No Longer Forbidden(19)

“This land was bought as an investment property to be developed. It’s never been taken off the books as a company asset,” Nic said. “I know that much.”

“Therefore you control it as long as you’re in that chair?”

“Exactly.”

Her narrow shoulders slid a notch, but her breasts lost none of their thrust. For a skinny little thing, she had beautifully rounded breasts. All of her was a little curvier than he remembered. It was nice. Healthy.

“If I did inherit everything from Olief, I could fire you.”

Her disdainful look down her nose was the kind of entitled sassiness that had always made him want to yank her off her self-built pedestal. He reminded himself not to let her engage his emotions.

“I’ve spent the last year proving to the board I’m the right man for the job. They’re not going to switch allegiance on the whim of a spoiled brat—despite your proven ability to charm older men.”

Her chin twitched at the word ‘spoiled’ before her thick lashes came together and her most impudent smile appeared. “Don’t underestimate me. I charm the younger ones, too.”

“Yes, you always manage to get what you want, don’t you?” he said with chilly disgust. “Until now.”

As soon as he said it a vision of her feet flashed in his mind’s eye and he heard her again. I want my family. The source of hardness in him turned on its edge, pressing at an unpleasant angle against his lungs. He grimaced, wishing for her to be the diva ballerina he’d always found easy to dismiss.

“Am I really that bad, Nic?” Her white hands sifted the air. “Maybe Olief did pay my expenses, but developing as a dancer was my job. I didn’t have time to hold down a real one. And, yes, I did take things too far in the last few months, but it was the first time I’d been free to! I kept waiting for someone to set me a limit and finally realized I had to. Everyone goes through that on the way to becoming an adult. You’re making out like I’m all new cars and caviar, but what did I ever have that you didn’t?”

His laptop timed out, abruptly going black and dimming the room into a place of darkness and shadows. Thunder continued to rumble in the distance, along with the piercing wail of wind and the churn of rough waves against the shore.

“What a loaded question,” he muttered, stabbing a key to make the screen come back to life, and rising restlessly at the same time. “What did you have?” he repeated.

He rounded his desk to confront her in the cold bluish glow. He couldn’t contain the confused hurt bottled against the spurned rock that was his heart.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to meet your father for the first time when you’re an adult? To finally be invited into his home only to watch him fawn over the daughter of his mistress—a girl who isn’t even related to him—while knowing he never once wasted affection on his real flesh and blood? Now, to be fair, my mother was only a one-night stand—not a long-term companion like your mother—but he knew about me from birth. He paid for my education, but he never so much as dropped by the boarding school to say hello. I came to believe he was incapable of fatherly warmth.” He’d had to. It had been the only way to cope. “Then I saw him with you.”

Rowan drew in a breath that seemed to shrink her lungs, making her insides feel small and tense. Olief was the one safe, reliable, loving person she could go to without being told to try harder, commit deeper, be better. That was why his disappearance was killing her. She missed him horribly. She loved him.

And apparently Nic felt she’d stolen all those precious moments at his expense.

“At least that explains why you hate me.” Nic, like everyone, had expected better of her and, like always, she didn’t know how she could have been different. All she could do was what she’d always done: apologize. “I’m sorry. I never meant to get between you.”

“Didn’t you?” he shot back, his feral energy expanding until her skin prickled with goose bumps.

She felt caught red-handed. Her old crush on him sputtered to life in neon glory, making her feel gauche. The memory of today’s kiss, which she’d managed to ignore through sheer force of will since entering this room, was released like an illicit drug in her mind—one that stole her ability to think and expanded her physical perceptions.

Betraying heat flooded into her loins while the tips of her breasts tightened. She was hyper-aware of his male power held in tight restraint. For years he’d looked at her with bored aversion. Today he was seeing her, and his gaze was full of the force of his primal nature, accusatory and personal.