Page 5 of Lethal Salvation

“Good morning, Mr Cavendish, here are your papers for the day.”

Duchess handed Damon Cavendish the papers as she did every morning since she’d gone undercover as his secretary. Her role was to get more dirt on Carter Cavendish and his mother, Marsha.

Damon looked up at her with his usual smile missing from his face. “Thank you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“We have a meeting in the boardroom in five minutes.”

He looked annoyed and instantly Duchess went on alert. “There’s nothing in the diary, Mr Cavendish.” Keeping up appearances for the other staff was imperative to her cover, so she bowed and scraped when others were within hearing distance, as was expected of a corporate secretary. They were, she was finding out, the real power in these towers of industry. They held the keys to the kingdom and yet were made to act as if the only thing of interest was between their legs, not their ears. Her respect for them had tripled during this stint and so had her admiration because anticipating a man’s every need, from his dry cleaning to his corporate calendar and every minute in between, was hard work, but she grudgingly admitted she had enjoyed parts of it.

Damon glanced around the outer sanctum of his office space, which had been her home for six months. “My brother called it last minute.”

“I see. Will I be needed?”

“Yes.”

His tone was flat and unimpressed as Damon went into his office and closed the door on her, leaving her to wonder what the hell was going on, and more importantly, why did Damon look so pissed off. He was usually calm, friendly, and would stop to chat and flirt with her, despite their relationship being one of friendship.

The three Cavendish brothers were very different, yet all had the same gorgeous dark looks and sexy build.

Carter was the half-sibling to Gideon and Damon, having a different mother. He was the man she was after, who she knew was involved in Project Cradle. He ran an illegal billion-pound empire of drugs, human trafficking, guns, and any other manner of dirty disgusting things, using the family business of Cavendish Enterprises and their ownership of casinos, hotels, and respected fashion houses to hide his activities. It was why she was there. The older two brothers wanted no part of it but their father was a man who had his testicles firmly in the palm of his wife and she controlled him and gave their son Carter whatever he wanted, including letting him use Cavendish as a front.

Damon was the front man, or the face of Cavendish Enterprises, who attended the galas and events. He dated beautiful women, charmed investors, and was an astute and well-respected barrister who handled a lot of pro-bono work. He was a good man and had become a solid friend to her as they’d worked together to take down Carter and remove the stink from the Cavendish empire once and for all.

Then there was Gideon, gorgeous, sexy, grumpy, aloof, and cold. He was a business genius and there wasn’t a deal in this city that went down without his knowledge. He was the reason the legal side of the business was becoming more successful than the illegal side. He was the man she hated with a passion and wanted with a desperation she couldn’t fathom. He plagued her nightmares and her dreams in equal measure.

He was the man who could get her killed because he was distracting and dangerous to her equilibrium. Which was why she worked for Damon on this project. Both Damon and Gideon knew why she was really there and wanted Shadow’s help to take down their half-brother, blood in this case was not thicker than water, and there was no love lost between the older brothers and Carter. Duchess wasn’t a fool though, she knew working alongside Gideon, a man who could make her forget who she was would be a disaster, hence Damon was her ‘boss’.

“Time to go.”

She’d been so deep in thought that she hadn’t heard Damon approach. She jumped up and raced after him. Just another example of how distracting any thought of Gideon could be.

Her skin itched from the make-up she wore to hide her tattoos in the stuffy corporate environment, but she couldn’t afford for her ink, which she was proud of, to draw attention she didn’t need. Mousy, plain, and forgettable was what she was going for in a knee-length black skirt and a high-neck white blouse, flawless skin meant she could get away with little make-up, and red lips were her only nod to her real self.

Her dark hair was in a tight bun at the base of her neck, which gave her a raging headache by the day’s end. It was so far from the real her as to be laughable, but a great cover.

Entering the large conference room, she saw it was empty. The glass table held enough seats for every board member and overlooked the Canary Wharf in London’s business district. The view was beautiful, even on a dreary day like today. As she gazed across the expanse of London, she found her eyes drawn to the Embankment and her mind flitted to her time at MI6. So much had changed for her. Shadow made a difference to people without the bullshit of politics getting involved, but she knew to erase the poison of greed and evil in the world they would need a thousand teams like Shadow.

Pulling her mind back into the present, she rounded on her fake boss, hands on hips. “What’s going on, Damon?”

“What’s going on is that there’s going to be a slight shake-up in personnel.”

Duchess turned to see Gideon stalking toward her like a slow loose-limbed predator about to take a bite out of some poor unsuspecting deer. She had a feeling he thought she was the deer in this scenario, poor misguided man. He wore a handmade Italian three-piece suit in charcoal grey, a hand-stitched dark blue shirt, and a black tie, which probably cost more than her weekly food bill. He looked deadly, dangerous, sexy as hell, and her body wanted to swoon at the sight of him, but Duchess wasn’t going to let him see the effect he had on her body, not if she could help it.

Straightening her spine, she ignored her erect nipples and hoped he wouldn’t notice, refusing to give in to the desire to cross her arms over her chest and look weak.

He glanced down and smirked before brushing past her, the arm of his suit grazing her shoulder and causing a frisson of lust to shoot through her body.

“Damon, I need a PA. Mine quit and, as you’re in court for the next six weeks or so, I’d like Miss Benassi to stand in until I can arrange someone more suitable.”

Damon glanced at her and she glared at him, daring him to agree. He shrugged and turned to his brother. “It’s not up to me, is it? You know the score, brother. Nadia doesn’t work for us, not really.” Damon was the only one who called her Nadia, to Gideon it was always Miss Benassi.

“Then that’s settled. Miss Benassi, please move your belonging to my office immediately.”

Gideon spun as if to leave and she lost her cool. “I don’t think so. I’m here to do a job and you know for a fact that’s not to be your Girl Friday.”

Gideon pinned her with a glare as he strode toward her, stopping mere centimetres from her. Her heart rate licked up and it was almost impossible to stop the way his angry gaze shot straight to her pussy. She could smell his aftershave, something spicy that reminded her of sweaty sex and champagne. Images conjured in her mind of them fucking, fighting for dominance as each took and took from the other, until there was nothing left.