Drew mean?”
“Mr. Anderson decided he wanted to move on. From...” His gaze swept over her, a puzzle in it. “...Travelogue,” he finished, leaving something unsaid.
Riya felt as if he had slapped her. He had said so much without saying anything, and she couldn’t even defend herself against what she didn’t understand. She had never felt more out of her depth. “Who the hell do you think you are? And you can’t just kick him out. Drew and I own—”
“He sold his share of the stock. To me. I now own seventy-five percent of your company. I’m your new partner, Riya. Or boss, or really...there are so many things we could call each other.”
AND JUST LIKE THAT, her name on his lips, spoken like a soft invocation, unlocked the memory her mind had been trying to grasp from the moment she looked into that ice-blue gaze.
“She’s dead. And she died knowing that your trashy mother is just waiting at the gates, ready to come in and take her place. I hope you both rot in hell.”
The memory of that long-ago day flashed through her so vividly that Riya had to grab the chair to steady her shaking legs.
Robert’s wife had been Anna. Anna Ramirez.
Little shivers spewed all over and she hugged herself. She had brought this on herself. “You’re Nathan Keys. You’re Robert’s son. I read about you and I never realized...”
He nodded and Riya felt her breath leave her in a big rush.
Her little lie had worked and here he was, with the largest of her company’s stock, her livelihood in his hand.
Robert’s son, the boy who had run away from home after his mother’s death, the son of the married man with whom her mother had taken up, the son of the man who had been more a father to her than her own had ever been.
The son she had been trying to bring back to Robert.
She had lied to Maria about selling the estate, hoping it would lure him back home. Thought she would give Nathan a chance she had never had with her own father.
A hysterical laugh rose through her.
Leaning against the far wall, his legs crossed together in casual elegance, he smiled, his tanned skin glinting in contrast against the white of his teeth. “What? No ‘welcome home’ greeting for your almost stepbrother, Riya?”
There were so many things wrong about his fake greeting, the worst of which was how aware she was of him in the small room. Mortification drenching her inside, Riya glared at him. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“My acceptance of your offer for familial solidarity is almost a decade late, but—”
Her chest fell and rose as she fought for a breath. “You...you waltz in here, get rid of my business partner, wave the biggest chunk of my company in my face—” she pushed her shaking fingers through her hair “—and you want welcome?”
He stayed silent and her stride ate up the distance between them. Fear was a stringent pulse in her head. “If this is revenge for my mother’s affair with your father, let me tell you—”
“I don’t give a damn about your mother or my father.”
The very lack of emotion in his words stilled Riya’s thoughts. He was going to be livid when he learned what she had intended. “Then what is this?”
“You refused every offer I had my lawyers put forward for the sale of the estate.”
Her gut twisting with fear, Riya flopped into a chair. Hiding her face in her hands, she fought through it. He had moved to acquire her company because she refused his escalating offers for the sale of the estate.
What would he do when he learned she had never intended to sell it in the first place? What had she brought on herself?
* * *
Nathan stared at the lustrous swath of dark brown hair that fell like a curtain over Riya. Even as impatience pulled at him, he stood transfixed, stunned anew by the sharpness of his reaction to her.
Every minute they spent in this confining room, his awareness of her grew like an avalanche that couldn’t be stopped.
How she wore no makeup and yet the very lack of it only heightened her beautiful skin and sharp features.
How everything about her beauty was underplayed like her professional but bland brown dress shirt and trousers.
And how utterly she failed at masking that beauty.
How exquisitely expressive her wide, almond-shaped eyes were and how she fluttered those long lashes down when she wanted to hide her expression.
Her slender shoulders trembled and he felt a pang of regret. “All I want is the estate. However high I went, you kept refusing my offers. Refused to even give a reason.”
She looked up, the flash of fear in her eyes still just as obvious. But now there was a resolve too. “So you made a play for my company?”
“Yes. It’s called leverage. Believe me, as innovative as your software engine is, your little company is not RunAway International material. Sign on the dotted line today and you’ll leave here a rich woman. I’ll even leave you to run your boring company. Of course, you’ll run it into the ground in two years the way you’re going, but being the uncaring bastard that I am, I’ll let you ruin your and your staff’s future.”
“What about all the money you spent on acquiring it?”
“A drop in the ocean. I’m sure the stock will be worthless in a couple of years anyway.”
Riya chafed at his grating confidence that she would only ruin the company. But she couldn’t focus on that now, and there was no good way to put it.
“I didn’t accept those offers because I never intended to sell the estate to anyone. I still don’t.”
“Then why did Maria assume that...”
Every inch of his face tightened as if it had been poured over by concrete and had permanently set with the fury in those chilling eyes. He was still leaning against the table, and yet he looked as if the seams of his control would burst any second.
But he didn’t move, didn’t lose control even by the flicker of a muscle. Only the sheer frost in his gaze was testament to the fury in his eyes. Finally he blinked and Riya felt the tightness in her chest relent infinitesimally.
The most unholy glint appeared in his eye, sending a ripple of apprehension through her.
“You manipulated Maria and me.” His words rang with awe and derision, his gaze studying her, as if he was reevaluating and coming to an unsavory conclusion. He moved toward her slowly. “You laid bread crumbs very cleverly to make sure I trailed after you.”
“Yes.”
