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

CHAPTER TEN

A DAM KNEW HE was right. What was going on here was just sex, nothing more, and he’d made that perfectly clear. So when Ella finally stopped trying to get him to talk, he ought to have been delighted. It was exactly what he wanted. It was alarming enough that the desire he had for her remained so strong. But the thought of developing some sort of rapport with her that might lead to emotion of the unpredictable kind brought him out in hives, and he’d been in danger of becoming far too interested in her anyway.

At what point precisely had he stopped trying to maintain his indifference? he wondered as he sat on the terrace with a bottle of beer two evenings later and stared out to sea while she slept inside. When she’d told him about her upbringing? That had certainly shaken him up. He couldn’t imagine the poverty and despair of it. Materially, he’d grown up with every privilege going—two roofs over his head, more money in the bank than he could count, a first-class education that had swept him from the country’s top boarding schools to Cambridge. She’d had nothing. Less than nothing. Yet she’d pulled herself up through sheer grit and determination, and he couldn’t deny he was in awe of her for it. The night they’d met and she’d dispatched her lecherous fan with a knee to the groin, he’d thought her magnificent and beautiful and fierce, and he still did. He was even impressed by the tenacity that had caused him so much trouble while they’d been working together.

But he didn’t need to admire her. He didn’t need to think anything about her. Or identify with her ambition and her burning drive to succeed. Wondering what else they might share apart from a non-existent family support network was not required. The fact that they weren’t as different as she believed was irrelevant. So in theory, the fact that she’d backed off was a win.

However, bizarrely, he wasn’t at all pleased by the withdrawal of her attention. Because she didn’t just stop trying to poke around in his psyche. She pretty much stopped talking altogether, and only when it was denied him did he realise that somehow he’d got used to her telling him all about herself. He’d found himself looking forward to their conversations, wondering what she might reveal next, on tenterhooks for any titbit she gave him.

Her sudden disengagement therefore left him feeling slightly flat. The sex, while still as frequent as ever, had become a little—how could he put it?— soulless . There was a ripple of tension between them, and the whole point of having an affair in the first place was to clear the air of that.

He couldn’t shake her accusation of disrespect. Or the recollection that by her own admission, her previous affair had knocked her self-esteem. Her comment about feeling like an object of pleasure troubled him deeply, even though no-strings sex had always been the deal. He’d found himself dwelling on it and analysing his previous interactions with women, which rarely went beyond one or two nights and never more than a week. Had he distracted them with sex too? Very probably, although it had never given him cause for concern. But somehow this was different. With Ella, such a strategy made him feel queasy. He wasn’t entirely sure why.

All he knew was that they didn’t seem to be on the same page any more, and that was disturbing. So rectifying the problem became his number one priority. He needed to re-establish control. He needed to put the passion back into the sex and show that he did respect her.

After drumming up and discarding a number of ideas, he eventually, reluctantly, had to accept that just one would work. However much he might loathe the thought of it, he had to give her what she wanted. At least, in part. Only then, he felt, would the equilibrium be restored and the affair back on track.

Surely there were some things about him that wouldn’t be dangerous to share? Would the sky fall in if he revealed where he’d grown up and a few basic facts about his family? He needn’t go deep. And he needn’t worry about any consequences. Once this fling was over and she was out of his life for good, he could forget he’d ever said anything. Nothing he told her would go any further. He didn’t know whether he could trust her to keep his confidences, but before the audit had started she’d signed an NDA. Did that still apply?

Nevertheless, if he was going to do this—even just a little bit—a change of scenery might be sensible. So far they hadn’t left the confines of the villa. The furthest they’d ventured was the beach. Talking to her while enveloped in the intimacy of a bedroom felt unwise. Emotional nudity combined with physical nudity could lead to complications he really didn’t need. Therefore, preventative action was required.

Somehow managing to ignore how invitingly tousled Ella looked roused from sleep, the next morning, Adam got her up and out of bed and into his open top jeep for a tour of the island.

He reminded himself to keep his attention on the wide sandy track that followed the 150-acre island’s coastline and not on her in her tiny denim hotpants and vest top beneath which she didn’t appear to be wearing a bra, and off they set in a cloud of sand and dust.

‘You’ll note that this is an incredibly beautiful dot on the map,’ he said in an opening gambit as he steered the jeep round a bend in the track that took them deeper into the vegetation and obscured more of the cloudless blue sky. ‘That’s why I bought it. As a place to escape the city and relax. I’ve had it for a couple of years now. But unfortunately, I don’t get here as often as I’d like.’

‘No, well, I imagine you’re busy,’ was all she murmured in response, giving him a cool smile before turning to look at the flora.

He tried again. ‘Is this your first time to the Caribbean?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where do you usually vacation?’

‘Europe.’

‘Have you ever been to London?’

‘Once.’

‘That’s where I grew up.’ He paused to navigate some gnarly tree roots while she bounced around beside him. ‘Well, between there and Northumberland on the northeast coast of the country. The family has a castle that sits in the middle of a three-thousand-acre estate, complete with turrets, arrow-slit windows and flying buttresses. Parts of it date back to the twelfth century. All of it is damp and draughty.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘The Holland Park mansion, on the other hand, has four storeys and looks like a wedding cake.’

‘How delightful,’ she murmured, grabbing top of the door while he swerved to avoid a rock.

‘My family can trace its history to William the Conqueror,’ he continued doggedly. ‘One of my ancestors was at the signing of the Magna Carta. Another was a courtier to Henry the Eighth. He managed to keep his head. I’ve no idea how.’

‘Well, we all lose our heads sometimes.’

As the greenery thinned and the track curved to once again hug the shore, Adam wiped a bead of sweat from his brow that had nothing to do with the heat and thought that he was certainly losing his. This wasn’t working out quite as he’d planned. Her ultra-brief responses to his revelations about where he’d been brought up weren’t encouraging. But now that he thought about it, mansions and castles were a pretty insensitive topic of conversation when she’d been raised in poverty in a trailer park. And as for all the talk of his ancestry, who’d be interested in that?

‘What do you do in your spare time?’ he asked, trying a different tack as they drove past the boathouse that stored wind surfs, a couple of single sculls and other water sports paraphernalia.

‘I don’t have any spare time.’

A moment later, he pointed to a low white building that had magenta bougainvillea clambering all over it. ‘In that cottage,’ he said, ‘live the caretaking couple who keep the house stocked when I’m here and an eye on the place in my absence.’

‘It’s charming.’

Disappointingly, she showed as much interest in the rest of the island’s sights as she did in his conversation, but Adam remained undeterred. He’d caused this breakdown in communication. It was therefore up to him to repair it. So the following day, he took her up in his seaplane in the hope that the stunning scenery would aid his cause.

Who could fail to marvel at the beautiful sparkling jade waters, dotted with yachts and water sports aficionados? The islands, some of which were tiny but mountainous, some of which barely rose above sea level but spread out for miles? Who could remain unimpressed by the star-studded resorts, the virgin beaches or even the Caribbean’s largest shipwreck, which rested nearby in a mere sixty feet of water?

Ella.

That was who.

Just as when he’d taken her on a tour of his property, her enthusiasm for everything was muted. She expressed polite interest in what he had to show her, but at the same time, she remained aloof. She wasn’t even moved by the pod of dolphins frolicking around a catamaran.

It was as if she’d sort of switched off. The more he tried to get her to engage, the more she withdrew.

‘Why are you going to so much effort to show me around?’ she asked at one point as they floated on the surface of a giant blue hole. ‘I thought you valued your privacy.’ The glance she slid him was cool, and her voice, when she turned his own words back on him, was dry. ‘I hope you’re not making this something it isn’t.’

The constant brush-offs were frustrating. He was getting nowhere. The prospect of injecting the passion back into the bedroom was retreating with every passing hour, and that was alarming. He wasn’t used to failure, yet to his consternation, that was precisely what seemed to be happening.

However, defeat was not an option. It never had been, never would be. Not when it came to turning his life around after his mother’s death. Not when it came to restoring the fortunes of his company after his father’s. And definitely not when it came to acquiring Helberg Holdings, reclaiming Montague’s and finding redemption.

Unbending Ella so that their last week together was as good as the first would not be the project to beat him, he vowed. He was in control here, not her. He would break through her defences. He would close the distance between them and put the heat back into the sex. Even if it meant having to tell her more. Even if it meant having to tell her everything.