were allowed at The Harrington.’ She quickly checked her reflection in the mirror, grimacing at the way her layered hair hadn’t sat quite the way she’d wanted it to. ‘Or any pet for that matter. You should think yourself lucky I bent the rules to sneak you in.’
She came back out and looked down at her blue-grey Persian cat again. ‘Are you sure you’re not going to choke to death while I head downstairs?’
Atticus blinked again and mewed. ‘Purrht.’
Isabelle snatched up her bag and phone. ‘I hope to God that wasn’t a yes.’
Isabelle saw him as soon as she entered the boardroom. He was sitting to the left of his brothers, Ben and James. Dressed in a sharply tailored designer charcoal-grey suit, with an ice-white shirt and black-and-silver-striped tie, he looked every inch the corporate player. Wheeling and dealing was his forte. He thrived on the challenge of the game, be it in the boardroom or the bedroom…especially in the bedroom. Damn him.
His sapphire-blue eyes met hers across the space that divided them, making something punch against her heart like the jab of an elbow. His expression was inscrutable. But he’d always had the amazing ability to cloak what he was thinking behind a mask of marble or an enigmatic smile. Unlike her. Over the years she’d trained herself not to be so transparent. But it took so much energy to contain her emotions. Controlling them was like trying to bail out a wave-swamped dingy with a thimble.
She raised her chin and shifted her gaze to encompass the assembled family and hotel management staff. ‘I’m sorry I’m late. I was held up with a…a housekeeping issue.’
Leonard Steinberg, the business manager who was chairing the meeting, gave her a smile. ‘All sorted now, I hope?’
‘Absolutely.’ Isabelle looked at the one vacant chair on the other side of the table from Spencer. ‘Who are we waiting for?’
‘The mystery shareholder,’ Spencer Chatsfield said, clicking his pen on and off as his gaze tethered hers.
Isabelle suppressed a shiver as that cultured baritone with its English accent moved down her spine like a caress. She had to focus. This was the moment the Chatsfield family were waiting for, the moment when the final two per cent would be brought back to the table. She knew exactly who was going to walk through that door. Had known for quite some time. Had known and wondered how no one else had put the pieces of the puzzle together before now. The blowout in the press would be monumental. The Chatsfields were good at attracting scandals but this one was going to top the lot.
The door opened and in came Isabelle’s stepmother, causing no less of a shock to the assembled family than if a vaporous ghost had appeared.
‘Mum?’
‘You?’
‘How could you?’
‘Liliana?’
Isabelle felt sorry for all of them, all except Spencer. How Liliana had kept her identity a secret for so long was part miracle, part luck, especially in the digital age of camera phones and social media tagging. But Isabelle had always found her stepmother to be a secretive, elusive type, hard to get close to, even harder to know.
The Chatsfield siblings had been young children—Cara, the youngest, a tiny baby—when their mother had left after suffering postnatal depression, but Liliana never made contact again. Isabelle found it hard to understand how Liliana could have remained incommunicado with her own flesh and blood but she knew her stepmother to be a complicated personality who kept very much to herself. How did it feel for the Chatsfield family to see their mother sweep in like a reclusive Hollywood celebrity who had suddenly decided to reclaim the limelight?
‘I know this must be a terrible shock to you,’ Liliana said. ‘I know you can’t possibly forgive me but I would like to explain. But business first.’ She turned to Spencer. ‘I’m giving you my two per cent.’
Isabelle shot to her feet so fast her chair rolled back and hit the wall behind. ‘What?’
Liliana turned to look at her. ‘On the condition you remain as president of the Harrington chain.’
Isabelle opened and closed her mouth but she couldn’t access her voice. She felt the colour drain out of her face like one of those cartoon characters she had watched as a child. All of her extremities fizzed as if her blood pressure was dropping. This couldn’t be happening. Those shares were meant to be hers. It was her dream. Her life’s goal was to own a majority share in The Harrington. She’d been working in the hotel since she was in bobby socks. She was a Harrington, for God’s sake. The staff were her substitute family. They relied on her to keep things ticking over like clockwork. How could the hotel be handed to someone else who didn’t love and nurture it the way she did?
It was her hotel, not Spencer Damn-his-eyes Chatsfield’s.
‘As majority shareholder Spencer will now be CEO of The Harrington, New York,’ Liliana said.
Isabelle ignored the rumble of voices from the Chatsfield siblings and their father, Gene, who looked like he was about to have a conniption. Spencer remained composed and silent. Coolly composed. How he must be enjoying this, she thought as a knot of resentment twisted hard and tight in her belly. How he would be getting off on seeing her hopes dashed. He must have known this would be the outcome of the meeting. Why else would he be sitting there as if butter wouldn’t melt in his blistering-hot mouth? Had he done something to win over Liliana? Isabelle knew all too well how skilled he was at getting what he wanted by fair means or foul. Look how he’d showered her with gifts and romantic attention in the past. She had tried not to succumb but in the end she had fallen and fallen hard. But then, how could she not? Back then she had lacked street smarts while he had graduated from the school of charm with first-class honours.
‘I’m not working with him!’ she said, flashing him a livid glare.
Liliana gave her a placating look. ‘I’ve given this a great deal of thought. Believe me, Isabelle. I know this is the right thing to do. I think it’s what your father would’ve wanted.’
‘My father?’ Isabelle choked. ‘How can you say that? He’s the one who gave Jonathan forty-nine per cent to throw away in a stupid poker game. Those shares should’ve been given to me in the first place.’
Liliana let out an impatient-sounding breath. ‘Look, I know this is difficult for you to understand but I think it’s the best way forward.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Isabelle said. ‘Why give the shares to him?’ She jerked her head towards Spencer without looking at him. She couldn’t bear to look at him and see him sitting there gloating over his prize. The prize that belonged to her. ‘Why not to me? You know how much this hotel means to me. You know how hard I’ve worked to—’
‘Sort it out between yourselves,’ Liliana said. She turned to her family—her bewildered and shell-shocked family. ‘I can only imagine what you’re thinking. But I need to tell you my side of the story…the reasons I left the way I did.’
Gene got up and stalked out with an embittered curse, slamming the door so loudly the surface of the water in the glasses on the boardroom table rippled.
Liliana let out a sigh and faced the stunned and hurt and shocked faces of her adult children.
