Gambit (The Billionaire's Pawn, Book Two) copyright 2013 by Meg Harris.
Cover art copyright 2013 by Carol'sCoverDesign.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
The deep voice behind her almost startled Eden Bishop into crying out. She quickly concealed the small object she’d been holding in her hand, then turned, and offered the newcomer a seductive smile.
“Waiting for you,” she murmured, her voice as low and throaty as she could make it.
Griffin Knight—billionaire, playboy, spectacular lover, and all-around pain in her ass—lifted a dark eyebrow. He wore an expensive gray suit that clung to his broad shoulders and muscular body, and his ebony hair was just slightly mussed, as if some other woman had been running her fingers through it. His ice-blue eyes narrowed slightly. “Waiting for me,” he echoed, and she heard the skepticism in his voice. “In my office? At eleven o’clock on a Friday night?”
She sashayed toward him, swaying her hips in her best Marilyn Monroe impression. She had the sinking feeling that Marilyn had done it a lot better. But the office was only dimly illuminated by a few fluorescent lights, and maybe that would help conceal her lack of sexiness. “I was… lonely.”
“So you came to my office on the extremely remote chance that you might find me here?”
There was still far too much cynicism in his voice. She needed to distract him, to stop him from thinking so damn much, so she reached up and began unbuttoning her silk blouse, button by button. Thank God she’d worn a sexy bra.
The gambit seemed to work. His gaze dropped to her cleavage, and a sensual light began to glow in his eyes like sunlight gleaming through a glacier. She heard the sound of his breathing become raspy, and knew that she was having an effect on him.
“I didn’t know where you were,” she purred. His office was huge, as befitted the CEO of a multinational corporation, but she’d finally crossed the miles of plush carpet and drawn close to him. The scent of pines in winter that always surrounded him tickled her nostrils. “And I needed you. So I thought I’d look here.”
“Actually,” he said coolly, “I was on a date.”
Ouch. She tried not to flinch, but it was difficult. She and Griffin had first had sex a week ago, but she’d been avoiding him since the night of his party, when he’d promoted her to editor-in-chief of his newly acquired news website, and simultaneously managed to convince everyone in town she’d slept her way into the position. She knew better than to think she mattered to him, and she was thoroughly pissed with him.
Even so, the thought of him dating other women made her heart squeeze.
“Couldn’t have been much of a date.” She came to a halt right in front of him and smiled up into his face, still trying to channel Marilyn. “Not if you’re through by eleven.”
“It didn’t take long to take what I wanted,” he said, his voice dry, mocking.
Son of a bitch. She struggled to hold her smile in place, to prevent it from turning to a snarl, and tried for a sultry tone. “I could give you so much more.”
He lifted that damn eyebrow higher and looked down on her with an insulting lack of interest. “I think you’ve already given me all you’ve got. At any rate, I had a taste for something a little more… high class.”
Her palm itched with the desire to slap his smug face. Instead, she reached out and put her palms on his shoulders. Beneath her touch he was rigid. With anticipation? Anger? She wasn’t sure.
“Griffin,” she whispered. “I need you.”
He looked down at her, face impassive, and then his hands reached for her blouse, and he ripped it open the rest of the way. Buttons flew. She gasped.
“Hey! I just bought that!”
“At Target, no doubt.” His voice dripped with disdain. “On the salary I’m paying you, Miss Bishop, you can afford so much better. Don’t let me see you dressing like this again.”
She glared at him, all pretense forgotten. “I’ll damn well dress the way I want to dress.”
“The hell you will. You’re mine. I bought you, and you’ll dress to please me.” He yanked the blouse off her and threw it aside, then ran a big hand carelessly over the swell of her breasts. She shivered despite herself. “This body deserves the finest clothes money can buy. You’re beautiful, Eden. Stop hiding yourself, and flaunt it.”
She wasn’t beautiful, and she knew it. She was no more than average, a perfectly ordinary woman with a perfectly ordinary face and body. Griffin was just trying to throw her off balance. It was what he did. And he did it so very well…
“Look at this hair,” he whispered in a gentler voice, lifting a long strand that lay over her shoulder. She didn’t look, because there was nothing to look at. Her hair was an unremarkable brown, her eyes the same. She was commonplace, unexceptional, almost plain.
“It’s like a glass of fine cognac,” he whispered. “Like autumn leaves in the moonlight. Like coffee-dark silk shot through with gold.”
Like mud, she thought wryly, but couldn’t quite suppress the shiver of pleasure his words gave her. It was nice to be told she was beautiful, even when she knew perfectly well she wasn’t.
He lifted the lock of hair and inhaled, then let it drop. His gaze raked over her, hot, assessing. And then he reached down, and unhooked the front clasp of her bra before she even knew what he was about.
“Hey!” she protested, as a tiny object fell to the floor.
“And there it is.” All the assumed passion fled from his voice, and he suddenly sounded cold and dangerous. He bent and picked up the object. “A flash drive. Stealing my files, Miss Bishop?”
“Of course not.” She lifted her chin, striving to look innocently offended. “That’s just the backup for the articles I’ve written. I always keep it on me.”
“Please. Do I look that stupid to you?” He tossed her bra aside and looked at her. She had to struggle not to cover herself with her hands. She was half naked, and very aware that her nipples were hard. Not because of his gaze, of course, but simply because it was a bit chilly in the office.
“It’s true. Feel free to check it.”
“Don’t bluff, Miss Bishop. You’re no good at it. You crept in here in the hopes of finding my deepest, darkest secrets conveniently available on my desktop computer. You were able to guess my password because you already know so much about me—”
“You really shouldn’t use your mother’s birthday, you know.”
“I’ll change it in the morning—and you made a copy of any files that looked interesting, in the hopes of finding something incriminating. A word of advice, Miss Bishop. I’m not a fool, and if I were engaged in anything criminal or underhanded, I would refrain from leaving evidence on an easily accessible computer system.”
“It never hurts to check.”
“No, I suppose not.” He sighed, and shook his head. “I loathe a nosy reporter.”
“Then you shouldn’t have hired me to head the Boxwood Beacon.”
“I figured it was better to keep an eye on you. What’s the old saying? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”
“How sad for you that you have no friends.”
“But I have a great many enemies.” He shoved the flash drive into his pocket and regarded her with an annoyed expression. “It didn’t take long for me to catch you in something nefarious, did it?”
Something in his eyes warned her that it was time to make her escape, while she still could. She stepped away from him, sidling toward her blouse—or the ripped remnants thereof. “Fine,” she answered in a huffy tone. “You caught me. I’ll just be—”
His hand snapped out and caught her by the wrist, gently but firmly.
“Oh, no, Miss Bishop,” he said, his voice soft with menace. “You’re not going anywhere.”
