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Dane Prescott almost tripped over a reporter as he helped Allyson to her feet. He had to get away from the paparazzi. Shoving his way past the reporter he raced towards the fiftieth floor’s conference room, Allyson’s hand in his. He glanced over his shoulder; Allyson looked as scared as he felt, and there was a pack of tabloid reporters chasing them down the hall.
He cursed under his breath. The conference room door was just up ahead. Ducking inside, he pulled Allyson along with him and locked the door behind him. That didn’t seem to deter the reporters who banged loudly on the door, shouting questions.
“Mr. Prescott, care to comment?”
“How long have you two been dating?”
“What was the price tag on the ceremony?”
“Can you afford to spend so lavishly with all this uncertainty for Prescott Global?”
Damn it. How the hell had this happened? Maybe one of Allyson’s family members had spilled the beans to the press but still. He and Allyson had pretended to be dating, not married. Even if someone had blabbed about their phony relationship, it didn’t explain how the press seemed to believe they had gotten married over the weekend.
“Mr. Prescott?” Allyson asked in a small voice. “What do we do?”
So, it was still Mr. Prescott. She really was hell bent on keeping things professional. Even though they’d tossed all propriety out the window over the weekend. His hands ached to touch her silky black hair. Despite all the madness going on outside the conference room, he wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
He ran his hands through his hair, frustrated. “We need to get these reporters out of the building immediately.”
Reaching for the phone on the conference table, he dialed building security. A breach like this was unheard of. Prescott was secure, locked up as tight as a drum. Someone had screwed up big time, and put Allyson in danger. He didn’t care if his face was splashed all over the tabloids. That was a part of life he’d accepted. But Allyson hadn’t asked for this. She didn’t deserve to be hounded.
Usually if something unusual like this happened, his assistant would be on it. Putting the fire out as quickly as possible. But now Allyson had gotten dragged into his crazy world. He’d given up pursuing a relationship with her for this very reason. She deserved job security and a drama-free life.
When the receptionist on the other line answered, he had to force himself to stay civil and calm. It wasn’t the poor woman’s fault that Allyson was in danger now. “How the hell did these reporters get inside the building?” he barked when the head of his security team got on the line.
“Sir, we don’t know how this breach happened but we’re on it. Right now, there’s a crowd of reporters in the lobby and we’re trying to—”
“The lobby?” Dane interrupted. “There are about eight of them right outside the top floor conference room. Are you telling me there are more of them downstairs?”
“Uh...yes, Mr. Prescott. There are about a dozen of them on the ground floor. We’ll send security to the fiftieth floor right away, sir.”
“Good,” Dane said tersely. “I want to see you in my office later today to discuss this.”
“Of course, sir,” the security head said. “Oh, and sir? I just want to say congratulations!”
Damn it! As Dane hung up he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. If his head of security had heard the news, then the whole world knew. Which meant there was no containing this mess. Everyone believed he and Allyson had gotten married over the weekend.
“There are more reporters downstairs?” Allyson swayed slightly on her feet.
That alarmed him. She’d almost lost her footing minutes earlier just outside his office. He was at her side instantly, pulling her to him so that her cheek pressed against his chest. The feeling of her warm little body pinned so tightly against his awakened his senses.
She wasn’t dressed in her usual tight skirt that showed off her long, shapely legs. But that didn’t make her any less mouthwatering. The conservative pantsuit showed off her curvy figure, the undone top button of her blouse revealing her cleavage, the pants fitting her they were painted on.
Holding this ravishing woman in his arms was more than he could stand. His cock throbbed, painfully hard. How he’d managed to agree to end whatever they might have been he didn’t know. The sexual tension that had flared between them for three years had finally boiled over during the weekend. And now it was back. Usually, when he had sex with a woman, his interest waned. He suspected it was the same for the heiresses he bedded, because they always seemed to want to skip ahead to the high-society wedding rather than get to know him.
But Allyson was different. Every touch from her heated his blood. He’d never desired another woman more than he desired her. And now that the whole world thought they had skipped ahead to the high-society wedding he couldn’t have her.
“I can still hear them outside.” She trembled against him. The fact that she was reacting like this let him know just how distressing this must all be for her. Allyson was a hard-working go-getter. Few things fazed her. Yet this fiasco made her seem so vulnerable. So fragile. He vowed to protect her.
“The security team’s going to get them out of here,” he whispered soothingly. He smoothed his hand over her sleek hair, hoping it would comfort her.
Minutes earlier they had waltzed in to work, determined to go back to being their old professional selves. He’d done his duty. Treated her like his employee rather than the woman he’d had the best sex of his life with. It pained him to act like nothing had happened, but he needed to save her job. And make sure Prescott’s upcoming merger was a success.
Then they’d stepped off the elevator and the crowd had surrounded them to congratulate them on their marriage. One glance at the tabloid newspaper with the fake headline, and Allyson had lost her balance. If he hadn’t caught her she probably would have fallen or passed out.
The reporters showed up moments later and he’d had to haul her away from them.
She pulled out of his arms, her green eyes shining. “Who could’ve done this?”
“New York tabloid reporters are tenacious. They probably found a way to sneak in to the building on their own,” he replied with a shrug.
“No, I mean, how did the press know we’d be in Greenville?”
He cleared his throat. “Someone in your family must have tipped them off.”
“Excuse me? I know my family can be desperate, but you don’t actually think they’d do this, do you?”
“Your parents? Probably not. But your sister, Monica—”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she cut in. “Monica wanted to prove we were fake. Why call the press to make it look like we were the ones getting married?”
He frowned. She had a point. Monica was the last person who would want to make Allyson look good. As far as he could tell her sister delighted in tormenting Allyson, and would rather walk on hot coals than see Allyson happy.
His eyebrows furrowed as he got lost in thought. “And it couldn’t have been Holly.”
She shook her head. “Holly’s a sweetheart. She’d never betray me like that.”
“Actually, I meant it couldn’t be Holly because no bride wants attention taken off her on her big day.”
She narrowed her eyes, a fearsome expression on her beautiful face. “So, if it wasn’t for her wedding you actually think Holly would be capable of blabbing to the press?”
He adjusted his tie. “You’re not going to like the answer.”
“Spit it out.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin defiantly.
How had he forgotten how sexy she looked when she got angry? Probably because, throughout their professional lives, he hadn’t given her many reasons to be angry. But now that they’d been so intimate, the formalities of their relationship were starting to crumble. He tried to remind himself not to get too excited. Allyson probably had an explosive temper and, as sexy as that might be, he had to focus on keeping her calm. She’d nearly keeled over twice today.
“Money has a way of making people do some crazy things,” he finally said.
“Holly isn’t exactly poor.”
“No, but she’s certainly not rich.”
“I hadn’t pegged you for a snob.” She glared at him. “You sound like your mother.”
His heart sank. How could he have forgotten about his parents? They would be furious about this news. His mother already disliked Allyson, and was suspicious about the time they spent together. He had tried to reassure his mother that their relationship was strictly professional. Somehow, he’d managed to shoot that all to hell in one weekend.
Worse, Prescott Global’s move into the European sports market depended on a merger with the Handel Company. A merger that wouldn’t happen if John Handel, the Vice President of the Handel Company, wasn’t happy. The one person who could torpedo the whole merger was Handel’s daughter, Katherine, a British beauty Dane had briefly dated and quickly soured on. Katherine was an ice queen, and Dane had seen glimpses of a cruel streak underneath the aristocratic beauty’s polished façade. Katherine’s petty jealousy of Allyson had poisoned his mother against his assistant, which had put her contract renewal in jeopardy.
He groaned inwardly. When had his life gotten so complicated?
“I think security is here,” Allyson said, dragging him back from his thoughts.
There was a commotion outside the conference room. He cautiously unlocked the conference room door and found security guards dragging the reporters away.
One of the guards turned to Dane and gave a nod.
“Thank you,” Dane said grimly.
“No problem, Mr. Prescott,” the guard said.
He shut the door and turned to Allyson. “They’re gone.”
“Good. But what do we do now?”
“It’s impossible to contain this now.” His cell phone started ringing. He reached into his pocket to fish it out. Shit. Prescott’s PR department. Undoubtedly, they were on the line to talk about the colossal mess with the media. No way could he deal with that now. Not without coming up with a strategy.
“Let me take it.” Allyson reached out her hand. Even now she couldn’t drop her instincts as an assistant. Somehow, he was going to have to get some sense into her. This wasn’t some work problem she could just fix with a wave of her hand. It involved her now, and they needed to figure this out together. As a team.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “I’m not tossing you to the wolves. We haven’t even talked about how we’re going to deal with his.”
Before she could respond, he hung up and shoved his phone back into his pocket.
She frowned. “What did you do that for?”
“Would you like the PR officer to yell at you now or later?”
“It’s my job. And it’s not the first time. Nor will it be the last.” She stared at him. “Okay, what’s the plan then?”
We can either tell the truth—”
“You mean tell the media this is a mistake?” She sighed. “What do we do if they find out we went to the wedding as a fake couple?”
He grimaced. That would surely complicate things. It was one thing to accuse the media of lying. It was a completely different thing to accuse the media of lying when you were also a liar. Embarrassing the press would just make them dig deeper. Prescott Global could try to scare off the press with a lawsuit, but that might backfire. “It won’t look good,” he replied. “A white lie like that, after all this, could end up being a front- page scandal. Any hint of impropriety between a boss and his assistant would send the tabloids into overdrive.”
The New York tabloids loved spreading gossip about him and the blue bloods he dated. His exes were photogenic and rich. It didn’t matter if some of them ended up being squeaky clean. Socialites, heiresses, and celebutantes were absolute fodder for the tabloids. Allyson wasn’t like his usual aristocrats, but she oozed sex appeal. Combine that with her proximity to him and the salacious nature of this story, and the press would have a field day.
She swallowed hard. “I knew the press was bad, but I had no idea they were this vicious.”
He gave her a smile. “That’s probably because you’ve been good at protecting me from some of it.”
“Some of them really will tell any kind of lie to get scoop on you,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “They’ve never gotten a word out of me.”
“I know.” He approached her until he was standing so close he felt the heat of her body. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve kept you around all these years, Allyson. You’ve always been discreet.”
“I was...until this weekend.” She looked up at him, her cheeks turning pink. No doubt she was thinking about what they’d done together underneath those linen sheets.
Memories of their lovemaking came flooding back. He remembered the way her legs wrapped around him, drawing him deeper into her. The sound of his name on her lips while he pleasured her had almost undone him. He knew he had assured her that they could go on as before. Go back to their professional relationship. But he had no idea how he’d ever look at her without recalling her perfect body, writhing naked underneath him.
He was painfully hard. So turned on that he could barely think straight.
Allyson leaned towards him, her full, sinfully-red lips mere inches away from his. This was dangerous. Them being alone together was never ever going to be anything other than illicit. Everything about the way they reacted to each other was wrong. And yet...
The day of the wedding, she’d kissed him first. But all he knew was that her lips yielded beneath his and he slipped his tongue into her mouth.
He kissed her now. Hard. Determined. Hungry. She moaned and ran her hands through his hair.
Their tongues swirled in a sensual, teasing dance. She nibbled his bottom lip, and that sent him over the edge—away from reason. With expert movements, his hands went down to the button of her pants to unbutton and unzip her.
Her hands slipped down to unbuckle his belt.
He broke the kiss to look at her. “Allyson, I want you. Now.”
Her lips glistened and her breasts were heaving as she breathed. With shaking hands, she started to undo his tie, her green eyes on his. “Touch me, Dane,” she breathed, her voice husky with promise.
This was insane. They were about to have sex in the conference room and he didn’t have enough sense to stop. Because he didn’t want to stop.
He didn’t take his eyes off her as she licked her lips. She took his hand, guiding it past the waistband of her pants and her lacy panties until he felt the bare flesh of her sex. His heart hammered in anticipation. She moaned as he gently pressed a finger inside her.
She was hot. Ready for him. So tantalizingly wet.
All he wanted right now was to bury himself inside her. Take her in the conference room until he made her come again.
His phone rang. With a curse he pulled his hand away from her and, without thinking, he answered it. The voice screeching on the other end stopped him in his tracks.
Enough to turn any man’s desire on a dime. Damn it!
His mother.
