A Vow of Obligation

It finally dawned on Tawny that he had to have some highly sensitive information on that laptop when he was prepared to go to such lengths to protect it from the rest of the world. A knock sounded on the door and Navarre strode across the room, his tall, well-built body emanating aggressive male power, to pull it open. Tawny went pale when she saw the penthouse manager, Lesley Morgan, in the doorway.

‘Excuse me, Mr Cazier. Reception mentioned that there might be a problem—’

‘There is not a problem.’

‘Tawny?’ Lesley queried quietly. ‘I’m sure you must have work to take care of—’

‘Tawny is resigning from her job, effective immediately,’ Navarre Cazier slotted in without hesitation.

Across the room Tawny went rigid but she neither confirmed nor protested his declaration. In receipt of a wildly curious glance from the attractive brunette, Tawny flushed uncomfortably. So, she was going to be unemployed while she fulfilled his mysterious mission. It was an obvious first step. Whatever he wanted from her she could hardly continue to work a daily shift at the hotel at the same time. On the other hand, she would be virtually unemployable with a criminal record for theft hanging over her head, and, if she could emerge from the agreement with the French industrialist with her good name still intact, losing her current job would be a worthwhile sacrifice.

‘There are certain formalities to be taken care of in the case of termination of employment,’ Lesley replied with an apologetic compression of her lips.

‘Which my staff will deal with on Tawny’s behalf,’ Navarre retorted in a tone of finality.

Beneath Tawny’s bemused gaze, the penthouse manager took her leave. Navarre left Tawny hovering in the centre of the carpet while he made a brisk phone call to an employee to instruct her to organise appointments for him. A frown divided Tawny’s fine brows when she heard him mention her name. He spoke in French too fast for her to follow to a couple of other people and then finally tossed the phone down. A knock sounded on the door.

‘Answer that,’ Navarre told her.

‘Say please,’ Tawny specified, bravely challenging him. ‘You may be paying me but you can still be polite.’

Navarre stiffened in disbelief. ‘I have excellent manners.’

‘No, you don’t … I’ve seen you operating with your staff,’ Tawny countered with a suggestive wince. ‘It’s all, do this, do that … why haven’t you done it already? Please and thank you don’t figure—’

‘Open the damn door!’ Navarre raked at her, out of all patience.

‘You’re not just rude, you’re a bully,’ Tawny declared, stalking over to the door to tug it open with a twist of a slender hand.

‘Don’t answer me back like that,’ Navarre warned her as his security chief walked in and, having caught that last exchange, directed an astonished look of curiosity at his employer.

‘You’re far too tempting a target,’ Tawny warned him.

Icy green eyes caught her amused gaze and chilled her. ‘Control the temptation. If you can’t do as you’re told you’re of no use to me at all.’

‘Is that the sound of a whip cracking over my head?’ Tawny looked skyward.

‘Do you hear anyone laughing?’ Navarre derided.

‘You’ve got your staff too scared.’

‘Jacques, take Tawny to collect her belongings and bring her back up without giving her the chance to talk to anyone,’ Navarre instructed.

‘Men aren’t allowed in the female locker room,’ Tawny told him gently.

‘I will ask Elise to join us.’ Jacques unfurled his phone.

Navarre studied Tawny, far from impervious to the amusement glimmering in her pale eyes combined with the voluptuous pout of her sexy mouth. Desire, sudden and piercing as a blade, gripped him. All of a sudden as he met those eyes he was picturing her on a bed with rumpled sheets, hair fanned out in a wild colourful torrent of curls, that pale slender body displayed for his pleasure. His teeth clenched on the shot of stark hunger that evocative image released. He was consoled by the near certainty that she would give him that pleasure before their association ended, for no woman had ever denied him.

Gazing back at Navarre Cazier, Tawny momentarily felt as though someone had, without the smallest warning, dropped her off the side of a cliff. Her body felt as if it had gone into panic mode, her heartbeat thundering far too fast, her mouth suddenly dry, her nipples tight and swollen, an excited fluttering low in her belly. And just as quickly Tawny realised what was really happening to her and she tore her attention guiltily from him, colour burning over her cheekbones at her uncontrollable reaction to all that male testosterone in the air. It was desire he had awakened, not fear. Yes, he was gorgeous, but under no circumstances was she going to go there.

Rich, handsome men didn’t attract her. Her mother and her sisters’ experiences had taught Tawny not to crave wealth and status for the sake of it, for neither brought lasting happiness. Her father, a noted hotelier, was rich and miserable and, according to her older half-sisters, Bee and Zara, he was always pleading dissatisfaction with his life or latest business deal. Nothing was ever enough for Monty Blake. Bee and Zara might also be married to wealthy men, but they were both very much in love with their husbands. At the end of the day love was all that really mattered, Tawny reflected thoughtfully, and substituting sex for love and hoping it would bridge the gap didn’t work.

That was why Tawny didn’t sleep around. She had grown up with her mother’s bitterness over a sexual affair that had never amounted to anything more. She had also seen too many friends hurt by their efforts to found a lasting relationship on a basis of casual sex. She wanted more commitment before she risked her heart; she had always wanted and demanded more. That was the main reason why she had avoided the advances of the wealthy men introduced to her by her matchmaking sisters, both of whom had married ‘well’ in her mother’s parlance. What could she possibly have in common with such men with their flash lives in which only materialistic success truly mattered? She had no wish to end up with a vain, shallow and selfish man like her father, who was solely interested in her for her looks.

‘Are you going to tell me what this proposition entails?’ Tawny prompted in the simmering silence.

‘I want you to pretend to be my fiancée,’ Navarre spelt out grimly.

Her eyes widened to their fullest, for that had to be almost the very last thing she might have expected. ‘But why?’ she exclaimed.

‘You have no need of that information,’ Navarre fielded drily.

‘But you must know loads of women who would—’

‘Perhaps I prefer to pay. Think of yourself as a professional escort. I’ll be buying you a new wardrobe to wear while you’re with me. When this is over you get to keep the clothes, but not the jewellery,’ he specified.

No expense spared, she thought in growing bewilderment. She had read about him in the newspapers, for he made regular appearances in the gossip columns. He had a penchant for incredibly beautiful supermodels and the reputation of being a legendary lover, but none of the ladies in his life seemed to last very long. ‘Nobody’s going to believe you’re engaged to someone as ordinary as me,’ she told him baldly.

‘Ce fut le coup de foudre …’ It was love at first sight French-style, he was telling her with sardonic cool. ‘And nobody will be surprised when the relationship quickly bites the dust again.’

Well, she could certainly agree with that final forecast, but she reckoned that he had to be desperate to be considering her for such a role. How on earth would she ever be able to compare to the glamorous model types he usually had on his arm? Jacques ushered a statuesque blonde in a dark trouser suit into the room. ‘Elise will escort you down to the locker room,’ he explained.

‘So you’re a bodyguard,’ Tawny remarked in French as the two women waited in the lift.

‘I’m usually the driver,’ Elise admitted.

‘What’s Mr Cazier like to work for?’

‘Tough but fair and I get to travel,’ Elise told her with satisfaction.

Elise hovered nearby while Tawny changed out of her uniform into her own clothes and cleared her locker. The Frenchwoman’s mobile phone rang and she dug it out, glancing awkwardly at Tawny, who was busily packing a carrier bag full of belongings before moving to the other side of the room to talk in a low-pitched voice. That it was a man Elise cared about at the other end of the line was obvious, and Tawny reckoned that at that instant she could have smuggled an elephant past the Frenchwoman without attracting her attention.

‘What’s going on?’ another voice enquired tautly of Tawny.

Tawny glanced up and focused on Julie, who stood only a couple of feet away from her. ‘I’m quitting my job.’

‘I heard that but why didn’t he report you?’

Tawny shrugged non-committally. ‘You didn’t spent the night with him, did you? What’s the real story?’

‘A journalist offered me a lot of money to dig out some personal information for him. Accessing Cazier’s laptop was worth a try. I’ve got credit cards to clear,’ Julie admitted calmly, shockingly unembarrassed at having her lies exposed.

‘Mademoiselle Baxter?’ Elise queried anxiously, her attention suddenly closely trained on the two women.

Tawny lifted her laden bags and walked away without another word or look. So much for friendship! She was furious but also very hurt by her former friend’s treachery. She had liked Julie, she had automatically trusted her, but she could now see her whole relationship with the other woman in quite a different light. It was likely that Julie had deliberately targeted her once she realised that Tawny would be the new maid in charge of Navarre Cazier’s usual suite. Having befriended Tawny and put her under obligation by helping her to move into her bedsit, Julie had then conned the younger woman into trying to take Navarre’s laptop. What a stupid, trusting fool Tawny now felt like! How could she have been dumb enough to swallow that improbable tale of sex and compromising photos? Julie had known exactly which buttons to press to engage Tawny’s sympathies and it would have worked a treat had Navarre Cazier not returned unexpectedly to catch her in the act.

‘You have an appointment with a stylist,’ Navarre informed Tawny when she reappeared in his suite and set down her bags.