Page 4 of The Billionaire's Last-Minute Marriage
‘Don’t. Move.’
His voice was a low warning, but she couldn’t think of anything but retrieving that file. That had to be it, the evidence that Zeus had taunted her with for months. Giving her awful task after awful task to complete, forcing her to betray her own morals with lies and deceit, then still dangling it out of her reach like a carrot. She was done with being kept under someone else’s control.
Six months of playing the part of the quiet, obedient executive assistant came crashing to the forefront of her limits and she knew she wouldn’t obey Xander’s command. She had come here to set herself and her mother free and she wasn’t giving up without a fight. Before she could think about it, she bolted across the room.
Her smooth-soled shoes were slippery on the hard wood, setting her into a rather inelegant slide through the safe door, where she quickly launched herself on top of the files, grasping for the one she needed. She stood up and turned to run back out at the exact same time that two heavy hands gripped her shoulders.
Perhaps it was the darkness of the small space, or the painful adrenaline of the entire afternoon spiking her reflexes, but she felt something rise up within her, her body reacting to the uninvited touch in pure self-preservation. Time seemed to switch to slow motion as she watched her own small fist rise up in an elegant arc then fall, aiming a sucker punch directly at Xander Mytikas’s handsome patrician nose.
His guttural grunt as he skilfully avoided the blow filled her ears, bringing instant shame that she’d even tried to hit him. And then they were both falling.
She heard herself squeak, sprawling backwards on the floor with the file underneath her back. She looked up and found herself pinned by that arctic-blue gaze once again. He loomed over her, his chest only inches from her own, and for a split second nothing existed but the twin sounds of their heartbeats thrumming in time. His breath fanned over her, his nostrils flared and pupils wide and dark with what had to be deep, incredulous anger.
Xander finally opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the room suddenly getting darker. Pandora tensed, turning her face just as the last sliver of bright light from the office disappeared and the safe door slid shut with a bang.
CHAPTER TWO
XANDER’SBODYTENSED, pressing his weight down upon her for a split second before he was launching himself up and she could hear him rushing for the door. Her body felt a brief moment of loss at his departure before she stood up too, hands out grasping at the darkness to feel her way. She heard the harsh pounding of a fist against metal.
‘Damn it,’ he growled. ‘Now look what you’ve done.’
‘Me?’ Pandora squeaked. ‘You’re the one who chased me in here.’
‘Because you broke into my father’s safe,’ he hissed, sounding closer this time. The scraping of metal came next as he fumbled around, before he cursed softly.
‘My phone is on the desk,’ she said quietly. ‘Have you got yours?’
‘If I had my phone, do you think I would have spent the past five minutes trying to find an interior release mechanism?’
The darkness was absolute, the kind of dark that weighed in upon you, playing tricks on your senses. She sensed Xander move away from the door, his silk tuxedo trousers making a soft hissing sound as he continued to inspect the perimeter of their new prison cell. Suddenly, the small room was lit up by a dim artificial light. The one she’d failed to find earlier.
Xander stood a few steps away, his gaze one of barely restrained fury as he leaned back against the wall. ‘It seems that we are stuck in here until my driver realises that I’m taking too long and calls Security. But I suppose I should be grateful for the privacy.’
Her mind tripped over his words, wondering why he’d be grateful for such a terrible accident. But then she noticed the dark intent in his gaze as he pulled out a chair from the side wall and slid it to the centre of the safe where the weak lighting was brightest.
‘Take a seat, Quinn. We’re not going anywhere for a while.’
She eyed the chair, but really the cold stone floor was a poor alternative, and they were going to have to have this conversation one way or another. She walked towards him, feeling his eyes inspect her in that intent way they always did. Only today, their icy blue depths were filled with mistrust and disappointment. Guilt threatened to choke her.
‘I’ll take this.’ He gestured to the file she’d forgotten she’d tucked under one arm.
Before she had a moment to react, Xander reached out and grabbed it. She stared down in horror, trying and failing to conceal her reaction. She moved past him, her body seeming to act of its own volition and focused solely on self-preservation as she walked to the furthest end of the safe. Xander Mytikas was not a danger to her, she knew, not physically, anyway... But being under that laser focus was more dangerous than any of the other terrible things she had been forced to do over the past few months. She’d betrayed her own morality enough to last her a lifetime. And unwittingly, Xander had paid the price every time. But if he opened that file...
She couldn’t lie to him, not again. But that didn’t mean she was prepared to look him in the eye when he realised the truth.
Xander didn’t open it, instead simply placing it on the floor between them, dark promise in his eyes. His voice came from the shadows, low enough so that only she could hear his silky tone.
‘You see, Quinn...technically you are no longer my employee, so you should have relinquished your security clearance the moment you left your resignation papers with HR. This puts us at a bit of an impasse. So when my guard gets here, he can take you to the police or...you can start telling me the truth about what you’re doing here. The choice is yours.’
The possibility of being hauled off in a police car was only slightly less terrifying than the idea of revealing the truth to the man in front of her.
Pandora walked towards the back of the safe, feeling around in the shadows for rows of neatly packaged priceless art. When in fact she was simply trying to buy time. That felt like a pretty accurate way to sum up her life over the past couple of years, she thought morosely. It felt as if all she did was make mistakes and try to fix them, try to buy some time to unravel the tangle of the words she’d spoken or the impulsive choices she’d made. She closed her eyes, feeling the tension between her shoulder blades tighten like a vice.
She was so tired.
The effort of playing the organised and polite assistant by day had seemed simple, but it had turned out to be a Herculean task she never could have anticipated.
She was suddenly, painfully aware that they were alone together. Something that had only ever happened once before on the first day they’d met...but she did her best not to think of that time. No, that wouldn’t help with her composure at all.
