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She shrugged, as if she hadn’t devoured the internet looking for every scrap of information on him over the weekend. “There wasn’t really much.”
“What were you hoping to find?”
“Not the list of your assets,” she said, remembering the article he had been featured in in Forbes about the youngest billionaires under thirty. It galled her to admit it, but the man was a genius investor and apparently also one of the leading philanthropists of their generation.
He donated millions to charity and causes the world over, but there hadn’t been a byte about his personal life. What was she to make of him?
“I was looking for something of a personal nature.”
He leveled a shocked look at her. “Why?”
“Jackie told Robert you were back and he asked me a thousand questions about you. I had nothing to tell him apart from the fact that you’re a gazillionaire and an arrogant, heartless SO...”
He narrowed his eyes and Riya sighed. Antagonizing him was going to get her precisely nowhere.
“So, all this interest in my personal life is only for your precious Robert, right?”
She would jump from the thirteenth story before she admitted to him how scarily right he was. Ignoring the charged air of the luxurious interior, she went through her email. “This whole trip is just an excuse for you to—”
“Excuse for what?” he interrupted, a thread of anger in his voice. He leaned forward, his muscled forearms resting on his thighs. Gaze zeroed in on her with the focus of a laser beam. Lingered over every inch of her face until it was a caress. The decadent sides of the vehicle seemed to move inward until it was as if they were locked in a bubble.
“You’re welcome at any time to sign the papers and walk away. And I’ll do the same.”
Shaking her head, Riya looked away, trying to break the spell he cast around them. She was nowhere near equipped to take him on. On any level.
Soon they arrived at a private airfield. A sleek Learjet with RunAway International’s logo, a tangled-up R&A, was waiting. They boarded the aircraft and it was easy to keep her mouth shut, greeted by the sheer affluence and breadth of Nathaniel Ramirez’s standing in the world.
The interior of the plane was all cream leather and sleek panels. Her brown trousers and ironed beige dress shirt had never looked quite so shabby as they did against the quiet elegance of her surroundings. While Nathan spoke to the pilot, she took a quick tour and came away with her head spinning.
The master suite in the back was more opulent than her bedroom at the estate.
Still reeling from the sheer breadth of Nathan’s wealth, she made a quick call to Jackie and Robert, informing them of her sudden trip.
It took her a few minutes to settle down, to regain her balance that he tipped so easily. Soon they were leveling off at thousands of feet, with nothing but silence stretching in the main cabin.
“Robert asked me to tell you that he can’t wait to see you,” she said.
His mouth narrowed into an uncompromising line, his whole posture going from relaxed to tense in a matter of seconds. “Tell me what happened between you and Mr. Anderson.”
“That’s none of your...” Sighing, she tried to collect herself.
The last thing she wanted was to talk about herself and with him of all people. But if he couldn’t even tolerate Robert’s name, what was he going to say when he saw him? What was the point of all this if he just sat there and glared at Robert with that frosty gaze?
How hardhearted did he have to be not to wonder about Robert all these years?
If the price was that she answer questions about herself, then she would.
“There’s nothing much. Drew and I shared a professional relationship. For the most part.” Time for attack again. “Where did you go when you left all those years ago?”
Challenge simmered between them. If she went down this road, he was going to make her pay.
“New York City first and then I backpacked through Europe.” Promptly came the next shot. “So Mr. Anderson was just a hopeful candidate you were trying on?”
“For the last time, I was not trying him on. I never even went on a date with him.”
“That’s not the story I’ve been hearing.”
“I have no intention of humiliating myself or Drew just so that you can sit there and play us off against each other.”
He leaned back into his seat as they leveled off, and the gray fabric stretched over his chest. “You managed it quite well all by yourself. I reviewed all of last quarter’s reports, and he did nothing but run the company into the ground. With his head buried in love clouds and you averse to any risk, Travelogue would have died within a year.”
Drew and she had known each other for a while, their relationship always in a strange intersection between friends and colleagues. But things had slowly spiraled to worse in the last few months. “I never expected him to sell me out to you.”
“Selling out to me was the wisest thing he did. There hasn’t been a lot of financial growth in the last quarter. And anyone who had good ideas, Drew fired them. Like the marketing strategist.”
The sparkling water she had ordered came and she took a fortifying sip. “All the marketing strategy suggested was that we increase the cost of membership for customers who have been with us since the beginning, and take a bigger cut of the profits from the flash sales for vacations packages.
“These are middle-class families who come to us because we provide the best value for their buck, not international jet-setters who don’t have to think twice about buying and sinking companies like a little boy buys and breaks his toys.”
Nathan countered without blinking at her juvenile attack. “That marketing strategy is spot-on. Different tiers of membership is the way to go. An executive membership that charges more and provides a different kind of experience. There’s a whole set of clientele that Travelogue’s missing out on. If you don’t grow, if you don’t expand your horizons, you’ll be pushed out of the market.”
“That’s a huge risk that might alienate us to our current clientele.”
“It is. And it’s one I’m willing to take.”
Neatly put in place, Riya bristled. It was all her hard work and his risk. And the consequences would be hers to bear. “Does it ever get old?”
“What?”
“That high you’re getting from the casual display of your power and your arrogance?”
He laughed, and the deep sound went straight to her heart, as if it were a specially designed missile targeted for her. It seemed every little gesture of his went straight to her heart or some other part of her.
Parts she shouldn’t even be thinking about.
How did he get past all of her defenses so easily? Why did he affect her so much?
She had no answers, only increasing alarm that she would never figure out how to resist whatever it was that he did so easily.
“What will you do once I sign over the estate to you? Kick Robert and Jackie out?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we can all live under one roof like a happy family. Would that pacify your guilt?”
The idea of it was so absurd that Riya stared at him, taken aback.
“Horrifying prospect, isn’t it? Me and you, me and your mother, me and Robert—it’s a disaster every which way.”
“This is all so funny and trivial to you...you don’t care...” She had to pause to breathe. “You have all these resources, you own a damn plane and yet you couldn’t have visited Robert once in all these years?
The cabin resounded with her outburst.
“It’s not a one-for-one anymore, Riya.”
He slid some papers toward her, and the words Disciplinary Action printed neatly on top stole the remaining breaths from Riya’s lungs.
She fingered the papers, her heart sinking. “What is this?”
“His mismanagement of the company in the last few months meant Drew was the dispensable one between the two of you, for now. But it doesn’t mean you’re without culpability. I need to know the source of the problem between you two.”
“Ammunition to make me dispensable too?”
“I’m making sure it’s documented properly. It’s a standard HR policy in my group of companies.”
* * *
Nathan leaned back into his seat, wondering at the puzzle that Riya Mathur was. The software engine she had built, he’d been told by one of his own architects, was extraordinarily complex. And yet she blanched at using it to its full potential by expanding the client base, at spreading her wings in any way.
“This is your one chance to clear it all up,” he said, softening his voice. He wasn’t bending the rules, but he was also very curious about what happened between her and her colleague.
“Last year, on New Year’s Eve, a week after we had signed up the half millionth member, we had a party. Drew was drunk. I...I had a glass of white wine. We...ended up next to each other when it struck twelve. He...kissed me. In front of the whole company.” She looked away. But the small tremble that went through her couldn’t be hidden. “I kissed him back...I think. Before I remembered to put a stop to it.”
“You think? It’s not rocket science.”
She glared at him and pushed her hair back. “I don’t know what happened or how I let it happen. Just that it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. In my defense, I had got the news that day that Robert was out of danger and with Travelogue making such a big milestone...” She ran shaking fingers over her face. “I’ve been kicking myself for losing control like that. I never meant to...”
“Enjoy a kiss?”
“Yes. For one thing, it was unprofessional. For another, it was reckless on so many levels. A relationship with any man is not in my plan right now. Career is my focus.”
Nathan frowned, seeing embarrassment and something else. He admired her drive to succeed in her career, understood that it might leave very little time for a personal life. If not for the thread of wistfulness in her face.
Every time he had a conversation with her, he was struck sharp by how innocent she was. Yet from everything Maria had told him with grudging respect, Riya had always worked hard, pretty much taken care of herself even when she was a child. Had helped his father every way she could.
The parameters of her life—Travelogue and its current client base, the estate, his father and her mother—they were all so rigidly defined. To step out of any of them, he realized, sent her into a tailspin.
And the one kiss reflected her age, she was calling it a momentary lapse in judgment.
“You have a plan for your life?” he asked, disbelief slowly cycling into something far more insidious.
She fidgeted in her seat. “A road map, yes... Drew is too volatile, unreliable. When I’m ready to settle down in a decade or so, I want a stable man who’ll stand by me for the rest of my life, who’ll be a good husband and father. Right now I can’t allow myself to be sidetracked by—”
Slow anger simmered to life inside him. “It seems your plan allows for everything except living.”
Her gaze flew to him.
Nathan uncurled his fist, willing the unbidden anger to leave him. She was of no consequence to him. None.
What did it matter to him if the naive fool spent the rest of her life slaving over the estate and company, wasting her life instead of living it?
“Do you have a list of qualities and a timeline for when you’ll meet and mate with this ideal specimen of manhood too?”
Her gaze flashed with warning. “My personal life has no bearing on you. I’m only telling you this because you’re questioning my professional behavior.”
“Yet you dare ask me questions about my visits, about where I’ve been all these years.”
“That’s because I’ve seen the pain you’ve caused Robert for so long. Much as I try, I can’t help wondering what kind of man stays away from everything he knows for a decade, without once looking back. You didn’t even stay for your mother’s funeral. You didn’t care about what happened to your father for a decade. You didn’t come when Maria... If I hadn’t realized that she knew where you were—”
“Enough.”
He leveled a hard look at her and Riya knew she had crossed a line.
“I want a new software model created within three weeks for an executive membership and a package from your team on the front end. You’ll see the launch event.”
Her mouth fell open, her stomach dropping into a vacuum. “It can’t be ready in three weeks. I’ll need to redesign the whole software engine, and we don’t have any of the product development team to put the package together. I have only worked behind the scenes till now.”
“Then step into the front. Work smarter and learn to delegate. Use your staff as more than your cheerleader. And the next time a colleague professes undying love to you on office premises and continues to harass you, you’ll immediately file a report with HR.”
She slapped her palms against the table between them, something snapping in her. “How long will you hate me for what my mother did?”
“Don’t overestimate your place in my life, Riya.” Each word dripped with cutting incisiveness. “Although thanks to your manipulation, I’m veering toward moderate annoyance.”
“Then how long will you punish me for lying?”
“Punish you?”
“Yes. Lording it over me, dragging me across the world, setting goals that ensure my failure, enforcing this...this...”
He stood up from his seat and she craned her neck.
“You’ve got quite the imagination for someone who’s determined to live her life by a plan. We made a deal, one that you started. You’re bending all out of shape now because I’m holding you to your end of it?”
His voice was soft, all the more efficient for it. The angrier she got, the calmer he grew. And perversely she wanted to ruffle that frosty, still exterior, wanted to make him angry, hurt, feel something.
That scared her more than anything.
“Or is it me personally that you can’t deal with?”
She stood up, meaning to get away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He grasped her arm, the lean breadth of his body too close. “If we’re going for all-out honesty, one of us has to state it for what it is.”
Panic unfurled in sharp bursts in her belly.
As long as it was unsaid, as long as it was just in her head, and in their glances and in his knowing, arrogant smile, she could still ignore it, she could still believe it to be just a by-product of how much power he held in her life right now.
“There’s nothing to state.” She tugged at his fingers but his grip was relentless. Bending down, he neatly trapped her against her seat. His gaze moved over her as if it could touch her. Lingered over her eyes, her nose, her mouth. The sound of their breaths, labored and fast, surrounded her in the silence. She didn’t understand where this energy was coming from or why it was so strong.
When she kissed Drew, it had been pleasant, nice. Like a breezy day on the coast, like sitting in front of a warm fire in cold winter.
When Nathan touched her, it felt as if she would come apart from the inside if he continued. Left her feeling shaken when he stopped. Probably how someone would feel when jumping off a cliff. How someone felt when playing with fire.
“Please, Nate, let me go.”
A smile wreathed his mouth. It was full of satisfaction, of understanding, even a little glimmer of resignation. The pads of his fingers pressed into her skin. His breath caressed the tip of her nose, his gaze dipping to her mouth. “You didn’t wonder what would happen if I came back and turned your life upside down. You didn’t expect this current that comes to life when we look at each other. Do you have a plan for what to do in this twisted situation we’re in?”
Emotion, that emotion she wanted to see in him, it coated every word. This unbidden fire between them, for all his forcing the matter, he didn’t like or want it any more than she did.
“Do you think your life is still completely in your control?” he asked.
“It would be if you weren’t so determined to play games with me.”
“I haven’t done one thing today that I wouldn’t have even if you weren’t the most beautiful, most infuriating, the strangest creature I’ve ever met.”
A soft gasp left her mouth at the vehemence in his words.
The small sound reverberated in the quiet cabin.
Releasing her, he stepped back, his gaze a wintry frost again. Glanced at her with unease. As if he didn’t know what had happened.
“You are the problem, Riya. Not me. It rattles you when I come near you, when I lay a finger on you. You fight it by attributing motives to me. Tell me you’ll sell the estate, and I’ll have the pilot turn the plane around. Tell me you’ve had enough.”
“Why are you fighting me so much on this?” she said, desperation spewing from her. “What do you lose by talking to Robert a few times? What do you have in there, a big hard rock for a heart?”
Her attack took him by surprise. A scornful twist to his mouth, he stared at her. And Riya could literally see the minute he decided she wasn’t worth it. Whatever it was.
Perverse disappointment flooded her and she stood immobile in its wake.
“I have no heart. At least not a working one.” His mouth barely moved, his jaw clenched tight. “I’ll never forgive him for what he did to my mother. He let her down when she needed him. Flaunted his affair with Jackie in her face. Just the mere thought of him fills me with anger, reminds me of my own weakness.”
CHAPTER FIVE
RIYA STRAIGHTENED IN HER leather seat as they touched down on the runway. She had spent the entire flight alternately staring at the screen and catching sneaky glances of Nathan. He, however, seemed to have very effectively removed her from his mind.
The new software model that he had demanded loomed high at the back of her mind, but she was way too restless to focus.
As much as it galled her, the infuriating man was right.
All these years, she had drowned herself in work, focused on the estate and Robert and Jackie. Had spent it all denying herself a normal life.
What was the point in inviting anyone into her life when all she faced in the end was pain and disappointment? When, inevitably, she would be deserted? A small mistake, and look how easily Drew had walked away from her. Wasn’t it better than the hurt that followed if she allowed herself to form any kind of attachment, to constantly look inside and wonder what she was lacking?
For years, she had wondered why her father had given up on her so easily, why she wasn’t enough for Jackie as she struggled herself...
Safer to focus on work, to develop her career. At least, the results were dependable. But it also meant she was woefully unequipped to deal with her attraction to Nathan. And all the ensuing little things she was sharply becoming aware of.
Simple things like how different the texture and feel of his hand was against hers. How the scent of him invaded her senses when he stood so close. How there was a constant battle within her between reveling in what he evoked and fear that she was losing control.
How slowly but surely his words were beginning to affect her...
As she followed him down the plane’s stairs, she stilled on the second step, taking in the vast expanse of land, a beautiful landscape of beaches and water. Her mouth slack, she blinked at the sheer magnificence of it.
The island was a paradise and apparently Nathan’s next billion-dollar venture.
A team of engineers and architects greeted him, all dressed in casual shorts and T-shirts. “Is Sonia still working?” he asked, and was told yes.
Her curiosity about the island and the project he had mentioned trumping everything else, Riya stayed behind him. His attention to detail, his incisive questions...it was like watching a super computer at work.
The island, she learned, was to be rented out as a private retreat to celebrities who wanted a slice of heaven to get away to, at a staggering half a million dollars per day. The tour they had been given, driving around in buggies, had permanently stuck her jaw to her chest.
There were a hundred acres of heaven, with six Balinese-style abodes, a submarine that could be chartered to see the untouched coral reef, a Jacuzzi that could apparently house two dozen people at once and an unnamed attraction that everyone mentioned with sheer excitement. Also included on the island were private beaches, infinity pools that led into the ocean, tennis courts, a wide array of water sports and every single abode came with a personal chef, a masseuse and a housekeeping staff of ten.
No small detail was beneath Nathan’s attention. He had even asked after the scientific team dedicated to studying an almost extinct gecko that was native to the island.
The more Riya saw, the more guilt and awe gripped her insides.
He owned all this and he still wanted that small estate. He had chosen to accept her little deal when he could have done anything with her company, with her and not looked back. That didn’t speak of a heartless, uncaring man, and Riya struggled to accept what it did mean.
Just the mere thought of him fills me with anger, reminds me of my own weakness.
His words pinged incessantly in her head all afternoon. Beneath the cold fury, there had been so much pain, an ache that she understood. All she knew was that his mother, Anna, had died of a heart condition. But why say Robert reminded him of his own weakness?
Seeing his dynamic interactions with his team, however, his face wreathed into laughter at something, she found it hard to see any weakness in him. He was gorgeous, wealthy and possessed of an incisive mind that had made him a billionaire.
Sometime since they had arrived, he had changed into khaki shorts and a cotton T-shirt. The relentless sun caressed his face, glinted in his beard, reflecting myriad shades of blue in his eyes. The watch on his wrist glinted expensively as he signaled to someone, and his hands and arms caught her attention.
His gaze found her right then, as though he was aware of her fascination, and she dragged her own back to the delicious food that they had been served. They were lunching on the covered terrace of one of the villas.
Fresh water cascaded into a whirlpool on the terrace below and poured into the enormous swimming pool, its water as clear as crystal. The living area was cavernous with tropical sunlight streaming in from every direction.
Using local stone and Brazilian hardwood floors, the villa was an architectural beauty that boasted ten bedrooms. Decorated with priceless antiques, Indian rugs, art pieces and bamboo furniture from Bali, the villa was situated above a hill providing a spectacular view of the beach.
The chocolate soufflé had barely melted in her mouth when Nathan sat down in the chair next to her.
“What do you think?” he asked, and his entire team had come to a grinding halt as though his very question to her demanded utter silence.
Riya had met his captivating gaze, warning herself not to read so much into a simple question. “Everything is brilliant, gorgeous,” she replied, feeling his scrutiny like a warm caress. “But you don’t need Travelogue to find high-end customers for this place.”
She had known he had dragged her along only to make her uncomfortable. Still, disappointment slashed through her. For a few hours, she had forgotten their little deal, had felt like a part of his dynamic team, had realized how much she had been missing living in her own world.
“I have something else in mind for Travelogue. The island is the place we’re testing it out. Also, every year, there will be three months when we’ll offer up the six villas independently for a deal. A special sale for our low-end customers, a chance for an average man to experience a little slice of heaven.”
“And the income from those three months? It goes to a charity, doesn’t it?”