A Bride At His Bidding. Michelle Smart

shook her head, those soft, plump lips drawing in together. The situation had clearly overwhelmed her. He could sympathise. When she had walked into his offices in the heart of London’s financial district that morning she could not have guessed she’d finish the day cut off from everything she was familiar with in the paradise that was the Seychelles. No doubt she was feeling vulnerable.

      Good.

      He could sympathise but he would not. Carrie was a vulture. A beautiful vulture for sure, but a vulture nonetheless.

      She deserved nothing less than what was coming for her.

      ‘In that case, I bid you goodnight. The clothes I promised you were flown in while we were travelling. Sheryl has put them away for you. You will find them imminently suitable. And remember...’

      A pretty brow rose cautiously. ‘Remember?’

      He winked. ‘I like to be welcomed with a smile.’

      As he closed the interconnecting door he smiled himself to imagine her reaction to the clothing selected for her.

      His fun with Carrie was only just beginning.

      * * *

      Carrie threw the entire contents of her new wardrobe onto the narrow excuse of a bed and rifled through them with increasing anxiety.

      She’d expected to be given outfits akin to what chambermaids in hotels wore, not clothing like this.

      Her wardrobe and dresser had been filled with soft, floaty summer dresses, vest tops, shorts that put the meaning into the word ‘short’, bikinis and sarongs. There was underwear too, all of the black, lacy variety.

      Every item had a designer label.

      Her skin had never felt so heated as when she’d picked up a pair of knickers and wondered if Andreas had chosen them personally.

      But how could he have done? She hadn’t left his side since she’d stepped into his office. It must have been his PA, Debbie, who she’d been certain hadn’t liked her in the initial interview and who she’d had to give her vital statistics to as Andreas had whisked her out of his building.

      Carrie tugged at her hair with a mixture of consternation and fear.

      Whoever had chosen the items, which included beach paraphernalia along with all the clothing, this was not right, not by any stretch of the imagination. To make matters worse there was no Internet she could connect to and her phone signal seemed to be non-existent. The text message she’d written to her editor forty minutes ago was still trying to send.

      Who knew she was here? Andreas and his PA Debbie, his flight crew and his Seychellois domestic staff. No one from her own life knew she was in the Seychelles, only people employed by Andreas.

      Rubbing her eyes, she told herself she was probably worrying over nothing. It had been an incredibly long day and she was sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation did funny things to the brain.

      The letter inviting her to the second interview had stated the successful applicant would be expected to start the job immediately. It was her own fault that she hadn’t taken the letter literally enough.

      She was exactly where she wanted to be, with greater access to the man than in her wildest dreams.

      But he also had access to her, and she eyed the adjoining unlocked door with nerves fluttering in her chest.

      There was no way she would trust his word that he wouldn’t enter her room uninvited.

      The way he looked at her... Did he look at all his employees with that same intensity? Did he leave the rest of his employees feeling that he was stripping them bare with a glance?

      Or was it just her guilty conscience playing at her and making her see things that weren’t there?

      Movement from the adjoining room made her catch her breath.

      Andreas was still awake. They were connected to each other’s rooms and she couldn’t even lock herself away from him.

      She forced herself to breathe.

      She needed to take a shower but had been holding it off until she could be reasonably sure he’d gone to sleep. An hour after he’d left her in this tiny bedroom, there was nothing to suggest he was ready to turn in.

      What was he going to do? she chided herself. Walk in on her while she showered?

      Sexual foibles were the easiest secrets to uncover. Andreas Samaras might be many things but a sex pest was not something that had been flagged up about him, not even on the secret grapevine from which she and other journalists like her got so many of their stories. He rarely dated and when he did it was discreetly. If there was anything along those lines she had to worry about she would already know about them.

      She was being over-cautious when she didn’t need to be.

      Carefully putting the expensive clothing back into its rightful place, she realised what her real problem with it was. These were the sort of clothes a man bestowed on his lover for a holiday, not his employee.

      * * *

      Carrie awoke in the unfamiliar tiny room minutes before the digital alarm clock on her bedside table went off. It had been set for her by some faceless person that she would no doubt meet shortly, a person with whom she would have to pretend to be someone she was not.

      Lying on an investigation had never bothered her before. The few she had done before, though, had been office-based. Offices were places where everyone wore a mask. She’d fitted in without any problems and without any guilt, knowing she was working for a good cause.

      This was different. This was Andreas’s home. She had told herself over and over that this was an opportunity that had been gift-wrapped for her but she still felt as if she’d breached an invisible line.

      He deserves it, she told herself grimly, focussing her mind on Violet’s scarred, emaciated body and its root cause. He deserves everything he gets.

      She checked her phone and sighed to see the message to her editor still pending. Her room must be in a black spot.

      After a quick shower under the disappointing trickle of water in her private bathroom, only mitigated by the expensive, wonderfully scented toiletries provided for her, it was time to select an outfit to wear.

      After rifling through her new clothing for the dozenth time she chose a dark blue dress covered in tiny white dots. It was made of the sheerest material, had the thinnest of spaghetti straps and fell to mid-thigh but at least it covered her cleavage. And, she had to admit, it was pretty.

      Scrabbling through her handbag, she found a hairband wedged in the bottom and tied her hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. She had no make-up with her. Usually that didn’t matter as she rarely wore it but today she felt she could do with some camouflage.

      Dressed and feeling much more alert, she pulled the floor-length curtains open and gasped.

      The sight that greeted her could have come from a postcard.

      If she’d peeked through the curtains during the night she would have seen her room had its own private balcony. She stepped out onto it now, heart thumping, the sun kissing her skin good morning.

      She closed her eyes to savour the feeling then opened them again, hand on her throat, staring in stunned awe at the deep blue sky unmarred by so much as a solitary cloud and at the stunning azure ocean that lapped gently onto the finest white sand imaginable, the cove’s shore lined with palm trees. A short distance ahead sat an isolated green landmass that looked, from her dazed estimation, close enough that she might tread through water to it. An artist couldn’t have painted a more perfect scene.

      ‘Good morning, Caroline.’

      The deep, cheerful voice startled her and she gripped the balustrade before turning her head.

      So mind-blown had she been by the view before her, she hadn’t noticed her balcony was far too