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He didn’t need anyone.
Spencer went to the window overlooking Central Park, which was abloom with cherry blossom and the bright lime green of new growth on the trees and grasslands. New York in any season was vibrant and exciting, but in spring it had a magical energy about it, a sense of hope and positivity and expectancy.
He had to make The Harrington his in every sense of the word. It was his trophy to claim, to show his family he had a right to the Chatsfield name, even if Chatsfield blood didn’t flow in his veins. So what if he was a little ruthless? Wasn’t every successful person? He couldn’t allow sentimentality to get in the way of a good business deal.
Although there was a small corner of his mind that allowed Isabelle had been badly done by. Her older brother, Jonathan, was a waste of space and had proved that notion by allowing Spencer to think Isabelle was agreeable to his takeover bid. Spencer had already assured Gene Chatsfield the deal was in the bag, so when Isabelle had roundly slapped him down he’d had to regroup, to come up with a different plan to convince his uncle he hadn’t done the wrong thing in promoting him as CEO.
Spencer knew he would have to tell Isabelle about her brother’s treachery at some point, but he knew from experience how difficult familial relationships were. It had taken years for him to reunite with his brother Ben after he’d found out the truth about his biological origins.
He knew he could also tell her that he wasn’t the one who had orchestrated that stupid bet. His mate Tom from university had heard about the beautiful American girl he’d met at a party in London while she was studying at business college. Unbeknownst to Spencer, Tom had laid money with another mate on how long it would take Spencer to get her in bed. Isabelle had found out about the bet via a mutual acquaintance who—like her—assumed he was the one behind it. He had taken offence at her ready assumption he was responsible for something so puerile and offensive. But at the time he’d been too proud and stubborn to defend himself. It wasn’t in his nature to beg or grovel. If she believed him capable of such nonsense, then what did it matter? It hadn’t occurred to him to fight for the relationship—or at least not then. With him based in London and her based in New York their relationship would have fizzled out sooner or later anyway.
But over time, the fact she had ended their relationship and not him had begun to annoy him. To agitate him like a blister that wouldn’t quite heal. He’d considered contacting her and explaining the circumstances surrounding the bet, but then Tom had been killed a few weeks later in a skiing accident and Spencer had decided to let his mate’s reputation rest in peace.
It left a sour feeling knowing that Isabelle hated him so vehemently now. It seemed so petty. Lots of exes managed to get over their differences over time, and some even became friends. The takeover didn’t help matters but at the end of the day she was a businesswoman at heart. Surely she could see this was the only way forward?
But then, he wasn’t here to win a popularity contest. He was here to win. Period. He had to make this deal work, otherwise it would prove every lingering doubt he’d harboured since finding out he wasn’t the firstborn son of Michael Chatsfield.
He was a bastard, a product of an illicit affair his mother had had as a payback to Michael for neglecting her. He hadn’t even had the chance to meet his real father, as he had died some years before. It left a blank hole inside him, a gaping hollow space that could never be filled. The knowledge of his illegitimacy set him apart from the Chatsfield family like a mongrel dog stands out at a pedigree show. No matter how hard he worked, no matter how committed he was to the Chatsfield brand—he would never belong.
Isabelle went back to her suite to check on Atticus. He was stretched out on the middle of her bed and opened one eye as she came in before closing it again. ‘Nice to be some people,’ she said. ‘I wish I could spend all day in bed.’ Her belly gave a little quiver as she thought of Spencer and how his touch had short-circuited her senses. She clenched her jaw. ‘Alone. Just in case you’re thinking I still have a thing for him, which I don’t. Chatsfield men are all the same. He’s arrogant and up himself. He thinks he can pick up where he left off. I saw it in his eyes. I know what he’s thinking. He’s looking for someone to pass the time with while he’s here. But I’m not falling for that. Oh, no.’
Isabelle scrolled through her contacts on her phone to call the vet, but was quickly reassured that unless Atticus was coughing or vomiting excessively he would probably be fine as long as she groomed him regularly and gave him a bit of butter in his food to aid his digestion. She put down her phone and looked at the purring cat. She sighed and leaned over and stroked his silky thick fur. ‘I didn’t really mean it about the tortoiseshell.’
She glanced at her laptop where she’d left it next to her bed. She’d always thought Internet dating was a little desperate, but heck, she was desperate. She had to get herself a date or two before Spencer got under her skin, inside her head or—worse—inside her heart.
She logged in on a popular site and within a few minutes had organised a drink after work with an IT guy called Jacques from Cobble Hill. How easy was dating these days? Just wait till she told her sister Eleanore, who was always banging on about her having no work/life balance.
Isabelle went back downstairs but on her way to her office Enrico Perez, the duty manager, intercepted her. ‘Miss Harrington, we’re putting Mr Chatsfield in the Manhattan-side penthouse suite on your floor.’
Her heart gave a pony kick against her breastbone. ‘He’s staying in-house?’
‘I hope that’s not a problem?’ Enrico said. ‘He’s only here for a week or two while he sorts out the takeover.’
She gritted her teeth. Did everyone have to keep reminding her? Takeover schmake-over. She was sick to death of Spencer gloating over his win. The press would be running wild with the news by now. They had been following her cat-and-mouse battle with him for months. She’d been ignoring calls for the past hour from nosy journalists. Every network would be flashing with the headline Successful Takeover of Harrington by Chatsfield Chain. It made her want to puke. ‘Isn’t there any other suite you can give him?’ she said. ‘What about the Madison or the Roosevelt suite?’ What about another hotel!
Enrico shook his head. ‘Both are booked out for the next three weeks. We could put him in one of the standard suites, but I thought you’d like to show him what The Harrington can offer in terms of top-end luxury.’
Isabelle chewed at the inside of her mouth before blowing out her cheeks. ‘Fine. But why the hell doesn’t he stay at The Chatsfield? Or if he’s so wealthy, why not in his own Upper East Side apartment?’
‘Maybe he’s like you,’ Enrico said evenly. ‘He likes to live and breathe work.’
She pressed her lips together, sending him a defensive look. ‘I do have a social life, you know.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘You’ve worked extremely hard for the hotel. But it would be a shame if you didn’t have someone to share the burden with.’
She straightened her shoulders. ‘I don’t consider it a burden.’
Or at least I didn’t until this morning when Spencer Chatsfield strode into town.
‘Are there any special touches you’d like to put in Mr Chatsfield’s suite?’ Enrico asked. ‘He’s with the family in the boardroom so now would be a good time to show him some of the bespoke service The Harrington is famous for.’
Isabelle felt a spurt of devilry galvanise her flagging spirits. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll make up his room myself.’
The housekeeping staff had just finished cleaning the room when Isabelle arrived with a hotel tradesman carrying two large mirrors on a luggage trolley. ‘Thanks, Rosa,’ she said. ‘I’ll sort out the rest for Mr Chatsfield’s stay.’
‘Yes, Miss Harrington,’ Rosa said.
Isabelle directed the tradesman to the bedroom. ‘Hang one mirror on the ceiling and the other on the wall at the foot of the bed.’
The tradesman’s brows lifted. ‘The new CEO specifically asked for these?’
She gave him a cool tight smile. ‘You know what those Chatsfield boys are like. Better make sure the ceiling one is secure. We wouldn’t want it to fall down and flatten him in the middle of a threesome, now would we?’
Isabelle waited until the tradesman had completed the task and left the suite before she opened the large tote bag she’d brought with her. She smiled a cat’s smile as she took out the array of colourfully packaged condoms in every texture and colour she’d bought at a local pharmacy. She propped them packet by packet in a high tower on the bedside table along with a maxi pump pack of lubricant. She put some handmade chocolates on the pillow, which she’d quickly got the chef to pipe Spencer’s initials on. There was a bottle of French champagne—the one she knew Spencer preferred—in an ice bucket and two crystal Harrington glasses, each with an engraved H in silver. She took out two long black satin ribbons a metre each in length and tied them to the bedposts in giant bows. She hung a pair of handcuffs on the top knob of the bedside drawer and laid a velvet blindfold on one of the pillows. She scattered some fresh rose petals all over the bed and then stepped back to admire her handiwork.
‘Very nice,’ a deep male voice said from behind her.
Isabelle whirled around so quickly she felt light-headed. But maybe that was more to do with seeing Spencer standing there with a satirical smile on his face. She quickly schooled her features into her ice-maiden mask. ‘Just checking your room is tailor-made to suit your requirements.’
His blue eyes shone with a spark of amusement…or was it mockery? She could never quite tell. ‘You Harringtons certainly know how to fine-tune the personal touches.’
She kept her gaze trained on his even though she could feel her face glowing with betraying heat. ‘If there’s anything I’ve overlooked, then please let me know.’
He glanced at the mirror on the ceiling and then the bed with its lurid accoutrements. ‘No whip?’ he said, still with that glinting smile.
Isabelle suppressed a traitorous rush of lust as his eyes moved over her body and gave him an arctic look instead. ‘I decided against one in case you start cracking it in places it’s not welcome.’
He sauntered over to the table and lifted the bottle of champagne out of the ice bucket. ‘Will you join me?’
She hitched her chin to a sanctimonious height. ‘I never drink on the job.’
‘Surely one small one to celebrate the takeover won’t hurt you?’
Isabelle ground her teeth until she was sure they were down a centimetre. ‘You’re lapping this up, aren’t you? Any chance you get you want to rub my nose in it. Next you’ll be saying we should have a party to celebrate your latest acquisition.’
He gave her an indolent smile. ‘How’d you guess?’
Her mouth dropped open. ‘You’re serious?’ His eyes held hers. ‘Never more so, and I want you to organise it.’
Isabelle swung away with a muttered swear word, holding her arms so tightly around her body her lungs could barely inflate enough to breathe. Was there no end to this humiliating torture? Why was he doing this? It would be excruciating to have to celebrate the takeover in public, to put on a happy face as if all was right with her world. The world he had all but stolen from her. ‘You’re un-freaking-believable.’
‘You’ve held functions here before, have you not?’
She turned and speared him with a fulminating glare. ‘Yes, but none with topless dancing girls jumping out of cakes.’
The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘My cousin Lucca doesn’t have those sorts of parties now he’s married to Lottie.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it.’
He rubbed his chin between his index finger and thumb in a musing fashion, the sound of his stubble catching on his skin making Isabelle’s insides coil tightly with desire. She remembered all too well how sexy his raspy skin felt against her smoother one. How it had left red marks on her face when he’d kissed her. Why, oh, why couldn’t she forget? If only she could wipe her memory of him, of all she had experienced in his arms, then maybe she could get through this with at least some fragment of her pride intact.
‘I was thinking something a little more classy,’ he said.
She gave him a contemptuous look. ‘Somehow that’s not a word I readily associate with you.’
The line of his mouth hardened a fraction but then his phone rang and he dismissed her with a look as he answered it. ‘I released a press statement this morning,’ he said to the person on the phone. ‘I already gave an interview half an hour ago. Yes, that’s right. Miss Harrington is delighted with the outcome and is as we speak organising a ball to celebrate the takeover.’
Isabelle glared at him, mouthing, ‘What the …?’
He held up his hand like a stop sign. ‘Yes, we have an excellent working relationship…Yes, you can quote me.’ He clicked off his phone and slipped it back in his trouser pocket. ‘Journalists. I swear I’ve had fifty calls and it’s not even lunchtime.’
She flattened her mouth. ‘You told them I was happy about this? Are you out of your mind? Who’s going to believe it?’
‘Do you know nothing about marketing?’
Isabelle aligned her shoulders, bristling with impotent rage. ‘You have no right to speak to the press on my behalf. I’ll give my own exclusive interview when I’m good and ready and tell them what a prize jerk you are.’
A muscled tightened near his mouth and his blue eyes hardened to flint. ‘You want people to come to this hotel?’ he said. ‘Then you have to show them this is a place that’s buzzing. Not with gossip and innuendo but with a can-do vibe. Show a little professionalism, Isabelle. You’ve got a good product but you’re not showcasing it to its potential.’
She glared at him all the more furiously, her heart pounding with a surge of adrenalin. ‘So you’re basically telling me I’m crap at my job? Is that what you’re saying?’
He raised his eyes to the ceiling in a God-give-me-patience manner. ‘Look, let’s sit down and discuss this like two adults and …’
She planted her hands on her hips. ‘So now you’re implying I’m childish.’
He drew in a deep breath and released it. ‘You’re giving a very fine impression of a kid having a tantrum because things haven’t gone your way. Quit it with the teddy tossing so we can get on with the job of running this hotel.’
Isabelle stepped right up to him, poking a finger to his sternum. ‘Take that back. Now.’
He stood like a block of marble. Intractable. Immovable. His steely gaze holding hers in an unwavering lock that made the floor of her belly shiver like a breeze whispering across the surface of a lake. ‘I’m not apologising for stating a fact,’ he said. ‘Grow up or get out.’
She drilled her finger further into the concrete-hard wall of his chest. ‘You want me to leave? Then you’ll have to carry me out because I’m not go—hey! What the hell are you doing? Put me down!’
He scooped her up and carried her fireman-style to the door of his suite. Isabelle drummed his back and shoulders with her fists, kicking her legs up and down like a kid having a tantrum—the irony of which didn’t escape her—but she was beyond caring. How dare he treat her like this? What if one of her staff saw her carried out of his suite like a sack of potatoes? She would never live it down. Hatred surged like a flood inside her. It threatened to burst out of every pore of her skin. She dug her fingernails into his back, intent on inflicting as much physical hurt as the emotional hurt he was inflicting on her.
He let out a vicious curse and dumped her unceremoniously on the floor in front of him. The only reason she landed on her feet and not on her head was because he had dragged her down the front of his body, every hard plane and contour coming into contact with hers. ‘Stop it, you crazy little wildcat,’ he growled.
Isabelle was breathing hard. How she would love to wipe that imperious look off his too-handsome face, but his hands had shackled hers. She felt the steel bracelet of his fingers overlapping her wrists where her pulse was skyrocketing. His touch burned her, ignited her senses into a heated frenzy. She knew if she didn’t get away from him she would shamefully betray herself.
She tried to bring her knee to his groin but he countered it by pushing her back against the office door, his arms pinning hers either side of her head in a cage of latent male strength. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
She gave him a gimlet glare, trying to ignore the warm minty scent of his breath as it mingled with hers. Trying to ignore the unbearable temptation of his grimly set mouth. Desperately trying to ignore the ridge of his swelling erection in response to her being flush against him. Her body recognised the primal call of the flesh, of the urge of raw earthy lust she had suppressed for most of her adult life. He triggered it like no one else could. It was a force that was as unstoppable as a rising king tide. She could feel it moving in her blood, the pulse of need so strong, so consuming, it overcame any mental obstacle she had put up to resist him. Her pelvis ached to get even closer as the heat and potency of his arousal hardened. The air was so thick with erotic tension it all but vibrated. ‘You never used to be so caveman-ish,’ she said. ‘Or have things got so desperate you have to club your partners into submission?’
His eyes dipped to her mouth, his hands around her wrists loosening a fraction. ‘I really want to kiss you right now but something tells me that would be dangerous.’
She gave him an arch look. ‘Because I’ll scratch your eyes out?’
He gave a low chuckle of laughter. ‘That’s not the only risk.’ He tipped up her chin, his thumb pressing down on her lower lip, on and off like he was pressing a switch. ‘Kissing can lead to other things.’
‘Face slaps?’
His smile was ruefully lopsided. ‘I probably deserved it given the circumstances.’
Isabelle frowned. ‘What circumstances? You wanted my hotel and you brazenly came after it. What other circumstances can there be other than your bull-headed arrogance?’
He dropped his hold and stepped back from her. ‘Your brother gave me the impression you were okay with the takeover.’
Her frown deepened. ‘What? And you believed him given our history?’
He rubbed a hand over the top of his head. ‘Yeah, I know. Dumb of me, but I didn’t know he knew about our history. Hardly anyone did, remember?’
Isabelle remembered all too well, and when their fling had ended she was immensely grateful for it. For some reason Spencer had kept her out of the eye of the press, unusual for him at the time. Also unusual was the fact their relationship hadn’t been a one-, two-or three-night stand. It had actually been a relationship…or so she had thought. He had seen her for close to a month, every night, even during the day when his work schedule and her study timetable allowed. That was why her expectations had been so ridiculously high, foolishly naively high. He had never shown any other girl the attention he had shown her. He had made her feel as if she was someone special. He had bought her gorgeous jewellery and bunch after bunch of flowers, expensive chocolates, champagne suppers, taken her dancing till the wee hours in exclusive intimate clubs where the press didn’t harass them. She had allowed herself to think he was falling in love with her. She had even thought he was going to propose to her, that he was only biding his time so as not to rush her. How could she have not seen it for what it was? No wonder he’d kept her away from the press. He hadn’t wanted his reputation as a playboy tainted by such seemingly smitten behaviour.
All her girlhood dreams of being swept off her feet by a handsome man who saw her as his soul mate were destroyed when she’d heard about the wager. The hurt had been devastating. Crushing. Cutting her hopes to shreds. Leaving her bitter and angry and feeling exploited in a way she had never felt before. She had given him everything of herself and yet she had been little more to him than a game.
But then to add salt to an already festering wound, a couple of weeks after their breakup she’d found out she was pregnant. The shock had been paralysing. She did a total of twenty tests, one after the other, day after day, week after week, desperately hoping it was a mistake, that she’d somehow misread the results. But each and every time the two lines would appear.
Her mind couldn’t accept it even as her body started to show the signs—the nausea, the breast tenderness, the relentless tiredness. How could she possibly be pregnant? The question had been on a constant loop in her brain. They had used protection every time. It couldn’t possibly be true. She went even further into a state of denial, burying herself deep in it in the desperate hope that things would magically return to normal.
Week after week went past and still she kept the knowledge to herself, unable to think of how to handle a baby and her career, not to mention telling Spencer he was to become a father.
Her confusion over the prospect of becoming a mother and thus being tied to Spencer for ever through the bond of their child had added another layer of anguish. She didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of a termination but neither did she want to be in contact with Spencer. Ever.
But just as she was starting to get her head and heart around the idea of being a mother she’d lost the baby just before the four-month mark. She told no one but Sophie. The only thing she had left of her tiny baby was an ultrasound image. It had been a little girl.
‘In hindsight I should’ve realised you wouldn’t let the hotel go without a fight,’ Spencer said into the bruised silence. ‘But he was pretty convincing, said you were on board with it. That you thought it was a good move forward for The Harrington.’
Isabelle rolled her eyes and moved away from the door, pointedly rubbing at her wrists where his hands had imprisoned her. ‘Did you think of calling me first to see what I thought about it?’
He looked at her for a long moment. ‘Would you have taken my call?’
She let out a long whoosh of a breath. ‘You may have a point.’
Another little silence passed.
‘I know you’re angry about the way things have been handled,’ he said. ‘I would be too, if the roles were reversed. But I want this to work, Isabelle. I want to make The Harrington a success. But I can’t do that if you’re working against me. We have to do this as a team or not at all.’
Isabelle pulled at her lower lip with her teeth. ‘What if we don’t share the same vision for the hotel? You’re a Chatsfield. You have that brand hardwired in your DNA.’
‘It’s not as hardwired as you think.’
She looked at the suddenly grim set to his mouth, the hardened line of his jaw, as if he regretted his statement. ‘What do you mean?’
A distant look came into his eyes as if he had cordoned off a section of his personality: No Entry. Even the way he folded his arms across his broad chest warned her about going any further. ‘Tell me what your vision for the hotel is. Give it to me in three words.’
Isabelle smoothed her hands down the side of her pencil-slim skirt. ‘Private. Exclusive. Luxurious.’
He gave a slow nod. ‘How is that different from any of your closest competitors?’
