Chapter Two

 

Shelley and Brandii glanced at each other in confusion.

“Why are you two standing behind Taylor’s desk? You don’t have offices?” Cliff continued.

Shelley flinched at the harsh tone. She and Brandii quickly backed away from Taylor’s desk, turned their backs to her, and began primping and simpering.

“You look wonderful, Cliff. It’s soooo good to see you again,” Shelley cooed to Cliff, fluttering her eyelashes. “And James. As handsome as ever. How’s the family? Your wife is a lucky woman,” she added to the man standing next to Cliff. His brow wrinkled in annoyance and he ignored her question.

Shelley shot a quick look at Taylor, who struggled to maintain her composure. This was the first time Cliff had ever visited their office in person, so when had he met Shelley? And not only that, Shelley knew the man with Cliff – well enough to ask after his family?

When had Shelley met him? She traveled a lot, visiting clients around the country and even overseas. Maybe she saw him on her work trips? Taylor didn’t even know exactly where Cliff lived – somewhere in North Dakota, a few hours from the factory, but that was all she knew. Shelley probably knew. Maybe she’d even visited him in person. Maybe she knew him well. Knew him intimately.

Shelley’s gleeful smirk said that she knew she’d scored a major point against Taylor.

Cliff, however, wasn’t as happy to see Shelley as she was to see him. He flashed an impatient look at her, then focused his attention on Taylor. His amber eyes did that thing where they seemed to peer into her heart, her mind and her soul – but it was even more disconcerting in person.

Heat curled low in her belly, coiling and settling like smoke. She felt her nipples tightening eagerly against the satin of her bra, and blushed hard from a combination of arousal and embarrassment. She knew she must be gazing at him like a lovesick puppy, but she couldn’t seem to help it. If he told her to lie down, roll over, and beg, she probably would.

“Taylor was trying to make herself pretty for you,” Brandii said eagerly, in her best grade-school tattle-tale voice.

“Well someone had to.” Cliff’s tone was bored, and his cutting reply slashed through Brandii like a machete. Taylor could practically see her inflated ego deflate like a punctured balloon.

“Oh, snap,” Chantelle said cheerfully. “Solid burn. That was worthy of me.”

Despite the tension of the moment, Taylor stifled a laugh behind her hand.

Brandii blinked hard, then appeared to recover. “We haven’t met before. I’m Brandii. With two iis,” she said proudly, as if having that extra “i” in her name was a major accomplishment. She arched her back to make sure that Cliff got a good look at her plunging cleavage.

“Your lack of ability to spell isn’t my problem,” Cliff said, and Brandii took a step backwards, spluttering in confusion.

“I told you I needed to talk to you.” Cliff’s gaze snapped back to Taylor, who found herself blushing again.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, you caught me off guard – you’re a bit early.”

“It’s no problem at all that you’re early, of course!” Brandii piped up eagerly. “You can come here any time you want! Night or day.” She simpered fetchingly and tried again with the back-arching thing. It hadn’t worked the first time; it didn’t work the second time. Shelley looked at Brandii in anger, and her lip actually curled back like a dog about to snarl, but Brandii was focused on Cliff.

Cliff ignored the drama playing out between the two sales reps, placed his hand on Taylor’s shoulder, and gently steered her away, down the hallway, towards the big office at the end of the hall.

Taylor could feel warmth flowing from his fingertips, into her shoulder and throughout her entire body. Every square inch of her was aroused right now. Her toes were turned on. For the first time in her life, she believed in the possibility of spontaneous orgasm. She bit her lip hard to keep from moaning out loud.

James followed at a discreet distance. Cliff pushed open the door and led Taylor into the office.

The room was all chrome and leather and floor-to-ceiling windows. It looked as if someone had given the designer a blank check and told him, “Make it scream money so loudly my eardrums will bleed.” The wide, glossy mahogany desktop held a leather blotter the color of money and a phone so sleek and abstract it might have been a high-tech executive toy. The office belonged to Cliff, but it had sat empty and unused the entire time Taylor had worked there.

It was the first time Taylor had ever been in the office since she’d started working there a year ago. Grant also had an office that sat empty. Austin had no office; he apparently didn’t get too involved in the family business.

There was an oil painting on the wall of Cliff, his late parents Lloyd and Jessica, and Grant and Austin. They were standing against a garden backdrop and wearing exquisitely tailored suits, except for Jessica, who wore a sparkling black cocktail gown. They all had the same expression – fierce, feral, dominant. It was the only decoration on the otherwise empty, pristine walls.

“You wanted to talk to me?” she asked nervously as Cliff shut the door.

He walked over and stood between her and the door, and looked down at her, thick brows drawing together in a scowl. His gaze met hers. “You should have told me,” he said severely.

She sucked in her breath.

He knew.

Would she go to prison?

The stolen product sample…she felt as if it were burning a hole right through the bottom of her purse. I had reasons, she thought desperately. It wasn’t for me. I didn’t make a cent off it. The Bronson family’s most expensive product, their top-of-the-line, ultra-exclusive Platinum Level Enhancers, which conveyed several days’ worth of super-rapid muscle growth, prized by top athletes around the world. Twenty-five thousand dollars a pop. It was also a secret, off-brand treatment for a certain group of fatal blood disorders – like the one Chantelle had.

“I should have told you what, exactly?” she bluffed.

“What you are.” He looked annoyed.

Excuse him? What she was?

She stared at him in bafflement. Was he toying with her?

She glanced at James, who was standing in the corner of the room, watching them. James sighed and looked away.

Cliff looked at her as if he couldn’t believe how dim she was. “Every female in the territory is required to make themselves known to my family. For selection.”

Now things were getting weird. And a little scary.

She backed up a few steps.

He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Anyway, I select you.”

Selected her for what, exactly?

This scene had played out very differently in her head when she’d fantasized about Cliff late at night. Murmured words of desire. His body brushing close against hers. His strong hand splayed at the base of her spine, sliding lower…

Cliff’s tone was impatient, businesslike. “I’ll expect you to be at my house by tomorrow noon. We’ll have the ceremony Monday. Normally I’d allow you more time to prepare, but there are reasons why we’ll need to rush this. I’ll explain when you get there. Will you need help packing? I can send over some of the pack to help out.”

This was officially the weirdest conversation Taylor had ever been part of.

James cleared his throat loudly and inclined his head at Taylor, and for the first time Cliff seemed to notice that Taylor wasn’t going along with the program. Whatever the program was.

“We’ll take a nice long honeymoon once the Alpha Trials are over,” he said, sounding a little less brusque. “You can pick where we go.” He peered at her more closely. “You have heard about the Alpha Trials, right?”

Taylor, her mind reeling, was still fixated on the fact that he’d just said “‘honeymoon”.’

Things could not get any weirder.

“You’re talking about us getting married,” she said slowly. “You. Getting married to me.” She’d barely let herself dream of such a possibility over the last year…but now that he was barking his proposal at her as an order, minutes after they’d met in person, it sounded about as appealing as a roadkill soufflé.

Sure, her treacherous body was still gently throbbing with lust, but her brain was recoiling at his harsh tone and businesslike demeanor.

He looked at her, apparently amused. “Married? If that’s what they call it around here. Now, I’m sorry, I’ve got some people here that I need to question,” he said, then…turned and walked out. James flashed an apologetic look at Taylor.

Okay. The conversation had actually just gotten weirder.

“If that’s what they call it around here?” What the heck else came before a honeymoon?

And why did the big, gorgeous dickhead have to ruin her favorite sex fantasies for her? Sure, he was incredibly hot and made her pink bits throb with desire, but he’d just delivered the least romantic marriage proposal in history. There was no way. No. way.

James cleared his throat. “He’s got a lot on his mind right now. His behavior will be very different after the Trials are over.” Somehow, Taylor could hear the capital “‘T”‘ when James spoke. “I’ll make sure of that,” James added. He flicked a look of annoyance after his employer, then followed him out of the room.

Chantelle rushed in. She’d apparently been standing outside the door listening in. How very Chantelle of her.

“I heard all of that, and yet I do not believe my ears. He did not just,” she said to Taylor.

Taylor struggled to regain her composure as Cliff stalked down the hallway, turned a corner, and disappeared from sight. “Yes he did.”

“He didn’t even.” Chantelle stared after him in stunned disbelief. “You need to go and—”

“Hell, yes, I do.” It didn’t matter that Cliff owned the company where she worked. It didn’t matter that he was sexy and rich. Taylor had dealt with bullies since kindergarten, all the way through high school and secretarial school – people who thought they could make fun of her for being fat, or living in a trailer park, or having a drug-addicted, promiscuous mother who slept with all of their fathers, and an alcoholic father who was regularly featured in the local paper’s “Arrests This Week” section.

She’d learned early that if she didn’t stick up for herself, people would walk all over her.

She stormed out of the room and down the hall, and followed the sound of voices. He was in the main conference room.

She burst in, flinging open the door so hard that it banged against the wall and the glass panel in the door cracked.

“You have some nerve!” she yelled at him. “I’m sorry, you actually think I’m going to marry you because you march in here and order me to? That was the rudest, most obnoxious proposal in the history of proposals. I won’t marry you. I won’t date you. I wouldn’t touch you with Brandii’s hoo-ha.”

Cliff’s eyes widened in shock, as if nobody had ever spoken to him like that before.

Well, if they hadn’t, it was about time.

James put his hand over his mouth, clearly stifling a laugh.

And then Cliff’s gaze flicked to the other doorway in the room. Perry was standing there, and his eyes were open wide with shock and dismay.

“Taylor, you leave me no choice. You’re fired,” he said.

She knew she could protest, but she’d lose. Cliff was the big boss – and she’d just screamed obscenities at him right in front of Perry.

There was nothing she could do about it. And she would have been fired sooner or later, because she couldn’t get away with stealing the product samples forever, she knew that. Sooner or later it would have come to light. But if she’d played it a little more cool with Cliff, she could at least have bought some more time for Chantelle.

Why do I have such a temper? Why couldn’t I have tried to sweet-talk him? I’ve just killed my best friend, she thought.

Her lips moved mechanically, without apparent help from her brain. “I’ll go clear out my desk.”