For Revenge or Redemption? (6 page)

‘The enemy?’ he supplied mockingly when she couldn’t think of a word strong enough to describe him.

She chose to ignore his remark and his coldly sardonic smile, relieved that she had finally managed to slip the top button of her blouse securely into place.

‘What did you want?’ she demanded, more ungraciously than she had intended, because the way he was looking at her made every betraying little cell in her body react to him in a way she wasn’t at all happy about.

‘The last five years’ trading figures. Perhaps you could look them out for me, since you’re here.’

She swept over to the desk, jotting down the appointment in her diary with hands that shook. ‘Perhaps you could look them out for yourself since you’ve obviously given yourself licence to everything else in this building.’

‘Not quite everything, Grace.’ The way his eyes swept over her body needed no interpretation. ‘Not yet.’

She stood facing him, trembling with anger and frustration at his audacity. How could he even think he could say such things to her, let alone imagine that she would gladly leap into his bed? Though she was certain most women would. But, while she was battling to find a suitably cutting response, he said, clearly aware, ‘Are you going to fight me every step of the way?’

It was suddenly painful to swallow. Pulling herself up to her full height, which in her stocking-clad feet still left her well short of his six-feet-plus inches, she replied, ‘If I have to.’

‘That isn’t very sensible.’

‘Well, no. We both know I’m rather lacking in that department, don’t we? Or, rather, I used to be,’ she tagged on pointedly. One thing she had learnt from that encounter with him was wisdom, if nothing else.

‘Really?’ A masculine eyebrow cocked in disdainful speculation. ‘And I’ve always believed I was the one lacking judgement in that regard.’

His tone, with his opinion of the fickle creature she had been, still had the power to flay. But if he thought making love to her had been an error of judgement on his part, then it must have meant something more to him than just a feather in his cap, as he’d claimed that day outside the bank, mustn’t it? Grace reasoned wildly. She did not want to dwell on the fact that it was only her actions, and subsequently her grandfather’s in getting Seth dismissed from his job, that had fuelled his determination to make the Culverwells pay.

‘I think it only fair to warn you, Grace,’ he said, his next words emphasising that determination, ‘That if you continue to fight me then it’ll be a fight you’re going to lose. I can turn this company’s fortunes around or I can break up Culverwell’s piece by piece and sell off the most profitable areas at considerable loss to yourself and all those people you claim so depend on you. It’s your choice.’

There was no point arguing with him. He was clearly wealthy and powerful enough to do exactly as he said by stripping the company of its assets. And where would she—and a lot of people who would lose their jobs because of it—be then?

Walking purposefully over to the bank of cabinets on the far wall, she opened a drawer and pulled out the file he had requested before propelling the usually smooth-gliding drawer back hard on its runners.

‘There.’ Ignoring the masculine hand waiting to take it
from her, she tossed the heavy file down onto the desk in front of him. ‘Is there anything else you’ll be requiring…
sir
?’

Thick black lashes came down over steely eyes as he moved to pick up the file. ‘Just for you to control your temper,’ he said. ‘Much as I’m not wholly averse to a fiery nature in a woman, I much prefer it if she keeps such loss of control confined to bed.’

‘That’s just the sort of sexist comment I’d expect from you,’ she flung at his broad back, because he was already heading for the door.

He turned as he reached it, his immaculately clad free arm lifting to the doorjamb. He was the hard-hitting executive, all flippancy gone.

‘I’ve called an emergency meeting of all the major shareholders at two o’clock this afternoon. If you care as much about this company as you say you do, you’ll be there.’

Then he was gone, leaving her staring after him in angry frustration, a knot of tension tightening way down inside her from his remark about being in bed.

Seth leaned back against the mirrored wall and closed his eyes as the lift doors came together behind him.

She’d looked so bleak in there when he had surprised her walking into that office, almost hollow-eyed, he thought. He wondered if there was more behind that lovely face and body of hers than just a fear of losing the lifestyle she was clearly used to if he took it on himself to get rid of her. Perhaps she had changed from the spoilt little rich bitch it had been his misfortune to get involved with, the girl he’d often read about with interest in the tabloid press. She had seemed genuinely shocked when he had told her how Lance Culverwell had been responsible for him losing his job.

But don’t be fooled
, he warned himself, in danger of finding himself being charmed by her femininity. She would eat
a man for breakfast and spit him out again without turning a hair.

He couldn’t help wondering, if he was honest with himself, if he hadn’t seduced her all those years ago just to prove something to himself, as he’d let her believe. But, no; she had been utterly desirable. Just thinking about her then, and being faced with the reality of just how beautiful and even more desirable she was now, made him realise that he had never wanted anyone so much as he’d wanted Grace Tyler—then or now!

Over the years he had managed to achieve everything he had set out to and that he had worked for. His architectural studies had made him a natural in a profession he had striven to reach, a lucky break had taken him into full-blown developments and now he had everything he wanted: Money. Cars. Women. Power. And Culverwells. There was only one thing left to make his achievements complete and that was Grace Tyler. She belonged in his bed, whether she liked it or not. And he meant to have her—with or without her liking him, if that was the way it had to be.

But she still wanted him. He’d have had to be blind not to notice that betraying little flutter in her throat whenever he came within touching distance of her, the flushed cheeks and dilated pupils in the centre of her huge, man-drowning blue eyes. She still wanted him, as much as he wanted her—if that were possible—and he wasn’t going to rest until her lovely legs were wrapped around him again and she was lying there beneath him, sobbing out his name.

T
HE
little art gallery was peaceful and soothing on Grace’s jangling nerves now that Beth had closed up for the day and gone home; Grace needed peace as much as she needed some sleep after a day doing battle with the likes of Seth Mason.

Left to her unexpectedly four years ago by the father she’d scarcely known, the gallery had been a run-down little shop selling artists’ materials, and had come with a sitting tenant in the flat above and a whole load of debt.

Never a fan of Matthew Tylers’ for abandoning his daughter as he had, Lance Culverwell had urged Grace to give it up.

‘It will only bring you heartache, child,’ she could still hear her grandfather saying. ‘Which is all that man ever brought you while he was alive.’

But something deep down inside Grace hadn’t been able to let the gallery go and, refusing any help from her grandfather, she had started to pay the outstanding mortgage herself. Which had seemed quite feasible until Culverwell’s had started getting into difficulty. Then her grandfather had died, leaving everything to Corinne, and Grace had been forced to give up the bright, modern apartment she had been buying and move into the rather dowdy and suddenly vacant flat above the gallery in a much more modest part of town.

Struggling to meet the cost of her planned refurbishments
for the flat and gallery, she’d looked like losing both. But her father’s paintings, virtually unnoticed while he had been alive, had already started to gain unexpected popularity, as had his sculptures, several of which Grace had seen change hands in various auction houses for surprisingly high prices over the past couple of years. But it had been that one special bronze of Matthew Tyler’s that had brought all her fears for her gallery to an end, helping her to clear her debts and carry out her renovations after it had sold to a telephone bidder and fetched a mind-blowing sum.

So, even if Seth Mason had taken Culverwells from under her nose, at least this gallery was hers, she thought fiercely, looking around at the fine paintings and ceramics. Lock, stock and barrel!

The fact that she had had to part with what the art world claimed was her father’s prize piece to achieve it brought on those familiar feelings of regret, as well as a whole heap of conflicting emotions whenever she thought about her father.

With tears threatening to sting her eyes, she tried to banish any sentimental feelings towards Matthew Tyler from her mind.

Just looking at that little figurine had always made her feel sad—and angry too—hadn’t it? she assured herself. Anyway, she’d had to sell it to stay solvent, and that was that.

The phone was ringing in the flat as she started up the stairs.

Exhausted from the day, she considered leaving the answering machine to take the call, but as it hadn’t cut in by the time she crossed the lounge she picked the phone up, then wished she hadn’t when Seth’s deep tones came disconcertingly down the line.

‘Just checking that you’re in and planning on an early night,’ he remarked with that infuriating audacity that had Grace instantly snapping back.

‘No, as a matter of fact I thought I’d pop up to the West End, take in a show and then do a bit of clubbing for a few hours. I’m tired, jet-lagged and, if you hadn’t noticed, my grandfather’s company was taken over today! A company that’s been in my family for over fifty years!’ The emotion she had managed to rein in downstairs now welled up in her again, clogging her throat, making her voice crack from the struggle she was having to keep it in check. ‘Of course I’m getting an early night. I’m not quite as robotic as you obviously expect your workforce to be.’

‘Or as well, by the sound of it. You sound distinctly nasal,’ he commented, much to Grace’s alarm. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him know that it was taking every resource she had not to break down after the day she had had. ‘You aren’t sickening for anything, are you? A cold, perhaps?’

‘As if you’d care!’ She had slammed the phone down before she even realised what she was doing, and stood there, staring at it, shaking with rage.

How dared he? How dared he try to control her private life as well as her business affairs? she fumed as she continued to stare at the phone, both apprehensive and fired up, waiting for it to start ringing again.

Relieved when it didn’t, yet feeling strangely as though she’d been left hanging by ending their conversation in the way she had, she went back across the tastefully though minimally furnished living room, kicking off her high-heeled shoes as she did so. They weren’t designed for a day in the office any more than her trainers would have gone with the executive image she had been particularly keen to cultivate today. But her pumps had been in the suitcase which she’d instructed the taxi driver to bring on to the flat this morning in her haste to get to the office.

Now, going into the bedroom, she slipped off her clothes, pulled her hair free of its pins and was just reaching for the champagne-tinted robe she’d tossed down onto the bed when
the bleeper in the hall announced that there was someone at the front door.

‘Who is it?’ she asked into the loud speaker, shrugging into her robe. She didn’t feel up to seeing anyone tonight.

‘Seth. Seth Mason.’

Grace’s heart instantly lurched into a thumping tattoo. Had he just been round the corner when he’d phoned? ‘What do you want?’

‘Can I come up?’

She wanted to say no, but her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth, and before she was fully aware of what she was doing she was pressing the button that opened the door to the street.

Hearing his steady tread on the stairs, Grace couldn’t get over how her hands were shaking as she fumbled with the belt of her robe, only just managing to secure it as those footsteps stopped outside the door to her flat.

‘What do you want? she demanded, wondering how he could look as fresh and vital as he had that morning, while stepping backwards to admit him since his dominating figure promised to quash any refusal to do so.

Surprisingly, he was bringing her suitcase up from the passageway. She’d been too tired to bother carrying it up tonight.

‘I thought you’d had a pretty tough day.’ Pushing the door closed behind him, he stooped to put the suitcase down in the little hallway, his cologne drifting disturbingly towards her. ‘I felt something of a peace offering might be in order.’ It was only then, as he straightened up, that her brain registered the bouquet of predominantly white-and-yellow flowers he was holding.

‘Where did you get these?’ She wasn’t ready to be placated as he handed them to her. ‘Late-night shop at the supermarket?’ And instantly she regretted her caustic and rather childish remark when he made no reply.

The bouquet was fragrant and beautifully arranged and the name of an exclusive florist on the wrapping caused her eyebrows to lift in surprise.

Had he been planning to come round with these much earlier? Was that why he had telephoned just now—to check that he wasn’t going to have a wasted journey?

‘You think that this makes everything all right?’ she uttered waspishly. ‘That I’ll be bowled over by an apology and a few expensive flowers?’

‘I’m not trying to bowl you over.’ His tone was self-assured, his jaw cast in iron. ‘And it certainly isn’t intended as an apology.’

Of course not. She laughed. ‘No. How stupid of me,’ she bit out, swinging away from him into the lounge.

‘Why is it,’ he asked, following her, his voice suddenly dangerously seductive, ‘that when I’m around you you’re always in a state of undress?’

An insidious heat crept along her skin, making her heart beat faster, her nerve-endings tingle.

Why? Grace similarly wondered and, caught in the snare of his regard, felt that same throb of tension that she’d felt from the very first instant their eyes had clashed eight years ago.

‘Perhaps because I didn’t invite you up here in the first place,’ she returned heatedly.

Seth’s mouth curved in an indolent smile. His senses absorbed the translucent quality of her skin; those blue eyes that could make a man drown in his own longing for her; that rather proud nose that mirrored her attitude towards her subordinates and made him want to drag her to her knees; that full, slightly pouting mouth. He wanted to taste that mouth until he was drugged by the potency of all it promised him, devour it with his own until she was begging him to take her as she had all those years before.

He saw her as she had been then, naked except for that
web of lace across her pelvis, offering herself to him like a beautiful, abandoned spirit of the sea. He had never known a girl as passionate as she had been, although he’d known enough in his time. When he had dropped her off the bike outside her grandparents’ house that night, she’d seemed to leap at his suggestion to meet him the following day. He’d felt sick to the stomach when she hadn’t turned up, although he’d waited for hours on that beach. And the day after that, when he had bumped into her in town, she’d treated him like he hadn’t existed. No, worse—like he was scum. He had been just someone with whom to amuse herself, he thought with his mouth hardening. Just a substitute until she could get back to her richer, stuck-up friends back home.

For a long time afterwards all he could think of was of getting his own back—having his revenge on the Culverwell family for the humiliation they had caused him, and for the hardship they had inflicted on his mother and his foster siblings as a result. Well, now he had, he thought grimly. And it wasn’t over yet!

He noted the way she was clutching the flowers to her breast as though to conceal the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. But he could see that all too clearly from the way her nipples protruded tantalisingly through the satin robe, and he had to clench his fingers to control the urge to rip it from her body and replace it with his aching hands instead.

‘You had your hair cut,’ he commented with an unaccustomed dryness in his throat, thinking, as he had done when he had seen her again in the flesh that morning, that the mid-length silky cloud that gently brushed her shoulders added a sophistication that hadn’t been there eight years ago.

Poignantly she said, ‘I grew up.’

And how, he thought. Feeling the uncomfortable constriction of his clothes below waist level, he was annoyed at how she could still affect him without even trying.

‘Why have you come?’ she demanded, but Seth noticed that
those eyes he had drowned in all too willingly eight years ago were wary, as though she were afraid of him—or, amazingly, herself.

‘I was naturally concerned,’ he said against his better judgement. She had sounded ghastly over the phone. Now he could see the dark circles under her eyes that no amount of make-up could conceal. She had to be tired, and she was most certainly jet-lagged. But there was something else. Something that caused that same bleak look about her that he had noticed when he had strode into her office that morning, which surprisingly had caused a slight pricking of his conscience, making him feel less a conquering hero and more like a heel for what he had done. ‘I thought I’d come and see for myself that you were all right.’

Grace wanted to respond with some cutting jibe, but the events of the day had taken their toll. She had no more energy left to fight him tonight.

‘Well, now you’ve seen me,’ she murmured with her shoulders slumping, the bouquet hanging heavily at her side. She felt fit to drop, and as she made to move away from him she tripped over one of the shoes she had left lying on the carpet and would have stumbled if he hadn’t been there, reaching for her.

‘I don’t need your help,’ she said despite herself as his long, tanned hands pressed her down onto the sofa, disposing of the flowers on the table beside it.

‘Well, that’s just too bad, because you’re getting it.’

His forcefulness, his proximity and his pine-scented cologne made her weak with a heady excitement that quickly turned to panic when he came down beside her on the settee.

‘Who invited you to sit down?’ she croaked, breathless from the force with which her heart was thumping.

‘Your good manners,’ he drawled, half-amused.

His droll remark would have drawn some retort from her if
she hadn’t been so keyed up, debilitated by the hot sensations that were pulsing through her.

Desperate to distance herself from him, she was all for leaping up.

As if he could read her mind, though, his arm suddenly sliced across her middle, preventing her precipitous flight.

Grace’s gasped breath seemed to lodge in her lungs, every part of her burning with the fire that strong arm was igniting in her as its warmth penetrated the fine material of her robe. His other arm was stretched across the back of the settee, setting her head spinning in a whirl of fear and wild anticipation.

If he kissed her…!

Surprisingly, though, he made no other move to touch her beyond keeping her there.

Rigid with tension, her breasts rising and falling sharply, she breathed, ‘What do you want from me, Seth?’

She caught his sharp intake of breath and wondered if that arm lying across her could feel the hard pulse that was throbbing away inside her.

‘I believe I once asked the same question of you.’

Yes, he had, she remembered, recoiling from the reminder, because they both knew what it was she had wanted—and, heaven help her, still wanted—from him. In spite of the ruth-lessness in his desire for revenge, in spite of all he had taken from her, because she couldn’t deny it now.

Sexually, she was as attracted to him as she had ever been. More so, if that was possible. But it was just her flesh that was weak. It meant nothing beyond that, and she had to keep reminding herself of that. Seth Mason was a dangerous man and she’d be a fool if she were to allow herself to fall into his honey-tongued trap. Because that was all it was, she decided—the flowers. The apparent concern. Just ways of wearing her resistance down until he could claim the ultimate prize for himself: her surrender to his powerful sexuality. And what then? she wondered, shuddering.

She longed to put a safe distance between them, and common sense alone prevented her from making any sudden moves. That would have had the same effect as a mouse trying to escape the clutches of a prowling jungle cat, she realised hopelessly, knowing by instinct alone that if she attempted it then that arm would tighten mercilessly around her—and where would she be then?