“I’ll call the temp agency as soon as you sign another NDA.”

  She refused to gape at him. He wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing her shock that he was actually agreeing to this after forty-eight hours. Time to pull out the big guns. There was nothing left to do.

  “Before I go, there is something you need to know that Lydia told me.”

  His eyebrows sprang up, but otherwise, his expression gave nothing away.

  “Is it pertinent to the job you’ve quit?”

  “It involves the entire business, as a matter of fact.” No reason to coddle him. “Her family is pulling the strings on this deal and they’ve threatened to close down the deal with your father as well as shutting down all of your access to clients, and materials inside and outside the city, unless you agree to the marriage with Lydia. Although, to her credit, she doesn’t like the idea. But your father is in their pocket and he could care less if the deal goes forward or not, so long as you’re where he wants you at the end of the day.”

  She spared him no mercy and spoke each word as if reading a menu. Then she pushed out of his office and went to her measly little desk to start packing her things. As she anticipated, it didn’t take him long to follow. She heard the swoosh of his door gliding into place right before his hand landed on her shoulder and whipped her around, his normally cloudy eyes now somewhat manic and searching her face.

  “You’re not lying to me? You wouldn’t do that to keep your job?”

  Mia didn’t answer the questions. Not when he knew the answers. As he searched her face, she walled herself up, determined not to feel an ounce of pity for his position. It wasn’t her job, not anymore. This wasn’t her sinking ship to right and she sure as hell wouldn’t be playing matchmaker for her boss and his ex-fiancée. That went beyond the bounds of their now defunct contract.

  His hand squeezed tighter on her shoulder. Heat flared down her arm and she tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong. Fine, two could play. She took a step forward until they were nose to nose and allowed the up-close intimacy to mingle with her discomfort in a dizzying dance. She watched him swallow hard, his eyes lighting on her mouth. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he quickly swung his attention in another direction on her face.

  “This really would never work out. You think absolutely nothing of me, don’t you? You have no respect for me at all,” she marveled, unable to comprehend how someone could be so idiotic and blind to the truth in front of their faces. “Wow. I just…wow.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head with a defeated sigh. When she opened them, Noah’s own face was a harsh, numb mask. Absolutely nothing human shone through—and she shouldn’t have been surprised at all. Losing her after less than forty-eight hours was no skin off his back. She was replaceable. It made her take a step back and wonder why on earth she had been working so hard in the first place.

  “Now I understand the lay of the land here. Explains a lot.”

  This time when she wrenched away from his tight grasp, his hand fell away and she continued packing away her things into her purse. There was no reason to ask him if he could handle the office by himself. He would have to—she wasn’t sticking around until he found a replacement.

  “Wait, Mia—” His voice caught, strangled and low.

  “Whatever you have to say, it isn’t going to change anything. You might as well forget it.”

  She picked up her purse and slung it over her shoulder, not even bothering to look at him. After two steps toward the shiny front door leading to the elevator banks, his hand wrapped around her wrist and squeezed, forcing her to look back at him. His eyes were tortured, his expression torn between anger and indecision, as her fingers shook with rage. What? What could he possibly want now?

  “It’s settled.” She spoke defiantly, eyebrows cocked and daring him to argue.

  “No.” He made a pained noise and pulled her into him, wrapping his free hand around her waist as if he were a drowning man and she was the only piece of furniture in the sea. “I should have known the conniving assholes were up to something and it’s no excuse for me questioning your integrity. I get that I fucked up here. But you have to understand, working with this company is a pressure cooker with no off-valve, and if I had told you the depths of the fuckery…would you have really stayed here?”

  “Considering I’m making my exit now, I think you know my answer,” she deadpanned, trying to ignore how his muscular arm pulled her even tighter so she was able to sense every single inch of his body beneath his immaculate three-piece suit. “I won’t play on the sidelines, Mr. Windsor. Either I’m a team player and you keep me updated or you find someone else to be your errand bitch, but I’m not that kind of hire. You know my training; you know my skillset. I haven’t hidden my value to you. But if I’m just sticking around to be a glorified barista who takes notes? That’s not what I want to do with my life.”

  “You actually want to help me?” His words betrayed his confusion, his head bent lower, searching her eyes. “Why? For a better recommendation?”

  “Believe it or not.” Despite her heels, she lifted herself up on tiptoes until their lips were almost touching. “We are cut from the same cloth. And I’m here to learn things.”

  She whispered the words against his lips, as seductive as a kiss. The little move made his eyes dilate, his nostrils flaring as she tried to ignore his spicy cologne wrapping her in a warm, needy blanket. Mia cocked her head and bit her lower lip, daring him with so many, many promises.

  “You’ll do whatever you need to do to get ahead, won’t you?” His gaze shimmered with lust before expression changed to respect. “You’re fucking dangerous.”

  “So, use me.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Noah was unable to let go of her waist despite the massive warning bells going off in the back of his mind. She fit solidly against him. Their heated argument brought rage and unslaked lust boiling to the surface, until he wanted nothing more than to get into her mind. She was infuriating, brilliant, and gorgeous, and prone to go off at any second. He knew she was a handful on the plane, but to have her here? Now? In his arms, as she taunted him from less than an inch away and all he had to do was lean in to seal the deal?

  At the last second, he pulled back and crossed his arms, acting as if nothing had phased him. But there was no way to explain the sudden tightness in his slacks or the vivid, throbbing thoughts working through his brain. She licked her lips, a small smirk riding her luscious lips.

  An infuriating, smart siren. She probably had no intention of leaving at all. A mere manipulation tactic and he respected it.

  “This is business, so if you don’t want to leave, show me what you’ve got and maybe we can come to an arrangement.”

  “Just like that? From the man who can’t trust me or my integrity?”

  “Prove. Me. Wrong.”

  “You should ask for something harder.” Mia laughed and rolled her eyes, putting her purse down in her seat and leaning against the front of her desk, the picture of casual, as she crossed her arms, too. “You know, Lydia and I look alike. Have you noticed it?”

  He blinked and his lip curled involuntarily, wondering where she was going with this line of thinking as he moved his finger in a circle, indicating she continue and wrap this up.

  “I can pretend to be her, get tabloid pictures made, go to Vegas for a quickie wedding and the whole problem is solved; your father won’t suspect a thing.”

  For the second time in his life, he thought he might actually be speechless. Would pictures cover it? If they weren’t too close? No, there had to be other factors at play; his father wasn’t so shallow to just go by tabloids alone, especially when images could be doctored. A lightbulb went off in his head. Most people could fake anything these days, especially for enough money.

  Noah swallowed, both appalled and intrigued. This plan certainly allowed him to be fully in the driver’s seat and it wouldn’t send off any red flags.

  “We would need to get Lydia out of the picture for this to work seamlessly. Perhaps a five-star vacation to a private island as a gift for enduring the likes of my father before we come together for a reconciliation?” he thought out loud, snapping his fingers. “I can easily get the forged paperwork for our wedding documents—”

  “I can handle Lydia’s vacation, that’s a no-brainer.” Mia shrugged one shoulder. “I can even do one better and find a place with no cell service.”

  “Perfect.” Noah took a step back and surveyed the office. “We’re really doing this—” he muttered, taking in the elaborate scheme. “So, you’re not leaving?”

  “Not yet.”

  “So long as I continue to listen to your schemes and keep you in the loop? You know, I didn’t sign up for a co-partner in the company.”

  “Lucky you, then, you got one for pretty cheap, didn’t you?”

  He couldn’t keep the laughter at bay, surprised at her jabs. God, she was unreal. He had never met a single person who could both keep up with him and wasn’t afraid of the consequences. No way could he ever see her meekly bowing down to anything he asked of her without first questioning everything—the constant challenge was oddly intoxicating.

  “You’ll take care of all of the arrangements including Lydia’s vacation, and I’ll take care of the paperwork.”

  Before he had the ability to be swayed by anything else she had to say, cheeky or otherwise, Noah strode into his office and did the one thing he wasn’t looking forward to, yet it was the most important to pull off this plan. With a gruff noise, he picked up his landline. Without this one call, he couldn’t promise that the ends would justify the means.

  He needed to be positive that at the end of the day, his father would sign over the company and Lydia’s father would arrange Noah’s half of the shares, and all the paperwork would be laid out as soon as his father had a wedding certificate on his desk.

  The call took less than ten minutes, though by no means was it easy.

  Noah swallowed his pride and allowed his father to hear exactly what he wanted—that his son was agreeing to his harsh demands and dictates on Noah’s life, and that Noah was doing what was best for the company. His father didn’t care how the marriage was accomplished, the quicker, the better, given the delay Noah had put up so far, so Las Vegas wasn’t out of the question. True to his character, Grayson Windsor could have cared less about Lydia’s parents’ expectations for a large, lavish affair.

  Grayson’s final directive was to “get it done” before hanging up the phone.

  Once that was all settled, Noah got back down to planning out the project that would make his career once he had the deal with his father and Lydia’s father signed and sealed. All his future building blocks were coming together. He did his best not to get too excited, but there was no way to keep the sly grin off his face as he projected and planned, allowing himself to get lost in the details and the ideas for the presentation that was going to put his company on the map.

  He looked up briefly to see Mia standing outside the door and waved her inside as impatience made his muscles tense, and he rolled his shoulders, looking back to his screen.

  “How are we doing on tasks?”

  “Do you realize I’d only been standing there for less than two seconds and you let me inside your bat cave?” Mia’s tone was mocking and also full of shock. “You don’t do that.”

  “One, that was a ridiculous rule. Come in without knocking from now on, just wait until I look up to start speaking,” he said this without looking up from his laptop. “Two, that doesn’t answer my question.”

  True to his word, when he looked up from his screen, she started talking with a smirk.

  “Lydia is set up at a resort with no cell service and is headed there on your private jet within the next hour. I’ve made a reservation at a wedding chapel in Vegas, as well as all of the travel arrangements for the next couple of days. Is there anything else you need from me?”

  “Yes, you’ll be staying in my penthouse for the foreseeable future.” He had the pleasure of watching her jaw drop in shock, even though he knew his suggestion was playing with fire. “We need to make our fake reconciliation look as real as possible, and if they see you always coming to my place, people will question things.”

  “My staying with you wasn’t part of the original plan,” Mia protested, blinking as if she’d been hit with a bombshell. “That’s not professional.”

  “Neither is the plot we’re about to pull off, but you came up with the idea, didn’t you?” he challenged her, tapping his pen against the notepad next to his laptop. “Come on, is waking up to this face every morning really so bad?”

  “You probably drool.”

  The snide comment made him grin.

  “It’s only until the ink is dry on the documents to seal the deal with my father, then you can go back to your closet-like hovel.”

  “Ouch.” She acted hurt, clutching her chest. “Whatever will I do without a butler to wipe my ass every morning.”

  “Don’t be so new-money, Mia. That’s why I have a bidet.”

  Unable to keep their amusement to themselves, their mock seriousness languished into trying to mask their laughter by clearing their throats. Either way, he was intrigued by his gradually loosening up to the woman in front of him and what she was doing to his normally rigid way of life. He had an idea that as long as they remained in the same vicinity, his life would never be dull again.

  “I’ll have people go over to your apartment and pack for you, unless you would rather do that yourself?” He doodled on the paper in front of him, trying not to imagine them sharing the same space, day in and day out.

  Anything else would be asking for trouble. Demanding it, really.

  “Sure, but I can get my own stuff. I wouldn’t want your staff going through my things, and they wouldn’t know what to take or leave.”

  He made a small noise in the back of his throat as if he understood what she meant but inside he became annoyed at the idea that her packing took away from their time plotting together.

  “Do it now, then.”

  “I’ve hired the paparazzi for tomorrow morning to catch us coming out of the penthouse together and we’ll need a few days to lead into the marriage part. I planned our trip about a week out, calling with updates to your father from me, and a bunch of social media pictures that will show us as the perfect couple.”

  “Great. I’m also giving you my Black card. After you’re done packing, pick out an outfit for the afternoon that’s more fake fiancée style and less business casual. You do have to play the part, and H&M doesn’t really fit the bill.”

  He watched as Mia plucked at her simple, purple button down top and black pencil skirt. When she looked up at him again, her eyes were narrowed skeptically.

  “Can I at least get a little leeway in pumping up the volume on the Stepford wives’ wardrobe?”

  “That’s yet to be seen.” He clicked his pen top, trying not to envision his personal assistant undressing in a changing room. God knew what she had on under her drab office work attire. He shifted in his leather chair. “Is there anything else you need before I send you out?”

  “I need to buy shoes to match the new outfit.”

  Mia modeled the black, nice enough, but clearly off-the-rack heels she had worn that day. Noah rolled his eyes and licked his lips. What would she look like in only a button-down shirt with thigh high leather heels, poised in the doorjamb of his bedroom? He held back a groan, clenching his teeth.

  “Knock your heart out.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was no question they were playing with fire. Noah was invested enough to do everything in his power to make sure neither of them got burned, and that their little charade worked equally well for them both. Each hour that Mia was gone from the office allowed him to deep dive into his project. But his imagination still floated below the surface, mentally undressing her, and wondering what exactly he could do with his mouth to get her to stop fighting him.

  The imagery was so abrupt, he pushed away from his desk to glance out the window at the fading sunset against the New York City skyline. His hands squeezed the armrests of his leather chair. It wasn’t until he heard his door snick open that he swiveled around to see Mia in a black leather and lace cocktail dress that rode her curves as if it had been cut for her body, her legs emphasized by sky high stilettos. She had a few bags perched over her shoulder and a duffel bag that she dropped to the floor.

  “Have fun?” He knew the answer without having to ask. She was practically glowing as she did a little twirl. “It’s certainly not too far out of Lydia’s comfort zone, but it’s got enough edge to suit you.”

  “Thank you.” Mia clapped her hands together. “That’s the first compliment I think you’ve ever given me. I did a lot of research and I guess it paid off.”

  There was no question about it.

  “I don’t think it’s the first compliment.”

  “You just want to argue with me,” Mia countered, cocking her hip. “I still have your Black card, don’t make me use it.”

  “Ah, so you’re getting used to the lifestyle already, I see. We should introduce you to your new home then and get to work on our presentation. Maybe then you’ll remember your place.”

  “If you mean “my place of being awesome,” then yes, you would be correct. And you still need to give me feedback on my PowerPoint.”

  “You’ve resorted to nagging now? You’re really starting to fit the part.”

  Noah got up from his desk, picked up his cell, pressed a button and turned his back, murmuring into it.

  “Come on.” Without an explanation, he picked up her bags and walked to the elevators, knowing she would be curious enough to follow. “I want you to see your new home.”

  His choice to go first also kept the edge off so he wasn’t tempted to look at her swaying ass, fully sculpted by the tiny little skirt. He needed all the self-control he could muster. Tonight would be the true test. He would be damned if he weren’t every inch the gentleman, purely because anything else could screw up every plan they had laid into place.

 

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