His Strict Requirement: Billionaire Secrets - Book Five (3 page)

"I'll tell the pilot to take us in, we're not too far off that flight path now."

"No! No, no, don’t do that. Please. We… we really need to get back to DC, my boss… I mean my family needs to know I'm okay."

The comment put a serious look back onto Dale's face.

"Have you contacted people back home about this Lindsay?" His message was loud and clear.

"Is this what the ride is for? To keep our mouths shut?"

"If that was all I wanted I could easily have left that up to Ruben Mayweather. However, I'm absolutely sure that you understand the importance of you and the little lady keeping everything you saw back there--"

"Back where exactly?" It was true she didn't know the name of the island. But would he even believe that?

"Let me put it this way Lindsay, I can make it very worth your while to keep all of this very quiet. It's not that I don’t trust you, but let's just say it will be a way of showing the Hargrave family expressing it's gratitude to you in return for a… mature discretion."

The immediate change in mood was palpable.

If ever a comment had backfired….

"So that is it. This is why Nena and I are getting the five star charm offensive. We saw too much and now we have to be convinced to keep the Hargrave family's dirty little secret to ourselves?"

Dale glared at her for a moment but then relaxed into a smile. This was not a problem. In fact, it was exactly the game he loved to play. Clay was the brilliant technical mind of Hargrave Robotics, but he was the corporate bulldog who could ruthlessly out maneuver the toughest of adversaries and when it came to his love life there was little difference. The harder they come, the harder they fall and that single mind-blowing fuck she would inevitably submit to would be all the better for it.

"You're twisting this Lindsay and it's really not that way at all. Let me put it to you this way. You and Nena were kidnapped by some very ugly, very scary individuals who threatened your lives. Ruben, Clay and I have taken care of them. However, if you now go running to the police or even worse, to the press, then things could get very, very dangerous for you and for the wonderful little girl of yours. I would like to be able to guarantee your protection, and trust me, I can, but only if you don't advertise what happened to you. If you draw attention to yourself then believe me, the authorities won’t be able to do a thing to help you. You owe this to Nena and to yourself, to never, ever, breathe a word of this to anyone."

Dale waited. This would be enough - more than enough - and he was getting pretty excited thinking about it. This was a first for him. He had never met a hot prospect like Lindsay as a result of a mob kidnapping and daring rescue. It was a perfect scenario. If this didn't give him full Knight-in-Shining-Armor access to her pants then nothing would.

Lindsay watched him and weighed up her options.

This was a total first for her too. She had received threats from powerful men before but this time Nena was involved and that was a whole new ball game. She had of course called Marco from Pape'ete to tell him she was okay but also to let him know that she was working on the mother of all stories.

This story was out of control already despite what the great manipulator here thought he was doing.

On the other hand, she had also never been 'menaced' with being protected indefinitely and substantially rewarded by a billionaire with movie star looks who gave every indication of wanting to demolish her in the bedroom.

The two stared into each others' eyes and Lindsay felt her breathing get a little faster. God those eyes were something else. She could imagine them looking up at her as she…

"Lindsay, Lindsay, I was flying the plane! They let me fly the plane!" Nena shouted from the far end of the cabin, her feet pounding the floor as she raced to meet them.

"That's great honey." Lindsay said without taking her eyes off of Dale's.

Nena reached them and then halted. She looked back and forth between the two adults and blinked her big eyes.

"Are you two going to do it?" She asked.

Chapter Two

The two adults were shocked.

"Nena..." Lindsay gasped. "Don't say that."

"Don’t say 'do it'? Why not?"

"Just don’t say it, that's all, come on honey, we've got a long flight ahead of us, I think it's time for your bath. Don't you want to have a bath on a plane? You've never done that before."

"Sure Nena, why don’t you go on in and get ready. Your mommy and I--"

"I'm not her mom."

"I mean your auntie and I are just finishing up something here. She'll be along in a minute."

"Are you finishing up doing it?" Nena asked, without a trace of a smile.

"Just go, honey. Now." Lindsay ordered her firmly and the little girl marched off under protest.

When Lindsay looked back at Dale he had just the merest, most infuriating trace of a smile on his gorgeous lips.

"She's a very, very smart little lady." He said. "I bet she takes after her auntie a whole lot."

"She's very smart alright, smarter even than you think, but she's dead wrong about one thing."

"Oh really? And what's that?"

Lindsay leaned in close across the table to Dale and stared directly into his eyes. She rested her fingers onto the back of his hand. His breath stopped a moment and his cock stiffened uncomfortably in his pants.

"We are not doing it." She said. "And we are never going to do it. Period."

It couldn't have been more exciting to him than if she had promised him a series of blowjobs in the cockpit.

"Of course not." He smiled. "Never entered my head. Now before you go and take care of Nena I need just one thing from you and one thing only."

"What you need and what you will get may be two very different things." Her hand was still on his wrist. He had made no attempt to move it as yet.

"I may be just a big clumsy lug, but getting what I want is something I'm pretty good at. I'm also pretty good at getting other people what they want. Now as I said, in the interests of keeping both you and that little girl as safe as possible, I want your word… you word of honor, that you will not breathe a word of this to a soul and especially not to the press. If any journalist comes around asking questions, you just send them to me. I know exactly how to deal with their kind."

"Is that a fact? You seem to have something against them."

"In my position, unfortunately, there's always someone looking for a story and in my opinion they are the lowest of the low, worse even in some ways than those guys back on the island. At least those guys are honest about what they do. Journalists have no honor, no respect and no integrity. For them it's just all about the story. Now come on, look me in the eye and tell me that you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Do that one little thing for me and then we're good. We can all relax and enjoy our flight back to the US of A and whatever comes after that."

And whatever comes after that?
She thought. Was he just a manipulator or was he really that into her? Was she risking more than just his anger if she stood by her principles and revealed this story? Was this a potential relationship with a drop dead gorgeous, wonderful and highly successful man thrown out the window as well?

And what about Nena?

The brave little girl had suffered so much in the last couple of years. She needed a home, stability, something steady in her life and instead her stupid harebrained auntie had nearly ruined it all by taking her on this trip.

But if she didn’t bring home this story then it would all have been a waste of time. No story no job, maybe even no prospect of any future work in the field if Marco's company went under. In modern day America one setback could land you up in a homeless shelter if you were lucky on the streets if you weren't and nobody would give a damn. Meanwhile this guy would be still flying around the world in his Gulf Stream browbeating pretty girls into his bed at thirty-thousand feet.

This wasn't clear cut at all, but Dale was waiting for her to say something. Whatever it was, she would need to put some feeling into it.

"I'll do it." She said and the big man breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

He could see it had been a hard decision for her and he respected that. She lived in the ordinary world, the real world where you reported a crime to the cops and trusted the authorities to do their best even if you knew they didn't have a hope in hell. She was obviously a good person but also smart enough to realize that things weren't always as black and white as they seemed.

"I'll do it." She repeated. "But under one condition only."

He stared into her eyes again and felt his cock move. She was still resisting. This was going to be good.

"And your condition is?"

"That you tell me exactly what the hell went on back there. You want my silence then I need to know what the implications for Nena and I are. You owe that to me and you owe it to her. You need to tell me everything, no skimping on details. You do that I will absolutely, unequivocally guarantee my lifelong silence and that of Nena's as well."

She watched him closely. Had it been too much? It was a gamble, but if he went for it then she would have not only the bones of her big story but most of the flesh as well. Once she knew everything then she could decide if this was truly a public interest story or not.

The story comes first Lindsay. Always follow the story.

She looked at Dale and it was clear that something wasn't adding up for him. She had stretched the limits of his credulity too far and would have to act fast. Looking down at the floor she lowered her voice and drew her hand away from his.

"Okay." She said softly. "I understand. Whatever this is it's obviously more important to you than being honest with me. I'll take a leap of faith here that you're the good guy in all of this and stay quiet, but when we get back to the United States I don’t want anything from you. Just stay away from me and Nena. That's my condition."

If he was really as into her as she believed then that should be enough to tip him over the edge.

"That won’t be possible." He said. "You know that won’t be possible.  You're going to need the best protection money can buy and it will be ongoing for as long as it takes so one way or the other we are going to be in each others' lives. There's no way around that one."

"I'm sorry Hargrave, but you don’t get to dictate the terms of anything here." She flashed at him with calculated anger. She was playing a delicate game but it was one she had played before. If he was arrogant enough to think he was beyond the reach of a good journalist then he had another think coming. "If you're as honest as you proclaim yourself to be, unlike these sleazy press people you despise, then why don't you just come clean and threaten us."

"Now hold on a minute--"

"No,
you
hold on. You might think the law doesn’t apply to you because you have more money than God, but we're both from the same country - land of the free, remember?"

"It's not like that--"

"Now you either treat us with simple respect and tell me what the hell just happened to us or it's no deal. Maybe I can’t get to the bottom of this but I'm sure there are plenty of hungry investigative journalists out there who would love to sink their teeth into a story like this."

"I can't allow you to do that."

"Then be a man about it and make your threat already. What will you do to me and my eight year old niece if we do what we should do and go to the police and the press with this?"

Dale took in a deep, resigned breath and looked across the table at her. She was a feisty one alright. Boy oh boy how he would enjoy seeing those eyes stare up at him, that sexy little mouth contorted by climax after bone shaking climax. This girl badly needed some taming in the bedroom and he was just the man to do it.

"Lindsay…."

"Yes
Dale
?

He looked into her fearsomely sexy eyes again and tried hard to focus, but damn if she wasn’t clouding his mind with all that feminine fire. It was clear what he wanted, all he had to do now, if he really, really wanted it, was to reach out and take it. What the hell did he need to be afraid of anyway? Whether she knew the truth or not the reality was that she needed his protection and once he found whatever her leverage turned out to be he would squeeze her mouth shut for as long as he wanted. He could give her what she wanted, screw her royally, and then worry about the consequences later.

"Okay." He said. "I'll tell you everything. Then I get to guarantee your safety in return. For as long as it takes. Deal?"

"Really?" She said, genuinely surprised. "You'll really tell me everything?"

"Sure. You'll keep your mouth shut, I'm pretty sure of that. For your own good mostly. And besides, you tell any reporter what happened out there and they'll laugh you out the door. The truth is more bizarre than any fantasy a reporter could ever cook up."

Lindsay struggled to conceal just how much this meant to her. As an investigative journalist it was like dying and going to heaven. This sexy billionaire was about to reveal to her the inner workings of what could be the most crazy and ambitious shake down in living memory, complete with he-man heroes, evil mafia villains and selfless, daring female love interests. She wondered if it would be too much to ask if she took notes while he spoke. Normally she would have some kind of hidden recording device if she were about to do this. If she relied only on memory then he could simply deny everything, but if she had his deep, hunky and easily recognizable voice on tape then the story would be well and truly hers.

"Okay." She said. "We can arrange to meet when I'm back in DC."

Now it was his turn to be surprised. His usual instincts were being confounded. Did she want the story or not? He had almost counted on it to get her into the sack pretty much as soon they hit terra firma and got rid of the adorable but distinctly inconvenient, little princess who was still waiting for her bath time.

Something was up.

"You go take care of Nena and as soon as you're done I'll tell you the whole story. That's the deal."

They were back in stand-off mode again.

"What are you afraid of?" She said. "Do you think I'm going to bug our conversation? Invite a reporter to hide under the table while you spill your family's darkest secrets?"

"This part is not up for negotiation." He dug his heels in. "You can tell what you think you know to the press and have them laugh at you. Then you can spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder waiting for a visit from the Russian mob. If you're as smart as you look then you can swear to me that you'll be honorable and I will take your word at face value. Then I will tell you exactly what happened, where it happened and why in return for your acceptance of unlimited protection from my security team for as long as we together deem to be necessary. The choice is yours and you have until the end of bath-time to make it."

He stood up to return to the cockpit. It was his final bluff.

"I know you'll make the smart decision." He said and then walked away.

Lindsay watched him go and then pushed herself wearily from the seat, suddenly realizing just how incredibly exhausted she was from the events of the last couple of days, together with her accumulated jetlag from all the travelling.

Her legs felt like lead as she walked to the bedroom to find Nena. When she looked inside she was too tired even to be angry. The little girl hadn’t even started to get ready for her bath but she had found the time to drag all the bedclothes from the bed and build a tent using the rest of the furniture in the middle of the floor. The room, which had been immaculate, looked like it had been rearranged by a small herd of mountain goats.

"Nena…" She said helplessly. As much as she adored her niece the last year taking care of her had been a struggle for her as well. Children had never been her thing and it had been a huge learning curve for her. She wondered if she would ever get it right. She went down onto her hands and knees and crept inside the tent where Nena was sitting with her knees drawn up tightly to her chest.

"You took a long time." She said.

Lindsay lay down on the floor next to her, her long legs sticking out through the door of the bedspread teepee.

"I'm sorry honey, Dale and I had a lot of things to talk about."

She put her head down on the floor and closed her eyes.

"You mean like, love stuff?" Nena said, peeking out from behind her knees.

A sudden pang of sorrow went through Lindsay. It was obvious what the little girl wanted. How could a child that young, any child her age possibly understand the loss of not one but of both parents? Of course she wanted to replace them, somehow, bring them back to life in some form, but Lindsay just wasn't the person to do that. How could she with her job and her crazy lifestyle? Not mention her god damn grating personality that drove every sane man away from her. The guy she would end up with, if she ever did, would have to be crazier than her with a skin as thick as rhino-hide to put up with all of her bullshit.

"I'm so sorry sweetie…" She said, resisting the urge to drift off into sleep. "that's just not going to happen, not with Dale."