Cyrus jumped up from the chair. His flesh must be crawling now because she’d disrupted his orderly life. As he rounded the desk, she dropped the pen to the floor and grabbed the letter opener. She pulled it with such force the glass container tipped over and scattered pens and highlighters across the desk.
“Get back,” she said, holding the letter opener above her head as a weapon.
“Put that down. You’re not going to use it.” He sounded bored.
“Yes, I will.” Her voice trembled, but she tightened her grip on the chrome handle. “Get away from me,” she warned.
“Or what? You’ll stab me?” He spoke in a calm voice, completely unfazed by her dramatic display. He took a step and she took one back. “Violence is ugly on you, Dani. I like you so much better when you’re under me, gasping and purring from pleasure.”
Memories—unwelcome and sudden—flashed through her mind, triggering a delicious heat in her loins. How could he do this to her even when she was angry at him?
“Let me go, Cyrus. Please.” She’d said she wouldn’t beg, told herself so many times, but she couldn’t fight him anymore. She was tired and frantic and spending way too much money on something that should have ended long ago.
“Give me a child and I’ll let you go.”
He took another step forward and she took another one back.
She shook her head.
His hand whipped out and snagged her wrist. He held her firm without hurting her, but she knew he could. He was twice her size and she couldn’t match his strength.
She twisted her arm, but with another quick, deft motion, he snatched the weapon from her fingers and tossed it onto the desk. It clattered against the polished wood, and she gasped in dismay at how easily he’d disarmed her.
Cyrus yanked her closer until barely an inch of charged air remained between them. The subtle scent of $165-per-ounce cologne filled her nostrils. Spicy, with an undertone of citrus, it was his signature smell—a scent she’d once equated with passion. The fragrance lingered in his clothes, and there had been times when she’d worn his shirts around the house so she could savor the scent of him while he was away on business. Her own little secret.
His eyes held dark determination as he looked down at her from several inches above six feet. His other hand circled the back of her neck, applying a warm, firm pressure. Years had passed since he last touched her, and she shivered in his grip. His thumb rubbed the tender spot behind her ear, and heat flashed over her skin. She had to remind herself the purpose of his touch was not to awaken desire in her. He was angry.
He lowered his head and his breath skimmed her lips. Her skin tingled as they breathed the same air, and she thought for sure he was about to kiss her. Could she possibly resist him? Fear of her reaction overwhelmed her, and she trembled with anticipation, but the kiss never came.
“You can beg, you can fight, you can threaten me all you want,” he all but snarled, all civility gone. His lips were held so close together she only caught a glimpse of his teeth. “But I want a child, just like you promised. And you’re going to give it to me.” His jaw firmed and his eyes filled with angry resolve. “I’m not letting you go until you do.”
Chapter Four
Daniella tugged free of his grasp, clearly shaken at the nature of his request. They stared at each other. She was breathing heavily, and if he knew his wife—which he did—her shallow breathing was not solely due to anger. No, she was as aroused as he was.
He reminded her of the conversation they’d had years ago. “You said you didn’t want to have a child right away. That we should wait a few years before we tried. Do you remember?”
At first, a confused frown creased her brow. Then it disappeared as she recalled the conversation. “I said that, but before we decided to get a divorce.”
“Before you decided you wanted to divorce me. You made an offer and I accepted. Three years. Now I want what you promised.”
“No way.” She shook her head.
“No?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No,” she said adamantly.
He shrugged and walked back around his desk. He sank into the seat. “How’s Roland these days?” he asked. She didn’t respond, eyeing him with suspicion. As well she should. “Don’t pretend you haven’t seen him. I know all about your little meeting.”
“Are you spying on me?” she demanded.
“I’m spying on him.”
“What for?”
“I have my reasons.” He chose not to elaborate. He didn’t want to tip his hand, but Roland DuBois would pay for what he had done.
“What are you up to?” she asked.
“You’re not getting a divorce, Dani,” he replied, dodging the question. “You might as well accept it.”
“Then I’ll keep fighting you.”
“I look forward to it.”
She swallowed. “You can’t keep this up forever.”
“No?” He allowed a small smile to lift the corner of his mouth. “Who do you think will run out of money first?”
She shook her head in disbelief. He could only imagine the names she called him in her head. “You…” At a loss for words, she swung around and marched toward the door.
“Have a nice day,” Cyrus couldn’t resist calling out to her.
Daniella paused and sent one last scorching look over her shoulder at him before yanking open the door. Had she emitted a little more force, she would have torn it in half. She swept through like a tornado and slammed the door shut.
Alone now, Cyrus lifted his right thumb to his nose and inhaled the scent of her perfume. The light, sweet fragrance of pomegranate greeted his nostrils. She’d always dotted perfume behind her ears and freshened the scent throughout the day. Clearly she continued to do the same.
He went around the desk and picked up the blue pen she’d discarded to the floor and put everything back into place on the wooden surface. Then he walked over to the huge windows and looked down at the bustling city.
He shouldn’t feel so good about their confrontation, but her anger, her passion, her fight excited him. His blood was pumping and his pulse worked overtime. Damn, he missed her. Seeing her, touching her, had brought it home. From the moment he’d met her, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind, and he’d decided right away she would become his wife. He’d even told her so, but she’d laughed at his forwardness.
Women weren’t the only ones who made life plans. Years ago a health scare had forced him to think about his own mortality. It had reminded him of the fleeting nature of life and his father’s last days after his accident. Cyrus Senior had been a big man with a big voice. He’d dominated any room he entered and ran his company with an iron fist, but the last time Cyrus had seen him, the vibrancy had left his body and he lay dying in a hospital bed.
Cyrus’s mother had been asleep on the sofa in the private room, a blanket thrown over her legs as she slept. She hadn’t left her husband’s side since he’d entered the hospital.
His father had lain there, wasting away, a shadow of his former self. He’d looked at Cyrus from the hospital bed, his voice raspy as he drew his last breaths and delivered his final instructions.
With all the money they had, they hadn’t been able to save him. The internal injuries had been too severe, and in the end, after numerous surgeries, his heart had finally given way under the strain. Would his father have lived if he’d exercised more and eaten better? If he’d taken better care of himself, could he have withstood the trauma?
With those events buoying his decision-making, Cyrus had mapped out a new life for himself. He’d bought a house with the intention of getting married and starting a family by the age of thirty-two. Yet here he was at thirty-four years old and not a child in sight.
Plenty of potential wives had crossed his path, but he hadn’t had time to date, so he’d hired a high-end dating service to find him a spouse. Around the same time, Johnson Enterprises had been going through a redecoration. Daniella’s company,
Beaux-Arts Galleries, had met with their facilities manager to work on the new decor. He’d only needed to meet her once to know she was the right woman, and a background check had confirmed it. There had been no skeletons in her closet.
After he’d gotten rid of her boyfriend, Roland, they’d connected easily because they understood each other’s work ethic. Their courtship had been short, but established they were compatible enough to get along, and then they’d been married. A strong attraction to each other helped, but the marriage itself had been a practical matter, without the emotional trappings of declarations of love. More or less a business arrangement that fit their lifestyles and happened to extend into the bedroom.
They’d enjoyed a few good months of marriage when he noticed the change in her. That’s when the problems started. Some days she simply watched him, her eyes filled with reproof. Other times, she questioned his business decisions, the way he treated members of his family, and the tactics he used to get the outcomes he desired. Rather than getting better, their arguments escalated. Not a surprise, considering both he and Daniella were stubborn.
None of that mattered. She was his wife, and now the allotted time had passed, he expected her to follow through on her promise to give him a child.
****
Daniella walked briskly past Roxanne and down the hallway toward the elevators that would get her out of the building and away from Cyrus. She didn’t say a word to the receptionist she passed in the main lobby of the executive floor. She stabbed the elevator button and waited, blinking back tears of frustration.
He was a Neanderthal. He was a selfish prick.
She wished there was someone she could call and complain to, but his request—no, his demand—was too outrageous, and she had trouble digesting the enormity of it. Even though right before they’d separated he’d told her he wanted a child, she hadn’t believed he was serious. Now she knew how serious he was. How could she possibly explain his angry ultimatum to anyone?
There was no way she was going to have a baby because he said so. He could hold his damn breath until he turned purple.
She rode the elevator to the atrium on the first floor, relieved the erratic beat of her heart had lessened to a slower pace. Her brisk walk slowed as she neared her white CL-Class Mercedes coupe in the parking garage.
With her brain no longer smothered in frustration and what she unwillingly admitted had been panic, she could think clearly.
“I want children, and I need a wife,” he’d told her what seemed like ages ago.
As proposals went, it was tragically unromantic, but she’d said yes. For the most part, they wanted the same thing out of marriage—companionship. Combined with a mutual respect, it had been sufficient. Her parents had proven love didn’t mean you’d have a happy marriage. The whole sordid story of how her parents’ relationship fell apart was never far from her mind.
She’d wanted children, too, like Cyrus, but not on the same timeline. She’d had plans to expand her gallery which, true enough, she’d done over the past few years. Now she was on the brink of opening a storefront in New York. Even if she considered his demand—which she wasn’t about to—she simply didn’t have time to devote to a child. Not when she would be pulled in numerous directions in the coming months.
She stewed on the problem. Cyrus had the financial means to drag out the divorce indefinitely, and he was hell bent on doing so. She knew of at least one divorce battle that had lasted for ten years! There was no way in hell she was going to fight him for that long. If she was to get out of this relationship, she had to force his hand. But how? He wouldn’t change, and the more she fought him, the harder he dug in his heels.
Daniella entered her car and sat there for awhile, thinking.
Cyrus’s comment about Roland made her uneasy. She and Roland had stayed away from each other after her separation from her husband. Partly because of Cyrus’s warning, but mostly because she’d felt betrayed by her ex.
But a month ago Roland had made an unexpected visit to her gallery. According to him, he’d dropped by to say hi and see how she was doing. He’d apologized profusely for his role in her deception and said he wanted to be friends. She’d put him off, not sure she wanted him in her life again, because though he’d come clean, she’d been disappointed he’d taken the million dollars from Cyrus.
As she pulled out of the parking deck, she called her attorney, Davis Williams, the one person she could talk to and trust. “I need to talk to you. Are you free?”
“Can you come now?” he asked.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
His building was located nearby, and soon enough she’d parked on the street and was headed up in the elevator to his office. She’d known Davis for years. He’d been a friend of her mother’s and had handled her parents’ divorce when she was a child. After her mother’s death, he’d ensured the proceeds from her life insurance policy had been administered according to her wishes. Thanks to the payout from the policy and other items of value her mother had left her, she’d been able to live comfortably and start her own business.
Daniella entered Davis’s office. Gray peppered his receding hairline at the temples, and he smiled behind his glasses, motioning for her to have a seat.
“I can’t sit,” she said, still a little agitated. She set her purse on the chair and paced the room, giving him a quick rundown of her conversation with Cyrus. Davis’s eyebrows elevated.
Daniella stopped pacing long enough to look at her attorney. “There’s got to be a way to get me out of this marriage.” She continued her restless walk across his office. “He’s impossible.”
Davis cleared his throat before speaking. “You know what we’re up against. Have you considered…” His voice trailed off when her head snapped in his direction.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said. This wasn’t the first time Davis had hinted she should consider a reconciliation with Cyrus.
“Why not? I’m running out of ideas, and clearly he wants to stay married. Quite unusual, frankly.” He said the last under his breath.
“I don’t care what he wants.”
“Well, you should, because the only thing he seems to want is you.”
“And a baby,” Daniella reminded him. She sighed dramatically. “He doesn’t want me, really. He wants to control me. Anyone who would buy another man’s debts to gain leverage over him…” She shook her head. “If I have a child with Cyrus, who knows what tactics he’ll pull next. The next thing I know, he’ll end up taking over my business and forcing me to be a stay-at-home mother. No.” She shook her head vehemently. This was not an option for her. “There’s got to be another way.”
“There is one thing we haven’t tried, but it’s risky.”
“What?” Eager, Daniella rushed over to his desk.
Davis raised his hands to calm her down. “It’s just a thought, but the Johnsons are extremely protective about their public image. They have public relations people whose sole responsibility is to manage media relations and keep their names out of the tabloids—as much as possible, anyway.”
She understood why he’d added the qualifier at the end. The media often sought out information about the Johnsons because of their unique position. They owned one of the largest brewing companies in the country—in the world, even—and not only was it still privately owned, as an African-American family, their staggering wealth was an oddity in the beer industry.
Davis leaned forward and folded his hands. “We could do a little reconnaissance and see if he’s been involved with anyone. If he has a mistress or girlfriend of any sort, we could use it as leverage in the divorce proceedings, and we could easily leak the information to the press and let the court of public opinion push this to a resolution once and for all. Having him force you to stay married while he’s off with another woman would not reflect positively on him.”
One hand on her hip, Daniella raised her other hand to her mouth and bit down on her finger. She did
n’t like the idea. It seemed like a dirty thing to do, but what choice did she have? She’d have to fight fire with fire.
Before she could argue herself out of a perfectly viable idea, she nodded, swallowing. “Do you have an investigator in mind?”
“I do. Let me handle everything, and I’ll let you know how it goes.”
Daniella nodded again, a feeling of nausea bubbling up in the pit of her stomach at the steps she was being forced to take. “I better go,” she said. “Give me an update next week?”
“Sure will.”
She picked up her purse and crossed the room.
“Daniella?”
She halted at the door.
“Don’t worry, kiddo. It’ll work out. At least you’re in a better position than your mother was.”
“Yeah, lucky me.”
In the elevator, Daniella leaned against the wall. True enough, she was in a much better position than her mother had been. She didn’t have a child and she had her own business, both very important factors in life-after-Cyrus. Her mother had been convinced to give up her modeling career to start a family with a man who not long after abandoned her for another woman. He’d manipulated her into going along with his choices, tricked her into a false sense of security, and then left her.
At least he’d paid child support, Daniella thought bitterly.
She hadn’t seen her father in years. Not since he sold his real estate business and moved to Florida with his new family.
She jabbed the button for the first floor in anger, even though it was already lit.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried to calm down. Davis was right. She wouldn’t be like her mother, which was a good thing. Except…she took another deep breath. What if Cyrus did have a woman in his life?
It shouldn’t matter after all this time. Not once in the past three years had she seen him linked with anyone else in the press, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t seeing someone. Maybe he was simply careful.
She rubbed the spot behind her ear where he’d touched her and her heart did a little quiver.
Perfect Page 3