He took another step toward her, getting even closer, intruding into her personal space. She didn’t move, but he could see the tension that gathered suddenly in her, her posture stiffening. And he didn’t miss, either, a golden burst of response in her brown eyes.
Finally. Fucking finally. A reaction.
* * *
Phoebe stood her ground. She didn’t want to give him an inch, especially not when he was the type of man who wouldn’t take just one mile, he’d take a million. The past three days had taught her that, if nothing else.
He was demanding. Ruthless. Fierce. Impatient. He was also arrogant and domineering, and certainly she’d had it made very clear to her that it was his way or the highway. In everything.
He would have been insufferable if she hadn’t found the energy he threw off so completely exciting. It puzzled her that, though the past three days as his assistant had been the hardest job she’d ever done, it was also the most thrilling.
After two years of the boring, crappy, temp jobs she’d had to take on so she could concentrate on caring for Charles, she’d forgotten how good it was to have every day be different, to be challenged.
She also got intense satisfaction from always giving him exactly what he asked for, without protest and without fuss, making him look at her with a vaguely suspicious expression on his intense, handsome face. As if her obedience wasn’t what he’d expected and he was waiting for some other kind of reaction from her. A reaction he knew would be unpleasant.
Except she never gave him one and it always made that suspicious expression get even more suspicious, which only satisfied her even more.
Dangerous to enjoy that, and yet she couldn’t seem to help herself.
For too long the only man she’d had any contact with had either been of the medical kind or the one unconscious in a bed. And after a while, no matter that all the doctors and nurses had told her that Charles could hear her voice, those long hours of one-sided conversations had taken their toll. It was good to have someone look at her and see her. React to her. Even if that reaction was negative, she preferred that to nothing.
The only problem was that Nero de Santis was not an unconscious man in a hospital bed. And that pushing him-even in the small, subtle way she pushed him—meant him pushing right her back.
She was horribly aware of that right now, with him standing right in front of her, towering over her the way he had when she’d had her interview in his office. She thought she’d gotten used to his size, to his raw, primal energy, but apparently she hadn’t. Not when he was only inches away and dressed in nothing but a tank and shorts, a towel around his neck.
His magnificent body gleamed with sweat, the fabric of his tank sticking to his chest and stomach, the damp cotton outlining the hard-packed muscle of his torso. He smelled of sweat and spice, and it wasn’t . . . unpleasant. In fact, it made something inside her shift and turn, like an animal waking up from a long sleep.
You should step away from him.
The thought echoed in her head, an instinct she didn’t know was there kicking in, making her want to back away and put some distance between them. Except she couldn’t think why. Yes, he was her boss and wouldn’t hurt her, that much she was sure of. So there was no reason to give any ground.
Instead she took a slow, silent breath, trying to ignore the strangely mesmerizing masculine scent of sweat and spice, trying to quell that equally strange shifting sensation in her stomach. Meeting his gaze as calmly as possible.
It was difficult though. His stare was dense as a black hole and pulled at her in almost the same way. Like a compulsion, she couldn’t look away.
She should be angry with him for making her tell him all about Charles, and certainly she should be angry with him for forbidding her the hospital’s phone calls, especially when Charles’s infection was proving to be stubborn and sticking around. Dimly, she was angry. But she knew that wouldn’t help and was more likely to get her fired than anything else, especially given he’d already stated he wanted her to do what he said without protest.
Far better to accept his orders and swallow the anger, to keep calm and keep her eyes on the money.
Luckily, she was very good at keeping calm. She’d had a lot of practice after all.
“Two years?” Nero’s voice was rough, gritty. “He’s been in a coma for two years?”
“Yes.” She kept her tone even, not allowing even a hint of the sadness she felt whenever she thought about the time passing to color it.
His dark gaze intensified, as if there were words written on her face in invisible ink and he was trying to read them. “Has he woken up then? Is that why the hospital was calling you?”
Phoebe swallowed back the sudden constriction in her throat at his bluntness. At the thought of Charles just “waking up.” “No. He has an infection that won’t go away. Also, they were reminding me about the new fee schedule.”
“What fee schedule?”
She really didn’t want to talk about this, not with him standing there, all sweaty and hot and pinning her in place with those burning black eyes of his. “Hospital fees,” she said levelly. “Your coffee, Mr. de Santis. Please. It’s getting cold.” And she really didn’t want to have to go back a third time. Not given the strange looks the café staff had directed her way on her second visit.
But Nero’s attention had clearly locked onto her, and nothing was going to distract him. She’d seen him like this a couple of times now, firstly at that video conference the night she’d started working with him, and then when she’d had to go into DS Corp downtown to attend a meeting in his stead. He’d been on the phone with her via a video link, and in both of those meetings the way he’d zeroed in on the subject at hand had been almost frightening. As was his absolute refusal to let the subject go until he’d gotten whatever it was he wanted out of it.
He was not a man who was distracted by anything—unless he wanted to be.
“What about the fees?” The question only just stopped short of an outright demand.
Great. She was going to have to tell him, wasn’t she?
Annoyance was a small, hot thread winding through her. Charles wasn’t anyone’s business but hers, and she did not like questions being asked about him. About the accident. About their future. About anything.
“I’ll get this heated up for you,” she said in a last-ditch effort to distract Nero, reaching out for the coffee on the table.
Nero moved, so fast she had no time to react, his hand flashing out to grab her wrist, preventing her from reaching the cup. And instantly something in her brain flared white hot as his long, strong fingers wrapped around her wrist.
Heat flashed up her arm, the sensation so foreign and strange it made her go stiff with shock.
Nero’s gaze never moved from hers. He watched her with all the intensity of a hunter. “You know how I hate to repeat myself, Phoebe.” His voice was thick with menace. “Don’t make me have to.”
Breathe. Just breathe. In. Out.
Phoebe inhaled silently then let it out, trying to get her muscles to relax. Difficult when every part of her wanted to rip her hand away from him then turn around and walk out of the room.
But, of course, she couldn’t do that. Never make a fuss, never show a reaction. Never display weakness in front of those who would exploit it, she’d learned that early on, both from her mother’s emotional blackmail and from her father’s relentless criticism. Give them nothing but a calm, smooth front and all those little hooks, those little barbs would slide right off.
She ignored the grip on her wrist, and the fact that he was standing closer than was comfortable, kept her expression absolutely neutral. Giving him nothing to react against. “Fine. The hospital fees are going up, which means that if I want to keep him where he is, I have to find the money for it. Luckily, working for you will help. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Which hospital?” Nero’s fingers remained wrapped around her wrist, his black eyes locked onto hers. “Where?”
The thread of annoyance pulled tight inside her. Why was he being so persistent? Why did he want to know? She’d pegged him as being like her father, demanding and selfish and uninterested in anyone but himself, the way rich men often were, and certainly nothing had happened in the past three days to make her revise her opinion.
Yet now he was staring at her as if she was keeping secrets from him, demanding to know all about Charles and the situation with the hospital.
Part of her was desperate to tell him where he could shove his questions and yet another part, the part that was far more sensible, whispered that she should just give him what he wanted, because then he’d leave her alone.
“Why are you so interested?” The words came out of her before she’d had a chance to stop them, all sharp-edged with the annoyance she’d been desperately trying to mask. “It’s none of your damn business.”
His head went back as if she’d hit him, and his nostrils flared, a black spark igniting in his midnight eyes. Then his hard mouth widened in a fierce, savage kind of smile.
And Phoebe knew she’d made a terrible mistake.
Chapter 4
Her eyes weren’t just brown, they were the color of a deep, rich brandy. The kind that sat in your gut like a hot coal, warming you, and yet burned like fuck on the way down.