Her mouth falling open wordlessly, she stared at him. Apparently, her new, standard expression in his company. “I have no intention of competing with Venetia, not that I harbor any delusion that I even could.”
Dark amusement glittered in his gaze. It was as if there was a one-way connection between them that let him see straight into her thoughts. Like Mr. Spock doing a Vulcan Mind Meld. If only it worked both ways. She had absolutely no knowledge about him, whereas he literally had a file on her.
He settled back into the seat and crossed his long legs. “You’re a strange little woman, Ms. Nelson. Are you telling me you didn’t think of using this opportunity to win him back? That the idea didn’t even occur to you?”
“No,” she repeated loudly, refusing to let him sully her motives. She would love to have her friend back, yes, but she wasn’t going to engage in some bizarre girl war with Venetia to get Tyler back the way he assumed.
“Fine. My pilot’s waiting. We leave in four hours.”
“I can’t leave in four hours,” Lexi said, anxiety and the energy it took to talk to him beginning to give her a headache. “I have to find someone to sublet my room, have to get the plumber to fix the kitchen before I leave and I promised Mrs. Goldman next door that I would help her after her surgery in two days. I can’t just up and leave because your sister can’t bear the thought of not being the center of Tyler’s universe for a few more days.”
He shrugged—a careless, elegant movement of those broad shoulders. “I don’t care how many things you had lined up to do for your parasitic friends or how much you were planning to bend over backward for the whole world, Ms. Nelson. I won’t wait anymore.”
She frowned. “I don’t bend over back—”
His gaze sliced through her words. “You’re the worst kind of pushover.”
She slumped against the seat, bone-deep exhaustion taking away her ability to offer even token protest. She shouldn’t be hurt by his clinical, disparaging words. But she was.
And the fact that his words could even affect her only proved him right.
How could she feel bad about what a stranger, someone as ruthless as Nikos Demakis thought about her?
“Your room at the apartment will go nowhere. If there’s anything else you need help with—” his gaze lingered on her clothes again “—something that is solely your concern, your problem, I can have my assistant at your disposal.”
“If I don’t agree?”
He shrugged. “Your agreement or the lack of it doesn’t play into it. The choice is whether you travel as my guest or my captive.”
“That is kidnapping.”
He plucked a couple of pages from his case and pushed it toward her along with a legal pad and a pen. “It’s hard to admit, but I see that I did this all wrong.”
“What?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His gaze solemn, he blinked. Really, no single man should be allowed to be so gorgeous. “I should have appeared on your doorstep with my heart in my hands, pleaded my sister’s case, begged you to help, tried to become your best friend. Maybe talk about my own horrible childhood, pretend to be on my death bed—”
“Okay, okay, fine. You’ve made your point,” Lexi said loudly, cutting off his mocking words. She had always liked to help if she could. She would not let the manipulative man in front of her make her feel stupid about it.