Ruthless Boss, Hired Wife

She felt him shift back, realised she’d closed her eyes, let her head fall back.

She was so pathetic. And he knew.

‘I think,’ he said in a voice laced with cool amusement, ‘you’ll find I’m a good enough actor. We’ll pull it off.’

‘You might be good enough,’ Lizzie choked, ‘but I’m not.’

Cormac paused. Smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ he said softly, ‘you don’t need to act.’

Shame and fury scorched her soul, her face. She drew in a desperate breath.

Cormac leaned forward as a flight attendant approached them. ‘Could we have some more champagne? We’ve just been married and we’re celebrating.’

Lizzie jerked, saw the flight attendant coo at Cormac. ‘Of course, sir.’ She glanced briefly at Lizzie, seemed unimpressed and turned away.

Cormac sat back in his seat and smiled. Smirked.

‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ Lizzie said. Her heart was still thudding against her ribs, adrenalin pouring through her, turning her weak. She had been so weak. For a moment—a second—she’d been transfixed by Cormac. Cormac. The man who had not had a single kind word, glance or even thought for her.

She was disgusted with herself. ‘I haven’t agreed to anything yet and I don’t plan to. Even if you’re perfectly capable of convincing the Hassells that we’re married,’ she told him, grateful that her voice didn’t shake, ‘that you’re in love with me, I won’t agree. I won’t.’ She sounded petulant. A smile flickered over Cormac’s face and was gone.

‘Yes, you will.’ He spoke calmly, conversationally. As if he had no doubt. Sickeningly, Lizzie realised that he probably didn’t.

She gave a little laugh of disbelief; it trembled on the air. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked. ‘Threaten to fire me? Somehow I don’t think that would hold up in a court of law.’

‘Are you saying you’d sue me?’ Cormac murmured, and Lizzie flushed. She didn’t know if she had the stamina to suffer through a lawsuit, the time and money it would cost. The publicity, the shame.

‘Are you saying,’ she countered, her voice shaking enough now for both of them to notice, ‘that you’d blackmail me?’

‘Here you are, sir.’ The flight attendant returned with two flutes of fizzy champagne, smiling sycophantically at Cormac, who returned it with a quick, playful grin that blazed along Lizzie’s nerve-endings even though it wasn’t directed at her.

She’d never been affected by this man before. Hadn’t remotely expected it. Didn’t like it.

The attendant left and Cormac pushed his drink to the side. He eyed her thoughtfully, as if she were a puzzle to be completed, a problem to be sorted. ‘Blackmail is a dirty word,’ he said after a moment. ‘Not one I prefer to use.’

‘A rose by any other name…’ Lizzie quoted, and he chuckled.

‘Is it blackmail, Chandler, to buy you clothes? To take you to a luxurious villa in the Caribbean, all expenses paid?’ He leaned forward. ‘Or would people—the press—consider it a bribe? An accepted bribe.’

She stilled, her eyes widening in dawning realisation. ‘You’re saying no one would believe me if I told them you were blackmailing me?’

‘I think they’d be more likely to believe that you were a spurned lover. Imagine the press, sweetheart. The tremendously bad press.’

‘Don’t call me sweetheart,’ Lizzie snapped, and he shrugged.

She looked away, tried to quell the roiling nausea that his words had caused.

Suddenly she saw it all in a different, dreadful light. Against Cormac’s calm confidence, she would be a hopeless, helpless wreck. Even if she managed to stammer a defence, no one would believe her. No one would even want to.

The press would be merciless, relishing the scandal. She would be judged, condemned as some sort of cheap gold-digger. Her career would be ruined.

So would Cormac’s.

She turned back to him. ‘Even if telling the truth ruined me, it would ruin you, too. Everyone would know you’d asked me to pretend—you’ve already told the Hassells you’re married!’ Her eyes narrowed and she gathered the courage to hiss, ‘Somehow I think you have a lot more to lose than I do.’

He steepled his fingers under his chin, eyebrows raised. ‘Do I?’

‘You seem to want this commission rather a lot. Why is that?’

He shrugged, even as Lizzie saw a flicker of something—desolation? determination?—in his eyes before it was gone. ‘It’s important to me. A challenge.’ He gazed at her calmly, his eyes now hard and bright, and yet something in that brief flicker had snagged Lizzie’s curiosity. Her sympathy. She knew he wasn’t telling the truth—the whole truth.

But what was the truth? She had no way of discovering it, no way of knowing.

‘Still,’ she pressed, ‘you’re taking a huge risk just for one commission. Your entire career could go up in flames! Even if I agree, someone else might discover the truth…’ She shook her head slowly as she considered the implications. ‘And even if this weekend was a success, there would be other times. You’d be working on the design for this resort for a year at least. How would you explain the fact that you’re not married any more?’

He shrugged. ‘A divorce? A separation? Perhaps I’d simply say you were at home, waiting for me.’ He smiled, although there was an intense, icy light in his eyes that made Lizzie want to shiver.

‘The press would get wind of it…’

‘The Hassells are never in the British press,’ Cormac dismissed. ‘And I’m the only British architect on this weekend. Nobody from England even knows I’m going.’

‘But they’ll find out when you receive the commission,’ Lizzie argued, and Cormac leaned forward.

‘Does that mean you’re agreeing?’ he murmured with sleepy languor.

Lizzie stiffened. ‘Do I really have much choice?’ It hadn’t taken long to realise just how cornered she truly was. Cormac had coldly, calculatingly built the evidence against her. He’d waited until they were on the plane before telling her—there was no escape without shaming them both.

‘You could tell Hassell when we land,’ Cormac offered. ‘I expect he’d believe you. All those family values…’ He waved a hand in contemptuous dismissal. ‘They must count for something when it comes to a damsel in distress.’

‘Yes, and then what? He’ll send us both back on the very next plane, and no doubt tell the press what you’ve done. Your career would be ruined, and so would mine. And you know how rabid tabloid journalists can be. They’d be sniffing around me…around…’ She stopped abruptly and looked away.

‘Around your sister?’ Cormac finished, and Lizzie jerked back to face him.

‘What do you know about my sister?’

‘You’ve been taking care of her for ten years or so, since your parents died,’ Cormac replied calmly. ‘She’s what? Eighteen? Impressionable, probably. I imagine that so much publicity could go to her head quite quickly.’ He smiled.

Lizzie swallowed, tasted bile. She could just about face her own career—her own life—being ruined. But not Dani’s. Nothing could happen to Dani.

She hadn’t spent the last ten years saving and sacrificing to have Dani’s chances at a better life shot to hell…and all because of Cormac.

Cormac. This was all his fault…and there was nothing she could do about it.

‘How do you know so much?’ she demanded in a furious, frightened whisper, and he shrugged.

‘Most of it is on your CV.’

‘So is my name!’ She felt like scratching that arrogant, indulgent smile right off his mouth.