His eyes never wavered from hers. ‘I joined a few dots in the past twenty-four hours. It’s hard to hide your identity these days. A quick search on the internet and you can find out just about anything about someone, even if they’re doing their best to hide.’
Had he done a Google search on her? Isabelle wondered. She could hardly criticise considering she’d been cyberstalking him for years. Checking on who he was seeing—not that he saw anyone for long—what places he visited, where he holidayed. He was known as the Prince of Pickups. Maybe not quite as bad as his cousin Lucca Chatsfield had been before he married, but Spencer could easily install a turnstile in his bedroom.
She blew out a whooshing breath. ‘I confronted her about it a few months ago. I felt it was cruel to keep her family in the dark for so long. I understand someone wanting to be a recluse for a bit but what sort of person walks away from a six-week-old baby?’
‘Apparently she had postnatal depression.’
Isabelle gave him a cynical look. ‘For twenty-odd years?’
He shrugged as if it didn’t much concern him. ‘She must have known she couldn’t keep her identity a secret too much longer.’
A feather of suspicion lifted the hairs on the back of Isabelle’s neck. ‘Did you bribe her?’
He gave a deep rumble of self-deprecating laughter. ‘My, oh, my, you do have an appalling opinion of me, don’t you, darling?’
She ground her jaw again. ‘Don’t call me that.’
He leaned his hips back against her desk and casually crossed one ankle over the other as if he owned the place. But then he did, almost. ‘What was she like as a stepmother?’
Isabelle let out another tight breath. ‘She held us at arm’s length, as if she was frightened of what being a stepmother entailed. My father and her were a closed unit. Once she came into his life he had no time for us anymore—not that he had much time for us in the first place. Even work took a back seat, which is saying something, as he’d always put the hotel before everything. He worshipped her. She could get him to do anything for her. That’s probably why he never let on to anyone about who she was. It was their little secret.’
‘Until you put two and two together.’
She frowned at him in irritation. ‘I’m surprised it hasn’t come out before now. One photo would have outed her. But then she hated having her photo taken. She’d always pull back and say her hair or makeup wasn’t right.’ Her arms tightened across her body as if that would somehow contain her bitter disappointment at how her stepmother had betrayed her. ‘Of course it all makes sense now.’
‘Given your strained relationship with her, why did you think she might give you her two per cent?’
Isabelle wished she hadn’t told him all she had. It had come spilling out, revealing far too much of herself. How much she had sacrificed, how much she dreamed and hoped. He would use it to his advantage. Maybe he already had. Although she had never mentioned her stepmother by name during their brief fling ten years ago, he must have sensed her relationship with Liliana was strained. For years Isabelle had tried to connect with her father’s new wife but Liliana wasn’t the nurturing or confidante type. She kept very much to herself, serving her own interests without showing any interest in that of others, especially three grief-stricken young girls. ‘I foolishly thought she’d noticed how hard I worked for the hotel. Seems I was wrong.’
‘She gave you a compliment by insisting you stay on as president.’
Isabelle eyed him narrowly. ‘Was that her suggestion or yours?’
His expression gave nothing away. ‘You think I want you working under me?’
She clenched her fists again. ‘Beside, not under.’
A teasing glint sparked in his blue eyes. ‘We could make this grand old hotel rock. Give it a little facelift. Modernise it. Loosen it up a bit. What do you think?’
Isabelle stalked behind her desk, using it as a barrier. Damn him and his double entendres. He swivelled from where he was perched on the corner so he was facing her, his long legs cutting off her only exit. She would have to step over those lean but strong limbs if she didn’t want to scramble over the four-foot-high polished walnut filing cabinet on the other side. ‘You understand nothing of the class of The Harrington,’ she said. ‘You Chatsfields are all the same. You think all a hotel has to offer is a comfortable bed with a bunch of feather pillows and fluffy towels and an unlimited supply of alcohol.’
Something moved at the back of his gaze, a camera-shutter-quick movement she would have missed if she hadn’t had her gaze firmly locked on his. ‘What do you offer here that I can’t get at home?’ he asked.
She gave him a guarded look. ‘You mean in the hotel?’
The twinkle in his eyes reappeared. ‘What else could I mean?’
Isabelle flattened her mouth and crossed her arms over her body again. ‘I’m sure you’ve read The Harrington mission statement. We offer luxurious boutique accommodation to an elite and more dignified global clientele.’
The corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly at her emphasis on the word dignified. ‘So, no riff-raff.’
Her chin went up. ‘Absolutely not.’
His eyes kept hers prisoner. Watching, noting, measuring. ‘Your profits were down last quarter.’
Isabelle’s spine went rigid. ‘It was a colder than normal winter. Business always drops off a little in the low season. It’ll pick up now it’s spring.’
He released her gaze as he picked up her crystal paperweight and turned it over in his hands. She watched those long clever fingers as they moved over the smooth glass. It reminded her of how he had cradled her breasts in his hands. Even the way he was stroking his thumb over the top of the globe made her breasts tingle in memory. She could feel a blush rising on her cheeks as the traitorous heat in her lower body spread. How could he have such sensual power over her after all this time? Her body had never forgotten the pleasure he had evoked. The memory of it still thrummed in her blood. His electrifying touch, the caress of his lips and tongue, the way he moved within her, the way their bodies had been so in tune—it was like a symphony written exclusively for them.
But nothing about Spencer Chatsfield was exclusive. He’d had numerous lovers before her and numerous ones after. He enjoyed the chase. He wasn’t interested in building a bond with a lover, taking it to the next level of commitment. He was always on the go for a new challenge, a new focus. That’s why he had pushed and pushed to gain The Harrington. It was a prize, a trophy he wanted. Like she had been.
He put the paperweight down and met her gaze. ‘How about you show me your best assets?’
She gave him a cutting look. ‘I know what you’re doing.’
His expression was guileless. ‘What am I doing?’
Isabelle compressed her lips until they hurt. ‘It won’t work. I’m not that silly little fool you deliberately set out to seduce ten years ago.’
His eyes went to her mouth, and then back to her eyes, something softening in the hard planes of his face as if he was remembering what they had shared. ‘I never thought you were a fool.’
She tried not to notice how deep and gravelly his voice had become. How his eyes had darkened to a deep inky blue, how his mouth looked so firm and yet so sensually contoured her own lips ached to feel their pressure against them. The primal need he aroused in her was frightening. Why couldn’t she control her response to him? Just being in his presence stirred her senses into mania. She became aware of every area of her flesh he had touched in the past, as if being in his presence activated sensors like a tracking device. She could smell the lime notes of his aftershave with its understory of something woodsy and clean and cool and fresh with the sharp tang of outdoors. He’d shaved that morning, but even so she could see the tiny pinpricks of stubble along his jaw and surrounding his mouth. She’d felt that sexy rasp against her skin, the way it had teased her flesh, catching on her softness, reminding her of all that was different between them.
Isabelle gave herself a mental shake-slap-shake. She had to stop thinking about the past and concentrate on here and now. He didn’t want her. He wanted her hotel. He was playing with her, luring her in with that deadly Chatsfield charm. She knew exactly what he was thinking. How much more malleable and cooperative would she be if she was in his bed? He would seduce her senseless to get her to sign anything, to agree to anything, in that dazed state of slavish infatuation she had demonstrated in the past. Before she knew it he would have reinvented her hotel into some lurid facsimile of a Chatsfield hotel. The Chatsfields were synonymous with style, spectacle and scandal. The Harrington’s reputation as an elegant and luxurious haven would be desecrated.
She straightened her shoulders. ‘I’ll get the duty manager to show you around the hotel.’
‘I want you.’
Isabelle upped her chin. How did he manage to make three words sound so blatantly sexual? ‘I have a prior engagement.’
Searing heat passed from his gaze to hers. ‘Cancel it.’
She gave him an arctic glare. ‘What are you going to do if I don’t? Fire me?’