* * *
Downstairs, in the posh lobby of the most scarily impressive building she had ever entered, Violet waited for Damien Carver’s secretary to come and fetch her. She was a little surprised that getting in to see the man in the hallowed halls of his own office had been so easy. For a few misguided seconds she nurtured the improbable fantasy that perhaps Damien Carver wasn’t quite the monster Phillipa had made him out to be.
The fantasy didn’t last long. No one ever got to the stratospheric heights of success that this man obviously had by being kind, forgiving and compassionate.
What was she doing here? What was she hoping to achieve? Her sister had stolen information, had been well and truly suckered by a man who had used her to access files he wanted, had been caught and would have to face the long arm of the law.
Violet wasn’t entirely sure what exactly the long arm of the law in this instance would be. She was an art teacher. Espionage, theft and nicking information couldn’t have been further removed from her world. Surely her sister couldn’t have been right when she had wailed that there was the threat of prison?
Violet didn’t know what she would do if her sister wasn’t around. There were just the two of them. At twenty-six, she was four years older than her sister and, whilst she would have been the first to admit that Phillipa hadn’t always been an easy ride, ever since their parents had died in a car crash seven years previously, she loved her to bits and would do anything for her.
She looked around her and tried to stem the mounting tide of panic she felt at all the acres of marble and chrome surrounding her. She felt it was unfair that a simple glass building could fail to announce such terrifyingly opulent surroundings. Why hadn’t Phillipa mentioned a word of this when she had first joined the company ten months ago? She pushed aside the insidious temptation to wish herself back at the tiny house she had eventually bought for them to share with the proceeds left to them after their parents’ death. She valiantly fought a gut-wrenching instinct to run away and bury herself in all the school preparations she had to do before the new term began.
What on earth was she going to say to Mr Carver? Could she offer to pay back whatever had been stolen? To make some kind of financial restitution?
Absorbed in scenarios which ranged from awkward to downright terrifying, she was startled when a tall grey-haired woman announced that she had come to usher her to Damien Carver’s office.
Violet clutched her bag in front of her like a talisman and dutifully followed.
Everywhere she turned, she was glaringly reminded that this was no ordinary building, despite what it had cruelly promised from the outside.
The paintings on the walls were dramatic abstract splashes that looked mega-expensive...the plants dotting the foyer were all bigger and more lush than normal, as though they had been routinely fed on growth hormones...the frowning, determined people scurrying from lift to door and door to lift were younger and more snappily dressed than they had a right to be...and even the lift, as she stepped into it, was abnormally large. She dodged the repeated reflection of her nervous face and tried to concentrate on the polite conversation being made.
If this was his personal secretary, then it was clear that she had no idea of Phillipa’s misdeeds. On the bright side, at least her sister’s face hadn’t been reprinted on posters for target practice.
She only surfaced when they were standing in front of an imposing oak door, alongside which two vertical sheets of smoked glass protected Damien Carver from the casual stares of anyone who might be waiting in his secretary’s outside office.
Idly tabulating the string of idiotic mistakes Phillipa Drew had made in her half-baked attempt to defraud his company, Damien didn’t bother to look up when his door was pushed open and Martha announced his unexpected visitor.
‘Sit!’ He kept his eyes glued to his computer screen. Every detail of his body language suggested the contempt of a man whose mind had already been made up.
With her nerves unravelling at a pace, Violet slunk into the leather chair directly in front of him. She wished she could direct her eyes to some other, less forbidding part of the gigantic room, but she was driven to stare at the man in front of her.
‘He’s a pig,’ Phillipa had said, when Violet had offhandedly asked her what Damien Carver was like. Violet had immediately pictured someone short, fat, aggressive and unpleasant. Someone, literally, porcine in appearance.
Nothing had prepared her for the sight of one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen in her life.
Raven-black hair was swept away from a face, the lines and contours of which were finely chiselled. His unsmiling mouth filled her with cold fear but, in a strangely detached way, she was more than aware of its sensual curve. She couldn’t see the details of his physique, but she saw enough to realise that he was muscular and lean. He must have some foreign blood in him, she thought, because his skin was burnished gold. He made her mouth go dry and she attempted to gather her scattered wits before he raised his eyes to look at her.
When he finally did turn his attention to her, she was pinned to the chair by navy-blue eyes that could have frozen water.
Damien looked at her for a long time in perfect silence before saying, in a voice that matched his glacial eyes, ‘And who the hell are you?’
Certainly not the woman he had been expecting. Phillipa Drew was tall, slim, blonde and wore the air of some of the women he had dated in the past—an expression of smug awareness that she had been gifted with an abundance of pulling power.
This woman, in her unflattering thick black coat and her sensible flat black shoes, was the very antithesis of a fashion icon. Who knew what body was lurking beneath the shapeless attire? Her clothes were stridently background, as was her posture. Frankly, she looked as though she would have given a million dollars to have been anywhere but sitting in his office in front of him.
‘I’m Miss Drew... I thought you knew...’ Violet stammered, cringing back because, without even having to lean closer, she was still overwhelmed by the force of his personality. She was sitting ramrod-erect and still clutching her handbag to her chest.
‘I’m in no mood for games. Believe me, I’ve had one hell of a fortnight and the last thing I could do with is someone finding their way into my office under false pretences.’
‘I’m not here under false pretences, Mr Carver. I’m Violet Drew, Phillipa’s sister.’ She did her best to inject some natural authority into her voice. She was a teacher. She was accustomed to telling ten-and eleven-year-olds what to do. She could shout Sit! as good as the next person. But, for some reason, probably because she was on uncertain ground, all sense of authority appeared to have abandoned her.
‘Now why am I finding that hard to believe?’ Damien vaulted upright and Violet was treated to the full impact of his tall, athletic body, carelessly graceful as he walked around her in ever diminishing circles. Very much like a predator surveying a curiosity that had landed in his range of vision. He withdrew to perch on the edge of his desk, obliging her to look up at him from a disadvantageous sitting position.
‘We don’t look much alike,’ Violet admitted truthfully. ‘I’ve grown up with people saying the same thing. She inherited the height, the figure and the looks. From my mother’s side of the family. I’m much more like my dad was.’ The rambling apology was well rehearsed and spoken on autopilot; God knew she had trotted it out often enough, but her mind was almost entirely occupied with the man in front of her.
On closer examination, Damien could see the similarities between them. He guessed that their shade of hair colour would have been the same but for the fact that Phillipa had obviously dyed hers a brighter, whiter blonde and they both had the same bright blue eyes fringed with unusually dark, thick eyelashes.
‘So you’ve come here because...?’
Violet took a deep breath. She had worked out in her head what she intended to say. She hadn’t banked on finding herself utterly distracted by someone so sinfully good-looking and the upshot was that her thoughts were all over the place.
‘I suppose she sent you on a begging mission on her behalf, did she?’ Damien interjected into the lengthening silence. His lip curled. ‘Having discovered that her sobbing and pleading and wringing of hands didn’t cut it, and having tried and failed to seduce me into leniency, she thought she’d get you to do her dirty work for her...’
Violet’s eyes widened with shock. ‘She tried to seduce you?’
‘A short-sighted move on her part.’ Damien swung round so that he was back in front of his computer. ‘She must have mistaken me for the sort of first-class idiot who could be swayed by a pretty face.’
‘I don’t believe it...’ And yet, didn’t she? Phillipa had always had a tendency to use her looks to get her own way. She had always found it easy to manipulate people into doing what she wanted by allowing them into the charmed space around her. Boys had always been putty in her hands, coming and going in a relentless stream, picked up and discarded without a great deal of thought for their feelings. Except, with Craig Edwards, the shoe had been on the other foot and life had ill prepared her to deal with the reversal. Violet was horribly embarrassed on her sister’s behalf.