Spoken For (2 page)

4

I’M IN THE KITCHENETTE, cradling my second mug of coffee when Liam finds me.

“Thanks for the heads up,” I retort.

He pulls out a chair opposite from me and plants both elbows on the small, round table. “Dana told me.”

“Shhh…” I give a pointed glance around the room to emphasize the fact that we’re not alone. Simone is at the coffee machine, her back to us but her ears, no doubt, primed for gossip.

Liam leans closer, his voice lowered. “I tried to stop you, but you weren’t exactly listening and hell, Kee, I thought you knew.”

“That makes me feel so much better.” I do soften my sarcasm with a grimace, because none of this is his fault. “God, I can’t believe I tried to pick up my new boss in a bar. How clichéd is that?”

“He won’t even remember you.”

“Oh, he remembers,” I sigh.

“You’ve spoken to him?”

I peer at Liam over the lip of my mug. “Let’s just say, no words were required.”

“It’s probably no big deal. Besides, he’s not your boss, not really.” He shakes his head, pulls back a little. “We’re not even a blip on his radar. Once he’s back at his Mayfair headquarters, we’ll be nothing more than the latest oddity he’s added to his portfolio.”

“Keegan?”

I glance over his shoulder.

Celia, our office manager and general secretary, is framed in the doorway. “Mr. Rocchi would like to see you.”

My jaw drops.

Liam’s forearm slaps the table as he reaches for me, his palm wrapping my cradled hand. “Hey.”

I look at him.

“What’s he going to do?” He smiles his crooked smile. “This isn’t the middle ages. It’s not like he can have you drawn and quartered.”

I’m not reassured. “But he
can
fire my sorry ass.”

“There are laws—”

“I’m still in my probation period,” I remind him. Not to mention, Roman Rocchi strikes me as man who’d be a law unto himself.

“Keegan, we really should—”

“I’m coming,” I tell Celia, slipping my hand from beneath Liam’s.

“Whatever happens,” he says softly, “I have your back. You know that, right?”

I nod, smile, then take a deep breath and follow Celia out. Nerves flutter in my stomach and chew at my fingertips. Liam might feed and house me for a few months, sure, but what then?

My college invests a lot of money and effort into recruitment drives to secure placements for their graduates. But there are no second helpings and jobs aren’t easy to come by, not when you have as little experience as I have.
Not when you’re fired four months into your first job.

At the top of the stairs, Celia leads me down the wide passage marked with walnut doors that are firmly closed and spaced out enough to indicate enormous, private offices. I’ve never been further than the first office, which belongs to Mr. Bellamore. Across from that is his partner, Mr. Sterney, but I’ve only seen him around now and again. According to Simone, Sterney prefers to spend money rather than earn it. Which might explain the need for the Rocchi buyout.

“Is Mr. Rocchi interviewing all the employees?” I ask. It’s worth a try.

“Not that I’m aware of.” She gives me a tight smile and wrinkles her nose. “He’s rather intimidating, isn’t he?”

I shrug and the conversation dries up. Celia is only a year older than me and we get on quite well, but I can’t think past the imminent confrontation.

We don’t stop until we reach the office blocking the end of the passage. Celia knocks and pushes the door open without waiting for an invitation to enter.

“He’s expecting you,” she says quietly. “Told me to bring you straight in.”

She doesn’t bring me in, the traitor. She slips away, leaving me standing in the open doorway.

As I suspected, the office is enormous.

My gaze sweeps from the wall of glass directly opposite the door to the sturdy desk that graces a mahogany-panelled wall to my far left.

Seated behind the desk is Roman Rocchi and his gaze, of course, is drilling into me. “Close the door, please.”

I do as he says, and can’t help but note the smudges my clammy hand leaves on the silver knob.

A spark feeds into my spine.

Liam is right.

What can he possibly do?

I turn from the door with a determined smile. “You wanted to see me?”

He observes my approach in silence, displeasure seeped into the deep hollows of his clean-shaven jaw. He’s discarded his jacket and his shirt is pristine white without a single crease. His tie is a darker shade of blue…

Heat pricks my cheek at the forgotten memory. Did I seriously straighten his tie?

A couple more steps and I’ll bump up against his desk, and he still hasn’t said a word.

“I’m not quite sure what this is about,” I hedge. “Is there a problem?”

He settles back in the executive leather chair, one elbow resting on the padded armchair, the other pushing through his hair.

“You tell me.” His hooded gaze trawls the length of me, trailing heat all the way down, all the way up again. “Do we have a problem, Miss Lynch?”

His eyes hook me, cold and grey with forbidden depths I doubt any living being has ever crossed into.

My knees soften and my throat is suddenly dry, which is the only reason my reply comes out husky. “No.”

I can’t help it.

This man is a wood-stoked fire and I am butter.

“Wrong answer.”

I suck in a deep breath. Purse my lips for fortitude. He hasn’t asked me to sit and I’m grateful. Hopefully this will be quick.

Again, the silence drags. He’s waiting for the right answer and, unfortunately, I have it.

I swallow past the dryness in my throat. “If this is about last night, then please accept my apology. I don’t know what came over me.”

“You don’t?”

Not another question. He’s calling me out on my lie. Well, yes, I do know, but that is none of his business.

“I don’t usually—”

“—pull your panties down to climb the corporate ladder?” he cuts in succinctly.

“What?”

That arrogant brow quirks. “I don’t expect you to admit to anything, Ms. Lynch, so let’s skip over the innocent protests to cover the ground rules.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Rocchi, but there’s been a huge misunderstanding.” My legs tremble, forcing me into the visitor chair he never offered. “Last night wasn’t… I wouldn’t…” I’m not a prude, but I draw the line at mentioning my panties to anyone I’m not on a first name basis with. “I didn’t even know who you were until this morning.”

“That’s one of the ground rules.” His head cocks, his jaw granite hard as he studies me. “I’m a reasonable man, but I tolerate lies even less than I tolerate women attempting to sleep their way to the top.”

“I’m not lying!” My hands ball into fists in my lap. Maybe I should eat his crap and walk out with my head hung low and my job intact, but I can’t. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t smear my name with your mistaken assumptions.”

“This isn’t a smear campaign.” A grin hooks his mouth, in complete contrast with the chilled look in his eyes. “Ground rule number two. My private life is just that. This discussion doesn’t leave this room.”

“This isn’t a discussion, it’s a witch hunt.” My chin nudges up. “I say I had no idea who you were and you say I’m lying. There’s no way to prove either side, so you’ll just drown me anyway.”

“Hmm.” He shifts forward and rotates the monitor on his desk to give us both a view. “Let’s see about that proof.”

His eyes drop to the keyboard as he begins to type.

My gaze strays to the way his hair slides over his cheek. His scent infuses the air between us, earthy and primal. But I’m not melting. I’m spitting mad.

“We can do this right here,” he drawls.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“I have a skeleton password.”

Never heard of it, but I can guess. I still don’t know what he intends to do with it, until my screensaver pops up on his screen. “You hacked into my computer?”

“I have access to all network accounts.” His gaze lifts briefly to mine.
Click. Click.

And then I do know.

He’s in my email, scrolling through pages of bold, unread messages, and I know what he’ll find before he finds it. The pale grey, obviously read, line of the internal memo glares at me from the screen.

He clicks on it to reveal the undisputable proof of his photo.

“I only saw that this morning.” I jump to my feet, too rattled to stay seated. “I can prove it. Dana opened that email. She’ll tell you.”

“You’re forgetting ground rule number two.” He closes the email program and logs out of my account.

His gaze lifts to me as he rises from the chair, rounds the desk.... I back up, not trusting the slow, leashed pace that brings him closer. I keep backing up, and he keeps coming.

“What are you doing?” I barely get the words out. I’ve hit the wall with nowhere left to go.

“You were so hot for me,” he drawls, pressing one hand to the wall beside my head, crowding me. “You were literally overcome. Or so you claim.”

His body is flush with mine, give or take an inch. The slab of his chest radiates heat. His scent is all over me, thickening the air with his intent.

My pulse is ragged.

My lips part.

I have to tilt my head up and up before I can look into his eyes, his stone cold eyes. “This is sexual harassment.”

His thumb lifts to me, grazing the line of my jaw. “This is just me, giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

The sexual potency in the way he looks into my eyes, into me, takes my breath away in a flutter of confusion.

“You turned me down,” I say weakly. This is all wrong. This isn’t lust; it’s his way of proving a point. “You’re not interested.”

“Last night, you were tipsy.” The hand grazing my jaw slides all the way around the back of my neck and grips with just enough force to keep my head turned up, my eyes locked to his.

His mouth lowers a fraction. “I prefer my women to be fully cognizant of what they’re asking for when I fuck them.”

The wave of desire crashes over me. Those panties I refused to mention are instantly damp. Every sense I possess is tuned onto his wide, firm mouth and I no longer care how wrong this is.

The hand at my nape releases, the back of his finger sliding down my throat, into the hollow of my collar bone, and his mouth lowers another fraction and it seems impossible that his lips aren’t on mine yet, but they aren’t.

“So prim,” he murmurs, raw and huskily. His exploring hand roams lower, undoing the buttons along the way with such practised ease, I barely notice until I feel my shirt fall open. “So proper.”

His gaze drops to my breasts.

He doesn’t touch.

Makes no move to slide aside the lacy trim of my bra.

He doesn’t need to.

That look touches my skin, whorls my nipples into hard, throbbing pebbles. That look threads through my blood, pulling my desire into a taut wire that’s about to snap.

He is so darkly beautiful, his face haunted with powerful secrets and hidden danger, and I can’t do it. I can’t stand here without touching him. I need to taste him. I need my hands all over him.

“Don’t.”

The order is softly spoken, and yet it is an order that somehow compels me to obey. My hand drops limply to my side before it comes anywhere near his chest. I rest the back of my head against the wall again. Inside, I’m a shaky mess. I’m not sure how I haven’t collapsed into a heap.

His gaze lifts, his eyes sink into mine, and I see the storm. His control is impeccable, but he isn’t unaffected.

And then I feel it without a glimpse of warning in his gaze.

He is touching me.

His hand slips beneath my skirt, sliding up my sensitive, inner thigh. Hot shivers tingle my skin and seep bone deep. I bite down on my lip with a small cry as his fingers work an agonising slow trail higher and higher.

He’s not going to kiss me. I’ve realised this. His other hand is still pressed to the wall. He’s not going to need it.

His palm wedges where the fullness of my upper thighs press together. His head dips slightly as he arches a brow.

His eyes never leave mine, and I can’t look away and I can’t say no.

I shift my feet, parting my thighs to give him access and he takes it. He pushes the strip of cotton aside and a finger presses inside me, not deep, just enough to dip into my wetness.

My entire world is scraped bare.

There is only the storm in his eyes, the finger dragging my own juices along the slit of my core, the clenching pulse of my building orgasm…

His finger falls away, taking the pressure and heated friction with it.

“I concede,” he says softly. “You definitely are hot for me. Of course, that truth doesn’t dispel the lie.”