by Joss Wood
Do not jump him, do not stand up and slap your mouth against his.
“Good pie,” Brooks said in between bites. “Where do you order from?”
“A little Italian place on the next corner,” Nic replied. Because she hated feeling so out-of-control attracted to him, she put a whole bunch of spice into her voice. “I thought the deal was that you tell me something good and then you share my pizza.”
Brooks rested his arms on his muscled thighs, his hands dangling between his knees. Then he looked her dead in the eye and when he spoke his voice was heart-attack serious.
“Okay, if you insist. I want you to marry me. In two weeks’ time. If you say yes, I will provide you the funding to produce your documentary project and I will open doors to you so that it can get the widest distribution possible. I have enough money and connections to make sure that happens.”
Nic laughed at his absurd statement and rolled her eyes. She was about to tell him to stop wasting her time and then his words sank in. He knew about her project...
He knew.
About her project.
Nobody, apart from a handful of people she’d spoken to about Jane’s Nightmare, knew how she spent her free time. How on earth had Brooks found out?
“How do you know about my documentary?”
Brooks waved her words away. “I just do. And it can happen, if you marry me.”
Honestly, this was too bizarre, like a scene out of a B-grade movie. Who shows up on a Tuesday evening and starts proposing to a random woman? And, despite their meeting once or twice before and some very mild flirting, she was very random indeed.
“This is a good opportunity for you, Nicolette.”
Yeah, first time she’d heard marriage described in those terms. Nic tipped her head. “Okay, I’ll play your ridiculous game. What if I say no?”
Remorse flickered across his face but it was quickly chased away by determination. “Then I kill your project. I have enough money and contacts in the entertainment world to do that, as well. And by kill it, I mean it will never see the light of day. Ever.”
Brooks reached for another slice of pizza but Nic was quicker. She whipped up the box and pulled it onto her lap. She stared at Brooks, wondering if behind all that sexy was insanity. “Are you mad? You’re talking crazy, and crazy talk does not get rewarded with pizza!”
Brooks simply pulled the box from her, helped himself to another piece of pizza and, in between bites, explained his offer. They’d be married in name only, for a period of time yet to be determined, but the marriage had to, to keep the gossip to the minimum, last longer than a year.
In addition to funding her documentary, she’d also get a significant amount of money for one year as his wife. For every additional year they remained married, she would receive a large sum of cash. If, after a year, she wanted out, he wouldn’t contest the divorce.
Children weren’t a prerequisite but he wasn’t opposed to fathering a child. Should she choose to have one with him, he’d pay her living expenses, post-divorce, for the rest of her life. But that meant them sleeping together and while she wished she could emphatically state that would only happen when hell iced over, honesty had her admitting that she’d have difficulty avoiding his bed.
Really, what hot-blooded—or even moderately warm-blooded woman, wouldn’t? He was hot. As in blistering.
“Why do you need to get married?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“And why do you need to be married by month’s end?”
“You don’t need to know that, either.” Brooks’s reply left her with more questions than answers. He’d given her until this morning to decide—a scant eight hours!—and she’d spent all of last night pacing her apartment, both intrigued and pissed that she was considering saying yes to his ridiculous offer.
Oh, she didn’t care about the money and, while she did want kids sometime in the future, she didn’t need to marry to get one. So the only reason to consider Brooks’s offer was related to how important it was for her to tell Jane’s story and to highlight human trafficking. She owed it to her sister. She needed to tell the world about her because maybe, just maybe, it would save one girl’s life.
She worked with street girls, spoke to at-risk teenagers, but her documentary would reach so many more people, might save more lives. And, on screen, Jane would always be remembered.
When Brooks called her at half past seven this morning, she’d agreed to his crazy proposal. The man, damn him, hadn’t seemed surprised to hear her reluctant “yes.”
It was almost as if he knew her better than she knew herself.
Nic heard footsteps behind her and watched as Teresa placed a tray on her desk, the smell of freshly ground beans wafting her way. Since last night she hadn’t been able to eat or drink and her tongue started to salivate. It took all her willpower not to grab that mug of coffee and suck it down.
Teresa leaned her butt against the edge of the desk and crossed her feet at her ankles. Cradling her cup in her hands, she looked at Nic over the rim. “I’m not very happy with you right now.”
Honestly, she had bigger worries than gaining Teresa St. Claire’s approval. “Because of my coverage of Matt’s party? Or my reporting on the ensuing chaos?”
“The latter.” Teresa lifted one slim shoulder. “Wouldn’t you be?”
She wouldn’t lie. “Sure. But any journalist worth his or her salt would’ve covered the story.”
Teresa started to argue, hauled in her words and Nic’s Spidey sense quivered. She slowly lowered her cup from her mouth and looked at Teresa. Why was she acting squirrelly?
“You organized Matt’s event. You didn’t have anything to do with that guy crashing the party,” Nic stated and saw Teresa’s eyes flare at the mention of the young man. “Nobody could blame you for the bad ending.”
“Of course they can’t,” Teresa quickly replied. Too quickly. Why did she think Teresa was lying? Oh, hell, yes, there was much, much more to this story than she was privy to. And, while she wanted to push and pry, to get to the heart of the matter, she couldn’t because she wasn’t here as a reporter, she was here as Brooks Abbingdon’s fiancée.
And how bizarre did that sound? But maybe she could be both...
Before she could formulate her first probing question, Teresa pulled up a big smile that was as fake as the plastic surgery she routinely saw on the red carpet. “So you’re going to marry Brooks.”
Apparently so.
“That’s so exciting! How long have you been seeing each other?”
Nic wished she could tell her that they’d met fourteen hours before but knew that would be placing a match to a flame of gas. “Long enough.”
Long enough to decide to sacrifice her freedom for her career and for a project she’d promised her gran she’d complete.
“Brooks told me that he wants an over-the-top, blow-your-socks-off wedding. He’s given me an unlimited budget and no instructions except to tell me that it will happen in two weeks’ time, venue to be decided.”
Nic pulled in her breath, shook her head and nailed Teresa with a hard glare. “That’s not going to happen. It will be a small, understated wedding with minimal fuss, preferably in court.”
“Okay,” Teresa muttered. “Flowers?”
This was a business arrangement not a parade. “None.”
“Do you have a dress?”
“I have a white pantsuit that would be suitable,” Nic lobbed back.
Teresa looked like she’d swallowed a bug. “Guests?”
“Him, me and whoever is authorized to marry us,” Nic said, her tone final. “Do we need anyone else?”
Leaning back, Teresa picked up her phone and tapped the screen with fast-moving fingers. Nic heard phone ringing and realized that Teresa had put the phone on speaker mode. Brooks’s deep “Hello” s
ent a shiver of awareness down her spine. She was stupidly, ruthlessly attracted to her wretched blackmailer!
“Brooks, we have a problem,” Teresa calmly stated.
“I’m paying you an extraordinary amount of money for there not to be problems, Teresa,” Brooks stated.
“Well, I have no problem spending your money but your fiancée definitely does. You both seem to have very different ideas on what you want from this wedding and I am, not surprisingly, confused.”
“Is she there with you?” Brooks demanded.
Nic answered before Teresa could. “She is. And she is not happy about any of this.”
He was a smart man; he’d understand that she was talking about more than the wedding. “You’ve made that clear, Nic.”
Nic? Nobody but Jess and Gran called her Nic. Coming from his mouth her name sounded feminine and, dammit, sweet. Almost tender.
“What I suggest,” Teresa said in her no-nonsense voice, “is that you two meet and decide what you want. Bearing in mind that I have minimal time, I need you to get back to me by tomorrow morning on exactly what type of wedding you want. And I need you to cover everything: flowers, music, guests, type of food, potential venues, budget. Everything.”
“What a nightmare,” Nic muttered. She was still getting used to the idea of getting hitched; now she had to make definitive decisions around her wedding day? Could she take a breath first?
“All right,” Brooks agreed. “We’ll meet up tonight and thrash it out.”
“Good. I need everything you come up with by tomorrow morning,” Teresa said, her tone crisp. “And Brooks?”
“Yeah?”
Teresa smiled at Nic and Nic sensed a warming of her polar-cold attitude. “If you want people to take this engagement seriously, you should buy your fiancée a ring. Preferably one that can be seen from space.”
Five
Later that day Teresa, shaky with hunger and exhaustion, heard the sound of a heavy masculine tread outside her office door and barely had any energy to react. If the person outside her door was a burglar, he could take what he wanted. If it was someone with nastier ideas, well, then, she didn’t much care. She was that tired.
But really, logically, it was probably just Dan, the night janitor, waging the war on dust bunnies and trash baskets.
Pushing her glasses up onto her nose, Teresa stared at the figures on her Excel spreadsheet, trying to make sense of the data on the screen. She’d been crunching numbers all afternoon, building cash flow forecasts and up-to-date financials. She needed accurate information regarding her company, boiled down to how much she had (x) and that would last her how long (y)?
Without Brooks’s commission, she was looking at weeks, not months. With his project she had another six months. But what happened after that? Would she have work? Would her reputation recover? Had it taken too many hits?
What then? What the hell would she do?
Teresa placed a hand on her stomach, felt the room spin so she turned sideways and dropped her head between her knees. For the first time since she was a kid she felt truly scared, utterly vulnerable. She couldn’t lose her company, it was what she did, who she was. This was all she had.
And she hadn’t even addressed the issue of sucking money from the company to make a part payment toward Joshua’s debt.
Teresa felt the energy in the room change and one of the many ropes wrapped around her lungs loosened. When Liam placed a large hand on her back, another rope dropped away and she felt like she could suck in a tiny breath.
Damn him for making her feel better, stronger, more in control. “Take a long, deep breath and try to relax.”
Teresa wanted to lift her head to send him a “get real” look but her head felt like it weighed the equivalent of a baby elephant. And if she could relax, she wouldn’t have her head between her legs and the room wouldn’t be spinning. But her dizziness might also be a result of not eating for the last forty-eight hours. Coffee didn’t have the nutritional value of vegetables or protein. Frankly, coffee really needed to up its game.
When Teresa felt like her lungs could function, she lifted her head and was happy to find that the world had stabilized. Liam, wearing faded jeans and a cranberry-colored sweater, was on his haunches in front of her, looking all handsome and hot. She leaned forward to kiss him but he just placed the back of his hand against her forehead.
“You don’t have a fever. Do you have a stomachache?”
Teresa swatted his hand away. “Stop fussing, Liam. I’m fine. What are you doing here?”
Liam placed his forearm on his knee, innately at ease as he rested on the balls of his feet. “You are not fine. You are exhausted, hungry and stressed out. Overworked and at the end of your rope.”
Teresa rolled her eyes, uncomfortable with exactly how accurate his diagnosis was. “I needed to run some figures.”
“At nine at night?” Liam retorted. He stood up and placed his hands on his hips. “It couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”
Probably. But she would not have been able to sleep until she had an accurate view of where she stood. Then again, she probably wouldn’t sleep now that she did have an accurate view of the situation. Facing bankruptcy was an excellent reason to stay awake worrying.
Teresa leaned back in her chair, raising her head to look into Liam’s frustrated face. “Why are you here?”
Liam picked up her phone and waved it from side to side. “You’re not answering your phone. Again.”
Teresa snatched it out of his hand and tapped the screen. When it remained stubbornly black, she grimaced. “It doesn’t have any juice.”
“Which is an accurate description of you.”
Liam bent over, rested his hands on her knees and Teresa felt lust, and warmth, dance across her skin. “We need to talk about the next Christopher Corporation board meeting and your expected attendance.”
Teresa opened her mouth to argue but Liam squeezed her knee. “But not tonight, honey. Tonight all you need to do is eat and then sleep.”
Throw a bath and sex into that scenario and she would be in heaven. Actually, maybe just a bath because, as talented as Liam was and however much she craved his touch, she simply didn’t have the energy for anything more.
Liam stood up, took her hands and pulled her to her feet. Teresa looked at her monitor and hesitated. She had a few more scenarios to run, figures to input. “It’ll still be there in the morning.”
She should stay here. Teresa tugged her hand from Liam’s and shook her head. “I think I should stay.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen,” Liam said, picking up her dead phone. He tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. Teresa accepted that her reactions were super-slow because, before she could figure out what he was doing, her tote bag was over his shoulder and her car keys were clutched in his fist. He gestured to the door. “After you.”
Not happening. Liam Christopher had no right to barge into her office and order her around. Who did he think he was? Who did he think he was dealing with? Some weak-willed female whose knees would buckle at his display of dominance? Okay, her knees were a bit jelly-like but that had more to do with lack of food than his caveman approach to an argument.
“Do you really think your bossy attitude is going to work with me?”
Liam had the cheek to grin at her. He shook his head. “Not at all. But I am stronger and bigger and this will.” He bent his knees, placed his arm under her thigh and another around her back and Teresa found herself cradled against his broad chest.
By the time her shock receded enough for her to speak, they were inside the elevator and heading to the basement parking garage. And when the elevator doors opened, she was yawning and thinking that this position wasn’t too uncomfortable, and conceding that she neither had the energy to protest his high-handed tactics or his bossiness. Really, this was the
second time he’d used his physical strength on her and she should protest...
She would protest. Sometime soon.
But the leather seats of his expensive car were heated and comfortable and if she turned her head and pulled her knees up, she could pretend she was in her bed...
* * *
Brooks had seen Nicolette in tiny lamé dresses, rocking three-inch heels and in short skirts and tight tops, so to discover that she was just as sexy in loose-fitting yoga pants and an old T-shirt came as a shock. Her face was also makeup free and she looked a lot younger than her twenty-eight years.
Brooks ran a finger around the open collar of his shirt and wondered if he was making a mistake, not sure if Nicolette was the right person for this crazy venture. Barefoot, her long hair pulled up into a ponytail, she looked softer, vulnerable and nothing like the sophisticated reporter he’d encountered a few times before.
“Are you going to stand in my doorway or are you going to come inside?” Nicolette demanded.
Brooks stepped into the hallway of her apartment and shrugged off his jacket, relieved to hear the acerbity in Nicolette’s tone. Acerbity he could handle.
“Good evening, Nicolette,” he said, hanging his jacket on a coat hook.
“For goodness’ sake, call me Nic.” Nic waved him to the couch. A pair of glasses stood on the coffee table, as well as a bottle of red wine. He picked up the wine and examined the label, surprised to see it was from a small winery in South Africa. He might be mistaken but he thought he might have toured the winery when he visited that country a few years back. He picked up the bottle and poured wine into two glasses and, before taking his seat, handed a glass to Nic. “Take a seat.”
Nic narrowed her eyes at his bossiness but curled up into a single chair, tucking her bare feet under her luscious ass. She sipped her wine before resting the glass against her forehead.