what the two of you can do, although he’ll definitely have to clean up his act. It’s more to do with what you can do.”
“Me? I don’t understand.”
“Your appointment as my executive assistant is a two-pronged affair. On the one hand, I need someone with your acumen and your experience to be my right hand while I’m here.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “On the other, I need someone—you, specifically—to pose as my fiancée.”
“Your what?” she gasped, shooting to her feet, her shock clearly visible on her mobile features.
“You heard me.”
“Your fiancée? Are you crazy? That’s just ridiculous. We don’t even know one another.”
“Ah, but we do.”
He crossed the room in a few long strides, coming to halt directly in front of her. The light scent she wore, something floral and innocent and totally at odds with the sensual creature he knew lingered under her proper exterior, wafted on the air between them. Will lifted his hand and traced one finger along the enticing fullness of her lower lip.
“Let me enlighten you.”
He didn’t give her so much as a split second to react. He closed the short distance between her lips and his. The instant his mouth touched hers he knew he’d been right to pursue this course of action. A powerful thrill pulled through him as her lips opened beneath the coaxing pressure of his, as her taste invaded his senses and held him in her thrall. It was all he could do not to lift his hands to her hair and free it from that appalling knot and drive his fingers through its silky length.
Reason fought for supremacy and he wrenched his lips from hers in a force of will that surprised even him.
“See? We do know each other, and I believe we could be quite—” he paused again for effect “—convincing together.”
Margaret took a couple of steps back from him. She shook from head to toe. Desire? Fear? Perhaps a combination of both he decided, watching the play of emotions across her face.
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “No, I will not do it. It’s just wrong.”
“Then you leave me no choice.” “No choice? In what?”
“In ensuring that a recommendation is made that formal charges be laid against your brother.”
Two
“That’s blackmail!”
Her heart hammered in her chest as the finality of William Tanner’s words sank in. Surely he couldn’t be serious?
“I prefer to call it a basis for negotiation,” he said smoothly, as if he did this sort of thing every day.
Who knew? Maybe he did. All Maggie knew was that her usually well-ordered world had suddenly been tilted off its axis. Jason had been on the straight and narrow for years. The trouble he’d gotten into as a teen now well and truly behind him. Surely he can’t have been so stupid as to dip into company funds?
She went on the attack. “You’re mad. You can’t do this to me—to us!”
“If by ‘us,’ you’re referring to your brother and yourself, rest assured, I can and I am. Margaret, your brother took a risk when he started playing in the big boy’s league. Embezzlement is never a good look on a résumé. Sure, this is only a beginning, but who is to say he wouldn’t get more daring if I hadn’t picked this up in our audit?”
Maggie watched William in horror. She processed his words as quickly as she’d processed the information in the damning report on her brother’s activities. Whether Jason was guilty or not, it was doubtful that he’d escape from this without some serious scars. The last judge he’d stood before in court had made it quite clear that he was being given one final opportunity to clean up his act—and he had. She didn’t want to even consider what might happen if he went before the courts again.
If what William said was true, then it was just as well that Jason be stopped now. But, in her heart of hearts, she didn’t want to believe a word of it.
“No, he wouldn’t. He promised—” She cut off her words before she gave Mr. Tanner any further ammunition to use against her brother.
“Margaret, please, sit down. Clearly this news has come as a shock, and why wouldn’t it? I understand you campaigned quite hard for your brother to be given the position he now occupies.”
The innuendo in his voice left its mark. He’d already intimated that she could be linked to the fraudulent activity. As innocent as she knew she was, mud had a habit of sticking. She wouldn’t have a position here for long if there was any suspicion she was involved, especially not with the corporate restructuring that was rumored to be in the works. Rafe Cameron’s determined takeover of Worth Industries, and almost instant rebranding to Cameron Enterprises, had left everyone feeling a little precarious with respect to their jobs. It still wasn’t certain what his plans were for the company, and fresh rumors arose each day about the likelihood of the factory work being outsourced to Mexico or, worse, the whole company being moved closer to Cameron’s home base in New York—which would mean the loss of almost all their jobs. Several top-level executive heads had already rolled, or been ousted on the basis of early retirement. And then there was the steady stream of Cameron’s own people coming into those key roles, William Tanner being one of them. A shiver ran down her spine.
She swallowed back the words she longed to say. The words that would set William Tanner straight on exactly where she stood on matters of honesty and loyalty. Common sense held her back. Granted, it had been six years since Jason’s last run-in with the law. She’d lost track of the number of times she’d been called to the local police station to collect him after he’d been picked up for one misdemeanor or another, in the first couple of years after their parents died. But then the trouble had started to get worse—so much so that Officer Garcia could no longer let Jason go with a stern lecture and a promise of dire things to come.
The first—and last—time Jason had been locked up he was eighteen. The experience of being charged as an adult, with all its long-term ramifications, had finally opened his eyes to his behavior. He’d promised her that would be the only time, and that he’d learned his lesson, big-time. He even swore on their parents’ graves that he’d stay away from trouble for the rest of his life. She’d believed him—believed in him—so much so that she’d increased the mortgage over the home they’d grown up in so she could borrow the money necessary to send him to college out of state. Somewhere he could start afresh. Somewhere he could grow into the man she and their parents had always believed he would be.
Was it possible he’d thrown that all away?
“Look—” William butted in on her thoughts “—the way I see it, we’d be doing each other a favor.”
“A favor?” she repeated dully.
What kind of favor saw her lose everything she held dear? She’d fought long and hard to maintain her dignity through years of adversity and a lack of recognition. She had always aspired to do better—to be more. Now it appeared that everything she had ever done had been for nothing. Now she was expected to prostitute herself to save her brother.
“In return for you doing this for me, and believe me, you will be very well compensated, I will ensure that your brother receives nothing more than a reprimand. Obviously he’ll be under close supervision. If he keeps out of trouble, this transgression will be removed from his staff record and he’ll have a clean slate once more.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will both be escorted from the premises immediately and I imagine that we can arrange for the police to be waiting for you at the front door. It’d probably take some time to go to trial, but I can assure you that if it did, there would be no question of Jason being found guilty.”
William Tanner’s