The Billionaire's Disgraced Virgin (Billionaire Knights Book 2) (10 page)

BOOK: The Billionaire's Disgraced Virgin (Billionaire Knights Book 2)
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He’d said the wrong thing, he saw, for her brows knitted together and she told him, injecting as much ice into her words as he had in his, “You’re right. It is none of your business.”

“Let me correct myself then: it is my business. It is my business when the people who work for me can’t function properly because their love life is getting in the way. It is my business when my number one accountant has trouble focusing on the issues at hand because her ex-lover keeps popping up. And if it isn’t my business I’m making it my business.”

The cold hauteur with which she was looking at him was a distinct change from the warm compassion of before, but he didn’t care if his words rankled. Some things simply needed to be said. The fact that a flash of jealous rage had torn through him the moment he’d recognized the name on the phone display had nothing to do with that. His social obligations as an employer had. So he grabbed her phone from the table, drew his throwing arm back and hurled the device deftly and with perfect aim into the pond.

Chloe was aghast. “My phone!” she cried, utterly dismayed. But she didn’t have time to try and salvage it, for Mike was dragging her to her feet, placing his hand on the small of her back, and propelling her into the bar proper.

“Breakfast is over,” was his terse comment.

On the way back to the castle she kept a dignified silence. When he’d asked her how her parents would have felt about Dixon she had come very close to revealing the truth. She’d felt her heart pound desperately against the wall of her chest, yearning to tell him about Lewis and his threats, but she simply couldn’t.

She couldn’t risk losing what little affection Mike felt for her over the mistakes of her past. Her parents had been as abhorred and horrified by Lewis as she was herself. They’d pleaded with the man, but all he’d done was offer them the waiver she’d signed, and refer them to his lawyer. She would have liked to think that Mike had given her that stern lecture because he’d felt jealous. And that he’d thrown her phone into the pond because he wanted her all to himself, and wanted to erase Lewis from her life as much as she did.

But she knew that was simply wishful thinking. The stuff of fairy tales.

The great Michael Knight, business tycoon extraordinaire, didn’t love her.

Men like Mike didn’t even like women like her. They fell for sophisticated women in the Eileen Holmes vein, not for frumpy, emotionally damaged, tongue-tied accountants like her. He cared for her, perhaps, like a good employer cares for his people. Perhaps even felt sorry for her. He’d said so himself. It was his business to make sure that the people who worked for him performed at the top of their game. That was all this was. Tough love in lieu of a motivational speech.

Dejected and saddened, she shrank in her seat, and all the way back to the castle stared out at the surrounding landscape with unseeing eyes. She didn’t even notice the first clouds drawing in overhead, nor the first drops of rain pelting the windscreen and Mike’s imprecation as he turned the top up so they wouldn’t be soaked. And as they drove on in the relentlessly driving rain of a real deluge, her mood mimicked the weather and so did her future prospects.

Chapter 17

M
ike had returned
the car to the carport but still, as they broke into a run for the main house, in the brief time they were exposed to the lashing summer storm they both managed to get soaked. Dashing inside, Mike cursed when he surveyed himself, his polo shirt clinging to his skin. Being so near him, in the hallway they’d raced to reach, Chloe felt her heartbeat pound a steady deafening drum as she caught sight of his powerful physique, clearly delineated beneath the shirt now stretched taut over brawny arms, muscular shoulders and a massive chest. He was all male all over, she noted as she saw the smattering of body hair covering his torso, and surreptitiously her fingers reached out to stroke into all that maleness. The rain brought out the scent of his masculinity, with just an elusive hint of cologne, and as her gaze dropped to the telltale bulge in his designer jeans, a shiver racked her. Oh, to experience all that burgeoning flesh under her tentative fingers, she thought, to have him hold her close, while their bodies joined in the ecstatic intimate dance, his flesh on hers.

But then she caught herself, and bit her lower lip in embarrassed shame. She had no business lusting after this man, especially since she knew exactly what he thought of her. A lovesick fool who still yearned for her old boyfriend. He couldn’t be further from the truth. But how to convince him Lewis was the last man in the world she’d be yearning for? Why would he care? He wouldn’t, she was sure. He was only looking out for the best interests of his staff, that was all.

Mike caught Chloe’s tentative look as they stood dripping water on the carpet, the storm outside doing its darnedest to whip the ancient castle walls and battlements. The sudden desire that swept through him at the sight of her bare breasts clearly visible beneath the rain-soaked blouse ripped at his self-restraint just as relentlessly as the storm lashed the house his ancestors had built. He’d noticed how her eyes had dropped down and settled on his nether regions and he wondered if this meant she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Surely that was impossible, and if it was, surely the only reason that look in her eyes could be construed as desire was to shake off the pernicious memory of her ex or current lover by replacing it with that of another man—any man.

As she was still panting from the short dash to the house, he watched with rising levels of arousal as her chest heaved and fell, her nipples hardening, no doubt from the driving ice-cold rain, the swell of her areolae where they rose from her breasts, the nipples hard as pebbles and pouting the soaked blouse.

The hardening of his own flesh was almost as painful as the notion her raging need could never be satiated by plunging himself into her desirous and welcoming sex. The only man she longed for was Dixon, not him. And he didn’t feel like settling for scraps while Dixon was treated to the gourmet feast.

Gruffly, he told her, “Better change into something dry before you catch pneumonia.”

And he led the way to the staircase that ran from the old servants’ quarters to the main part of the castle. Nowadays those quarters had all been turned into a series of salons and museum space housing a collection of paintings, artifacts and other paraphernalia gathered over a period of almost four hundred years.

With long strides he mounted the stairs two at a time, and Chloe had to scramble to keep up. She was dripping on the burgundy runner but Mike didn’t seem to mind. Even before they’d reached his suite he was unbuttoning his shirt, and there was a surge of heat as she watched him strip, revealing his bare torso.

He stepped inside the suite and she followed him unwittingly into his dressing room before she realized her faux pas. As he turned and quirked an inquisitive eyebrow she couldn’t help take in the full glory of his softly haired torso, the chiseled muscles of his chest, and the washboard contours of his stomach muscles. The man was built to Michelangelo’s personal blueprints! When she realized she’d been caught staring, she closed her mouth, her pearly white teeth clicking together and her blue eyes guiltily rising to meet his grays.

“I—I will, um, I’ll just go and change, then,” she stuttered, cheeks flushing.

“Unless you want to accompany me in the shower?” he asked mockingly.

The notion of stepping into the wet room with Mike had a flash of heat flaring inside her lower belly, and she was aware of how wet she suddenly was, and not merely where she was wearing her garments. She practically stumbled back, however, correctly surmising that his ‘invitation’ had merely been a taunt.

She stammered, “I’ll—I’ll be in there then.”

And then she was half stumbling, half walking to her part of the suite, into the safety of her own dressing room, where she quickly freed herself from her wet clothes. Oh, God, she’d gone and made a complete fool of herself all over again, hadn’t she? When would she stop allowing her outrageous attraction to this man to dominate her life? He must surely think she was a pitiful creature, she decided with an exasperated shake of the head.

When she’d finally managed to strip off the garments, and had enjoyed a refreshing shower, she remembered what Mike had said about the celebration dinner, and wondered what dress she should select for the occasion. Now she wished she hadn’t abandoned that black dress, for as far as she could tell she was all out of evening wear.

She’d noticed yesterday that Maria had unpacked the Harvey Nichols bags and placed the items in the dressing room, removing Mike’s to make space for hers. She hadn’t had time to subject her haul to a closer scrutiny, though. Yesterday she’d quickly rummaged through them to assemble her wardrobe, but now decided to survey the rest of the collection, hoping perhaps she’d missed something and there was a nugget of gold hidden in the lot.

She was extremely surprised, therefore, when she discovered that the little black dress was hanging on a clothes hanger in the closet! Her hand flew to her face as she suppressed a surprised gasp, eyes wide as saucers. Mike must have given instructions to the salespeople to pack it up regardless of her objections!

But why? Why would he want her to wear a dress so obviously provocative? She’d witnessed firsthand the effect the dress had on members of the male persuasion, and didn’t doubt that Mike had wanted her to wear it at tonight’s feast from the start. She shook her head, making short shrift of any speculation. Mike had simply wanted her to dress to impress Holmes, of course, hoping it would mellow the man’s mood and induce him to sign the best deal possible.

A fresh surge of guilt swamped her. While Mike was buying her these gorgeous dresses she’d been plotting against him, making sure that he would get the worst deal possible, and Holmes the best. Once more she told herself she should tell him the truth, no matter the consequences, and once more she knew she simply couldn’t.

She surveyed the dress, letting her fingers caress the whispering fabric. It truly was a magnificent piece. She just hoped she would be able to do it justice.

As Mike stood under the heated spray of the shower he cursed himself for the betrayal his body was mounting. For the first time in his life he was on the verge of losing control. His body, which seemed to have developed an agenda of its own, had been on the point of reaching out and pulling Chloe into the circle of his arms, his lips finding hers while his hands framed her buttocks, molding her against him. His suggestion that she join him in the shower had only been half in jest, as at that moment there’d been nothing he’d wanted more than to undress her slowly, his eyes and fingers acquainting themselves with every inch of her body before loving her languorously, taking his time to savor every part of her before taking her and making her his and his alone. He wanted to wipe that Lewis Dixon from her mind and body forever, branding her as his own.

Craziness, he knew. Simple folly. When had he ever been content with another man’s rejects? When had he ever been the rebound guy? Never, until his body had developed this sudden mutinous streak and had started working against him, openly challenging his dominion over himself and his sexuality.

He wanted Chloe, he thought as he switched the shower to ice cold and grunted as the punishing spray strafed him. Yes, he wanted her, there was no doubt about it. In his bed and in his life. Her every single pore breathed and lived eroticism, and she didn’t even know it. She wasn’t even aware of how much she turned him on. The dowdy girl, safely tucked away in his accounting department, had turned out to be a sexual vixen who would be the death of him.

He cursed as he turned his face up to the spray, the ice water pummeling him until his nerve endings were numb enough that he trusted himself not to jump her bones the minute he stepped from the shower.

No good, he discovered ruefully as he toweled himself. His hard arousal was still very much in evidence, countermanding a direct order from its owner.

Christ, only one more night. And then he would never have to see her again. Now why was that prospect making him feel as if someone had just knocked him for a loop? Why this sudden bereavement and sense of utter loss? Could it be that he was starting to have feelings for her? Of course not, he laughed away the outrageous notion. Mike Knight didn’t establish an emotional relationship with a woman. He’d learned firsthand what becoming emotionally involved meant, when first his own mother had left them by succumbing to that wasting disease, and then his father, victim to debauchery.

No, he thought as he picked a Dolce & Gabbana shirt from the rack. He didn’t do romance and he didn’t do relationships. Not even when his whole body was practically bursting at the seams to lay claim to Chloe, his own lovely torment.

Chapter 18

M
ike was seated
at the table next to his brother Stuart and Stuart’s lovely wife Kirsty. Assorted relatives, associates, and members of Knight’s management team were also present, while across the room a large Press Corp delegation was in attendance. He checked his watch. The only person who hadn’t put in an appearance was Chloe. What the hell was taking her so long?

“Expecting someone?” Stuart asked.

“Yeah, my accountant,” he rumbled. “She’s late.”

Stuart arched an eyebrow. “Your accountant? This is the first time you’re anxious because your accountant is late, Mike. Anything you wanna tell me?”

He ignored the hidden barb, and told his brother, “I asked her to take one last look at the contracts. I’m hoping she didn’t find any last minute hurdles.”

“Last minute hurdles. Is that what you kids call it nowadays?” he quipped.

He slashed his brother a forbidding look. But when he saw the quirking of Stuart’s lips he merely shook his head. He and his two brothers had grown up a tight team. They’d had to, with becoming motherless at such a young age and their father publicly going off the rails. Stu, the eldest, had taken them under his wing and had provided them with much-needed support when they needed it.

“Let me put it this way,” Stu continued, picking up his wine glass. “Is there a woman in the life of Mike Knight, notoriously staunch bachelor?”

“No, there is not,” he growled irritably, and saw that Stu and Kirsty were exchanging knowing glances. He shook his head. He was glad to see that Stu had found love in Kirsty’s arms, but he’d always known that that kind of thing wasn’t in the cards for him. Even though their grandfather had admonished them to marry wisely and choose a wife who would be a boon to the family he’d vowed that he would go the old man one better and simply never hook up at all.

“How are things at the company?” he asked Stu, his eyes apparently having developed a mind of their own and swiveling to the door to check on Chloe.

“You’ve only been gone two days, Mike. Things are fine,” Stu told him.

“And what about Steve? Any word from him?”

This time Stu’s face hardened. “Not a word. Not a damn word in a month.”

“Have you given any more thought to the idea of sending a trained caregiver out there?” Kirsty wanted to know. She’d been following the conversation and, like them, was extremely worried about Steve. It had actually been her idea to find someone who could help nurse him back to health. A trained professional.

“Trouble is finding someone crazy enough to want to go out there,” Stu grumbled. “The place isn’t exactly Club Med. It’s remote, desolate and unforgiving. Not to mention Steve will fight us on this tooth and nail. He won’t be rolling out the red carpet for whoever chooses to take the job.”

At that point Mike lost interest in the conversation, and he inadvertently dropped his fork. It clattered down on his plate. Chloe had just walked in, and she was wearing the black dress he’d first seen her in at Harvey Nichols. Christ, she looked even more gorgeous now than then. The effect was like a punch to the gut, his breath knocked from his lungs as he surveyed her head to foot. Her hair was falling loosely down her bare shoulders, her face aglow. The strapless dress showed off the soft globes of her breasts, a necklace adorning her alabaster skin. She looked like a princess, or a vision from his hottest, most erotic dream.

Next to him, Stu had fallen silent, like in fact the entire room had, all eyes now on Chloe. The men with relish and the women with a mixture of envy and admiration.

“Don’t tell me that is your accountant,” Stu demanded in low voice.

“Yes, that’s Chloe,” he responded in a slightly croaky voice.

“Mike is in trouble,” Kirsty said in a singsongy voice.

She was right. He was in trouble. And when he saw Chloe directing a hesitant glance at the Press Corp delegation and he saw the smirk on Dixon’s face his eyes narrowed into slits. Someone else would soon be in trouble, he thought viciously, his fingers automatically curling into tight fists.

“I hope your Chloe knows as much about numbers as about dresses, buddy,” Stu’s voice came.

“She’s not my Chloe,” he grated out.

No, she wasn’t, was she? She was Dixon’s, and for some reason that simple fact drove him to the edge of his sanity. But then she was crossing the room, her eyes on his, a smile lighting up her features, and he suddenly felt a definite weakening in the area of his stomach. The rest of him, however, was instantly rock-hard. Painfully so, in fact, especially as she drew closer and took a seat next to him, leaned into him, and whispered, “Thank you for the dress.”

The hint of perfume he caught added to his arousal, and for the rest of the meal much of his food was left untasted as he pondered how he, a staunch and self-declared bachelor, could feel this sudden, unwanted attraction to a woman who’d until a few days ago had been a complete stranger to him.

Soon the festive dinner ended, and he rose to address the gathering.

Chloe watched as Mike made a small speech to thank the delegates from Press Corp and his own team for the efforts they’d put in to make this deal come to fruition. When she’d entered the room she’d momentarily felt too nervous to cross its length, feeling all eyes on her, whether that was true or not. She’d made the mistake of catching Lewis’s eye, and saw the man’s vicious smirk. At that moment she’d almost turned around and run away, but she’d had the good sense to look at Mike instead, and knowing he was there had given her the strength to carry herself with a grace and poise she hadn’t even known she possessed.

The dress felt wonderful to wear, and had made her suddenly feel like a self-empowered woman, happy and secure in her own sensuous nature, and she knew she had Mike to thank for it. She would never have picked it, not just for its price but more importantly for the aura of sensuality it ostensibly displayed.

For five years she’d done everything in her power to fade into the background, to be the gray mouse nobody paid any attention to, and it had worked so well that she’d come to see herself that way: as an ugly, dowdy little thing whom men didn’t notice and women were only too happy to take into their confidence as she didn’t pose a threat.

Seeing the look on Mike’s face from the other side of this impromptu ballroom, however, she’d known he was proud of her, and consequently she was proud of herself for her ability to inspire a look of such heat onto a man’s face. If a man had looked at her before like Mike had looked at her tonight, she’d have flinched and gone into hiding. Now, however, she’d worn her head high, and had allowed Mike’s gaze to carry her through. Because she knew he wasn’t the kind of sleazeball until recently she’d thought all men were. She’d tarred the entire species with the same brush, until she met Mike, and everything changed.

Mike, even though he didn’t want her as his sexual partner, still appreciated her, she’d deduced from that look. And, more importantly, he would never hurt her. He was a decent man, an honorable man, a man she could love… Perhaps he was the man she did love, she suddenly realized on a suppressed gasp. And as she looked at him now, addressing the troops, she wondered when this had happened. When she’d let him into her heart, a heart she’d thought she’d closed off a long time ago, a heart which was now being wrenched open again, with irresistible force, by a man who could never possibly love her in return.

She was setting herself up for disaster and heartache again, she knew, but she couldn’t help it. And as a tear stole from her eye she dreaded the moment this weekend would be over, and she’d be compelled to return to the accounting department, to her desk at the back, and turn into that little gray mouse again.

Absently, she glanced at the phone Mike had given her to replace the one he’d hurled into the pond that morning. This one was inlaid with pearls, more like a cross between a gem and a cell phone. He’d told her it was hers to keep, as were the outfits he’d bought her. If only his love had been included, she thought wistfully, but that could never be.

The moment he’d given the sign for the music to start, Mike sought out Chloe. He was waylaid, however, by Holmes, who wanted to shake his hand and offer a toast to the future of their cooperation. “You will keep my little girl in play, won’t you, Mike?” the old man asked in his croaky voice. “Once I retire?”

“That’s part of the deal,” he said curtly. And one of the things he didn’t particularly like about it, he might have added. He didn’t think Eileen Holmes was up to the task of running a media empire. But if she failed to present results she could always be replaced, though he wasn’t going to tell her father that.

He saw Eileen approach him, and groaned inwardly. The only reason this woman kept at him, he knew, was because he was in a position to keep her enjoying the kind of lifestyle she’d become accustomed to, and in that sense she reminded him too much of the women his father had dated. He shook Roderick’s hand, excusing himself and narrowly escaping his daughter’s impositions.

Chloe watched Mike cozy up to Roderick and Eileen, and sighed deeply. Time to wake up from her dream, she thought. She wasn’t Cinderella and Prince Charming wasn’t going to come and dance with her tonight. Mike would probably hang out with the Holmes clan, and had already forgotten she even existed. And not feeling in the mood to be the wallflower tonight, she started making her way to the door, hoping to slip out unseen. Who was she kidding? Nobody cared about her here, and nobody would even know she’d gone.

And she’d just reached the door when a voice cut off her departure. “Care for a dance, Miss Ross?”

She whirled around, surprised to find Mike standing there, looking as debonair and handsome as ever, extending his hand. She glanced at it, wondering if this was really happening, then realized this could only end in heartache and pain. Still, she was compelled to give him a nod and take his hand. And as their fingers touched, electric current slashed away all her defenses and doubts, racing up her arms and electrifying her soul. Moments later they were on the dance floor, moving as one body. Mike had placed his hand low on her back and was pressing her closer to him, even as his eyes devoured her.

“I really like this dress,” he murmured into her ear. “I mean I really like it.”

She swallowed lightly, her eyes traveling down to his lips and taking in the fullness of his lower lip, remembering the heated kisses they’d shared and wondering if, before he disappeared from her life, he would kiss her one last time.

“Thank you,” she finally managed to whisper. “It is a lovely dress.”

“It does you justice. You’re quite the belle of the ball tonight, Chloe.”

Their close proximity was literally taking her breath away. Her chest was pressing into his, her breasts swelling at the touch, the sheer fabric of her dress drawing her sensitized nipples into aching peaks. She could see it in his eyes. He was going to kiss her. As if on cue, her lips parted of their own accord, and her lashes swept over her eyes, even as she swayed lightly in his arms, his scent and presence overpowering her every single compunction to be kissed by him.

“Not here,” his voice breathed in her ear. “Come.”

And then he took her by the hand and led her away from the dance floor. She saw they were the only couple dancing, all eyes on them, and mortification almost made her stumble, her cheeks flaming when she realized she’d almost kissed the big boss in front of the entire Knight management team, her own supervisor and… Dixon, who sat staring at her, his smirk for once tucked away and replaced by a displeased scowl. Did he think she was going to give him away? Reveal her own betrayal? She knew she couldn’t. Not if she didn’t want to drive Mike away for good.

After tonight, however, she realized she could never be that little gray mouse again, not if it meant working for the man she was betraying. Come Monday she would tender her resignation and disappear. Lewis Dixon would never be able to blackmail her again. And she would never see Mike again either, she thought as the notion hurt so much she almost felt sick to the stomach. But let her have this one last night, she begged. One night with Mike, and she would never ask for more. She would leave knowing that at least once in her life she’d loved a man and he had loved her back. Even if only for one single night.

BOOK: The Billionaire's Disgraced Virgin (Billionaire Knights Book 2)
6.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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