Out of Hours...Her Ruthless Boss: Ruthless Boss, Hired Wife / Unworldly Secretary, Untamed Greek / Her Ruthless Italian Boss

This was a charade, she told herself fiercely, not the real thing.

Never the real thing.

Help.

Cormac irritably tapped his pen against the sheaf of papers. ‘You haven’t been listening to a word, have you?’

‘Sorry.’ She flinched guiltily. ‘It’s just so much to take in.’

He capped the pen and gestured to the flight attendant to take their empty coffee cups. ‘I don’t suppose it really matters,’ he said with a shrug. ‘No one will be expecting a deceit, so no one will be looking for one.’

‘No one will think it strange that you’ve only been married for six weeks?’

‘Coincidence rather than convenience,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘People will expect a newly-wed couple, newly in love, and I don’t think it will take much to convince them that’s what they’re seeing.’ He paused, his gaze dipping down to her fingers—the fingers he’d touched. Tasted. ‘I’m rather confident of your acting abilities.’

Lizzie tried for a laugh; it came out like a wheeze. ‘At least it’s only for a few days.’

‘A few memorable days,’ Cormac agreed. His smile turned languourous, his gaze heavy-lidded. All intentional, Lizzie knew, and yet she wasn’t immune. She felt her stomach clench, prepare for an assault of the senses, the flood of damning desire. Cormac’s smile deepened. ‘Who knows what might happen?’

The cabin lights flickered and dimmed. Cormac leaned over, his arm brushing her breasts—intentional again, Lizzie was sure—and he eased her chair into a reclining position.

Prone, supine before him, Lizzie clutched the armrests. Hated feeling vulnerable.

‘Sweet dreams, Chandler,’ he whispered. Lizzie lay there and watched as he adjusted his own seat, settled a pillow under his head and promptly fell asleep.

If only it were so easy for her. She lay in the dark, her eyes wide-open, her body thrumming with fear, excitement and unfulfilled desire.

It was a heady mix.

‘We’ll be arriving in Bonaire in just under forty minutes.’

Lizzie tilted her seat forward, her eyes gritty from lack of sleep, although she’d finally fallen into a restless doze only to be jerked awake by the bright Caribbean sunlight streaming through the window and the chirpy voice of the flight attendant as she pushed the breakfast cart down the aisle.

Her damp hands curled around the metal buckle of her seat belt. Next to her, Cormac sat relaxed, calm, smiling.

Her husband.

She smiled, a small stretching of her lips. In little over half an hour they would exit in Bonaire, take a small chartered plane to Sint Rimbert and the charade would begin.

She would be Cormac’s wife. A thrill of terror rippled through her in an icy wave.

She couldn’t eat any of the breakfast, although Cormac was calmly drinking a cup of strong black coffee. Once the dishes had been cleared away, they prepared for landing.

‘Here.’ Cormac pressed something cool and hard into her palm; Lizzie looked down and saw it was a wedding ring. Platinum. Expensive.

‘I can’t…’ she began, shaking her head. Cormac curled her fingers around the ring.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you can.’

Lizzie slipped the ring on with numb fingers. It was a little too big, although not enough for anyone to notice.

She was the only one who would notice, who would care. Who would realise how wrong it felt.

It was too late for regrets, she knew. Far too late for second thoughts. She’d agreed, she’d let Cormac seduce her with his words, his touch, his promise.

Who knows what might happen?

Nothing, Lizzie told herself fiercely now. Absolutely nothing.

It was too dangerous. Too tempting.

The plane landed with a bump.

Cormac stood up, slinging his attaché case over his shoulder. He handed Lizzie her handbag and she started in surprise.

‘Here you are, sweetheart,’ he said, and she stiffened. He smiled over her head at the flight attendant who’d been ogling him for the entire journey. ‘She’s always forgetting her things on aeroplanes.’

The attendant tittered, and Lizzie’s cheeks burned. ‘Ridiculing me to the staff before we’ve even stepped off the plane?’ she hissed. ‘What a loving husband you are…darling.’

‘Just teasing,’ he murmured, but she saw a new flintiness in his eyes and realised she’d scored a direct hit. Pretending to be a loving husband—a loving anything—was going to be difficult for Cormac.

Perhaps as difficult as it was proving to be for her.

A young pilot, smiling and speaking with a Dutch accent, met them as they stepped off the plane. The next half hour was a blur of customs, the glare of the hot sun reflecting off the tin roofs of the airport and giving Lizzie a headache. She barely had time to take in their surroundings before they were on a tiny plane, Cormac relaxed next to her, Lizzie’s hand clutching the rail.

It felt as if they were flying a kite.

The pilot grinned at her. ‘It’s small, but it’s perfectly safe.’

Right. She thought of all the accidents she’d read about in the papers that had occurred with planes like these.

This wasn’t part of the deal.

What deal? Lizzie asked herself. There was no deal. Cormac might have let her pretend there was a deal, asked her permission, but it was a joke. A farce.

There was simply Cormac’s will and her submission to it.

Why had she not realised that before? Had she actually believed she’d had some choice?

She closed her eyes. Cormac patted her hand, a caress that felt like a warning.

‘She’s just a bit nervous…and tired.’ She opened her eyes to see him wink at the pilot, who grinned. Lizzie gritted her teeth.

‘There’s Sint Rimbert now.’ The pilot pointed out of the window and Lizzie craned her neck to see.

Below them, the sea sparkled like a jewel and nestled in its aquamarine folds was a pristine island, magnificent and unspoiled.

For a moment Lizzie forgot the man next to her, and the role he was requiring her to play, and sucked in an awed breath.