He straightened her so she was standing on her own weight and started walking down the hall, towards what looked like the kitchen. ‘We’ll take a rain check on the sex, shall we? Although I will remember that next time you want to pick an argument with me, I can distract you with the promise of sex and at least get a few moments’ silence.’

‘You arrogant sod, you just assume that every woman wants to sleep with you, I can assure you…’

‘Ah the peace was nice whilst it lasted. How are you with dogs?’

‘I, er… fine.’

‘I’ll go and get him.’

Ethan switched the light on in the kitchen and disappeared round the corner. Izzy heard the dog barking with excitement as it spotted Ethan. Several deep, booming barks. She heard the sound of a door being opened, the noise of paws and claws slipping and sliding over the tiles and then she saw him, running full pelt towards her – the biggest, largest dog she had ever seen in her life. He had a floppy jaw which lifted in the momentum as he ran, showing sharp teeth under those flapping lips.

‘Psycho down,’ roared Ethan, so forcefully that Izzy nearly hit the floor too with the weight of the order.

Psycho did as he was told, immediately lying down mere inches from Izzy’s feet. His tail was wagging furiously, which seemed to propel him nearer.

‘Psycho?’ Izzy laughed, falling to her knees and stroking the huge head.

‘It’s kind of an ironic name – he was tiny when I first had him and literally scared of his own shadow. Plus he had a fascination with pulling the shower curtain back whilst I was in there so it was either Psycho, after the film, or Peeping Tom. Go on Psycho.’

Psycho stood up, his whole body wagging with excitement, then he turned round and sat on Izzy’s lap so he could be stroked more thoroughly.

‘Yeah, he has no idea how big he is, he still thinks he’s lap sized. Come here, you great oaf.’

Psycho leapt up and ran back towards Ethan and Izzy’s heart soared a little at the clear affection he had for his dog.

‘Come on through, you can tell me your ideas for the house while I’m cooking dinner. And I’ll get us both some pain killers, my head is still throbbing.’

‘No, no way,’ Ethan said, as he dug into a large piece of steak.

‘You’re not thinking about this clearly.’

Ethan topped up her glass of red wine. ‘We’ve always done it that way.’

He was so infuriating. ‘Just because that’s the way it’s been done for the last five years, doesn’t mean it has to continue that way. You’re so stubborn.’

He rubbed his head. ‘I’m really wishing we’d skipped dinner and gone straight for the sex instead, it would have been much quieter.’

‘I don’t know, I can be very noisy in bed.’

He choked on his wine. If he wanted to shock her by talking about sex, it wasn’t going to work.

‘Look, you’re giving people the use of the whole house for four hundred pounds. That’s madness. You could barely get a hotel room in London for that and you’re giving people a whole house.’

‘What we offer is quite a specialised service, people want it to be discreet. The Mayor of Chessingburyford doesn’t want to be there with his wife and bump into his next door neighbour or his cleaner or his secretary and their husbands or wives. No one wants to be pounding away at their wife, only to hear another couple going at it above their heads or in the next room. If you’re talking about restricting people to one room, how would the use of the kitchen work, for example? We couldn’t sell that as the only room people could use – people want that as an added extra, to go there after, not to be stuck having sex on the cold marble tops while some other couple are upstairs in the sumptuous comfort of the suite. We only have two bathrooms too, one off the kitchen, one in the suite. The logistics of this aren’t practical. We are not opening a brothel, where we have different people having sex in each room of the house. I know it might not seem like it to you, but my company has a reputation and it’s not just about numbers and how many people we can get into the house at any one time. At the moment this isn’t even an issue, we have two to three bookings a week, it’s not like we ever turn anybody away.’

‘What happens when we become that popular, and we start getting more than seven bookings a week?’

‘I can’t see it taking off to that extent. I’m sorry, whatever your skills and knowledge in marketing and PR, I can’t see that you are going to triple our weekly bookings. But if it does happen, then I would sooner build a cabin – a large annexe on the far side of the grounds so we could have two couples on one day but they would never see each other. But I would have to seriously see a huge surge in our numbers to even consider that. An annexe would cost a lot of money and I’d need to see it was worth spending that.’

Izzy stared down at her steak, she cut a big bite off and chewed it thoughtfully. Ethan was stubborn but he did have a point. But he was damned well going to agree to something tonight.

‘Do you have a cleaner for the house?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you pay her every time she cleans the house, or do you just pay her a salary?’

‘Every time she cleans the house – we get quieter periods and it doesn’t make financial sense to pay her for weeks when she’s not doing any cleaning. We also have busier periods and she deserves to be paid more for those weeks.’

‘And she cleans the whole house each time? She’ll change the bedding too?’

‘Yes.’

‘You see, that’s an extra expense. We could say to our clients they can have access to one bedroom area – either the basement or one of the two bedrooms upstairs – and the other rooms like the kitchen, office, lounge for one fee, say four hundred pounds. Or if they want access to the whole house, they have to pay a larger fee. It’s silly to have to change the bedding on three different beds for one couple, that’s extra work for the cleaner and more laundry fees for you. By limiting them to one bedroom we can pay the cleaner a slightly smaller wage than if she was cleaning the whole house.’

‘And how do you think our cleaner would take to this?’

‘We encourage our clients to have full use of the house but we would charge them extra for it. So most of the time there would be no difference to what the cleaner did or what she got paid but we could save money on those times that only one room was used.’

‘I don’t like it.’

Izzy rolled her eyes. ‘I give up.’

A loud fart sounded from underneath the table and she giggled as it seemed to go on and on. Psycho remained unfazed by his sudden outburst.

‘That’s our cue to leave, I think.’ Ethan stood up. ‘We have about five seconds until the fallout of that fart hits us. Quick, run to the lounge.’

Izzy stood up, grabbed her glass of wine and ran to the lounge.

‘Don’t look back, I’m right behind you,’ Ethan said, hot on her heels.

Psycho clearly thought this was a brilliant game and chased after them, barking his glorious deep bark.

As Izzy plonked herself down on the sofa, Psycho threw himself down at her feet, and the smell of the fart that he’d clearly brought with him hit her square in the nose.

‘Oh god.’ Izzy held her hand over her nose as she stroked him.

‘Is it bad?’

Tears sprang to Izzy’s eyes with the putrid stench. ‘I can taste it.’

Ethan laughed. ‘Psycho here.’

Psycho immediately got up and launched himself at Ethan, thankfully taking most of the smell with him. Ethan sat down and Psycho leapt up to curl up next to him, as much as a dog the size of a horse could curl up.

‘How’s your back?’

‘Fine – it feels a bit achy, I’m not sure what happened there. How’s your head, how are you feeling?’

‘It’s fine, just a little scratch. No dizziness or sickness, I promise.’ Ethan focused his attention on scratching Psycho’s ears for a moment before returning his unwavering gaze to her. ‘Tell me, why do you care so much?’

Her heart lurched with panic. ‘About you? I don’t. I’d have worried that you might have passed out and choked to death on your own vomit if I hadn’t been here, but I would have worried the same about Gizmo or Kyle or Jim too. Don’t read into this. I want my job and I’m not going to ruin it by sleeping with the boss. So you don’t need to worry, I’m not going to be throwing myself at your feet any time soon.’

‘That’s good to know, but I meant why do you care so much about the company?’

‘Oh.’ She flushed, staring down at her wine with embarrassment at her sudden outburst. ‘It’s a great company.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But it could be better, I want to make it better.’

‘Why? Why not just turn up, answer the phone, handle the diary and go home, you’d still get paid.’

‘Because I want something I’m working at to be a success for once. My events management and business degree gave me all these skills and training and I’ve never used any of it and I love this kind of challenge.’

‘And?’

He saw her, he saw all of her. He’d known her for one day and already he could see there was more to what she was saying.

‘And because you care about it and I care about all of you.’

His eyes held hers. His gaze was mesmerising. Every time he stared at her she felt like she was locked in the hypnotic stare of the snake in The Jungle Book and she couldn’t look away and whilst she was unaware, he was coiling his strong body around hers ready for the final death squeeze. He was dangerous, no doubt about it, but there was nothing she could do to stop herself from falling under his spell.

‘Ok, I will do whatever I can to help you make this company a success but you have to accept that I will have to turn down some of your ideas. I have to protect this company, I have to think of the boys more than anything. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear your next idea.’

She nodded.

‘Do you have anything else you want to suggest or know?’

‘How do you get paid, is it a salary too?’

‘Whatever money comes in, we pay the cleaner’s salary and the bills; there is very little outlay other than the day-to-day running of the house so we don’t need a lot. We put a small amount away in the savings, the rest is split equally four ways.’

Izzy didn’t like the sound of that either but she needed more time to think about her attack before she approached Ethan about changing it, otherwise he would just dismiss that too. She saw now that she had to approach him with well-thought-out plans and ideas, not just a wild stab in the dark.

‘How much is in your savings?’

He didn’t falter when he answered, for some reason trusting her completely with this information. ‘There’s currently about a thousand pound in there.’

That was rubbish, that could be wiped out in a second if something major happened – and if the van ever needed replacing there wasn’t enough money in the savings to cover that investment.

‘I have my own savings too,’ Ethan said, as if reading her mind. ‘Quite a considerable amount. If there were any massive outlays I could use that.’

‘But that’s not fair, you should use your savings for you, treat yourself, go on holiday sometimes.’

‘The company is all I have and I won’t let it fail. I don’t care about anything else.’

Oh god, she loved his conviction and determination. How could she fall so hard and so fast for him after knowing him for one day? It was ridiculous.

‘Anything else before we call it quits on the work talk for tonight?’

She shook her head.

‘Good, there’s a film I’d really like to watch.’

He leaned forward to grab the remote and the TV sprung to life. She watched him, his arm wrapped lovingly round Psycho and knew she was going to do everything in her power to make this company better for him. It was going to be a success, it had to be.

Ethan turned off the TV and looked over at Izzy, fast asleep on the sofa. He’d deliberately watched the film so he wouldn’t have to talk to her anymore. He had told her everything about the company and he didn’t like it, but there was something about her that commanded honesty. But more than that, it wasn’t just facts and figures, he was baring his soul to her, letting her in – and he certainly didn’t like that.

Izzy coming in and changing everything was going to piss him off no end. She was clever, there was no doubt about that, she had so many ideas going on behind those intense grey eyes. And she cared about him, about Gizmo and the boys and the company. He liked that it wasn’t just a job to her. The fact that she had turned down three thousand pounds, tax free, for a job that would pay her less spoke volumes for her too.

The most infuriating thing was all of that was wrapped in this sexy-as-hell package. He wanted his hands on her, he wanted her in his bed, he wanted to kiss her, but he knew once he started kissing her there would be no stopping. He wanted to be buried deep inside her, her arms and legs wrapped round him, holding him close. Jesus, he wanted that so much and that scared the hell out of him. He had never wanted a woman like that. He had women who he fucked, there was no emotion there, it was just sex. You didn’t fuck a woman like Izzy though, you made love to her, you kissed and caressed her all over. He wanted that, but it had been over three years since he had made love to anyone and he wasn’t about to break that ban now. Meaningless sex with women who meant nothing to him suited him just fine.

Besides which, he wanted her to feel safe at work, not like she was about to be attacked at any moment as she had been in her old job. Just the thought of her old boss violating her in such a vile manner made him want to punch someone, preferably her old boss. He never wanted her to feel like that around him. He had already crossed the line by putting his hands on her tonight. Hell, this cosy night in for two had crossed the line too. She was drawing closer and he didn’t like it.

So he’d switched on a rubbish film just to shut her out and been forced to endure two hours of mind-numbing acting just so he wouldn’t have to stare into those damned beautiful eyes anymore.

He stood up, untangling himself from Psycho’s paws, and gently shook her awake.

She blinked a few times then looked at him blearily. ‘Hey,’ she mumbled.

‘Hey, it’s late, I’m going to bed.’

She sat up, looking around with confusion.

‘You can sleep in the spare room if you like or…’

He pushed the alternative he wanted to offer to the back of his mind, but she had already picked up on the hesitation.

‘Or?’

He swallowed. ‘I could call you a taxi.’

Was that disappointment in her face? Surely not. She didn’t like him that way, she thought he was a bastard – and she was right.

She stood up, stretching upwards, exposing a tiny slice of stomach to him.

‘I better get back for Pete, he’ll be wondering where I am.’

‘Who the hell is Pete?’ he snapped. The words were out of his mouth before he could catch them.

She smirked at him. ‘Oh, was that something you failed to dig up when you were trawling through my private life? Something the all-seeing, all-knowing Ethan doesn’t know. You two actually have a lot in common, he’s a grumpy arse too. Plus he has no loyalty, he’ll flit from one woman to the next, men sometimes too, he’s not fussy. I suppose I should be grateful that he always returns to my bed, though sometimes it’s very early hours in the morning. I do love him though, I can’t help it.

She walked out the lounge and he followed her, insane with jealousy. He shoved his hands in his pockets so she wouldn’t see them balled into fists.

‘I’ll drive you, I’m not having you walk home this late. If Pete was any sort of decent human being, he would come and collect you.’

He grabbed his keys and ushered her out before she could protest.

‘Pete doesn’t drive, plus he’ll be out somewhere.’

Ethan tried really hard not to slam the car door as he got in, and then floored the accelerator as he took off up the road.

He drove in silence, furious that someone would treat her like that and a bit disappointed that Izzy would allow it.

It was none of his business, she was his receptionist, nothing more.

He pulled up outside her house a few minutes later and Izzy made to get out, irritatingly smiling to herself.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow then. Don’t be late,’ he said.

She laughed loudly and he could still hear her laughing after she’d closed the car door behind her. At the gate she scooped up an old tabby cat that seemed to be missing one ear. She waved at him with the cat’s paw and then the cat snuggled into the side of her. He watched her disappear round the back of the bungalow. It was slightly odd that she didn’t use the front door.

As soon as she was out of sight, he immediately pulled out his phone and rang Simon, his cousin and the man that unveiled every single last detail on Isabelle Franklin.

‘Hey Cus, how you doing? Did you manage to get rid of that bitch that was blackmailing you?’ Simon said, the TV blaring in the background.

‘No, I gave her the job and now I’m stuck with her. You didn’t mention a boyfriend.’

‘She doesn’t have one.’

‘Well who the hell is Pete then?’

There was a pause as Simon manually went over the information stored in his head. He was great at stuff like that, storing away useless information for later use.

‘It’s her cat, you idiot.’

Ethan took a second to consider Izzy’s words and then burst out laughing. ‘Oh very good, very good indeed.’

Chapter Seven

Izzy was making tea in the tiny kitchen the next day when she felt his eyes on her. Without even seeing him, she knew he was there. The chemistry between them crackled and burned and as she fought with her body not to turn round and look at him, she stirred the tea too viciously and sloshed hot water over her hand. She leapt back with a start and instinctively found his eyes. That hypnotic gaze seared into hers. God he was hot, the way he stood, so self-confident, so self-assured, those huge arms, those sexy brown forearms. Even the fact that he was clearly angry about something did nothing to detract from his magnetism.

Although as he continued to stare at her, she soon realised that the anger was directed at her. She thought they’d moved past this, last night had been a turning point surely. They’d laughed, chatted… but now they were right back to square one again.

She rubbed the burn on the back of her hand as she tried to tear her eyes away from him. He moved into the kitchen, almost filling it with his huge bulk. He grabbed a tea towel, ran it under the water and wrapped it round her hand, glaring at her the whole time.

‘Why wasn’t I informed about the meeting this afternoon?’

‘You have a pick up for a client, I was going to deal with it. It’s just a couple who want to know more information about the service we offer, I’m pretty sure I can handle that.’

She brushed past him into the wider office, relieved to get away from his overwhelming, spicy, dark scent.

‘The boys can handle the pick up, I always deal with any potential clients.’

‘Well now you don’t need to worry. I can deal with them. You can be out there doing what you do best.’ Being the hot, sexy kidnapper.

‘You think, after one day of working here, that you know the business better than I do, to be able to sell our product to potential customers?’

‘I’m doing that over the phone anyway, what’s the difference between that and meeting our clients face to face.’

He stared at her, she was right and he knew that.

‘What’s crawled up your arse today? Last night…’

‘Last night didn’t mean anything. Don’t think just because we had some cosy meal together it now means we’re best friends.’

Izzy sighed and sat down in front of the computer. This was exhausting. Thankfully the next day was Saturday and she would have two days away from this maddening man.

She decided to change the subject. ‘Why are there four of you that work for the company, to my mind it’s a bit surplus to requirements. You could save a lot of money if there were less of you.’

She regretted saying that as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Just because she thought it was silly for four people to work for the company didn’t mean that she should share that with Ethan, and his face showed it had been a mistake to bring it up.

‘What are you suggesting, that I fire them?’

‘No of course I’m not suggesting that, I just think that you guys could work in shifts, and you pay the ones that work – sort of a job share. In reality, it only needs two of you to do the kidnapping, one to drive, one to grab. I imagine only you and Gizmo could do the actual grabbing part, especially if there is lifting involved, and then Jim and Kyle could take it in turns to drive. That means that for each job the pay would be slightly more for the two people involved, rather than splitting the fee four ways, you would be splitting it in two and you could put more in the savings too.’

‘But they might end up getting less pay over the month?’

‘Yes but you need to put money into your savings, you need to have a cushion, especially if your van needs any big repairs.’

‘I’ve told you, I have that covered with my own savings.’

‘But that’s not how it should be.’

‘Listen, the boys are my family. No one round here will give us a chance so we have to look after each other. The pay stays the same and I’m not going to change my mind on that.’

Izzy was annoyed that one of her ideas had been thrown back in her face again but she was also thrown by this ‘mafia’ turn of phrase.

‘Your actual family or like a male bonding brotherly love type family?’

‘Gizmo and Kyle are my brothers, Jim is my cousin.’

She hadn’t expected that. Kyle was so much younger than Ethan and Gizmo, maybe ten years younger, and he lacked the size that his older brothers had. Jim looked nothing like them with his lanky, thin frame and pale skin. She hadn’t made the connection at all. It was a family business and she was the outsider. She swallowed the lump in her throat that suddenly appeared with this thought. But it made sense now, his loyalty to the company and the boys and why he was fighting tooth and nail with her. He didn’t want to let them down.

‘Any other bright ideas?’ Ethan stood up to leave, clearly believing there would be none.

‘I’ve started to create a database for all our clients. It will record their preferences, any added extras they wanted like champagne or chocolates, so those are the things we can offer if they book again. It will also allow a mail merge to be sent out, so we can inform our past clients of any special offers. I recommend that we do some kind of discount or deal once a month or at least once a quarter. Although you’ll probably hate that idea as well. I’ve set up a Facebook page and a Twitter feed. It will take a while to get some decent followers on Twitter but I’ve followed a few key players and they might follow us back. But I’ve taken out a Facebook ad and tailored it to target the people most likely to be susceptible to our kind of service.’ She looked at the computer and clicked a few screens. ‘It’s been seen by one thousand three hundred and seventy-four people in the last two hours, since the ad went out.’

Ethan stared at her, clearly trying to find fault in that as well.

‘How much did that cost? You need to clear all expenses with me, not just take it upon yourself to spend company money. And how on earth did you access my company account to pay for that, if I find out…’

‘Let me just stop you there before you say something you’ll regret. The Facebook ad cost nine pounds which I paid for out of my own money. I’d hoped that you’d pay me back but if you have such a problem with it, you can consider it a freebie. Although I assure you there won’t be any more.’

The phone rang between them and Izzy stood up.

‘I’ll let you get that, I’m going to lunch. The damn thing has been ringing almost off the hook for the last two hours. Strange that.’

She scooped up her bag and walked out.

Ethan put the phone down and scrolled through the diary. She had taken twenty-one new bookings that day for the next few weeks. Twenty-one!

He rubbed his head. Why was he so angry with her? He knew why. He hadn’t slept a wink the night before as he thought about her, the way that he had let her in, but mostly the way she had felt in his arms when he had helped her with her back.

Never before had a woman got so under his skin in such a short amount of time. He’d known her less than forty-eight hours and she filled his every waking and sleeping thought. He was losing control and he didn’t like it

He had to put a stop to it. The sooner she was gone the better.

He opened up his emails and looked at the seventeen new emails that had arrived within the last hour or two.

Damn it! He was an arse, no doubt about it.

‘I have never met anyone as grumpy or unpredictable as Ethan Chase before,’ Izzy said, nursing a coke as Bex rubbed strange smelling ointment into Izzy’s hands.

Bex took a big sip of her wine and then returned her attention back to Izzy’s hands.

‘I think he likes you, I saw the way he was looking at you the other day, like he wanted to eat you.’

‘He did not. He can’t stand me.’

‘You don’t cancel a shag for someone you don’t like and then spend the whole evening chatting to them.’

‘It was work, he wants me to help him, although he hasn’t actually liked any of my suggestions. Every idea, everything I do, he hates. He’s been in charge for so long he doesn’t want to relinquish any control. I’m not sure what I’m doing there.’

‘Then quit, you can’t work there feeling unappreciated.’ Bex smoothed the lotion into her arms.

‘I can’t quit, I’ve never quit at any job before. I could do so much for him and I love the challenge of turning this business into a success.’

‘You like him too then?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Seriously? The guy is smoking.’

‘He’s an ass.’

‘A smoking hot ass.’

‘Ok, he’s fit, I admit that. I mean, I can barely concentrate on speaking or breathing when he is around and he has this really sweet side that comes out now and again. Yes I care about him, but no I don’t like him.’

‘And when his hands were on you last night, rubbing your back…?’

Izzy immediately regretted telling Bex that little snippet of information. She sighed as she took a drink of coke. ‘I’ve never been so turned on in my entire life.’

‘Ha! Oh love, that’s actually quite sad, him rubbing your back was the best sexual experience you’ve ever had?’

‘It’s been a bit quiet on that front.’

‘And why is that?’

Izzy shrugged.

‘Because you don’t think anyone will see past your scars.’

‘No that’s not it. I’m not bothered at all by my scars.’

‘Oh honey, that’s not true. You say that but you and I both know that you’re scared of the reaction from men. Alex was an absolute fucker for how he treated you when you were in bed. The things he said were vile.’

Izzy felt tears prick her eyes as she thought back to her ex saying her scars were disgusting. He hadn’t meant it to be hurtful, he’d said he was just stating a fact, but every time they had made love after the accident, he deliberately didn’t look at them, never touched them, certainly never kissed them. She could see it in his eyes sometimes, he was repulsed by her. She’d lost all confidence in herself and he’d finished with her soon after. There had been no one for her since and that had been four years ago.

She didn’t want to think about him anymore and picked up the pot of cream Bex was using on her as a distraction. She sniffed it. ‘What the hell is in this stuff, it stinks.’

‘Oh it’s just ginger and calendula.’

‘And?’

‘Look don’t freak out, you always get weird about this sort of stuff, but I promise it works.’

‘Bex.’

‘Horse manure.’

Izzy snatched her hands from Bex’s. ‘Are you frigging kidding me?’

‘Don’t be silly, it’s not going to hurt you.’

‘You’re rubbing horse shit on my hands and arms.’

‘It will help to cheer you up.’

‘Yes because I feel so much better about myself now. Look I’ve got to go, thanks for listening to me whinge.’ Izzy hopped down from the bar stool and kissed Bex on the cheek. ‘Will I see you tonight?’

‘Gabe is cooking me dinner, but you’d be very welcome to join us, you know he adores you.’

Izzy shook her head, remembering the last time she had gone for dinner and they’d been all over each other. ‘That’s ok, I’ll catch you tomorrow right, twelve o’clock?’

Bex nodded. Izzy grabbed her bag but as she moved from the table she caught Bex’s wine glass, sending the contents all over her shirt.

‘Crap.’

‘Oh love, do you have time to get changed? I can give you a lift home.’

‘No, it’s ok. It’s too far in the wrong direction. Crap, I have a meeting this afternoon, I can’t go smelling of wine and horse shit.’

‘The horse shit doesn’t smell bad.’

‘It doesn’t smell good.’

‘Look, I’ll go to yours and get a change of clothes and drive up to the office.’

‘The meeting is in half an hour, there won’t be enough time. Damn it, this will just be another thing that Ethan can use against me.’

To koniec darmowego fragmentu. Czy chcesz czytać dalej?

Poprzedni 1 ...3 45

Tied Up With Love

Osoby, który wyszukiwały tego autora, czytały również

Inne książki tego autora