you sitting in Drew’s chair?”
The intensity of his gaze, while nothing new to Riya, still had a disconcerting element to it. Men stared at her. All the time.
She had never learned how to handle the attention or divert it, much less enjoy it, as Jackie did. Only painstakingly cultivated an indifference to those heated, lingering looks. But something about him made it harder.
Finally he uncoiled from his lounging position. And a strange little wave of apprehension skittered through her.
“I bought controlling interest in Travelogue last night, Ms. Mathur.”
She blinked, his soft declaration ringing in her ears. “I bought a gallon of milk and bread last night.”
The sarcastic words fell easily from her mouth while inside, she struggled not to give in to the fear gripping her.
* * *
“It wasn’t that simple,” Nathan said, getting up from the uncomfortable chair. The whole cabin was both inconvenient and way too small for him. Every way he turned, there was a desk or chair or a pile of books ready to bang into him. He felt boxed in.
Walking around the table, he stopped at arm’s length from her, the fear hidden under her sarcastic barb obvious. Gratification filled him even as he gave the rampant curiosity inside him free rein.
Like mother, like daughter.
He pushed the insidiously nasty thought away. True, Riya Mathur was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and as a man who had traveled to all the corners of the world, he’d seen more than his share.
She was also, apparently, extremely smart and as possessed of the talent for messing with men’s minds as her mother, if everything he had heard and Drew Anderson’s blatantly obvious craze for her was anything to go by.
But where Jacqueline met the world with a devil-may-care attitude, flaunting her beauty with an irreverent smile, her daughter’s beauty was diluted with intelligence and a carefully constructed air of indifference.
Which, he realized with a self-deprecating smile, made every male of the species assume himself equal to the task of unraveling all that beauty and fire.
Exquisite almond-shaped, golden brown eyes, defiant, scared and hidden behind spectacles, a high forehead, a straight, distinctive nose that hinted at stubbornness and a bow-shaped mouth. All this on the backdrop of a golden caramel-colored silky smooth complexion, as though Jackie’s alabaster and her Indian father’s brown had been mixed in perfect proportions.
She had dressed to underplay everything about herself, and this only spurred him on to observe more. It was like a cloud hovering over a mountaintop, trying to hide the magnificence of the peak beneath it.
A wary and puzzled look lingered in her eyes since she had stepped inside. Which meant it was only a matter of time before she remembered him.
Because he had changed his last name, and he looked eons different from the sobbing seventeen-year-old she had seen eleven years ago.
He should just tell her and get it over with, he knew. And yet he kept quiet, his curiosity about her drumming out every other instinct.
“I had to call in a lot of favors to find your investors. Once they were informed of my intent, they were more than happy to accommodate me. Apparently they’re not happy with the ways things are being run.”
“You mean disappointed about the bucket loads of money they want us to make?” A flash of regret crossed her face as soon as she said it.
She was nervous, which was what he’d intended.
“And that’s wrong how, Ms. Mathur? Why do you think investors fund start-ups? Out of the goodness of their hearts?”
“I don’t think so. But there’s growth and there’s risk.” She took a deep breath as though striving to get herself under control. “And if it’s profits that you’re after, then why buy us at all?”
“Let’s just say it caught my fancy.”
Frustration radiated out of her. “Our livelihood, everything we’ve worked toward the past four years is hanging in the balance. And all you’re talking about is late night shopping, things catching your fancy. Maybe living your life on the periphery of civilization all these years, cut off from your fellow man, traipsing through the world with no ties—”
“Riya, no....” She heard Drew’s soft warning behind her. But she was far too scared to pay heed.
“—has made you see only profit margins, but for us, the human element is just as important as the bottom line.”
“You make me sound like a lone wolf, Ms. Mathur.”
“Well, you are one, aren’t you?” She closed her eyes and fought for control. “Look, all I care about is what you intend to do with the company. With us.”
Something inched into his features, hardening the look in his eyes. “Leave us alone, Mr. Anderson.”
“No,” Riya said aloud as Mr. Ramirez walked around the table and toward her. Panic made her words rushed. “There’s nothing you have to say to me that Drew can’t hear.”
Stopping next to her, Drew met her gaze finally. The resignation in his eyes knocked the breath out of her as nothing else could. “Drew, whatever you’re thinking, we can fight this. We own the patent to the software engine—”
“Does nothing else matter to you except the blasted company? Statues possess more feelings than you do.”
Bitterness spewed from every word, and the hurt festering beneath them lanced through her. She paled under his attack, struggled to put into words why.
“I’m done, Riya,” Drew said, with a hint of regret.
“But, Drew, I...”
His hands on her shoulders, Drew bent and kissed her cheek, all the while the deep-set ice-blue gaze of the arrogant man who was kicking Drew out stayed on her without blinking.
Something flitted in that gaze. An insinuation? A challenge? There one minute, chased away by a cool mockery the next.
But Riya didn’t look away. Locking her hands by her side, she stood frozen to the spot.
Stepping back from her, Drew turned. “I’ll set up something with your assistant, Nathan.”
Without breaking her gaze, the hateful man nodded.
“Goodbye, Riya.”
The words felt so final that Riya shivered.
Leaving her flailing in the middle of the room, Drew closed the door behind him. It felt as if she were locked in a cage with a wild animal even as her mind was sifting and delving deeper.
Nathan...Nathan...Nathaniel Ramirez. Owns a group of travel and vacation companies called RunAway International, has traveled the world since he was seventeen...
A
