Fiona McArthur – Dreaming Of... Bali: The Man to Be Reckoned With / Nine Month Countdown / Harry St Clair: Rogue or Doctor? (страница 6)
“I’ve no right to speak of her, true, but I’m sure she would never have wanted you to hate him all your life. Everyone’s always talking about what a generous and kind lady she was and—”
He flinched as though she had laid a hand on him. “You have no idea what she’d have wanted.” He stood at the window, just as Drew had done, his wide frame blocking the sunlight from coming in. Contrary to the cold, heartless man she had called him, he looked like a volcano of simmering emotions.
“Get out. I have nothing more to say to you.”
Riya closed the door behind her, her legs shaking. Panic pounded through her.
Would he break Travelogue into pieces? How could she fight to keep what was hers? How was she to convince him that it was only Robert’s haunting pain that had driven her to this?
Her head reeling, she stepped into the huge, open area laid out with open cabins.
The staff had already figured out that Drew was gone. The faint scraping and shuffling of chairs, the concerned glances in her direction—they were looking to her to provide some direction.
But Riya had no way to save the day, no answer to give to those hopeful looks. She grabbed her handbag and left, unable to think of anything else but temporary escape.
* * *
Nathan stared at the closed door, still trying to control his raging emotions. One flimsy, fragile woman had so nearly eroded his self-control.
It had taken him a few years to get over the grief of his mother’s death, to accept the fatality of his own condition. He’d been so scared, alone and he’d lashed out at the world.
But in the end, he had not only accepted it but also tailored his life to live it without being haunted by the fear of dying every minute. Had made sure he’d not formed an attachment to anyone, made sure that no relationship could leave him weak. Like the way it had left his mother in the end.
Had gloried in each day he had, lived it to the fullest.
Today, he hadn’t been able to help himself from taunting the manipulative minx, from pushing her. But for all the steely will with which she had manipulated him, there was a naiveté to her that cooled his interest. In a million years, he wouldn’t have expected his father to command such loyalty in anyone. So much that she was risking everything she owned.
But nothing he did or could do would shake that resolve. Despite the very clever way she had manipulated Maria and taken advantage of his attachment to the estate, he had to admire that resolve. And she was right about one more thing.
Engaging his father in a legal battle would gain him nothing but a deadlock for years to come. He would win in the end, but when, he didn’t know.
Time was the one thing that Nate didn’t have the luxury or certainty of.
He wanted that estate, and convincing Riya to sell it back to him as soon as possible would be the biggest win of his life. He couldn’t dismantle her company for no good reason, couldn’t just play with the livelihood of so many people.
But he had learned enough about the smart, steel-willed beauty. Just the thought of those beautiful eyes widening with awareness and shock, the way she held herself rigid when he had neared her, brought a smile to his face.
He was going to enjoy convincing her to sell the estate to him.
BY THE TIME Riya drove past the electronically manned gates and along the gravel driveway lined with the tall century-old oaks, she was still wondering what she would say to Jackie or how she would bring up the subject of Nathan. Jackie had the most singular way of looking at the world and the people in it. Only interested in how they affected her own life and happiness.
Riya pulled the window down and took a deep breath. The smell of pine needles and the fragrance of the roses greeted her.
The sight of the mansion emerging just as the driveway straightened always revived her, filled her with an indescribable joy. For her, the brick mansion meant home.
Driving around the courtyard, she pulled into the garage, parked and leaned her forehead on the steering wheel. Disappointment and a perverse anger filled her. Nathan didn’t love the estate as she did, had been gone for a decade without a thought for it.
Would probably kick them all out,
Grabbing her laptop bag and her handbag, she stepped out of her car. All she wanted was to have a bath and sink into her bed and deal with everything tomorrow. She entered the vast, homely kitchen through the back door intending to go up quietly when Jackie called her.
Dressed in a cream silk pantsuit, she looked perfectly put together, as always. Except for the frown marring her brow.
“Riya! I’ve been calling you for hours and you didn’t answer a single time.” Her painted mouth trembled. “He’s here, just...appeared out of thin air, after all these years.”
Riya froze, her gaze flying around the house, her heart ratcheting in her chest. Fighting the rising panic, because of course it had always fallen to her to be the calm one, she straightened her spine. “Mom,” she said loudly. “Calm down.”
She called her that so infrequently now that Jackie looked at her with alarm.
“Now tell me clearly what happened.”
“Nathaniel is here,” her mother said, awe coating her words. “Apparently he’s some big-shot billionaire who can ruin us with one word or—”
“He said that to you?”
“Of course not. He won’t even meet my eyes. It’s as if I’m not there, standing right in front of him. That witch Maria said it. He looks so different too, all lean and so coldly distant and arrogant.”
Riya nodded, surprised that Jackie had noticed it too. There was something she couldn’t pinpoint about Nathan either. A sort of cool detachment, a layer of frost as if nothing or no one could touch him. And yet he had been so angry when she refused to sign over the estate.
“Even Maria took a few seconds to recognize him. He just stood there looking as if he owned the place, when he didn’t even ask after Robert all these years.” Riya bit the inside of her cheek to keep from correcting her mother that the estate
How? She hadn’t even seen his car in the garage. “Where is he? Did he say what he wants?”
“He’s been wandering around the estate, drops in every half hour or so. Maria said he wants to see you.”
Riya’s heart sank to her feet.
A calculating look emerged in her mother’s eyes, her panic forgotten. “Why
“Hello, Riya.”
Every time he said her name, it was like flipping a switch on inside her. A caress. An invitation. For what, she didn’t even want to speculate. Her skin tingling, Riya turned.
He stood at the huge arched entrance into the kitchen.
Once again, Riya felt the impact of his presence like a magnet pulled toward a slab of iron.
The beard was still unshaved, but he had changed. Now his clothes reflected the casual power he exuded so easily. The rumpled shirt had been exchanged for a white dress shirt and a formal jacket this time. The snowy-white collar a contrast against his sunburned skin. His hair gleamed with wetness, looked more black than brown.
He looked knee-meltingly gorgeous. Case in point, her knees practically buckled beneath her.
“You didn’t come back to the office, haven’t been answering my calls,” he said, waving his cell phone.
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to be at your beck and call,” she retorted, not trusting the invasive intimacy of his smile. In fact, she had liked him better when he was angry and threatening. “Not everything I do is about you.”
That small smile turned into a grin, and his teeth gleamed against his tanned skin. It lit up his whole face, softening the harsh angles of his features. And the mouth...she had been right. It was made for smiling and something else that she didn’t want to think about.
“From now on, it’s going to be all about me,” he said, stretching his arms by his sides. The casual gesture drew her gaze to the breadth of his shoulders. That jacket was cut perfectly, following the wide swath of his shoulders and the narrowing of his waist.
Alarm spiked through her. “No.”
“I have a proposition for you.” Something glimmered in his gaze. “You’re not chickening out already, are you?”
Jackie gasped, and Riya wondered if her mother could explode from the tension radiating from her. She infused steel into her voice. “We don’t have a deal.”
“We do now. You’ve...
There was no way to arrest the heat blooming up her face. He was doing it on purpose. Saying her name like that, insinuating with that smile that there was more between them than his hatred and her risky gamble. She wanted to run away and hide in her bedroom, hope it was all a bad dream.
Next to her, Jackie began again. “Riya, how dare you not tell me—”