Blackmailed into the Billionaire's Bed(21)

With Kendall center stage in his thoughts, he turned his head and peered through the window. Flying forty thousand feet above the earth, everything appeared so different. Some seven and a half miles below him, Mother Earth looked serene and calm, like she didn’t have a care in the world. Mac figured the Apollo astronauts must have had the same thoughts, only more so, when they stood on the moon and looked back at the earth in its wondrous entirety.

Of course, he knew the tranquility he observed was merely an illusion, because way below him, people were deceiving, fighting, and even killing each other. Just as they’d done since the dawn of time.

Mac took another sip of bourbon and focused his attention back on Kendall. She sat on the opposite side of the cabin, and for the last twenty minutes had flicked through one glossy magazine after another. He reckoned she’d been through at least ten in that time.

After the great sex they’d shared in his office, he figured she now felt a little embarrassed and used the endless stream of magazines as a diversionary tactic, just so she didn’t have to engage him in conversation. Yeah, that was exactly what she was doing, because to his way of thinking, she hadn’t read a single word of any of them.

Even with her head lowered and her eyes downcast, she looked stunningly beautiful. Kendall possessed a natural elegance that most women would kill for. Only, she didn’t have to work at it, because it came naturally.

“Kendall?”

“Hmm.”

Still feigning an interest in a copy of OK magazine, one that featured Prince William and Kate Middleton on the front cover, she didn’t look up and idly flicked through another page or two. Her charade didn’t fool him for one goddamned moment.

“Take a look out the window, honey. There’s a whole world out there, and it’s passing you by.”

“If you insist, sir.” She abruptly closed the magazine and tossed it to one side, and he could only describe her behavior as tetchy.

Kendall was an enigma. When he’d first laid eyes on her at the board meeting, some ten days ago, he thought he understood what made her tick. He’d had her down as well-bred, sophisticated, intelligent, but above all honest and trustworthy. After all, she headed up his financial department, so that was a given. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought her capable of stealing a million bucks from his company.

But she had.

Somehow, he’d figured her all wrong, because that was exactly what she’d done. She’d even confessed she’d have stolen from him again and again, if she hadn’t been caught. But, something just didn’t sit right with him. His gut instinct had never been wrong before, so why the fuck had his natural intuition, which had served him faultlessly over the years, let him down so badly this time?

Mac had battled his way through life without any help from anyone, and had always believed in his own ability to sum up a person’s character correctly. On this occasion though, he’d been a gullible idiot, because she’d duped him with an ease that surprised and angered him.

Or had she?

As he stared across at her again, he just couldn’t see where the killer instinct necessary for such a deception lay. His eyes and all his other senses combined couldn’t detect or even glimpse a dark side to her personality. The clinical coldness and emotional detachment needed to carry out a fraud on this scale simply wasn’t there.

Perhaps his original assessment of his financial controller was nearer to the mark. Yes, she’d stolen the money, his money, there was no doubt about that, but had she really stolen it purely for reasons of greed as she’d confessed? Surely a woman like Kendall, whose father was a high-flying lawyer and extremely wealthy in his own right, could have obtained the money by more legitimate means?

Yeah, something just doesn’t feel right.

That was why he’d employed the services of Frank Carrell, a private eye he’d used successfully for the last decade. Frank had the experience to get to the bottom of the money trail and find out exactly where his million bucks had gone. For now, he’d go on assuming that Kendall was the sole perpetrator of the crime, because he had no evidence to the contrary. Deep down though, he hoped there was another reason why she’d stolen his money, and one that wasn’t to do with personal greed and self-gratification.

In the meantime though, by keeping her contained on his private island in the Florida Keys, he could run with his original plan, enjoying her achingly beautiful body, wherever and whenever he desired. For the next ten days she belonged to him, until her debt was finally paid in full.



* * * *



Three hours later



Tired from the seemingly never-ending journey, Kendall held her breath as Mac skillfully piloted the helicopter. They were probably flying at a height of a hundred feet, but to her, it seemed they practically skimmed the softly undulating waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Each expanse of pristine azure sea lasted for mere seconds before lush greenery appeared again, only to be replaced with the mesmerizing ocean once more.