“You have one thing to offer, and it’s the location of the property. That’s where your value begins and ends.” I let my gaze linger over her curves. Her beautiful breasts. The flare of her thighs. I long to get between them. Patience, patience. “Well, I suppose you have some other value.”
Her cheeks flush, but she doesn’t take the bait. “The construction on the Cornerstone development is already in progress. The design is—”
I laugh at her. Interrupt her. Cut her off. “The design is atrocious. I won’t attach my name to the project until I’m in charge of it. Who approved the plans for those apartments, anyway? I’m guessing it was your father, and from the looks of them, he was in the middle of a bender when he agreed. They’re going to need an engineer to sort through them.”
“The apartments will be beautiful,” she insists, and her eyes cut to the floor for a blink. So it was her. Innocent Charlotte Van Kempt had a hand in this. “They’re going to be—they’ll be highly sought after. There’s a lot of money in this for you.”
“A lot of money in saving a business on the brink of collapse? No, Ms. Van Kempt, there is not. What you’re asking for is charity.” I tap my knuckles against the papers on the desk, and she can’t help it—she looks. Her eyes move down, and without all that blue clouding my vision I can drink the rest of her in. The dip in her throat where I could feel her pulse. The elegant slope of her shoulders. She’s dressed for the meeting to hide herself from me, but she failed. I might not have noticed how well my hand would fit around her neck if she’d already had diamonds. “You and your family don’t need an investment. You need a rescue.”
“That’s not what this is. I’ll admit that we have a problem. Of course we do. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. But I—we—don’t need to be rescued.”
“A company like mine doesn’t partner with a disaster like yours.”
“Then why did you send the offer?”
“It got you here, Ms. Van Kempt. Surely you know that the first offer is never final. It’s only the opening move.”
She didn’t know, and I get the pleasure of watching her understanding come in real time. So sweet. So naive. The offer I put together was a lure, and she was desperate enough to bite. “You did all that just to get a meeting with me?”
“Are you surprised?”
“I thought you were an honest businessman.”
“Right,” I say, my voice dry. This coming from Cyrus’s own daughter. A more dishonest businessman doesn’t exist. She’s been working with him. She must know the dirty details, even if she looks pure as snow. An idea forms in my head. I can get revenge on the father in more ways than one. I can fuck his daughter. And God, will I enjoy it.
I have a short, intensely erotic daydream involving the slow unraveling of one society brat. The shock. The tears. Fuck yes.
“If you didn’t intend to keep the offer, then you’re wasting my time.”
“Let me be clear.” Her eyes come to mine and pain trips through my knee. Damn the adrenaline. Damn the scent of her in the air between us. Damn the memory of that slim skirt, hidden from me by my own desk. “It took no time to make the offer. It will take even less to withdraw it. I can invest my money in a thousand buildings in New York City. I could have you escorted out of the building in the blink of an eye, but I don’t think you want me to do that.”
“How would you know?” she challenges, and a gust of wind picks up a spray of raindrops. It hurls them against the window. Sharp like hail. Sharp enough to cut this soft, innocent thing standing in my office.
“Because you’re still here. You haven’t taken one step toward the door. You’re probably wet from how badly the money turns you on. Your company’s on the brink of bankruptcy. Not to mention the sad state of your family’s finances. You want this deal, Ms. Van Kempt, but that’s not the worst part.”
She can’t help herself. “What, then? What could be worse than that?”
“How desperately you need it.”
3
Charlotte
I hate Mason Hill.
I hate the perfect fall of his dark hair, and I hate the cruel curve of his lips, and I hate the brilliant green of his eyes. They shouldn’t look so deep, so vivid, in the gray, natural light of his office. He takes up all the air available to breathe. Even his clothes feel like a scold. The dark, flawless suit was made for him. I can tell by the precise stitching and the way the sleeves fall just so on his wrists. His jacket moves with him, with no ill-fitted tug at the shoulders, and all of it might as well be an advertisement for what has to be a perfect body underneath.
God, he’s such an asshole. Such an asshole. I know why he wanted to stay standing now. So he could tower over me. Make me look up at him. It’s tiring, standing in heels. Standing up to him.
What I hate most of all is how right he is. The glint in his eyes when he said how desperately you need it made a cold knot form in my gut. It also made my face burn.
And the word need in his mouth while the rich green of his eyes settled on my skin—
I don’t feel like I’m standing in an office building on 6th Street. I feel like I’m standing in the lion’s den. I feel like someone pushed me in and slammed the gate behind me, and now I’m in here with an apex predator.
But Mason Hill isn’t dangerous. He’s just a prick with the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen and a killer suit. His hands move at the button, and I look. I can’t help it. The jacket parts to reveal the perfect tuck of his shirt over what must be carved-out abs.
It reveals the leather stripe of his belt. And the buckle—it’s a Tom Ford, a thousand dollars at least. It’s like a magnet. Draws the eye. It’s an understated style. It looks like it was made to be around his hips. Like it only found purpose in the loops of his slacks. Oh, god, his hands would look so good, unbuckling that belt, so strong and right.
I can’t look away until I do, and then there’s nowhere to look but back into his face.
His smile gets sharper. It makes me feel strangely powerless, even though I’m the one standing closer to the door. I could walk out and never speak to him again. I should. He’s being awful. Insulting. He knew I would look when he undid that button on his jacket. He’s pushing me. Almost as if he’s trying to make me give up and leave.
Not today. Not this meeting. I came here to fix things for my family. And I’m going to fix things for my family.
No matter how much it rankles that he’s right, we do need him. Far more than he needs us. He doesn’t need us at all. We’re nothing to him. And he’s the only hope I have right now. Mason Hill’s offer is the only one that’s come in. There’s no one else.
“If you want a majority stake in the company, I’ll have to take this back to the CEO.”
“Yes, yes. Your daddy will need to sign. I’m sure he can be convinced. Someone needs to pay for his next bottle of vodka.”
Mason’s eyes glitter. The color there takes my breath away, but so does the comparison. My father’s the CEO of a company on the brink of failure, an alcoholic with no power, and Mason could not be more powerful. It radiates from the hard muscles beneath his clothes. I hate him, and I would kill to see him without the slacks and the shirt—I want to know what all that strength looks like when it’s not hidden by cloth. It’s a terrible thing to want.