скачать книгу бесплатно
You don’t know that’s what he wants.
No, she didn’t know. But he had sent lingerie, and that said an awful lot.
And she wasn’t naive about men. Her father was a liar and a manipulator. And both in word and by example, he’d taught her how to identify other liars and manipulators. Charity wasn’t naive about anyone or their motivations.
She liked to be prepared for the worst. And in this case... Well, in this case it meant that Rocco had dressed her for the job he intended her to perform.
Another waiter appeared as soon as Rocco had cleaned his plate. “Dessert, Mr. Amari?”
“No—” the words left Charity’s mouth before she could reconsider them “—no dessert.”
“Please have dessert and coffee sent to my suite,” Rocco said, as though she hadn’t spoken. “Ms. Wyatt and I are ready to retire.”
“Of course, sir.” The waiter inclined his head, his bland expression not betraying any thought whatsoever, and scurried away to do Mr. Amari’s bidding.
Charity’s stomach sank to her toes, a sick feeling overtaking her. He wanted to take her somewhere private. He wanted to get her alone. Nothing good would come of that. “Are we going to discuss the deal?” She didn’t want to leave the dining room. She needed him to change his mind here.
“Of course. Up in my room. And this is the part where I will discover if you heeded my warning.”
Her heartbeat sped up, her pulse beating rapidly at the base of her neck. “What warning?” she asked, her throat dry. Because she knew which warning. She knew.
“If you are not wearing the lingerie I sent, I am about to find out.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything,” she said, her eyes meeting his. She tried to remind herself to dial it back. To appeal to him on an emotional level.
Challenging a man like him wouldn’t get her anywhere. He was all alpha male. If she tried to go at him head-on, he would push back. But if she played the weak, simpering female, she might just be able to arouse his protective instincts. She had to remember that. She had to stay in character.
“You will agree to whatever I ask. Because if we go to court, I will win. You know that to be true.”
She swallowed hard, not bothering to disguise it. She wanted him to see her every nerve. Every flicker of fear in her eyes. Being brave wouldn’t win any points with him. “I don’t understand how this would benefit you.”
“But you see, cara, that is not for you to understand. I do not have to explain myself to you. I merely have to present you with your options.” He put his hands on the table, his large fingers splayed over the pristine white cloth. “So you tell me, would you rather come to my suite or go to jail?”
Charity looked down at her untouched lunch, her lips cold. “If those are my options I would rather go to your suite,” she said, determination washing through her like a tide.
She could still turn this around. She would make him see that she was just a victim. She repeated the mantra over and over again. If she said it enough times, she might believe it. And if she believed it...all the better to make him believe it, too.
“Very good.” Rocco stood and walked toward her, extending a hand as though he were the perfect gentleman seeing to his companion. She didn’t accept the hand, standing up on her own, taking the hard glitter in his eyes as a personal triumph.
“I very much appreciate a strong-willed woman. But I also require compliance when it is demanded.” He straightened his cuffs, buttoned his jacket, then raised his focus to her, his dark gaze locking on to her. “I hope very much that you have given it where I have commanded. Otherwise, you will find my threats are not empty.” He held out his hand, and this time she took it. “Now, come, cara mia. It is time for us to adjourn to my room.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ue77fbab4-6d04-5b9e-b503-4af7f9d06650)
THE SUITE WAS BEAUTIFUL. There were massive windows that overlooked Central Park, letting a generous amount of natural light in, bathing everything in warmth, in sunlight. For a moment, she simply stood in the doorway, pretending she was only taking in the sight of a beautiful room. One that was well out of her price range, one she would typically never even get to look at.
Unless she was running a con.
That’s all this is. You’re just running a con. And on the other side, lies freedom. You never have to do it again. You can be done.
She took a deep breath and kept examining the room, delaying the moment this became real. The floors were marble, rugs stationed throughout, beautifully appointed matching furniture with solid wood detail in the seating area, with a bed that boasted a matching frame in the bedroom. It was a large bed, with rich purple velvet coverings, and more pillows than she had ever seen in one place before.
For a moment, it was nice to look at. For a moment, it seemed innocuous.
But only for a moment.
Then Rocco came to stand behind her, the heat from his body intense, energy radiating from him and throwing everything inside of her out of alignment. As if he’d reached into her chest and moved everything around.
He had certainly reached into her life and done that. Moved everything around, put things on their ends.
“Dessert should be here shortly,” he said, breezing past her and walking into the room. “Make yourself at home.”
As if that was going to happen. “It’s difficult for me to feel at home here.”
“Oh yes, I imagine it is quite different to your little apartment in Brooklyn.”
Charity froze. Of course he would know all about her. He had sent the clothes to her home, after all. But hearing the details of her life spoken about by a perfect stranger just didn’t sit comfortably.
“Do you have to imagine?” she asked, her tone crisp. “Don’t you happen to have full walk-through photographs of my home available for your perusal? You seem to know a lot about me.”
“The art of war. One must know their enemies. Or so I have read.”
“And I’m your enemy?”
He closed the distance between them, curling his fingers around her arm, pulling her close. The contact of his skin against hers struck her like lightning. “You stole from me. People do not steal from me,” he said, his face close to hers, his tone deadly.
She could sense then that he was every inch the predator she had feared. And whatever she had been afraid he might ask of her, it would likely be that and more. Because there was no softness in him. No compassion.
He was the sort of man who only understood one thing. The cutthroat, black-and-white nature of revenge. Of killing or being killed, hunting or being hunted.
That would limit her ability to manipulate. But her strength would lie in him underestimating her.
He thought she was his prey. But he didn’t know that beneath this lacy monstrosity beat the heart of a beast. She had been brought up in a hard environment, with instability and poverty and all the rest.
She hadn’t survived by being weak.
“My father lied to me,” she said, putting her hand on her chest, feeling her heart beating hard beneath her palm. “I really thought he had finally gotten honest work. I had agreed to help him garner investments from reputable companies. I did not know he was going to take that information and siphon money out of your accounts. I promise I didn’t know.” The lie came easy, even looking into those flat, dark eyes. Because protecting her own skin was second nature. Was the most important thing. The only thing.
“Your name is on the wire transfers. Your name is connected to the bank account the money went into.”
“Because I agreed to help him set the accounts up.” And she knew, even as she tried to explain, that it was going to do nothing to move him. But she wasn’t going to simply stand here and allow him to level accusations at her. Not when they weren’t true. Not while she still had a chance to get him to understand.
“Then you are a fool. Because everything I can find about Nolan Wyatt says that he is a con man. Now and always.”
“He is,” she said, her throat tight. “But I—”
There was a knock on the door to the suite and Rocco released his hold on her, stalking to the entryway.
“Room service, Mr. Amari,” the man on the other side of the door said. “Where would you like me to put the tray?”
“I will take the tray.” Rocco took control of the tray and closed the door, wheeling the coffee and two pieces of chocolate cake to the center of the room.
If she couldn’t eat a light meal of vegetables and salmon, she was hardly going to be able to eat this.
“Haven’t you ever wanted to believe the best of someone?” She hoped he had. She hoped he did.
“Never. I only want the truth.”
“I’m giving it to you. And I can only explain away the fact that I helped my father by saying I wanted to believe the best in him when I shouldn’t have. He’s the only family I have. I just wanted him to be telling the truth this time.”
She found herself very convincing. She would be shocked if he didn’t.
“So much that you were willing to take a chance on helping him with another fraud?”
“My dad is small-time. I didn’t expect anything like this from him.” That much was true. She’d had no idea his designs were quite so grand. A million dollars. He’d overplayed his hand. The idiot. Anything smaller and Rocco wouldn’t have noticed, much less pursued her like this. “Yes, he’s stolen fairly large amounts of money before, and I know it. I didn’t live with him most of the time I was growing up, but when I did, we would always have times where we would move, and then we would have something for a while. A house, food, money, clothes. But it would always disappear very quickly. We would find ourselves dodging landlords, dodging police. Then, we would move again. Dad would get jobs, he called them. Then we would move again, and have things for a while. And the cycle would repeat. Eventually, he stopped taking me with him when he moved.”
“I see. Is this meant to make me feel sorry for you?”
“I only want you to understand...I’m a person like you are,” she said, a pleading note lacing her voice. “I made a mistake in who I trusted. Surely you understand?”
He chuckled, a hollow sound that echoed in her chest. That made goose bumps spread over her arms. “The problem with trying to appeal to my humanity, Charity, is that I don’t have any. I can understand why you would assume differently. But let me be the one to inform you definitively that I’m not burdened by conscience. Nor am I burdened by compassion. Every cent I have, I have earned. Getting to this position in life cost me in blood and I will not allow myself to be taken advantage of. I will set an example if I must.” He moved to her again, not touching her this time, merely standing so close she could feel the heat coming from his body. “I will make an example of you if I must. Do not think I will lose sleep over throwing a beautiful woman like you in prison when it is deserved.”
“So, is this my last meal?” she asked, indicating the food on the tray.
Overdramatic, perhaps, but she was starting to feel desperate.
“Either that or it is fuel to help you keep up your strength for the next couple of hours. You might find you need it.”
Adrenaline spiked through her blood. “So, you get off on forcing women into bed?” The words came out slightly harsher than intended.
A smile curved his lips. “Absolutely not. I never force women into my bed. I will not force you. You will come to me, because you want me.”
“How would you know I wanted you? When it’s you or a jail cell it seems as though my choices are limited.”
“I’m comfortable with that,” he said, his smile growing wider. He looked like the Big Bad Wolf, ready to devour her. “Would you like some coffee?”
“No.”
“Very well. Then it is time for me to see if you have kept your end of the bargain.”
She swallowed hard, her hands shaking, her fingers cold. “The lingerie?”
“Did you do as you were instructed, cara mia?”
She couldn’t believe it. She had lost.
Her stomach sank into her feet, the intense weight of defeat crushing her before she was able to process all the implications in front of her.
This was the moment of truth. Either she threw the coffee on his face and stormed out of the room, and took what came, later—charges, an arrest, a trial.
Or she did this.
She took control. She pushed him as he was pushing her. Called his bluff.
She would not stand here and wait to be undressed.
Before she could think it through, her shaking fingers found the zipper to her dress and began to tug it down.
He would stop her. He would stop this. She was sure of it. And it was that certainty that kept her going.
She could feel the fabric separating, exposing skin. Could feel the dress getting loose in the bodice. Then the top fell exposing her breasts, clad only in the whisper-thin lingerie. It was the same color as her skin, a kind of milky coffee color. It made her appear almost bare.
She knew, because she had spent a fair amount of time looking at herself in the mirror wearing this, that he would be able to see the shadow of her nipples beneath the fabric.
No man had ever seen this much of her body before. She didn’t know if she was in shock, if she was still convinced he would put an end to it, or if the moment was simply too surreal for her to absorb it all. But she felt cushioned by something, by a gauzy curtain that had been pulled around her vision, making things seem hazy. Making them seem a little less harsh.
Whatever it was, whatever magic this was, she needed it. Because the character, the nervous ingénue, wasn’t a refuge here. Not now.
It was too close to the bone.
Too close to who she was in this setting.
In life, she had very little in the way of innocence. But here? In the bedroom? She’d never trusted a man enough to be this intimate with him. Had never wanted to.
And she didn’t trust him. But she didn’t need to. For some reason, right now, she realized trust didn’t matter. This was all about power. And he had underestimated hers.
She finished pulling the zipper down the rest of the way and pushed the dress down her hips so that she was standing there in nothing but the high heels and the matching bra and panty set. The panties were as sheer as the bra, and she knew he could see the shadow of dark hair at the apex of her thighs.
She stared straight ahead, not looking at him, her eyes fixed on a blank spot on the wall. She was still in this chess game and her new revelation was adjusting her strategy. Putting her in view of Rocco’s queen.
Power. Control. That was the game here. It wasn’t sex.
All she had to do was take his control.
“Look at me,” Rocco said, his voice laced with steel, the command impossible to ignore.
She redirected her gaze, her eyes clashing with his, and all the breath rushed from her lungs.
There was an intensity to his dark gaze that was unmatched by anything she had ever seen before. It could never be said that Rocco looked passive, at least not in her very brief experience of him. But this was different. There was a fire burning beneath this that set something ablaze low and hot inside of her.
He moved toward her, reaching out and touching the silken strap of the bra, sliding his thumb and forefinger over the fabric. “You were a very good girl. I must confess I am surprised.” He never took his eyes off hers, and the heat inside of her intensified.
What was happening to her? Why was he touching her? Not her skin, but beneath it? Why was he making her feel all this heat?
She could still leave. She could still pick up her dress, put it back on and go.
But she didn’t. Instead she stood, frozen, as fascinated as she was terrified by what might happen next.
He leaned in slowly and she held her breath. He pressed his lips against the curve of her neck, just beneath her ear, and a shiver went through her body.
