Not that it was Becca who needed them to claim her. It was her seventeen-year-old sister, Emily. Bright, smart, destined-for-great-things Emily, who deserved more than the kind of life Becca could fashion for her on a paralegal’s salary. Only Emily’s need could ever have inspired Becca to seek out these people and prostate herself before them in the first place. Only Emily’s best interests could ever have compelled her to respond to this latest summons after Bradford had called her mother a whore and had Becca removed from these very premises half a year ago. Just as it was only thoughts of the tuition money Emily still desperately needed, now that Becca’s savings were depleted, that kept her from making a rude gesture at Bradford as he scowled at her now.
That and the fact she’d made her mother a promise on her deathbed: that she would do whatever she had to do to protect Emily from suffering. Anything at all. And how could she break that promise when her mother had given up this whole, glittering world for Becca years ago?
“Stand up,” came the silky demand from beside her—much closer than it should have been. Becca jumped slightly in her seat, and then hated herself for showing that much weakness. Somehow, she knew it would count against her. She turned, and the devil himself was standing too close to her, still looking at her in that disturbing way.
What was it about this man that got under her skin like this? So quickly? So completely? When she didn’t even know his name?
“I … what?” she asked, startled.
This close, she could see that, while he could never be called handsome, precisely, the way his features came together—so dark and brooding, with that olive skin and his piercing eyes—made him distractingly compelling in a purely, breathtakingly masculine way. It was as if the very fact of his full lips made something in her want to revel in her own femininity, like a cat in a sunbeam.
Where had that thought come from?
“Stand up,” he said again, with that note of command ringing in his voice, and she found she was moving without meaning to do so. Drifting up and on to her feet like a marionette in his control. Becca was horrified at herself. It was as if he’d hypnotized her—as if those eyes of his were a snake charmer’s, and she was helpless to do anything but dance for his pleasure.
On her feet, she found he was taller than she’d thought, forcing her to tilt her head back slightly to meet his gaze—which she did, even though the wild beat of her pulse wanted her to break and run, to escape, to get far away from him … .
“This is fascinating,” he murmured. His lean, intriguing face was closer now, and she had the sense of the great control he practiced, the power he kept to himself, the hum and the kick of it, as if he operated on a different frequency than the rest of the world. “Turn.”
Becca only stared at him, and so he lifted a hand and twirled a finger in the air, demonstration and command. It was a hard, strong hand. Not soft and pale like her uncle’s. It was the hand of a man who was not afraid to use it to do his own work. She had a sudden, stark and erotic vision of that hand against her own skin, and had to swallow against it. Hard.
“I would love nothing more than to obey your every command,” she managed to say, shocked at the sudden swell of carnal need that washed through her, and fighting to shove it behind her carefully cultivated tough exterior. “But I don’t even know who you are, or what you want, or why you think you have the right to command anyone in the first place.”
As if from a distance, she heard her aunt and her uncle let out sharp gasps and exclamations, but Becca couldn’t bring herself to care about them. She was mesmerized, spellbound, caught up in the man before her and his searing amber eyes.
How strange that she should find him so unsettling, while at the same time she had the notion that he could keep her safe. Even here. She pushed the absurdity away. Unlikely, she thought. This man is about as safe as broken glass.
He did not smile. But his gaze warmed, and Becca felt an answering warmth flood her, turning into flame wherever it touched.
“I am Theo Markou Garcia,” he said in the way men did when they expected to be known, recognized. Celebrated. When she only stared back at him, his lips curved slightly—almost wryly, she thought. “I am the CEO of Whitney Media.”
Whitney Media was the great jewel of the Whitney family—the modern-day reason they still held on to so much of their old robber baron money and were able to maintain latter-day castles like this one. Becca knew very little about the actual company. Except perhaps that through it and because of it, thanks to the newspapers and cable channels and movie studios, the Whitneys owned far too much, had too much influence, and had come to regard themselves as demigods in the way only the very rich could.
“Congratulations,” she said dryly. She raised her eyebrows. “I’m Becca, the bastard daughter of the sister no one dares mention out loud.” She shot a look toward her aunt and uncle, wishing she could incinerate them with the force of it. “Her name was Caroline, and she was better than the both of you put together.”
“I know who you are.” This time, it was his low, insinuating voice that blocked out the noise from the other, legitimate, and now further affronted Whitneys. It seemed to reverberate behind her ribs, and spread out through her bones. “As for what I want, I don’t think that’s the right question.”
“It’s the right question if you want me to whirl around in front of you,” Becca countered, some recklessness charging through her, making her courageous. “Though I doubt you’ll give me the right answer.”
“The right question is this—what do you want, and how can I give it to you?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and Becca was distracted by the play of his lean muscles, his corded strength. The man was a deadly weapon, and she felt as if she’d already sustained a body blow.
“I want to fund my sister’s Ivy League education,” Becca said, wrenching her gaze back to his, ordering herself to concentrate. “I don’t much care if you give me money or they do. I only know that I can’t do it myself.” The unfairness of it almost choked her then, the sheer injustice that allowed worthless human beings like Bradford and Helen so much money, so much easy access to things like a college education—things they probably took for granted—while Becca fought to make her rent each month. It was maddening.
“Then the only other question is, how far are you willing to go to get what you want?” Theo asked softly, his gaze still so intent on hers, still managing to make her feel as if they were all alone in the room—the world.
“Emily deserves the best,” Becca said fiercely. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure she gets it.”
Life wasn’t fair. Becca didn’t begrudge a single thing she’d had to do. But she wouldn’t stand by and watch Emily’s dreams slip away when they didn’t have to. Not when she’d vowed to her mother that she’d never let that happen. Not when Becca could do something to fix it. Even if it was this.
“I admire ruthlessness and ambition in a woman,” Theo said, but there was a grim satisfaction in his voice that Becca didn’t understand. Yet she had no difficulty whatsoever understanding him when he raised that hand of his again, and once more motioned for her to spin around.
“It must be nice to be so ridiculously rich that you can barter an entire four years’ worth of tuition for one little twirl,” Becca said, resisting the urge to fidget, to bite at her lip. She recognized, on some level, that she was stalling. “But who am I to argue?”
“I don’t actually care who you are,” Theo replied, his voice hardening, and she understood then that he was not a man to be trifled with, not a man to tease. Not safe at all, she