by Sun Chara
She hooked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and took a step back, her eyes wide, and her lashes fluttering. Her heart thumping with …
Expectancy.
Excitement.
His brows knitted over the bridge of his nose. He propped his hip on the table’s edge and folded his arms across his chest. “The dinner meeting with the VIP” –he paused, gauging her reaction— “and former employee of Sloan Global Corp. had to be rescheduled.”
“Meeting…former employee?” She sounded dimwitted even to her own ears, the query a sliver of sound from her mouth.
“Yep.”
“No.” She retreated a step, hooked her thumbs on her denim waistband and anchored her back against the wall. He could only mean her father, but how’d he known? A raw sound gurgled from her throat, and she smothered it with the back of her hand. Of course. How foolish of her. Cade Sloan didn’t miss a thing; not with his henchmen and his high tech tracking devices trailing her to the village.
“We could forego dinner altogether.” He waggled his shoulders, his gaze straying over her, and loosened a couple of buttons of his designer shirt.
Sizzling hot attraction shot into her, and she tried to counter the pull of his sexuality with a verbal attack. “You know, don’t you?” She brushed moist palms on her tush and looked him straight in the eye. “This cat and mouse game you’ve been playing was just to…to—”
“Catch you?” His eyes glittered like agates, skewering her. “In secret assignations with a man at the village taverna?”
She paled. “Kafeneon,” she murmured the inconsequential correction.
“You know who he is?”
“Not personally, yet,” he ground out, his vague answer unnerving.
“Suffice to say, you will not be meeting him again.”
“What have you done to him?” A sinister thought hurled through her mind, and she tore at him, her arms flailing. “If you’ve hurt him—”
He caught her arms, binding her wrists between his fingers, his thumbs stroking her pulse points. The tension between them built to combustible levels. Her breath mingled with his, sounding harsh and heavy in the fleeting hush between them.
“Hurt is relative,” he murmured. “Pain can be many things.”
She struggled in his grasp, her Jimmy Choos kicking his shins.
“Be still, woman.” He wrapped his arms around her and hauled her against his chest, holding her so tightly she couldn’t move. Her pulse beat a fast and furious tempo with his. A gasp of oxygen, a flick of her tongue and she tasted the salty moisture glazing her upper lip.
A rumble sounded deep in his throat, then it blasted in a gush of air from his mouth.
“That’s why you wanted to come to London.” She slammed her heel on his loafer and shoved him back.
“Ouch,” he grumbled. He made to reach for her, changed his mind and let her stew.
That got her more prickly. “Oh!” She threw her hands up in the air and marched a weave around the furniture. And here she thought the flight from Larnaca to London and the limo ride from Heathrow, except for a quick cell call he made, had been uneventful.
All the while he’d been plotting. She stamped full circle and stopped mere inches from him. “This posh suite, the champagne in the ice bucket, the fruit basket, the gowns in the closet, the jewelry … shoes.” He knew she had a weakness for designer footwear.
“You like it all.” A statement, not a query.
“No.” The word exploded between them.
He watched her through his blade-thin focus.
“All this” –she waved her hand about— “was to set the seduction scene. To entice, to lure … ”
A slither of sound between his teeth.
“…get me away from him,” she accused, her words a whimper. “Pump me for information against my own fa—” she stuttered to a stop when he stalked to the bedroom.
Her head buzzed. But her father hadn’t mentioned London during those few minutes she’d seen him at the crack of dawn. What was going on?
Could she have missed—
“Fifteen minutes.” Cade strode back out and tossed a Valentino silk dress to her. “I am hungry.”
Nina hurled the dress back. It bounced off his chest and floated to the floor at his feet. Obviously he had his own agenda, and until she knew his schemata, she’d play for time.
“You can’t buy me.”
He lifted a brow. “Really?”
She blinked, her mind befuddled for a second. “Th-that was different.”
His eyes brewed a storm, the signal clear; he didn’t believe her.
Well, maybe she couldn’t blame him in the circumstances. She had scooped the loot and skipped town a year ago. But it had been her share, so she wouldn’t feel guilty.
“You can’t make me say anything … do … ” Her voice wobbled, but she angled her head in defiance. “No matter what you do…after all this time, we’re finally together. I love him. His my—”
And that lit the fuse beneath his controlled demeanor. “You dare flaunt another man in my face?” He booted the dress in her direction, and she let it fly past her.
Realizing her mistake in provoking him, she reached out to him with outstretched arms. “It’s not what you think—”
“To give him what’s mine … what I bought?”
“What?” Something wilted inside her, and she dropped her arms to her sides. He considered her to be an item, a possession; at least he could have referred to her as a who. “I’m not a thing and you didn’t buy—”
“Pardon.” He had the class to apologize, and she bristled. She wanted to pile the negatives against him, so she could find an excuse to hate him. “Who,” he muttered. “I did buy you. For a million and a half … for one night, remember?”
She stumbled back a step and gripped the edge of the table, the slick hardwood pressing into her fingertips.
He advanced.
She held her breath.
His features hardened.
Her breath fizzed from her mouth.
He placed his hands on her shoulders, his eyes welded to hers, and he drew her to him. His chest chafed her breasts and his thighs grazed hers, his solid strength pressing into her. Sweet sensation arrowed through her, pooling in her female vortex, and she wondered how she could deny the attraction, even to protect her vulnerability.
“I’m not yours.” She struck his chest with her fist, but he didn’t budge.
She squirmed. All her resistance couldn’t camouflage her body’s reaction to him. Her flesh flamed. She’d been dormant for so long, and his touch awakened feelings she’d long suppressed. Feelings…for him. But she couldn’t give in, not until she knew what was to become of her father.
Suddenly, she realized what she’d done. She’d just admitted to herself she had feelings for Cade. Her awareness of his presence immediately became more acute, and the sexual tension intensified between them. Her body throbbed. She opened her eyes wide, then dipped her lashes, her pulse scrambling.
He shifted in place. A crack in his armor?
It was a chasm. A chasm birthed from the veneer they’d both maintained for over a year. Too long. A life sentence.
“Cade,” she whispered, his name a soft caress. Reaching up, she touched his cheek, his bristles scouring her palm.
Stimulating.
She stroked him with her fingertips; to tame the tiger he unleashed everytime she battled him, fueling explosive feelings between them. Feelings she could no longer deny.
“Wha…who I’ve paid for.” He stuttered, but even he was past rational thought.
She lowered her hand to his chest.
Heat.
His heat scalded her fingers, but she endured, keeping that bare inch of space between them.
For her sanity.
If he pursued further, she’d fall into him … his passion … and hers.
She’d be lost.
“I-I don’t carry a price tag,” she murmured, her
heart sinking. But she’d had a sticker price a year ago when she upped the ante and married him into the bargain.
He hiked a devilish eyebrow. “My high priced investment I’ve yet to sample.” He curled his lip, his words gliding off his tongue, both a threat and a promise. “But the feast begins now.” Scooping her up in his arms, he strode across the living room and through the bedroom, booting the door shut.
********
Worth the wait. Cade yawned, shifting beneath the satin sheets of the king-size bed, the trite phrase streaking through his mind. A grin played on his mouth. This woman he married had been worth the cost and more, and not just in cash. For the first time, he felt like he’d finally come home, here, anywhere and everywhere in her arms … in her heart.
A tremor skittered across his abs.
He wasn’t ready to admit it aloud; there were still too many questions, things to resolve between them. He glanced at the bedside clock. Four-thirty a.m. They still had the remainder of the night.
He stretched his arm out to touch her, draw her near, but encountered empty space. A spasm slammed his gut. He flipped over and relief zapped through him. Wrapped in her silk robe, she sat curled up on the chair at the table, the night lamp casting a halo about her tousled hair. She pursed her mouth in concentration … the mouth he’d kissed, drunk from, wanted more from. Desire coursed through him, and his body reacted to the catalyst.
A knockout.
His little mouse had turned siren. His wife, his lover, his— Could she be his confidante?
In their rustic mountain abode in Cyprus, he’d felt like a king with her beside him, although he hadn’t admitted it. A king who’d lost his kingdom and was about to reclaim it with her as his queen. He chuckled at his fanciful musings, and she glanced up from what she was reading.
“Come to bed, darlin’.” Already going hard for her, he patted the space beside him and the sheet slid to his waist.
She didn’t move, not even a flicker of an eyelash, and slammed him with her glassy-eyed stare. A bleat of sound from deep in her throat.
Not a good sign.
“Something wrong?”
No answer, just the crunch of paper between her fingers, obliterating what she read.
A cab horn blared from the street below and severed the silence. Neon lights wavered through the crack in the velvet curtains, and then disappeared.
Cade zoned in on the document in her hand and groaned.
Thunder rolled, a lightning bolt, and wind and rain battered the windows. Typical London weather, he thought, but even the storm couldn’t
distract from the category five hurricane that was about to blast him indoors.
She jumped up, smacking her hands on the table and trapping the file beneath her fingers.
He vaulted off the mattress, snatched up the sheet and secured it at his waist.
“Nina…”
Crash and burn, man.
No, no, no, the word drummed in his head. Not after last night… they’d come too far to let it be stolen by misconceptions. He took a step closer and stumbled, his bare feet tangling in the satin folds. Breathing fast and heavily, he braked in his tracks, his heart battering his chest. The sheet dragged at his ankles, and he felt out of control. Cornered. He didn’t like it. But he had to say something, anything to ease the shock from her face.
“I can explain.”
“You used me.”
“Nope.” He dropped the sheet, grabbed his jeans from the armchair, and shoved his legs through them, not bothering to secure the buttons at his waist. “It’s not how it—”
“You used me to get to him.” Her eyes glazed over as if she were looking right through him. Her voice seemed to come from a distance, the icy tone ripping at his abs. She drew in a sharp breath, exhaled, and nodded as if making sense of it in her own mind.
Dangerous ground, man.
Cade narrowed his focus, studying her face, her every nuance.
Do something. Say something.
“That’s why you married me.” She laughed, the brittle sound scouring his bare chest. “All that baloney—”
“Baloney?” He tried to inject a slight note of amusement, hoping it’d nick through her righteous wrath.
Not a blink of an eyelash, or a twitch of a nerve at the corner of her mouth.
“—about the three mil to save your corporation was a cover. A con. A front,” she accused. “You wanted to get to him, and I became your decoy.”
She blinked, and a flicker of uncertainty crossed her features. A splinter of hope zinged through him. But the bleak look in her eyes, the emptiness in her voice … the hopelessness doused it.
“As if all those years in exile weren’t enough for him and moth—”
Her voice cracked. She pressed her hand to her mouth, and he almost missed. “And me.”
He rubbed a fist across the groove carved on his forehead. Unable to connect the dots of her tirade, frustration fizzed through his brain. Cade always could put a puzzle together.
Except when it came to her.
“You had me in your sights twenty-four seven,” she rambled, and he let her, thinking he might catch a clue to fit the pieces in sync. In a few hours, he ’d have his answers from the VIP, his uncle. He smirked. He suspected his uncle had controlled the situation from the get go, and Cade had a hunch he hadn’t been alone. His lungs compressed, then he inhaled, filling his chest with oxygen. Soon, he’d know the who and the why.
A gust of air shot from his mouth. Right now, he had to shake Nina from her self-inflicted trance and spark some color in her face.
He reached for her.
“Don’t touch me.” Nina shriveled away from him and collapsed on the chair, tucking her legs beneath her.
“Okay.” He raised his hands above his head, his biceps bulging, and his eyes drilling into hers.
“Okay?” Nina squinted at him, her heart hammering and her body betraying her mind.
Barefoot, he stood tall with his jeans gaping open at the waist, his sex pressing against the half open zipper. She gulped. God help her. She still wanted him, wanted to—but she balled the paper in her hand and snapped out of it. “How could anything be okay, when you’ve been hunting m-my father?”
“Your father?”
She leaped from the chair and hurled the paper missile disclosing the damning evidence at him. “You had me investigated, you plotted,” –she swept up the file, pointing it at him— “you schemed to use me to—to—destroy him.“
“I didn’t know he was your fath—”
All of a sudden the fight went out of her and she slumped back in the chair, tears stinging her eyelids. But she would not give him the satisfaction of weeping in front of him.
“Nina, you have to listen.” He jammed his fingers through his hair, pacing to and fro, finally stopping within a foot of her. “If I’m guilty, then you’re right there with me for having done the same. Maybe worse.”
She lifted her head, her eyes empty. “Wha-at?”
“You hooked me, pilfered my money, and jetted to Florence until you located him.” He snapped his fingers, the puzzle locking into place. “You thought he was there, that’s why you stole away the morning after our wedding.” His lip curled. “You had your own agenda.”
Her sharp intake of breath, a cyclone ripping between them.
“Your excuse for jumping ship?” He guffawed. “Eavesdropping— on my phone call to—”
“No.” The one word a whiz of sound from her mouth. She gripped the chair’s arms so hard, her knuckles whitened, and words snagged in her throat.
“Overheard—more palatable to you?” He shrugged, his shoulder blades tensing. “My negotiating the sale of one of Century’s yachts.” A pause, and his words crackled with scorn. “When your…er…father, wasn’t in Florence, the boutique became your cover.” A gale blasted from his mouth, whipping her face. “Cyprus became a pleasant—”
“For whom?”
“—if unexpected diversion,
” he continued like she hadn’t spoken, and that had her fuming. “My euros financed your search and kept you in style until I tracked you down.”
“I said I’d pay you back.”
A pulsing beat, and—
“Then come back to bed.”
A split second of silence, deep and foreboding.
Deliberately, she pushed up from the chair and took a step, the crack of her hand across his cheek vibrating between them.
He drew in a force of sound, his features taut … unyielding.
She swallowed, and licked her lips.
He flicked a glance from her mouth to the gaping neckline of her robe, outlining the swell of her breasts. A chuckle skidded from his throat, frosting her skin and shooting shards of ice into her spine. She clutched the lapels of her robe tight and dismissed the hardening of her nipples as mere reaction to the cold, and not his expression.
“Still denying?”
“No, I mean … it’s not that simple.”
“Well, sweetheart, nothing ever is.” He stroked his knuckles across his cheek still stinging from her slap.
“I-I’m sorry—”
“Save it,” he muttered, turning away. “I’m going to take a cold shower and by the time I’m done, be packed.”
“Cade … ”
He paused in stride, but didn’t look her way. “Yeah?”
“It’s not him,” she murmured, her voice barely audible, shaky. “It’s not my father who’s—”
He nodded and yanked the door to the en-suite open.
“You know?” she asked, astounded. “Then why … who?”
“When we get to New York, the ‘who’ will surface,” he hurled over his shoulder.
“But I don’t want to go with you.”
He spun around. “If you don’t want your father named an accomplice
in a global wide electronic scam, you’d better be ready to board Century One at twelve hundred hours.”
“B-b-ut you said you knew it wasn’t him.”
“No, you said it,” he clipped out.
“I-I don’t understand.”
Cade twisted his mouth in wry cynicism. “As you said, it’s not that simple.” His gut signaled her father wasn’t as innocent as she seemed to think, but he couldn’t explain now. But he bet his uncle held the deck, her father cut the cards and one other dealt the hand, working the ETF system. That’s whom he had to nab to staunch the financial bleeding of Century Corporation.