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ETHAN couldn’t believe it. He’d had Daisy Donahue precisely where he wanted her. She’d responded to him just as he’d imagined she would. The sex had been fantastic. Best ever. For her to reject it, reject him and all they could share together was a development he certainly hadn’t anticipated. It was enough to make a man tear his hair out in frustration.
She was up the steps and out of the swimming pool before his fighting spirit erupted through the shock of being told this was all he was going to have with her. No way was he going to accept that. He’d finally found a woman who met all the criteria that satisfied what he’d always been missing and he wasn’t about to let her walk away.
Which she was doing, her gorgeously perky bottom bouncing as she strode swiftly towards the cabana, stirring the caveman in him again. But this wasn’t the stone age. He couldn’t club her over the head and force her to stay with him. Somehow he had to challenge her decision, persuade her to change it. His mind attacked the problem from every angle as he left the pool and followed her to the cabana.
She lived with her parents.
He had to remove her from that situation so she didn’t have to consider their feelings about having a connection with him, set her up independently.
But then pride came into the equation.
Her parents were unlikely to accept her rent money if she wasn’t living with them and they needed it to keep the mortgage on their home running. Daisy wouldn’t leave them in need.
He could pay off the lot with barely a dent in his personal wealth, free them all from the financial bind they were in, but he suspected they would take serious umbrage at such an offer. He very much doubted that Daisy’s parents were people who would countenance the idea of him buying their daughter, not even to save themselves from serious debt, and Daisy herself wouldn’t accept money she hadn’t earned.
Money was at the heart of the barrier she was putting between them.
Because of it she was putting her own life on hold to help her parents.
But she did want him.
Impossible for her to have responded to him as she had with such passionate intensity if the attraction—the desire—didn’t run deep.
Money…sex…
His mouth twisted cynically as he picked up a towel from the pile laid out on the bench beside the cabana and tucked it around his waist. He hated choosing the bartering path with Daisy but she was leaving him no other option.
A nasty thought struck.
It was quite possible that her resistance—her rejection—had actually been a ploy to force his hand, induce him to offer his expertise to fix her parents’ financial problem. In fact, given the way women generally manipulated their sexual power, it was even probable.
He could do the fixing if her parents were prepared to gamble.
But he sure as hell was going to get his pound of flesh from Daisy for it!
Pumped up with ruthless purpose, Ethan entered the cabana, moved to the opened doorway to the bedroom and propped himself there, blocking the exit. Daisy had dressed so hastily there were wet patches on her T-shirt where she hadn’t dried herself properly. Her body was bent over, her fingers working fast on the laces of her shoes.
‘It’s not so late that your parents would be worrying about you, Daisy,’ he drawled. ‘There’s time for us to talk this situation over.’
She finished tying the laces and straightened up, her cheeks flushed, her hands clenching into determined fists at her sides, her eyes shooting unbreakable resolution at him.
‘I’m grateful for the stopgap work you’ve given me, Ethan, but I have to move on now,’ she stated, as though nothing he could say would make any difference. ‘I won’t come back. I’ll find some other way to manage. I’m sure Charlie Hollier would keep a more frequent check on the renovations if you asked him. Please…just let me go.’
‘Not until you let me have my say,’ he answered, adopting a tone of reason backed by rock-like determination to win what he wanted.
One of her hands uncurled and gestured an impatient dismissal. ‘It’s pointless. I won’t change my mind.’
‘Give me the courtesy of hearing me out.’
She grimaced at the criticism of her curtness, then emitted a deep sigh of resignation. ‘Say what you want to say then.’
He laid the groundwork for the barter to end up on his terms. ‘The best estimate at the moment is five years for the market to recover. Five years for the value of your parents’ investments to regain enough income for them not to need your financial input any more. Which means you’ll be thirty-two before you can lead an independent life again.’
‘My parents supported me for many more years than that, Ethan,’ she retorted unflinchingly.
‘You were a child. That was a natural responsibility. I don’t believe your parents want to be dependent on you. I can’t imagine they like accepting this sacrifice from you.’
She frowned. ‘No, they don’t like it, but the other choices…’ She shook her head. ‘They’re not fair. They’re not right.’
‘I can offer a choice that will resolve the financial worry and minimise the waiting for it to be over,’ he stated matter-of-factly.
She stared at him, an anguished hope in her eyes that spoke of immense inner turbulence, and Ethan instantly knew she wasn’t immune to the deal he was about to put on the table. Money won. It always won if you tapped into the weakness that would give way to it.
‘This will only work if you’re prepared to remain on the job here in your supervisory capacity,’ he ran on, blocking any escape route via some other job. ‘I promise you that will be the only connection between us until after I’ve delivered the relief your parents need from their current debt.’
No immediate sexual pressure.
This was a waiting game.
He saw that fact register, but the money hook was in far enough for her to ask, ‘How do you propose to accomplish that?’
No rush to get away from him now.
‘Doing what I do—make money out of money,’ he replied with sardonic satisfaction. ‘When you go home this evening, tell your father I’m so pleased with how you’ve managed this renovations project for me, I’ve agreed to look at his investment portfolio and give him my expert advice on it. I’ll put aside a meeting time with him at eleven o’clock on Monday morning. You have to persuade him to come.’
She nodded, looking unsure about where this was leading but willing to do anything to help her parents. ‘I think he’d be quite eager to listen to your advice, Ethan.’
‘I can’t make him take it, Daisy, but if he does and lets me act fast enough for him, there’s a very big chance his money worries will be over by the end of next month. Your parents should end up financially secure for the rest of their lives.’
‘You can guarantee that?’ she asked warily, not completely sold on the plan.
‘No. It’s a gamble, but one I’d highly recommend, not without good reason. What I can guarantee is they won’t be any worse off than they are already. If your father agrees to go with my advice and it does pay off as handsomely as I anticipate, I want a reward in return.’
‘You mean…a commission?’
She was shying away from where he was heading. Maybe she hadn’t deliberately set out to ensnare him into doing what she wanted of him. Irrelevant now. He wanted what he wanted and nothing was going to stop him from getting it. Not when she had already conceded the strength of the attraction between them by sharing that bed with him.
‘No. I’d prefer your parents to think I’m doing this as a favour to you. The outcome will be you’ll no longer have to give them rent money, no longer have to live with them. You can resume an independent life, free of any worry about them.’ He paused to let that sink in before pointedly adding, ‘And that’s where my reward comes in, Daisy.’
Hot colour whooshed into her face, but there was no shock in her eyes. She had already grasped the deal he was holding out. Her expression was more a wry acceptance of his reason for making the offer. ‘You want an affair with me,’ she said flatly.
It vexed him that the idea of an ongoing relationship between them aroused no anticipation of any pleasure for her. Clearly she found the money angle distasteful, too. But she’d left him no other choice. He’d had to force the situation, break all the barriers she’d been putting up, clear the way.
‘I’ll set you up in an apartment of your own so there’s no one else to consider,’ he said just as flatly, still determined on the course that would give him the satisfaction she seemed intent on denying him. ‘You can find another job at your leisure, carry on whatever career you set your mind to. But your free time for the rest of this year is mine.’
The rest of this year…
The time span jagged around Daisy’s mind, hitting painfully on what she had already known. Ethan Cartwright saw no real future in a relationship with her. He was proposing to keep her as his mistress, undoubtedly thinking his interest in her would lose its current edge over the months he had stipulated for exclusive rights to her free time.
