any idea why her father had taken his own life, but I did. I knew exactly.
It was because of me.
Which meant screwing her on my desk or against a wall...screwing her anywhere would be a mistake. It would be a fall back into the abyss I’d dragged myself out of and there was no way in hell I was doing that.
I had to stay cold, stay in control, not let anything get under my skin.
I’d come a long way from the kid who thought that if he did whatever his father told him—even ruin lives in order to fill his father’s bank accounts—then he’d finally earn that bastard’s respect.
I never had though. All I’d done was destroy people, Poppy’s father included.
The thought was cold water on my raging hard-on and this time it was easy to let her go.
‘No, you can’t handle them.’ I ignored the warmth of her skin that lingered on my fingertips. ‘Not that I’d play those games with you anyway. You’re my stepsister and my employee and, apart from any of that, I only play them with women who do as they’re fucking told.’
Her soft mouth had hardened, a furious light once more burning in her eyes. And this time I knew what her problem was: she’d been into it and I was the one who’d rejected her.
Desire stirred once again at the memory of her mouth under mine, at how quickly she’d opened for me, melted against me, pushed herself into me. At how fast her pulse had been beneath my thumb and the little moan she’d made as I’d tasted her.
I shoved the memories away hard.
No, fuck, I was better than this. If I wanted a woman to order around I had plenty of them in my little black book. I didn’t need this particular woman, no matter how challenging and passionate she was.
‘Fine.’ Poppy shrugged as if she didn’t care either way, though that angry gleam in her gaze told me all I needed to know about how she really felt. ‘Your loss. I don’t much like taking orders anyway.’
Like hell she doesn’t.
I ignored that thought too.
‘Well, you’d better get used to it.’ I injected as much ice into my tone as I could. ‘Because that’s what this job is all about. Now, how about you sit down and I’ll run you through your duties.’
It didn’t take long, mostly because I wanted her gone from my general vicinity.
Once we were done, I showed her to her desk outside my office, left her with some instructions not to disturb me on pain of death, then I left, shutting my office door hard after me.
It hadn’t been until the year before that I’d found out the truth about my part in Poppy’s father’s death. I’d known that actions I’d taken while still under my own father’s control had led to the downfall of more than a few innocent people, and in the five years since Dad had been jailed I’d made it my mission to track down every single one of those people and return to them the money Dad had used me to steal.
Their names had been hidden, however, so it had taken me a bit of time to find them all. Poppy’s father had been the last one...and the most personally devastating.
Financial ruin had led to his suicide, of that I had no doubt. And that made me responsible. I couldn’t change the fact that he was dead, but I could find the money Dad had stolen from him and return it to his wife and daughter.
It was the only thing I could do, the only way I could think of to atone for my sins.
I buried myself in work for the next couple of hours, trying to drown memories of her hot mouth and warm body in the long lists of financial transactions I had to go through, searching and searching for the one that I wanted. The one that would let me find the money her father had lost, that Dad had hidden. It was there, I knew it. All I had to do was find it.
Going through those records was time-consuming and tiring, but I wasn’t going to let myself get distracted. I wanted this done and out of the way, and Poppy out of my life once and for all.
Except that I found my mind kept wandering.
It kept going back to her. Back to that kiss. To her soft hair and her sweet taste. Her passionate mouth and the sounds she’d made. The feel of her pulse beneath my thumb...
Jesus, she’d kissed me. She’d had the gall to fucking kiss me. After I’d warned her not to play with me. Like I was a dog that she could show a tasty treat to, expecting me to lick her hand and beg to be stroked.
Well, it didn’t bloody work that way and to show her I’d put my hand around her throat like a damn Neanderthal. Yes, I liked to be in charge in the bedroom, but I’d never held a woman like that before. Never put my thumb over her pulse simply to feel it go wild. Never had thoughts about punishing her or making her kneel before me and do whatever it was I wanted her to do.
No, I’d only wanted to do that with Poppy. To Poppy.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
The print in front of me blurred, restlessness coiling in my gut.
This wasn’t supposed to be happening. I was supposed to be concentrating on finding that money, not thinking about how much I’d like to fuck Poppy Valentine.
Unable to sit for a second longer, I shoved my chair back and got to my feet, beginning to pace.
Anger and frustrated desire burned like acid in the pit of my stomach.
The sheer gall of the woman. Grabbing my tie and pulling me down. Flaunting her lovely skin in that sheer blouse and showing off the delicious curves of her ass. Like she knew how close to the edge I was and was determined to push me over.
But she had no idea that I’d wanted her since she was eighteen or that I’d spent the last seven years fighting it. That I spent every torturous family gathering avoiding her specifically so I didn’t have her sulky, lovely face and perfect body anywhere near me. Or that when she decided to pick at me I had to slap back hard or else succumb to the need to shove her up against the nearest wall and have her.
She didn’t know that I’d seen her swimming naked in the pool that day and that when she’d risen from the water like a goddess, the water glistening on her skin, something in me had said, Mine.
She didn’t know that I’d spent years ignoring that voice. Because she was my stepsister and younger than me. Because she hated me.
Because having something of my own was a weakness to exploit and my father was very, very good at exploiting those weaknesses.
It was a line I’d not only drawn but engraved in fucking stone and wound around with barbed wire so I wouldn’t ever cross it.
I never thought she’d cross it herself.
Yet she had.
And now I was fucking furious with her.
I paused, scowling at the closed office door.
She’d be out there right now, sitting at the desk in the waiting area, feeling so pleased and satisfied with herself that she’d managed to play me. Not realising that she’d managed to destroy years of iron self-control. Hell, she was probably already planning her next attack into the bargain.
Fury settled inside me, hot, raw.
Well, there would be no next attack. Because if Dad had taught me anything it was to strike first and strike hard. Take your enemy down before they knew what had hit them.
Is that really such a good idea?
But I was too angry to take any notice of the thought.
I wanted Poppy to know what she’d done, to understand what she’d destroyed and just what the consequences of that were.
And there would be consequences. By Christ, there would