“No,” she bit out. “Does it matter?”
The other board members mumbled and shuffled their papers. The tiger at the end of the table smiled his charming grin. “No,” he replied.
The vote was a fait accompli. Like all the other votes being held lately.
Lise stared at the agenda in front of her and tried to inflate the usual outrage. She tried to find the willpower to make an objection, throw obstacles in his way. Ruddy hell, a few months ago, she would have had a list of reasons why it wasn’t going to work, why his plans were a farce.
She could tell herself it was just the pregnancy, her lack of energy, that stopped her. But it wasn’t, was it?
Be honest with yourself, Lise.
During the last three months, as he’d mesmerized her staff into implementing the changes he’d ruthlessly pushed through the board, she’d had to acknowledge the projections she’d dismissed as con games were, in reality, correct. The company, her company, was coming to life under the direction and guidance of Vico Mattare. Even in her miserable state, she sensed the rebounding of excitement, the rise of optimism in the corridors. The pulse of energy which emanated from his corner office and enthralled everyone in the building.
Hannah had been right. Worse, Vico Mattare had been right.
Such a stunning realization was enough to make a girl cry. Which she did routinely. But not about him, not in the least.
Hormones. Only hormones.
Her presumption he’d grow bored and walk away, leaving her to clean up the mess of her company was unmistakably not in the cards. Quite the opposite. As his changes were implemented, the tiger had become even more interested and focused on every aspect of her company. No department was left as is. No decision was left unmade. No direction was ever withheld. He hadn’t gallivanted off to the nearest beach intent on pleasure. Instead, he’d made it to work every day before she could drag herself in, and proceeded to plow through more work in one hour than any other person could do in a week.
It burned. It really burned her pride.
Of course, he still showed his true stripes in his nightly activities. The activities the tabloids slavishly documented. She’d seen the pictures, the endless photos of him with a bevy of ladies, an endless variety of completely idiotic women gazing at him as if he were some god. Her one night of illicit passion with him hadn’t made a dent in his prodigious sexual appetites. She was one of a thousand—a million—notches on his bed.
This also burned, burned in her eyes.
Hormones. Nothing else.
“Ms. Helton.” The sex addict gave her another of his fake smiles. “Would you be kind enough to present the current financials to the board now?”
The financials showing he’d been right. She’d been wrong.
How it must please him to no end to have her report his triumph. She bet he jumped up and down in the privacy of his office every time he had a chance to stomp on her pride.
She lifted her chin, shot him a cool glare, and began the presentation.
He didn’t matter.
All that mattered was the baby.
A baby she’d become worried about. Instead of poring over financial statements when she got home, she now spent her time reading about babies. Prenatal, postnatal, vitamins, exercise. Every one of the books had told her most women stopped being sick after their first trimester.
Was there something wrong?
Suz assured her there wasn’t anything wrong. She should know after going through six of her sister’s pregnancies. Yet she’d cheerfully accompanied Lise to the doctor yesterday and waited patiently as her compulsive, obsessive friend peppered the patient physician with questions.
There was nothing wrong, the doctor echoed Suz. You only need to relax more.
Relax more?
Relax when her mother kept ranting and raving about the broken engagement? Relax when she still had the odorous chore of telling her mother she was going to have a baby and be a single mom? Relax when she had a job she had to keep, but felt like every moment she was under surveillance?
“Thank you, Ms. Helton,” the bane of her existence said smoothly. “Very thorough and also very encouraging.”
She glanced up to meet his smile. Behind it lurked both hate and pleasure at her defeat.
And a threat?
This constant, nagging fear she lived with was ridiculous. This niggling in her stomach she could not assign to her usual morning sickness. It was completely stupid to spend her nights staring at her ceiling thinking of the awful things he could do if he put his mind to it.
Because, surely, Vico Mattare wouldn’t put his mind to it. Look at his reaction when she’d told him it was Robert’s. The man had grinned like a hyena released from a zoo into the wild. He’d clearly been ecstatic—he could walk away scot-free.