and the gray fabric stretched over his chest. “You managed it quite well all by yourself. I reviewed all of last quarter’s reports, and he did nothing but run the company into the ground. With his head buried in love clouds and you averse to any risk, Travelogue would have died within a year.”
Drew and she had known each other for a while, their relationship always in a strange intersection between friends and colleagues. But things had slowly spiraled to worse in the last few months. “I never expected him to sell me out to you.”
“Selling out to me was the wisest thing he did. There hasn’t been a lot of financial growth in the last quarter. And anyone who had good ideas, Drew fired them. Like the marketing strategist.”
The sparkling water she had ordered came and she took a fortifying sip. “All the marketing strategy suggested was that we increase the cost of membership for customers who have been with us since the beginning, and take a bigger cut of the profits from the flash sales for vacations packages.
“These are middle-class families who come to us because we provide the best value for their buck, not international jet-setters who don’t have to think twice about buying and sinking companies like a little boy buys and breaks his toys.”
Nathan countered without blinking at her juvenile attack. “That marketing strategy is spot-on. Different tiers of membership is the way to go. An executive membership that charges more and provides a different kind of experience. There’s a whole set of clientele that Travelogue’s missing out on. If you don’t grow, if you don’t expand your horizons, you’ll be pushed out of the market.”
“That’s a huge risk that might alienate us to our current clientele.”
“It is. And it’s one I’m willing to take.”
Neatly put in place, Riya bristled. It was all her hard work and his risk. And the consequences would be hers to bear. “Does it ever get old?”
“What?”
“That high you’re getting from the casual display of your power and your arrogance?”
He laughed, and the deep sound went straight to her heart, as if it were a specially designed missile targeted for her. It seemed every little gesture of his went straight to her heart or some other part of her.
Parts she shouldn’t even be thinking about.
How did he get past all of her defenses so easily? Why did he affect her so much?
She had no answers, only increasing alarm that she would never figure out how to resist whatever it was that he did so easily.
“What will you do once I sign over the estate to you? Kick Robert and Jackie out?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we can all live under one roof like a happy family. Would that pacify your guilt?”
The idea of it was so absurd that Riya stared at him, taken aback.
“Horrifying prospect, isn’t it? Me and you, me and your mother, me and Robert—it’s a disaster every which way.”
“This is all so funny and trivial to you...you don’t care...” She had to pause to breathe. “You have all these resources, you own a damn plane and yet you couldn’t have visited Robert once in all these years?
The cabin resounded with her outburst.
“It’s not a one-for-one anymore, Riya.”
He slid some papers toward her, and the words Disciplinary Action printed neatly on top stole the remaining breaths from Riya’s lungs.
She fingered the papers, her heart sinking. “What is this?”
“His mismanagement of the company in the last few months meant Drew was the dispensable one between the two of you, for now. But it doesn’t mean you’re without culpability. I need to know the source of the problem between you two.”
“Ammunition to make me dispensable too?”
“I’m making sure it’s documented properly. It’s a standard HR policy in my group of companies.”
* * *
Nathan leaned back into his seat, wondering at the puzzle that Riya Mathur was. The software engine she had built, he’d been told by one of his own architects, was extraordinarily complex. And yet she blanched at using it to its full potential by expanding the client base, at spreading her wings in any way.
“This is your one chance to clear it all up,” he said, softening his voice. He wasn’t bending the rules, but he was also very curious about what happened between her and her colleague.
“Last year, on New Year’s Eve, a week after we had signed up the half millionth member, we had a party. Drew was drunk. I...I had a glass of white wine. We...ended up next to each other when it struck twelve. He...kissed me. In front of the whole company.” She looked away. But the small tremble that went through her couldn’t be hidden. “I kissed him back...I think. Before I remembered to put a stop to it.”
“You think? It’s not rocket science.”
She glared at him and pushed her hair back. “I don’t know what happened or how I let it happen. Just that it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. In my defense, I had got the news that day that Robert was out of danger and with Travelogue making such a big milestone...” She ran shaking fingers over her face. “I’ve been kicking myself for losing control like that. I never meant to...”
“Enjoy a kiss?”
“Yes. For one thing, it was unprofessional. For another, it was reckless on so many levels. A relationship with any man is not in my plan right now. Career is my focus.”
Nathan frowned, seeing embarrassment and something else. He admired her drive to succeed in her career, understood that it might leave very little time for a personal life. If not for the thread of wistfulness in her face.
Every time he had a conversation with her, he was struck sharp by how innocent she was. Yet from everything Maria had told him with grudging respect, Riya had always worked hard, pretty much taken care of herself even when she was a child. Had helped his father every way she could.
The parameters of her life—Travelogue and its current client base, the estate, his father and her mother—they were all so rigidly defined. To step out of any of them, he realized, sent her into a tailspin.
And the one kiss reflected her age, she was calling it a momentary lapse in judgment.
“You have a plan for your life?” he asked, disbelief slowly cycling into something far more insidious.
She fidgeted in her seat. “A road map, yes... Drew is too volatile, unreliable. When I’m ready to settle down in a decade or so, I want a stable man who’ll stand by me for the rest of my life, who’ll be a good husband and father. Right now I can’t allow myself to be sidetracked by—”
Slow anger simmered to life inside him. “It seems your plan allows for everything except living.”
Her gaze flew to him.
Nathan uncurled
