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

CHAPTER NINE

THE sound was unfamiliar at first, a tinny bleating that had Lizzie stiffening, then suddenly twisting away from Cormac. Her body still tingled with an unquenched fire but her mind was cold. Clear.

‘That’s my mobile.’

‘Let it ring.’ Cormac smiled, his hands reaching for her once more. ‘Lizzie…’

She shrugged him off, icy dread pooling where desire had only moments before. ‘No, Cormac. Only Dani has my number. Only for emergencies.’

He stilled, his face turning blank as she scrambled off the bed and dug through her bag for the phone.

‘I’m sorry…’ she breathed as her fingers curled around the mobile. Then she spoke into the phone. ‘Dani?’

A hiccupy sob greeted her.

‘Dani!’ Lizzie’s voice was sharp with fear. ‘What has happened? What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, Lizzie, I’m in such a mess.’

She sank on to the bed. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. Tell me.’

‘You’ll be angry…’ Another pitiful sob.

‘No, I won’t,’ Lizzie said firmly. ‘No matter what it is.’ It was a promise she’d always given, would always give. She would be there for her sister. Always.

Behind her, she heard Cormac shift. She felt him kiss the back of her neck and she barely suppressed a shiver.

‘Come back to bed,’ he whispered. ‘Come back to me.’

Knowing how tempting his offer was, Lizzie moved from the bed to a chair. ‘Dani, tell me,’ she urged.

‘I’m in trouble,’ Dani admitted in a low whisper, and Lizzie’s heart lurched.

‘All right,’ she said, striving to keep her voice neutral, matter-of-fact. ‘What happened?’

‘It was so unfair.’ Dani’s voice was high with sudden indignation. Whenever Dani was in trouble—for poor marks, bunking off class or being caught smoking behind the school sheds—she always tried to justify it. It wasn’t fair. They didn’t understand. It hadn’t happened the way they said.

Lizzie knew she had sometimes been too lenient with Dani, not knowing how to act like a mother, feeling somehow guilty that Dani had been forced to grow up as an orphan.

‘Tell me, Dani,’ she interrupted her sister’s mournful litany of excuses.

‘I’ve been expelled,’ she finally admitted sulkily.

‘Expelled?’ Lizzie repeated in numb disbelief. ‘You’ve only been there a week! What on earth happened?’

‘I was at a party…’

‘And?’ Lizzie drove a hand through her hair.

‘I was drunk,’ Dani continued reluctantly, ‘and a friend and I got a bit…silly.’

‘They don’t expel you from uni for being silly,’ Lizzie retorted sharply. ‘Tell me the truth, Dani.’

‘A group of us broke into the photography lab, meaning to take some pictures and well…a few things got broken. Expensive things.’

Lizzie closed her eyes, wondered how much they would be liable for.

‘They’re just trying to make an example of us,’ Dani complained. ‘It wasn’t…’

‘It sounds like it was.’ Lizzie took a deep breath and tried to gather her scattered thoughts. ‘I should ring the university—’

‘No. I don’t even want to go back.’ Dani’s voice trembled, and Lizzie realised just how young and afraid her sister really was.

‘Oh, Dani. Let’s not make any hasty decisions, all right? I’ll be home in two days—’

‘I need to be out of here tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ It really was serious. Lizzie sucked in another breath. ‘All right. Well, you can take the train home and I’ll be there as soon as I—’

‘Don’t hate me, Lizzie.’ Dani began to cry, softly, and all of Lizzie’s anger melted away.

‘I could never hate you,’ she said quietly.

‘I couldn’t bear it if you did.’ Dani was crying loudly now, noisy, gulping tears. ‘I know I’ve made such a mess of things. I’ve only been here a week—I’m sorry…’

‘It’s all right, Dani.’ Lizzie spoke as if to a child. And really, Dani was a child. Her child. ‘We’ll sort this out.’

‘I know you’re far away somewhere,’ Dani said with a gulp. ‘But can you come home? For me? Now—as soon as you can? I…I need you.’

Lizzie’s heart fluttered briefly with fear before grim determination took hold. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I’ll come home.’ Cormac would understand, she told herself. He’d shown what a truly sensitive man he was tonight. He knew about her situation with Dani. Besides, there was really only one more day left.

Her sister needed her. That was all that mattered…that had ever mattered.

Behind her she heard him move. Closer.

‘I might be able to get a flight tonight,’ she said, wondering if one of Jan’s staff could take her to Bonaire. ‘But it will be a while, Dani, if you can hold on…’

‘Yes, I can.’ She gulped. ‘Now that I know you’re coming.’

‘Good.’ Lizzie spent a few more moments soothing her sister, telling her to just get the train home and wait for her there, before she severed the connection and dropped the phone in her bag.

She looked up at Cormac and her heart stopped. The expression on his face was cool. Cold. Hard. He gave a tight little smile.

‘What was all that about?’

Lizzie took a breath. He was bound to be angry, she knew. They’d made a deal. But Dani was more important. ‘My sister is in trouble…’ she began.

‘At university?’ Cormac clarified.

‘Yes…apparently things got out of control at a party and she’s been expelled.’ Lizzie flushed. ‘There’s no excuse, I know, but she’s young…’ She trailed off at his cynical expression. ‘Anyway, she needs me. I have to go home.’

‘We have a flight booked in less than forty-eight hours.’ His voice was mild, but Lizzie heard—felt—the steel underneath. ‘Don’t you think she can take care of herself till then?’

‘She’s a wreck, Cormac—’

‘She certainly is if she’s been thrown out of university her first week there.’

‘Cormac…’ Lizzie held her hand out in appeal. ‘She’s my sister. I need to be with her—now. As soon as possible. Jan will understand. He can get me a flight to Bonaire—’

‘Those family values at work, eh?’ Cormac shook his head. ‘No, Lizzie. You’re staying here.’

The cold finality in his tone went over her like a shiver. She stared at him, suddenly conscious that they were both naked.

‘It won’t affect the commission,’ she said. ‘I’ll still pretend to be your wife—even wives have family emergencies!’

‘Yes,’ Cormac agreed, ‘but how will it look if I let you run off while I stay to court this commission?’

‘I…’

‘It’ll look like I care more about the commission than I do about you,’ he finished flatly. ‘I’m not about to have Jan think that for a second.’

‘He’d understand—’

‘It’s not worth the risk.’

‘But, Cormac!’ Lizzie shook her head, confused. She felt that if she only explained, he’d understand. He’d turn back into the man he’d been before, the man she knew he truly was. The man who had looked at her with kind compassion, with exquisite tenderness.

That man.

‘Cormac,’ she tried again, ‘I know it may seem unreasonable, but I’m all Dani has. She’s my sister and she needs me. Nothing is more important than that.’

‘Actually, something is.’ Cormac’s voice was frighteningly mild. ‘My commission.’

Lizzie stared at him for a long moment. She looked into his eyes. How come she’d never noticed how cold they were? Lifeless. Blank. And she’d wanted to see them. She’d wanted to gaze into his eyes as he made love to her and see love shining there, or at least tenderness. But there was nothing.

Nothing.

She took a step away and, suddenly ashamed of her nakedness, she hurried over and snatched her dress, pulled it on with trembling hands.

‘I don’t understand you,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I can’t understand how you can be so…so kind one moment, and then the next…’

‘Can’t you?’ He stood before her, naked, unconcerned, arms crossed. One eyebrow quirked in cold cynicism.

Lizzie shook her head slowly. She felt dizzy, faint, sick. The man in front of her was like a reflection in ice, without a soul.

Frightening.

The truth.

‘What’s happened…’ She stopped. Cormac stared at her. Waiting. ‘You’ve been using me,’ she said slowly, each word like a jagged splinter tearing her heart, her soul. ‘You’ve been using me this whole time.’

Cormac said nothing, and the silence damned him. Damned her. Lizzie pressed a fist to her mouth, choked back a sob of horrified realisation.

‘You’ve been using me,’ she repeated, a disconnected part of her amazed at how well he’d played the role, how easily she’d fallen into his trap.

‘All those things you said,’ she whispered, remembering the words that had seemed so compassionate, so considerate, so…corrupt. Lies. All lies. ‘All those promises…the understanding…the sympathy…you didn’t mean any of it, did you? You were just saying what you thought I wanted to hear…what I needed to hear to get me into your bed.’

‘As I recall,’ Cormac replied in a voice of cutting precision, ‘you were the one trying to get me into your bed.’

‘Only because you made it that way! Didn’t you?’ She laughed, a broken sound of pain and lost dignity. ‘You manipulated—played—me as you’ve played Jan, and Stears and every other person you’ve ever come across. So it would be my idea. My fault.’

‘You’re jumping to conclusions—’ Cormac began in a hard, warning voice, but Lizzie shook her head. She couldn’t bear to be managed and manipulated now. Not when she knew.

She knew. So much. Too much.

‘You said you didn’t know how much you could give,’ she recalled, her fist still pressed to her mouth. ‘I know the answer to that!’ It came out in a cry, a cry of plaintive hurt that she choked back, biting on her knuckles, torn between fury and pain. ‘You said you didn’t want to hurt me! What a joke.’

There was a tic in Cormac’s jaw. His face was otherwise impassive.

‘What?’ Lizzie demanded. ‘Don’t you have any more tricks up your sleeve, Cormac? Another way to manipulate me? You must have been laughing at me, how I fell for every soft, stupid line you gave me.’

‘I was never laughing at you,’ he said.

‘No, you were playing me! Playing me like a fish on a line, and I let you…’ She spun away, pressed her hands to her eyes, desperate to stop the tears. She wouldn’t cry in front of him. Not now. Not ever.

‘Why?’ she asked after a long moment when the only sound was her own ragged breathing. ‘Why did you do it?’ Her voice came out stronger. ‘What more is there for you to possibly gain? My humiliation? Is that what you want?’

‘Lizzie, you’re making more of this than there is,’ Cormac said after a moment. ‘What I said was true. I want you. You can’t fake desire—’

‘That’s all it was!’

‘I never said it was more.’

‘Yes, you were very careful with your words.’ Lizzie turned around, gave a sharp little laugh. ‘Covering your tracks, no doubt. How long were you going to keep up the charade, Cormac? Pretending that you actually cared about me? Letting me believe that you were—different. Deeper. How long? About thirty-six more hours?’

His eyes raked her and he inclined his head, gave a small smile of acknowledgement. ‘About that.’

‘I was so desperate to believe you were a good man, that underneath that hardness there was—’

‘There was what?’ Cormac strode to her, grabbed her shoulders. ‘What were you thinking, Lizzie? That this was real? That I’d suddenly fallen in love with you, cared about you?’

Yes. She stared at him, horrified, transfixed. She bit hard on her lips to stop herself from crying out.

‘Yes, I played you,’ Cormac gritted out. His eyes glittered with fierce determination, as if he wanted her to know. As if he wanted her to be hurt. ‘I used you. I thought Hassell would be more convinced of our marriage if there was something real to it.’

‘But this isn’t real!’

‘You believed it was.’

Lizzie wondered if she would be sick. She felt sick. Sickened.

‘As I remember,’ Cormac continued coolly, ‘you were begging me to make love to you, no strings, no promises. You understood the rules.’

‘But you were lying,’ she whispered. Her stomach roiled. ‘The whole time you were lying.’

‘Did it matter if you believed it?’

She shook her head, closed her eyes as if she could blot his words out. Blot out reality.

This was Cormac. This was that man…so far from what she’d hoped. What she’d let herself begin to believe.

Cormac exhaled in disgust. ‘You’re pathetic,’ he said. He released her with a contemptuous shrug. ‘Look at you, Lizzie. Look at your life. Living in that mausoleum of a house, clinging to your pathetic memories of happy families, giving everything for your no-good sister—’

Lizzie gasped, but he continued, his voice hard, cutting. He knew the truth and he wielded it like a weapon.

‘You’ve been so desperate to fall in love with me because you don’t have anything else. Twenty-eight years old and a virgin? I bet you’d never even been kissed before this weekend. I bet you’ve never even had a man look at you before. I gave you clothes, I wined and dined you, I woke you up.’ He bared his teeth in a feral smile. ‘Consider it a favour.’

‘You bastard—’ She struck out at him, hopelessly, for he caught her flying fist in one hand, curled his fingers around her own.

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