she on edge, she was sexually on edge, a straightforward business discussion would do it.
She indicated that Constantine take a seat and walked around to stand behind her father’s desk, underlining her role as Ambrosi Pearls’ CEO. “Not many people know the company’s financial position, and I would appreciate if you wouldn’t spread it around. With the papers speculating about losses, I’m having a tough time convincing some of our customers that Ambrosi is solid.”
Constantine ignored the chair in favor of standing directly opposite her, arms crossed over his chest, neutralizing her attempt at dominance.
Sienna averted her gaze from the way the damp fabric of his shirt clung to his shoulders, the sleek aura of male power that swirled around Constantine Atraeus like a cloak.
“It must have been difficult, trying to run a business with a gambler at the helm.”
As abruptly as if an internal switch had been thrown, Sienna’s temper boiled over. Finally, the issue he hadn’t wanted to talk about two years ago. “I don’t think you can understand at all. Did your father gamble?”
Constantine’s gaze narrowed. “Only in a good way.”
“Of course.” Lorenzo Atraeus had been an excellent businessman. “With good information and solid investment backing so he could make money, then more money. Unlike my father who consistently found ways to lose it, both in business and at the blackjack table.” Her heart was pounding; her blood pressure was probably off the register. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose and keep on losing because you can’t control someone in your family.”
“My family has some experience with loss.”
His expression was grim, his tone remote, reminding her that the Atraeus family had lived in poverty on Medinos for years, farming goats. Constantine’s grandfather had even worked for hers, until the Ambrosis had lost their original pearl business when it had been bombed during the war. But that had all been years ago. This was now.
She leaned forward, every muscle taut. “Running a business with a gambler at the helm hasn’t been easy.”
He spread his palms on the desk and suddenly they were nose to nose. “If it got that bad why didn’t you get out?”
And suddenly, the past was alive between them and she was taking a weird, giddy delight in fighting with Constantine. Maybe it was a reaction, a backlash to the grief and strain of the funeral, or the simple fact that she was sick of clamping down on her emotions and tired of hiding the truth. “And abandon my family and all the people who depend on our company for their livelihood?” She smiled tightly. “It was never an option, and I hope I never arrive at that point. Which brings us to the conversation you want so badly. How much do we owe?”
“Did you know that two months ago your father paid a visit to Medinos?”
Shock held her immobile. “No.”
“Are you aware that he had plans to start up a pearl industry there?”
“Not possible.” But blunt denial didn’t ease the cold dread forming in her stomach. “We barely have enough capital to operate in Sydney.” Her father had driven what had been a thriving business into the ground. “We’re in no position to expand.”
Something shifted in Constantine’s gaze, and for a fleeting second she had a sense that, like it or not, he had reached some kind of decision.
Constantine indicated a document he must have dropped on the desk while she’d been out of the room. Sienna studied the thick parchment. Her knees wobbled. A split second later she was sitting in her father’s old leather chair, fighting disbelief as she skimmed the text.
Not one loan but several. She had expected the first loan to date back to the first large deposit she had found in her father’s personal account several weeks ago, and she wasn’t disappointed.
She lifted her head to find Constantine still watching her. “Why did Lorenzo lend anything to my father? He knew he had a gambling problem.”
“My father was terminally ill and clearly not in his right mind. When he died a month ago, we knew there was a deficit. Unfortunately, the documents confirming the loans to your father weren’t located until five days ago.”
Her jaw clenched. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“Believe me, if I had been there I would have, but I was out of the country at the time. To compound the issue, he bypassed the usual channels and retained an old friend, his retired legal counsel, to draw up the contracts.”
Constantine ran his fingers around his nape, his expression abruptly impatient. “I see you’re now beginning to understand the situation. Your father has been running Ambrosi Pearls and his gambling addiction on The Atraeus Group’s money. An amount he ‘borrowed’ from a dying man on the basis of a business he had no intention of setting up.”
Fraud.
Now the questions fired at her by the reporters made sense. “Is that what you told the press?”
“I think you know me better than that.”
She felt oddly relieved. It shouldn’t matter that Constantine hadn’t been the one who had leaked the story, but it did.
Someone, most likely an employee, would have sold the information to the press.
Sienna stared at the figure involved and felt her normal steely optimism and careful plans for Ambrosi Pearls dissolve.
Firming her chin, she stared out at the bright blue summer sky and the endless, hazy vista of the Pacific Ocean, and tried to regroup. There had to be a way out of this; she had wrangled the company out of plenty of tight spots before. All she had to do was think.
Small, disparate pieces of information clicked into place. Constantine not wanting to talk to her at the funeral or in the car, the way he had remained standing while she had read through the documents.
He had wanted to watch her reaction when she read the paperwork.
Her gaze snapped to his. “You thought I was part of this.”
Constantine’s expression didn’t alter.
Something in her plummeted. Sienna pushed to her feet. The loan documents cascaded to the floor; she barely noticed them. When Lorenzo Atraeus had died, he had left an enormous fortune based on a fabulously rich gold mine and a glittering retail and hotel empire to his three sons, Constantine, Lucas and Zane.
It shouldn’t be uppermost in her mind, but it suddenly struck her that if Ambrosi Pearls was in debt to The Atraeus Group, by definition—as majority shareholder—that meant Constantine.
Constantine’s gaze was oddly bleak. “Now you’re getting it. Unless you can come up with the money, I now own Ambrosi Pearls lock, stock and barrel.”
Four
The vibration of a cell phone broke the electrifying silence.
Constantine answered the call, relieved at the sudden release of tension, the excuse to step back from a situation that had
