Fierce (Not Quite a Billionaire)

by Rosalind James

  “I’m…barefoot,” I whispered.

  He looked down. “So you are.” The smile was a little more in evidence now. “And very nice it looks, too. I like your pink nail varnish.”

  I sat down again without all that much grace and scrabbled with my feet for my shoes, but one of them was so far under there that I was going to have to crawl to get it. And I wasn’t crawling in front of him. Not again.

  “Well, this is embarrassing,” I said, trying to laugh it off.

  He laughed himself, the sound sudden and rich. “Is it? Let’s scoot you back, then, so I can get them.”

  He had his hand on the back of my chair, so close to my shoulder, and was shoving me gently out of the way, and then, yes, Hemi Te Mana was under my desk, pulling out my pumps. Swiveling around on his powerful haunches, taking an ankle in his hand and slipping on one shoe, then doing the same with the other.

  When he touched my skin, I jumped, because it was as if a current had leaped straight up my leg. I could feel my heart pounding, my cheeks were heating, and surely his hand was around my ankle now. It couldn’t be, though. Could it?

  I sneaked a peek. It was. He was holding it, and then he’d reached for the other one. He was kneeling in front of me with an ankle in each hand.

  Oh, help. What was he going to do? More to the point, what was I going to do?

  I should tell him to stop. I should make a joke. The problem was, it felt good. His hands were so big and my ankles so small that his hands wrapped all the way around them with room to spare. And just like that, everything in me was pulsing, my breasts were tingling, and I was…liquid.

  He let go and stood up in one fluid motion, and the moment was over, and I swallowed.

  “You need new shoes,” he said, and the smile was there again. Small, but real.

  “I need lots of things,” I managed to say. “Needing isn’t getting.”

  “Oh,” he said softly, “I find it is. So often. If you need it badly enough.”

  I caught my breath, the sound audible in the silent space, and he wasn’t smiling now. His gaze was dark. Fierce.

  “Um…” I managed to say. “Can I…do something for you?”

  He looked like he was going to answer, and then caught himself. “Came by to have a word,” he said after a moment, glancing at Martine’s door. “Gone?”

  “Um…yes. To the opera,” I added lamely.

  “Ah.” The faint hint of a smile again. “The opera. But then, it’s late. Isn’t it? It must be. There’s nobody here.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Well, yes. It happens to be night. It happens to be…” I looked at my computer. “Eight.”

  “Does it?” He rubbed the back of his dark, close-cropped head, and I noticed again how perfectly cut his hair was, the sharpness of the line of it against the planes of his face, the back of his strong neck. “Time flies, I reckon.” He looked at me more sharply. “So why are you still here?”

  “I have a lot of work. I’m new.”

  “Yes. You are. Hard work?”

  “Just a lot of work. But, of course, I’m happy to do it,” I hastened to say.

  “Mm. You’ll be with us in Paris soon, eh. May be as much work, but better surroundings.”

  Did he know everything? “I—” I began, then stopped and got hold of myself. You are as good as he is, I reminded myself. He may have more money and more power. All right, he may have a boatload more money and power. But he’s not any more of a person than you are.

  “I’m afraid it’s…difficult,” I went on, once I was able to speak more calmly. “The possibility of travel wasn’t mentioned when I took the job, and I have obligations that don’t allow me to leave town at such short notice.”

  “What obligations?” He was frowning now, his expression hardening. “I didn’t think you were married, or that you had children.”

  “That’s because,” I said, striving for poise and trembling inside at what I was saying, “those kinds of questions aren’t allowed. In an interview, on an application, or anywhere.”

  There was banked fire in the deep brown eyes now. “You’re telling me that I’m not allowed to ask you personal questions.” His voice was soft, but the intent behind it was anything but.

  “Not unless they relate to my work.” I was shaking, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t stand to lose this job, but I couldn’t let him run me over, either. Holding my ankles, and now this?

  Vincent had wanted fringe benefits, too. That was probably why he’d hated me so much. Because I’d said no. Because I always said no. But that was men. If you looked like I used to, they ignored you. If you looked like I did now, they wanted to…we’ll call it “use you,” just to be polite. And the odd thing was, the more you said no, the more they wanted it. Like it was a game. There was a reason they called it “scoring.”

  Which was why it had never been all that hard to say no. Until now. But the fact that Hemi wasn’t Vincent, that my treacherous body insisted on responding to all that hard masculinity, didn’t change a thing. Or rather, it did. It made me more certain than ever that “no” was the way to go.

  I waited for endless seconds while he held me with his eyes, willing myself not to drop my gaze. And then, to my shock, he laughed.

  “I can see I’ve underestimated you,” he said. “We’ll try it another way, then. I’ll ask you, how can we accommodate you so you can come on this trip? I’d like you to be there. Let’s make it happen.”

  I smiled tentatively back, and there was that warmth again in the brown eyes that met mine. So hard to keep that “no” in mind if he was going to laugh, and smile, and look like…that. So very hard.

  “I have a sister,” I told him. “She’s fifteen. I’m her guardian.”

  I could see something in his face now. Was it…relief? “Then let’s get her looked after so you can come on this trip and look after me. Look after my interests, that is,” he added smoothly. “And meanwhile…have you eaten?”

  “Um…no. I have this work.”

  “Right. The work.” He frowned again. “How much of it?”

  “A half hour.” What was he asking me?

  “Then I’ll come back down here at eight-thirty. Take you to dinner, then take you home. It’s too late for somebody as small as you to be out on the streets alone.”

  “I’m here doing my job. For you,” I said, and then snapped my mouth shut in horror. “Sorry. I mean, no, thank you, that’s not necessary. And I can look after myself.”

  “Oh?” His tone was silky. “How?”

  “I have…pepper spray?” Don’t end with a question mark, I reminded myself furiously. Lean in. But how were you supposed to lean in when six-foot-three of gorgeous Maori muscle was leaning over you? “I have pepper spray,” I said more firmly. “I do this all the time. This is my life.”

  “Not tonight, it’s not. I’m going to need some details if I’m going to work out how to get you to Paris. And I’m a very busy man. I have exactly a one-and-a-half-hour window for this, and it starts at eight-thirty.”

  He leaned forward suddenly and put a hand on either arm of my swivel chair, his pant legs brushing my knees, his face a foot from mine.

  “Be ready,” he said softly. And he left.

  Gone

  I glanced at my watch again, remembering how Kerri, my last…partner, had rolled her eyes at it.

  “Why won’t you get a Rolex?” she’d demanded.

  When I’d said nothing, just looked at her, she’d sighed. “You have a driver. You have a jet. You can’t have that watch. It’s embarrassing to me.”

  I hadn’t needed a watch that day to know it was time. I didn’t permit women to tell me what to do. As soon as I’d seen her into the Mercedes that evening, I’d been texting my assistant to send her her walking papers. And a goodbye present, of course. One she’d appreciate.

  A Rolex.

  Now, my serviceable Timex, all the watch any Kiwi bloke needed, was showing me eight-thirty at last. I wanted t
o tell myself that I hadn’t been distracted during the past half-hour, that I’d needed the time for my own work as well, but I didn’t permit lies. From anyone, but least of all from myself. I hadn’t needed the time. And I had been distracted.

  By that suggestion of spirit and fire Hope had showed, such a contrast with her appearance. With the finely-boned body, the sweet heart shape of her face, the clear eyes the color and clarity of the sparkling waters of Waitemata Harbour. The high, broad cheekbones and delicately pointed chin.

  It was the face of a kitten, and kittens were made to be played with, weren’t they? The cloud of pale hair that tumbled around that face—that was a kitten’s, too, fine and soft. Not to mention the hint of sharp little claws.

  And, most of all, her mouth. The perfectly etched bow of her upper lip, the fullness of the lower one. Plump, and moist, and ready. Her round, long-lashed eyes and delicate frame said innocent, her mouth said anything but, and the combination was giving my imagination a workout.

  I wanted to look down and see that mouth working on me. I wanted to see those big sea-blue eyes closing, and to make her open them again so she could watch. And I wanted to hold her ankles again. I knew just how I’d do it, too.

  I’d shoved her into a tidy compartment in my mind once I’d left her, but she’d refused to stay there. The vision of my hands wrapped around those slim ankles as I slowly forced her legs up over her head, as she moaned and squirmed and arched her back, had forced its way past my barriers and definitely—most definitely—interfered with my concentration.

  That was annoying, but the way to deal with annoyances was to surmount them. Just like I’d surmount this one. If not tonight, then soon. Soon, and hard, and often.

  I swiped my keycard on the outer door to the publicity department. Silence greeted me, as it had before. I trod the narrow space between cubes to the back. To Martine’s office, and Hope’s cube.

  She wasn’t there.

  There was a piece of paper on her neatly cleared desk, though. Folded. Nothing but an H on the outside. Discreet.

  I opened it even as the anger and disbelief rose. I didn’t permit emotion. But somehow, I didn’t seem to have a choice.

  No. You always had a choice. You couldn’t control what happened, but you could control your reaction.

  Except that I couldn’t.

  Sorry. I had to go.

  Hope.

  It took me the entire subway ride home to stop shaking.

  I’d waited until I heard the whisper of the outer door opening and closing in the distance, then packed up my laptop with trembling hands. I’d just have to finish my work at home.

  And then I’d argued with myself all the way to the subway stop.

  You’re jeopardizing your job. How? By not going out to dinner with the CEO? There was such a thing as a sexual harassment lawsuit.

  Except that I had no evidence. No emails. No text messages. No witnesses. One suggestion that I go to dinner, and I hadn’t even said no. I’d just left.

  The thought had my feet slowing, my body turning. I had to go back.

  To become what? Ah. That was the problem, wasn’t it?

  To become what you’re dying to be. And that was the thought that turned me right around again and had me running for the subway stairs. Because no matter what…no. No. I hadn’t come this far and been through this much for this.

  Once, during a fashion shoot, one of the models had approached me.

  “Your job, it sucks,” Natalia, a tall blonde with fierce cheekbones and slanting deep blue eyes had told me in her guttural Russian accent.

  I’d laughed out of sheer surprise. “Um…yeah,” I’d said, then looked around to see if Vincent were anywhere in earshot. “But, you know…rent.”

  “There are other ways to pay the rent. You could do what I do.”

  “No, I couldn’t. I’m too short. Nobody wants a five-two model with no boobs.”

  “That is not what I mean.” She’d looked around herself, then slipped me a card.

  Boris Aristov, I’d read. Agent.

  “And again.” I’d made to give the card back to her. “No point.”

  “Not that kind of agent, not like you are thinking. It is an escort service. Very expensive, very discreet. You could be making ten—” She’d waved a long, elegantly manicured hand. “Even twenty times what you are getting now. Thousands of dollars an engagement. When I moved to New York, it was cockroaches everywhere. A bathtub in the kitchen. Worse than Russia. And now? I have a doorman. I am living like a princess. I go on some dates, I have my regulars…” She shrugged an expressive shoulder. “The money, it is easy. And you are small, yes, and your figure is not so good as mine. But some men, they like that. The look of a little girl.”

  Ick. I’d thrust the card back into her hand as if it were on fire. “I’m not judging,” I’d hurried to say. “But—no. That’s not for me.”

  “You are thinking they are nasty, sweaty, dirty,” she’d urged. “That you are standing on the street corner. But it is not like that. They take you to the functions, so the other men can see you and be jealous. You converse. You laugh at the jokes. You speak perhaps a little French. You are elegant. A lady. And then you go back to the hotel room and…well. We have all had the bad dates, yes? Where we were perhaps sorry it ended as it did, because it was not so much fun, and we had to pretend? How much easier to pretend when it is his tuxedo jacket you are taking off, when you are in a suite at the Four Seasons? When you have a belly full of champagne, and there are thousands of dollars in your purse? Beauty does not last forever, and men are, how do you say? Fickle. But money…” She kissed her fingertips delicately. “The stocks and bonds, they are beautiful.”

  I’d said no then. I was still saying no now. It wasn’t even enough of a choice to be a choice. If this job depended on my sleeping with Hemi Te Mana, no matter how much I wanted to do just that? Then I’d go get another job.

  A stab of anxiety at the thought. Oh, God. Crawling back to Vincent…even if he’d take me. No. He wouldn’t take me. I’d be unemployed.

  Why couldn’t life be simple?

  Stalemate

  I was home by eight-thirty, but the apartment was dark, and I felt a twinge of alarm.

  She’s fifteen, I reminded myself. She’s allowed to go out. But why hadn’t she called me to tell me where she was going? That was our deal.

  When I went into the bedroom to change and get ready for a fabulous evening on the couch with my spreadsheet, I discovered differently. I flipped on the light, and Karen moaned and threw a hand over her eyes.

  “Oh. Sorry.” I’d already turned it off again, and felt my way in the dark to my side of the bed to pull out the flashlight I’d stashed there. “You not feeling well?”

  I crawled across the bed and put the back of my hand to her forehead, and she brushed it irritably away.

  “I’m fine. Just a headache.”

  “You get your homework done?”

  She sighed. “Mostly. I’ll get up early and do the rest.”

  I wanted to say something else, but I didn’t. We’d talk in the morning. I changed into PJs with the help of the flashlight and went out again, closing the door softly behind me, to finish that schedule.

  When I woke up at six the next morning, sure enough, she was up and sitting at the kitchen table in her school uniform, her mechanical pencil moving methodically down over a sheet of graph paper.

  “Hi.” I kissed the top of her head. “Feeling better?”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t raise her face to mine. “But I’ve got to get this done. First period.” She sighed and put a hand to the side of her head, and I felt another niggle of worry.

  “All right,” I said. “Breakfast?”

  “Um…can you do a smoothie? I don’t think I can eat anything.”

  “Sure.” She was too thin, but then, she’d grown so much this year, no wonder her weight couldn’t keep up. My little sister topped me by six inches already, and I wasn’t sure
she’d stopped.

  We couldn’t have looked less alike, in fact. Short and tall, fair and dark. I called her my sister, but she was actually my half-sister, nine years my junior. The daughter of my mother and stepfather, both of whom had been gone before I’d turned nineteen. The past five years had been a scramble to keep her. It had been that or foster care, and there was no way I was letting that happen, not to the little girl I’d cared for since her birth almost as if she’d been mine. I couldn’t remember when I didn’t love her, and I couldn’t lose her.

  I made her a smoothie, and she flew through her math assignment in a rush and was headed for the subway even before I left. We’d never managed to have that talk, but at least we’d both finished our homework.

  At eight-thirty, I’d been back at my desk for a half hour. Martine had come in a few minutes earlier but hadn’t spoken to me yet, and I was making pretty good progress on my stack of work when my phone buzzed. Not Martine; an unfamiliar extension.

  “Hope Sinclair,” I answered chirpily.

  A male voice greeted me. “This is Josh Logan, Mr. Te Mana’s assistant. He’d like to see you in his office, please.”

  “Um…now?”

  “Right now.”

  “I’ll…be right there.” I hung up, but Martine was at the doorway to my cube, a printout of the schedule in her hand. And if a wrinkle had been allowed to appear on her face, she’d have been frowning.

  “When you’re free,” she said, “please come into my office to discuss this.”

  Oh, man. My heart skipped a few more beats. “I’ll be in as soon as I’m back,” I told her.

  Her beautifully shaped eyebrows rose a fraction. “Oh? Do you have an errand I’m unaware of?”

  “I’ve just been called to the—the executive floor,” I prevaricated.

  “What?” Her eyes narrowed. “Nobody told me.”

  “I don’t know. I just got a call that they needed me up there.”

  She nodded briefly and began to walk toward her office. I was out of my cube when she said, “Hope!”