Ruthless Boss, Hired Wife

‘Fine.’ She swallowed any indignation she felt. It was pointless. Cormac Douglas was her boss and he could do what he liked. Even in her own house. ‘Is that all?’ she finally got out in a voice of strangled politeness.

‘No.’ Cormac continued to stare at her, his gaze narrowed and uncomfortably assessing. On the stove the pot of tomato sauce bubbled resentfully.

After a moment he sighed impatiently and, without another word, he turned on his heel and headed for the stairs.

Lizzie’s mouth dropped open. ‘Just where do you think you’re going?’

‘Upstairs.’

She followed him up the steep, narrow stairs, unable to believe that he was invading her home, her privacy, in such a blatant and unapologetic way. Yet why should she be surprised? She knew well enough how Cormac Douglas operated. She’d just never been on the receiving end of it before.

She’d never been important enough to merit more than a single scornful glance and a few barked-out instructions. Now her clothes, her home, her whole self were up for scrutiny.

Why?

Cormac strode down the hallway, poking in a few bedrooms, mostly unused and shrouded in dust-sheets.

‘This place is a mausoleum,’ he remarked with casual disdain as he closed the door to her parents’ old bedroom. ‘Why do you live here?’

‘This is my home,’ Lizzie snapped. Her voice wavered and she stood in front of him, blocking his way down the hall towards her bedroom. ‘What are you doing here, Cormac? Besides being unbelievably nosy and rude.’ A disconnected part of her brain could hardly credit that she was speaking this way to her boss. Another part was surprisingly glad. She glared at him.

‘Seeing if you have appropriate clothes,’ Cormac replied. ‘Now, move.’

He elbowed past her none too gently and Lizzie was forced to follow, grinding her teeth as Cormac strode into her bedroom and looked around.

Her bed was rumpled and unmade, her pyjamas still on the floor, along with a discarded bra and blouse. The stack of paperback romances by the bed suddenly seemed revealing, although of what Lizzie couldn’t even say.

She didn’t want Cormac here, looking over the detritus, the dross of her life. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

It was incredibly uncomfortable.

He glanced around once, taking in every salient detail with narrowed eyes, a smile of complete contempt curling one lip, before he strode to her wardrobe and flung open the doors.

Lizzie watched with a growing sense of incredulity, irritation and shame as he thumbed through her paltry rack of clothes, mostly sensible skirts and dresses, a few different blouses to go with her black suit. There had never been any need for anything else.

‘As I thought,’ he said with an aggravating note of cruel satisfaction. ‘Nothing remotely suitable.’

‘I’m your secretary,’ Lizzie snapped. ‘I hardly think you’ll lose this commission because I’m not dressed like—like one of your tarty girlfriends!’

Cormac swivelled slowly to face her, light beginning to gleam in his eyes. ‘What would you know about my girlfriends, tarty or otherwise?’

Lizzie swallowed and shrugged defiantly. ‘Only what I see in the tabloids.’

He laughed softly. ‘You believe that tripe? You read it?’

‘You do it,’ Lizzie snapped back, goaded beyond all sense of caution.

‘Do I?’ He took a step forward, his voice dangerously soft. ‘Is that what you’re after?’

‘What I’m after,’ Lizzie replied, her voice turning slightly shrill with desperation, ‘is getting you out of my bedroom and my house. You may be my boss, but you don’t have any rights in here.’

‘I wouldn’t want any,’ he scoffed, and too late Lizzie realised how it had sounded. Bedroom rights. Sexual rights. With a small smile, he bent down and hooked the strap of her discarded bra on his little finger, dangling it in front of her. ‘A bit too small for my taste.’

She flushed, thought of threatening a sexual harassment suit and knew she never would. ‘Please leave,’ she said in a voice that was entirely too weak and wavery, and realised with a stab of mortification that there were actually tears in her eyes. She was pathetic. Cormac certainly thought so.

‘Gladly,’ he informed her, ‘but you’re coming with me.’

Lizzie blinked. The threat of tears had thankfully receded, leaving only bafflement. ‘Coming with you? Why?’

‘You don’t have the proper clothes,’ Cormac said as if speaking to an idiot, ‘so we’ll have to get you some.’

‘I don’t want—’

‘This isn’t about what you want, Miss Chandler. It’s about what I want. Get that straight right now.’

Lizzie bit hard on her lip. She couldn’t afford to dig in her heels now, not over something like this. She needed her job, her salary, especially now Dani was at university, requiring fees, living costs, books and a bit to enjoy herself with. Lizzie couldn’t afford to antagonise Cormac Douglas, especially not over a few outfits.

‘Fine,’ she finally said, her voice clipped. ‘I assume you’re footing the bill?’

He smiled. It made her insides curl unpleasantly. ‘Of course. You couldn’t afford a pair of panties from the place we’re going.’

‘I wouldn’t want any,’ Lizzie snapped, but he’d already walked out of the bedroom, no doubt expecting her to follow, trotting at his heels.

CHAPTER TWO

LIZZIE sat stiffly on a cream leather sofa while Cormac spoke in a hushed voice to the sales assistant at the expensive boutique he’d brought her to on Princes Street.

What kind of man inspired the respect, awe and, most likely, fear that kept an exclusive boutique open for its only customer at eight o’clock at night?

The answer was right in front of her, in the arrogant, authoritative stance and the assessingly dismissive look Cormac shot her before turning back to the assistant.

‘Don’t let her choose her own clothes. She wouldn’t know what to pick.’

Lizzie pressed her lips together and gazed blindly out of the rain-smeared window. He was right; she wouldn’t know what to pick. But he didn’t have to tell the assistant that, and certainly not in that tone.

On the taxi ride to the boutique, she’d made the decision not to get angry at Cormac’s rude and arrogant ways. She just wouldn’t care.

He was known as ruthless and cold, she reminded herself; he was indifferent to the point of rudeness. He was also respected because of his incredible talent and building designs.

Right now those designs didn’t seem to matter very much.

‘All right, miss.’ The assistant, a sleek woman in a grey silk suit, came forward, smiling briskly. ‘Mr Douglas would like you to be outfitted for the weekend. Will you come this way?’

With a jerky nod, refusing to look at Cormac, Lizzie followed the assistant into the inner room of the boutique.

‘I’m Claire,’ the woman called over her shoulder as she began pulling clothes from the racks. ‘You’ll need at least two evening dresses, some casual wear, a swimming costume…’ The list went on, washing over Lizzie in an incomprehensible tide of sound.

She’d never spent much time or money on clothes, never had the inclination or interest, not to mention the means. Now she reached out and stroked a cocktail dress of crimson silk, the material sliding through her fingers like water.