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heat in my cheeks deepened.

      Idiot. I should never have said that. Why had I? The only explanation was that I was so conditioned to arguing with him that it must have been some kind of weird reflex.

      ‘Yes.’ I refused to look away. Refused to acknowledge, too, a strange disappointment that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard I ignored it. ‘Not that I’d do it anyway. I’d rather blow Vlad the Impaler.’

      Xander said nothing. Instead he looked down at his watch, some heavy platinum thing that highlighted the strong bones of his wrist. ‘Are you going to accept my offer or not? I have a meeting in five minutes and time is money.’

      I dearly wanted to tell him no, that I wouldn’t be working for him, not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Not even if he paid me a million bucks.

      But there was a little voice in my head nagging away, telling me I’d be stupid to give up this chance at something I’d been wanting to do for years simply because I hated Xander King.

      It was just a month. That was all. I could do that, couldn’t I?

      ‘You know I’ve never had an office job in my entire life, right?’ He had to know exactly what he’d be taking on, since my entire career was a sorry list of retail and hospitality jobs that I’d either left or been fired from for stating my opinion, or because of my attitude. Or they didn’t like my jeans or my hair or whatever.

      I didn’t care. Those jobs weren’t what I wanted to do anyway.

       You might care about this one.

      I gritted my teeth as Xander’s black gaze continue to pin me.

      ‘Are you saying you can’t do it?’ His voice was so cold, like an ice cube brushed over my skin.

      I repressed my instinctive shiver, keeping my chin high. ‘Of course I can do it. Seriously, how hard could it be? Making coffee, getting your dry cleaning and little gifts for your girlfriends. Easy.’

      His beautiful face was expressionless. ‘I have other people to get my dry cleaning and I can make my own coffee. I also don’t have any...girlfriends.’

      He said the word like it tasted bad and I didn’t know why it made me feel something like satisfaction. What did I care if he had girlfriends or not?

      ‘Whatever.’ I kicked my boot harder against the door. ‘It’s not like it’s hard—’

      ‘You’ll start at eight-thirty sharp every morning and I don’t like lateness so you’ll need to be prompt. The work day finishes when I do—unless I send you home early—and I don’t finish before six. At the earliest. And as for your duties, they’ll be basically anything I tell you to do.’ He paused and his gaze sharpened. ‘Do you understand?’

      My heartbeat sped up and I had no idea why.

       You like the idea of doing anything he tells you to do...

      No. God, why would I like the idea of that? I hated being told what to do.

      ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘You basically want a slave. No wonder no one wants to work with you.’

      His expression didn’t even flicker. ‘I don’t like attitude and I don’t like backchat. If you disagree with me I’ll be open to discussing it, but if it’s to argue for the sake of it then you’ll get short shrift. Once I make a decision you will not argue with it.’ He pushed his chair back and got to his feet, six foot three of tall, dark and compelling. ‘You get one chance with me, Poppy. One chance and that’s all.’

      My jaw ached with keeping in all the words I wanted to fling at him. The need to tell him he was a controlling douchebag and I’d rather crawl naked over broken glass than work for him or do a single thing he said.

      But...the promise of that internship was enough for me to swallow any sarcastic comebacks.

      ‘You’re serious about this reference?’ I asked instead.

      He moved purposefully towards me, obviously expecting me to get out of the way of the door. But I didn’t.

      I stayed exactly where I was.

      He came to a stop in front of me and at last that stony expression on his face flickered. ‘One thing to understand about me is that I never lie. You’ll only get the truth from me. So if I promise you a reference, I mean it.’

      I tried not to feel satisfied at that flicker of expression. ‘Well, I guess that’s—’

      ‘But you’ll only get a good reference if you perform to my satisfaction,’ he went on coldly. ‘If you don’t then you don’t get a thing.’

       Perform to my satisfaction...

      The words echoed weirdly in my head and I became suddenly aware of how close to me he was, towering over me, his gaze like black ice.

      Heat began to prickle across my skin.

      He was so tall, so broad, and he wore some kind of subtle cologne that smelled fresh, like water or rain, with an edge to it, a darkness. A rainstorm...

      My mouth dried, my heartbeat thumping uncomfortably in my ears. Standing here had been a mistake. But then if I moved, I’d be betraying something and one thing I knew was that I couldn’t betray any kind of weakness in front of this man. I’d already given him power over me by admitting how much I wanted the internship. I couldn’t afford to lose any more ground.

      I pushed myself away from the door and took a step.

      Towards him.

       CHAPTER THREE

      Xander

      POPPY TOOK A step towards me, her copper eyes full of challenge, clearly having no idea how fragile my control was.

      Apparently, she’d been put on earth solely to test me.

      In the normal scheme of things I had no problem keeping myself in check. But this woman... Christ, she’d done nothing but push me from the moment she’d stepped into the room. And now my patience—usually limitless—was almost extinct.

      Then again, I didn’t know what I’d expected. She’d been doing that since she was ten years old.

      At first, I’d been happy at the thought of having a little sister to spoil since I’d been rather isolated as a kid. But then she’d turned up, made of nothing but anger and spite, and had decided, for some reason known only to herself, that I was the worst person on the planet and had treated me accordingly.

      Things had gone downhill from there.

      I’d known at the time that she’d just lost her father and so, for at least a year after she came to live with us, I tried my best to be friendly towards her. But she never softened. Nothing I did was right and nothing I said changed things. She either ignored me completely or picked at me constantly, pushing and pushing to get a rise out of me.

      She didn’t treat either Ajax or Leon like that, only me.

      So I stopped trying to be nice and simply ignored her. Which would have worked fine if I hadn’t accidentally caught her skinny-dipping in the pool early one morning. She’d been eighteen, rising from the water like a sea goddess, her hair dripping and glossy down her back. Her skin had glistened a deep bronze, her lovely face devoid of its usual angry scowl, and she’d stood there by the edge, her arms raised, squeezing the water from her hair, looking out towards the ocean since our house was built on a cliff. And she’d smiled.

      It slew me, that smile.

      That was when my dick had decided it wanted her. And the damn thing hadn’t let up since.

      Now, I tried to hold onto the last fraying shreds of my control, but then she took that step, getting close, inches

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