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When Dominic arrived she was shocked to see he didn’t look his sartorial best. In fact he looked downright dishevelled. His black hair seemed as if he’d used his fingers for a comb and his dark stubble was one step away from a beard. He was wearing black jeans, a dark grey T-shirt and had a black leather jacket slung over his shoulders. Immediately he owned the high-ceilinged room, a space that overwhelmed men of lesser stature, with the casual athleticism of his stance, the power of his body with its air of tightly coiled energy.
‘Are you alone?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. Yes!
Her first thought was that he looked hotter than ever—so hot she had to catch her breath. This Dominic set her pulse racing even more than executive Dominic in his made-to-measure Italian suits.
Her second thought was that he seemed stressed—his mouth set in a grim line, his eyes red-rimmed and darkly shadowed. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘I’ve come straight from the airport. I just flew in from Perth.’ Perth was on the other side of Australia—a six-hour flight. ‘I cut short my trip.’
‘But are you okay?’ She forced her voice to sound calm and measured, not wanting him to realise how she was reacting to his untamed good looks. Her heart thudded with awareness that they were alone in the apartment.
With the kind of friendly working relationship they had now established, it would be quite in order to greet him with a light kiss on his beard-roughened cheek. But she wouldn’t dare. She might not be able to resist sliding her mouth across his cheek to his mouth and turning it into a very different kind of kiss. And that wouldn’t do.
‘I’m fine. I’ve just...been presented with...with a dilemma,’ Dominic said.
‘Coffee might help,’ she said.
‘Please.’
‘Breakfast? I have—’
‘Just coffee.’
But Andie knew that sometimes men who said they didn’t want anything to eat needed food. And that their mood could improve immeasurably when they ate something. Not that she’d been in the habit of sharing breakfast with a man. Not since... She forced her mind back to the present and away from memories of breakfasts with Anthony on a sun-soaked veranda. Her memories of him were lit with sunshine and happiness.
Dominic dragged out a chair and slumped down at her kitchen table while she prepared him coffee. Why was he here? She turned to see him with his elbows on the tabletop, resting his head on his hands. Tired? Defeated? Something seemed to have put a massive dent in his usual self-assured confidence.
She slid a mug of coffee in front of him. ‘I assumed black but here’s frothed milk and sugar if you want.’
‘Black is what I need,’ he said. He put both hands around the mug and took it to his mouth.
Without a word, she put a thick chunk of fresh fruit bread, studded with figs and apricots, from her favourite baker in King Street in front of him. Then a dish of cream cheese and a knife. ‘Food might help,’ she said.
He put down his coffee, gave her a weary imitation of his usual glower and went to pick up the bread. ‘Let me,’ she said and spread it with cream cheese.
What was it about this man that made her want to comfort and care for him? He was a thirty-two-year-old billionaire, for heaven’s sake. Tough, self-sufficient. Wealthier than she could even begin to imagine. And yet she sometimes detected an air of vulnerability about him that wrenched at her. A sense of something broken. But it was not up to her to try and fix him. He ate the fruit bread in two bites. ‘More?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘It’s good,’ he said.
Andie had to be honest with herself. She wanted to comfort him, yes. She enjoyed his company. But it was more than that. She couldn’t deny that compelling physical attraction. He sat at her kitchen table, his leather jacket slung on the back of the chair. His tanned arms were sculpted with muscle, his T-shirt moulded ripped pecs and abs. With his rough-hewn face, he looked so utterly male.
Desire, so long unfamiliar, thrilled through her. She wanted to kiss him and feel those strong arms around her, his hands on her body. She wanted more than kisses. What was it about this not-my-type man who had aroused her interest from the moment she’d first met him?
When he’d eaten two more slices of fruit bread, he pushed his plate away and leaned back in his seat. His sigh was weary and heartfelt. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise I was hungry.’
She slipped into the chair opposite him and nursed her own cooling cup of coffee to stop the impulse to reach over and take his hand. ‘Are you able to tell me about your dilemma?’ she asked, genuinely concerned.
He raked his hands through his hair. ‘My ex-wife is causing trouble. Again.’
In her research into Dominic, Andie had seen photos of Tara Hunt—she still went by his name—a petite, pale-skinned redhead in designer clothes and an over-abundance of jewellery.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, deciding on caution in her reaction. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ Was that why he wanted to see her? To cry on her shoulder about his ex-wife? Dominic didn’t seem like a crying-on-shoulders kind of guy.
He went to drink more coffee, to find his mug was nearly empty. He drained the last drops. ‘You make good coffee,’ he said appreciatively.
‘I worked as a barista when I was a student,’ she said.
She and Anthony had both worked in hospitality, saving for vacation backpacker trips to Indonesia and Thailand. It seemed so long ago now, those days when she took it for granted they had a long, happy future stretched out ahead of them. They’d been saving for a trip to Eastern Europe when he’d died.
She took Dominic’s mug from him, got up, refilled it, brought it back to the table and sat down again. He drank from it and put it down.
Dominic leaned across the table to bring him closer to her. ‘Can I trust you, Andie?’ he asked in that deep, resonant voice. His intense grey gaze met hers and held it.
‘Of course,’ she said without hesitation.
He sat back in his chair. ‘I know you’re friends with journalists, so I have to be sure what I might talk to you about today won’t go any further.’ The way he said it didn’t sound offensive; in fact it made her feel privileged that he would consider her trustworthy. Not to mention curious about what he might reveal.
‘I assure you, you can trust me,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Tara found out about my impending deal with Walter Burton and is doing her best to derail it.’
Andie frowned. ‘How can she do that?’
‘Before I married Tara, she worked for my company in the accounts department. She made it her business to find out everything she could about the way I ran things. I didn’t know, but once I started dating her she used that knowledge to make trouble, hiding behind the shield of our relationship. None of my staff dared tell me.’
‘Not good,’ Andie said, wanting to express in no uncertain terms what she thought of his ex, yet not wanting to get into a bitching session about her.
‘You’re right about that,’ he said. ‘It’s why I now never date employees.’
His gaze met hers again and held it for a long moment. Was there a message in there for her? If she wasn’t a contractor, would he ask her out? If she hadn’t promised her partners to stay away from him, would she suggest a date?
‘That policy makes...sense,’ she said. What about after Christmas, when she and Dominic would no longer be connected by business? Could they date then? A sudden yearning for that to happen surprised her with its intensity. She wanted him.
‘It gets worse,’ he continued. ‘A former employee started his own business in competition with me—’ Andie went to protest but Dominic put up his hand. ‘It happens; that’s legit,’ he said. ‘But what happened afterwards wasn’t. After our marriage broke up, Tara used her knowledge of how my company worked to help him.’
Andie couldn’t help her gasp of outrage. ‘Did her...her betrayal work?’
‘She gave him the information. That didn’t mean he knew how to use it. But now I’ve just discovered she’s working with him in a last-minute rival bid for the joint venture with Walter Burton.’
Andie shook her head in disbelief. ‘Why?’ Her research had shown her Tara Hunt had ended up with a massive divorce settlement from Dominic. Per day of their short marriage, she had walked away with an incredible number of dollars.
Dominic shrugged. ‘Revenge. Spite. Who knows what else?’
‘Surely Walter Burton won’t be swayed by that kind of underhand behaviour?’
‘Traditional values are important to Walter Burton. We know that. That’s why we’re holding the party to negate the popular opinion of me as a Scrooge.’
‘So what does your ex-wife have to do with the deal?’
Dominic sighed, a great weary sigh that made Andie want to put comforting arms around him. She’d sensed from the get-go he was a private person. He obviously hated talking about this. Once more, she wondered why he had chosen to.
He drew those dark brows together in a scowl. ‘Again she’s raked over the coals of our disastrous marriage and talked to her media buddies. Now she’s claiming I was unfaithful—which is a big fat lie. According to her, I’m a womaniser, a player and a complete and utter bastard. She dragged out my old quote that I will never marry again and claims it’s because I’m incapable of settling with one woman. It’s on one of the big Internet gossip sites and will be all over the weekend newspapers.’ He cursed under his breath.
Andie could see the shadow of old hurts on his face. He had once loved his ex enough to marry her. A betrayal like this must be painful, no matter how much time had elapsed. She had no such angst behind her. She knew Anthony had been loyal to her, as she had been to him. First love. Sometimes she wondered if they might have grown apart if he’d lived. Some of their friends who had dated as teenagers had split when they got older. But she dismissed those thoughts as disloyal to his memory.
Andie shook her head at Dominic’s revelations about his ex—it got worse and worse. ‘That’s horrible—but can’t you just ignore it?’
‘I would ignore it, but she’s made sure Walter Burton has seen all her spurious allegations set out as truth.’
Andie frowned. ‘Surely your personal life is none of Mr Burton’s business? Especially when it’s not true.’ She believed Dominic implicitly—why, she wasn’t completely sure. Trust went both ways.
‘He might think it’s true. The “bed-hopping billionaire”,’ the article calls me.’ Dominic growled with wounded outrage. ‘That might be enough for Burton to reconsider doing business with me.’
Andie had to put her hand over her mouth to hide her smile at the description.
But Dominic noticed and scowled. ‘I know it sounds ludicrous, but to a moralistic family man like Walter Burton it makes me sound immoral and not the kind of guy he wants to do business with.’
‘Why do you care so much about the deal with Mr Burton? If you have to pretend to be someone you’re not, how can it be worth it?’
‘You mean I should pretend not to be a bed-hopping billionaire?’
‘You must admit the headline has a certain ring to it,’ Andie said, losing her battle to keep a straight face.
That forced a reluctant grin from him. ‘A tag like that might be very difficult to live down.’
‘Is...is it true? Are you a bed-hopping guy?’ She held her breath for his reply.
‘No. Of course I’ve had girlfriends since my divorce. Serial monogamy, I think they call it. But nothing like what this scurrilous interview with my ex claims.’
Andie let out her breath on a sigh of relief. ‘But do you actually need to pursue this deal if it’s becoming so difficult? You’re already very wealthy.’
Dominic’s mouth set in a grim line. ‘I’m not going to bore you with my personal history. But home life with my aunt was less than ideal. I finished high school and got out. I’d tried to run away before and she’d dragged me back. This time she let me go. I ended up homeless, living in a squat. At seventeen I saw inexplicably awful things a boy that age should never see. I never again want to be without money and have nowhere to live. That’s all I intend to say about that.’ He nodded to her. ‘And I trust you not to repeat it.’
‘Of course,’ she said, rocked by his revelations, aching to know more. Dominic Hunt was a street kid? Not boring. There was so much more about his life than he was saying. She thought again about his scarred knuckles and broken nose. There had been nothing about his past in her online trawling. She hoped he might tell her more. It seemed he was far more complex than he appeared. Which only made him more attractive.
‘My best friend and first business partner, Jake Marlow, is also in with me on this,’ he said. ‘He wants it as much as I do, for his own reasons I’m not at liberty to share.’
‘Okay,’ she said slowly. ‘So we’re working on the party to negate the Scr...uh...the other reputation, to get Mr Burton on board. What do you intend to do about the bed-hopper one?’
‘When Burton contacted me I told him that it was all scuttlebutt and I was engaged to be married.’
She couldn’t help a gasp. ‘You’re engaged?’ She felt suddenly stricken. ‘Engaged to who?’
‘I’m not engaged. I’m not even dating anyone.’
‘Then why...?’ she said.
He groaned. ‘Panic. Fear. Survival. A gut reaction like I used to have back in that squat. When you woke up, terrified, in your cardboard box to find some older guy burrowing through your backpack and you told him you had nothing worth stealing even though there was five dollars folded tiny between your toes in your sock. If that money was stolen, you didn’t eat.’
‘So you lied to Mr Burton?’
‘As I said, a panic reaction. But it gets worse.’ Again he raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Burton said he was flying in to Sydney in two weeks’ time to meet with both me and the other guy. He wants to be introduced to my fiancée.’
Andie paused, stunned at what Dominic had done, appalled that he had lied. ‘What will you do?’
Again he leaned towards her over the table. ‘I want you to be my fiancée, Andie.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
DOMINIC WATCHED ANDIE’S reactions flit across her face—shock and indignation followed by disappointment. In him? He braced himself—certain she was going to say no.
‘Are you serious?’ she finally said, her hands flat down on the table in front of her.
‘Very,’ he said, gritting his teeth. He’d been an idiot to get himself into a mess like this. Panic. He shouldn’t have given in to panic in that phone call with Walter Burton. He hadn’t let panic or fear rule him for a long time.
Andie tilted her head to one side and frowned. ‘You want me to marry you? We hardly know each other.’
Marriage? Who was talking about marriage? ‘No. Just to pretend—’ Whatever he said wasn’t going to sound good. ‘Pretend to be my fiancée. Until after the Christmas party.’
Andie shook her head in disbelief. ‘To pretend to be engaged to you? To lie? No! I can’t believe you asked me to...to even think of such a thing. I’m a party planner, not a...a...the type of person who would agree to that.’
She looked at him as though she’d never seen him before. And that maybe she didn’t like what she saw. Dominic swallowed hard—he didn’t like the feeling her expression gave him. She pushed herself up from the chair and walked away from the table, her body rigid with disapproval. He was very aware she wanted to distance herself from him. He didn’t like that either. It had seemed so intimate, drinking coffee and eating breakfast at her table. And he had liked that.
He swivelled in his chair to face her. ‘It was a stupid thing to do, I know that,’ he said. He had spent the entire flight back from Perth regretting his impulsive action. ‘But it’s done.’
She turned around, glared at him. ‘Then I suggest you undo it.’
‘By admitting I lied?’
She shrugged. ‘Tell Mr Burton your fiancée dumped you.’
‘As if that would fly.’
‘You think it’s beyond belief that a woman would ever dump you?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Though it was true. Since it had ended with Melody, he had always been the one to end a relationship. ‘It would seem too...sudden.’
‘Just like the sudden engagement?’
‘It wouldn’t denote...stability.’
‘You’re right about that.’ She crossed her arms in front of her chest—totally unaware that the action pushed up her breasts into an enticing cleavage in the V-necked top she wore. ‘It’s a crazy idea.’
‘I’m not denying that,’ he growled. He didn’t need to have his mistake pointed out to him. ‘But I’m asking you to help me out.’
‘Why me? Find someone else. I’m sure there would be no shortage of candidates.’
‘But it makes sense for my fiancée to be you.’ He could be doggedly persistent when he wanted to be.
He unfolded himself from the too-small chair at the kitchen table. Most chairs were too small for him. He took a step towards her, only for her to take a step back from him. ‘Andie. Please.’
Her hair had fallen across her face and she tossed it back. ‘Why? We’re just client and contractor.’
‘Is that all it is between us?’
‘Of course it is.’ But she wouldn’t meet his gaze and he felt triumphant. So she felt it too. That attraction that had flashed between them from the get-go.
‘When I opened the door to the beautiful woman with the misbehaving skirt—’ that got a grudging smile from her ‘—I thought it could be more than just a business arrangement. But you know now why I don’t date anyone hired by the company.’
‘And Party Queens has a policy of not mixing business with...with pleasure.’ Her voice got huskier on the last words.
He looked her direct in the face, pinning her with his gaze. ‘If it ever happened, it would be pleasure all the way, Andie, I think we both know that.’ She hadn’t quite cleared her face of a wisp of flyaway hair. He reached down and gently smoothed it back behind her ear.
She trembled under his touch. A blush travelled up her throat to stain her cheeks. ‘I’ve never even thought about it, the...the pleasure, I mean,’ she said.
She wouldn’t blush like that if she hadn’t. Or flutter her hands to the leather laces of her neckline. Now who was lying?
She took a deep breath and he tried to keep his gaze from the resulting further exposure of her cleavage. ‘I don’t want to be involved in this mad scheme in any way,’ she said. ‘Except to add your pretend fiancée—when you find one—to the Christmas party guest list.’
‘I’m afraid you’re already involved.’
She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Dominic took the few steps necessary back to his chair and took out his smartphone from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He scrolled through, then handed it to Andie.
She stared at the screen. ‘But this is me. Us.’
The photo she was staring at was of him and her at a restaurant table. They were leaning towards each other, looking into each other’s faces, Andie’s hand on his arm.
‘At the restaurant in Circular Quay, the day of the Friday meeting,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said. The business lunch that had felt like a date. In this photo, it looked like a date.
She shook her head, bewildered. ‘Who took it?’
‘Some opportunistic person with a smartphone, I expect. Maybe a trouble-making friend of Tara’s. Who knows?’
She looked back down at the screen, did some scrolling of her own. He waited for her to notice the words that accompanied the image on the gossip site.
Her eyes widened in horror. ‘Did you see this?’ She read out the heading. ‘“Is This the Bed-Hopping Billionaire’s New Conquest?”’ She swore under her breath—the first time he had heard her do so.
‘I’m sorry. Of course I had no idea this was happening. But, in light of it, you can see why it makes sense that my fake fiancée should be you.’
She shook her head. ‘No. It doesn’t make any sense. That was a business lunch. Not the...the romantic rendezvous it appears to be in the picture.’
‘You know that. I know that. But the way they’ve cropped the photo, that’s exactly what it seems. Announce an engagement and suddenly the picture would make a whole lot of sense. Good sense.’
Her green eyes narrowed. ‘This photo doesn’t bother me. It will blow over. We’re both single. Who even cares?’ He’d been stunned to see the expression in his eyes as he’d looked into her face in the photo. It had looked as if he wanted to have her for dessert. Had she noticed? No wonder the gossip site had drawn a conclusion of romantic intrigue.
‘If you’re so indifferent, why not help me out?’ he said. ‘Be my fake fiancée, just until after Christmas.’
‘Christmas is nearly a month away. Twenty-five days, to be precise. For twenty-five days I’d have to pretend to be your fiancée?’
‘So you’re considering it? Because we’ve already been “outed”, so to speak, it wouldn’t come out of the blue. It would be believable.’
‘Huh! We’ve only known each other for two weeks. Who would believe it?’
‘People get married on less acquaintance,’ he said.
‘Not people like me,’ she said.
‘You don’t think anyone would believe you could be smitten by me in that time? I think I’m offended.’
‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I... I believe many women would be smitten by you. You’re handsome, intelligent—’
‘And personable, yes, you said. Though I bet you don’t think I’m so personable right now.’
She glared at him, though there was a lilt to the corners of her mouth that made it seem like she might want to smile. ‘You could be right about that.’
‘Now to you—gorgeous, sexy, smart Andie Newman.’ Her blush deepened as he sounded each adjective. ‘People would certainly believe I could be instantly smitten with such a woman,’ he said. ‘In fact they’d think I was clever getting a ring on your finger so quickly.’
That flustered her. ‘Th...thank you. I... I’m flattered. But it wouldn’t seem authentic. We’d have to pretend so much. It would be such deception.’
With any other woman, he’d be waiting for her to ask: What’s in it for me? Not Andie. He doubted the thought of a reward for her participation had even entered her head. He would have to entice her with an offer she couldn’t refuse. And save the big gun to sway her from her final refusal.
‘So you’re going to say “yes”?’
She shook her head vehemently. ‘No. I’m not. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘What’s the harm? You’d be helping me out.’
She spun on her heel away from him and he faced her back view, her tensely hunched shoulders, for a long moment before she turned back to confront him. ‘Can’t you see it makes a mockery of...of a man and a woman committing to each other? To spending their lives together in a loving union? That’s what getting engaged is all about. Not sealing a business deal.’
He closed his eyes at the emotion in her voice, the blurring of her words with choking pain. Under his breath he cursed fluently. Because, from any moral point of view, she was absolutely right.
‘Were you engaged to...to Anthony?’ he asked.
Her eyes when she lifted them to him glistened with the sheen of unshed tears. ‘Not officially. But we had our future planned, even the names of our kids chosen. That’s why I know promising to marry someone isn’t something you do lightly. And not...not for a scam. Do you understand?’
Of course he did. He’d once been idealistic about love and marriage and sharing his life with that one special woman. But he couldn’t admit it. Or that he’d become cynical that that kind of love would ever exist for him. Too much rode on this deal. Including his integrity.
‘But this isn’t really getting engaged,’ he said. ‘It’s just...a limited agreement.’
Slowly she shook her head. ‘I can’t help you,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’