her hairline. ‘Maggie…’
Paralysis gripped her. ‘I…can’t.’
‘Maggie. Say it.’
She felt as though she’d been drugged, her limbs heavy, blood flowing thick and slow through her veins. His head was bending, drawing closer…he was going to kiss her. Weakly, she brought her hands up between them.
‘Caleb.’ It came out huskily, much like a lover would say it. And, in saying it, she knew why it had been so hard. She’d stepped over the line completely. She was his now. How could such an innocuous moment feel so full of meaning?
He stopped and straightened slowly. ‘There…now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’
God. She had only been in his office less than five minutes and already she was being reduced to a gibbering wreck. She had to get a grip. Had to play the part she’d planned. The only way she knew how to protect herself.
She moved briskly away, dislodging his hand, and searched her mind for something, anything, to deflect his intense focus. She seized on the first thing and whirled around, a bright forced smile on her face. ‘Clothes!’
‘What about them?’ Caleb was very watchful, arms crossed. He couldn’t figure it; in the space of a split second she’d gone from blushing just saying his name to clothes? One thing he knew for certain—he couldn’t trust her an inch. She was up to something. And, from what he knew of women, that something always amounted to something financial.
Maggie twirled a lock of hair around one finger, something she normally did out of unconscious habit but this time contrived to look as coquettish as possible. ‘Well, I expect you’ll want me to look my best…and I’ve left all those sorts of clothes in London…so unless you like this casual look…’ She gestured disdainfully at her chain store outfit. She hated this. It went against every sensibility she had to ask for anything, but she wanted him to think the worst.
Her abrupt volte-face jarred with him but then a world-weariness seeped into his bones. She was just like all the others. No different. But then he’d hardly expected her to be different, had he? And he didn’t want her in some other man’s cast-offs. The very thought made his fists curl. She was his now. She would dress for his pleasure—no one else’s.
‘Just tell me where and I’ll set up an account—you can go this afternoon. I have to go to Monte Carlo for two days tomorrow—something that’s just come up—so you can come too. I presume your passport is in order?’
Maggie blanched, her sham of confidence abruptly shaken, and nodded dumbly, taking in the rapid-fire delivery. Monte Carlo? She really was in another world now…
Caleb had moved back to his desk and was picking up the phone, looking at her expectantly, impatiently. Maggie furiously tried to remember his question and mentioned the double-barrelled name of an exclusive store nearby—somewhere she’d never normally go.
After a quick, brusque conversation it was done. Caleb stood and came around to Maggie, tilting her face to his with long fingers. ‘Stay away from the cheap tarty stuff, if you can. I don’t want a repeat performance of that dinner, where I had to endure every man in the room tripping over himself to get a look at your…’ he flicked a glance down to her chest ‘…assets.’
She burned with humiliation at his mention of the dress her stepfather had forced her to wear. A memory rushed back. Tom Holland’s mottled, angry red face in hers.
‘You can wear this or go naked. If you don’t…you’ll be responsible for what’s going to happen to your mother.’
Maggie willed the image away and clenched her jaw against Caleb’s hand.
‘I’ll do my best. But I still have the dress, so I might just surprise you.’
The look on his face was chilling. ‘Do that and I’ll rip it off and dress you myself. Don’t play games with me. You won’t win.’
A finger of fear clutched at her throat. She didn’t know what had made her want to provoke him just then. Of course she didn’t still have the dress; it had been relegated to a bin that awful night. She would have burned it if she could.
Finally he released her. She went on wobbly legs to the door. Just as she was about to leave, he called her name. She turned around reluctantly.
‘I can use my own car later, so my driver will pick you up when you’re done with shopping and bring you to the apartment. Where’s your luggage?’
‘It…it’s in my car. I’ll have to pick it up anyway so I can drive to the apartment.’
He shrugged and gave her the address, which she committed to memory. She knew where it was, an exclusive building nearby in the city centre. Then she fled.
Early that evening Maggie pulled into the only parking space left outside the apartment building. The back of her tiny car was piled high with bags. Despite having had a wicked desire to buy nothing but trashy clothes or exorbitant designer outfits…she just couldn’t. She was hardwired a certain way and had ended up getting exactly what she thought she needed and might be required to wear to various functions. She had enough knowledge of Caleb’s world from her days in London and the various social occasions Tom had forced her to attend—again all in the name of his precious bogus family solidarity.
The concierge had been informed of her arrival and gave her a key before telling her he’d follow her up with the bags. Maggie couldn’t stop the unwelcome train of her thoughts as she rode up in the lift—Caleb’s catastrophic arrival back into her life was a bitter catalyst precipitating unhappy memories.
She had grown up seeing Tom Holland do his worst to everyone around him—wheeling, dealing, wrecking lives. She had come to hate that world and what he represented. In a way she knew that was one reason why she’d chosen art college—apart from having a unique gift inherited from her father, it had made Tom apoplectic with rage.
She had always avoided him and his cronies like the plague…until those two weeks six months ago. It was only for her mother, otherwise she wouldn’t have had anything to do with helping Holland host two weeks of intense meetings and negotiations in his own house. Caleb Cameron had been the guest of honour, invited under the guise of sharing information with some of the world’s best financial minds. When all along Tom had planned it in order to get Caleb close…close enough to bring him down.
Maggie had walked straight into the lion’s den when she’d seen Caleb for the first time and had fallen head over heels. Not like Tom’s usual associates, he’d stood out immediately. Physically and intellectually. And, she’d thought—morally. But how wrong that naïve notion had been. He’d been the same as Tom all along, the same beast in different clothes. But that hadn’t stopped the intense attraction flaring.
Unfortunately, Tom had also been aware of the spark that had erupted between them and, with evil cunning, had manipulated events to make sure they were thrown together at every opportunity, all designed to culminate in that night.
The lift doors opened abruptly, ending her intense reverie. She shook herself out of dwelling on the past. She had to think of the future now, surviving for the next eight weeks and then putting as much space between her and Caleb Cameron as possible. She entered the apartment cautiously, walking in and out of the rooms as though they might bite. Nothing but the best, of course, for the city’s most venerated guest.
Maggie
