‘For the past five years old Abe, miserable bastard that he was, was bedridden and had more or less been forced to hand over control to his directors—who are good enough men when being told what to do, but on their own wouldn’t be able to get hold of a pint of beer in a brewery.’
‘What was the matter with him?’
‘What was the matter with whom?’ One minute mouthing off at him with cutting efficiency, the next minute looking like a vulnerable child. What the hell was this woman all about? He had known enough women in his lifetime not to be disconcerted by anything they said, did or thought, for that matter, but Destiny Felt was succeeding in throwing him off balance. How could someone be forthright and secretive at the same time? He nearly grunted in frustration. ‘He had a stroke and never really recovered,’ Callum said. ‘Of course, he remained the figurehead for the company but his finger was no longer on the button, so to speak.’
‘At which point you decided to break into the scene, once you’d checked out where the weak spots were,’ she filled in, reading the situation with the same logical clarity of thought that she’d inherited from both her parents.
‘It’s called doing business.’
‘Business without a heart.’
‘The two, I might as well warn you, in case you’re foolhardy enough to stick around, don’t go hand in hand.’ He hadn’t felt so alive in the company of a woman for as long as he could remember. He sincerely hoped that she stuck around, just long enough for him to enjoy the peculiar sparring they were currently establishing that was so invigorating, but not long enough to thwart his plans. His eyes drifted from her face to the swell of her breasts jutting out against the thin dress and he drew his breath in sharply.
Dammit, he was engaged! He shouldn’t be looking at another woman’s breasts, far less registering their fullness, mentally stripping her of her bra. The thought felt almost like a betrayal and he glared at her with unvoiced accusation that she had somehow managed to lead his mind astray.
‘Why did you call him a miserable bastard?’
‘You won’t be able to revive the company, you know,’ he said conversationally, standing up and prowling through the office, casually inspecting the array of legal books carefully arranged in shelves along one wall, then moving behind the desk to the picture window and idly gazing through it. ‘You haven’t the experience or the funds. My offer is wildly generous, as Abe would have been the first to admit.’ He turned around to look at her, perching against the window ledge. ‘Wait much longer and you’ll end up having to sell anyway, for a song, so it’s in your interests to give it up sooner rather than later. And then you can get back to your jungle, where you belong. It’s a different kind of jungle here. One I don’t imagine you’ll have a taste for.’
‘This is more than just business profit for you, isn’t it?’ Destiny said slowly. ‘You speak as if you hated my uncle. Did you? Why? What was he like?’
‘Use your imagination. What sort of man wills his fortune to someone he’s never met?’
‘I was told that it was because I was his only blood relation. I gather he had no children of his own. He and my father weren’t close, but I was his niece.’ It had been a straightforward enough explanation from Derek, but Callum’s words had given her pause for thought. Abraham Felt, after all, had never met her. He and her father had maintained the most rudimentary of contact over the years. Surely in all that time he should have filled his life with people closer and dearer, to whom his huge legacy would have been more fitting?
‘He left it all to you because Abraham Felt was incapable of sustaining friendships.’
‘He had hundreds of wives, for goodness’s sake!’
‘Four, to be exact.’
‘Well, four, then. He must have shared something with them.’
‘Beds and the occasional conversation, I should imagine. Nothing too tricky, though. He was noted for his contempt for the opposite sex.’
‘How do you know that? No, don’t tell me, you made it your business to find out. I’m surprised you have time to do any work, Mr Ross, since you seem to spend most of it ferreting out information on my uncle and his company.’
For a split second, Callum found himself verbally stumped by her sarcasm. Oh, yes. He had to confess that he was enjoying himself. How on earth the depths of a Panamanian forest had managed to satisfy this woman, he had no idea. She was sharp. He wondered what life on this compound of hers really was like. Having spent his entire life in concrete jungles, he wondered whether a close community in the middle of nowhere might not be a hotbed of conversations stretching into the wee hours of the morning. Not to mention sizzling sex. After all, what else was there to do? For years and years on end? Cut off from civilisation and surrounded by hostile nature?
‘Actually, your dear uncle was always very vocal on most things, including his short-lived romances.’
‘He left some shares to Stephanie Felt, your fiancée,’ Destiny pointed out. ‘What about the rest of his step-children?’
‘There were none.’
She could feel unanswered questions flying around in her head like a swarm of bees. There was something more personal to his desire to gain control of her company. What? And was her stepcousin all part of his plan? A useful arrangement because she brought shares with her? Not enough to enable him to gain downright control of the company if he married her, but enough to ensure that he remained active in whatever was happening within it. Active and, through Stephanie, with a voice.
Or was her bond to the company simply a coincidence? Was he in love with her?
She realised that intrigue was something she had so rarely encountered it was a job grappling with it all now.
‘What is Stephanie like?’ she asked guilelessly.
‘You’ll meet her soon enough. This afternoon, in fact. With the rest of the fools.’
What kind of a non-answer was that? she wondered.
The door was pushed open and Derek’s face popped around it. ‘Had enough time, Mr Ross?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he walked in and quietly shut the door behind him.
Not nearly enough, Callum felt like saying, but in fact he was already running late. Stephanie would be at the restaurant in under fifteen minutes. He felt an irrational surge of irritation rise to his throat, but he swallowed it and smiled politely at Derek.
‘We’ll need to continue this conversation after you’ve met your people,’ he addressed Destiny, pushing himself away from the window and almost throwing the little Derek into shadow as he strolled past him towards the door. ‘My offer still stands, but, like I said, don’t leave it too late or you might find that I’m forced to reduce it.’
At which he saluted them both and left, not bothering to shut the door behind him and affording Destiny the sight of Derek’s personal assistant, a woman in her mid-fifties, hurriedly half-rising as Callum swept past her, the expression on her flushed face one of addled confusion.
By the time she arrived at the company, Destiny was feeling addled and confused herself. Over lunch—an intricately arranged fresh tuna salad, the sight of which had nearly made her burst out laughing, so remotely had it resembled anything edible—she had
