She smiled at him. “You look like you just bought another company.”
“How well you know me.” That seemed to give him as much satisfaction as whatever news he’d just gotten. “I haven’t, but I’m about to.”
Something about the way he said it made her pause.
“What company is it?”
“One I’ve wanted for a very long time.”
“You’re taking down the guy who seduced your mom into selling him the family company, aren’t you?” She didn’t know how she knew, just that she did.
A strange light glittered in his eyes. “Yes.”
“How?”
“He’s gotten cocky. He never thinks his schemes can fail, but he’s wrong.”
“In what way?”
“His father-in-law leads a group of investors that make up the bulk of his financial house of cards. Once they withdraw their support, his highly leveraged company will be worse off than a lame duck on the first day of hunting season.”
She shivered at the analogy. “Why would his father-in-law remove his support?”
“His daughter has finally wised up to what a bastard the guy is and is filing for divorce.”
Just like Baron’s little oil heiress…only Baron said he was divorcing her, but she was willing to bet it was the other way around. Unless he’d found a richer prospect. Considering the fact he’d called, trying to see her, she doubted it.
Anyway, Baron wasn’t who she needed to be focused on right now.
The strange intensity emanating off of her husband was far more interesting to her. “That makes you happy?”
“Hell, yes. I helped to make sure it happened.”
A chill skittered down her spine. “What do you mean?”
“The guy had affairs.”
“That kind of man would.”
“I took advantage of the fact.”
“How?” Then she latched on to his meaning. “You made sure his wife knew about the other women?”
She felt slightly nauseous at the prospect. Angelo’s capacity for ruthlessness was way beyond what she had ever guessed at.
“Yes.”
“That was cruel.”
“Do you really think so?” His eyes darkened with strong emotions, one of them unmistakably anger. “Wouldn’t you have preferred to know what kind of bastard Baron Randall was before getting so involved with him?”
“Sure, but that’s different…a wife is already involved. She loved him.”
“And he would keep hurting her if she didn’t face the truth. They could have had children before she woke up to what kind of man he is.”
“You can’t justify such cold behavior with that kind of reasoning. You didn’t tell her about him for her sake, you did it for yours.”
“I didn’t tell her anything.” He got up and came to lean against her desk. “I made sure she found out through friends, that there was always someone there to comfort her as each new layer of his sleazy behavior was revealed. If my mom had found out the same way, she would have been saved a lot of humiliation and might be alive now.”
She wished that were true, but chances were, there had been clues that his mother’s lover was an evil man, whoever he was. Just as there had been clues to what kind of man Baron was. Things she’d ignored for the sake of her love.
“I had friends around me when Baron did his public rejection campaign and trust me, it didn’t make it any easier to bear.”
“You don’t know that. You didn’t have to face the other.”
“No, I didn’t, but I did learn that friends can be worse than strangers, or even enemies.”
“Do you really think a wife is better off not knowing of her husband’s infidelity?”
“No, that’s not what I meant at all.” But she could see how it sounded like it. “It just bothers me that was part of your revenge against him. I pictured you taking over his company, not laying waste to his personal life.”
“No man deserves to be ruined as much as this guy. I’ll never forget my mom’s sobbing, hysterical confession, or her deep shame and guilt because of what she’d done. His cruelty killed her. You can’t get more personal than that.”
And it had left Angelo in a world where business and vengeance ruled and love had no place. No wonder he was so ruthless, but he couldn’t go on being that way. If he learned to love her, would he soften…at least a little?
“He didn’t give her the pills,” she pointed out.
“No, just the reason for taking them.”
“That could have been as much about her grief over your father than over what this guy did to her. She made the choice, Angelo.” She hated saying it, but he couldn’t spend the rest of his adult life hating this other man.