are you doing?’ I detested the hint of a shriek in my voice.
‘Getting comfortable,’ he responded, draping his jacket over a chair before he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled back his sleeves. Damian in full relaxation mode was doing unspeakably erotic things to my sex. ‘I have an inkling this will take a while.’
A little stupefied, I stared as his brawny forearms were slowly exposed, my panties growing damper with every passing second.
When he was done, his eyes slowly lifted to mine and held tight. Damn the man. He knew what he was doing.
Just as he’d done when he’d used sex to addle my brain two years ago, just before he’d turned around and chopped me off at the knees.
Two could play at that game.
I reached up and freed my hair from its loose knot and spiked my fingers through it.
His gaze dropped to my breasts and his Adam’s apple bobbed before he refocused on my face. ‘Neve—’
With a jerk, I stepped away from him and from temptation, denying every lustful urge that rammed at me, and headed for the bar.
‘I’m getting myself a drink. Want one, Mr Mortimer?’ I threw over my shoulder.
He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t want a drink.’
‘Then what do you want?’
‘For starters, I really want you to cut the Mr Mortimer shit,’ he said.
Memories of groaning his given name as he rammed his cock deep inside me, of screaming it as the best orgasm I’d ever had rippled through me, charged through my brain. I wasn’t ashamed to admit it was part of the reason I was reticent about calling him by his first name.
I surfaced from that lustful reverie to find his gaze drifting to my legs.
‘For starters? Sounds like you have a list.’
He shook his head as he strolled towards me. ‘Not a list. Just one more item up for discussion.’
‘What is it?’
‘What did you mean when you said I stabbed you in the back?’
Shock and fury propelled me around, my drink forgotten, everything inside me stilled into immobility by his sheer audacity. ‘Are you serious?’
His brow pleated. ‘It’s a damning accusation. Of course I’m serious.’
I forced myself to relax. Control. I had to maintain control. ‘Which part of what happened two years ago do you need reminding of? It’s obviously not the sex because you seem to have perfect recall on that score. So it must be the fact that after screwing me in my hotel room, you had no qualms about leaving my bed to screw me over.’
His intense hazel eyes had the audacity to widen before he frowned. ‘I was in Boston for one night. The only person I met up with besides you was Malcolm Cahill.’
‘Ah, so you do remember. Give the man a prize.’
Shadows darkened his features. ‘Neve—’
The slow burn of anger ramped up. ‘Don’t you dare say my name that way. Don’t you dare make out as if what you did was excusable or that I’m blowing it out of proportion.’
He stepped towards me, stopped and shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘To do that I’d have to know what you’re talking about. I’m not sure exactly why you think I screwed you over. The Mortimer Group was in partnership with Cahill’s hotel group. I met up with Cahill to discuss an affiliation deal with a small outfit called Cephei Hotels.’
‘Yes,’ I said fiercely. ‘An outfit owned by me. As you damn well know.’
He tensed. ‘What?’
‘God, please don’t pretend you didn’t know that. That’s beneath you. How long did you even consider my proposal before you dismissed it out of hand and almost bankrupted me in the process?’ I asked, years of bitterness making my voice hoarse.
He was still staring at me as if I were an apparition. ‘Cephei Hotels was you?’
‘Cut the shit, Damian. I heard your side of the phone call when Malcolm called me to break the news, less than an hour after you left my bed, I might add. What was it you said to him? Something along the lines of small fry like me having no business playing with the big boys?’
His tension increased. ‘Those were Cahill’s words, not mine.’
‘But you had quite a bit to add, didn’t you, as you and your buddy pulled the rug from under me?’
A muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘He’s not my buddy. Cahill is a shark but he was a necessary alliance for what I was trying to achieve in Boston.’
‘What about my alliance? He was all set to sign with me. Then you got involved and he went with Crown Resorts. I’m bigger than they are.’
‘Now you are. Two years ago, you weren’t.’
My fingers curled into fists. ‘Because you saw to it that I wouldn’t be given the chance. We had a verbal agreement. My trip to Boston was to get the contract signed. Only the morning after we spent the night together, the deal was suddenly off the table.’ Two years’ worth of acrimony and fury bubbled, threatened to erupt. ‘Was the sex that bad?’
He speared me a hard look. ‘Self-deprecation doesn’t suit you.’
‘Then what was it?’ I pressed. ‘Were you bored? Was messing with me and my business some way to add a little spice to your life?’
He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Believe it or not, it wasn’t personal.’
‘Really? It felt extremely personal. You came to Boston to finalise your portion of the deal. You knew the name of my hotel. You must’ve known who I was when you met with Cahill.’
His lips flattened. ‘Names didn’t interest me. I was interested in facts and figures. Yours didn’t add up.’
‘And you deduced that after, what, an hour? Do you know how long I spent getting that deal together? How hard I worked and how many chips I cashed to make it work?’
‘That was your problem,’ he fired back. ‘You were betting your every last cent on a partnership that would’ve crushed you within a year. I could smell your desperation in the figures.’
‘You bastard.’
The jibe hit its mark and his eyes narrowed. He exhaled harshly as he absorbed it. ‘If you think I’m that despicable, why did you sign up for the show?’
I wasn’t going to expose my true motives. Not until I had him on his knees. ‘Maybe I wanted to look you in the eye and tell you to your face what I think of you. Looks like not enough people have done that in your life.’
A
