Resisting The Tycoon's Seduction (The Berutelli Escape) (9 page)

A thought occurred to her.  Would he even care if she’d slept with someone?  If she told him she’d been with Zeke, the very man her father wanted her to marry, would he be angry or happy?  Her father had crassly told her to take off her clothes to get Zeke to marry her, seduce him if needed.  So would he care? 

She shuddered, not willing to find out.  She’d swing by one of her favorite stores and grab some new clothes before going home.  As she pulled on her silk blouse and navy skirt, she tried to come up with a reasonable answer for why both she and her sister were out of the house.  Their system in the past was to tell their father that they’d seen the other one, or to tell him that she’d seen her sister over at the library or a friend’s house or whatever it was that would make him move on to his business.  The best story was to explain to their father that the missing one was sick and in bed.  Her father was phobic of germs and wouldn’t venture down the bedroom hallway when one of them simply had a headache.  He prided himself on never getting sick and he couldn’t understand why he’d produced two daughters who were so weak and fell victim to germs. 

Father of the year was not in the future for Joseph Berutelli, she thought as she ducked under
Zeke’s bed to find her second shoe.  Once she was completely dressed, she grabbed her phone and called for a cab while she wandered through Zeke’s house trying to find out how to get out.  The place was massive with three levels!  As she wandered through the hallways, she was stunned by all the room.  Good grief, she was actually lost! 

Zeke’s housekeeper found her a moment before she turned into the library and showed her to the private elevator where she was able to speed down to the lobby of the building.  There she found her cab waiting for her.  She was grateful when she arrived at the department store just as it was opening and was quickly able to find a new skirt and blouse, just something to get her into the house. 

When she actually walked into the house, after returning to Zeke’s office to retrieve her car where she’d left it the day before, she acted as if she’d just returned from shopping instead of returning from sleeping over at a man’s house. 

Thankfully her father wasn’t around, nor did his housekeeper stop her.  Betty was a kind woman, but she had never been able to stand up to her father’s commands.  So if Betty had known that both Sierra and Marissa were gone, she’d never be able to lie to her employer about the issue. 

When Marissa was safely inside of her room, she tucked her old clothes into the closet and hurried to her bathroom to put on makeup.  She needed to look presentable, although she wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do with herself today.  She had some work to do on a website a friend had asked her to create, but she wasn’t able to focus on anything important right at the moment.

Laying down on her bed, she stared up at the white ceiling, trying to get her thoughts in order after last night’s experience. 

First of all, she couldn’t believe how sweet and tender Zeke was.  When he was making love to her, he was gentle and caring, more giving than she would have imagined.  Of course, as soon as he entered her, he was demanding, powerful and…she shivered at the memory of how her body had responded so quickly to everything he’d done to her.  He wouldn’t let her hide from him either.  Inhibitions weren’t allowed.  Anytime she’d tried to hide from him for any reason, he’d just chuckled and gone ahead with whatever he’d been trying to do.  And he had the strength to pin her down and let him take control.

Goodness, she liked that.  She hadn’t thought she would, but she really loved the way he was so strong and domineering.  It made her feel soft and sexy, very feminine. 

Should she be worried that she liked a man to take control?  Probably.  Was she going to worry about it?  Try to figure out what it meant about herself?  She bit her lip and her fingers twitched on the bedspread.  Okay, yes, she was going to worry about what that meant.  She couldn’t help it.  She’d been a feminist all her life, not wanting to be dominated by her father’s orders.  So enjoying Zeke’s commanding presence during sex was something she was darn well going to worry about. 

He was a sweet, caring man and….oh no! 

She sat up in the bed, every muscle in her body tense as she realized something horrible. 

“Impossible,” she said out loud to the empty room.  “It simply isn’t possible!”
  She refused to believe that she was in love with the man.

She paced back and forth, her mind refusing to accept the truth.  But every excuse she came up with for how she was feeling was a lie.  She told herself that she
’d just wanted to have sex, but she’d never been even remotely interested in any kind of physical intimacy with the men she’d dated previously.  She told herself that she simply wanted to rebel against her father, but that certainly didn’t strike a chord especially when she realized that she couldn’t see Zeke any more for fear of putting him in jeopardy with her father. 

With a sigh, and ignoring the tear that seeped out from one eye, she laid back down on her bed and continued staring at the ceiling.  She ignored her cell phone when it started ringing, assuming it was ju
st her father.  He probably thought she owed him a status update on her mission to marry Zeke.  It occurred to her that it might be Zeke calling to check on her, but he’d left her with a kiss this morning, telling her he’d see her later tonight as he rushed off to meetings.  So it wouldn’t be him calling her.  She had a special ring tone for her sister, so right now, she simply didn’t want to talk to anyone. 

Focusing on the important issues, s
he realized that she had to protect Zeke.  She had to stay as far away from him as possible.  She couldn’t marry him, even to save herself from a marriage to the repulsive Jimmy.  She would marry Jimmy to save her sister and to keep her father from getting his grip on Zeke and any of his contacts.  The man deserved better than to be forced into a family like hers. 

The sadness that seeped into her body, leaving her cold and shaking, was so intense she wished she could find some sort of escape, some relief.  But there wasn’t anything she could do about the way she was feeling.  She just hoped with time that she would get over Zeke. 

Would being married to Jimmy be so bad?  There had to be something good about him, she thought as she pictured the man in her mind.  He had….okay well, there was his….

She sighed and rolled over, her arm covering her eyes in an effort to block the man’s image from her mind.  The man was a
slug.  He had a huge pot-belly and dark eyes that were pure evil.  Whenever he looked in her direction, she got the willies.  He preferred those polyester shirts that were so famous with the guys on “The Sopranos” and wore not one, but two gold chains. 

He had several gold
teeth, she remembered sadly.  Why would anyone pull out their teeth and insert gold ones? 

She stood up and paced her room, walking from the window to her desk in an effort to come up with a plan to get out of marriage to a slimy, gros
s, cruel individual like Jimmy Traveri.  Even her father’s opinion about the man was a mark against him since anyone her father liked was a bad sign.  Her father respected all the wrong personality traits in her opinion. 

Zeke probably would hate the man.  Zeke was honest and kind and sweet and gentle.  He’d never be able to stand up to the pressure her father, and probably Jimmy, would bring to bear.  Zeke would be drawn into the criminal world and would be eaten up by all the problems that
kind of business would cause him. 

Her phone started ringing again and she walked over to her purse, digging out her cell phone.  The number was blocked so she wasn’t sure who was calling her.  She pressed the button to send the call to voice mail, but realized that she
had several text messages and e-mails.  Not an astonishing occurrence, since she’d been out of contact with everyone for over twenty-four hours now.

She clicked on the buttons and gasped when she saw that the first four messages were from Zeke.  She hadn’t known his e-mail
address, nor did she know how he’d gotten hers.  But there they were. 

She thought about deleting them, just cutting him out of
her life because being with him was too dangerous.  Her finger poised over the button while her mind debated back and forth about how to handle messages from the most incredible man she’d ever met in her life.  In the end, she couldn’t trash the one link she had with the man.

Clicking the most recent message, she read,
“Where are you?!” The first three were milder, but the message was clear.  He was looking for her?  And all of them had come to her in the last hour and a half.  She’d just left his place about two hours ago so why would he be concerned about where she was? 

She pressed the reply button and told him that she’d come home, then waited tensely for a response. 

She didn’t have long to wait.  “Coming to get you.  Be ready to leave immediately.  I’m five minutes out.”

She relished the tingle of excitement over the idea of seeing him again, but then remembered her resolve to keep him away from the craziness of her father’s world.  “Can’t.  Stay away.”

She pressed send before she had a chance to reconsider or before her resolve wore down.  She moved to her bathroom and looked at her appearance in the mirror.  Her hair was still too frazzled so she quickly brushed it, tying it back against her head so it at least appeared somewhat neat and professional.  She didn’t bother with makeup, not really caring about her appearance when her heart was actually breaking.  How that man had gotten through her defenses so quickly, she couldn’t figure out.  She barely knew the man. 

Sitting down at her computer, she tried to concentrate on work.  But her mind was more attuned to
listening for a response to her last message.  When the silence continued, she told herself that it was better this way.  She tried to convince herself that she was glad that he would respect her wishes for him to stay away. 

She swiped the tears away, refusing to give in to the sadness that was threatening to choke her.  It was better.  Much better now.  She’d survive.  She’d marry Jimmy, protect her sister and read about Zeke in the business news. 
Surely she didn’t have to be married to Jimmy for too long, would she? 

But what if she got pregnant?  She couldn’t ever leave her child.  And the whole point of the marriage would be to provide her father with a grandson.

No, marriage to Jimmy would not happen.  She’d figure out how to get out of this.  There had to be an answer.  She could….

The doorbell ringing startled her
out of her plans to escape her father’s desired fate for her.  She wasn’t sure what she expected, but the trembling started immediately.  It was Zeke.  She knew it was Zeke.  There couldn’t be anyone else who would arrive this early in the morning and he’d just told her that he was five minutes away. 

She ignored the singing of her heart when she realized that he’d ignored her order to stay away from him.  She’d have to reject him, tell him she wasn’t interested, but it certainly was nice that he was a
t least coming to try and find out why she was rejecting him. 

A moment later her bedroom door slammed open and Zeke stood in the center, his head almost hitting the top and his dark eyes slicing through the room until they rested on her.  She stood by her desk, her body shaking with both surprise and the normal reaction whenever Zeke was near.  “What are you doing here?” she demanded, her eyes glancing out her bedroom window where she could see across the courtyard to her father’s office.  Had Betty already told him that a man had shown up
asking to see his daughter?  Would the housekeeper be nervous about someone barging into Marissa’s room?  Betty had probably never met Zeke before so there was a very real possibility that she had already called her father to let him take care of this issue. 

People simply didn’t barge into Joe Berutelli’s home.  It had never happened so Marissa wasn’t sure how her father would react. 

Zeke looked furious as he walked towards her, his eyes scanning her from head to toe, almost as if he were trying to ensure that she was okay.  That silly fluttering in her stomach flared back to life with the possibility.  “Pack a bag if you want to, Marissa.  But you’re coming with me.”  He stood in front of her, hands on his hips and glaring down at her.  “I don’t want to hear any more of this crap about keeping me away either.”

Marissa tore her eyes away from his magnificent form, her body shivering with excitement just at his close proximity.  She tried to hide her reaction though, knowing that she had to get him away from her for his own protection. 
“You can’t be in my room,” she gasped, looking behind him, then out the window again.  “You have to leave.  Please hurry.”  She tried to push him out of her bedroom, glancing through her window to see if her father had left his office.  She could just imagine him and whichever goons were with him storming across the patio to confront whoever had entered his house without permission. 

Zeke wasn’t going to let her protect him though.  Instead of exiting her bedroom, he
actually stepped closer to her, his arm wrapping around her waist as he pulled her against his hard, demanding body.  “Marissa, let’s get something straight.  You’re coming with me and I’m not waiting for you to agree with me.  This is non-negotiable.  If you want to pack something, then I’ll give you sixty seconds but understand that I’d rather dress you in clothes I’ve bought you, or even better, have you completely naked.  So don’t mistake my calm voice for weak determination.  You’re coming with me in one minute, packed or not packed.”