The Dare Collection January 2019. JC Harroway

could see myself glowering in the reflective glass of the window. With an effort, I tried to smooth my expression. ‘Like you don’t have any problems retaining staff.’

      Ajax grunted. He knew I was right. Neither of us were exactly people pleasers. Which was why our middle brother Leon did all the PR work for our company.

      ‘You can’t go without a PA for a week or so?’ he asked instead.

      ‘I have a...project I’m working on that needs my full attention.’ I didn’t want to talk about that particular project with anyone, especially not Poppy, even though it concerned her. It was the last lie I had to uncover. The last lie I had to destroy. The truth about her father’s death and my role in it. ‘I need someone around to handle any details that might crop up.’

      ‘Project?’ Ajax’s voice was sharp. ‘What project?’

      I turned and met my brother’s stare head-on. ‘None of your damn business.’

      His blue gaze didn’t even flicker. ‘I’m CEO of this company. Everything is my damn business.’

      ‘This has got nothing to do with the company. Ergo, like I said, it’s none of your business.’

      Ajax tried to stare me down like he stared down everyone who crossed him.

      Unfortunately for him that didn’t work with me.

      He gave another of his non-committal grunts instead. ‘Fine. Your funeral. But you want a piece of advice?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Okay, I lied. It’s not advice. It’s an order. Sort out whatever the fuck your project is and fast. I’m going to need you on deck and focused in the next couple of weeks.’

      Momentarily diverted, I frowned at him. ‘Why? What’s going on?’

      He gave me one of his trademark smiles, just on the edge of vicious. ‘None of your fucking business.’

      Irritating bastard.

      He left soon after that and the second he was out of the door, my brain started back to thinking about just what the hell I was going to do about Poppy bloody Valentine.

      Ajax had now given me an extra time pressure, which was the last thing I needed, especially if I wanted to complete this pet project of mine. I could have put it on hold if I’d really wanted to, but I’d spent the last five years putting it on hold and now I wanted it done—and done quickly.

      It was the last thing I needed to do to make good on my promise to Dad.

      The last atonement to make up for a life I’d been responsible for taking.

      But if I was going to get it done before Ajax needed me ‘on deck’ then I had to have help. I had to have an assistant.

      I scowled at the view of Sydney through the glass.

      Shit.

      I was going to have to be nice to Poppy bloody Valentine, wasn’t I?

       CHAPTER FOUR

      Poppy

      ‘YOU COULD JUST sleep with him,’ my mother said as she picked up her favourite red lipstick and began to apply it. ‘Men are simple like that. It’s easy, quick, and if you’re good they’ll give you anything you want.’

      I was sitting on her bed, watching her get ready for dinner with one of the partners from a multi-billion-dollar tax firm. Listening to her hand out advice on what I should do to handle Xander and the internship problem.

      It wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with her, but she’d asked how the meeting had gone and so I’d given her the unadulterated truth. Which naturally she put her own spin on.

      That was my mother’s answer to everything. Sleep with the dude and he’ll shower you with gifts. It had worked so well for her, after all.

      At least up until the day her sure thing had gone to prison.

      ‘I’d rather sleep with Satan than Xander King,’ I said, my fingers picking at the flocked fabric of the cheap quilt.

      Mum gave me an irritated look in the mirror. ‘Well, I can’t sleep with him. That would be a step too far, even for me.’

      I gave an inward shudder at the thought. ‘God, Mum, I’m not asking you to.’

      ‘But you said you wanted that internship.’

      ‘Yes, I do. But sex isn’t the only way to get it.’

      She frowned at her reflection as she put the finishing touches to her lipstick. ‘I don’t know why you persist in doing everything the hard way, Poppy. You’ve got the looks. Why not use that to—?’

      ‘No,’ I interrupted, not wanting to have this argument again. ‘I’m not doing that and that’s final.’

      Conversations with my mother always ended up with her telling me I was beautiful and that she didn’t know why I didn’t use it to my advantage more often.

      She didn’t mean it as a compliment. Her own looks had got her everything she’d ever wanted in life and she didn’t understand why I insisted on doing things like study and actual work. Even when I’d waved my architecture degree in her face she’d simply given me a puzzled look and asked why I was bothering with university. Money could be got easily enough if you put on a short skirt and batted your eyelashes at the right guy. Why was I working so hard at something I didn’t need?

      I knew I shouldn’t blame Mum for the way she was. After my father died, leaving us with nothing, she’d had to do something to keep us afloat and she had no schooling to speak of. So she’d got back into the stripping she’d used to do after she’d left school and before Dad had come along, and there she’d met Augustus King—crime boss extraordinaire.

      He’d promised her security and she’d grabbed it with both hands, not caring that he was the dodgiest of dodgy criminals, throwing herself into the lavish lifestyle that came with him. Then it had all ended when he’d gone to prison, leaving her with nothing but debts.

      In her mind she had no choice about how she was going to pay them off—she needed to find another man to help her. Even though she was already married. But then vows didn’t matter to my mother, only survival did.

      ‘If it’s pride getting in your way then you might want to rethink that.’ She straightened and dropped the lipstick back in her handbag. ‘You can’t afford it. Because even if you were to get this internship, how are you going to get to London? I certainly don’t have the money for you to get there, let alone live there.’

      There was that. Details I thought I’d handle if and when I ever got the internship. But I was going to have to think about them, wasn’t I? Because I had no money and since getting fired with no references from my last job I had no expectations of getting another any time soon.

       Xander did say he’d pay you well...

      I gritted my teeth, trying not to remember what had happened in his boardroom. How he’d slowly paced towards me, long and lean and fluid as a panther, dark eyes full of fury. And how I’d been unable to stop myself from retreating, something inside me wanting to give way before him.

      Then I’d found the door against my back and him right in front of me, his tall, broad figure blocking everything out, the blackness of his gaze mesmerising. He’d been all darkness and heat, the force of his fury like a storm front, and I’d become breathless with a strange combination of fear and excitement, tinged with an odd satisfaction.

      That somehow I’d got a rise out of him. That I’d made him lose his precious temper. That underneath his cold, uptight front was something else. A black fire that burned very, very hot.