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‘And if your brother was so clueless as to what was happening on the home front, then is he competent enough to do what would need to be done should I decide to help you out?’
‘Ollie...doesn’t have a huge amount of input in the actual running of things...’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s never been interested in the company and, yes, you’re right—he’s always resented the fact that he had to finally return to help out. He’s found it difficult to deal with not having money.’
‘And you’ve found it easy?’
‘I’ve dealt with it.’
Javier looked at her narrowly and with a certain amount of reluctant admiration for the streak of strength he glimpsed.
Not only had she had to face a tremendous fall from the top of the mountain, but the loss of her husband and the father she had adored.
Yet there was no self-pity in the stubborn tilt of her chin.
‘You’ve had a lot to deal with, haven’t you?’ he murmured softly and she looked away.
‘I’m no different from loads of people the world over who have found their lives changed in one way or another. And, now that you’ve got the measure of the company, will you lend us some money or not? I don’t know if my brother told you, but the family house has been on the market for over two years and we just can’t seem to sell it. There’s no appetite for big houses. If we could sell it, then we might be able to cover some of the expenses...’
‘Although a second mortgage was taken out on it...’
‘Yes, but the proceeds would go a little way to at least fixing certain things that need urgent attention.’
‘The dated computer systems, for example?’
‘You really did your homework, didn’t you? How did you manage that in such a small amount of time? Or have you been following my father’s company over the years? Watching while it went downhill?’
‘Why would I have done that?’
Sophie shrugged uncomfortably. ‘I know you probably feel... Well, you don’t understand what happened all those years ago.’
‘Don’t presume to think that you know what goes on in my head, Sophie. You don’t. And, in answer to your preposterous question, I haven’t had the slightest clue what was going on in your father’s company over the years, nor have I cared one way or the other.’ He saw that the bottle was empty and debated whether or not to get another, deciding against it, because he wanted them both to have clear heads for this conversation.
When he knew that he would be seeing her, he had predicted how he would react and it hadn’t been like this.
He’d thought that he would see her and would feel nothing but the acid, bilious taste of bitterness for having been played in the past and taken for a chump.
He’d accepted that she’d been in his head more than he’d ever imagined possible. A Pandora’s box had been opened with her brother’s unexpected appearance at his office. Javier had recognised the opportunity he had been given to put an end to her nagging presence, which, he now realised, had been embedded in him like a virus he’d never managed to shake off.
He would have her and he had the means to do so at his disposal.
She needed money. He had vast sums of it. She would take what was offered because she would have no choice. His terms and conditions would be met with acquiescence because, as he had learned over the years, money talked.
He had slept with some of the world’s most desirable women. It had followed that whatever she had that had held him captive all those years ago, she would lose it when he saw her in the flesh once again. How could she compete with some of the women who had clamoured to sleep with him?
He’d been wrong.
And that was unbelievably frustrating because he was beginning to realise that he wanted a lot more from her than her body for a night or two.
No, he needed a lot more from her than her body for a night or two.
He wanted and needed answers and his curiosity to pry beneath the surface enraged him because he had thought himself above that particular sentiment when it came to her.
Nor, he was discovering, did he want to take what he knew she would have no choice but to give him in the manner of a marauding plunderer.
He didn’t want her reluctance.
He wanted her to come to him and in the end, he reasoned now, if revenge was what he was after, then wouldn’t that be the ultimate revenge? To have her want him, to take her and then to walk away?
The logical part of his brain knew that to want revenge was to succumb to a certain type of weakness, and yet the pull was so immensely strong that he could no more fight it than he could have climbed Mount Everest in bare feet.
And he was enjoying this.
His palate had become jaded and that was something he had recognised a while back, when he had made his first few million and the world had begun to spread itself out at his feet.
He had reached a place in life where he could have whatever he wanted and sometimes having everything at your fingertips removed the glory of the chase. Not just women, but deals, mergers, money...the lot.
She wasn’t at his fingertips.
In fact, she was simmering with resentment that she had been put in the unfortunate position of having to come to him, cap in hand, to ask for his help.
He was a part of her past that she would rather have swept under the carpet and left there. He was even forced to swallow the unsavoury truth that he was probably a part of her past she bitterly regretted ever having gone anywhere near in the first place.
But she’d wanted him.
That much he felt he knew. She might have played with him as a distraction from the main event happening in her life somewhere else, or maybe just to show off in front of her friends that she had netted the biggest fish in the sea—which Javier had known, without a trace of vanity, he was.
But perhaps she hadn’t actually banked on the flare of physical attraction that had erupted between them. She had held out against him and he had seen that as shyness, youthful nerves at taking the plunge... He’d been charmed by it. He’d also been wrong about it, as it turned out. She’d held out against him because there had been someone else in her life.
But she’d still fancied him like hell.
She’d trembled when he’d traced his finger across her collarbone and her eyes had darkened when their lips had touched. He hadn’t imagined those reactions. She might have successfully fought that attraction in the end and scurried back to her comfort zone, but, for a brief window, he’d taken her out of that comfort zone...
Did she imagine that she was now immune to that physical attraction because time had passed?
He played with the thought of her opening up to him like a flower and this time giving him what he had wanted all those years ago. What he wanted now.
He wondered what she would feel when she found herself discarded.
He wondered whether he would really care or whether the mere fact that he had had her would be sufficient.
He hadn’t felt this alive in a long time and it was bloody great.
‘I was surprised when your brother showed up on my doorstep, so to speak, in search of help.’
‘I hope you know that I never asked him to come to see you.’
‘I can well imagine, Sophie. It must cut to the quick having to beg favours from a man who wasn’t good enough for you seven years ago.’
‘That’s not how it was.’
Javier held up one hand. ‘But, as it happens, to see you evicted and in the poorhouse would not play well on my conscience.’
‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?’
‘You’d be surprised how thin the dividing line is between the poor and the rich and how fast places can be swapped. One minute you’re on top of the world, the ruler of everything around you, and the next minute you’re lying on the scrap heap, wondering what went wrong. Or I could put it another way—one minute you’re flying upwards, knocking back all those less fortunate cluttering your path, and the next minute you’re spiralling downwards and the people you’ve knocked back are on their way up, having the last laugh.’
‘I bet your parents are really sad at the person you’ve become, Javier.’
Javier flushed darkly, outraged at her remark, and even more outraged by the disappointed expression on her lovely face.
Of course, in those heady days of thinking she was his, he had let her into his world, haltingly confided in her in a way he had never done with any woman either before or since. He had told her about his background, about his parents’ determination to make sure he left that life behind. He had painted an unadorned picture of life as he had known it, had been amused at the vast differences between them, had seen those differences as a good thing, rather than an unsurmountable barrier, as she had. If she’d even thought about it at all.
‘I know you’ve become richer than your wildest dreams.’ She smiled ruefully at him. ‘And you always had very, very wild dreams...’
The conversation seemed to have broken its leash and was racing away in a direction Javier didn’t like. He frowned heavily at her.
‘And now here we are.’
‘You once told me that all your parents wanted was for you to be happy, to make something of your life, to settle down and have a big family.’
Javier decided that he needed another drink after all. He stood up abruptly, which seemed to do the trick, because she started, blinked and looked up at him as if suddenly remembering that she wasn’t here for a trip down memory lane. Indeed, that a trip down memory lane was the very last thing she had wanted.
He’d forgotten that habit of hers.
He was barely aware of placing his order for another bottle of wine at the bar and ordering some bar snacks because they were now both drinking on fairly empty stomachs. He hadn’t a clue what bar snacks he ordered, leaving it to the guy serving him to provide whatever was on the menu.
She was filling up his head. He could feel her eyes on him even as he stood here at the bar with his back to her.
Whatever memories he’d had of her, whatever memories he’d kidded himself he’d got rid of and had buried, he was now finding in a very shallow grave.
She’d always had that habit of branching out on a tangent. It was as if a stray word could spark some improbable connection in her head and carry her away down unforeseen paths.
There were no unforeseen paths in this scenario, he thought grimly as he made his way back to the table, where she was sitting with the guarded expression back on her face.
The only unforeseen thing—and it was something he could deal with—was how much he still wanted her after all this time.
‘I should be getting back,’ she said as he poured her a glass of wine and nodded to her to drink.
‘I’ve ordered food.’
‘My ticket...’
‘Forget about your ticket.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m not made of money. In fact, I’m broke. There. Are you satisfied that I’ve said that? I can’t afford to kiss sweet goodbye to the cost of the ticket to get me down here to London. You’ve probably forgotten how much train tickets cost, but if you’d like a reminder, I can show you mine. They cost a lot. And if you want to do a bit more gloating, then go right ahead.’ She fluttered her hand wearily. ‘I can’t stop you.’
‘You’ll need to pare down the staff.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The company is top-heavy. Too many chiefs and very few Indians.’
Sophie nodded. It was what she had privately thought but the thought of sitting down old friends of her parents and handing them their marching orders had been just too much to contemplate. Oliver couldn’t have done that in a million years and, although she was a heck of a lot more switched on than he was, the prospect of sacking old retainers, even fairly ineffective old retainers, still stuck in her throat.
Few enough people had stuck by them through thin times.
‘And you need to drag the business into this century. The old-fashioned transport business needs to be updated. You need to take risks, to branch out, to try to capture smaller, more profitable markets instead of sticking to having lumbering dinosaurs doing cross-Channel deliveries. That’s all well and good but you need a lot more than that if your company is to be rescued from the quicksand.’
‘I...’ She quailed at the thought of herself and Oliver, along with a handful of maybe or maybe not efficient directors, undertaking a job of those proportions.
‘You and your brother are incapable of taking on this challenge,’ Javier told her bluntly and she glared at him even though he had merely spoken aloud what she had been thinking.
‘I’m sure if you agree to extend a loan,’ she muttered, ‘we can recruit good people who are capable of—’
‘Not going to happen. If I sink money into that business of yours, I want to be certain that I won’t be throwing my money into a black hole.’
‘That’s a bit unfair.’ She fiddled with the bun which, instead of making her feel blessedly cool in the scorching temperatures, was making her sweaty and uncomfortable. As were the formal, scratchy clothes, so unlike her normal dress code of jeans, tee shirts and sneakers.
She didn’t feel like the brisk, efficient potential client of someone who might want to extend a loan. She felt awkward, gauche and way too aware of the man looking at her narrowly, sizing her up in a way that made her want to squirm.
This wasn’t the guy she had known and loved. He hadn’t chucked her out of his office but, as far as feelings went, there was nothing there. There wasn’t a trace of that simmering attraction that had held them both mesmerised captives all those years ago. He wasn’t married but she wondered whether there was a woman in his life, someone rich and beautiful like him.
Even when he’d had no money, he could have had any woman he wanted.
Her mind boggled at the thought of how many women would now fall at his feet because he was the guy who had the full package.
A treacherous thought snaked into her head...
What if she’d defied her parents? What if she’d carried on seeing Javier? Had seen where that love might have taken them both?
It wouldn’t have worked.
Despite the fact that she had grown up with money, had had a rich and pampered life, money per se was not what motivated her. For Javier, it was the only thing that motivated him.
She looked at him from under her lashes, taking in the cut of his clothes, the hand-tailored shoes, the mega-expensive watch around which dark hair curled. He breathed wealth. It was what made him happy and made sense of his life.
She might be stressed out because of all the financial worries happening in her life, but if those worries were removed and she was given a clean slate, then she knew that she wouldn’t really care if that slate was a rich slate or not.
So, if she’d stayed with him, she certainly wouldn’t have been the sort of woman he’d have wanted. She might talk the talk but her jeans, tee shirts and sneakers would not have been found acceptable attire.
They’d had their moment in time when they’d both been jeans and tee shirts people but he’d moved on, and he would always have moved on.
