Detained (14 page)

The anger in him made him look five times taller. Darcy’s muscles clenched. He seemed to tower over her as he came towards her. If he hit her she’d have witnesses. He said something and the two security men melted away.

Robert said, “Darcy,” and Will stopped, slowly pivoted to face him. He said something in Shanghainese and Robert’s head dropped. Will had dismissed him. He left the room without looking at her again.

Darcy took two steps back and found a wall behind her. Will was in front of her. He was breathing heavily. He had eyes of molten black opal. She had nowhere to go to get away from him.

“What did you do to Robert?”

“I took back what belongs to me.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“The same.”

Darcy’s knees gave way. Will caught her arm, pulled her into his side and walked her down the corridor. At the lift well he pressed the up button. She tried to pull away, but he held her firm, and she didn’t want to make another scene by struggling. She didn’t want to struggle at all.

When the lift arrived, he released her and she stepped over the threshold on her own. She hit the button for her floor and stabbed the close door tab, hoping to trap him outside, but he stopped the closing doors with a shiny dress shoe and followed her in. She backed into the corner of the empty lift, putting as much distance between them as possible. He was scaring the life out of her. Her heart was pounding in her ears. Anticipation coursed through her veins. He was dangerous and she wanted to be his.

He swiped a pass over the indicator for the top floor, the Palace Suite, and the doors closed with a bright ping.

He was on her in a heartbeat. Caught her shoulders and spun her so her back was tucked in front of him. They faced the mirrored wall of the lift. He took the strap of her dress in his hand and pulled, it tore, making a loud crack. Crystal beads pelted the walls of the lift and Darcy’s held breath exploded from her lungs.

“Will!”

His lips came down on her bare shoulder, his hands came up to palm her breasts. His body shook, from rage, from lust, she didn’t know which. He was kissing her neck, and the heat of his touch turned her insides to fast-running lava. Her knees buckled again, and he took the weight of her in his arms.

The lift pinged, the doors opened and a red-haired man got in. He had a welcoming smile until he saw them, until Will barked, “Get out.” He backed out apologising, a shocked look on his face.

Will’s lips were on her ear, his tongue rimming its rind. Darcy’s head dropped back on his shoulder as pleasure overtook fear, and she understood he was going to punish her by showing her what she’d lost. She understood it would be utterly extraordinary and totally devastating.

The lift pinged again, her floor. She could still escape this torture. She was not his prisoner. But she was his slave. The doors closed. Will tore at the fabric of her dress until her breast in her strapless bra was uncovered. His eyes were black and bleeding desire as he pushed the satin cup down and lifted her breast in his hand, rolling her furled nipple in his fingers. Darcy could not look away from their images in the mirror. Her body was exposed but so was his soul.

When the lift drifted to a stop, Will moved again, taking her hand, knitting their fingers and leading her into the corridor. Trailing behind him, she tried to hold the front of her dress together with her other hand.

“Leave it. I’m going to rip the rest of it off you,” he rasped, his voice thick with tension.

This was reckless and frightening. Shangri-La’s dungeon. It made her body shake and her throat tighten. It was the threat of danger, the promise of pain. It was everything she wanted.

At the door to the suite Will backed her up against the wall, took both her hands and pinned them above her head in one of his. He brought his face close, the tip of his nose trailing over her cheek. She breathed his skin, felt the flutter of his eyelashes, trembled to have him closer still. Darcy twisted in Will’s grip, angling her hips to his. He wrapped his other arm around her back and pinned her to him.

His growl in her ear sent her temperature soaring. “Ask me to stop.” He pulled away to watch her face. She reached for him, her hands chasing over his chest into his hair.

He moved fast, ripping her dress from neckline to hem, scattering crystals and pearls and she almost came, her body jerking from the sound of the fabric shredding and Will’s shuddered breaths. He kissed her then, open-mouthed, sucking sweet and hot and she was annihilated by his need for her.

Breaking off, he pushed the door open, scooped her into his arms and carried her into the suite. At the doorway to the bedroom he paused. “Darcy, ask me to stop while I still can.”

She gripped his chin, made him look at her. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

He threw her on the bed and looked at her with a hunger that made her breath come in sharp, quick pants.

He didn’t undress, though she ripped the studs from his shirt front. He never spoke again.

Nothing in his touch was angry. He was intense, hard, direct, but he didn’t hurt. He gave her passion, not pain. He was in absolute control.

He made her come over and over, made her scream his name in careless abandon until she wept for him to stop, and he held her till she calmed.

He left her lying limp like a rag doll in the middle of the bed. Her body floating in a purgatory of bliss and her mind numbed, unable to decide if she’d lost or won.

“By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.” — Confucius

“You sleep, Boss?”

Will slid into the front seat of the Audi beside Bo. “Not much.” He yawned. He hadn’t slept at all and Bo had likely worked that out. Last night, Bo picked him up from the Pen but instead of taking him home, dropped him at the Confucian temple on Wen Miao.

After the scene with Darcy, Will needed to clear his head. Needed to think through what he’d done, almost done, and wasn’t sure he could forgive himself for. He knew he hadn’t hurt her physically, but he’d come damn close. He’d gone after her hard, frightened her, used his size to terrorise her, and that made him feel sick to his gut.

What kind of a man does that to a woman? Let alone a woman he cares about? He’d worked all his life not to be a man who intimidates women, and one weekend, one night’s loss of control had him doubting who he was.

He’d sat in the temple for hours. It was safe there. Quiet. If he went home he’d only drink through his liquor cabinet. It was close on sunrise when he’d called Bo to come get him, when he handed him the sketch, a handful of beads and the scrap of fabric from Darcy’s dress and asked him to find the designer and replace it.

And it was still early, but it was better to keep moving. He could hide his sins in movement. He sipped the black coffee Bo brought for him and shut his eyes, but he could feel the driver watching him.

“What’s wrong, Bo?”

“I worry, Will.”

“About Keung?”

Bo grinned. “No, Keung has a girlfriend. She is Phi Beta Kappa.”

“No kidding? That’s great.”

“Don’t worry, Keung won’t neglect his study. You won’t waste your money on him. He is a good boy.”

“It’s okay, Bo. He hasn’t disappointed either his father or his financier yet, right?” Will knew Bo would be pleased about the girlfriend. What he wanted most for his only son was US citizenry. If it took an American wife to get it, that was a small price to pay.

“I worry about you, Will.”

Will slumped into the headrest and closed his eyes again. “You know that’s not part of your job description.”

“You go out last night alone. You sit in the temple for hours. You come home alone. You’re alone all the time.”

“I’m all right, Bo.”

“You tore that woman’s dress.”

Will opened his eyes and looked at Bo. “I did. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“‘Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes,’” quoted Bo and Will knew that was a real Confucianism. Then Bo practiced silence as a method of reproach and despite the early hour and the light traffic, it was the slowest trip to the office Will could remember.

At his desk, Will had time to log in, check email and look after some admin before Pete arrived with a pinched expression, and he knew he was in for a grilling.

Pete put his two thousand dollar bespoke John Lobb Oxfords on the top of Will’s desk and stretched back in the visitor’s chair. He had dark circles under his eyes, but he thrived on the whole social thing. He’d been in his element last night, schmoozing the best and brightest of Shanghai for a good cause, the same way he charmed bankers, merchants, businessmen and Party officials for their business needs.

He was the public face of Parker and always would be. He was smooth where Will was rough, educated where Will was street smart, comfortable with complex politics and confusing cultural norms where Will was impatient, aggressive and abrasive. Pete made women want to sleep him, and men invite him for golf. Will made people want to punch him. Even the women.

It’d been that way since they were kids and adopted each other. Since Will was bad but determined and Pete was skinny, scared and picked on. Since changing their surnames to Parker to be like Spiderman had felt like a good idea.

It pissed Will off that Pete and Aileen were insisting he step out of the shadows and talk to the damn media.

He liked the shadows. They were his world, where he operated best.

He liked being in a room full of people he knew and being largely anonymous. Sure, the people who mattered, and a hopeful circle of hangers-on knew who he was, but in the scheme of things, it was an exclusive society.

In the shadows, Will could walk around Parker plants, production sites and shipping terminals, and find out things he’d never learn otherwise. Things Pete would never hear about if he held an inquisition.

Besides, the shadows had protected him and Pete when they needed it, and Will saw no good reason to stand in direct sunlight now.

Except he wanted Avalon. It was a cornerstone investment creating the platform he needed to drive Parker Corporation profitability, and insure its growth, and the security of its thousands of employees well into the future. And to get it, he needed the Avalon board to cave in and advise their shareholders to sell to him. And everyone assured him only public pressure, pressure only he could exert, would get him what he wanted.

It pissed Will off to have to trade his treasured anonymity for future prosperity. And it scared him. Nothing about getting to number twenty-seven Zhongshan Road had been pretty, well organised or even entirely legal for William Brown and Peter Vessy. There was a lot at stake and though Pete had done everything possible to cover their tracks and protect them, Will was never entirely comfortable with the chickens that could still come home to roost.

This was his disability, his hunchback’s hump.

And after what happened last night, the white-hot fear he’d felt over a few silly photographs, he knew he had to come up with a different plan. He wouldn’t be doing any media interviews.

“About that scuffle,” said Pete.

Will mirrored Pete’s pose. Pushing his chair back and putting his feet up on the desk edge too. They faced each other on the diagonal. “What scuffle?”

“The one involving you and some hotel security goons.”

Will grinned. “Oh. That scuffle.”

“There’s another? I need to know.”

He dropped his smile. “What…if I raped someone?”

“Will.” Pete slapped his thigh for emphasis.

“Tell me that’s not what you’re thinking.”

Pete groaned. “You can be a bull-headed prick, but you’re not cruel, stupid or mindless.”

But he had been remorselessly all those things last night, when he’d gone after Darcy. He was vindictive to blame her for trying to get her own back, brainless to think he could still have her, and make her want him too, and near senseless from his physical response to her.

“So—the scuffle?” Despite the look of a hangover about him, Pete was not going to be derailed.

“A news photographer tried to take my portrait without asking first.”

Pete brought his legs down off the desk and sat forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. “And that was a big deal because?”

“You know why. I don’t want the exposure. I don’t want the profile.”

“Hang on. You agreed.”

“Well now I’m disagreeing. We have to find another way.”

“We’ve been over this. You’re obsessing over nothing. It’s not like we’re trying to turn you into a celebrity here. We’re talking about a few carefully selected interviews with targeted publications. Here today, fish and chip wrapper tomorrow.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Goddamn, Will. I’ve known you twenty years and I still don’t understand you. You fought every monster we ever encountered, slayed every dragon, even my imaginary ones, and you’re running scared of talking to a few journalists, and having your picture taken. It makes no sense.”

“To you.”

“To me, to Aileen...” Pete trailed off.

“I didn’t say it was rational. The decision’s made. We find another way.”

Pete bristled but he knew he was beaten. They’d both learned to trust Will’s gut, his instinct, even when it made no obvious sense, and time and time again it’d proven prudent. It’d been the making of Parker Corporation.

But Will hated it when Pete was down on him. He tried to lighten things up. “Want the details on the scuffle?”

Pete waved a hand. He was looking down at the carpet. “I’m over it. Who did you leave with last night? I looked for you and you were gone. Did you even stay for the presentation?” Will could almost see the wheels in Pete’s brain whirring. “Heard you were dancing with a stunning blonde.” Wheel lock achieved. Pete’s head shot up. “Oh fuck, tell me it wasn’t her.”

Will brought his legs down off the desk and centred his chair. He didn’t look at Pete.

Pete stood to go, a hand over his forehead. “Shit, don’t tell me. I can’t know about this. I might have to do something. I have a horrible feeling Darcy has something to do with the scuffle.” He massaged his temples. “Please tell me it’s not related.”