The Virgin's Shock Baby. Heidi Rice

But Megan doubted it would be good.

      ‘Your sister is also as reckless and wild as your mother,’ her father added. ‘Given the right incentive, I think we both know she’d pass this assignment with flying colours.’

      No, she wouldn’t, she’d be crushed, Megan thought.

      Katie was as lively and spirited as Megan was cautious and grounded. But for all her recklessness, she also had an open and easily bruised heart—and absolutely no regard for business ethics or expediency. Katie would be appalled that their father could ask such a thing of either one of them. And Katie’s own worst enemy was usually Katie. She was volatile and unpredictable, especially if she was hurt. So much so that Megan had no idea what she’d do if forced into this situation by their father. She could have a mad passionate affair with De Rossi or annoy him so much he’d destroy Whittaker’s just for the hell of it. But one thing was for sure, putting a hothead like Katie into the path of someone as ruthless as De Rossi would be a car crash of epic proportions, and Katie would be the one who got destroyed.

      ‘The only reason I haven’t already asked her is because she knows nothing about computers,’ her father said. ‘And De Rossi likes his lovers more mature, according to Annalise,’ he added. ‘You’ve got a better chance. But if you leave me with no choice I will have to explain to your sister that if she wants to stay at her fancy art school she will have to—’

      ‘Okay, I’ll do it,’ Megan jumped in, before her father could state the unthinkable. ‘I’ll give it my best shot.’

      Even if her best shot had very little chance of being a success, her pride and her ethics felt like a small price to pay to save her sister from heartbreak—and Whittaker’s from guaranteed annihilation.

      ‘Good girl, Megan,’ her father said. ‘Take the day off tomorrow. Annalise will accompany you to select an outfit suitable for the occasion and take you to her beautician to get you properly prepared.’

      ‘Okay,’ she said, feeling dazed at the enormity of what she had just agreed to—and how ill-prepared she was for the challenge. Annalise’s alluring sense of style and supreme sexual confidence had always intimidated Megan.

      ‘Don’t disappoint me. Whittaker’s is counting on you,’ her father finished, dismissing her as he turned back to the papers on his desk.

      ‘I know and I won’t,’ she murmured, trying to sound confident.

      But as she returned to her small office on the building’s tenth floor, the pressure of what she had to achieve sat in her belly like a brick. An annoyingly hot brick seeping an uncontrollable and completely unregulated warmth throughout her body.

      She didn’t feel confident; she felt like a sacrifice, about to be staked out in the wolf’s lair, with nothing to protect her but a designer gown and heels and an overpriced beautician’s appointment.

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘NO WAY, KATIE. You need to stay in your room when he gets here.’ Megan’s hand trembled as she picked up one of the diamond drop earrings Annalise had loaned her to match the sleek, blue, satin, floor-length gown it had taken her father’s mistress an eternity to select during their endless shopping expedition that afternoon. The sting as the thin silver spike penetrated the rarely used hole in her lobe did nothing to calm the rapid flutter of Megan’s heartbeat. She breathed deeply and picked up the other earring. She needed to stop hyperventilating or she was liable to pass out before De Rossi even arrived.

      ‘But I want to meet him, to make sure he doesn’t take advantage of you,’ Katie said, the fire in her eyes accompanied by a petulant pout. ‘He’s rich, arrogant and scarily gorgeous. You’ve got zero experience of guys like him. Did you see the cover shot of him on that boring business magazine you get? He even looks hot in one of those stuffy suits.’

      Yes, she had seen the magazine, she’d even re-read the interview with De Rossi to give herself some useful topics of conversation. But all the article had really done—illustrated with all those photos of him looking broad and muscular and indomitable—was make her panic increase. And Katie’s misguided attempts to protect her were not helping.

      ‘What if he tries to ravish you?’ Katie added, the battle she’d been waging for the last two hours—to stand between Megan and De Rossi’s super-human seduction skills—starting to wear on Megan’s already frazzled nerves.

      De Rossi was due to arrive in less than five minutes and Katie’s misguided reading of the situation was the last thing Megan needed. But she would never tell Katie the truth. That the only thing standing between them and financial ruin was Megan’s mission to seduce De Rossi—not the other way around—because that would only make Katie worry more about Megan’s date in the lion’s den. And Megan was already panicking enough for both of them.

      She’d spent most of her life shielding her sister, ever since the day she’d stood beside a nine-year-old Katie at their mother’s graveside and held her as her little sister shed real tears for a woman who had abandoned them.

      She was not about to stop now.

      But sometimes shielding Katie from the realities of life could be very trying. Megan poked the second earring into her earlobe with an unsteady hand and absorbed the sting, attempting to tune out Katie’s next offensive.

      ‘I can’t believe you won’t even let me meet him. All I want to do is make sure he knows not to mess with you.’ Katie stood defiantly behind her, every sinew in her slim, coltish body fraught with challenge and righteous determination. ‘At least promise me you won’t let him lure you back to his love nest on Central Park West.’

      ‘His what nest?’ Megan would have laughed at the term, if her heart hadn’t just jumped into her throat.

      ‘Don’t look like that.’ Katie rolled her eyes, frustrated. ‘That’s what they called it in Giselle Monroe’s piece in the Post. Didn’t you read it?’

      ‘No, I did not, and you shouldn’t have either. It’s salacious gossip.’ The last thing she needed to read was the model’s kiss-and-tell account of De Rossi’s sexual prowess when she was nervous enough already.

      ‘According to Giselle,’ Katie continued undeterred, ‘the guy’s insatiable in the sack. He can make a woman—’

      ‘Katie, for goodness’ sake, shut up!’ She swung round on the stool. ‘I didn’t read it, because I didn’t need to. This isn’t a proper date.’ Even if the memory of one look from the man was still giving her goosebumps a month after the fact. ‘Dad asked him to escort me. He may not even turn up.’ The hope that he might have forgotten the arrangement had guilt coalescing in her stomach to go with the panic.

      She was Whittaker’s only hope. She’d promised to do this thing, even if the computer codes buried in her purse were burning a hole in her conscience.

      The sound of the front door buzzer made them both jump.

      ‘So he’s not gonna show, huh?’ Katie said, looking triumphant.

      Megan cursed under her breath, and stood to check out her reflection. The gown was sleek and simple in its elegance, the bias-cut satin snug enough to enhance her curves without offering them up on a platter. Or at least, that was what Annalise had insisted.

      Diamonds sparkled in the thin straps that held up the bodice, which plunged low enough to entice but not low enough to give Megan an anxiety attack. Yet. A faux-fur wrap to hold off the night-time chill in late April, and four-inch heels—which were as high as she could go without risking a twisted ankle—an elaborate up-do that held her unruly hair in some kind of order, a five-hundred-dollar make-up session and the delicate diamond drop earrings completed the outfit. Annalise had told her the ensemble screamed sophistication and purpose, rather than panic and desperation.

      Megan wasn’t so sure.

      She heard the