TIME FOR PLAN B.

The real plan. My last card.

I slowly walked closer to him, until only his oak desk separated us. I braved the clash of our gazes again.

“Look, I came in peace, Mr. Landis. Please, let’s not fight over what’s been done.”

“Fight? Is there still a war? I thought I’ve won. Your father’s in jail facing a twenty-year minimum sentence. Your king’s dead. Check mate.”

“The queen’s still standing.”

“Yeah? What happened to your mother?” he taunted me.

Mom was right. This man was the devil incarnate. He found joy in the torment of others.

“I know she has no value to you.”

“And you think you have?”

I raised my chin. “Yes.”

“And what do you think you have that would be useful to me?”

This is it, Cressida.

I looked down my body and then looked at him again under my long lashes, plastering a mysterious smile on my lips. I may be a virgin but not in the ways of charming men. I’d been doing that since I was a kid, starting with my father who couldn’t say no to any of my wishes. “Not useful. Pleasurable. Something that would make you feel like you’ve conquered Mt. Everest.”

“I’ve conquered it twice.”

What did I expect? Men like him thrived in extreme challenges and risks. Another tidbit I’d learned about him that I was using to my advantage. He was feeding me info on how to defeat him as we spoke, the fool.

I pushed my chest out subtly. “Not this one. Or shall I say, these ones.”

His eyes slowly dropped to my chest and stayed there until I wanted to squirm under his gaze.

Stand your ground. Don’t let him intimidate you by his physicality alone. No matter how powerful he is, he’s still just a man. All men have weaknesses.

“I’m sorry, but your…uh, mountains are not high enough for me to want to climb them, Ms. Madden.”

That was a direct hit at my beauties. I knew they were only a modest size C but they were real, unlike the ones I’d seen on his arm candies. Expensive man-made mountains.

He went for the kill. I went for the same.

“I’m still a virgin. Is that high enough, Mr. Landis?”

His eyes became two smoldering flames of blue, stripping me bare with its heat. I felt the urge to cover my chest with my arms. His voice, however, was ice-cold. “You think I’d find that valuable?”

I raised a haughty brow. I knew I was lowering my dignity to save my father but I wasn’t used to indifference and rejection where men were concerned. I’d always been desired and pursued. “You don’t?”

“It’s as cheap as a debutante’s desperate ploy to get me to marry her. I’ve had a lot of offers. I’d passed. I like experience in my women.”

His blatant rejection shook my resolve.

My legs quivered in my 4-inch pumps. I wore a simple number that did not show anything of my body except my lower legs and arms. I should have donned a bandage dress. That might have yielded a better result.

I was panicking inside, at a loss. I was so sure he would want me. What man would say no to my offer? Oh God, please, what shall I do now?

“But I’m curious, Ms. Madden. Very, very curious.”

Okay. Keep calm. He’s curious. Curious is good. Good enough to build on a new course of action, I pep-talked myself as I prayed for a way to turn the tables. I waited for him to continue, afraid to bungle the conversation altogether.

When he just stared at me, I walked around the table and stood at his side. He slowly swiveled his chair so that we were facing each other.

I walked closer and knelt in front of him, between his spread legs.

I was on my knees before him, my head bowed. It was an act of surrender, of subjugation. My entire being rebelled at the indignity of it, but a part of me was tingling with a strange anticipation.

I’d read about this. Surrender is power. Make the enemy think you’re weak.

I slowly raised my face. Our eyes connected again, his, dominating, mine, supplicating.

Submission was not in my nature, but it was necessary in this instance. I would have my day of reckoning one day soon, but for now, I was his, to do as he pleased.

I carefully put my hands on top of his knees. “I beg you, Mr. Landis. My father means the world to me. Please, help him so he won’t go to prison and I swear, I’ll do anything you want.”

“Anything is a subjective word. I don’t like vague contracts. I’m very black and white.”

Black and white. Win or lose. I wanted to win. There was no other option for me. But I was playing with a man who probably didn’t recognize the word loss.

I curled my fingers, biting into his flesh, desperation coiling like a hungry serpent at the pit of my stomach. He was hard and warm and so powerful he could easily end me where I was. “Everything then.”

I felt the change in him. He was no longer indifferent.

His eyes were twin orbs of inscrutable mystery, but they were scorching, making every fibre of my being acutely aware of him, responding to him against my better judgment.

I came here to conquer this man, but it was me who was getting pulled into the vortex of his powerful magnetism.

I could feel the pulse beating between my legs. I was swollen. Wet. My nipples pushed sensitively against my bra. My throat was dry but between my legs, I was a flowing river.

I’d never felt this for any other man before. I should be appalled at myself. The enemy had turned me on. It was revolting! But oh God, it felt good, this ache in my core. Very good.

He undid the lower buttons of his suit and pulled the lapels aside. “Unzip me.”

I swallowed. My eyes dropped to his fly.

I wet my lips with my tongue. A huge bulge protruded against the perfect fit of his pants, stretching the zipper tightly.

He was big. Intimidatingly big all over.

My heartbeat escalated even more I felt light-headed.

He wanted me. Yes, he did. That much I knew despite my inexperience.

The desire in his eyes fueled my boldness.

My hands moved toward his groin.

Slowly.

I could feel his muscles clench. The bulge in his fly seemed to expand bigger before my eyes. I could see the outline of his cock now, thick and long, pointing up.

My fingers itched to touch the hard ridge, to feel its power. Was it as hard as it looked?

He caught my hands before they could reach their destination. “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

I was a whiz with numbers, but this was a number I hated. Eighteen.

There were eighteen fucking years separating us in experience. A whole generation. She was young enough to be my daughter!

And why was I even thinking about it? I should push the little brat away and send her ass home. I liked mind games but this was stupid!

No. Dangerous. Not worth the risk.

“I’m thirty-eight.” I said firmly, as if it was enough to kill the hard-on she had risen by talking about her supposed virginity.

“Good. I like vast experience…in my first man.”

She was breathtakingly beautiful. Young. A sweet paradise a stone-cold man like me could only dream of. But I wasn’t a fool. She was a Trojan horse sent by my enemy, her father. She claimed to be a virgin but she was speaking the language of a practiced seductress.

The pulse between my legs became a steady, insistent throb, making me swell harder and harder and it was all I could do not to haul her sweet ass on the table and show her how experienced I was. But they hadn’t called me The Conqueror if I tripped on pussies, no matter how delectable they looked.

I cupped her chin. “I admire your guts for doing this to save your father. But your father must pay for his crimes.”

I waited for the same theatrics her mother had displayed when she was here. Ana Madden had tearfully cussed me to hell and back.

But this little witch in front of me wet her lips with her tongue and smiled. “Can I try to change your mind?”

The Trojan horse was offering me a free ride.

I could ride her, sure, just to teach her a lesson not to tangle with a grandmaster in running wretched people like her old man to the ground. But that was it. Business over pussy. That had always been the order of my day and it would remain so.

NO. Bad idea. Keep that horny sword in your pants, horndog. Send her home. NOW.

“You can, but your efforts will be wasted. I don’t change my mind once I’ve decided on something.”

“I’ll take the chance.”