She coerced her cheek muscles to move, pulling the corners of her mouth into a rigid smile. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for my assurance, Mr Skinner,’ she said, walking around her desk as she continued to speak. ‘Thank you for your visit. I believe we have nothing more to discuss at this point. I do have another appointment,’ she lied, ‘so if you don’t mind...’
Skinner rose and stepped in front of her and Emily’s voice died, her vocal cords paralysed by the violent lunge of her heart into her throat. Her legs froze. He was standing in her space, two feet at most between them, and she wasn’t used to such close physical proximity with another person. Especially someone she didn’t know and had zero desire to. ‘Mr Skinner—’
‘Carl,’ he said, and took a step towards her.
She stepped backwards, glancing to the right of his thick-set frame to her closed office door. Her palms grew clammy. Why hadn’t she thought to leave it open?
His smile returned, the narrow slant of his lips ten times more unsettling than before. ‘There’s no need to stand on ceremony, Emily. This time next week I could be your boss...’
Her eyes widened.
‘And I’m not big on formality. I prefer my working relationships to be a little more...relaxed.’
Nausea bloomed anew and she fought the instinct to recoil. She tried to tell herself his sleazy innuendo didn’t intimidate her, but the truth was she felt horribly unnerved. She inhabited a world dominated by men but she wasn’t familiar with this kind of unsolicited attention. For the most part she was used to being invisible. Unseen.
She straightened her shoulders. ‘Let me offer you one more assurance, Mr Skinner,’ she said, her heart hammering even as common sense told her he couldn’t pose any physical threat to her person. Her admin assistant, Marsha, unless she’d gone for her morning tea break, would be sitting at her desk right outside Emily’s door, and Security was no further away than one push of a pre-programmed button on her desk phone. ‘Not only will you never be my boss,’ she said, a sliver of disdain working its way into her voice now, ‘But you will never, so long as I have any say in the matter, set foot on these premises again.’
No sooner had the final word leapt off Emily’s tongue than she knew she had made a grave mistake.
Skinner’s expression had turned thunderous.
Terrifyingly thunderous.
And he moved so fast—looming over her, his big hands clamping onto her waist like concrete mitts as he pinned her against her desk—that she had no time to react.
An onslaught of fragmented impressions assailed her: the sight of Skinner’s lips peeling back from his teeth; the dampness of his breath on her skin as he thrust his face too close to hers; the overpowering reek of his aftershave which made the lining of her nose sting.
Panic flared, driving the beginnings of a scream up her throat, but she gripped the edge of her desk behind her and smothered the sound before it could emerge. ‘Take your hands off me,’ she hissed. ‘Or I will shout for Security and an entire team of men will be here in less than ten seconds.’
For a moment his grip tightened, his fingers biting painfully into her sides. Then, abruptly, he released her and stepped away, his sudden retreat setting off a wave of relief so powerful her legs threatened to buckle. He ran a hand over his hair and adjusted the knot of his tie—as if smoothing his appearance would somehow make him appear less brutish.
‘Seven days, little lady.’ His voice was gruff. Menacing. ‘And then I collect.’ He jutted his chin in the direction of the paper on her desk. ‘That’s a copy, of course. You can assure your lawyer that I have the original tucked away safe and sound.’ He sent her a hard, chilling smile then showed himself out, leaving her office door standing open in the wake of his exit.
Emily sagged against her desk, just as Marsha rushed in.
‘My God!’ the younger woman exclaimed. ‘What on earth happened in here? The look on that man’s face—’ She stopped, her eyes growing rounder as they took in Emily’s slumped posture and the pallor she knew without the aid of a mirror had stripped the colour from her cheeks. ‘Emily...?’
Rousing herself, she pointed a trembling finger over Marsha’s shoulder. ‘Call Security. Tell them to make absolutely certain that man leaves the building.’
Marsha hurried back out and Emily moved on shaky legs to the other side of her desk. She picked up her phone, pulled in a fortifying breath and dialled her father’s mobile number.
The call went straight to voice mail.
Surprise...not.
She slammed the phone back down, frustration, fury and a host of other feelings she didn’t want to acknowledge building with hot, bitter force inside her.
Her eyes prickled and the threat of tears was as unfamiliar and unwelcome as the nausea had been.
What had Maxwell done?
Her lips trembled and she pressed them together, closed her eyes and pushed the heels of her hands against her lids.
She knew what he had done.
He’d borrowed a monstrous sum of money to enter a high-stakes poker game and put up his fifty per cent shareholding of The Royce as collateral.
And then he had lost. Spectacularly.
She wanted to scream.
How could he? How could he?
No wonder he’d been incommunicado this last week. He was hiding, the coward. Leaving Emily to clean up the mess, like he always did.
Bitterness welled up inside her.
Why shouldn’t he? She was his fixer, after all. The person who made things go away. Who kept his image, and by extension the image of The Royce, as pristine and stain-free as possible. Oh, yes. Her father might be a selfish, irresponsible man but he wasn’t stupid.
He’d finally discovered a use for the daughter he’d ignored for most of her life.
Emily dropped into her chair.
It wasn’t unusual for Maxwell to disappear. As a child she’d grown to accept his fleeting, infrequent appearances in her life, sensing from a young age that she made him uncomfortable even though she hadn’t understood why. As an adult she’d hoped maturity and a shared interest in The Royce’s future would give them common ground—a foundation upon which to forge a relationship—but within the first year after her grandfather’s death it’d become clear her hopes were misguided. The loss of his father had not changed Maxwell one bit. If anything he’d become more remote. More unpredictable. More absent.
It was Emily who had run the club during his absences, assuming more and more of the management responsibilities in recent years. Oh, Maxwell would breeze in when the mood took him, but he rarely stayed at his desk for more than a few token minutes. Why stare at spreadsheets and have tedious discussions about staffing issues and running costs when he could be circulating in the restaurant or the Great Salon, pressing the flesh of their members and employing his innate silver-tongued charm?
Emily didn’t care that her job title didn’t reflect the true extent of her responsibilities. Didn’t care that for seven years her part-ownership of the club had remained, by mutual agreement with her father, a well-guarded secret. She knew The Royce’s membership wasn’t ready for such a revelation. The club was steeped in tradition and history, mired in values that were steadfastly old-fashioned. Its members didn’t object to female employees, but the idea of accepting women as equals within their hallowed halls remained anathema to most.
Emily had a vision for the club’s future, one that was far more evolved and liberal, but changes