She didn’t know how to answer that. The truth was she’d kept tabs on what he’d been up to over the intervening years because, despite the fact their friendship had ended badly, she still cared about him. Not that she thought telling him that right now would do anything to strengthen her case. He’d probably just see it as more weakness.
Caleb used her hesitation to push the knife in deeper.
‘How is—what was his name?—Johnny, was it? Are the two of you still living your safe, comfortable life together?’
Heat raced to her cheeks. ‘His name was Jimmy and, no, we’re not together any more. We split up a number of years ago.’ Which was yet another painful regret. She still felt guilty about backing away from her and Jimmy’s wedding, even though she’d known it was the right thing to do at the time.
The main problem had been that the memories of Caleb had never left her, even though she’d tried her hardest to forget him. He’d stayed with her, buried deep in her heart.
There wasn’t a flicker of reaction on Caleb’s face at this news though, not even a twitch of an eye. Clearly he didn’t care a jot about her any more. But then, if that was true, why was he being so pig-headed about not listening to her?
Because he was punishing her for hurting him fifteen years ago.
Frustration surged through her. ‘I can’t believe you’re still holding a grudge, Caleb. Surely someone of your standing and success has no need to be so small-minded.’ She could hear the anger vibrating in her voice and it seemed Caleb did too because he widened his eyes a little before replacing his flash of surprise with an amused smirk.
‘Is this the controlled, cautious Elena I knew all those years ago? My, how you’ve changed.’
‘For the better, Caleb. I’m not the naïve young girl you used to know.’ She refrained from saying and love, knowing that would be taking things a step too far. He’d never said such a thing to her, he’d been too proud for that, though it had been implied in his every action.
Unless she’d read him wrongly.
Which was quite possible.
She’d been wrong about a lot of things.
There was a quiet knock on the glass door and Caleb’s PA crept, hunch-shouldered, into the room.
Before she could speak, Caleb let out a growl of frustration and snapped, ‘I thought I told you I didn’t want to be interrupted!’
Because Caleb had spoken to her in English, and perhaps in deference to Elena’s presence there too, his PA replied in English. ‘I’m so sorry, but I thought you’d want to know about this straight away. Apparently there’s a problem with the meeting with the Americans on Monday. Señor Carter’s PA is saying he’s having second thoughts—’
Caleb held up a hand to stop her speaking, his gaze flicking momentarily to Elena before returning to his PA, his expression thunderous, as if furious that Elena had been a party to hearing about the setback.
This time he replied in Spanish and, even though Elena didn’t understand a word of it, not being a Spanish speaker, she could see that his words had cut his PA deeply when she backed out of the room with tears glinting in her eyes.
‘How can you be so cold? So mean!’ she blurted when he turned back to look at her. ‘That poor woman was just doing her job.’
Mouth dry, she reached for the glass of water but when she saw how much her hand was trembling she quickly dropped it to her side again.
‘How could you treat her like that, Caleb?’
‘Like what?’ he growled.
‘Like nothing. Less than nothing. I would have thought you’d have made every effort to make sure your subordinates were treated with kindness and respect after what you went through when you were young.’
Anger flickered in his eyes. ‘I’m respectful to people when they work hard and make good choices.’
‘But people won’t learn from their mistakes if you don’t nurture them. They become afraid to take necessary risks and everything grinds to a halt.’
‘Is that what’s happened to your business, Elena?’ he asked quietly. ‘Did you drive it into the ground with your inept handling of your staff so you were forced to come here, begging for my help? What a fall from grace that must be for you.’
Hot rage rushed through her body. How could the smart, compassionate man she remembered have become so hard and mean? ‘I knew you could be a bit on the curt side, Caleb, but the man I knew was never cruel. Or a bully!’
Shock flashed momentarily across his face before it was replaced with a stony scowl. ‘Enough! This meeting is over. I don’t need you coming in here, telling me how to treat my staff. Go home and run your own business—’ he leant in closer to her so she saw the conviction plainly in his eyes ‘—without my battery.’
With that closing shot, he turned his back on her and strode out of the room, leaving the glass door swinging in his wake.
* * *
Caleb Araya paced the floor of his corner office, his blood pumping frantically through his veins.
Who did Elena Jones think she was, turning up after fifteen years of silence and presuming to tell him how to run his business and treat his staff?
The woman certainly had some nerve.
And a skewed sense of priorities.
Not that he didn’t already know that from experience.
To his utter frustration, and despite the fact they hadn’t seen each other in a very long time, as soon as he’d seen her standing there in his meeting room he’d been hit hard by that same immediate connection they’d always shared.
It had put him on the back foot.
It had always been like that with her—she affected him like no other woman ever had. The moment he’d met her at the beginning of his Erasmus exchange year to the University of Cambridge he’d found himself drawn to her.
Her cool integrity and assertive sense of self had set her apart from the other immature, entitled female students that had swarmed around him, believing him to be an ideal candidate for the bad boy fling they were so keen to tick off their list before settling down with their rich, boring husbands.
They hadn’t bothered to get to know him at all.
Elena, on the other hand, had made him feel as if he didn’t need to pretend to be somebody he wasn’t when he was with her. She’d liked him for his erudite conversation and refreshing views on the world. Or so she’d said.
After growing up as the poor, pitied son of a woman who was infamous in the small town where he lived for being the mistress of a married man and a woman of loose morals, he’d promised himself he’d make sure his adulthood would be very different.
Because of the disgrace that surrounded his family, his early life had been pretty tough by all accounts: friendless, violent and isolated. But after he’d been
