Billionaire's Revenge(2)

As they made their way up within the marbled and opulent elevator, she felt sick. She had been sure that if she could get the CEO of Garelli Corporation alone, and talk to him about her problem, that she could buy the family some time, that the billionaire businessman would understand and support the family. However, that hope had been dashed the minute she discovered who the CEO now was. Darius Garelli would take great pleasure in destroying them all, coldness seeping into every part of her.

The ping of the elevator door heralding their arrival pulled her thoughts back, as with head held high she followed the guard, the realisation hitting her that they were on the top level of the exclusive five-star hotel. When the doors opened, she had been ushered into the large penthouse suite, her eyes staring in wonder at the surroundings, knowing that this was his private suite, the room he was staying at, this knowledge filling her with even more discomfort.

Ushered into what appeared to be a study, the guard told her to help herself to a drink before moving back out, the click of the front door the only sound, leaving Sara alone, alone with her thoughts and ghosts of the past. Finally she sank into the large over-stuffed leather armchair, her head falling in her hands as the memories of the past flooded back.

Six years ago Sara had been 18. About to go to university, she spent the summer working in the main office of her late father’s construction business. She was shy and awkward about the way she looked, her sister often teasing her about her braces and too-skinny body and she had kept to herself. Her sister Angela was the complete opposite. Older and working in the office full-time with no desire to go off to university she was gregarious, her stunning figure and long auburn hair and good looks making her popular with the many contractors who would pass through. None more so than Nick Paxton, the owner of a small joinery company. While Angela had been initially interested in Nick, a man Sara disliked, not quite sure what it was about him that made her uncomfortable, the arrival of the gorgeous and seductively dangerous Darius Larosa soon wiped out any other man from her sister’s thoughts.

Sara was embarrassed to watch the way Angela threw herself so blatantly at the builder, brought in to help with some issue requiring a more specialised contractor. He was a hard worker, his ideas and solutions a godsend to the project he was working on, nobody more thankful than Angela as she fawned over him, her eyes promising so much every time that he would appear in the office.

He however, had been polite and distant with her sister, often choosing instead to deal with Sara. She had been nervous of the devastatingly handsome man, older than her - then in his mid-twenties. She was never really sure what to say or do when he would smile so warmly at her, his dark eyes holding her large blue ones which she hid behind sensible glasses, required when she was working on her computer, which in the office was all of the time.

Three months into his contract, money had gone missing - lots of money. A search of lockers found some it, the serial numbers given to them by the bank, along with a key for her father’s office and the security safe, all tucked away in a hidden compartment in his locker.

Her father was furious. Not a man who put up with betrayal, it had taken all her persuasion for him not to call the police there and then and have Darius arrested. Sara, however, never felt that he stole the money and pled for hours on his behalf, only gaining her father’s support after telling him that it might cause a scandal. Her family were mainstays of the conservative and proper establishment in the area, and her father was always careful about how his family was presented in the eyes of these stuffy judgemental people. He forced Sara to be the one to fire Darius, his way of punishing her for taking the Italian’s side. After she had, she had never forgotten the shock on his handsome face, or the anger as he professed his innocence. She however, held firm, informing him that if he did not leave then they would involve the police. Darius welcomed the police involvement, until she explained the evidence against him, remembering the way his mouth set in such an angry line, his eyes flints of cold rage as he declared that he had been set up. While secretly she agreed with him, she said nothing, knowing that the police were very much on the side of her father and she feared that he would not get a fair hearing.

Lifting her head, she gave a small groan. His last words to her had been that he would make them pay, that one day her whole family would pay for that day, the softness of his tone, with the hint of his Italian accent, adding to the vehemence of his statement. With an ironic curl of her lip she knew that that day had finally come. Darius would have his revenge, and her family would be destroyed.#p#分页标题#e#