Connor shuddered, metal spikes stabbing at his temples. No way was he opening himself up to that horror show again.
‘I can’t believe you’d throw this deal away when the solution’s so simple.’
Connor heard Danny’s pained huff, and decided he’d had enough of the whole debate.
‘Believe it.’ He put the glass down on the bar, winced as the slight tap reverberated in his sore head. ‘I’ll see you the week after next. If Melrose is bound and determined to cut off his nose to spite me, so be it,’ he finished on a rasping cough.
‘Hey, are you okay, buddy? You sound kind of rough.’
‘Just fine,’ Connor said, his voice brittle with sarcasm. He’d caught some bug on the plane back from New York that morning and now there was this whole cluster screw-up with Melrose and his wife to handle.
‘Why don’t you take a few days off?’ Danny said gently. ‘You’ve been working your butt off for months. You’re not Superman, you know.’
‘You don’t say,’ Connor said wryly, resting his aching forehead against the cool glass of the balcony doors and staring into the garden below. ‘I’ll be all right once I’ve a solid ten hours’ sleep under my belt.’ Which might have worked if he hadn’t been wired with jet lag.
‘I’ll let you get to it,’ Danny said, still sounding concerned. ‘But think about taking a proper break. Haven’t you just moved into that swanky new pad? Take a couple of days to relax and enjoy it.’
‘Sure, I’ll think about it,’ he lied smoothly. ‘See you round, Dan.’
He clicked off the handset and glanced round at the cavernous, sparsely furnished living room in the half light.
He’d bought the derelict Georgian house on a whim at auction and spent a small fortune refurbishing it, thanks to some idiot notion that at thirty-two he needed a more permanent base. Now the house was ready, it was everything he’d specified—open, airy, clean, modern, minimalist—but as soon as he’d moved in he’d felt trapped. It was a feeling he recognised only too well from his childhood. And he’d quickly accepted the truth, that permanence for him was always going to feel like a prison.
He turned back to the window. He reckoned a therapist would have a field day with that little nugget of information, but he had a simpler solution. He’d sell the house and move on. Make a nice healthy profit—and never be stupid enough to consider buying a place of his own again.
Some people needed roots, needed stability, needed for ever. He wasn’t one of them. Hotels and rentals suited him fine. Brody Construction was all the legacy he wanted.
He dropped the handset on the sofa.
His shoulder muscles ached at the slight movement. Damn, he hadn’t felt this sore since he was a lad and he’d woken up with the welts still fresh from dear old Da’s belt. He squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t go there.
Forcing the old bitterness away, he lifted his lids and spotted a flicker of movement in the garden below. He blinked and squinted, focussing on the shadowy wisp. Slowly but surely, the wisp morphed into a figure. A small figure clad suspiciously in black, which proceeded to crawl over one of the flowerbeds.
He jolted upright and braced his palm against the glass, his head screaming in protest as he strained to see. Then watched in astonishment as the intruder stood and dipped under one of the big showy shrubs by the back wall—a light strip of flesh flashing at its midriff.
‘What the…?’ The whisper scraped his throat raw as fury bubbled.
Damn it all to hell and back, could this day get any worse?
A surge of adrenaline masked his aching limbs and exploding head as he stalked across the living room and down the wide twin staircase. Whoever the little bastard was, and whatever they were about, they’d made a big mistake.
No one messed with Connor Brody.
For all the trappings of wealth and sophistication that surrounded him now, he’d grown up on Dublin’s meanest streets and he knew how to fight dirty when he had to.
He might not want this place, but he wasn’t about to let anyone else nick a piece of it.
CHAPTER TWO
‘HERE, kitty, kitty. Come to Daisy. Nice kitty.’ Daisy strained to keep her voice to a whisper as sweat pooled in her armpits and the coarse wool of the beanie cap made her head itch.
She scratched her crown, pulled the suffocating cap back over her ears and peered into the pitch dark under the hydrangea bush. Nothing.
Why hadn’t she brought a torch? She huffed. And gave up. This was pointless. She’d almost broken her neck getting over the wall and had then spent ten long minutes searching the garden, gouging her thumb on one of the rose bushes in the process, and she still hadn’t seen a blasted thing.
She crawled out from under the bush, her fingers sinking into the dirt as she tried to avoid squashing any of the plants in the flowerbed.
Raucous barking cut the still night air like a thunderclap. She clasped her hand to her throat and swallowed a shriek.
Her heartbeat kicked in again as she recognised the excited yips. Trust Mr Pettigrew’s Jack Russell, Edgar, to give her a flipping heart attack—it had to be the most annoying dog on the planet.
She puffed out her cheeks and sucked on her sore thumb. Well, at least she could go back home now knowing she’d done her best to find the invisible Mr Pootles. Wherever he’d got to, it wasn’t Mr Hot-Shot’s back garden.
She stood, ready to walk back to the wall when the yapping cut off. The sound of a soft pad behind her had her glancing over her shoulder. She spotted the dark silhouette looming over her and had a split second to think. ‘Oh, crap.’
A muscled forearm banded around her tummy and hauled her off her feet. Her breath whooshed out as her back connected with a solid wall of hot, naked male.
‘Gotcha, you little terror,’ muttered a deep voice.
She sucked in a quick breath ready to scream her lungs out, when a large hand slapped across her mouth—smothering her with the scent of sandalwood soap.
‘No, you don’t, lad,’ the voice murmured, the hint of Irish in it only making it more terrifying. ‘You’re not calling your mates.’
She struggled against the band around her waist. It didn’t budge.
Lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all, her captor hefted her back towards the house. The soap smell overwhelmed her as she listened to the grunts of her own muffled screams through the powertool now buzzing in her ears.
Daisy’s head began to spin as tomorrow’s tabloid headlines flashed across her mind. WOMAN SMOTHERED TO DEATH OVER MISSING CAT.
She kicked clumsily, connecting with thin air, and the baggy jeans slipped off her hips. Then the arm released and she landed hard on the ground, pitching head first onto the grass. As she scrambled up a hand grasped the waistband of her jeans and yanked.
‘Hey, what’s with the satin panties?’ came the shocked shout from behind her.
She gasped, blood surging into her head as she lurched round and hauled the jeans back up to cover herself.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he yelled.
Silhouetted by the porch light, all she could make out of her captor were acres of bare chest, ominously black brows, waves of dark hair and impossibly broad shoulders.
Her whole body vibrated with fury as embarrassment exploded in her cheeks, but all that came out of her mouth was a pathetic yelp.
He reached forward and whipped the beanie cap off her head. She tried to grab for it but her hair cascaded