seen many girls dressed similarly on a hot summer’s day in his youth but he was quite sure he’d never seen legs as good as hers.

  ‘What are you looking at?’

  His eyes lifted to hers. Moss green, he decided, and full of awareness of how appreciative he had been of her figure.

  ‘Your legs.’ He smiled. ‘You have them on display. You can hardly blame a man for looking.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Her eyes shot daggers at him and he supposed he deserved it. He wasn’t here to come on to the pool girl and he was hardly desperate for female company.

  ‘Listen—’

  ‘How dare you?’ She stabbed a slender finger at his chest. ‘I’m wearing a bathing suit because it’s hot and I’ve just been for a swim.’

  ‘And you were looking for a dog. I get it. But—’

  ‘Not that I need to explain myself to the likes of you,’ she vented.

  Dare’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘The likes of me?’

  ‘That’s what I said. Are you hard of hearing? Oh, no!’ She gave a cry of dismay. ‘My necklace!’ She turned quickly, her russet cloud of hair swinging around her shoulders. ‘I can’t have lost it.’

  Dare sighed. He was tired after driving hours to get here on top of already putting in what felt like a full day at the office, and in no mood to be insulted by some sexy little shrew. ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘It’s a ruby pendant, on a gold—’

  ‘This it?’

  He reached into the longer grass where it circled a bush. He’d noticed a glint of something before when he’d first rushed over to her and now held a very expensive little trinket in the palm of his hand. He let out a low whistle of appreciation. She definitely wasn’t just the pool girl if this was hers.

  Dare flashed a smile. ‘A pretty piece. I’m not sure it goes with the outfit though.’ She stiffened as he looked her over. ‘Might I suggest a string bikini next time?’

  ‘I wasn’t wearing it,’ she said hotly. ‘It was a gift.’

  Dare laughed. ‘I hardly thought you paid for it yourself, baby.’ In his experience no woman would.

  She stared at him mouth agape and he supposed he had sounded a touch derogatory but...

  ‘Did you really just call me baby?’

  Yeah, he had. For some reason discovering the necklace had made his mood take another dive. ‘Look—’

  ‘Listen? Look?’ Her finger stabbed in his direction again. ‘You are one condescending piece of work, darl
ing.’ She stepped forward, her cheeks pink with annoyance. ‘Give me that.’ She reached for the necklace in his hand but Dare reacted instinctively and raised it above his head. She was medium to tall in height but there was no way she was close to his six feet four.

  Realising it, she pulled up short, her hands flattening against his white T-shirt to stop herself from falling against him. Her eyes grew wide, her soft mouth forming a perfect ‘O’, and his eyes lingered before returning to hers.

  Dare would have said the whole ‘time standing still’ thing was just hogwash, but right then he couldn’t hear a leaf rustling, or a bird calling, his mind empty of everything that didn’t include getting her naked and horizontal as soon as possible.

  Instinctively his free hand came around to draw her closer when the sound of yapping at his feet broke the spell. Disconcerted, Dare looked down into the upturned face of an ugly little mutt the size of a cat with its tongue hanging out. He grinned. ‘This the big dog you were chasing?’

  The redhead stepped back and threw him a filthy look as she reached for the small dog that danced just out of her reach.

  ‘Gregory,’ she growled in a warning voice. ‘Heel.’

  Dare would have laughed at her futile attempts to stay the dog if he hadn’t been feeling so out of sorts.

  ‘Here.’ He held the necklace out impatiently as she made to run after the dog. ‘Don’t forget your gift.’

  Turning on him with a malevolent look, she snatched the necklace from his hand and took off after the mutt. He doubted he’d have cause to see her again but strangely he found he wanted to.

  Shaking his head, he walked back to his bike and shoved his helmet on, dismissing the pool girl from his mind as he gunned the engine and headed to the main house.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DARE PACED BACK and forth in what he surmised was a parlour room inside the grand house. He’d never been particularly good at cooling his heels and finding his grandfather out when he’d first arrived had turned an already grim mood further south. Two hours later it was fair to say it had hit rock bottom. He wondered if it was a tactical move on his grandfather’s behalf because Dare had presumed to turn up unannounced a day earlier than he was expected.