Loe raamatut: «Wild Child»

CHAPTER ONE

Maya

THE FIRST TIME I laid eyes on Benedict Chivers I was on the brink of orgasm.

It had been a long, gruelling day at the office—my arsehole of a father’s office, to be precise—and I’d been yearning to step into a hot, soothing bubble bath from the moment I’d escaped that hellhole.

Luxuriating in a bath has always been a turn-on for me. It’s something about the heat swirling between my thighs, and the way the soapy water makes my skin so slick and touchable, so I was right in the middle of one of my favourite sexual fantasies when a powerfully built, mouth-wateringly handsome man strode in through the unlocked bathroom door and caught me with my fingers working my clit and my body primed for much-needed release.

I must point out here that he hadn’t just randomly wandered in off the street and into my flat. I was staying at my father’s house in Kensington for a couple of weeks, while I was having the shonky old electrics overhauled at my place. I’d planned to crash with my friend Bella, but my father had insisted I stay with him instead—and when he insists on something, you damn well do it.

I swear it was a genuine mistake, forgetting to lock that door—but I can’t say I was sorry that I had right at that moment.

The expression in the stranger’s piercing pewter-grey eyes when they locked with mine was mesmerising, making my breath stutter in my throat and my heart-rate soar, flooding my body with dopamine as I gazed back at him.

He just stood there, with his firm lips slightly parted and his striking eyes narrowed and looked at me. Really looked at me. Like there was nothing else on earth but me, naked in that bath.

Spurred on by the captivation I saw in his face, I began to move my stilled fingers again, bathing in his intense, penetrating gaze, feeling the heat of his wanton attention right down to my bones.

Over the gentle splash of the water I could hear his breath as it scythed in and out of his throat, and through the haze of my need to finish what I’d started I saw his shoulders tense and his hands bunch rigidly at his sides, as if he was fighting to keep them there—to stop himself from reaching down into the water and touching me.

That thought took me right to the edge, and as I began to hit my peak, greedy, unconcealed desire flashed across his face, tipping me over. I came in intense waves, a loud groan of pleasure rasping through my throat as my release rushed to my head, blurring my vision.

My noisy declaration of pleasure seemed to shock him out of his shameless voyeurism, and as my world came back to rights I saw him take a step backwards, his brow furrowed into a deep frown, blinking as if he’d just come to his senses.

As I caught my breath and fought past the lingering waves of ecstasy that gripped me all I could do was laugh.

It was a pretty ridiculous situation after all.

‘Nice to meet you. Thanks for the visual stimulation,’ I managed to say through my giggles.

But instead of finding the humour of the situation too, he gave me a cool stare that made the laugher die in my throat, then turned on his heel and strode quickly out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Shrugging off my discomfort, I smiled to myself, replaying the expression in his eyes right before I’d climaxed. He’d wanted to see me come. He hadn’t been able to look away—even though he was clearly frustrated with himself for not doing so now.

The pleasure for me hadn’t been about the illicit thrill of him catching me masturbating, though, it was the knowledge that he could have turned and walked away immediately but he hadn’t. He’d stood there and watched—as if he hadn’t been able to help himself.

I loved the thought of that—of having that kind of power over him. This handsome, beguiling stranger.

I wondered who he was and what he was doing here in my father’s house at six o’clock in the evening. My father never came home before seven, and most nights it was more like nine o’clock before he made an appearance. This guy had to be someone special for my father to come back early and meet him here in his home.

Getting out of the bath, I dried my still tingling skin with one of the soft fluffy towels the housekeeper provides in abundance and went back to my room to get dressed, half hoping to bump into the mysterious dark-eyed visitor on the way.

But it was not to be. The sound of muffled voices floated up from downstairs—two men, I thought, and almost certainly one of them was my father, judging by the deep timbre of his voice—so it seemed likely that my mystery man had returned to whatever kind of meeting they were having down there.

I dressed quickly, pulling on a vest top and my oldest, most comfortable jeans, and made my way downstairs.

‘Maya—come in here, please,’ my father barked as I tiptoed past the sitting room door in an attempt to make it to the kitchen undetected and knock back a large glass of wine before suppertime.

While I was staying here he insisted I join him to eat, and I definitely needed to be tipsy before facing him over a meal, when it would be just the two of us avoiding each other’s eyes in silence.

Reluctantly, I turned back and approached the sitting room doorway, wondering what the hell I was about to walk into. My father rarely introduced me to his associates. It was always my older sister, April, the golden child of the family, whom he touted in front of them. I was merely the shady black sheep against her pristine white pedigree.

Had the guy told my father what had just happened upstairs?

Surely not.

He’d come out of it looking just as bad as me, if not worse, and my father was not a man to mess with in regards to his family. I’d heard of him destroying men—in a business sense, that is—for far less than walking in on one of his daughters in the bath.

I sauntered into the room with my head held high, determined not to be cowed by either of the intense, powerfully present men, and gave my father the kind of subservient smile that clearly made him suspicious, if his return scowl was anything to go by.

‘This is Benedict Chivers. He’s agreed to let you work for him at his company, Ergo-i Software, for the next few weeks while I’m away in New York.’

He gestured towards the man who had been watching me make myself come not ten minutes ago, who was now standing ramrod-straight in my father’s sitting room, with a large glass of ten-year-old Scotch clutched in his large hand.

It struck me with force once again what an attractive man he was, with a square-jawed, dark-eyed handsomeness that was impossible to tear my gaze away from.

There was no grey in his thick jet-black hair, which he wore swept away from his angular, high-cheekboned face, so I guessed he was pretty young to be company director. I put him in his early thirties. He was big too. The guy must have been at least six foot four, and with a broad-shouldered, long limbed body that made me want to climb up it and rub myself against him, just to experience his visceral power up close and personal.

‘You’ll be there to help out with whatever he needs,’ my father continued, clearly oblivious of what had gone on right under his nose upstairs—thank God. It would be such a shame to ruin the sexily enigmatic Mr Chivers at this point.

‘Taking notes, organising his schedule—that sort of thing—while his executive assistant is recovering from an operation. He’ll have other PAs looking after him too, so they’ll be able to help you if you have any questions.’

I turned back from staring intently at Benedict Chivers—who, I was irked to note, was looking back at me as if he’d never laid eyes on me before in his life—and offered my father a demure smile.

‘It’ll be good for you to see how another company runs its day-to-day business,’ he said, ignoring what must have seemed like abnormally respectable behaviour coming from me. ‘Especially if you really are determined to establish your own enterprise.’

He said ‘enterprise’ as if I was planning on setting up a seedy brothel or a gun-running cartel.

Irritation clawed up my spine.

In actual fact, my plan is to grow a custom-made jewellery business—an idea I’ve toyed with for ages. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve not exactly been focussed before this point in my life, and have perhaps spent a bit too much time partying, but I had an epiphany after my twenty-third birthday, when I realised my friends were all moving on with their lives and I wasn’t, and I’ve worked hard to refocus my goals since then.

Trouble is, a start-up jewellery business is going to need a hell of a lot of capital to get it off the ground and a lot of commercial savvy to run it profitably—the latter of which I’ve been working on, with the help of a night school class for the past year. My tutor thinks I’ll do well, but I know my business skills are still somewhat lacking.

My father has finally agreed to give me control of my trust fund if I can prove I can be business-minded, so I can invest that money in getting my venture off the ground—precious stones and metals don’t come cheap, after all. Despite the fact he’s a billionaire, he’s always been incredibly tight with the allowance he gives me and my two sisters, wanting us to ‘learn the real value of money’.

He’s particularly hard on me about it after the designer knickers debacle. But that’s another story.

So, in exchange for this benevolence, I’ve promised him six months of my life learning the ropes from the bottom up at the family business. Not that he’s entrusted me with anything important so far. All I’ve done is fetch endless cups of coffee and scan, then shred, about a million old files full of papers from ten years ago which have been languishing in some dusty basement. I’m pretty sure it’s not actually a necessary job and he’s only invented it to try and kill my spirit.

And now it seemed he wanted this guy to babysit me while he was off in the States—as if he didn’t trust me to keep my promise to work hard and curb my partying when he’s not around.

I decided I’d be happy for Benedict Chivers to boss me around, though. In fact, I could imagine rather enjoying it. But I wasn’t going to just take it lying down—unless he suggested the sort of lying down I’d be happy to partake in, of course. It had definitely seemed as if he’d be into that when he was standing there, watching me pleasure myself in the bathroom. Even if he was pretending it hadn’t happened now.

I decided, on balance, that it might actually prove to be quite entertaining to have a bit of fun with this guy, so I forced my face into a bland, respectful expression and turned to face my new boss—who knew what I looked like when I orgasmed.

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Mr Chivers. I’m looking forward to coming for you.’ I shook my head and wrinkled my nose, pretending I’d misspoken by accident. ‘Coming to work for you.’

I flashed him my most innocent smile, popping my dimple, but I could tell from the way his scowl deepened and an expression of wry acuity ghosted across his face that he knew exactly what I was doing. I got the feeling he’d make me pay for it later. At least I hoped he would.

‘Good to meet you too, Maya. I look forward to having you on board,’ he said smoothly.

Even though he was careful to keep any hint of innuendo out of his voice, the sound of his deep, husky voice saying those words sent a delicious shiver across my skin, and I swear I nearly came again on the spot.

Maintaining my cool in front of this guy was clearly going to be a challenge.

‘I hope you’ll find your time at Ergo-i rewarding. We run a tight ship, but from what your father’s told me you’ll be able to handle it once you’ve been shown the ropes,’ he said, the expression in his eyes as hard as the hundred-and-fifty-million-year-old fossil on my father’s mantelpiece.

A shiver of frustration ran through me. Was that really how they both saw me? As someone who needed instructions on how to make hot drinks and shuffle paper around?

‘Okay...well, if that’s all you need from me, there’s a glass of wine with my name on it waiting for me in the kitchen,’ I said coolly, feeling a sudden urge to get out of there. Being around this guy was seriously disturbing my equilibrium.

I gave them both a nod, then quickly scarpered out of the room, rushing down the hallway towards the safety of the kitchen.

Before I could reach my safe haven I heard heavy footsteps behind me and felt my father’s vice-like fingers wrap around my arm, bringing me to an abrupt halt. Reluctantly, I turned back to face him, wondering what further humiliation I was to be subjected to this evening.

‘I expect to hear from Benedict that you’re displaying exemplary behaviour while you’re working for him,’ he murmured in that icy-cold tone he uses when he wants people to pay attention to what he’s saying.

Not that anyone would ever dare do otherwise.

‘I’d like to hope that he and April will hit it off once she gets back from China. He’s a very smart and ambitious man and his company is going places. Amalgamating the two families would be very good for business. So please, for the love of God, don’t do anything to put our family’s reputation in jeopardy while you’re working there.’

The herd of elephants that is always in the room whenever my father and I are together stamped their feet.

I hate the way he always talks to me like I’m fourteen, instead of twenty-four. Mind you, it’s a miracle he talks to me at all, after the way the fourteen-year-old me behaved... Behaviour that changed all our lives irrevocably. Particularly my mother’s.

I pushed away the sting of guilt-threaded grief that’s plagued me ever since that horrific day and pasted on my carefree smile. I’m a master at conjuring it at will now—even when I feel like I’m dying inside.

‘I won’t be dining with you this evening,’ he added. ‘I’m taking Benedict round the corner to the club.’

He was talking about the men-only, elitist old boys’ private club where he’s on the board. A place I wouldn’t be seen dead in even if I wasn’t the proud owner of a vagina.

‘Have a marvellous time,’ I muttered, shaking off my father’s hold on me and giving him a cursory nod.

Then I turned away and headed back towards the kitchen, the need for that numbing glass of wine stronger than ever now.

Perhaps it’ll actually be a good experience working for Benedict Chivers, I told myself as I took down the largest wine glass I could find from the cupboard and filled it to the brim with Sancerre from the industrial-sized fridge. It would certainly brighten up my day having him around to look at. Maybe if we got close one evening, while we were working late and everyone else had gone home, something might spark between us and melt the wall of ice he appeared to have so hastily thrown up.

Something good. Something exciting and illicit.

The best kind of something.

It would be so damn satisfying to stick it to my perfect sister too—knowing I’ve already had the man she’s destined for. She’s almost as bad as my father some days, with her judgement about the way I choose to live my life.

According to her, our family would have been better off if I’d never been born. She actually said that to me when we were younger. To my face. I laughed it off, but a small part of me died inside. Even now she still treats me as if I’m scum on her shoe, and she and my father are always on my back about something.

It’s like being tag-teamed by the fun police.

If it weren’t for my little sister, Juno, whom my father barely acknowledges exists most of the time—probably because she keeps her head down and hardly says a word when he’s around—I’d avoid all family gatherings.

Juno’s very different from the rest of the Darlington-Hume family, though—sensitive and studious, as opposed to worldly-wise and bullish—and I’ve always had an innate instinct to protect her because of it. She has a tendency to stand with her shoulders pulled in a little towards her chest and her head slightly bowed, as if she’s constantly ducking people’s attention.

I think that started in her tweens, when she suddenly put on a lot of weight and got acne. I know she was bullied for it at school—until I stepped in and put those bitches right, that was.

No one treats the people I care about badly.

No one.

So, anyway, that’s the story of how I’ve come to find myself now staring at Benedict Chivers’s smug, handsome face over a highly polished meeting room table at his multi-million-pound software company, while everyone talks numbers and he steadfastly ignores me.

I’ve been here nearly a week now, and he’s barely said a word to me, scarcely even looked my way, getting one of his other PAs to instruct me in what he wants instead of connecting with me directly.

Yes, it fucking rankles.

I hate being treated like I’m beneath someone’s notice. I’ve had to put up with enough of that over the years from my father, and I don’t intend to take it from Benedict Chivers as well.

It wasn’t as if I planned to masturbate in front of him, but from the cool way he’s acted towards me since I’ve arrived here you’d think I did it deliberately to embarrass him. But then I suppose I do have a reputation for being a little wild.

The only reason I’m putting up with this torture for the next few months is so I can prove to the world that I’m more than just a party girl. That I’m someone who deserves respect. All the drudgery and sucking up will be worth it if I get to be my own boss one day. Maybe I’ll even impress my father by making a success of my life.

Stranger things have happened.

I’m not banking on it, of course. The man has an emotional wall so high it’s impossible to see the top, let alone scale it. I should know—I’ve tried hard enough over the years.

But enough of that. I’ve never been one to feel sorry for myself and I don’t intend to start now. I’m the master of my own destiny and I’m going to bloody well make it a good one.

I watch my new boss now, as he leads the meeting with hypnotising control, garnering the full attention and respect of his minions as he determinedly works through every point on the agenda. He conducts himself beautifully, with a grace and confidence that sends little thrills of awe chasing around my body. They collect together in an erotic thrum at the juncture of my thighs, making my skin prickle with awareness.

Despite the fact that he acts as if he’s got a dildo permanently shoved up his behind whenever he’s around me—or maybe because of it—I find him fascinating.

‘Would you like me to fetch you anything, Mr Chivers? A cup of tea, perhaps?’ I ask him, to make sure he has to look me directly in the eye during a short pause in the meeting. We’ve not made full eye contact since I started here, and I’ll be damned if I don’t at least get a couple of seconds’ worth of attention from him before we break for the weekend.

‘No, thank you, Maya,’ he says, and I hold my breath, waiting for those dark, sensual eyes to lock onto mine.

But they don’t. Instead he looks down at his tablet with the meeting notes on it that I so painstakingly prepared for him, as if my presence here doesn’t have any impact on him whatsoever.

Well, fuck that.

I excuse myself, going the long way round the table, past where he sits at the head, and making sure to bump my hip gently against his shoulder as I pretend to squeeze past him, and stride off to the bathroom.

Once in there, I stare at myself in the mirror, wondering whether I’m really brave enough to do the thing that’s been racing round my mind since I realised I’d be forced to endure the whole meeting being patronised by Benedict and his fawning associates. They’re talking about company pensions and I have to take what must be entirely pointless notes.

It seems Benedict Chivers is following my father’s lead and trying to subdue my life force by subjecting me to endless spreadsheets and slide presentations.

I’ll be lucky if I even get to the point of setting up my own business at this point. There’s a good chance I’ll have died of boredom before then.

So hell, yes, I have got the guts to do this, I tell myself, reaching up under my skirt and sliding down my knickers, then stepping out of them and hiding them in the small utility cupboard under the sink. After smoothing my skirt down, I give myself one last daring smile in the mirror, then exit the bathroom.

I return to the meeting room, feeling the cool air from the air-con unit swirling around my pussy, which only adds to the thrum of arousal that started as soon as the idea shimmied into my head.

Let’s see how easy it is to ignore me now, Mr Chivers.

I go back to a different place at the table, right next to Benedict, and subtly shift my chair as I sit down so he’ll have a full view of me—but no one else will—when he looks directly my way. I cross my legs primly and try not to smile as I see his gaze dart quickly towards the movement I make, then away again, as if he’s training himself not to look.

I don’t do it straight away. I wait until one of the associates is droning on about hybrid schemes and then make a bit of a show of shifting in my chair. Then I sigh gently, so the others won’t be alerted to what I’m doing but Benedict will, and raise my foot, propping the heel of my shoe on the front bar of my chair so my knee is in the air, which forces my legs to open a little, parting my skirt.

In my peripheral vision I see Benedict’s head turn and hear his sharp intake of breath as he clearly spots my ‘accidental’ indiscretion. I’m full-on flashing him now, and as I turn my head to look at him our gazes finally lock and I see exactly what I’ve been waiting for since that moment when he couldn’t tear his eyes away from me in the bathroom.

Desire.

Hot, fierce need.

But before I can even smile he looks away again and asks his colleague a question, as if nothing has happened.

As if I don’t exist.

He’s ignoring me again.

A wave of burning frustration floods through me and I drop my foot from the chair and cross my legs again, determinedly keeping a blank expression on my face in case he looks at me again. No way will I ever show Benedict Chivers how much he’s hurting me with his disregard.

The meeting seems to go on for another couple of hours—though according to my watch, when I check it at the end, it’s only eighteen minutes. Eighteen pain-filled, life-sucking minutes.

The others get up from their chairs on Benedict’s say-so, and I gather my pad and pen together and make to stand up, smoothing my skirt down over my legs.

‘Maya, come with me. I want to see you in my office. Right now.’

The vehemence in Benedict’s last two words leaves me in no doubt that I’m in for it. It just remains to be seen exactly what he has in mind by way of punishment.

The thought of that breaks through my aggravation and wet heat floods between my thighs as I follow him to his office on trembling legs, hearing him call to his other PAs that he’s not to be disturbed.

I shut the door behind me with a shaky hand and turn to face him, my breath coming quickly but my head held high.

I am not going to let this guy get the better of me.