‘Sort it out between yourselves,’ Liliana said. She turned to her family—her bewildered and shell-shocked family. ‘I can only imagine what you’re thinking. But I need to tell you my side of the story...the reasons I left the way I did.’
Gene got up and stalked out with an embittered curse, slamming the door so loudly the surface of the water in the glasses on the boardroom table rippled.
Liliana let out a sigh and faced the stunned and hurt and shocked faces of her adult children. ‘And there goes reason number one.’
Isabelle watched as each Chatsfield sibling dealt with his or her mother’s presence after such a long absence. Anger, disappointment, loss, despair and frustration swirled in a torrid whirlpool that was palpable in the air.
But before she could do or say anything Spencer was at her side with a firm hand placed on her elbow. ‘I think it’s best if Liliana and her family have some privacy right now,’ he said.
‘But—’
‘We have our own business to discuss.’ His look was indomitable, his touch on her elbow electrifying, reminding her of the sensual power he’d once had over her.
Still had over her.
She could feel the latent strength of the cup of his hand. Pull away. Pull away, her brain insisted. But her body was following another script entirely, one that was firmly anchored in the past. Her body recognised his touch. Responded to it. Reacted to it with a maelstrom of excitement. His touch stirred deep longings, needs she had stoically ignored or blanked out with work. The physical contact with him, as idle as it was, awakened them, activated them into a frenzy of anticipation.
He led her outside and closed the door on the ruckus that had started inside. ‘Gotta love a family get-together.’
Isabelle whipped out of his hold before her senses went haywire. ‘Get your hands off me.’
His brows lifted as if he found the notion of her anger mildly amusing. ‘That’s not what you were saying ten years ago,’ he drawled in a husky undertone.
Isabelle curled her fingers into her hands so tightly she felt her nails embed themselves into her palms. Hatred swelled in her chest so rapidly and so thickly it was suffocating. She snatched in a scalding breath, glaring at him so furiously it felt as if her eyeballs were on fire. ‘I thought I’d made it clear what I thought of you and your business propositions seven months ago.’
He lifted a hand to the left side of his face, stroking it pointedly. ‘Slap me again if you dare, but I should warn you that this time there will be consequences.’
Isabelle felt a frisson pass over her flesh at the gauntlet he’d thrown down. She had never been the sort of person to resort to violence. She hadn’t hit or slapped anyone or anything in her entire life. But that meeting seven months ago had made something in her snap. She had flown at him like a virago. She could still hear the loud crack of her palm as it connected with his jaw and the way his head had snapped back. In her mind she could still see the crimson print of her hand starkly outlined on his lightly tanned face. He had shown nothing in his expression other than a steely glint in his eyes that had made something deep and low in her belly tremble. That same glint was in his eyes now, warning her, goading her, challenging her. It was having the same physical effect on her. Making her quiver, that shifting-sand feeling behind her knees and between her thighs. How could he still have this effect on her? She could not allow it. It must stop. She had to get control of herself.
She swung away and stalked down the corridor in the direction of her office, tossing dismissively over her shoulder, ‘I have work to do.’
He caught up to her in two strides and placed a restraining hand on her forearm. ‘We have work to do,’ he said, and all but frogmarched her into her office and closed the door with a spine-tingling click as the lock fell into place.
His take-charge manner annoyed the hell out of her and she had a feeling he knew it. What was with all this touching, for God’s sake? What did he hope to prove? That she was the same weak little pushover she had been as a naive twenty-two-year-old?
Even though she was wearing silk sleeves she felt his touch sear through her flesh like smouldering coals. She held his glittering gaze as she unpicked his hold, finger by finger, dusting off her sleeve as if it had been contaminated by something disgusting. ‘I don’t think you heard me, Spencer,’ she said through tight lips. ‘I want nothing to do with you or your business. If you want to play hotels go find yourself a Monopoly board.’
The corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked arc. ‘Ten years on and you’re still mad at me?’
Isabelle ground her teeth in an effort to disguise her tumultuous emotions. How dare he ridicule and mock her for still feeling betrayed? How could she not feel betrayed? He had deliberately set about seducing her only so he could boast to his friends about ‘doing’ stuck-up Isabelle Harrington. She could just imagine the ribald laughs they would have shared over a few drinks. Thank God she hadn’t told him he’d been her first lover. Deflowering a New York virgin would no doubt have won him some serious bragging rights.
And then there was her other secret, the secret she had told no one but her friend Sophie.
Isabelle slammed the door in her brain where she had locked the pain of the past. She had every right to be infuriated with him and nothing he could do or say would ever change that. He could never undo the damage, even if he still to this day didn’t know the full extent of it. ‘I have absolutely no feelings where you’re concerned,’ she said.
Before she could move away he lifted his hand to a stray tendril of her hair and positioned it cosily back behind her ear. His idle touch triggered a frenzy of sensation, all the nerves beneath her skin quaking in reaction. She would have jerked away but she was determined to show him he didn’t have the same effect on her he’d had in the past...or at least that was what she rationalised. It was dangerous to allow him this close, dangerous and yet irresistible. He was a powerful magnet and she was a tiny iron filing. She could feel his force field every time she looked at him. It was there in his eyes, the tug of attraction that refused to be subdued. She held her breath as he trailed that same lazy finger along the line of her gritted jaw, back and forth, making her skin tingle with the thrill of his touch. It had been months and months since someone had touched her. Her skin craved the contact. Her whole body trembled and shivered inside the shield of her clothes in its hunger for more.
As if of their own volition her eyes went to his mouth. Something fell off a high shelf in her stomach as she looked at that slanted contour, the vermillion borders defining a mouth that could be hard and yet soft, salty and sensual and devastatingly addictive. She had been kissed since but no one came even close to his mesmerising expertise. No one else had shaken her to the core of her being, evoking a response from hers that was both terrifying and exciting. It was as if his mouth could unlock a part of her personality no one else had ever had access to. He could undo her. Unravel her. Topple her from the very foundations of her being, leaving her in a thousand tiny pieces like a carelessly scattered jigsaw.
His finger glided to the base of her chin and, with the tiniest amount of pressure, raised it so her eyes connected with his. ‘That’s probably a good thing considering I’m now your boss.’
Isabelle dipped out of his hold and folded her arms across her chest, glaring at him icily. ‘I’m not taking orders from you.’
His mouth came up again in that amused arc. ‘You heard what your stepmother said. I now have majority share.’
She unlocked her arms and clenched her fists instead. ‘How did you get her to give them to you? No doubt by spinning some fantastical tale to woo her to your side. She was supposed to give them to me.’
One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Is that a sense of entitlement I can hear?’
Isabelle clenched her jaw so hard it felt like two tectonic plates grinding together. ‘I’ve worked for this hotel since I was a kid,’ she said. ‘I’ve spent most of my life learning everything about the business from the ground up. I’ve worked in housekeeping. I’ve worked in the kitchen. I’ve made it my business to understand every aspect of management. When your aunt captivated my father, I was the one who held the fort so the staff didn’t lose their focus. I was the one who worked ridiculously long days to keep things steady. I was the one who came up with the creative plan for the future. I’m the one who has put everything else in my life on hold so I can keep the Harrington brand alive and competitive in a constantly changing and challenging market. Liliana of all people knew that. She had no right to hand it to you.’
‘They were her shares,’ he said. ‘She could do what she liked.’
Isabelle let out a rude word. ‘Yes, that just about sums Liliana up, doesn’t it? She does what she damn well wants and expects everyone else to suck it up.’
His gaze studied her for a lengthy moment. ‘How long have you known?’
‘About her being the Liliana?’
He gave a single nod, his expression as inscrutable as ever.
‘A while.’
‘How long?’
Isabelle pursed her lips. ‘I take it you knew before she walked into that meeting?’