Keeping Secrets. Fiona Brand

Three

      The soft, flat question made her chest go tight and her heart pound. Damon zeroing in on their short, secretive fling was disorienting when a moment ago they had been firmly focused on Ben and Emily.

      Zara found herself once more staring at the pulse throbbing along the side of Damon’s jaw as she desperately tried to find a neutral way out of a conversation that had careered out of control.

      She took a deep breath and decided on the truth. After all, what did it matter now? “Yes.”

      A curious satisfaction registered in Damon’s gaze. “So that’s why you didn’t want a relationship. You thought I would think you were after my money.”

      It was only part of the truth.

      The whole of it was that if Damon ever found out her real identity, he wouldn’t just think she was after his money, he would be certain of it. Although, the irony was that, from the first moment she had met him, she couldn’t have cared less about his wealth.

      When she had walked into the interview with Damon, his remote gaze had connected with hers and for a split second she’d had a weird premonition that everything was about to change. She could not explain exactly what the phenomenon was, just that for her, at least, it had been instant, visceral and electric. Like a piece of flotsam caught in a powerful current, she had allowed herself to be swept along and had accepted the job. Two weeks later, she had ended up in Damon’s bed.

      Determined to redirect the conversation back to the situation with Emily and Ben, and hustle Damon out of the door before Rosie woke up, Zara briskly stepped around her desk and busied herself tidying piles of pamphlets that did not need tidying. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience of Emily taking an unplanned leave of absence—”

      “Along with my little brother,” Damon said drily.

      With effort, Zara controlled her temper. She tended to see things from another angle entirely. It was a matter of record that the men in Damon’s family were extremely good at seduction. Damon’s uncle Tyler had swept Zara’s mother off her feet; Damon had gotten Zara into bed in a matter of days. And now it seemed clear that Ben—who had routinely shambled into work around ten o’clock, taken long lunches and drifted away by four—had seduced poor Emily!

      Zara moved on to another shelf of pamphlets, which was much nearer the front door, hoping Damon would take the hint. “As far as I’m concerned, Emily is outstandingly qualified and my best temp, and Ben has enticed her away. If anyone needs protection, it’s Emily.”

      Damon gave Zara an incredulous look.

      She checked her watch as if she was in a hurry to be somewhere. She had gotten seriously distracted by the Emily/Ben situation, but now she needed to wrap up the issue and get Damon out of her office before Rosie woke up. “I investigated Emily thoroughly before placing her on the books—she’s perfectly trustworthy.”

      “Emily Harris is, but Emily Woodhouse-Harris isn’t.”

      Zara froze as Damon slipped a folded sheet of paper out of his coat pocket and handed it to her. She stared at what was obviously a photocopy of a newspaper cutting depicting a more youthful Emily, the daughter of a disgraced financier who had lost all of his money, and that of the pension fund he had founded, in a financial crash. In the shot, Emily was dressed for the beach in a bikini and filmy sarong, and she was clinging to the arm of a prominent playboy businessman. One who, from the caption, had apparently dumped her in favor of marrying a socialite with her fortune intact.

      Zara’s jaw tightened. Her motto for Westlake Employment Agency was Reliable, High Quality, Vetted Office Staff, Privacy and Discretion Guaranteed. In this case, the reliability part of the motto hadn’t held. Neither had the privacy or the discretion.

      However, the tacky little article, far from making Zara feel disappointed in Emily, only made her feel even more fiercely protective of an employee who reminded her an awful lot of herself. Even down to the way Emily had lost everything and had been forced to invent a new life. She knew exactly how Emily was going to feel when she saw the piece.

      She set the incriminating article down on her desk. “You had Emily investigated.”

      Damon’s expression grew impatient. “I waited for you to call back. When you didn’t, I made some calls of my own. As it turns out, I should have done it a whole lot earlier.”

      “Choosing to use one half of a double-barreled surname, and a previous relationship do not make Emily a bad risk!”

      “Maybe not, but before Vitalis, Emily was involved with another wealthy businessman.”

      Now that she knew Emily’s full name, the whole embarrassing scandal was coming back to her, which made her feel even sorrier for Emily. “From memory, the Woodhouse-Harrises moved in wealthy circles, so, of course, Emily would meet wealthy men.”

      “The relationships wouldn’t be such a problem if Emily hadn’t tried to conceal her past.”

      “Maybe she had good reasons for doing so.”

      Damon crossed his arms over his chest. “Such as?”

      Zara’s chin came up. She felt she was fighting on two fronts, for Emily and for herself. “For a start, it can’t have been much fun having the media hounding her.”

      “Granted.”

      The curtness of his reply seemed to emphasize that the bottom line for Damon was Emily’s so-called deception. “Emily happens to be very good at her job.”

      “I’m not disputing that, just her motives in seeking employment with wealthy men.”

      That touched a nerve, guiltily reminding Zara that if Damon found out her true identity, he would ascribe the same kind of gold-digging motivation to her. She doubted he would believe that it had been Zara’s well-connected aunt who had set up the job interview and set her up by placing her back in Damon’s orbit in the hope that she might score another cash offer. Or that Zara had zero interest in that money! “So you still think all Emily wanted was a wealthy husband?”

      His expression cooled. “Or a lover. It’s not exactly an uncommon motive.”

      His flat statement once again dredged up the stark memory of the legal letter she had received from Damon’s lawyers. They’d offered to pay her off so she would not go to the press, attempt to contact his family or get her sticky fingers on the family inheritance.

       As if.

      Zara could feel her blood pressure shooting through the roof. Before that moment, she had been able to separate Damon from the contents of that insulting letter, even though she knew he was the one who had authorized it. But now she realized how naive she had been. Damon’s contempt for her and Petra was not so different from his ruthless assessment of Emily.

      “There are women who don’t give a hoot about your family’s money, and Emily is one of them. She is not predatory.”

      A faint rustling sound from the interview room, as if Rosie was struggling out of her cozy blanket, sent a fresh surge of adrenaline shooting through Zara’s veins. Damon’s cool gaze fixed on the door, reminding her that not only did he possess exceptional eyesight, but that his hearing was no doubt excellent, as well. Attributes that, along with an uncanny sixth sense had, apparently, made him some kind of superspy during his time in the Special Forces. She needed to get Damon out of her office, now.

      She forced a professional smile and apologized, which was more difficult than she expected. Bleakly, she realized she was still surprisingly angry with Damon. Although, she didn’t know quite why that should be, since she was the one who had left Damon and not the other way around. Plus, she was over him, and had been for months.

      She directed another breezy smile in Damon’s general direction. As much as she thought Ben was at fault, it was clear the responsibility for the employment part of this disaster belonged