Her eyes weren’t just brown, they were the color of a deep, rich brandy. The kind that sat in your gut like a hot coal, warming you, and yet burned like fuck on the way down.
They were burning now, full of gold fire, the calm, steady mask she’d been wearing slipping for a second.
So she did have a line. She could be pushed. And there was something else beneath that smooth, not-a-hair-out-of-place exterior of hers. Something like . . . fire.
It made a savage smile twist his mouth, and he kept his fingers wrapped around her wrist, because he knew that somehow his touch was disturbing her, could feel it in the way her arm had gotten all tense the moment he’d grabbed her. The way her whole body had stiffened up, her eyes widening.
Her skin was warm, and he could feel her heartbeat against his fingertips, could feel it get faster and faster. The pulse at the base of her pale throat was fast, too, and he had a sudden, intense urge to put his mouth there and taste it.
Phoebe swallowed and looked away from him, her lashes veiling her gaze. “Please let me go, Mr. de Santis.” The edge had gone from her voice.
He ignored her. “Of course, it’s my business. Anything that might potentially affect my employee’s ability to do her job is my fucking business.”
She’d relaxed in his grip, but not totally. He could still feel the tension in her arm and the quick beat of her heart against his fingers. “I assure you that paying for Charles’s medical care will not affect my ability to do my job, not in any way. In fact, it’ll make me more likely to do a good job.”
Nero had never denied himself anything he wanted. Not after ten years of being denied virtually everything, even the most basic of things such as food. Warmth. Human company. Oh, he’d had enough to keep him alive, but only barely.
Back then his needs had been simple. He would have sold his soul for an apple or a thicker blanket in winter. For more than a day or two here and there of his mother’s company. But one of the few blessings of that existence had been the fact that he hadn’t known what he was missing. Only the taste of apples. Warmth. The sound of his mother’s voice saying his name. He hadn’t known there had been anything else out there until the police had broken down the boards covering the door and found him, the dirty little secret hidden in the walls.
It hadn’t been until then that he’d found out. Oh, yes, then he’d discovered all the things that had been kept from him.
Slowly, Nero tugged on her wrist, pulling her closer. Because something about her was fascinating him and he wanted to study her. Because her skin was so very warm and soft, and that sweet, jasmine scent was intriguing.
Because he wanted what he wanted, and his days of denial were behind him.
Phoebe’s eyes widened in surprise and he could feel her resistance, but he ignored it, exerting a bit more strength, urging her right up close so they were inches apart. Her mouth had opened, and he found his attention caught by the shape of it, the rounded softness of her lower lip, so at odds with the sharpness of the rest of her features.
“Mr. de Santis?” Her voice had gone breathy, the crispness of her accent blurring around the edges. “What are you doing?”
Jesus Christ, how long had it been since he’d had a woman in his bed? A couple of weeks at least. Maybe he should have her. He certainly wouldn’t be averse, even though she wasn’t his type. Her skin was very pretty, and her hair was a glory. Her eyes, too, that intoxicating shade of brandy, and if anger could make them glow gold the way they were doing right now, then what might pleasure do to them?
With her hair down and her clothes off, looking at him with that same flare of challenge, her scent gone all musky with feminine desire, she would be . . . beautiful.
Lust caught him, heavy and hard, like a punch to the gut.
He didn’t sleep with his female assistants anymore, not when he wanted a good job done more than he wanted a good blow job.
But he was beginning to wonder if he mightn’t make an exception for Miss Phoebe Taylor. Having her for a night or two might even be worth the undeniable hassle of trying to find a new assistant afterward.
“Mr. de Santis,” Phoebe repeated, firmer this time and yet with that same breathless quality to her voice. “You need to let me go.”
“No,” Nero said.
She blinked. “Look, I don’t think—”
“Keep quiet.” He stared down into her face, watching, fascinated, as a tide of pink flooded her skin. It should have clashed horribly with her hair, but it didn’t. It made her face glow instead, taking away her usual pallor, revealing almost a different woman.
An almost pretty woman.
His anger and frustration at the lead he’d lost slid away, desire flooding through him instead. Yeah, this was what he needed. The warmth and softness of a woman, not running himself to death on that stupid fucking treadmill.
His grip on her wrist tightened as he pulled her abruptly against him, wanting to know how her body would feel against his. And sure enough, as he’d expected, it felt pretty fucking good. She was as warm as he’d thought, warmer. Hot, in fact. Like a flame licking his skin. It made him want to—
Phoebe’s palm cracked hard across his face, the shocking suddenness of it making him loosen his grip on her wrist and stumble back a couple of steps.
Holy shit. She’d hit him. She’d fucking slapped him. When had anyone ever done that to him? Not since the time he’d paid that boxer to come to the gym and teach him how to box. The guy had managed to land lots of hits the first round, and then Nero had learned. And after that, the guy hadn’t managed to touch him, not once. No one had.
Not until this little woman—his own fucking employee for Christ’s sake—had slapped him across the face.
For a moment, the electric shock of it held him absolutely still.
Her face was suffused with color, her hand raised, her eyes gone brilliant gold with rage. “How dare you.” Her voice was shaking and furious. “Touch me again, and I’ll kick you in the bollocks.”
If she had been a man, he wouldn’t have thought twice. He would have punched him in the face and laid him out cold on the floor for daring to raise a hand to him. No one hit him unless he’d asked for it. No one hit him ever.
But she wasn’t a man. She was a woman. And a woman he wanted at that. And she was standing there, blazing like a fire, her anger hot as a furnace, ready to come at him, completely unafraid.
Jesus. He didn’t want to hit her. He wanted to fuck her. Right here, right now, and screw the fact that she was his assistant. Screw everything, quite frankly.
He took a step toward her.
“Come any closer and I’ll kick you, I swear it.” She squared her shoulders, her hands lowering to curl into fists by her side, making it clear she was fully ready to make good on her threat. And she would, he could see that.
It made him want to see her try.
He took another step.
Her chin came up, her gaze full of brilliant gold flames. “You don’t want me, Mr. de Santis. You just want a woman. So why don’t I get you one? I can have her here within half an hour, if you give me a moment.”
Nero ignored her, adrenaline and lust pumping hard through his veins, coming closer. If she kicked him, he’d grab her ankle and tip her off balance. She’d fall and he’d catch her in his arms, and then he’d take her to the floor. Pull up that ridiculously prim little pencil skirt, find out how hot she was. How wet.
“I’m sure you’d prefer a woman who’d enjoy being with you to one who wouldn’t,” Phoebe continued, annoyingly. “And I’m sure you’d get tired of me continually trying to knee you in the groin.”
“I could make you enjoy it,” he growled, not stopping, prowling closer to her. “I know how to make a woman wet, believe me.”
Her shoulders firmed, her fist lifting again, ready no doubt to launch itself into his face again. “Mr. de Santis, if you touch me like that again, I’ll call the police. And then you’d be arrested. And they’d take you out of this house and put you in a cell.”
An icy thread of something he didn’t recognize pulled tight inside him, stopping him in his tracks.
Take you out of this house. Put you in a cell . . .
He shoved away the feeling. “If you did that, you wouldn’t get the money I’m paying you,” he said roughly.
“And you’d still be a jail cell.” That maddening red-gold brow of hers arched again. “Are you sure you want that?”
The icy thread pulled even tighter.
Fuck, he didn’t know whether to be furious with her or applaud her sheer audacity. It was very, very rare for someone to take him on and win, still less an employee who apparently didn’t know what side her bread was buttered on.
Because there was no denying that as much as he hated to admit it, Phoebe had won this round. He didn’t want to be put in a jail cell, that was for sure. It would make it very hard for him to do business or follow up on the search for his stepfather, for a start. Of course, that was if the police even believed her if she was to call them.
He stood there for a moment, debating whether or not to call her bluff and force the issue, ignoring that small kernel of ice that sat in his gut at the thought of being dragged from his house and being locked up in a cell.
The room he’d been kept in wasn’t very big. Five paces wide and six long, and it had a small window that looked out over the roofs of the houses around him. He knew every inch of that room, had walked up and down it a million times a day, the walls the borders of his world. When he’d been very small, the walls had made him feel safe. But when he’d gotten bigger, sometimes he’d stand by that window for hours at a time, dreaming of being a bird and being able to fly away, right up into the sky . . .
Something caught in his chest, and it felt like he was being slowly but surely squeezed in a vice, all the air escaping, and he couldn’t get a breath because of the pressure on his lungs.
Shit. He hadn’t felt like this for goddamn years.
Turning abruptly away from her, Nero strode toward the door of the gym, heading automatically for the place where he felt the most strong, the most calm, his control room
“Mr. de Santis?” Phoebe’s voice was laced with surprise.
“Get me a woman for tonight then,” he growled without turning around. “In fact, get me two.”
Then he went through the door and slammed it shut behind him.
* * *
Phoebe stared at the closed door of the gym, one hand still raised in a fist, ready to strike. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and she could hear the harsh sound of her breathing. Too fast, too heavy. And she was shaking, adrenaline snapping and crackling in her bloodstream like electricity.
But it wasn’t because she was scared.
She inhaled sharply and turned away from the door, taking a few steps toward the big glass windows that gave a view out over the magnificent garden, looking blindly at it. Then she noticed that the fingers of the hand that had hit him were curled inward, as if she wanted to hold onto the memory of that contact and not let it go. He’d felt hot, his jaw hard, the scrape of stubble prickling against her palm . . .
Phoebe swallowed.
No, it wasn’t fear that was making her shake, and she knew it. And the fact that it should have been made no difference. When he’d grabbed her wrist and pulled her close, when he’d refused to stop even when she’d told him to, it hadn’t been fear that she’d felt. She’d been angry, certainly. No, more than angry, she’d been furious.
And something else. Something she didn’t want to look too closely at.
He’d been so . . . big. So tall. That tank had clung damply to his skin, outlining every hard muscle, and she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him. He’d been hot, too. So very, very hot. Like a radiator on a cold day, throwing off heat, that intense, vital energy she found impossible to resist.
Yet if it had only been the physical pull of him, she might have been able to shrug it off. But it wasn’t, and that was the really difficult part.
It was the way he’d looked at her, those black eyes staring intently into hers. As if she was a fascinating piece of text he was desperate to translate.
No one had looked at her like that before. No one had looked at her like she was an unknown quantity they were interested in figuring out. Even Charles had never looked at her like that. When they’d met—an almost clichéd cute meeting in a Tube station in London, when he’d been the clueless American tourist trying to work out a Tube map and she’d helped him out—he’d shown his interest in her immediately, sure. But he’d already decided who she was even before he’d asked her for coffee: the pretty English rose with her sexy accent and typical English reserve, needing the right man to crack it. At the time, she hadn’t cared. Charles had been handsome and foreign, and the help he’d needed from her had been of a different kind. Of course, he’d needed her help back in New York as well, since he’d not only been inept with a Tube map but with a whole lot of other things, too, though that was neither here nor there.
Her parents were the same. When they looked at her, they only saw what they wanted to see. The daughter who provided emotional support whenever her mother needed it. The daughter who could be criticized whenever her father needed a target. They never looked deeper. They were never interested in who she actually was. She was what they needed her to be, and that’s as far as they were willing to go.
Phoebe pressed her hands to her hot cheeks, trying to get her racing heartbeat under control. No, she couldn’t be thinking these things, and she definitely couldn’t be feeling them, because apart from anything else, Nero de Santis was her boss and she was still engaged to Charles.
God, she loved Charles. She’d been caring for him for two years now and she was going to be there for him should he ever wake up.
What if he doesn’t?
No, she couldn’t think like that. He would wake up. He would.
Taking a few more deep breaths, Phoebe pulled herself together, lowering her hands and smoothing down her skirt, touching her hair to make sure her bun was still firmly in place. The familiar movements settled her, calming the riot of emotions twisting and knotting in her gut.
She shouldn’t have hit Nero. That had been a huge loss of control, not to mention a massive mistake, and she’d known it the second her palm had come in contact with his cheek. Something had ignited in his black eyes then and it hadn’t been fury. It had been something far more dangerous. Something that had called a response from way down deep inside her. An intrinsically feminine response she hadn’t expected and didn’t want.
Phoebe sucked in another breath. Thinking about that look was also a massive mistake. Perhaps what she should be thinking about instead was what had actually made him stop, because even the threat of being kicked in the balls hadn’t been enough. He’d been very intent on coming for her—at least until she’d mentioned the police and a jail cell.
Realization seeped slowly through her, and she blinked at the expanse of green outside the windows. He’d stopped in his tracks the moment she’d said she’d call the police, the fire in his eyes dousing instantly.
Had it been because he didn’t want the police themselves here? Or was it the jail-cell threat?
Silly question. She knew which one it was. He wouldn’t be scared of legal trouble, not a man like him. It was the threat of being dragged from his house that had gotten to him, she was sure.
She’d been very busy the past three days, busy enough that she hadn’t thought about the fact that she hadn’t seen him leave his house, not once.
But there were those rumors, the ones about how much of a recluse he was. About how no one had ever seen him outside. In fact, one of those job contacts of hers had told her that Nero hadn’t been seen outside his house for ten years.
Phoebe turned around, staring at the door again, frowning.
He was so vital, so alive. So full of that fierce, primitive energy. She couldn’t imagine him allowing himself to be contained anywhere let alone in one giant house for . . . what? An entire decade? Surely that was impossible?
And yet in the three days she’d been here, he hadn’t gone out, or at least not that she’d seen. In fact, now she thought about it, he seemed to live in only four rooms: his office, his gym, the mysterious room behind the door in his office that he disappeared off into every so often, and sometimes he went into his library, situated right next to his office, but not very often.
Something shifted inside her, the same thing that always shifted inside her whenever she encountered someone who was in trouble or someone who was broken. An intense sympathy. A desire to help. The need to do something for them, make them better. Heal them.
It was an old, familiar urge and she really didn’t want to feel it for such an arrogant, selfish man as Nero. A man who seemed quite able to look after himself and who didn’t seem to care about anyone else’s feelings. He certainly hadn’t given a thought to hers just now. All he’d been concerned about was what he wanted.
So no, she shouldn’t want to help him, God forbid. In fact, what she needed to do was concentrate on being his perfect assistant, earn herself those dollars so she wouldn’t have to move Charles somewhere else, somewhere cheaper. Somewhere that might compromise his care. Think about not getting herself fired and not hard male bodies or the feel of hot skin on hers or the bright, burning look in dark eyes . . .
Phoebe swallowed, put her shoulders back, and headed for the door.
First item on the agenda for the afternoon was to get the bloody man the women he wanted. And hope like hell that’s all he wanted from her.
* * *
Nero clicked on the tab he wanted, and a window opened up on one of his screens. He hadn’t thought about it at all for the past three days and yet now, in the hours since he’d walked out of the gym, he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head. And since temptation was something he never resisted, he didn’t bother resisting it now.
On the screen was Phoebe, in the little sitting room that was part of her suite. She was on the white linen couch, a laptop on her knees, and she was looking intently at it, her finger moving on the trackpad.
Nero had cameras in every room in the house, and he had no qualms about checking them now and then. It was part of his considerable personal security and it also enabled him to make sure his staff were doing exactly what he required of them. Some would call it an invasion of privacy, but Nero didn’t give a shit what people might call it. His house was his property, and he could do what he liked with it. His staff, too, he tended to view as his property, and not only did he want to make sure they were doing a good job, but he also liked to check to see that nothing had happened to them. Shit, if he hadn’t been watching James last year, the old guy would have died from the heart attack that had struck him as he’d walked down the main staircase to Nero’s office.
Of course, Phoebe wouldn’t be in any danger of having a heart attack, nor was she likely to not be doing her job. So really, checking up on her was unnecessary. Yet he didn’t stop himself from staring at her on the screen, watching her face as she frowned at the laptop in front of her.
He didn’t bother questioning his decisions. He made them based on gut instinct and he’d never, ever been wrong.
Except he had the sneaking suspicion that the decision he’d made in the gym—to touch Phoebe—had been wrong somehow. Even though she’d been the one to slap him—her employer—across the face.
He should have fired her for that alone, yet he hadn’t and he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure why he felt that he’d been the one who’d screwed up, either. Sure, he knew that touching a woman who didn’t want to be touched was wrong, but Phoebe’s eyes had been full of gold fire and the pulse at her wrist had been fast and frantic. She’d radiated anger rather than fear, of that he was sure. In fact, he was sure that for a moment she’d been as excited by him as he was by her. Certainly, if she’d been afraid, he’d never have gotten so turned on since he’d never found fear attractive in anyone. So why had she gotten so angry about it? Why had she hit him?
Not knowing infuriated him. He’d hoped studying her where she couldn’t study him back would give him some insights into why she might have denied him and why the feeling of wrongness was so fucking persistent.
Her expression gave him no clues, though. There was a slight crease between her delicate brows, the rest of her features drawn tight in lines of concentration. Whatever she was doing was taking her whole focus.
Was it her fiancé again? The fee schedule she mentioned? Hospitals were expensive, he knew that much. Or was she putting all her effort into finding him the women he asked for? Or was it something else entirely?
He leaned his elbows on the massive black desk in front of him and interlaced his fingers, scowling at the screen.
He’d never not gotten what he wanted, not since he’d escaped the room he’d grown up in. Yet here he was, having retreated to his control room to lick his wounds because this uptight Englishwoman had denied him. Had stopped him from getting what he wanted with only one little fist and a threat she’d had no idea of the power of.
Nero narrowed his gaze at her. She’d taken her shoes off and was leaning back against one of the arms of the couch, her legs stretched out in front of her and bent at the knee, her feet resting on the couch cushions. Her skirt had rucked up, revealing a bit of pale thigh, the closest he’d ever gotten to seeing her not completely neat and tidy.
His cock hardened, the response almost instant.
He growled, cursing softly under his breath. Of course, what a fucking cliché he was. His body had decided that what it wanted was the first thing it had been denied in years, and that was a goddamn problem.
Especially when she’d been very clear that she’d call the police the second he touched her, and he had no doubt at all that she would. And they’d come, invading his house, invading the space that was his and his alone. His domain, where he was king.
It was true that he could probably get them to leave him alone—he was rich, and money talked when it needed to. But it wasn’t a guarantee. There was always the risk that he would be forced to come down to whichever precinct they wanted him at, and then there would be the media . . .
He glanced down, noticing that his hands were pressed to the black wood of his desk, his nails digging in as if he was hanging off a cliff and only moments away from falling. With an effort, he straightened them, his jaw hardening as he did so.
No. There could be no going down to the precinct. No media. No police.
No Phoebe.
Unless, of course, he got her to change her mind.
Slowly, he lifted his head, staring at the screen again.
Her mouth was pursed in the prettiest little cupid’s bow as she typed, her brows drawn down in furious concentration. What would it be like if she was furiously concentrated on him? If that delicious mouth pursed as she touched him, explored him? Finding out exactly what got him hard . . .
Nero sat back in his seat, adjusting himself to ease the tightness in his pants. No, he’d be fucked if he settled for a couple of random women from his favorite escort agency. He wanted Phoebe or no one. He would not be denied.
All he had to do was think about how to change her mind.
Decision made, Nero reached out and closed the tab with the feed from Phoebe’s sitting room, and once more focused his attention on his stepfather’s file. He had one more lead to follow up on—one he’d been letting lay low for a few years now, because it was a long shot. But since that last one had ended up a dead-end, he had no choice.
Nero pulled up the details he had, staring at the picture that appeared on one of his screens. An older woman who’d once, long ago, been beautiful. Until time and hardship had blurred her features, scoring them with rough lines, a sagging chin, a thinning mouth. Dulling the dark eyes that had once been full of laughter.
The one bright spot in his shitty childhood.
The woman who’d kept him safe for so many years.
His last lead. His mother.