Boss With Benefits (Billion-Dollar Bet, #2)

CHAPTER FIVE

I NITIALLY , E LLA ’ S SUBMISSION to his will on Monday morning had given Adam one hell of a buzz. Yes, securing her compliance had been vital for a number of business-related reasons, so on that level it had been a much-needed win. But there’d been something else mixed up in it too. Regaining the sense of control that had rapidly started diminishing in her dangerously distracting presence had felt critical, and seeing her forced to accept his command, to play by his rules, had been not only deeply satisfying but also unexpectedly exhilarating.

However, the buzz had not lasted long. Nor had the plan he’d come up with the instant he’d realised that the past had collided with the present and his lead auditor was a woman with whom he’d shared one explosive encounter and to whom he was, inconveniently, still very much attracted.

Determined the audit would proceed without any further upset, he’d succeeded in staying out of her way as much as possible, in confining himself to his office and communicating entirely through email.

But as for keeping his eyes off her, well, in that he’d failed dismally. When she was on the phone, the throaty timbre of her voice wound through him, a ribbon of fire heating every inch of his body. Every time she sashayed across the carpet to the lift, to the coffee machine, to the photocopier, he found himself tracking the sway of her hips. At one point she’d stretched, lifting her arms above her head and arching her back as she eased out the kinks in her neck, and it had taken every drop of self-control that he possessed to contain his body’s response to the sight of her breasts straining against the silky fabric of her top.

Even Maggie, his secretary, had noticed his discomfort. ‘Is there something wrong with the way the audit’s going?’ she asked him when she popped up to run through his diary for August.

‘No,’ he muttered. ‘Why?’

‘You’re staring at Miss Green as if you’re trying to vaporise her with the power of your stare.’

Cursing the fact that it was turning out to be far more difficult than he’d expected to keep a grip on the disturbingly intense attraction, he instantly snapped his attention from the woman who was wreaking havoc on his equilibrium to the one who did her utmost to maintain it, and vowed to double down on his efforts to focus by immersing himself in the deluge of emails Ella had started sending him.

The first had dropped into his inbox on Tuesday morning, and thereafter he’d received one virtually every fifteen minutes. Frequently, they contained a single point. He could see no reason why, say, six could not be amalgamated into one, which meant she was doing it deliberately.

But if her aim had been to annoy him, she’d failed. In fact, he found her passive-aggressive attempt at control really rather amusing, and that was another reason he took great care to respond to each and every one with equal gravity.

With two notable exceptions.

Both of which were causing him grief.

First was the flight to London last August that apparently lacked the paperwork to match the log book.

The minute he’d heard that his sister, Charley, was buying a flat with the last of her savings from her ill-fated career as a model, he’d instantly felt compelled to check it out. He hadn’t thought twice about dropping everything and commandeering the company plane to get him to her before she signed the contract. His sole concern had been that she was only twenty-one and had a tendency to be reckless—especially with money. She’d had a chequered adolescence, quitting school and getting spotted by an agency, and although she’d managed to pull herself back on track after leaving that world behind, he couldn’t be certain she didn’t still make impulsive decisions.

He’d had nothing except her best interests at heart, but to his astonishment, she had not been pleased when he’d turned up unannounced at the perfectly acceptable two-bedroom flat in an up-and-coming area of East London. In response to his offer of advice, she’d had a go at him about his need to control everything and everyone. She’d railed at his inability to trust her, insisting that she wasn’t a kid any more, that she’d learned from her mistakes, and when the hell was he going to realise that? Would he ever let her forget the time he’d had to bail her out of a cell in Barcelona for swearing at a police officer? Or the occasion she’d run away from school and had wanted him to send her the train fare to get to London? When would he start taking her seriously and treat her like the savvy businesswoman she was?

He’d been more affected by the confrontation than he cared to admit. It had taken him weeks to get over the sharp sting of rejection. Even longer to accept that she’d made some very valid points.

Not that he considered his deep-seated need for control a problem. It was essential to contain the chaos he knew he was capable of. Without it, he feared being overrun with the personality traits he’d inherited from his father, with recklessness, and then everything he’d worked for going up in smoke.

As CEOs they were polar opposites. Adam hadn’t generated tabloid headlines that crashed the company’s share price. He’d never appeared in blurry photos indicating rampant drug use. And he’d certainly never indulged in the sort of inappropriate behaviour at the office that ended up in a lawsuit.

But in other respects, they were worryingly similar. He was the spitting image of his old man, a constant reminder every time he looked in the mirror of who he would turn into if he didn’t keep himself in check. As an adolescent screwing around without a thought for anyone other than himself, he’d behaved like him too, and because of that selfishness, his mother had died. On the ultra-rare occasion his willpower failed these days—such as five weeks ago in a cocktail bar bathroom—his true nature roared to the surface with no consideration of the consequences.

And as for controlling his environment and the people around him, well, he was responsible for the livelihoods of quarter of a million employees and revenue that ran into the tens of billions. How else was he to manage that?

But while he had no intention of apologising for his need to keep a tight grip on things, he did want to work on trusting Charley. He wanted to get to know her without the guilt he felt at robbing her of their mother getting in the way. Relationships of the romantic kind were out of the question. Indulging the sort of desire that led to impulsivity and left destruction in its wake turned his stomach. Envisaging the chaos caused by emotion made his head ache. And the thought of being responsible for someone else’s happiness and well-being when he was so ill-equipped to care for such things brought him out in a cold sweat. But he hoped to attempt a familial one with his sister.

None of this was up for discussion, however. With Ella or anyone else. Nor was Helberg Holdings, the second item that she was so keen to quiz him about. Even if he had wanted to share details of why the company was so important to him—Montague’s in particular—he wouldn’t know where to start. With his father’s philandering? With his mother’s abject misery in her marriage and the one affair her unhappiness had driven her to? Would he tell her how, in retaliation, a hypocritical, vengeful Edward Courtney had sold the international jewellery business she’d worked for and loved so much to Helberg for a dollar? Would he then move on to his own role in his mother’s suicide and confess to the guilt he still carried?

No.

All of that would remain strictly private. Only he knew the full story. Even Charley, who’d been just a kid when it had happened, was only aware of some of it.

He didn’t particularly enjoy skulking around and disappearing whenever Ella hove into view, her jaw set with resolve. It smacked of cowardice and went against his confronting-problems-head-on approach. This evening’s encounter in the lift had been particularly challenging. Her move had taken him by surprise. Once he’d got over his shock, with awareness suddenly ripping through him like wildfire, he’d been gripped by a ferocious surge of the rashness he fought so hard to contain. He’d wanted to back her up against the wall and kiss her until she couldn’t think straight. To then strip her naked and sink into her, despite the security camera embedded in the ceiling.

How he’d stayed calm enough to de-escalate the situation, he had no idea. It was clear now that the only reason he’d been able to keep the desire he had for her under control was by maintaining his distance.

It was equally obvious that she was turning out to be unexpectedly tenacious, and he did not want her prodding around his psyche, because who knew what she might then get him to disclose in a moment of weakness? He couldn’t stall her for much longer, however. At some point he would have to figure out how to give her the bare minimum of detail and shut these lines of enquiry down.

But for now, he had a stay of execution. Because he’d just received a call from the office in Madrid with news of potential strike action at a clothing factory outside Valencia, so he was on his way to Spain.

And when he returned, that would not be the only problem he’d have fixed. He’d also have shored up his defences so solidly that, come Monday, he’d be able to stand within a metre of Ella Green and not lose his head.

On Friday morning Ella arrived at the office unsure how to proceed, slightly nervous about seeing Adam again, and wondering how on earth she was going to keep the attraction under control after nearly assaulting him in the lift. Unfortunately, overnight, she’d been plagued by dreams about what had happened, but in them she hadn’t backed down. She’d told him to take her up on her invitation instead and had woken up at four hot and shivery and unable to get back to sleep, which did not help her composure one little bit.

But it seemed she had nothing to worry about because Adam didn’t show up to the office. She had no idea where he was. He replied to her email enquiring into his whereabouts with a vague, unsatisfying Something’s come up . After that, radio silence. Even his secretary was cryptically obscure when she probed.

At first, she appreciated the chance to restore her self-possession in his absence. However, by 7:00 p.m. she’d come to the conclusion that none of what had happened in the past few days was a coincidence. In fact, she thought darkly as she pushed through the revolving door and out into the warm evening air, it felt like avoidance. For some reason Adam was stonewalling her, deflecting her—deliberately, she suspected when she thought of the extraordinary encounter in the lift—and now he was nowhere to be found.

It was pissing her off. Not because she was remotely interested in what exactly was problematic about these particular queries, or what he had to hide. She wasn’t. All that mattered to her was that he was holding things up. He was jeopardising the time frame of the audit and it could not be allowed continue. The schedule was tight as it was, given the size and complexity of the job. It must not overrun. Her promotion depended on finishing on time. The leave she’d booked for the three weeks after—the first she’d taken in over a year—depended on finishing within the allotted fortnight. She was not having both her short-term and long-term future disrupted by him. She wasn’t having anything disrupted at all.

So, having somehow managed to subtly wheedle out of Maggie, his secretary, that Adam would be at home tonight, Ella had come up with a plan. Not an entirely ethical one, admittedly, but he’d left her with no choice. Desperate means called for desperate measures. Enough was enough. He would avoid her no more. He would not wrong-foot her again. Or succeed with threats, because she was far too embedded in the process to be ousted from it now. She would get the answers she needed, and she would get them tonight.

Adam had spent all day containing the threat of strike action at his Valencia factory and ensuring there’d be no further trouble. Having accomplished that by late afternoon, and secure in the knowledge that the staff had been appeased—before anyone had gone to the press, thank God—he’d travelled back to New York satisfied that the impact on the company’s reputation and the Helberg acquisition in particular was negligible.

Dropping his keys on the table in the hall and abandoning his suitcase, he strode into the white, minimalist living space, then headed for the bar. As a result of criss-crossing the Atlantic twice in less than twenty-four hours, he didn’t know what time it was. He couldn’t remember when he’d last slept. He was exhausted and stressed beyond belief. He couldn’t shake a strange sense of foreboding, the feeling that everything he was trying to achieve balanced on a knife edge, and all he wanted to do was crack open a bottle of whisky and crash out for the next two days.

However, he’d barely had time to down half a glass of single malt when there was a knock at his door. Too spaced out to wonder who it could be when he’d had no warning of a visitor, he set his glass on the bar and went to investigate. Calling down to the concierge didn’t occur to him. Neither did looking through the spyhole. So when he opened the door and came face to face with Ella, he was totally unprepared.

Reeling with shock, he wondered for a moment whether he could be hallucinating, the whisky stronger than he’d assumed, perhaps. But unfortunately, she was all too real. He could tell by the way the hairs at the back of his neck were standing on end and her scent, which was winding through him and scrambling his head.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he practically growled, thinking, God, this week. How much more could he be expected to endure?

‘I could ask you the same thing,’ she said, chin up, jaw set. ‘Why aren’t you at the office? Where have you been?’

‘Spain.’

Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Spain?’

‘A business matter that required my attention. Strike action at one of my factories. How did you find out where I live?’

‘Your address was at the top of an invoice,’ she said without a trace of shame. ‘I told the concierge I was bringing you a birthday surprise and he let me in. I must admit, I was expecting getting access to you to be a lot harder. Your security is terrible.’

Adam fought the urge to grind his teeth. ‘This is a gross invasion of privacy.’

‘You only have yourself to blame. You’ve been avoiding me all week.’

‘A company the size of mine doesn’t run itself.’

‘What happened to being available twenty-four-seven?’

Right, he thought, thrown off balance for a moment. He had promised that. But he couldn’t do this now. He was shattered and feeling more than a little unhinged. Combined with all that, her proximity was wreaking havoc on him. His hands itched to touch her. It was taking every drop of control he possessed not to move towards her. He had the unnerving feeling that he’d missed the edginess she drummed up in him these last twenty-four hours.

‘You need to leave,’ he said, a bead of sweat running down his spine, his pulse thudding heavily as he tightened his grip on the door-frame to his left and the door-knob to his right.

‘Not until you tell me about the trip to London and Helberg Holdings.’

‘I fail to see their relevance.’

‘ I’ll assess their relevance.’

‘You can wait until Monday.’

‘No. I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the time frame is slipping, and I won’t allow further delay.’ She planted her hands on her hips, her eyes shimmering with determination and challenge. ‘This audit has to finish on Friday, not least because I go on three weeks’ leave immediately afterwards. You’re holding things up. Deliberately, I suspect. And I don’t get it. One minute you’re striding about the place dictating how things are going to go and insisting that you be involved in every step of the process—although why you’re taking such a close personal interest in things, I still have absolutely no idea—the next you’re nowhere to be seen. What’s going on?’

‘Nothing’s going on.’

‘London, Adam,’ she said, with the strength of will that in any other situation he’d admire, the strength of will that suggested that she wasn’t going away and he couldn’t just close the door on her because she’d simply bang on it until he opened it again.

He had to give her something, if only to get her to shut up and go away. He’d keep it brief. ‘I went to see my sister.’

‘Is she employed by the company?’

‘No.’

‘What does she do?’

‘She has her own dress design business called Trouble Maker.’

‘Is it, or was the trip in any way related to the Courtney Collection?’

‘No.’

‘The jet is a company asset. You should not be making personal use of it.’

‘Crunch the numbers and tell me what I owe.’

The look she gave him suggested she didn’t think much of that idea. ‘And what about Helberg Holdings?’

No, that was too much. Explaining London was one thing, but he couldn’t go into Helberg now. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand having to deal with the memories that dredged up on top of everything else. Not with his composure so badly frayed. ‘Quit while you’re ahead, Ella.’

‘I have no intention of quitting anything.’

He stifled a growl of frustration. ‘You’re driving me insane.’

‘All I’m trying to do is my job, and I’m not going to apologise for being tenacious. I’ve had to work exceptionally hard to get where I am. I’ve faced obstacles virtually every step of the way. A decrepit trailer for a home in a park rife with danger. Dead-beat parents. Lousy high school. At one point I was working three jobs to earn the money I needed to study. Only once have I screwed up so badly my career nearly went down the drain. But I won’t do it again. And I won’t let you mess this up for me. So you will answer my questions. This audit will finish on Friday and I will get that promotion, even if it kills me.’

For a moment, Adam’s head spun. The information she’d just hurled at him was too much to process. Obstacles? A trailer? When had she screwed up? What promotion was she talking about? ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Then what did you mean?’ she demanded, her cheeks flushed, the pulse at the base of her neck fluttering wildly.

‘You’ve been causing me trouble since the minute you showed up on Monday,’ he said, thinking that if scaring her off had worked in the lift yesterday, it would work again today. ‘You’re in my head all the damn time. You threaten my control and make me want to cross lines that I have sworn not to cross. I still want you badly, Ella, and I’m used to taking what I want. There’s only so much pressure I can withstand, and my patience is about to snap. You have no idea how close you came to being ravished in the lift last night. Right now, I am seconds away from losing it completely and kissing you until neither of us can think straight. So if you have any sense at all, you’ll go home this minute. Because if you don’t, if you stay for even a second longer, I will pull you into my apartment and you will not leave until Monday morning. So my question to you , Ella, is do you want that? Do you want to spend the weekend in my bed?’

He stopped, his head nothing more than rushing white noise, his blood roaring in his ears. The silence thundered. Ella just stared at him, evidently rendered speechless by his words. Her eyes were wide and dark. Her breathing was shallow and ragged. The seconds ticked by like hours. Then, just when he thought she finally understood the danger she was in, she breathed a shuddery, ‘God, yes ,’ and launched herself at him.

There was no time for shock. No time to wonder whether she had completely lost her mind. Or whether he had. The minute she was pressed up against him—her arms around his neck, her hands in his hair, her mouth on his like fire—pure instinct took over. He drew her into a crushing embrace, one hand clamped to the back of her head, the other on the small of her back. She moaned, immediately melting into him so that all he could feel was softness and warmth, and he took command, angling her head and deepening the kiss.

She tasted of heaven and he couldn’t get enough. His exhaustion was history. Adrenaline was surging through him, zapping his nerve endings until they were on fire. He was on the point of doing as he’d promised, pulling her into his apartment and kicking the door shut when just as suddenly as the kiss had started, it stopped. Ella froze in his arms and jerked back. Her gorgeous brown eyes were glazed. Her hair was mussed and her cheeks flushed.

But right in front of him, the dazed passion on her face turned to distress. She clapped a hand to her mouth and shook her head, her eyes filling with horror and regret. And while he fought for breath, grappled to contain the rampaging need he had for her, tried and failed to make sense of what was going on, she wrenched herself out of his arms, spun on her heel and fled.