Meddling with a Millionaire (Case Brothers 1)

As each mile of the taxi ride home took her farther away from Nathan, her body came down off a sensual high. She felt the first twinge of a withdrawal headache as she put her key in the lock. By the time she swung the door open, her nerves were showing distinct signs of exposed edges. She felt strung out and weary beyond words.

Flipping on the lights, she stared at the empty room. Adrenaline surged, banishing any fatigue. What the hell had happened to her stuff?

She advanced into her loft and stopped where her couch should have been. Her heart jumped in her chest. Next, she pushed open the door to her workroom and stared at the bare space. No equipment. No supplies and finished pieces. Half-dazed, she crossed the hall to check out her bedroom. Furniture. Clothes. Everything she owned. Gone.

Emma closed her eyes. Her fingers tightened into fists.

Nathan.

He’d lured her out for a romantic dinner with assurances that he wouldn’t persuade or bully her to move out of the loft. He’d plied her with flirtatious conversation until she’d fallen back into bed with him. Emma growled. All the while his movers had been busy clearing out her things. He must have had a good laugh at her expense tonight. What an idiot she was.

Thank goodness it was too early to call Addison. Emma wanted nothing more than to run to her best friend, borrow a pair of pajamas and curl up on her couch to whine about Nathan. Three months ago she would have done just that.

Her father’s belief that she lacked drive wasn’t a notion he’d pulled out of thin air. As a pampered and spoiled heiress, Emma was never expected to accomplish anything. As a result, she’d never taken charge of her life, just drifted through it.

But her expectations for herself had changed. And if she intended to produce $35,000 worth of jewelry, she would have to go to Nathan and demand her equipment back.

She dug her car keys out of her purse and marched out the door. At half past five o’clock in the morning, few cars were on the road as she sped through town on her way back to Nathan’s condo. She didn’t bother to call him again, not wanting him to know she was coming. By the time she pulled into his parking lot, she’d worked herself into a fine fury.

Standing outside his door, she listened to her pounding heart and some of the urgency left her. She wasn’t good at confrontation. Probably because she’d spent so much of her childhood surrounded by it. Her parents fought all the time. Fire from her mother. Ice from her father.

Nathan answered the door almost before she lifted her finger from his doorbell. Dressed in pajama bottoms, his muscular chest looming bare and magnificent before her eyes, he leaned his forearm against the doorframe and looked her up and down. “Well, hello. Did you run out for coffee and doughnuts?”

That he continued to play games with her, after taking her to dinner under false pretenses and then making love to her as if she was the most important woman on earth, revived her anger.

“Where’s my stuff?”

He stepped back and gestured her inside. “Some of it’s in storage. Some of it’s here.”

“I told you I didn’t want to move.” She crossed the threshold and pulverized his grin with a hard look. “Not in here with you. Not anywhere.”

“Despite everybody telling you that staying in your place was a health hazard?” He shook his head.

She set her hands on her hips. “So you decided to steal all my stuff?”

“I didn’t steal it.” His measured tones infuriated her as he tugged her deeper into the condo. “I moved it so the contractors I hired could get to work.”

“You hired contractors?” she demanded, annoyed at how control over her life was slipping from her grasp. “It’s my loft. I should be the one doing the hiring.” She narrowed her eyes at his easy shrug and trailed after him as he headed into the kitchen. The scent of brewing coffee made her nose twitch with interest despite herself. “And I don’t understand why everything is gone. Surely they don’t need all my furniture removed to clean up a mold problem.”

Nathan poured two cups of coffee and handed her one. “After leaving your loft yesterday, I realized that you can’t sell it the way it is now.”

“Sell it?” Emma wondered if she’d just heard him properly. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because after we’re married we’ll live here.”

The words after we’re married reverberated through her head. He was taking a lot for granted. “I thought you understood that I’m not going to marry you because of some business deal.”

“But you are going to marry me.”

The man was insufferable.

“No, I’m not,” she fumed. “And I’m not moving in with you, either.”

He sipped coffee and watched her over the rim of the cup.

Emma stared back at him, matching his silence while her thoughts churned. How was she supposed to get all her pieces finished in time for the show? Then, it occurred to her that this had been his plan all along. If he stopped her from working, she wouldn’t make enough to replace the money in her account and she’d be forced to marry him. Her heart skipped a beat. Was he that diabolical?

“Where’s the equipment and supplies from my workroom?”