FOR one tantalising second the word conjured images in Lizzie’s mind she had no business thinking of. Wife. Entwined fingers, tangled limbs. Marriage, love. Sex.
She blinked. ‘Your wife?’ she repeated. ‘But…how?’ She shook her head. ‘You mean, pretend?’
His mouth curved into a smile she didn’t like and his eyes remained cold. ‘Did you think I was asking you for real?’
‘You mean, lie?’ Lizzie clarified. The realisation of what he was asking her to do rolled through her in sickening waves. ‘Deceive the people you want to work for so you can get your blasted commission?’
Cormac looked unruffled. ‘I suppose that’s not putting too fine a point on it,’ he agreed with deceptive mildness.
It was all making sense now—the reason he’d asked her to accompany him so suddenly, the importance of looking the part with cases of designer clothes. Even his request to call him by his first name. All part of a deception. A lie.
Lizzie looked away, closed her eyes.
It was impossible. It was wrong. She couldn’t pretend to be Cormac’s wife—she didn’t like him, didn’t even know him. Pulling off such a charade would be ludicrous; she wouldn’t be able to keep it up for a minute, even if she wanted to…
For a moment Lizzie pictured what such an act would require. Shared looks, jokes, bodies, beds.
A thrill darted through her, tempting, treacherous. She couldn’t…wouldn’t…want to…
She glanced back at him, saw him lounging comfortably in his seat, an expression of arrogant amusement in his eyes as if he’d witnessed her entire thought process.
Perhaps he had.
She licked her lips. ‘Even if I agreed—which I’m not—how would it actually work? You’re famous, Cormac.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘Notorious. If Jan Hassell is interested in hiring you, he will have researched your background. All it would take is one search on the Internet to come up with a dozen stories that refute these so-called family values of yours.’ The photos in the tabloids waltzed before her eyes—Cormac with his arm around his latest glamorous conquest, usually replaced within twenty-four hours.
Cormac smiled. ‘I’m a reformed man.’
She laughed shortly. ‘You’d have to be a pretty good actor to pull that off.’
He leaned forward, eyes glittering, his voice a whisper, a promise. ‘I am.’
Lizzie leaned back into her seat. He was too close, too dangerous, too much. In that moment, she had no doubt Cormac could pull such a feat off—and she couldn’t.
Couldn’t risk it.
Could she?
‘I can’t.’ She spoke sharply, too sharply, and saw Cormac smile. He knew too much, saw too much. She shook her head. ‘It’s wrong. It’s immoral.’
‘You think so?’ He stretched his legs out, took a sip of orange juice. ‘Actually, you’ll find that what the Hassells are doing is wrong. If not immoral, then at least some shade of illegal.’
‘What do you mean?’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘Discrimination, Chandler. What if I were gay? Or a widower? They’d be discriminating against me by insisting I be married.’
‘But you’re not gay,’ she snapped, and he inclined his head in acknowledgement.
‘Of course not, but the principle remains the same, don’t you think?’
She shook her head in mute, instinctive denial. She didn’t want things twisted. She didn’t want to think. ‘It’s still a deception.’
‘Yes. But for a good reason.’
‘It doesn’t matter—’
‘You’re right.’ Cormac cut her off smoothly. He was still relaxed, smiling even, while she was clutching her chair as if it would keep her grounded. Safe.
Which it wouldn’t. The whole world was spinning, reeling.
‘What matters,’ he continued, ‘is the resort. The design. And I’ll build a spectacular resort—you know that.’ It wasn’t a question, and Lizzie didn’t bother answering it.
Yes. She knew. Once upon a time, she’d had artistic ambitions of her own. She’d seen Cormac’s designs and, while she was no architect, she recognised good work. Brilliant work. ‘The Hassells must have some reason for wanting a married architect,’ Lizzie insisted. She heard the weakness, the doubt in her own voice. So did Cormac.
‘Probably,’ he agreed. ‘I just don’t care what it is.’
‘How would you expect to pull it off? You don’t even know me…’
‘I know enough.’
‘Do you even know my first name?’ Lizzie asked, cutting him off. A bubble of laughter verging on hysteria rose in her throat; she swallowed it down. ‘How on earth do you see yourself acting as my reformed, loving husband when you don’t even know my name?’ She shook her head, still too stunned to be scared. ‘The whole idea is ludicrous!’
Cormac cocked his head, gazed at her for a moment with hard, thoughtful eyes. Then he smiled.
Normally when Cormac smiled, it was a cold, sardonic curving of his mobile mouth.
Now it was something tender, promising, sensual. His eyes flicked over her slim form with heavy-lidded intent, his mouth curved—curved knowingly, lovingly—and something unfurled in Lizzie’s middle and spiralled upwards, taking over her heart, her mind.
Her will.
‘No…’ she whispered, and she didn’t even know what she was protesting against except that look and what it meant. What it promised.
And she didn’t even understand what that was.
Cormac leaned forward, brushed his knuckles across her cheek. The simple touch sent that spiralling emotion hurtling through her body—every limb, every bone and muscle—until she sagged against her seat.
‘Yes,’ he murmured languorously.
Lizzie shook herself, watched as he moved closer, his lips hovering inches from hers. His lashes swept downward, hiding those cruel eyes, and his lips brushed her ear. ‘Yes,’ he whispered again, and she shivered. Shuddered.
She felt him shift back, realised she’d closed her eyes, let her head fall back.
She was so pathetic. And he knew.
‘I think,’ he said in a voice laced with cool amusement, ‘you’ll find I’m a good enough actor. We’ll pull it off.’
‘You might be good enough,’ Lizzie choked, ‘but I’m not.’
Cormac paused. Smiled. ‘Perhaps,’ he said softly, ‘you don’t need to act.’
Shame and fury scorched her soul, her face. She drew in a desperate breath.
Cormac leaned forward as a flight attendant approached them. ‘Could we have some more champagne? We’ve just been married and we’re celebrating.’
Lizzie jerked, saw the flight attendant coo at Cormac. ‘Of course, sir.’ She glanced briefly at Lizzie, seemed unimpressed and turned away.
Cormac sat back in his seat and smiled. Smirked.
‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ Lizzie said. Her heart was still thudding against her ribs, adrenalin pouring through her, turning her weak. She had been so weak. For a moment—a second—she’d been transfixed by Cormac. Cormac. The man who had not had a single kind word, glance or even thought for her.
She was disgusted with herself. ‘I haven’t agreed to anything yet and I don’t plan to. Even if you’re perfectly capable of convincing the Hassells that we’re married,’ she told him, grateful that her voice didn’t shake, ‘that you’re in love with me, I won’t agree. I won’t.’ She sounded petulant. A smile flickered over Cormac’s face and was gone.
‘Yes, you will.’ He spoke calmly, conversationally. As if he had no doubt. Sickeningly, Lizzie realised that he probably didn’t.
She gave a little laugh of disbelief; it trembled on the air. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked. ‘Threaten to fire me? Somehow I don’t think that would hold up in a court of law.’
‘Are you saying you’d sue me?’ Cormac murmured, and Lizzie flushed. She didn’t know if she had the stamina to suffer through a lawsuit, the time and money it would cost. The publicity, the shame.
‘Are you saying,’ she countered, her voice shaking enough now for both of them to notice, ‘that you’d blackmail me?’
‘Here you are, sir.’ The flight attendant returned with two flutes of fizzy champagne, smiling sycophantically at Cormac, who returned it with a quick, playful grin that blazed along Lizzie’s nerve-endings even though it wasn’t directed at her.
She’d never been affected by this man before. Hadn’t remotely expected it. Didn’t like it.
The attendant left and Cormac pushed his drink to the side. He eyed her thoughtfully, as if she were a puzzle to be completed, a problem to be sorted. ‘Blackmail is a dirty word,’ he said after a moment. ‘Not one I prefer to use.’
‘A rose by any other name…’ Lizzie quoted, and he chuckled.
‘Is it blackmail, Chandler, to buy you clothes? To take you to a luxurious villa in the Caribbean, all expenses paid?’ He leaned forward. ‘Or would people—the press—consider it a bribe? An accepted bribe.’
She stilled, her eyes widening in dawning realisation. ‘You’re saying no one would believe me if I told them you were blackmailing me?’
‘I think they’d be more likely to believe that you were a spurned lover. Imagine the press, sweetheart. The tremendously bad press.’
‘Don’t call me sweetheart,’ Lizzie snapped, and he shrugged.
She looked away, tried to quell the roiling nausea that his words had caused.
Suddenly she saw it all in a different, dreadful light. Against Cormac’s calm confidence, she would be a hopeless, helpless wreck. Even if she managed to stammer a defence, no one would believe her. No one would even want to.
The press would be merciless, relishing the scandal. She would be judged, condemned as some sort of cheap gold-digger. Her career would be ruined.
So would Cormac’s.
She turned back to him. ‘Even if telling the truth ruined me, it would ruin you, too. Everyone would know you’d asked me to pretend—you’ve already told the Hassells you’re married!’ Her eyes narrowed and she gathered the courage to hiss, ‘Somehow I think you have a lot more to lose than I do.’
He steepled his fingers under his chin, eyebrows raised. ‘Do I?’
‘You seem to want this commission rather a lot. Why is that?’
He shrugged, even as Lizzie saw a flicker of something—desolation? determination?—in his eyes before it was gone. ‘It’s important to me. A challenge.’ He gazed at her calmly, his eyes now hard and bright, and yet something in that brief flicker had snagged Lizzie’s curiosity. Her sympathy. She knew he wasn’t telling the truth—the whole truth.
But what was the truth? She had no way of discovering it, no way of knowing.
‘Still,’ she pressed, ‘you’re taking a huge risk just for one commission. Your entire career could go up in flames! Even if I agree, someone else might discover the truth…’ She shook her head slowly as she considered the implications. ‘And even if this weekend was a success, there would be other times. You’d be working on the design for this resort for a year at least. How would you explain the fact that you’re not married any more?’
He shrugged. ‘A divorce? A separation? Perhaps I’d simply say you were at home, waiting for me.’ He smiled, although there was an intense, icy light in his eyes that made Lizzie want to shiver.
‘The press would get wind of it…’
‘The Hassells are never in the British press,’ Cormac dismissed. ‘And I’m the only British architect on this weekend. Nobody from England even knows I’m going.’
‘But they’ll find out when you receive the commission,’ Lizzie argued, and Cormac leaned forward.
‘Does that mean you’re agreeing?’ he murmured with sleepy languor.
Lizzie stiffened. ‘Do I really have much choice?’ It hadn’t taken long to realise just how cornered she truly was. Cormac had coldly, calculatingly built the evidence against her. He’d waited until they were on the plane before telling her—there was no escape without shaming them both.
‘You could tell Hassell when we land,’ Cormac offered. ‘I expect he’d believe you. All those family values…’ He waved a hand in contemptuous dismissal. ‘They must count for something when it comes to a damsel in distress.’
‘Yes, and then what? He’ll send us both back on the very next plane, and no doubt tell the press what you’ve done. Your career would be ruined, and so would mine. And you know how rabid tabloid journalists can be. They’d be sniffing around me…around…’ She stopped abruptly and looked away.
‘Around your sister?’ Cormac finished, and Lizzie jerked back to face him.
‘What do you know about my sister?’
‘You’ve been taking care of her for ten years or so, since your parents died,’ Cormac replied calmly. ‘She’s what? Eighteen? Impressionable, probably. I imagine that so much publicity could go to her head quite quickly.’ He smiled.
Lizzie swallowed, tasted bile. She could just about face her own career—her own life—being ruined. But not Dani’s. Nothing could happen to Dani.
She hadn’t spent the last ten years saving and sacrificing to have Dani’s chances at a better life shot to hell…and all because of Cormac.
Cormac. This was all his fault…and there was nothing she could do about it.
‘How do you know so much?’ she demanded in a furious, frightened whisper, and he shrugged.
‘Most of it is on your CV.’
‘So is my name!’ She felt like scratching that arrogant, indulgent smile right off his mouth.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but that information isn’t important to me.’
‘It should be, if you want to pretend to be my husband!’ She’d raised her voice and in one quick, quiet movement Cormac grabbed her wrist, encased her hand in his like a vice. He pressed her fingers against her own mouth in a movement that was almost tender, except for the look in his eyes.
His eyes were cold. Freezing, dangerous. Dead.
‘Careful, Chandler,’ he whispered. ‘You don’t really want to give the game away now, do you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ she choked. She wrenched her hand out of his grasp. ‘You’re such a—’
‘Now, now,’ he murmured, smiling, although his eyes were still cold, still frighteningly flat. Lizzie choked back her words, her fear.
A flight attendant passed, glancing at them curiously.
She probably thought this was a lovers’ spat, Lizzie thought. A little tiff. If it weren’t quite so horrible, it would have been funny.
Except Lizzie did not feel like laughing.
‘Why?’ she asked, and it came out in a wretched whisper. ‘Why are you doing this? It’s only one commission. And it’s such a risk—you could be ruining both of our lives.’
Her head drooped and she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, willed the tears and despair back.
Cormac was silent. ‘If you make it through this weekend,’ he finally told her, his voice soft, ‘I’ll pay you double your normal salary for the rest of the year. I’ll make sure you never receive a word of bad press—even if it all comes out.’
Lizzie looked up bleakly. ‘How can you make sure of that?’
‘I can. Trust me, Chandler. I don’t take foolish risks.’
‘This seems pretty foolish to me,’ she retorted, and he smiled.
‘Yes, and foolhardy…and a little bit interesting, don’t you think?’ He leaned forward, his lids lowering, his lashes sweeping the bronzed planes of his face. His breath feathered her hair, her cheek. ‘A bit intriguing, perhaps…’ he murmured, a provocative, questioning lilt to his voice.
Lizzie stared at him, amazed by his sudden transformation. Transfixed by it. ‘No,’ she denied—a matter of instinct. Protection. No.
‘It could be an adventure,’ Cormac continued, his voice turning silkily persuasive. ‘For both of us.’ His eyes glittered and again she saw that flicker, as if something had been stripped away or dropped into place. She didn’t know which.
What was it? It was a shadow, a veil, and yet it also revealed. Revealed the man beneath the hard veneer of calculated charm—if there was one.
‘An adventure? I don’t…’ Lizzie’s breath hitched as she dragged it into her lungs ‘…see how.’
Cormac raised his eyebrows, a smile played about his mouth. His lips were both sculpted and soft…and close. Very close. To her.
‘Don’t you?’ he murmured. He raised one hand to her cheek and twined her hair through his fingers. With each sleepy spiral of his hand he ticked off a point. ‘You’ll be in the Caribbean, in a beautiful villa. Wined and dined with a trunkful of designer clothes at your disposal—clothes which cost a small fortune. Petted, pampered. What woman wouldn’t enjoy that?’
Lizzie swallowed. What woman, indeed? She wanted to say she wouldn’t, insist that she couldn’t be bought so easily, and yet…
There was truth in his words.
Some bizarre, yearning part of her wanted this. Not the clothes, perhaps, or the food or any of the luxuries Cormac thought would entice her.
She wanted the thrill. The adventure, the intimacy. She’d had precious little in her life so far. The last ten years had been a desert of devotion to her sister.
She wanted excitement…and she wanted it with Cormac.
Cormac—the boss she barely knew, who had no interest in knowing her. Yet who was now looking at her, his eyes glittering, a smile of tempting, sensuous promise stealing over his features, softening them…
Stop. Stop.
This was Cormac. This was wrong.
‘What about you?’ she whispered, hating the need and weakness in her voice. ‘How would it be an adventure for you?’
His smile deepened and he dipped closer so his lips touched her ear, sent delicious shivers straight to her soul.
‘Why,’ he whispered, ‘because I’d be with you.’ His lips hovered by her ear, making the little hairs on the nape of her neck quiver with awareness. Awareness of him, awareness of need. Need of him. She’d never needed anyone. Not like this. Never like this.
How had she not missed it? How had she managed without?
The adrenalin, the adventure, they were an addiction. She felt alive, more alive than she’d ever felt before, every nerve and sense twanging with delicious awareness.
And yet it was wrong…
Wonderfully wrong.
‘So?’ Cormac breathed, his lips still close to her ear. ‘What’s your answer…Lizzie?’
He’d known her name. The whole time, she realised, he’d known her name. And somehow, stupidly, that made a difference. That made it almost safe.
She closed her eyes, took in a breath, felt it fill her lungs, felt herself go dizzy. Dizzy, scared and wonderfully excited.
Nothing like this had ever happened to her…and nothing ever would again.
Seize life.
Seize it.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll do it.’
She felt Cormac’s smile, his lips touched her neck in the barest of kisses. ‘I can’t wait,’ he murmured, and sat back in his seat.
She couldn’t even look at him. Cormac smiled to himself, shaking his head slightly at her ridiculous naïveté, her unbelievable innocence. She was embarrassed by the barest brush of a kiss…He wondered if she were a virgin.
She was twenty-eight years old. Surely not. That, he mused, would really be just too pathetic.
Yet it could also prove to be interesting…
Ever since seeing her in that silver gown—and then afterwards in her worn-out bra and jeans—he’d considered whether he would sleep with her. Seduce her. It would be easy, really, all too revoltingly simple, as his brief taste on the plane journey had already proved. A few whispered words, a little caress, and she’d fallen into his hands like softened clay, ready to be shaped to his own desire. His own purpose. He usually liked a bit more of a challenge.
Still…seduction had its uses. A Lizzie who believed herself in love might be more pliable than one who was simply going along because she’d been coerced.
On the other hand, a Lizzie who felt she’d been ruthlessly seduced could be dangerous. Unpredictable.
He’d have to be cautious. Lizzie Chandler needed careful handling.
He gazed out of the window, the stretch of inky sky merely a canvas for the resort he was going to design. The commission he would seize.
The people he would prove wrong.
Lizzie had asked him why this particular commission was so important to him; Cormac hadn’t realised just how much it mattered until the question had been voiced aloud.
No one would tell him what he could or couldn’t do. No one would tell him he wasn’t good enough, worthy enough for anything.
Not any more.
He was in charge, in control of his own destiny—and of hers.
He had Lizzie Chandler in the palm of his hand and that was exactly where he wanted her.