Her Dirty Little Secret / The Marriage Clause

‘A mistake?’

No.

Harley’s cashmere clung, her skin growing clammy. She’d checked and double, no, triple checked the forms before passing them to her lawyers. And she paid them fat bonuses to compensate for her...limitations. Limitations that had dogged her whole life.

‘So it has nothing to do with the fact I’m the purchaser? I, after all, haven’t changed my name.’ She stepped nearer, the subtle, manly scent of him warming the air between them and sending her head into a tailspin.

The hard smile returned.

‘I admit, when I contacted the Give Foundation to discuss the misfiled documents, your name was...familiar. But I assure you, Ms Jacob, I have no ulterior motives. I’m a straight-up businessman—no agenda.’ A shrug. ‘What you see is what you get—delivered with a handshake, of course.’

Harley leaned in, her feet welded to the spot. If he expected her to be intimidated, or even conciliatory, he’d chosen the wrong sparring partner. She was used to being one step behind, used to criticism. She usually came out snarling to compensate. Another Hal Jacob lesson...

‘I assure you, Mr Demont, as the purchaser, any...mistake is an oversight and easily rectified.’

Please let it be easily rectified. If this deal collapsed, Hal would find out. Bad enough he was already fiercely opposed to this purchase. In fact he was opposed to all of his youngest daughter’s choices.

‘There’s no reason to delay. I’m watertight.’ She lifted her chin. Fake it ’til you make it.

But inside the familiar icy sweats erupted. Her whole life, dyslexia had thwarted her every ambition, but this mistake carried ten times the impact. She wanted the Morris Building—perfect for her needs and in a prime location.

But she’d messed up. Again. She could almost hear her father’s flat-voiced disappointment. The unspoken ‘I told you so’ she’d been hearing since the second grade. The last thing she needed was to prove Hal right, or, worse, let herself down once more.

She forced her breaths to slow, talking herself back from the ledge as she’d done many times over the years when the familiar panic set in. New York had plenty of real estate. She knew that better than anyone. Even though he hadn’t approved of her latest venture, Hal had offered her a bargain deal on an alternative building, keeping it in the family.

If she weren’t so determined to go it alone, she could capitulate. But then she’d have to confess to her father she’d sabotaged her project, one Hal Jacob considered a waste of time, through a simple clerical error, which a five-year-old could probably spot.

Nope. Not going there.

‘Watertight? Are you?’ A dubious sneer. ‘Jacob Holdings have been known, in the past, to act with a ruthlessness that I find...off-putting.’

Was he actually looking down his straight nose at her? Her shoulders dropped a notch. She’d grown used to condescension, was used to being dismissed. She’d spent her whole life feeling stupid, embarrassed, unworthy. Not that he knew that. But his words stung as if he’d struck at the most vulnerable part of her with pinpoint accuracy.

‘I prefer to deal with more...agreeable clients.’ He gathered his belongings from the table, tucking his phone into his pants pocket. ‘And until the documentation is corrected...’ Another shrug.

Harley’s pulse ricocheted around her body. So her instincts had been right. He carried the Lane/Jacob grudge, the same grudge that had soured not only their respective fathers’ business dealings, but also their families’ friendship.

‘I’m not Jacob Holdings.’ She forced her fingers to relax. ‘This deal has nothing to do with my family.’ If only she hadn’t messed up, her words would pack more punch.

His eyes flicked over her as if she hadn’t spoken, or her arguments carried little weight with him. He’d made his opinion. Nothing, it seemed, would shake it.

‘We’ll see.’ Completely unfazed, he offered her a tight smile and strode across the cavernous space towards the bank of elevators.

Taking a split second to admire his muscular ass under the fine wool of his pants, Harley hurried after his ground-eating strides, which made light work of the obstacles littering the floor, her own footfalls hindered by the clingy, tight-fitting dress.

Damn her dyslexia. Would its insidious grip on everything she tried to achieve never lessen? She’d personally handed him the ammunition to shoot down her dreams for the Morris Building. Another of her dreams destined for the ‘Harley tries hard, but...’ pile.

Part of her wasn’t surprised—the little girl inside who’d always craved the same pride afforded her siblings’ achievements. Of course those achievements could be measured academically—the right degree from the right school.

But how dared Jack insinuate the company she’d painstakingly built single-handed in spite of her father and her dyslexia, and Jacob Holdings, the family-run business with Hal at the helm, were bedfellows. She’d fought long and hard to forge her own path unencumbered by her surname.

Her turbulent hit-and-miss education, her enforced deviation from the Harvard to Jacob Holdings fast track her siblings had pursued and her determination to make it alone meant she’d forsaken her family name, despite its power to open any door in Manhattan.

She’d deliberately named her company Give for anonymity. Of course, it was impossible to completely disassociate herself from her New York heiress reputation. Fighting not only her family, who would see her firmly back in the fold, but also the few men of her past, who failed to understand why she eschewed a life of vacuous privilege to make it alone.

Dammit, why was he so tall, his legs so long?

‘Wait.’

The elevator doors slid open. Jack disappeared inside and Harley trotted the final few paces to catch up. If he thought she’d simply slink away with her tail between her legs and their deal in tatters, he’d underestimated her.

So she’d made a mistake—she could own it and make it right. This was her deal, her dream—to build a dyslexia school with state-of-the-art practices and affordable to all. Nothing would stand between her and fulfilling that dream. Not Hal, not her fierce reawakened attraction to the man dangling the deal overhead like some sort of petty revenge and especially not the arrogant asshole Jacques Lane had become. In fact, as today had proved, the only thing that could derail her plans was Harley herself.

She’d almost made it to the elevator doors when her spike heel caught on a plastic dustsheet and her body lurched forward, destined for the concrete floor. She flailed her arms, clutching at nothing but dusty air.

Her file of documents and her purse hit the floor and then she slammed against a wall of solid chest. The air left her in a thump as Jack caught her, hauling her entire body up until every inch of her from shoulder to thigh was pressed against a firm mass of lithe muscle and hard man.

In less than a second she’d gone from seething after him to the sublime thrill of full-on body contact.

Her muscles froze.

Her brain forgot even the most basic of functions.

Her calm and compelling argument died on her tongue.

Jack’s scent washed over her, vaguely familiar and enticingly foreign—clean, spicy, male—triggering a cascade of emotional memories and a flood of scalding need. His body warmth scorched her through the luminous yellow safety vest and the stifling layer of cashmere. Every slab of taut muscle pressed against her, spoke to her weak-willed body.

She looked up.

He looked down.

Their faces only inches apart.

Their mouths only inches apart.

The past nine years evaporated. She was seventeen again. So infatuated with the handsome, eighteen-year-old French boy, she’d begged him to take more than a kiss that last Aspen holiday their families shared. Not that he’d obliged—young Jack had had scruples, integrity and enough willpower for two.

But he’d kissed her as if she were dying and given her her first orgasm, all the while disentangling himself from her keen, persistent attempts to get him naked and take things at a pace quicker than he would allow.

But this Jack?

He was thick against her belly. His nostrils flared as if he too tried to relearn the nuances of her unique scent. His eyes turned stormy, as if he remembered the stolen minutes of ecstasy they’d snatched on those twice-a-year shared family holidays.

While their fathers had discussed business and their mothers had tanned, she’d imagined herself falling for him.

Right up to the moment she’d been rudely awoken with a lesson on relationships that had shifted her world view for ever. Another Hal Jacob lesson—this one harsher and more devastating than any before.

His mouth curled and his breath gusted over her parted lips. But instead of reminding them both of the passion and heat of those kisses she’d craved, he set her on her feet.

‘Careful there, Princess. You might break a nail.’

Bastard.

Harley battled the lust raging through her and smoothed down her dress, which had ridden up to mid-thigh during her tumble. She shrugged out of the hideous fluorescent vest and, seeing Jack had removed his, tore the hard hat from her head.

So he thought her pampered, living off her trust fund, dabbling in real estate. He knew her no better than she knew him.

And so what if her body was stuck in the past—the torrid rage of hormones he’d once inspired more potent than ever? That meant nothing. She had a mission, one she intended to fulfil.

‘Mr Demont. I refuse to be sidelined. I’d like your assurances my purchase of the Morris Building won’t be unnecessarily delayed. I have developers on standby and a deadline for opening.’ She scooped her belongings from the floor, ignoring the sizeable bulge in his pants and the hard look he shot her as the doors closed. A look laced with delicious heat she tried to ignore.

Jack pressed a button on the control panel, but, rather than commencing its descent, the elevator remained static. Just like their deal.

He stared for long uncomfortable seconds, feet spread, unruffled, his hands casually hooked into his front pockets as if highlighting his considerable manhood for her greedy stare.

Look what you missed out on.

Harley dragged her eyes away, throat hot, like the rest of her. Close up, his manly body displayed obvious and sizeable advantages over the younger one she remembered. She’d never actually seen him naked back then, but, damn, if she didn’t want to strip him of more than his arrogant smirk.

But she wasn’t an eager virgin any more, naïve to the games people played and the lies they told. So she still found him attractive. Big deal. It wouldn’t stop her getting what she wanted. And if she’d learned anything since she’d last seen Jack, it was that sex was overrated and relying on others, for pleasure, business, or anything else, only led to more crushing disappointment.

He slouched against the wall of the elevator, dismissive stare raking her, leaving her hot in all the wrong, or right depending how she looked at it, places.

‘Used to getting what you want, are you?’

‘No.’ The opposite in fact. She lifted her chin. ‘This development, the Morris Building—it’s important to me. How can we get this deal back on track?’ She leaned against the facing wall, the scant distance between them increasing a fraction. Not that she gained any relief from the inferno between her legs or the rampant thumping of her heart.

He narrowed his stare, holding hers captive.

‘Are you trying to influence due diligence?’ He stepped closer, stalking, stealing some of the air from the elevator while he looked her up and down in that delicious way that left her short of breath.

She leaned back against the handrail, gaining another couple of millimetres from his potent domination of the small car. She rolled her eyes, fighting to get her hormones under control and focus on business.

‘Of course not.’

‘You think because you’re a Jacob you can rush a flawed business deal? Grease the wheels?’ He invaded her personal space again, which had grown twice the size in his presence as if she was acutely attuned to every move he made.

‘I told you before.’ Her breaths grew choppy as she fought the lure of his closeness. ‘This has nothing to do with my family. The Give Foundation is mine and mine alone.’ The air, tinged with his scent, his warmth, thickened, as if she were trying to suck syrup into her lungs.

His gaze swept lower, tracing her mouth and then back up again. His tongue darted over his lush lower lip seconds before his breath gusted over her, and his voice dropped to a husky whisper.

‘You think our past, what we shared, will influence me?’

Her legs quivered and she clung to the rail. How many more physical intimacies would she love to share with this version of Jack? She bit down on her lip to stop herself answering. Or worse, succumbing to the urge to shut him up with a kiss.

‘You think you can show up here dressed for a runway, dazzle me and get whatever you want?’

Fire sizzled through her blood vessels, hot colour pooling in her face. She couldn’t work out which was stronger—the buzz of arousal between her legs at his proximity, his heated stare and his sensual reminder of her first sexual awakening or the boiling rage clouding her vision at his lazy taunts.

She swallowed down the arousal, forcing out an affirmation she was far from believing.

‘I’m a savvy and professional businesswoman, Mr Demont.’ When I’m not making simple errors that sabotage my own deals. ‘We had a contract, a promise, a sale and purchase agreement. Nothing more. Nothing less.’

Harley leaned forward, prepared to burn up to make her point.

‘Is this some sort of payback?’ She narrowed her eyes, fighting the surge of lust he instilled. She should be outraged, appalled, furious. But all she could muster was simmering annoyance eclipsed by the raging desire to tug his mouth down to hers.

His hard eyes glittered, holding her in limbo for long, torturous seconds where her breath stalled and her pulse throbbed in her throat.

Harley’s toes flexed of their own accord, lifting her a few millimetres closer to those lips.

Her breath mingled with his.

The air between them crackled, hot and potent.

His eyes swam before her, a flash of the familiar sparkling in the depths of his irises. He sucked in a breath, as if on the verge of a decision. The verge of an action.

‘Make an appointment, Ms Jacob.’ He stepped back, seemingly unaffected by the past few seconds of intense sexual awareness, and pressed the descend button.

Harley, by contrast, hovered on the edge of spontaneous combustion. She must have misread the rampant lust burning in his eyes. Perhaps because her own underwear was on fire, she’d imagined he felt the same.

She gripped the handrail, too uncertain of the integrity of her wobbly legs to keep her upright, and bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. His dismissal left her desperate to hide. To crawl away to lick her self-inflicted wounds.

‘I’ve tried on numerous occasions to make an appointment. In fact, your assistant, Trent, and I are on first-name terms. Perhaps you should employ more staff, run a more professional outfit if you find yourself so over-committed.’

He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled a number, a small smirk on his handsome face.

‘Perhaps you should try my London or Paris offices. I’m often there. Perhaps you’ll have more luck. Excuse me, I need to make this call by eleven.’ Lifting the device to his ear, he spoke in French as the car stopped and the doors slid open to the ground floor foyer.

Without a backward glance, he strode to the reception desk, deep in conversation. An obliging building attendant handed him a tailored jacket that matched his pants and he dropped the hard hat on the counter and slung the garment over one broad shoulder.

Harley stood floundering in the tiled entranceway while he exited the building and climbed into the back of a sleek Mercedes-Benz waiting at the kerb.

She’d been brushed off before, belittled, ridiculed, sidelined. She’d never grown used to it. And she expected it from Jack Demont; after all, she’d once carelessly dismissed him.

And this time, she only had herself to blame.

Perhaps Hal was right. Perhaps she was wasting her time with...hobbies. Harley followed Jack outside, texting her own driver.

Their fathers might have instigated the Lane-Jacob war, and Harley might have jeopardised her tactical advantage, but she wouldn’t lose this battle to Jack without a considerable fight.

CHAPTER TWO

JACK DISCONNECTED THE call and tossed his phone onto the seat beside him. ‘Home, please, Will.’ He pressed his lips together, offering a silent curse. He didn’t normally bark at his regular driver, but the older man had the good sense to nod and pull out into Manhattan traffic without comment.

Jack gnashed his teeth together, sucking in air through flared nostrils, willing his body into submission. Despite himself, he’d been hard since he’d laid eyes on Harley, her white-blond hair askew under the ridiculous orange hard hat, her womanly curves barely concealed by the baggy safety vest and the demure woollen dress that covered her from knee to neck, and her flawless face pinched with confusion, her astonished stare quickly unleashing sparks of fire in the wake of his barbed taunts.

And then he’d touched her, not intentionally—initially he’d forced his hands to stay by his sides, battling the urge to reach out and test if her skin was as soft and fragrant as he remembered. But then she’d literally fallen into his arms, slotting against his body and fitting him like a glove.

Her delicate scent the most potent aphrodisiac and her green stare clinging to his as if begging him to taste her again. Just as she’d begged him at seventeen. He shifted, adjusting the steely ache in his groin.

Fuck his integrity, his sense of honour. He’d held back then, never got to explore her the way he’d wanted, to see if the passion burning in her eyes could be fanned to an inferno. Because she’d dumped him. Out of the blue. No Dear John, no explanation, no regret.

And then his life had turned to shit. Jack rubbed a hand over his face, swallowing back a surge of bitterness.

What an idiot he’d been—on multiple levels. His naïve belief he’d have time to explore his budding relationship with Harley. His foolish conviction she’d cared for him and his complete lack of understanding when it came to the complexities of relationships.

He closed his eyes—even the word carried a bitter aftertaste. Sucking discipline through his flared nostrils, he willed his body back under control. But without the visual distraction of his surroundings, the memories amplified.

The feel of her against him in the elevator. Her soft curves pressed to him, flooding his body with renewed life as if he’d been dead all these years and she’d jump-started him with forty thousand volts. Her nipples peaking through the fine wool of her dress. The tantalising swipe of her pink tongue brushing across her plump lower lip. The flawless creamy skin flushed with...arousal or just anger?

Stop.

He raked his hand through his hair. At this rate, he’d have to wait out his hard-on before he could enter his building and take a cold shower.

Of course, he’d known she’d show up some time. The minute he’d discovered the CEO of Give, the company purchasing a run-down piece of commercial real estate in the Bronx, was the girl who’d broken his young heart.

But like an idiot, he’d underestimated the impact of seeing her again in the flesh. Even with the hard hat, the impractical footwear and the blaze of belligerence, she was as achingly beautiful surrounded by building dust as she’d been at seventeen.

And even more so, because she’d matured into a sophisticated and, from the glimpses he’d seen today, savvy and determined woman. All woman—every curve waking primal urges within him, every plane of her exquisite face a bittersweet reminder of his youthful naiveté.

But he was no longer a besotted teen. And Harley had taught him his first relationship lesson—that ‘love’ vanished as quickly as it appeared and meant nothing.

His parents’ divorce, which had followed in close succession to the sour business deal between his father and Harley’s, had taught him the second lesson, and life as he’d known it had spiralled out of control, changed for ever.

He cursed. He tried not to think of those times, but Harley had stirred up more than his libido.

His father had never truly recovered from the implosion of his joint business venture with Hal Jacob or the demise of his marriage. And Jack had vowed never to be as vulnerable to that level of devastation, fighting damn hard through his late teens and early twenties to survive the crumbling of his once-happy family and to forge his own career path independent of his father’s failing business.

Every step of that hard-won journey had been achieved by taking control of his life, making the decisions and shelving pointless sentimentality.

He rubbed his still-buzzing lips. He’d come so close to kissing her. Some caveman part of him demanding he give her both a taste and a demonstration of what she’d been missing.

Fuck, he’d come close to hoisting up that reveal-nothing wool dress and plunging inside her right there in the elevator of the building he was renovating.

He cracked his knuckles, stopping just short of punching the wood-panelled door. He’d once been a stupid kid, a dreamer. But he’d be damned if his residual and frankly irrelevant sexual attraction to her would rule him this time, even if it was clearly reciprocated.

Harley could no more hide the shallow breaths and fluttering pulse at her throat than he could hide his steely length in his pants.

The chemistry still raging between them affected her too. Perhaps she wanted more from him than the Morris Building. Perhaps she craved a taste of what she’d once callously thrown away.

He snorted, the idea growing in his mind. It had merits.

A game.

A mutually satisfying interlude that served a dual purpose—show Harley what she’d missed out on and scratch this insistent itch they’d sparked in each other.

Only this time he’d be firmly in control, as he always was. His rules, his playbook.

Being confined in a slowly moving vehicle with Harley in his head tested every ounce of his usually abundant patience. But that too could be channelled to serve his purpose. He reached for his phone to dial his assistant.

He dismissed polite preamble. He’d apologise when his mood improved and his head cleared of Harley’s image.

‘Find out if Give has any connection with Jacob Holdings.’ He’d vowed long ago never to do business with Hal Jacob, the man who’d shafted his father professionally, stripping him of his self-confidence to make good decisions. A vow he intended to keep, despite the way his body responded to Harley.

‘Yes, sir. We’ve already completed those checks,’ Trent reminded him.

‘Double check.’ He wouldn’t make the same mistakes his father had made. If Harley’s business, her foundation, was tied up with Hal Jacob, he’d ensure the Morris deal stayed dead.

He hadn’t lied to her. There were irregularities with the contract that required ironing out. But he’d been handed a gift, one he’d take full advantage of if he discovered she could be as deceptive as her father.

‘Employ an industrial investigator. I want it ironclad.’ One luxury of being head of your own multinational was the enviable position of being able to cherry-pick your business associates and clientele. A luxury that satisfied his need for control. He’d worked too hard to be led by his dick.

Fuck, perhaps he needed to get laid. He’d neglected himself in recent months, building up his New York contacts, renting offices, finding the right apartment to renovate as a showpiece for his architecture clients.