Because You Are Mine Part VI: Because You Torment Me Read Online Free PDF

infuriating games of cat and mouse and sign on the dotted line. I think I’ve finally sweetened the deal sufficiently to something even that greedy prick can’t refuse,” he muttered under his breath as he led her down the silent plush hallways of his penthouse.
    “Oh,” Francesca said, practically running to keep up with his long-legged stride. She was surprised he’d asked her to such an important business meeting.
Was it entirely wise on his part
, she wondered, as the nerve butterflies started to flicker around in her belly. Her parents would certainly have said it was a terrible decision on Ian’s part. “Where do we have reservations?”
    “At Sixteen,” he said, pulling her into his bedroom suite and shutting the door after them.
    She blinked. “Ian, that’s one of the nicest restaurants in the city,” she said, panic starting to encroach. “I haven’t got anything to wear to a dinner like that . . . in one hour!” she added, horrified by the realization. “Did you reserve another private room?”
    “No.” He waved at her in a follow-me gesture. He opened the door and flipped on a light. She entered, staring around in wonder at the rows of perfectly hung suits. She’d thought it was a closet, but it was a dressing room. It was bigger than her bedroom, long and narrow. The scent of Ian’s aftershave clung in the air along with the smell of something pleasant and spicy. She noticed perfectly aligned cedar hangers and rows and rows of highly buffed shoes, and realized the hangers and cedar shoe trees were the origin of the scent.
    Ian waved his hand in front of a rack, and she stared for a moment, not comprehending what she was seeing.
    Why were there
dresses
in his closet? And women’s shoes and accessories?
    Her throat suddenly seemed to swell closed. She stared at him, aghast.
    “I’m not wearing other women’s clothes!” she said, stung to the core that he’d even suggest her putting on clothing that had once belonged to his former lovers.
    He looked a little nonplussed by her reaction. “They aren’t
other women’s
clothes. They’re yours.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Margarite had them delivered yesterday. They’re off-the-rack,” he said almost apologetically, “but she had them tailored for you.”
    “Margarite,” Francesca said slowly, as if pronouncing a foreign word for the first time. “Why would Margarite have done that?”
    “Because I told her to, of course.”
    For a moment, they just stared at each other in his still dressing room.
    “Ian, I told you specifically I didn’t want clothing from you,” she said, anger rising.
    “And I told you that there would be occasions I wanted you to attend with me where you couldn’t wear jeans, Francesca. Tonight is one of them. I also asked you to wear your new hairpins this evening,” he said so briskly it drove her off course. “Where are they?”
    “
Wha
 . . . in my purse,” she sputtered. “In the studio.”
    He nodded once. “I’ll go and get them for you. In the meantime, you can shower and get ready. You’ll find lingerie there,” he said, nodding in the direction of a small antique chest of drawers near where the dresses hung. He started to walk out of the room.
    “Ian—”
    He turned around, his stare like a flicking whip. “I won’t argue with you about this. Do you want to be with me tonight?” he asked quietly.
    “I . . .
yes
, you know that I do.”
    “Then get ready and choose one of the dresses. You can’t attend a dinner like this in jeans.”
    He left her standing there, her mouth hanging open, her nerves tingling with anger. She tried to think of a way around it but couldn’t. It was true what he’d said. She couldn’t be escorted by Ian Noble to the main dining room of one of the nicest, most luxurious restaurants in the city dressed like this.
    Looking like
her.
    Her anger simmered at his heavy-handedness, though. For some reason, memories of her father’s