Blackmailed Down The Aisle

It wasn’t an invitation. It wasn’t even an order. It was a dare.

She lifted her chin.

‘Fine. But I can’t see what difference talking will make. Nobody marries a complete stranger.’

Sinking into the soft leather, she felt the tiredness of the last few hours rise up beneath her skin in a wave as, lounging back in his seat, he stared past her, in a way that suggested he was pondering some deep philosophical question.

‘Is that true? Plenty of brides all over the world only meet their husband on their wedding days.’

‘Yes. If they’re having an arranged marriage.’ She glowered at him.

‘But we are.’ He smiled a smile that made her wish that his chair would open up and swallow him whole. ‘And I’m arranging it.’

Daisy felt her skin grow warm; her head was spinning. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not arranging anything,’ she snapped. ‘Look, you can’t want to marry me, so why are you pretending you do?’ She stared at him doubtfully. ‘Is it your idea of a joke? Some way to punish me for...?’

Looking up at him, she felt her words falter in her mouth. For an endless moment he studied her in silence and then, leaning forward, he fixed his eyes on hers with an intentness that seared her skin.

‘If I wanted to punish you, I’d think of something a lot more...diverting.’

Her stomach clenched, and a tingling excitement swept through her like fire through a forest as he smiled slowly.

‘For both of us.’

A hot shiver ran up her spine and she stared at him mutely, her body stilling even as chaos raged inside. Her heart was beating too fast and too loud, and a dark ache was swirling over her skin like a riptide. In an effort to break the spell of his gaze, she pressed her nails hard into the palms of her hands.

‘You can’t just tell someone you’re marrying them,’ she said carefully. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

The tension in the room quivered, as though she had somehow pressed her foot onto an accelerator pedal, and her eyes flickered involuntarily across to where Rollo sat, examining her with detached curiosity.

‘It does if you want your brother to keep his job. And, more important, to stay out of prison.’

She was out of her seat and leaning across his desk before she had even realised she was moving, her whole body shaking with shock and anger.

‘You unspeakable pig!’ Her voice rose. ‘That’s blackmail—’

‘Yes, it is.’

He wasn’t even embarrassed! Furiously, she glanced around for something blunt and heavy.

‘Why are you getting so bent out of shape about this?’ He stared at her calmly.

‘Why? Why? Maybe because it’s weird and wrong.’ Heat was blistering her skin. She couldn’t keep the shake out of her voice. ‘You’re cynically exploiting this situation for your own ends.’

He frowned. ‘You’re being melodramatic. You and I marrying will be mutually beneficial. As to the morality of blackmailing a thief and a liar, I’m not sure we have time to tackle that right now, so why don’t you just calm down and sit down?’

He lifted his arms behind his head and stretched out his shoulders.

‘Sit down,’ he said again, and this time there was no mistaking the authority in his voice. ‘I didn’t explain myself properly. I need to marry you, but in essence you’ll just be playing the part of my wife.’

She felt a rush of hope. ‘You mean like in an advert or something? For your business?’ He stared at her in silence.

‘No. Not like an advert. We’re going to have to marry legally.’

Daisy searched his face, looking for answers, for a way to escape the certainty in his voice. ‘Why can’t we just pretend?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘That won’t work. It can’t just look like we’re married. It has to be legal.’

‘But no one needs a wife that badly,’ she said almost viciously. ‘Not at two o’clock in the morning.’

He shrugged. ‘I do.’

‘But why?’

‘That doesn’t concern you.’ The certainty in his voice had hardened to granite.

She stared at him, sensing that somewhere a door was closing, a key was turning. Soon there would be no way out of this mess.

She felt her temper flare. ‘Fine. But I’m not marrying anyone—especially you—unless you tell me why you need a wife.’

It wasn’t just curiosity. She needed to assert herself. Needed him to know that she wasn’t just some puppet on a string.

She folded her arms in front of her chest. ‘I don’t need details. Just keep it short and simple.’

She held her breath as his eyes narrowed into knifepoints, and she knew he was gauging how much he needed to tell her. Finally he shrugged and met her gaze, cool and back in control again.

‘I’m trying to close a deal. For a building I want to buy. The owner is old-fashioned...sentimental. He’ll only sell to someone he trusts. Someone he believes shares his values. I need him to trust me and for that to happen he needs to see my warmer, softer side. Marriage is the simplest way to demonstrate that to him.’

She breathed out slowly. There was a kind of warped logic to his argument.

‘But surely I can’t be your only solution? What if you hadn’t found me in your office? What would you do then?’

His eyes were watching hers. ‘But I did find you. And you’re perfect.’

Her heart thudded against her ribs and she felt her cheeks grow warm. ‘I—I am?’

Rollo felt his groin grow hard, his body responding not only to her tentative question but to the flush of colour in her cheeks, the pulse jerking at the base of her throat. She was like a flint striking, sparking against him, catching fire.

And fire burned.

Ignoring the twitch of lust in his groin, he breathed out slowly. ‘Yes. You’re single. And you’re an actress. But primarily, and most important, I can trust you to be compliant.’

Daisy knew she had gone white.

‘Compliant?’ Her hands were trembling.

‘Out-of-work actresses are ten a penny. But I need someone I can depend on. And as your brother’s freedom and future are in my hands I’m confident I can rely completely on your discretion.’

He sounded so calm and controlled that she thought she might throw up. Was this how people got to the top in business? By turning every situation to their advantage no matter what the collateral damage?

‘But, of course, if you’d rather take your chances with the police...’

He let his sentence drift off as Daisy stared past him. She felt bruised, battered and beaten.

‘How long would it be for?’ she said dully.

‘A year. Then we’d go our separate ways and the slate would be wiped clean.’

She flinched inside. He made it sound so simple. The perfectly packaged, one-use-only relationship. An entirely disposable marriage. And maybe it was that simple for him, for clearly his brain worked in an entirely different way from hers.

Her heart contracted. But it was so different from the marriage she’d always imagined. Given her failed romantic history, she knew she was more likely to win a starring role on Broadway, but what she wanted was a relationship based on love and trust and honesty. Just like her parents’.

Only that was the polar opposite of what she and Rollo would have if she agreed to this stupid fake marriage.

The thought made her feel utterly alone.

Pushing back her shoulders, she lifted her head, a flare of defiance sparking inside her. ‘And you’re okay with that?’ she asked flatly. ‘It’s how you always imagined your marriage?’

Leaning back, Rollo swivelled his chair to face the window. He knew that her question was more or less rhetorical. But the blood was beating in his veins with swift, hot, unreasonable fury.

For a moment he gazed out across the city, silently battling the sickening panic and feeling of helplessness stirred up by their conversation. The short, expurgated answer was no—it wasn’t the way he’d imagined his marriage. Not because it would be fake and devoid of feeling, but because he had never once imagined being married at all.

Why would he? He knew for a fact that people weren’t capable of being satisfied with just one partner. And he certainly didn’t believe marriage represented love or devotion.

His mother’s behaviour had proved that to him over and over again, slowly destroying their family and his father in the process.

But marriage to Daisy would be altogether different, he reassured himself. It would be carefully controlled by him and there would be no risk of pain or humiliation, for that would require an emotional dependency that would be absent from their relationship. In fact, their lives need only really intertwine in public.

Feeling calmer, he turned to face her.

‘I can’t say I’ve expended much mental energy on the matter. Personally, I’ve never seen the point of making such an emotionally charged and unrealistic commitment to somebody.’

Daisy glared at him. ‘How romantic! Do you say that to all the women you date or just the ones you blackmail?’

He stared at her impassively, but his eyes had darkened in a way that made the breath jam in her throat.

‘I never promise anything to anyone I date,’ he said, his eyes lingering on her face. ‘But you don’t need to worry on their account. They want what I want. They’re independent women who enjoy having sex. With me. And I can assure you they’re perfectly satisfied with the arrangement.’

Daisy caught her breath.

‘I’ll just have to take your word for that,’ she said tautly. ‘And, just so we’re clear, if I do become your wife, I’ll play my part in public but our relationship will not extend to the bedroom. You can satisfy yourself in private.’

Watching the hard flare of anger in his eyes, she felt a sudden spasm of hope. Rollo might have arrogantly assumed he could conjure up a marriage between two strangers—strangers who despised one another—but clearly he hadn’t thought everything through.

So maybe it still wasn’t too late to change his mind.

Folding her arms in front of her chest, she tried to replicate the cool, flat expression that was back in place on his face.

‘Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but are you really sure we can pull this off? Think about it. We’re complete strangers. And we’re never going to have sex. So just how are we going to fool everyone into thinking we’re some loved-up couple who can’t keep their hands off one another?’

She felt her stomach twist. It was a perfect description of her dream relationship. The one she had tried so hard—and failed—to create with each and every one of her boyfriends.

‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem.’

His words bumped into her thoughts and her pulse jerked as abruptly he got to his feet, his body disturbingly, powerfully muscular and male in the confines of his office.

‘Then I think you’re being really naive,’ she said with more confidence than she felt as he walked slowly around the desk towards her. ‘I could probably pull it off. In public at least. But I’m a trained actress. What you’re asking is not as easy as it looks. Think of all those films that bomb at the box office because the two leads don’t have any chemistry—’

She broke off as he stopped in front of her and held out his hand.

‘We need to leave,’ he said quietly. ‘The security teams will be changing shift soon, and I think we’ve both answered enough awkward questions already tonight.’

Ignoring his hand, she stood up—but instantly she regretted it, for suddenly they were facing one another, only inches apart. Gazing up at him, she felt her skin grow tight and hot.

‘What were we talking about?’ he said softly. ‘Oh, yes. Our chemistry.’

‘It’s just not there,’ she said hastily, trying not to breathe in the clean, masculine smell of his body. ‘And, believe me, you can’t just manufacture it for the cameras. It has to be real.’

Rollo let a silence build between them. He wondered if she realised that her body was contradicting her words. That her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted invitingly.

Scrutinising her face, he frowned. ‘Well, this thing won’t work unless we can convince people.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I wonder... How would we test it? If this was a real acting job, I mean.’

Her eyes froze midblink. ‘I suppose we’d do an audition.’

Taking a step closer, he smiled a small, dispassionate smile. ‘What a good idea...’ he murmured.

And slowly he lowered his head and kissed her on the lips.

For a fraction of a second he felt her tense against him, and then her mouth softened under his and she was kissing him back...

Daisy curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. She knew she should be repelled by his touch. He was her enemy, a bully and a blackmailer. But instead she felt her body catch fire as he deepened the kiss, his mouth suddenly fierce against hers.

A shock—sharp, raw and electric—ran over her skin and her body jerked against his, her hands coming up to grip his arms, her nails cutting into the muscle. She felt him respond, heard the quickening of his breath, felt her own breath stalling in her throat as he arched her body, tipping her head up to meet his—

And then suddenly he lifted his mouth and breathed out softly.

‘What was it you said? Oh, that’s right. It has to be real.’ His lips curved upwards and he stroked a strand of hair away from her face. ‘I’d say that was pretty damn real.’

There was no mistaking the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

Daisy stared at him dazedly. Her heart was slamming into her ribcage. With shock and more than a little embarrassment she realised that her fingers were still wrapped around his arm and slowly, cautiously, not wanting to draw attention to the fact, she lifted her hand.

He watched her calmly. ‘So... Last chance. What’s it to be? Me? Or the police?’

Daisy flinched. The bluntness of his question was like a punch to the jaw. If it had been just her, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She would have turned him down right there and then. He was ruthless and cold-blooded. The relationship he was suggesting would be a travesty of everything she believed. Why, then, was she considering marrying a man she hated with whom she would share nothing but a lie?

Because it wasn’t just about her. There were other people to consider. Not just David but her parents too.

Before she could change her mind, she met his gaze and said quickly, ‘You.’

He smiled a small triumphant smile that made panic trickle over her skin, cold and damp like rain. She was too ashamed of herself to care. Too ashamed that her decision had been made not solely out of love and loyalty but because being with Rollo would mean that, just for a while, she could forget Daisy Maddox and her hopeless dreams of true love. Because right now finding the right man was a whole lot scarier than the thought of faking it with the wrong one.

‘Good. Then we should leave.’

‘I want to see David—’

He shook his head. ‘Another time. He needs to go home.’ His eyes met hers—clear, green, assessing. ‘And you need to come with me. To the Upper East Side,’ he said lazily. ‘Your home for the next twelve months.’

Home! The word sounded so warm and friendly. Daisy bit her lip. It seemed unlikely, but maybe Rollo really did have a softer, warmer side. And silently she prayed that he did. Otherwise she was going to spend the next twelve months feeling like an inmate at the world’s most exclusive prison.

CHAPTER THREE

I AM SO not ready for this, Daisy thought as just over an hour later she followed Rollo into the hallway of his penthouse on Park Avenue.

Everything was moving so fast.

Waiting in the lift, she’d half thought that the whole crazy plan might just dissolve in the face of reality. But Rollo had overseen all the arrangements with a quiet, indisputable authority. David had been escorted home and told to take a few days’ leave. Daisy’s absence had been explained by a hastily concocted plan involving a last-minute callback for a part at a theatre in Philadelphia.

Within minutes of agreeing to become his wife it felt as though time had sped up exponentially, so that one moment she’d been standing in his office and the next she’d been sitting in a sleek black limousine, moving smoothly through traffic towards the Upper East Side.

She might have started to panic sooner, only she had been so distracted by how it had felt when he’d kissed her that she had barely registered the journey. Instead she had simply sat in silence, replaying the moment when his lips had touched hers.

Gazing up, she felt her heartbeat slow. In his office she had just been grateful that Rollo had not called the police. But now that her panic had gone and she was standing in a hallway roughly the same size as David’s entire apartment she felt the same mixture of shock and doubt as an astronaut crash-landing on a strange alien planet.

It didn’t feel real. It certainly didn’t feel like her life anymore.

In front of her a huge chandelier made of crystal droplets cascaded down like a waterfall into the centre of the marble floor, while on the far side of the hallway a staircase wide enough for a car rose gracefully up to a galleried landing. But what drew her attention most were the three vast contemporary canvases on the walls.

Gazing at the one nearest, she frowned. It looked familiar...

‘It’s a Pollock. One of his earlier works.’

Her pulse jolted forward like a startled deer. Engrossed by her new surroundings, she had completely forgotten that Rollo was there. But her shock was quickly supplanted as his words registered on her brain.

A Pollock! Rollo owned an actual Jackson Pollock.

The thought blew her mind.

Theoretically, she knew he was rich, but this was a real work of art—the sort that fetched millions at auction. And it was in his hallway.

Hoping she didn’t look as gauche as she felt, she nodded nonchalantly. ‘David loves his paintings.’

‘Personally I find them a little busy. But these...’ he gestured casually towards the walls ‘...weren’t my choice anyway. My curator picked them. He thinks they have the greatest potential to rise in value.’

Tearing her eyes away from the paintings, Daisy frowned. ‘And that’s what matters, is it? That they make you money? Not that they give you pleasure?’

His eyes roamed lazily over her face in a way that made her squirm inside. ‘I find they’re usually one and the same thing. Shall we go in?’

Staring past him stonily, she took a shallow breath and nodded slowly.

Moments later, she felt her jaw drop as she walked into the open-plan living area.

The room was enormous.

But it wasn’t just the size of it that made her eyes widen. It was the opulence oozing from every corner. Glancing sideways, she noticed a beautiful oil painting of a woman gazing dazedly upwards at a colonnaded ruin. She looked mythical, possibly Greek or Roman. Maybe she had just stumbled across the place where the gods lived. If so, Daisy knew exactly how she felt.

‘Welcome to your new home,’ Rollo said softly. ‘I won’t give you the guided tour now, but this is obviously the living room and the kitchen is over there. In case you get hungry in the night.’

She could feel him watching her, gauging her reaction, but she barely noticed. Eyes flitting nervously around the room, she was trying to remember exactly why she’d agreed to move in with him.

It had seemed to make sense earlier. Move in, spend some time getting to know one another and then announce their engagement.

But what the hell had she been thinking? She couldn’t imagine living in this apartment, let alone living in it with Rollo, pretending to be his wife.

As though reading her thoughts, he shrugged his jacket off and, throwing it carelessly onto a huge cream leather sofa, met her gaze.

‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘Will I?’

She glanced around nervously. Everything was so big and bright. As usual, after the end of a shift, she had changed into her own clothes. But her comfortable jeans and baggy sweatshirt made her feel as though she had shrunk. If she stayed, she might disappear altogether.

‘I should imagine so—’ he paused, his expression coolly assessing ‘—if you want to keep your brother out of prison.’

It was like a sudden icy shower.

Instantly her fear and doubt evaporated, replaced by a blinding flash of anger. ‘You really are a bastard,’ she said shakily. ‘Why would you even say that? I’ve said I’ll do this and I will. Just leave David out of it.’

Her muscles were quivering. He’d just blackmailed her into being his wife. That wasn’t normal and he knew it. Hell, he’d even admitted it back in his office. So why was he acting as though she was overreacting? As though she was making a big deal out of nothing?

She shook her head.

‘I don’t understand you. Doesn’t this bother you in any way? That we’re going to have to lie? And keep on lying to so many people? And not just tell lies but live a lie too?’

He raised his eyebrows in the way that she now knew preceded one of his hateful, mocking remarks.

‘You’ve spent all evening lying to me, Daisy. A few more months won’t make that much difference.’

Their eyes clashed. She swallowed hard, feeling trapped, hating him for the way he twisted everything to make her sound like the villain.

‘Don’t you have any compassion?’

‘Generally, yes. Specifically for you, no. You brought this upon yourself. You and your brother, that is. Besides, quite frankly, lies or no lies, I find it difficult to believe that living in a triplex apartment in Manhattan is going to be that much of a hardship for you.’

‘If you say so,’ she said stiffly.

It was clear she was wasting her time. She might be struggling with the decision they had made, but clearly Rollo was immune to the concept of guilt. And she couldn’t keep challenging him all night. Not without anger anyway, and her anger was fading, the adrenaline draining away like bathwater, so that she was suddenly too tired to argue.

‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ Without waiting for a reply she dropped onto the nearest sofa, stifling a yawn. ‘Is there anything else? If not, I’d like to have a hot shower and go to bed.’

Bed!

Rollo felt the word tug at his senses like a kite on a string. It was just three little letters...a place to sleep. But spoken by Daisy in that husky voice it seemed to hint at tangled sheets and bodies moving slowly in the half-light.

Glancing over to where she sat, leaning back against the cushions, he felt his body stiffen in immediate painful response. She was looking up at him with those dark espresso-coloured eyes—eyes that somehow managed to look sleepy yet seductive at the same time.

He gritted his teeth. In his office he’d thought she was beautiful, but now, dressed casually, her legs curling against the leather of the sofa, she looked sexier than any woman he’d ever seen.

Maybe it was the curve of her bottom beneath the tight denim, or the glimpse of bare skin where her oversized sweatshirt was slipping off her shoulder.

The bare skin she would soon be soaping upstairs in the shower.

The thought of her standing naked, water dribbling over her body, was so tantalising that he could suddenly hardly breathe and, swallowing hard, he turned to where a faint pinkish glow through the windows indicated that night was turning to day.

Daisy’s desirability was undeniable. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get what he wanted from James Dunmore. He must be careful not to get distracted by her beauty and her sexual allure.

Clearing his throat, he shook his head. ‘No. There’s nothing. Everything else can wait...’ he glanced round ‘...until morning,’ he finished slowly.

Daisy was asleep, lying on her side, one arm curled under her head like a cat. For a moment he watched her in silence, seeing her as though for the first time—a younger, more vulnerable Daisy. Someone who needed protecting.

The thought needled him, lodging beneath his ribs like a thorn. Why wasn’t anyone looking out for her? Her family, her brother, her parents? It made him feel angry all over again only in a different way—angry that she was there on his sofa. That somehow she was now his responsibility.