Hot-Shot Tycoon, Indecent Proposal



I’m not your mistress. You may think I’m bought and paid for. But I’m not.’

She babbled to a stop. He was looking at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses. ‘You don’t own me,’ she soldiered on regardless. ‘And I won’t be treated as if you do.’

He shrugged. ‘Right enough,’ he said, then pulled down his zipper. The crackle of the metal teeth unlocking drew her gaze down. ‘Move over. I’ve a mind to join you in the tub.’

‘I most certainly will—’ But her indignant reply backed up in her throat as his trousers and boxers dropped to the floor and her eyes fixed on his groin. Unfortunately that hadn’t got any less beautiful, any less magnificent, than the last time she’d seen it. Her whole body began to shake.

She gulped, her mouth bone-dry, and forced her eyes back to his face as he stepped into the tub. The sensual smile made it obvious he was very well aware of the effect his nakedness had on her.

He settled beside her, his big body making the water and her temperature rise. ‘Now, where were we?’ he said.

She lay transfixed by her raging hormones as he reached behind him for the soap.

Heidi Rice was born and bred and still lives in London, England. She has two boys who love to bicker, a wonderful husband who, luckily for everyone, has loads of patience, and a supportive and ever-growing British/ French/Irish/American family. As much as Heidi adores ‘the Big Smoke’, she also loves America, and every two years or so she and her best friend leave hubby and kids behind and Thelma and Louise it across the States for a couple of weeks (although they always leave out the driving off a cliff bit). She’s been a film buff since her early teens, and a romance junkie for almost as long. She indulged her first love by being a film reviewer for ten years. Then two years ago she decided to spice up her life by writing romance. Discovering the fantastic sisterhood of romance writers (both published and unpublished) in Britain and America made it a wild and wonderful journey to her first Mills & Boon® novel, and she’s looking forward to many more to come.

Recent books by the same author:

PLEASURE, PREGNANCY AND A PROPOSITION

THE TYCOON’S VERY PERSONAL ASSISTANT

BY

HEIDI RICE

MILLS & BOON

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To Bryony, for knowing when the Elvis impersonator

needs to be kicked out of the manuscript.

With special thanks to Eilis, who made sure Connor

didn’t sound like an extra from The Quiet Man.

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU can’t do this. What if you get caught? He could have you arrested.’

Daisy Dean paused in the process of scoping out her neighbour’s ludicrously high garden wall and slanted her best friend, Juno, a long-suffering look.

‘He won’t catch me,’ Daisy replied in the same hushed tones. ‘I’m practically invisible with all this gear on.’

She looked down at the clothes she’d borrowed from her fellow tenants at the Bedsit Co-op next door. Goodness, she looked like Tinkerbell the Terminator decked out in fourteen-year-old Cal’s sagging black Levi’s, his tiny mother Jacie’s navy blue polo neck and Juno’s two-sizes-too-small bovver boots.

She’d never been this invisible in her entire life. The one thing Daisy had inherited from her reckless and irresponsible mother was Lily Dean’s in-your-face dress sense. Daisy didn’t do monotones—and she didn’t believe in hiding her light under a bushel.

She frowned. Except when she was on a mission to find her landlady’s missing cat.

‘Stop worrying, Juno, and give me the beanie.’ She held out her hand and stared back up at the wall, which seemed to have grown several feet since she’d last looked at it. ‘You’ll have to give me a boost.’

Juno groaned, slapping the black woollen cap into Daisy’s outstretched palm. ‘This better not make me an accessory after the fact or something.’ She bent over and looped her fingers together in a sling.

‘Don’t be silly.’ Daisy shoved her curls under the cap and tugged it over her ears. ‘It’s not a crime. Not really.’

‘Of course it’s a crime.’ Juno straightened from her crouch, her round, pretty face looking like the good fairy in a strop. ‘It’s called trespassing.’

‘These are extenuating circumstances,’ Daisy whispered as a picture of their landlady Mrs Valdermeyer’s distraught face popped into her mind. ‘Mr Pootles has been missing for well over a fortnight. And our antisocial new neighbour’s the only one within a mile radius who hasn’t had the decency to search his back garden.’ She propped her hands on her hips. ‘Mr Pootles could be starving to death and it’s up to us to rescue him.’

‘Maybe he looked and didn’t find anything?’ Juno said, her voice rising in desperation.

‘I doubt that. Believe me, he’s not the type to lose sleep over a missing cat.’

‘How do you know? You’ve never even met the guy,’ Juno murmured, wedging the tiniest slither of doubt into Daisy’s crusading zeal.

‘That’s only because he’s been avoiding us,’ Daisy pointed out, the slither dissolving.

Their mysterious new neighbour had bought the double-fronted Georgian wreck three months ago, and had managed to gut it and rehab it in record time. But despite all Daisy’s overtures since he’d moved in two weeks ago—the note she’d posted through his door and the message she’d relayed to his cleaning lady—he’d made no attempt to greet his neighbours at Mrs Valdermeyer’s Bedsit Co-operative. Or join the search for the missing Mr Pootles.

In fact he’d been downright rude. When she’d dropped off a plate of her special home-made brownies the day before in a last ditch attempt to get his attention, he hadn’t even returned the plate, let alone thanked her for them. Clearly the man was too rich and self-centred to have any time for the likes of them—or their problems.

And then there were his dark, striking good looks to be considered. ‘All you have to do is look at him,’ Daisy continued, ‘to see he’s a you-know-what-hole with a capital A.’

Okay, so she’d only caught glimpses of the guy as he was striding down his front steps towards the snazzy maroon gas-guzzler he kept parked out front. At least six feet two, leanly muscled and what she guessed most people would term ruggedly handsome, the guy was what she termed full of himself. Even from a distance he radiated enough testosterone to make a woman’s ovaries stand up and take notice— and she was sure he knew it.

Not that Daisy’s ovaries had taken any notice, of course. Well, not much anyway.

Luckily for Daisy, she was now completely immune to men like her new neighbour. Arrogant, self-absorbed charmers who thought of women as playthings. Men like Gary, who’d sidled into her life a year ago with his come-hither smile, his designer suits and his clever hands and sidled right back out again three months later taking a good portion of her pride and a tiny chunk of her heart with him.

Daisy had made a pact with herself then and there—that she’d never fall prey to some good-looking playboy again. What she needed was a nice regular guy. A man of substance and integrity, who would come to love her and respect her, who wanted the same things out of life she wanted and preferably didn’t know the difference between a designer label and a supermarket own brand.

Juno gave an irritated huff, interrupting Daisy’s moment of truth. ‘I still don’t understand why you haven’t just asked the guy about that stupid cat.’

A pulse of heat pumped under Daisy’s skin. ‘I tried to catch him the few times I spotted him, but he drives off so fast I would have had to be an Olympic sprinter.’

She’d suffer the tortures of hell before she’d admit the truth. That she’d been the tiniest bit intimidated by him, enough not to relish confronting him in person.

Juno sighed and bent down, linking her fingers together. ‘Fine, but don’t blame me if you get done for breaking and entering.’

‘Stop panicking.’ Daisy placed a foot in Juno’s palms. ‘I’m sure he’s not even home. His Jeep’s not parked out front. I checked.’

If she’d thought for a moment he might actually be in residence the butterflies waltzing about in her belly would have started pogoing like punk rockers. ‘I’ll be super-discreet. He’ll never even know I was there.’

‘There’s one teeny-weeny problem with that scenario,’ Juno said dryly. ‘You don’t do discreet, remember.’

‘I can if I’m desperate,’ Daisy replied. Or at least she’d do her best.

Ignoring Juno’s derisive snort, Daisy reached up to climb the wall and felt the skintight polo neck rise up her midriff. She looked down to see a wide strip of white flesh reflecting in the streetlamp opposite and caught a glimpse of her red satin undies where the jeans sagged.

‘Blast.’ She dropped her arm and bounced down.

‘What’s the matter now?’ Juno whispered.

‘My tummy shows when I lift my arms.’

‘So?’

Daisy frowned at her friend. ‘So it totally ruins the camouflage effect.’ She tapped her finger on her bottom lip. ‘I know, I’ll take off my bra.’

‘What on earth for?’ Juno snapped, getting more agitated by the second.

‘The material’s catching on the lace—it won’t rise up as much.’

‘But you can’t,’ Juno replied. ‘You’ll bounce.’

‘It’ll only be for a minute.’ Daisy unclipped the bra and wriggled it out of one sleeve. She passed the much-loved concoction of satin, lace and underwiring to Juno.

Juno dangled it from her fingertips. ‘What is this obsession you have with hooker underwear?’

‘You’re just jealous,’ Daisy replied, turning back to the wall. Juno had always had a bit of a complex about her barely B-cups in Daisy’s opinion.

She put her foot in Juno’s sling and felt her breasts sway erotically under the confining fabric. Thank goodness no one would get close enough to spot her unfettered state. She’d always been proud to call herself a feminist, but she was way too well endowed to be one of the burn-your-bra variety.

‘Right.’ Daisy took a deep breath of the heavy, honeysuckle-flavoured air. ‘I’m off.’

Grabbing hold of the top, she hauled herself up, her nipples tightening as she rubbed against the brick. Throwing her leg over, she straddled the wall with a soft grunt.

She peered through the leaves of a large chestnut tree and scanned the shadows of their neighbour’s garden. Moonlight reflected off the windows at the back of the house. Daisy let out the breath she’d been holding. Phew, he definitely wasn’t in.

‘I still can’t believe you’re actually going to do this.’ Juno scowled up at her from the shrubbery.

‘We owe this to Mrs Valdermeyer—you know how much she adores that cat,’ she whispered from her vantage position on the wall.

The truth was Daisy knew she owed her landlady much more than just a promise to find her cat.

When her mother, Lily, had announced she had found ‘the one’ again eight years ago, Daisy had opted to stay put. She’d been sixteen, alone in London and terrified and Mrs Valdermeyer had come to her rescue. Mrs Valdermeyer had given her a home, and a security she’d never known before— which meant Daisy owed her landlady more than she could ever repay. And Daisy always paid her debts.

‘And don’t forget,’ Daisy said urgently, warming to her subject, ‘Mrs V could have sold the Co-op to developers a thousand times over and become a rich woman, but she hasn’t. Because we’re like family to her. And family stick together.’

At least Daisy had always felt they ought to. If she’d ever had brothers and sisters and a mum who was even halfway reliable she was sure that was how her own family would have been.

She looked back at the garden, gulped down the apprehension tightening her throat.

‘I don’t think Mrs Valdermeyer would expect you to get arrested,’ Juno whispered in the darkness. ‘And don’t forget the scar on that guy’s face. He doesn’t look like the type who can take a joke.’

Daisy leaned forward, ready to slide down the other side of the wall. She stopped. Okay, maybe that scar was a bit of a worry. ‘Do me a favour—if I don’t come back in an hour, call the police.’

She could just make out Juno’s muttered words as she edged herself down into the darkness.

‘What for? So they can cart you off to jail?’

‘Forget it, I’m not conjuring up a fiancée just to keep Melrose sweet.’ Connor Brody tucked the phone into the crook of his shoulder and pulled the damp towel off his hips.

‘He went ballistic after the dinner party,’ Daniel Ellis, his business manager, replied, the panic in his voice clear all the way down the phone line from New York. ‘I’m not joking, Con. He accused you of trying to seduce Mitzi. He’s threatening to lose the deal.’

Connor grabbed the sweat pants folded over the back of the sofa and tugged them on one-handed, cursing the headache that had been brewing all day—and Mitzi Melrose, a woman he never wanted to see again in this lifetime.

‘She stuck her foot in my crotch under the table, Dan, not the other way around,’ Connor growled, annoyed all over again by Mitzi’s less-than-subtle attempts at seduction.

Not that Connor minded women who took the initiative, but Eldridge Melrose’s trophy wife had been coming on to him all evening and he’d made it pretty damn clear he wasn’t interested. He didn’t date married women, especially married women joined for better or worse to the billionaire property tycoon he was in the middle of a crucial deal with. Plus he’d never been attracted to women with more Botox and silicone in their body than common sense. But good old Mitzi had refused to take the hint and this was the result. A deal he’d been working on for months was in danger of going belly up through no fault of his.

‘Come on, Con. If he backs out of the deal now we’re back to square one.’

Connor walked across the darkened living room to the bar by the floor-to-ceiling windows, Danny’s pleading whine not doing a damn thing for his headache. He rubbed his throbbing temple and splashed some whiskey into a shot glass. ‘I’m not about to pretend to be engaged just to satisfy Melrose’s delusions about his oversexed wife,’ he rasped. ‘Deal or no deal.’

Connor savoured the peaty scent of the expensive malt— so different from the smell of stale porter that had permeated his childhood—and slugged it back. The expensive liquor warmed his sore throat and reminded him how far he’d come. He’d once had to do things he wasn’t proud of to survive, to get out. The stakes would have to be a lot higher than a simple business deal before he’d compromise his integrity like that again.

‘Damn, Con, come off it.’ Danny was still whining. ‘You’re blowing this way out of proportion. You must have a ton of women in your little black book who’d kill to spend two weeks at The Waldorf posing as your beloved. And I don’t see it being any big hardship for you either.’

‘I don’t have a little black book.’ Connor gave a gruff chuckle. ‘Danny, what era are you living in? And even if I did, there’s not one of the women I’ve dated who wouldn’t take the request the wrong way. You give a woman a diamond ring, she’s going to get ideas no matter what you tell her.’

Hadn’t he gone through the mother of all break-ups only two months ago because he’d believed Rachel when she’d said she wasn’t looking for anything serious? Just good sex and a good time. He’d thought they were both on the same page only to discover Rachel was in a whole different book—a book with wedding bells and baby booties on the cover.

Connor shuddered, metal spikes stabbing at his temples. No way was he opening himself up to that horror show again.

‘I can’t believe you’d throw this deal away when the solution’s so simple.’

Connor heard Danny’s pained huff, and decided he’d had enough of the whole debate.

‘Believe it.’ He put the glass down on the bar, winced as the slight tap reverberated in his sore head. ‘I’ll see you the week after next. If Melrose is bound and determined to cut off his nose to spite me, so be it,’ he finished on a rasping cough.

‘Hey, are you okay, buddy? You sound kind of rough.’

‘Just fine,’ Connor said, his voice brittle with sarcasm. He’d caught some bug on the plane back from New York that morning and now there was this whole cluster screw-up with Melrose and his wife to handle.

‘Why don’t you take a few days off?’ Danny said gently. ‘You’ve been working your butt off for months. You’re not Superman, you know.’

‘You don’t say,’ Connor said wryly, resting his aching forehead against the cool glass of the balcony doors and staring into the garden below. ‘I’ll be all right once I’ve a solid ten hours’ sleep under my belt.’ Which might have worked if he hadn’t been wired with jet lag.

‘I’ll let you get to it,’ Danny said, still sounding concerned. ‘But think about taking a proper break. Haven’t you just moved into that swanky new pad? Take a couple of days to relax and enjoy it.’

‘Sure, I’ll think about it,’ he lied smoothly. ‘See you round, Dan.’

He clicked off the handset and glanced round at the cavernous, sparsely furnished living room in the half light.

He’d bought the derelict Georgian house on a whim at auction and spent a small fortune refurbishing it, thanks to some idiot notion that at thirty-two he needed a more permanent base. Now the house was ready, it was everything he’d specified—open, airy, clean, modern, minimalist—but as soon as he’d moved in he’d felt trapped. It was a feeling he recognised only too well from his childhood. And he’d quickly accepted the truth, that permanence for him was always going to feel like a prison.

He turned back to the window. He reckoned a therapist would have a field day with that little nugget of information, but he had a simpler solution. He’d sell the house and move on. Make a nice healthy profit—and never be stupid enough to consider buying a place of his own again.

Some people needed roots, needed stability, needed for ever. He wasn’t one of them. Hotels and rentals suited him fine. Brody Construction was all the legacy he wanted.

He dropped the handset on the sofa.

His shoulder muscles ached at the slight movement. Damn, he hadn’t felt this sore since he was a lad and he’d woken up with the welts still fresh from dear old Da’s belt. He squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t go there.

Forcing the old bitterness away, he lifted his lids and spotted a flicker of movement in the garden below. He blinked and squinted, focussing on the shadowy wisp. Slowly but surely, the wisp morphed into a figure. A small figure clad suspiciously in black, which proceeded to crawl over one of the flowerbeds.

He jolted upright and braced his palm against the glass, his head screaming in protest as he strained to see. Then watched in astonishment as the intruder stood and dipped under one of the big showy shrubs by the back wall—a light strip of flesh flashing at its midriff.

‘What the…?’ The whisper scraped his throat raw as fury bubbled.

Damn it all to hell and back, could this day get any worse?

A surge of adrenaline masked his aching limbs and exploding head as he stalked across the living room and down the wide twin staircase. Whoever the little bastard was, and whatever they were about, they’d made a big mistake.

No one messed with Connor Brody.

For all the trappings of wealth and sophistication that surrounded him now, he’d grown up on Dublin’s meanest streets and he knew how to fight dirty when he had to.

He might not want this place, but he wasn’t about to let anyone else nick a piece of it.

CHAPTER TWO

‘HERE, kitty, kitty. Come to Daisy. Nice kitty.’ Daisy strained to keep her voice to a whisper as sweat pooled in her armpits and the coarse wool of the beanie cap made her head itch.

She scratched her crown, pulled the suffocating cap back over her ears and peered into the pitch dark under the hydrangea bush. Nothing.

Why hadn’t she brought a torch? She huffed. And gave up. This was pointless. She’d almost broken her neck getting over the wall and had then spent ten long minutes searching the garden, gouging her thumb on one of the rose bushes in the process, and she still hadn’t seen a blasted thing.

She crawled out from under the bush, her fingers sinking into the dirt as she tried to avoid squashing any of the plants in the flowerbed.

Raucous barking cut the still night air like a thunderclap. She clasped her hand to her throat and swallowed a shriek.

Her heartbeat kicked in again as she recognised the excited yips. Trust Mr Pettigrew’s Jack Russell, Edgar, to give her a flipping heart attack—it had to be the most annoying dog on the planet.

She puffed out her cheeks and sucked on her sore thumb. Well, at least she could go back home now knowing she’d done her best to find the invisible Mr Pootles. Wherever he’d got to, it wasn’t Mr Hot-Shot’s back garden.

She stood, ready to walk back to the wall when the yapping cut off. The sound of a soft pad behind her had her glancing over her shoulder. She spotted the dark silhouette looming over her and had a split second to think. ‘Oh, crap.’

A muscled forearm banded around her tummy and hauled her off her feet. Her breath whooshed out as her back connected with a solid wall of hot, naked male.

‘Gotcha, you little terror,’ muttered a deep voice.

She sucked in a quick breath ready to scream her lungs out, when a large hand slapped across her mouth—smothering her with the scent of sandalwood soap.

‘No, you don’t, lad,’ the voice murmured, the hint of Irish in it only making it more terrifying. ‘You’re not calling your mates.’

She struggled against the band around her waist. It didn’t budge.

Lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all, her captor hefted her back towards the house. The soap smell overwhelmed her as she listened to the grunts of her own muffled screams through the powertool now buzzing in her ears.

Daisy’s head began to spin as tomorrow’s tabloid headlines flashed across her mind. WOMAN SMOTHERED TO DEATH OVER MISSING CAT.

She kicked clumsily, connecting with thin air, and the baggy jeans slipped off her hips. Then the arm released and she landed hard on the ground, pitching head first onto the grass. As she scrambled up a hand grasped the waistband of her jeans and yanked.

‘Hey, what’s with the satin panties?’ came the shocked shout from behind her.

She gasped, blood surging into her head as she lurched round and hauled the jeans back up to cover herself.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he yelled.

Silhouetted by the porch light, all she could make out of her captor were acres of bare chest, ominously black brows, waves of dark hair and impossibly broad shoulders.

Her whole body vibrated with fury as embarrassment exploded in her cheeks, but all that came out of her mouth was a pathetic yelp.

He reached forward and whipped the beanie cap off her head. She tried to grab for it but her hair cascaded down.