Scandalous (37 page)

Jackson laughed back. He genuinely liked Raj. Talking to him this morning, he realized how much he missed having him at Wrexall. With Sasha and Lottie both gone too, all the excitement had been sucked out of the place. “Something like that,” he admitted. “It’s the truth, isn’t it? They tell me all the best marriages are based on trust.”

Raj’s face fell. “I’m tempted. Of course I am. But what about Sasha? She trusts me.”

Jackson put down his coffee and leaned across the table, like a chess grand master moving in for checkmate. “Sasha is a businesswoman. At least, that’s what she told
me
when she ripped the fucking guts out of my company, the company that gave her a start, the company that made her.” Raj was silent. Jackson had a right to be angry, but even so, seeing his rage in action was frightening. It was like a living thing, a being in its own right, hovering in the air between them like some malevolent moth. “You’re a young guy, Raj.”

“Youngish. I’m thirty-three.”

“You’re about to start a family and you have your own life to think about, your own career. Ceres has had an amazing start. You were a big part of that. But it will always be Sasha Miller’s baby, and you know it. I’m offering you a chance to be master of your own destiny, at a firm with a century-old brand behind it.
All the autonomy, all the financial upside, and none of the risk. Sasha, of all people, understands what it is to be made an offer you can’t refuse. This is it, my friend. This is it.”

He was right. Of course he was right. When Raj left Wrexall he was on nine hundred grand a year. That was less than eighteen months ago. He stared into the dregs of his coffee cup. “I just don’t know how I’m going to tell Sasha…”

“You aren’t,” said Jackson firmly. “I can have the contracts with you in an hour, but they’re contingent on complete confidentiality. You say nothing.
I’ll
handle Sasha.”

Back at the Majestic, Sasha was having a thoroughly enjoyable day with the Ceres staff, going over the past year’s highlights and brainstorming their plans for the future. Raj had mysteriously disappeared, going for a run before breakfast and conspicuously failing to return. But Sasha was on too much of a high to care. Besides, Raj had earned the break. A large portion of her speech to the conference tomorrow would be dedicated to thanking him personally for his incredible contribution to Ceres’s early success. Without Raj there she was free to ask the rest of the team for suggestions, little jokes, and anecdotes that might help spice up her address. Though she wouldn’t have admitted it publicly, Sasha had a fear of public speaking that bordered on the pathological. It was one of the reasons—one of the many—that she could have done without Jackson Dupree’s presence. As if she weren’t nervous enough already, without having to see his spiteful face in the crowd, willing her to trip up or say something foolish.

She’d half expected to see Jackson this morning at breakfast and had made sure she looked immaculate just in case, washing and blow-drying her hair and putting on her sexiest Myla underwear, a feminine touch that always made her feel powerful and in control.
Nothing says world domination like a matching bra and
underwear
, she thought to herself, laughing because of course it was ridiculous, but then wasn’t everything about her life these days? When she walked into the breakfast buffet at eight thirty in a simple but sexy L’Wren Scott sheath dress, every male head turned to stare at her. But Jackson’s wasn’t one of them. After going to so much trouble, she felt oddly disappointed. Perhaps he really did have some hotel deal in the works and had simply chosen to stay at the Majestic to irritate her?
Who cares what his motives are? Forget about him.

She decided she would have dinner alone that night. Most of the Ceres crowd was heading into the old city for a night of drinking and dancing, but none of them had to give a speech tomorrow. Besides, Sasha had grown used to her own company over the years. She looked forward to eating alone, discovering new restaurants in exciting foreign cities, the way that other women might look forward to a romantic meal with a new boyfriend. Armed with a book or occasionally, as a guilty pleasure, a furtive copy of the
New Scientist
or
Physics Today
, she would settle down with a glass of Rioja and a plate of Parma ham and watch the world go by. Bliss.

After showering and changing into a simple, pretty floral sundress and sandals, she came down into the lobby, sticking her head around the door at the last minute on the off chance of catching the elusive Raj. Instead she saw Jackson, leaning against the bar in jeans and a faded gray T-shirt. He was saying good-bye to an older man, a Spaniard. Sasha was just about to creep away when Jackson glanced up and saw her.

“Sasha. Come on in. Can I offer you a drink?”

All this faux niceness was disarming. If she refused, she would look churlish. If she accepted, he’d probably lace whatever she asked for with strychnine.

“This is Manuel Hormaeche. He’s with Encerro, the company that sold us the land for that hotel I mentioned.”

So there is a hotel.

The Spaniard took Sasha’s hand and kissed it. From an American or a Brit the gesture would have seemed forward, even creepy, but the Spanish seemed to do these things with such elegance. “I look forward very much to your speech tomorrow, Miss Miller.” He pronounced it “Mealer.” “You ’ave done miraculous things with Ceres.”

“Thank you.” Sasha blushed. Jackson watched her as she chatted politely to Sr. Hormaeche, exchanging business cards before the older man left. She looked different tonight. Perhaps it was the girlish dress? That and the lack of makeup, the flat shoes, the sweet, almost shy way she accepted the Spaniard’s compliments. He had rarely seen this side to Sasha, the vulnerable, feminine side. It disturbed him.

“Two glasses of champagne please,” he heard himself saying. For some reason, he didn’t want Sasha to leave.

“What are we celebrating?” Warily, she sat down beside him. “Did you two finalize the deal?”

Jackson’s stomach lurched. For one mad moment he thought she was talking about Raj Patel. Then he realized she couldn’t be. She must mean Hormaeche and the La Sagrada hotel. “Not yet. But we will.” The drinks arrived. He handed an ice-cold flute to Sasha. “Manuel knows it’s the best offer he’s going to get for that land. He’s playing hard to get, but he’ll give in eventually.”

Their eyes met. Sasha looked away first.

Since the night Sasha left Wrexall—the night Jackson had kissed her and she’d pulled away; the same night he’d gotten together with Lottie—Jackson had worked hard to stifle his desire for her. From that night onward, he’d grown up. It was really very simple: Lottie was good for him. Sasha was bad. Lottie was loyal and supportive and loving. Sasha was a snake, a backstabber, a dangerous competitor who needed to be destroyed. Channeling all his sexual frustration into his efforts to undermine Ceres and rebuild Wrexall, he’d convinced himself that Sasha Miller no longer meant anything to him personally. But
watching Hormaeche flirt with her before, he’d suddenly felt like a sixteen-year-old again. It was all he could do not to get up and punch the guy.

You need to beat her, that’s all. Then she’ll be out of your system.

Raj Patel’s defection would devastate Sasha. Springing it on her here, tomorrow, in front of the entire industry, would ensure that the blow had maximum impact. It was the revenge Jackson had been waiting for, planning and fantasizing about for twelve long months. So why did he suddenly feel as if all the pleasure had been sucked out of it?

Sasha sipped at her champagne, cursing herself for feeling so awkward and praying that Jackson couldn’t tell. Not knowing what else to say, she asked after Lottie.

“How is she? I hear she’s running an art gallery now.”

Instantly Jackson’s face clouded over. “She’s fine. She’s well.”

“And the two of you?”

“We’re good.”

Conversation closed.

For a full minute, neither of them said anything. At last Sasha drained her glass and got down from her bar stool. “Thank you for the drink. Good luck with your deal.” She started to walk away.

Jackson called after her. “Thanks. Good luck with your speech tomorrow, if I don’t see you.”

Something about his tone of voice made Sasha uneasy. She looked at him, but his face was as blankly handsome as ever and gave nothing away.
You’re imagining things
, she told herself.
He’ll probably be gone by morning.

Sasha woke at three a.m., four a.m. and five a.m., tormented by disturbing dreams in which she appeared on the podium naked,
while Jackson Dupree pointed and laughed at her from the front row. At five fifteen a.m., unable to get back to sleep, she put on her running shoes and went out for a jog through Barcelona’s deserted streets. The city looked totally different at this time, its cobbled alleys bathed in soft dawn light. The smells were different too, delicious aromas of baking bread and coffee combined with the rancid smell of fish from the restaurant trash cans, wheeled out for the early-morning garbage collectors. Sasha ran until her limbs ached and her mind was blank. Coming back into the hotel, she bumped into Raj Patel walking out.

“Hey, stranger,” she joked. “What happened to you yesterday? I was starting to worry you’d been abducted by aliens.”

“Sorry,” Raj mumbled. “I…something came up. Something personal. I got caught up.”

He looked away when he spoke to her, as if he were embarrassed or even afraid. Sasha had never seen him look so awkward. “Is everything OK?”

“Of course. Everything’s fine. It’s just…like I said, it’s personal.”

“You’ll be at the conference this afternoon, though, right?” asked Sasha. “I could really use the support. You know public speaking scares the shit out of me.” During her sleepless night, she’d mentally rewritten the whole middle section of her speech into what she hoped would be a funny but inspiring little homily about teamwork. Halfway through she was going to haul poor Raj up out of the audience like a magician’s volunteer. Without him, the whole thing would fall flat.

“Sure,” said Raj. “I’ll be there.”

“Seriously.” Sasha smiled. “I need you. Don’t let me down.”

Raj walked away, wondering if it were too late to have Wrexall change the terms of his new contract to include a bonus of fifty pieces of silver.

The conference room at the Hotel Majestic was a grand former ballroom, high ceilinged and ornate with gilt inlaid paneling and a dais flanked by sumptuous, deep-red velvet curtains. By two p.m. the floor was packed with delegates, the most important seated at the front at round tables sponsored by their various companies, and the less well known fighting over the rows of plush, cushioned chairs lining the middle and back of the room. Behind the dais, a large white screen had been erected to project a magnified image of each speaker’s face to the more remote members of the audience.

Lunch had been served at one p.m., to the chagrin of the locals who viewed this as breakfast time, and a couple of dull speeches had been delivered while everybody ate paella and, in the case of the British and French delegates, got heavily involved with the free-flowing Chablis. Waiting in the wings in a dark-blue Balenciaga trouser suit, nervously scanning her speech cards for the hundredth time, Sasha could have murdered a stiff drink herself. It was only the thought of slurring her words in front of Jackson Dupree that made her hold back.
Afterwards
, she promised herself.
As soon as I step off that podium, I’ll order a Scotch.
Only a couple of minutes to go now.