Hot-Shot Tycoon, Indecent Proposal

Forget standing her ground. Time to get the hell out of Dodge.

She turned to bolt. Too late—as strong fingers clamped on her arm.

‘I don’t think so, lady. I want some answers first.’

The forward momentum pulled her off her feet. ‘Let me go,’ she squeaked, tugging on her arm. His grip tightened as he dragged her backwards up the porch steps.

Panic welled up as he marched her through sliding glass doors into a massive open-plan kitchen. The smell of fresh varnish assaulted her nostrils and light blinded her as he snapped on a switch.

He hauled her past polished oak work surfaces and gleaming glass cabinets to a sunken seating area and shoved her, none too gently, into a leather armchair. ‘Take a seat.’

She went to leap up but he grabbed the arms of the chair, caging her in. Heat radiated from his naked chest like a furnace, as did the heady scent of soap and man. She flinched at the fury in his face, which was now illuminated in every shockingly masculine detail.

A drop of water from his damp hair splashed onto her sweater. She shrank into the cool leather as the moisture sank into the fabric and touched her naked breasts.

Ice-blue eyes dipped to her chest and her traitorous nipples chose that precise moment to draw into excruciatingly hard points. Heat flared in her face. Why had she taken off her bra? Could he tell?

‘Stay put,’ he snarled, his laser-beam gaze lifting back to her face. ‘Or, so help me, I’ll give you the spanking you deserve.’

She began to shake, her heart wedged in her throat. Up close and rather too personal, the stark male beauty of his face was staggering. Dark slashing brows and angular cheekbones rough with stubble did nothing to detract from the cool, iridescent blue of his eyes, nor the livid white scar twitching against the tensed muscles of his jaw. As his gaze swept over her she noticed he had the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen.

They ought to have made those arctic eyes look girly. They didn’t.

‘You can’t spank me,’ she whispered, then wished she hadn’t as his eyes darted back to hers.

‘Don’t tempt me,’ he rasped.

Daisy’s heartbeat sped up to warp speed. Do not antagonise him, you silly cow.

He straightened and raked a hand through his hair, pushing the thick black waves back from a high forehead. His gaze slipped to her chest again.

Her cheeks got several crucial shades hotter.

‘You can stop shaking,’ he said at last. ‘You’re in luck. I don’t hurt women.’

The contempt in his voice was too much. Her temper flared, destroying the vow she’d made moments before. ‘You just scared the crap out of me, Atilla. What the heck do you call that?’

‘You were in my garden. Uninvited,’ he sneered. Not sounding anywhere near as apologetic as he should. ‘What did you expect, a red carpet?’

Before she could come up with a decent comeback, he turned and stalked over to the kitchen’s central aisle. She noticed a curious hitch in his stride. Why was he walking as if he were on a swaying ship?

He bent over the double sink. Her eyes lifted to his back and she stifled a gasp, the question forgotten. A criss-cross of pale ridges stood out against the smooth brown skin of his shoulder blades. Daisy swallowed convulsively.

Whoever this guy was, he was not the rich, pampered, narcissistic playboy she’d assumed.

Coupled with the mark on his face, the scars on his back proved he’d lived a hard life, marred by violence. Daisy bit into her bottom lip, clasped her hands to stop them trembling and dismissed the little spurt of pity at the thought of how much those wounds must once have hurt.

Do not make him mad, again, Daisy. You don’t know what he might be capable of.

He filled a glass with water, then turned back to her. Propping his butt against the counter, he crossed his bare feet at the ankles and stared. She shivered, suddenly freezing in the heat of the late-July evening.

He downed the water in three quick gulps. Daisy swallowed, realising her own throat was drier than the Gobi Desert. Probably the result of the extreme emotional trauma he’d put her through. She wasn’t about to ask him for a glass, though. Keeping her mouth firmly shut at this juncture seemed like the smart choice.

He put the glass down on the counter. The sharp snap made her jump. He coughed, the sound harsh and hollow as it rumbled up his chest, and rubbed his forehead against his upper arm. Bracing his hands against the counter, he dropped his chin to his chest, gave a weary sigh.

Daisy let a breath out between her teeth. With those broad shoulders slumped he looked a little less threatening. When he didn’t speak for a while, or look up, she wondered if he’d forgotten her. She eased out of the chair. The treacherous leather creaked, and his head snapped up.

‘Sit the hell down,’ he said, the huskiness of his voice doing nothing to disguise the snarl. ‘We’re not through.’

She sat down with a plop. He still looked enormous, and she suspected he was doing his level best to intimidate her, but she could see bruised smudges of fatigue under his eyes.

She ruthlessly quashed another little prickle of sympathy. Whatever was ailing him, he’d terrified her, threatened her and quite possibly let poor Mr Pootles die a long and painful death.

She’d be better off reserving her sympathy for the Big Bad Wolf.

‘What exactly do you want?’ she asked, pleased when her voice barely wavered.

He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked an eyebrow, saying nothing.

Completely of their own accord, her eyes zeroed in on the dark curls of hair on his chest, which tapered down a washboard-lean six-pack and arrowed to a thin line beneath the drooping waistband of his sweat pants. The worn grey cotton hung so low on his hips, she could see the hollows defining his pelvis. One millimetre lower, and she’d be able to see a whole lot more.

The errant thought had Daisy’s thigh muscles clenching.

Her gaze shot back up to find him watching her. The heat flared across her chest and up her neck. Did he know where her thoughts had just wandered?

He rocked back on his heels, still studying her in that disconcerting way, and tightened his arms over his magnificent chest. Her heart gave an annoying kick as his biceps flexed, and her eyes flicked to a faded tattoo of the Celtic cross on his left arm.

She gulped, struggling to ignore the long liquid pull low in her belly. What was wrong with her? The guy might have the tanned, sculpted body of a top male model, but Daisy Dean did not get turned on by arrogant, self-righteous bullies, however buff they might be.

‘So let’s hear it,’ he said, his soft, but oddly menacing tone cutting the oppressive silence at last. ‘What were you about in my garden?’

She thrust her chin up, determined not to feel guilty. Her mission had been innocent enough, even if it now seemed somewhat suicidal. ‘I was looking for my landlady’s cat.’

He coughed, the dry rumble making her wince. ‘How much of an idiot do you think I am?’

She bit back the pithy retort that wanted to pop out of her mouth.

‘His name’s Mr Pootles. He’s a large ginger tom with a squinty eye,’ she hurried on, despite the sceptical lift of his eyebrow. ‘And he’s been missing for two weeks.’

‘And you couldn’t come to the door and ask me if I’d seen him? Because why exactly?’

‘I did, but you never answer your door,’ she said, righteous indignation building. If he’d answered his damn door in the last two weeks she wouldn’t be in this predicament. In fact, now she thought about it, this was all his fault.

‘I’ve been out of the country this past week,’ he shot back at her.

‘Mr Pootles has been missing for two. And anyway I left messages with your housekeeper—and brownies,’ she added.

His eyebrows shot up. Why had she mentioned the brownies? It made her sound like a stalker.

‘Look, it doesn’t matter.’ She stood up, forcing what she hoped was a contrite look onto her face. ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you. I didn’t think you were in and I was worried about the cat. It could have been starving to death in your backyard.’

His eyes swept her figure again, making her pulse go haywire. ‘Which doesn’t explain why you dressed up like a burglar to come look for it,’ he said wryly.

‘Well, I…’ How did she explain that, without sounding as if she were indeed a lunatic? ‘I really should be going.’

Please let me get out of here with at least a small shred of my dignity intact.

‘The cat obviously isn’t here and I need to get back…’ She stumbled to a halt, edging her way round the chair.

‘Not yet, you don’t,’ he said, but to her astonishment his lips quirked.

She blinked, not believing her eyes. Was that a smile?

‘I got the brownies, by the way. They were tasty.’ He rubbed his belly, his lips lifting some more. The smile became a definite smirk.

‘Why didn’t you answer my messages, then?’ And what was so damn funny all of a sudden?

‘They probably got lost in translation,’ he said easily. ‘My cleaner doesn’t speak much English.’

He straightened, swayed violently and grabbed hold of the work surface.

‘What’s wrong?’ Daisy stepped towards him. His face had drained of colour and looked worn and sallow in the harsh light.

He put a hand up, warding her off. ‘Nothing,’ he growled, all traces of amusement gone.

She could see he was lying. But decided not to call him on it. After the way she’d been treated he could be at death’s door for all she cared.

He let go of the counter top, but didn’t look all that steady. ‘I know what happened to your cat.’

It was the last thing she’d expected him to say. ‘You do?’

‘Uh-huh, follow me.’

Gripping the edge of the centre aisle, he made his way across the kitchen. He moved with the fragile precision of someone in their eighties, his bare feet padding on the floor.

Daisy tramped down on her instinctive concern as she followed him. She hated to see people suffering, and for all his severe personality problems this guy was obviously suffering. But he’d made it clear he didn’t want her sympathy, or her help.

He shuffled to a small door in the far wall and opened it. Leaning heavily on it, he beckoned her over with one finger.

As she stepped forward he pulled the door wide. She heard the soft mewing sound and glanced down. Gasping, she dropped to her knees. Nestled in an old blanket beneath a state-of-the-art immersion heater was Mr Pootles—and his four nursing kittens.

Make that Mrs Pootles.

‘The cat showed up after I moved in.’ She glanced up at the husky voice, saw the hooded blue eyes watching her. ‘She had no collar and didn’t want to be petted so I took her for a stray.’

Daisy studied the cat and her kittens. A saucer of milk had been placed next to the blanket. She reached out a finger and stroked one of the miniature bodies. The warm bundle of fluff wiggled. Daisy sat back on her haunches.

Maybe the Big Bad Wolf wasn’t as bad as he seemed.

A little of Daisy’s anger and indignation drained away, to be replaced by something that felt uncomfortably like shame.

‘She had the kittens ten days back,’ he continued, the hoarse tone barely more than a whisper. ‘The cleaner’s been looking after them. They seem to be doing okay.’

‘I see,’ she said quietly.

Daisy stood, resigned to eating the slice of humble pie she’d so cleverly served herself by climbing over his garden wall in the middle of the night.

Still, she took a few seconds to collect herself, brushing invisible fluff off Cal’s jeans and then folding down the waistband so they’d stay up without her having to cling onto them. Humble pie had always been hard for her to swallow. Having delayed as long as possible, she cleared her throat and made eye contact.

He was studying her, his expression inscrutable. She might have guessed he wasn’t going to make this easy for her.

‘I’m awfully sorry, Mr…?’

‘Brody, Connor Brody,’ he said, a penetrating look in those crystal eyes. Her pulse skidded.

‘Mr Brody,’ she murmured, her cheeks flaming. ‘What I did was unforgivable. I hope there are no hard feelings.’

She held out her hand, but instead of taking it he glanced at it, then to her astonishment his lips curved in a lazy grin. The slow, sensuous smile softened the harsh lines of his face, making him look even more gorgeous—and even more arrogant—if that were possible.

Daisy held back a sigh as her heart rate kicked into overdrive.

How typical. When Daisy Dean made an idiot of herself, it couldn’t be in front of an ordinary mortal. It had to be in front of someone who looked like a flipping movie star.

‘So are your cat burgling days behind you, now?’ he said at last, the roughened voice doing nothing to hide his amusement. He tilted his head to take in every inch of her attire, right down to Juno’s Doc Martens. ‘That’d be a shame, as the outfit suits you.’

She dropped her hand. Make that a movie star with a warped sense of humour.

‘Enjoy it while you can,’ she said dryly, trying hard to see the humour in the situation—which was clearly at her expense. She knew perfectly well she looked a complete fright.

‘And what would your name be?’ he asked.

‘Daisy Dean.’

‘It’s been a pleasure, Daisy Dean,’ he said, still smirking as if she were the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

‘I’ll come back tomorrow to get the cats, if that’s okay?’ she said stiffly, clinging to her last scrap of dignity.

‘I’ll be waiting,’ he said. The hacking cough that followed wiped the smirk off his face, but only for a moment. ‘I’ve a question, though, before you go.’

‘What is it?’ she asked warily, the teasing glint in his eyes irritating her.

Honestly, some men would flirt with a stone.

He didn’t say anything straight away. Instead, his gaze roamed down to her chest and took its own sweet time making its way back to her face. ‘Did you lose the bra on your way over the wall?’

Colour flared in her cheeks and her backbone snapped straight. That did it. ‘I’m glad you find this so hilarious, Mr Brody.’

‘You have no idea, Daisy,’ he said, coughing out a laugh, his pure aquamarine eyes sparkling with mischief.

‘I’m off,’ she said through clenched teeth, not even trying to keep the frost out of her voice.

She might have been wrong about the cat, but she hadn’t been wrong about him. He was an arrogant, overbearing, insufferable, full-of-himself—

A hissed expletive interrupted her cataloguing of his many character flaws.

She turned, watching in astonishment as he stumbled and then collapsed. The thud of his knees hitting the laminated floor made her wince.

She crouched beside him, her resentment fading fast as she took in his pallid complexion and the tremors racking his body. ‘Mr Brody, are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ he hissed, a thin sheen of moisture popping out on his forehead.

She pressed the back of her hand to his brow, felt the scorching heat as he jerked back. ‘You’re burning up, Mr Brody.’

‘Stop calling me that, for Christ’s sake.’ His head snapped up, the headache clear in his bloodshot eyes. ‘The name’s Connor.’

‘Well, Connor, you’ve got yourself a very impressive fever. You need to see a doctor.’

‘I’m okay,’ he said, gripping the work surface. She offered her hand, but he shrugged it off as he struggled onto his feet, the muscles in his arms bulging as he hauled himself upright.

She could see the effort had cost him as he stood with his hands braced on the polished wood. His chest heaved in ragged pants and the fine sheen of sweat turned to rivulets running down his temples.

‘You can leave any time now.’ He grunted without looking round.

She came to stand next to him, could feel the heat and resentment pulsing off him. ‘What? When I’m having so much fun watching you suffer?’

The tremor became a shake. ‘Get lost, will you?’

She rolled her eyeballs. Men! What exactly was so terrible about asking for help? Propping herself against his side, she put an arm round his waist. ‘How far to your bedroom?’

‘There’s a spare room across the hall.’ The words had the texture of sandpaper scraping over his throat. ‘Which I can get to under my own steam.’

She doubted that, given the way he was leaning on her to stay upright. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said briskly. ‘You can hardly walk.’

To her surprise, he didn’t put up any more protests as she led him out of the kitchen and across a hallway. The spare room was as palatial as expected, with wide French doors leading out into the garden. She eased him down onto the large divan bed in the dim light, his skin now slick with sweat. He shivered violently, his teeth chattering as he spoke.

‘Fine, now leave me be.’

He sounded so annoyed she smiled. The tables had certainly turned. She didn’t have long to savour the moment though as brutal coughs rocked his chest.

‘I’m calling the doctor.’

‘It’s only a cold.’ The protest didn’t sound convincing punctuated by the harsh coughing.

‘More like pneumonia,’ she said.

‘No one gets pneumonia in July.’ He tried to say something else, but his shadowy form convulsed on the bed as he succumbed to another savage coughing fit.

She rushed back into the kitchen, spotted the phone on the far wall and pumped in the number for her local GP. Maya Patel lived two streets over and owed her a favour since the mother-and-baby club fund-raiser she’d helped organise a month ago. Her friend sounded sleepy when she picked up. Daisy rattled out her panicked plea and Connor’s address.

‘Fine,’ Maya said wearily. ‘You need to get his temperature down. Try dousing him with ice water, open the windows and take his clothes off. I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ she finished on a huge yawn and hung up.

Daisy returned to the bedroom armed with a bowl of ice water and a tea towel. The hideous coughing had stopped, but when she got closer to the bed she could feel the heat pumping off her patient. He’d sweated right through the track pants, which clung to his powerful thighs like a second skin.

She flipped the lamp on by the bed to find him watching her, the feverish light of delirium intensifying the blue of his irises.

‘The doctor said to try and get the fever down,’ she said.

She took his silent stare as consent and dipped the cloth in the water. She wrung it out and draped it over his torso. He moaned, the sinews of his arms and neck straining. She wiped the towel over his chest and down his abdomen. Her heart rate leaped as he sucked in a breath and the rigid muscles quivered under her fingertips.

The cloth came away warm to the touch.

‘Dr Patel’s on her way,’ she said gently. ‘Is there anyone you want me to call? Anyone you need here?’

He shook his head and whispered something. She couldn’t hear him, so she leaned down to place her ear against his lips.

Hot breath feathered across her ear lobe and sent a shiver of awareness down her spine. ‘There’s no one I need, Daisy Dean,’ he murmured, in a barely audible whisper. ‘Not even you.’

She straightened, looked into his face and saw the vulnerability he was determined to hide.

He might not want to need her, but right now he did and Daisy had a rule about people in need—you had to do your best to help them, whether they wanted you to or not.

She rinsed the cloth, wrung it out and placed it on his forehead. He tensed against the chill, his big body shivering.

‘That’s a shame, tough guy,’ she said as she stroked his brow. ‘Because I’m afraid you’re stuck with me until you’re strong enough to throw me out.’

Connor closed his eyes, the blessed cool on his brow beating back the inferno that threatened to explode out of his ears. Every single muscle in his body throbbed in agony but those cool, efficient strokes, over his cheeks, across his chest, down his arms, doused the flames, if only for a short while.

He’d always hated it when his sisters had fussed over him as a kid, trying to tend the wounds their father had inflicted in one of his drunken rages. Even then he’d hated to be beholden to anyone. Hated to feel dependent. But as his eyes flickered open he was pathetically grateful to see his pretty little neighbour leaning over him. He stared at her, taking in the clear, almost translucent skin and the serene, capable look on her face as she soothed the brutal pain. She reminded him of the alabaster Madonna in St Patrick’s Church, which had fascinated him as a boy, when he’d still believed prayers could be answered.

But then his Virgin bit into her full lower lip and shifted on the edge of the bed to dip the cloth back in the water bowl. His gaze dropped, taking in the enticing movement of her breasts and the outline of erect nipples against her skintight top. Despite the heat blurring his senses and the pain stabbing at his skull, Connor felt the rush of response in his loins.

He shifted uncomfortably and she turned towards him. Flame-red curls outlined her head like a halo and the vivid jade-green eyes grew larger in her gamine face.

She placed gentle fingers on his forehead, pushed back the hair that had fallen across his brow. ‘Try to get some sleep, Mr Brody. The doctor will be here shortly.’

The desperate urge to take back what he’d said, to ask her not to leave, overwhelmed him. He opened his mouth to say the words, but nothing came out other than a guttural murmur. He grasped her wrist, grimacing as his shoulder cramped. He had to get her attention, make her stay, but however hard he tried he couldn’t make a coherent sound.

‘Don’t talk, you’ll only tire yourself out.’ She took his hand in hers, folded her small fingers round his palm and squeezed. ‘It’s okay, I won’t leave you,’ she said, as if she’d read his mind.

He shut his eyes, let himself fall into the fiery oblivion, his mind clinging onto one last disturbing thought.

Would wanting to see his angel of mercy naked send him straight to hell?

CHAPTER THREE

DAISY placed Connor’s hand carefully by his side, listened to the harsh pants of his breathing as he fell into a fitful sleep and then ran all three of Maya’s instructions back through her mind—one of which she’d been pretending she hadn’t heard.

She nipped over to the room’s French doors, unlocked the latch and flung them wide. Maybe two out of three would do the trick. But the evening air was suffocatingly still, creating no respite from the heat.

Daisy sat back on the bed. She chewed her lip and concentrated on wiping the cloth over the contours of Brody’s upper body. She applied the cooling linen to his arms and shoulders, and listened to the low groans as he struggled with the fever.

After five agonisingly long minutes, it was clear the fever had no intention of abating. If anything it seemed to be getting worse, the ice water now lukewarm in the bowl. Daisy wiped her own brow, cursing her smothering outfit for the umpteenth time that night.

Where was Maya? Shouldn’t she have been here by now? But even as she registered the thought she knew it was a delaying tactic.

Brody shifted on the bed, his movements stiff and uncomfortable.

What was her problem? She should just take off Brody’s sweat pants and be done with it. She was being ridiculous, behaving like a silly schoolgirl, when she was a mature, sensible and sexually confident woman.

Good grief, she’d seen naked men before. She’d lost her virginity at nineteen, to sweet, geeky Terry Mason. She wasn’t exactly prolific when it came to partners and some of them had definitely been more memorable than others. But none of her relationships had been disastrous enough to give her a complex about nudity. Hers or anyone else’s.

Until now.

Okay, Brody was a stranger, and his physique had affected her rather alarmingly already. But she could hardly let the poor bloke suffer because she’d had a sudden, inexplicable attack of modesty. And anyhow, this wasn’t remotely sexual, she was only trying to get his temperature down until Maya arrived. Plus, he probably had underwear on. There was absolutely no need to worry.