Propositioned by the Billionaire (4 page)

B
Y ELEVEN O’CLOCK
the following morning Phoebe had spent three hours at her desk, poring over the press, answering calls from potential clients and trying not to wonder where Alex had disappeared to the night before.

Maybe he’d had a date. Maybe he’d succumbed to jet lag and had crashed out in a flowerbed. Maybe he’d been appalled by the haphazard way the party had panned out and left in disgust.

Who knew? Jo certainly hadn’t. And Phoebe really oughtn’t to care either way; as a silent partner he was unlikely to be popping up all the time, and as her client’s brother—and therefore strictly off limits—he could date whoever and pass out wherever he chose. Not that he’d ever been
on
limits, of course.

But to her intense irritation she did care. Because regardless of where Alex had physically got to last night, he was now lodged in her head and she was going slowly out of her mind.

Her memory had become photographic where Alex was concerned. Every detail of his dark handsome face, every inch of his incredible body was as clear as if he
were standing in front of her and she just couldn’t get rid of the image, no matter how hard she tried.

Phoebe pinched the bridge of her nose and screwed her eyes up. He had no right invading her thoughts like this. It was bad enough that he’d barged into her dreams and had proceeded to do all sorts of deliciously erotic things to her that had woken her up hot and sweating and pulsating with need.

Sleep had whisked her back to the pergola, where he’d kissed her over and over again until she’d been panting and whimpering. Only this time, nothing had interrupted them and Alex had slid down the zip of her dress and peeled it off her and then his hands had stroked over her skin, before pulling her down with him onto the cushions and—

Agh. Phoebe jumped to her feet, utterly disgusted with her lack of control over something so primitive, and marched into the kitchen.

She needed a cup of coffee. So what if she’d already had five? Number six would sort her out. It had to. Otherwise she’d never last the morning.

The phone rang just as she was pouring water into the cafetiere. Her hand jerked and boiling water splashed her skin.

Phoebe howled in pain and frustration. This edginess was so unlike her. Whenever stress threatened to wipe her out, all she usually had to do was take a series of deep breaths and channel the serenity of her office. But today those yoga techniques, the acres of bare white walls and the ordered tranquillity of her surroundings weren’t working.

Scowling and rubbing her hand, Phoebe inhaled deeply, closed her eyes and forced herself to pick up the
phone slowly and calmly. ‘Hello?’ Good. Pleasant and polite. That didn’t sound bad.

‘Phoebs, I have an Alex Gilbert in Reception.’

Phoebe dropped the phone and watched helplessly as it bounced twice and then skidded across the floor-boards. So much for inner calm.

What was he doing here? Had her fevered imagination actually conjured him up? What did he want?

‘Phoebs? Are you there?’

Oh, to be able to yell ‘no!’ and go and hide under her desk. But the opportunity to imitate her answer machine and pretend she was out had long gone. ‘Just a moment,’ she called and dashed across the floor to where her phone lay.

Phoebe picked up the handset. Then she straightened her suit and smoothed her hair and dredged up every ounce of self-possession she had. ‘Thanks, Lizzie,’ she said serenely. ‘You’d better tell him to come up.’

All she had to do was remain steady and in control and everything would be fine.

Alex glanced around Phoebe’s office and felt like fishing out his sunglasses. Apart from the woman in the severe black trouser suit perched against the edge of the sparkling glass desk and a few certificates and pictures hanging on the walls everything was blindingly white.

‘Good morning, Alex.’

She looked so composed with her poker straight hair and aloof air that for an insane moment he wanted to ruffle her up. ‘Good morning, Phoebe.’

‘Coffee?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Did you have a pleasant evening?’

‘Delightful.’ And busy. Once he’d reluctantly given in to Jo, he’d gone back to his apartment, had formulated a plan and had wasted no time in setting the wheels in motion.

‘I’m so glad.’ She gave him a chilly smile and moved round to the other side of her desk. She gestured to the chair on his side. ‘Please. Do sit down.’

‘Thank you.’ Alex folded himself onto the perspex chair and sat back.

‘How’s the jet lag?’

‘Fine.’

‘Shredded any cheques?’

Alex grinned. ‘Not so far. How are the handbags?’

‘Ruined beyond repair.’

‘Whose idea was it to put them so close to the lights?’

‘That would be mine.’

‘Clever.’

She flinched and her eyes flashed. Perhaps she wasn’t so composed after all, Alex thought with an odd sense of reassurance. After the heat and passion of last night, this morning’s ultra-cool Phoebe had been faintly unnerving.

‘I was led to believe that everything would be fine. The three risk assessments I carried out back me up. You can have a look at them if you’d like.’

Alex ignored her sarcasm. ‘Any idea what happened?’

‘According to the manager, someone had installed the wrong kind of light bulbs, and according to Jo she used highly flammable glue as a sort of quick fix in order to get some samples finished for last night. Normally she stitches everything by hand. A most unfortunate coincidence.’

‘So it would seem.’

‘Still, it wasn’t all bad. Self-igniting accessories are apparently tipped to be the latest craze.’

‘Extraordinary.’

Phoebe shrugged. ‘Anything’s possible in PR.’ She picked up a pen and pulled a notepad towards her. ‘Anyway,’ she said with a bright smile that didn’t reach her eyes, ‘what do you want?’

Alex stretched his legs out and regarded her carefully. ‘I have a proposition for you.’

That surprised her. ‘Oh?’

‘I’m hosting a party tomorrow night for colleagues and clients and a few friends. I want you to be there.’

Curiosity cracked the glacial façade. ‘In what capacity?’

‘I want you to raise money for one of the charities I support.’

Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s not really what I do.’

He knew that, and that was the beauty of his test. ‘Don’t you want the business?’ he said shooting her a shrewd glance.

Phoebe frowned. ‘Naturally your offer is intriguing, but isn’t raising money at a private party a little inappropriate?’

‘Highly. There lies the challenge.’

‘But why would you want to offer me a challenge?’

Alex regarded her thoughtfully for a while. ‘Would you like to know the real reason I was at the party last night?’

Phoebe tensed. ‘I’d be fascinated.’

‘I came to fire you,’ he said lazily.

Outside, traffic rumbled. Horns beeped. People shouted. But inside her office heavy silence descended.

Phoebe blinked and stared at him in disbelief. ‘You know, for a moment there I thought you’d said you’d come to fire me.’

‘I did.’

Phoebe went white for a second and then that brittle little smile snapped back to her face and Alex was struck by a sudden uncontrollable urge to wipe it away with a kiss. ‘That’s insane. I don’t work for you so how can you fire me?’

He ignored the urge and kept his gaze well away from her mouth. ‘I own sixty per cent of Jo’s company. I can do whatever I like.’

Phoebe glowered. ‘I thought you were supposed to be a silent partner.’

‘I was.’

‘Your particular brand of silence is deafening.’ She paused and total bafflement swept across her face. ‘Why would you want to fire me?’ Then she frowned. ‘Is this about the kiss?’

Alex started. ‘Why would this be about the kiss?’

‘Well, some might say there was a conflict of interest,’ she muttered, taking an intense interest in the papers on her desk as her cheeks went pink.

‘I didn’t know who you were. Did you know who I was?’

‘No. Jo barely mentioned you, and then never by name.’

‘There’d only be a conflict of interest were I to kiss you now.’

Her head snapped up and the colour on her cheeks deepened. ‘Er, quite.’

‘And that’s not going to happen.’

‘Good,’ she said sharply, as if she was trying to convince herself as much as him. ‘Excellent.’

Was that disappointment that flared in her eyes? Alex shifted in the chair. ‘So in answer to your question, no, my decision to fire you had nothing to do with the kiss.’

‘What did it have to do with, then?’

‘Your competency.’

Phoebe reeled. Her competency? What on earth was going on?

When Alex had informed her that he’d intended to fire her as casually as if they’d been discussing the weather, she’d thought that nothing more he said could shock her.

She’d been wrong.

‘My competency?’ He nodded. ‘What about it?’

‘Based on the…unusual…events of last night, I’m not convinced you’re the best person to represent Jo.’

Phoebe gasped. The arrogance of the man. How dared he question her competency when he knew next to nothing about her? ‘That’s absurd.’

‘Is it?’ he said in that lazy drawl that made her want to thump him.

‘Were you not there last night? Did you not see how I turned a fiasco into a triumph?’ Phoebe glared at him, all hope of remaining polite and pleasant a dim and distant memory. ‘Last night’s party resulted in thirty column inches across six newspapers and four requests for interviews with Jo. Three magazines are going to run features on her and her handbags and the party will appear on the society pages in all of them. This morning I had a call from one of the major high street stores who want her to design a range of accessories for them.’

Phoebe got to her feet, as if standing would somehow stop her anger from brimming over and making her say something she might really regret. ‘How, exactly, is that incompetent?’

Alex didn’t answer. He merely raised an eyebrow and it shot her anger into incandescence. ‘I’m very good at my job, Alex. I have ten years of experience. I’ve
handled million-pound accounts and I’ve launched products that have turned into best-sellers. I’m also brilliant at breaking up rowing journalists at press conferences, evading difficult questions and managing crises. Winning over disapproving brothers is a new one for me, but I
will
get there in the end.’ She paused and gave him an icy smile. ‘I’ve been working with Jo for weeks and we make a great team. She has extraordinary potential and a great career ahead of her. Her launch is in a fortnight and all the plans are in place. I will not let you ruin this for her.’

Long seconds passed before Alex spoke and when he did his voice froze her blood. ‘Why don’t you tell me about the parts of your career that haven’t, I presume, gone quite according to plan?’

The parts of her career that hadn’t gone according to plan? His words whipped the wind from her sails and she dragged in a shaky breath. What parts? There weren’t any. At least none that he could possibly know about… ‘What do you mean?’ she hedged, sitting back down and filling with trepidation.

The way he just looked at her, like an animal stalking its prey, turned her even colder. ‘I’m talking about the soap, the perfume and the musician.’

Phoebe felt as if he’d pulled the chair out from underneath her. ‘How do you know about them?’

Alex’s eyes glittered. ‘I know an awful lot about you.’

Her stomach fell away and her head went fuzzy. ‘Did you have me investigated?’

Alex nodded.

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Standard due diligence procedures. Why wouldn’t I?’

Phoebe rubbed her temples and sank back down into
her chair. Oh, God. He’d had her investigated? What sort of man did something like that? Jo had mentioned that Alex could be a touch on the protective side, but this was madness. Last night he hadn’t even known her name. Now, thanks to investigators who must have toiled throughout the night, he probably knew more about her than she did herself.

‘Unless you want me to fire you right now, you can start with the soap.’ Alex’s eyes glittered, as if he was actually relishing the moment.

Phoebe felt as if she were sitting on knives. ‘What do you know about the soap?’

He gave her a mocking smile. ‘You said that it brought out a rash and made your skin itch. To a journalist.’

‘I didn’t know he was a journalist. He bought me a drink. And another. And another. I thought he was being friendly.’

His mouth twisted. ‘My point precisely.’

Phoebe sighed and rubbed her neck. How lucky she’d had plenty of practice justifying what she did, the decisions she’d taken and the mistakes she’d made. Compared to the grilling her family gave her on a monthly basis, this was a walk in the park.

But then, her family didn’t hold her future in their hands.

Phoebe gathered her wits. She needed every drop of strength because right now she had to fight harder than she had in a long time.

‘Alex, I was twenty-one. It was right at the beginning of my career. In the second week of my first job. I was naïve. I learnt.’ She paused. ‘Besides, it
did
give me a rash and make my skin itch. As a result they went back and tweaked the formula.’

‘Nevertheless it was hardly a stellar moment.’

‘I’m well aware of that.’

‘And then what about the perfume?’ He paused. ‘Falsifying sales figures? I’d say that was verging on criminal.’

Phoebe stiffened. ‘It was nothing of the kind. It was simply a mistake. I was given the wrong data.’

‘And you didn’t think to check?’

‘I trusted my team.’

Alex grunted. ‘Now
that
was a mistake,’ he said more sharply than she would have thought the point warranted.

‘Evidently. But you needn’t worry. Now I check and double-check everything.’

Alex didn’t look as if that information alleviated his concerns in the slightest.

So two blips down, only one remained. Phoebe’s heart rate picked up. She’d spent so long in denial over this particular incident that she really didn’t want to have to rake through it all over again. But she doubted Alex would let it rest.