Authors: Red Garnier
Bared by Him
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Contents
Chapter One
When you’re looking for mercy and a helping hand—and if you have even half a brain—you
should know better than to ask the devil. And yet sometimes, when God was busy, Ivy
Summers had found out that bargaining with the devil was the only other choice.
She peered out from her hiding place and kept a vigilant watch on the three sets of
elevator doors, disappointed that not one of them had opened in the last half hour.
Obviously, the “devil” wasn’t a morning person.
In fact, she’d been told repeatedly by his assistant that the bastard would not even
see her, and that he had no interest in donating anything to anyone, much less her
foundation. What a
dick.
Ivy, however, was determined not to let his assholian personality deter her plans.
She’d figured that if she got into his office before everyone else did, then he would
have no other choice but to hear what she had to say—and it was
a lot
.
Therefore, earlier today, at six a.m. sharp, she’d strode into the striking marble
lobby of the CONLO Corporation office building, every inch of her body focused on
acting like she belonged here.
When the two guards lifted their heads to inquire about her identification, she’d
merely waved and walked past, all while pretending to speak to someone about a consumer
loan—the gist of CONLO’s business—on her cell phone. Thankfully, they’d backed off,
and she’d managed to disappear into the elevators with a frantically pounding heart.
She still couldn’t believe she’d gotten away with that first bit. Now, over two hours
later, she pretended to survey her manila folder while reclining on the glass doors—tightly
locked
glass doors—that led into the top offices. The locked doors meant Ivy would have
to gain access by tagging along with the first unsuspecting executive.
God, she really hoped it was not “him.”
We’ve tried. The guy won’t see us,
the other volunteers at the foundation had warned her.
I’ll find a way to goad his secretary,
Ivy had assured them.
We need more donations and we need them to be big ones.
Ivy, let’s find someone else. It’s impossible with him. The guy’s a billionaire now.
He’s as powerful as Zeus but has the disposition of Hades, and the last time I saw
him I almost peed in my pants, he’s so scary. He’s not going to help, even for his
wife.
Trust me. He will,
Ivy had assured them.
All her friends were terrified of Cade West, but what they didn’t know, and what Ivy
didn’t tell them, was that she’d seen this man a decade before. He probably didn’t
remember her, but Ivy would never in her life forget him.
Ivy’s mother had been treated in the same hospital as Cade West’s wife had, and the
day the latter had passed, Ivy had been visiting. How could
anyone
forget the sight of him that day?
Dark and sexy as a pirate, he’d always been a mysterious, alluring presence even the
nurses whispered about. But on that day, he’d been … broken. Ivy would never forget
seeing his enormous presence, all compacted and hunched in a tiny waiting-room chair.
His dark head had been hung low, his face buried in a pair of hands that were broad
and tanned and made you ache to be touched by them. His dark designer jacket stretched
with each of his breaths, and he was breathing fast,
so
fast.
Ivy had been heading back to college when she spotted him. It wasn’t the first time
she’d seen him around, but it was the first time she could allow herself to stare.
What she saw made all the blood pool low and hot inside her belly.
She’d drunk in every awesome inch of his muscled frame, muscles that looked tense
and coiled in pain, and little by little, her heart had shattered with his.
Pulled by a force beyond anything she’d ever experienced before, she’d headed over,
twenty years old and still not very wise in the ways of the world. He seemed to sense
her gaze. Before she could even reach him, he lifted his head and looked straight
at her with red-rimmed eyes that were on fire with emotion.
And he spoke.
What the devil are you looking at, Barbie doll? Don’t you have a Ken to go screw?
God, he’d been so angry that Ivy had rushed away—something she was determined not
to do this time around.
Ten years might have tempered his anger. Or, ten years might have been the perfect
recipe for it to fester and ferment until it boiled over and swallowed every last
ounce of good in him.
The other volunteers assured her it was the latter. Which wasn’t thrilling to hear.
But Ivy’s only chance of landing a big donation lay with a powerful corporation, and
who else could
truly
understand what her foundation was trying to do better than someone who’d lived it,
like Cade West had?
When a group of suits finally burst out of the elevators at nine a.m., Ivy realized
with mounting dread that she was about to find out for sure.
With one quick, steadying breath, she blended into the group as a card was swiped
and the glass doors swung wide open.
Ivy recognized his backside instantly. First, because the other men seemed to wait
for him to pass before anyone else, and no one seemed in a hurry to catch up with
him. Second, because he towered over them all, his hair dark as sable, sharply contrasting
with his snowy white shirt collar.
Coming up behind him while still being careful not to walk too close, Ivy soon realized
she wouldn’t have been able to catch up even if she tried. He walked like a born leader,
with long, sure strides that ate up the floor beneath him, and he was barking at someone
on his cell phone.
Boy, the man gave “moody” a whole other meaning.
She smoothed her hands down her buttoned blouse and skirt as he disappeared into the
office at the end of the hall. She briskly stopped and had to improvise, so she turned
to stupidly survey the leaf of a potted plant to her right.
Her nerves began to chomp her to bits as she gave him a minute to get settled. It
really didn’t matter how she accomplished her goal. A hundred and twenty new local
diagnoses had been made this week—and without treatment, most of these women didn’t
stand a chance.
Ivy wasn’t going to have it.
With one last pull of air, she quickly straightened and rapped on his open office
door. As she waited for an answer, she noticed an elderly woman who just might be
his personal assistant hurrying in her direction, and Ivy was spurred to action.
She took a quick step into the massive office and shut the double doors behind her,
spotting him behind his desk, still growling into his cell phone.
It was like she’d just locked herself in a cage with a wild panther.
Her heart stuttered under all that testosterone in the air, and then her lungs all
but stopped working. Holy mother of God. The word “handsome” was far too tame for
this man. In ten years, Cade West had become so much … more. More everything. More
dark. More broad. More
man.
He was all sex. So raw. Like a live wire. An exposed nerve.
And suddenly, with his dark black jacket and silver tie, behind that enormous desk,
with the city as background behind him, he looked as intimidating as the grim reaper
to her. Her pulse went crazy as she forced herself to stretch out a hand in greeting.
He hung up his cell phone, his stare strangely vacant when he looked directly at her
from behind his desk. “My answer is no.”
“Excuse me?” His eyes—a very pale gray that made his pupils seem blacker than normal—struck
her with piercing force. Surprised by the weakness in her knees, Ivy lowered her arm
and slowly took a chair across from his desk, disappointed to discover he was
still
a dickhead. “But, sir, I haven’t yet told you what I’m here for.”
“My answer is no. There’s the door.”
Her startled gaze slid down the length of his long, blunt finger and to where it pointed,
then she returned her attention to his impassive face, now bent to survey an open
folder.
She dragged in a shaky breath and racked her brain for her usual opening. “Mr. West,
I’m here on behalf of the Lincoln Heights Breast Cancer Foundation. We’re a fully
volunteer, nonprofit organization aiming to facilitate early detection and prevention
of breast cancer as well as prompt treatment to those with the diagnosis.”
His broad, jacket-clad shoulders had stiffened as soon as the word “cancer” had come
out of her mouth, but his attention remained on his file.
“Mr. West, we could do so much with your donation. There are so many women fighting
this disease—”
“It’s their fight. It’s no longer mine.”
Alarmed at the lack of emotion in his voice, Ivy fumbled to recapture her train of
thought. “But, you see, your wife isn’t the only victim of this—”
His head shot up, and his voice dropped to an awfully threatening whisper. “Don’t
you dare talk about her. Don’t you dare.”
Ivy’s heart stopped. Fear curled inside her stomach at his tone, the beginnings of
life in his eyes. But what stirred to life wasn’t merry or even welcome. It was anger.
A whole shitload of it.
She tried to keep her voice soft, but she was utterly confused when she felt the same
urge she’d felt ten years ago when she’d seen him in the hospital. She wanted to …
she didn’t even
know,
but she curled her fingers into her palms. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. West.”
“You have no idea what I lost.”
There was something both pained and sexual in the way he looked at her, the way he
pinned her down on the spot with that colorless gray gaze, like a predator pinned
its prey, or its mate, so he could fuck her. Her body responded to the unspoken need
in his eyes, and she found that she could barely get any words past her dry throat.
“People lose their loved ones every day to this disease. You could save lives with
whatever you could give. Any donation is most welcome.”
The mask of impassiveness had completely fallen off his face, and the look he now
gave her was utterly savage. Anger and pain twisted his expression until Ivy’s insides
hurt just witnessing his torment. “It’s bullshit,” he said, his lips curling into
a sneer. “Everything. It doesn’t
work
. Chemo, operations, radiation, prayers. When your number comes up you better just
hold on tight and pray it takes you fast. Save yourself a lot of fucking misery. Now
there’s the damned door—and I’d take it as a personal favor if you walked your ass
right through it.”
Ivy stiffened in her seat.
If the man had just physically assaulted her, she wouldn’t have felt more personally
affronted than she felt this very second by his callous words. She didn’t even know
how to respond to him. Never in her life had she met someone so lacking in mercy before—especially
when talking about
cancer
.
Ivy clenched her teeth and stared unseeingly down at her lap, unable to look at him.
His words had ripped something open inside her and she was sure that any second now,
her anger would turn into something far, far less manageable.
Her mother’s smiling face flickered before her. Her friends’ hopeful faces, and their
shattered ones when they found out they had it. She thought of all the people she’d
tried to help, and how she would never, ever, repeat this man’s words to any of them.
