CEO's Marriage Seduction / His Style of Seduction: CEO's Marriage Seduction / His Style of Seduction
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She watched Griffin’s eyes linger on the display of fresh flowers set on a tabletop. She loved newly cut blooms.
Still, since she was a little unnerved by his presence in her apartment, she was grateful no more personal touches were visible. Her bedroom—along with a guest room, two baths and a terrace—was tucked away upstairs.
She wondered again about why he was here. “Is it Dad?” she blurted. “Is something wrong with my father?”
Griffin had said her father hadn’t requested he come, but that didn’t mean Griffin’s appearance at her door didn’t involve her father.
Her father was in his late sixties, and she dreaded the day something would befall him. As strained as their relationship sometimes was, she still loved him. And she worried he would try to protect her by hiding any health problems until they were dire.
“No, don’t worry,” Griffin responded. Then he asked abruptly, “Do you know what Carter was doing two nights ago?”
Caught off guard, she said, “No. Why?”
Griffin regarded her intently, and even though not a muscle moved in his face, there was something she didn’t like in his expression.
A sense of unease settled in the pit of her stomach.
“Why?” she repeated.
Griffin’s eyes pinned her like lasers. “Carter Newell has been sleeping with another woman behind your back. He was with her two nights ago.”
She looked at him uncomprehendingly, but after a moment, his words hit her, washing over her like one big tidal wave of disaster.
Her mouth worked.
She was still unable to look away from Griffin’s eyes, and somehow they were the only thing keeping her standing.
Panicky dread coursed through her, making her feel ill.
“How—how do you know this?” she managed at last, showing a composure she didn’t feel.
“Does it matter?” he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Because he’d seemed ready for the question, she became suspicious.
“How did you find out?” she asked, trying again, her tone sharpening. “You and Carter don’t run in the same circles.”
Griffin shrugged.
“My father put you up to this, didn’t he?” she accused.
When he continued to look at her implacably, she said, “Answer the question, Griffin. You’re a hired gun, aren’t you?”
Griffin’s jaw worked. “Your father started the ball rolling by asking me to look into it, yes.”
“You mean he asked you to have Carter investigated,” she responded. “Let’s not sugarcoat it, shall we? He asked you to sic Tremont REH’s usual investigator on him, right?”
It was an interrogation, and from the look on Griffin’s face, he didn’t like it one bit.
Too bad, she thought. Since he’d volunteered to be the messenger, he’d asked for it.
“Does it matter how I found out?” Griffin asked.
“Did you tell my father you were coming here?”
He looked at her, his face carved in granite. “I didn’t tell your father anything—including what the investigator found out. I thought you should know first.”
“Misplaced gallantry, Griffin?” she said mock ingly.
His face tightened. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”
She glared at him. “Appreciate it? Appreciate you’ve had my fiancé investigated? Appreciate you’ve acted at my father’s bidding?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Oh, I appreciate it. I just don’t know which of you to thank first. Carter, my father or you.”
“Aren’t you sidestepping the real issue?”
“What if I said I don’t believe you?”
His expression chided her. “You know the investigator has evidence to back me up.”
For the first time, she focused on the envelope in his hand. “Let me see it.”
She moved to take the envelope from him.
“No.”
She came to a stop. “No?”
“I’ll let you see some of it. I brought some photos—and evidence that Carter has barely got a cent to his name.”
He said no more, but she understood the implications. If Carter had no money, and on top of it all, was cheating on her, all signs pointed to one reason why he’d been willing to marry her.
She hated coming to the conclusion her father had been right. Sure Carter had floated the idea of a prenuptial agreement, but he’d looked relieved when she—silly, romantic soul—had put the kibosh on the idea. And prenup or no prenup, Carter would have enjoyed the lifestyle to which her income and her trust fund would have made him accustomed.
As if that weren’t enough, for the second time, she felt like the recipient of Griffin’s misplaced gallantry. He was trying to spare her from seeing the sordid proof of Carter’s betrayal.
“Trying to protect me, Griffin?” she challenged. “Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?”
His expression closed. “You don’t act like a woman who’s just found out the man she loves has been two-timing her.”
“Are you questioning the strength of my feelings for Carter?”
He just looked at her coolly.
“You really are a piece of work, you know that?” she said. “First, you have my fiancé investigated, then you question my feelings. Do you always rub salt in the wounds?”
“Just noting the facts.”
“Did you expect me to break down and weep in front of you?” she tossed back at him.
“I suppose the tears will flow when you’re done being angry.”
That did it. She stalked forward to grab the envelope from him, but he was too fast for her.
He held the envelope aloft, and she wound up knocking against him instead of seizing the photos.
She jumped up, once, twice, but he was bigger, taller and stronger.
“Damn you!” she said between gritted teeth, tears stinging her eyes. Was she destined to be thwarted by all the men in her life?
“I’m damned all right,” he responded in a clipped tone.
“You’ve never experienced the sting of rejection, have you? Noooo, of course not. You’re Mr. Oh-So-Perfect. Mr. Fix-It.”
“You don’t know the first thing about it.”
“Oh, right, I forget,” she quavered, swiping at a tear. “You’re a man. You don’t need to worry about your biological clock ticking, about the fact your mother entered menopause prematurely, about the fact you’re past thirty and closing in on thirty-five and the bell may toll on your fertility before you’re ready for it.”
While she was giving him a piece of her mind, she realized he’d gone still as a rock, his expression frozen.
“I’ll never have a baby now.”
And then mortifyingly, the tears welled up and burst from her.
Griffin tossed the envelope aside, and grasped her by the arms as sobs racked her.
His mouth came down on hers, as he pressed her back against the wall behind her.
Stunned, she went still.
He plundered her mouth, and she was swamped by the sensation of him. His hard, lean body pushed against her, and she picked up the scent of Ivory soap that clung to his skin.
Then as anger and frustration poured out of her, she kissed him back.
It was a brutal kiss, a contest of wills. She made sounds halfway between moans of pleasure and groans of angry frustration.
Griffin had infiltrated her house, stripping her of every protective layer and exposing her vulnerability, and then had the nerve to kiss her.
She tried to shrug off his grasp, but he just pinned her with his body, his hand coming up to hold her head still.
His hot mouth devoured her, and sizzling sensation skated across her skin.
Finally, however, she pulled together the frayed ends of rationality and tore her mouth from his.
She shoved at him, and he rocked back on his heels.
Her sobs had faded away, and anger now completely filled the void. Whatever she’d felt toward her father and Carter, it was directed all at Griffin for the moment.
Confused and disturbed by his kiss, she grasped at the first thing she could think of to lash out at him with.
“Did you think I’d be ripe for the picking now that Carter’s proved faithless?” she asked, trembling. “That I’d be so desperate…”
She left the sentence unfinished. So desperate she’d even consider taking up with him.
Griffin’s expression closed. “Trust me,” he ground out. “The last way I’d describe you is desperate.”
Then, before she could say anything else, he turned and strode to the door, letting it slam shut behind him.
She dashed to her front window and watched as he emerged from her house seconds later and climbed into his Porsche convertible.
She lingered to watch as he pulled away down the street.
Only then did she become aware of the fact that she had two fingers pressed to her lips—where she could still feel his kiss.
Four
Eva already had plans to meet Carter for dinner the following night.
She breezed into The Last Supper Club at a quarter past seven. If she had her way, she thought, this would be Carter’s last supper.
She was dressed in a Proenza Schouler little black dress. Her kiss-off dress, she liked to think of it as now.
She’d called ahead to the restaurant so the staff could advise Carter when he arrived that she would be a little late.
Now, she found Carter exactly where she expected him. He was already seated, enjoying a glass of red wine and perusing the menu.
His face brightened when he spotted her. “Eva! Glad you’re here.”
He wouldn’t be glad for long, Eva thought.
She stopped when she reached his table, not bothering to take a seat.
Carter rose, and Eva watched the gesture cynically.
When she’d first met Carter, she’d been taken by his gentlemanly manners, but now she saw them as just another piece of artifice in his carefully constructed facade.
Her gaze moved over him.
He was wearing an off-white linen blazer over an open-collar light blue shirt that accentuated the paleness of his eyes. His dirty-blond hair was artfully mussed.
His appearance struck her now as too perfect, and Eva called herself a fool for the thousandth time in the last twenty-four hours.
She thought about Carter’s willingness to have kids right away, and wondered now whether his enthusiasm had been feigned. On the other hand, kids would have solidified his claim on her money.
Even Carter’s push for a big wedding appeared suspect in retrospect. A large wedding would have been a major networking opportunity for him since the cream of San Francisco society would have been in attendance.
Carter reached to pull out her chair, but she continued to stand where she was.
Belatedly, Carter took in her expression and frowned.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Tell me one thing,” she said bluntly. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Are you seeing another woman?”
Carter’s expression momentarily registered shock, and then went blank.
Oh, he was good, she thought.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he responded carefully, and then his face softened. “Eva, I’m engaged to you.”
He reached for her, but she sidestepped him. She’d been expecting delay and obfuscation.
She pulled the photos from the outer pocket of her purse and tossed them on the table. She watched as he scanned them.
Carter’s face first showed puzzlement, then shock and, finally, a subtle tightening of the muscles.
When Carter looked up at her, however, she realized he still wasn’t willing to give up the game. His expression was arranged in lines that were relaxed and reassuring.
“Eva, I can explain—”
“There’s more,” she said, cutting him off.
After Griffin had left her apartment yesterday, she’d retrieved the photos he’d left behind. She’d spread them out on her coffee table and stared at them until her mind was numb. They’d been incriminating enough—showing Carter dallying with a busty brunette—that she’d wondered what Griffin wasn’t letting her see. A videotape, perhaps?
Now, her eyes bore into Carter’s, and after several moments, she watched as his shoulders lowered.
“Who gave you these?” he demanded.
“Does it matter?” she retorted.
She knew she sounded just like Griffin had yesterday—dismissing the importance of the photos’ origin—but she didn’t care.
“Your father,” Carter guessed.
“Griffin Slater,” she shot back.
She took some satisfaction in contradicting him. Technically it had been Griffin who had handed her the photos.
Carter’s brows snapped together. “The guy I met at a gathering at your parents’ estate a few months ago? The CEO of Tremont REH?”
She nodded.
“Acting at your father’s request, I’ll bet,” Carter guessed again.
She said nothing, but her hands fisted at her sides.
After a moment, Carter’s lips quirked up in dry amusement. “Your father always hated me,” he said almost ruefully. “He had it in for me from the beginning,”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
Carter’s expression cooled. “What do you want me to say, Eva?”
“You were taking me for a ride! You lied to me—cheated on me!” she flung at him. “Were you planning to carry on with her right through the wedding and honeymoon?”
Carter glanced around them. “Eva, you’re creating a scene.”
“I don’t give a damn!”
“This isn’t the place to be having this discussion.”
“I can’t think of a better one, actually,” she retorted before coming to the point. “Why were you marrying me, Carter?”
He didn’t respond for a moment. Then his eyes took on a calculated edge. “What about your motives for marrying me? A baby.”
“I was up-front about my reproductive issues, Carter,” she snapped. “It hardly amounts to a betrayal of trust.”
She’d thought she’d been marrying Carter for all the right reasons. She hadn’t just wanted a baby. Had she?
“And that was some ride you were taking me on where Griffin Slater was concerned.”
“What?”
Carter raised his eyebrows. “Don’t ask me to believe there’s nothing between you and Mr. CEO. A guy doesn’t step up to the plate with evidence like this without a damned good reason. I saw the way he watched you at your parents’ party.”
Her eyes widened.
Unbelievable. Carter was turning the tables on her, making it seem as if she was the one who had to defend herself.
“Even if Griffin Slater was a hired gun,” Carter continued, “he could have just forked over the incriminating evidence to your father instead of going to console the devastated heiress himself.”
Carter’s tone was mocking, and her father’s words reverberated through her mind.
Heiress hunter.
She suddenly saw that Carter was like a penny dipped in acid. Fool’s gold.
And then she did the one thing guaranteed to dull the penny.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say devastated is the right word.” She grabbed the wineglass that had already been poured for her and tossed its contents in Carter’s face. “Mad as hell is more like it.”
Carter’s face turned red as he looked down at himself, his formerly pristine attire now splattered with wine. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“Getting even,” she replied with some satisfaction, though she knew it was a far cry from what he’d done to her.
She turned on her heel and marched out, ignoring the stares of the other diners and the waitstaff.
She could practically hear the eggs in her ovaries aging with every step.
She’d been wrong, she realized. Work wasn’t Carter’s mistress. But something—or more accurately, someone—else was, she thought bitterly.
How could she not have seen Carter for what he was? Had her desperation for a child made her blind, shutting off her intuition?
As a professional party planner, she prided herself on being able to read people.
She made her way across the pavement to her car, a glower marring her features.
Betrayed by Carter, deceived by her father and dealt the crowning blow by Griffin. She should just wash her hands of the other half of the species and enter a nunnery, she thought with disgust.
And how dare Carter try to turn the tables on her by suggesting something was going on between her and Griffin?
Unbidden, her mind returned to Griffin’s surprising kiss at her condo.
She’d been immobilized, stupefied by the passion lurking underneath Griffin’s impassive facade.
For the first time, she sensed there was something, well, untamed about him. As if, underneath the power ties, custom suits and debonair tuxes, there was a man waiting to devour her.
And when he’d driven off yesterday, she’d noted he was now driving a Porsche—not what she would have expected from someone she’d thought of as buttoned-down.
Since yesterday, when her thoughts hadn’t been filled with rage at Carter, she’d thought about why Griffin had kissed her.
She’d decided, because it was the only explanation that made any sense, that the kiss was just part of Griffin’s high-handedness. He’d put an end to her taunts and baiting in the quickest way possible.
It couldn’t be the case Griffin was attracted to her. They’d always rubbed each other the wrong way.
And even if, as was unlikely, Griffin was up for a roll between the sheets with her, it couldn’t have anything to do with emotions. It would be either just sex, or laden with ulterior motives.
And the last thing she needed in her life right now was another man with ulterior motives.
“The wedding is off,” she said flatly. “I wanted you to hear the news from me.”
It was one of the most painful admissions of her life. But she knew she owed it to her parents to give them the news herself rather than have it catch up with them through the grapevine.
“Oh, Eva!” her mother said, before hurrying over for a hug.
Her father looked relieved, but he asked gruffly, “Are you okay?”
She’d driven directly to Mill Valley from the The Last Supper Club. When she’d arrived, she’d found her parents ensconced in their living room, where they’d obviously retired after dinner. Her mother, it had pained her to note, had been flipping through a bridal magazine. Her father had been watching a news show on television.
Now, Eva pulled away from her mother’s embrace and faced her father. “You should be happy. Carter isn’t going to be your son-in-law.”
“Happy doesn’t describe what I’m feeling at the moment.”
“Elated?”
“What happened?”
“Griffin hasn’t told you?” she said, feigning surprise. “Isn’t the hired gun supposed to let his principal know the news first?”
Though Griffin had told her yesterday he’d come to her first with his evidence, she was surprised he hadn’t immediately followed up with a call to Marcus. He’d left before she could ask him to let her break the news to her father herself, assuming her pride would have let her make such a request.
Her father had the grace to look a little uncomfortable. “He hasn’t said a thing.”
“Surprising since you ordered him to have Carter investigated,” Eva responded coolly.
“In the first place, no one orders Griffin—”
“Marcus, is this true?” her mother interrupted, looking shocked.
Her father shifted his focus to her mother. “What else was I supposed to do, Audrey? He was about to marry into this family. And don’t second-guess me, because Eva just admitted I was right!”
“Right about what?” her mother asked.
Eva sighed inwardly. “About Carter wanting to marry me for my money, Mom.”
“Oh, Eva! I’m so sorry.”
Her father muttered a few choice words.
She didn’t want to bring up that, on top of it all, Carter had been cheating on her. Griffin’s silence had given her an out, and she wasn’t above using it now.
“What would you like us to tell everyone, Eva?” her mother asked quietly.
“Just tell them Carter and I decided to break up. Period.”
She’d thought about the issue on the drive over to her parents’ place, and realized there were only a few people she wanted to share the whole truth with.
Fortunately, because her engagement to Carter hadn’t yet become official—there’d been no ring, no party and no public announcement—there would be fewer questions. She also knew the last thing Carter would want to admit was that he’d been dumped by the heiress to the Tremont fortune because he’d been cheating on her.
Now she faced her father squarely. “I got rid of Carter, but you’re my father and I can’t change that.”
Her father went still.
“So I’m just here to say,” she continued, “don’t interfere in my life again.”
“Evangeline—”
“And to use Griffin Slater, of all people.”
Her father shook his head. “I never understood your aversion to Griffin.”
“You know, I’ve never quite understood it myself. After all,” she said sarcastically, “he’s done me a favor by taking on the role for the Tremont heir that I’m not inclined to—or should I say, I’m not capable of?”
“I never said you were incapable.”
“You didn’t have to,” she responded.
Her father looked stormy, while her mother simply seemed distressed.
“The reason I never pushed you toward Tremont REH,” her father said, “is that I wanted you to be able to choose your own path and follow your own dreams.”
The admission was a balm to raw feelings. Still, she wasn’t letting him off the hook as far as Griffin was concerned.
“You may never have pushed me toward Tremont REH, but you’re happy to push me at Griffin,” she accused.
“Not because of Tremont REH,” her father replied stubbornly, “but because he’s a good man.”
“Stop it, the both of you,” her mother said, then turned her head toward her. “Eva, I hope you’ll spend the night here. I hate to think of you being alone right now.”
She was grateful for her mother’s invitation, but she had one more thing to say to her father.
“Well, know this. Griffin Slater is the last man on earth I’d marry.”
She thought it was a good parting shot. Especially since the risk of having to eat her words was zero.
Five
Two days after Griffin went to see Eva at her apartment, he looked up to see Marcus in the doorway of his office at work.
Usually Marcus’s appearance at Tremont REH and Evkit’s shared headquarters wasn’t noteworthy. Only semiretired, he was in the habit of dropping in on a regular basis.
But this time Griffin knew better than to think Marcus’s presence at work was unremarkable.
As Marcus shut the door behind him, his face turned into a glower. “That bastard, Newell.”
His sentiments exactly, Griffin thought.
“Still, I’m glad Eva called off the wedding.”
Griffin let the news of the cancelled nuptials wash over him like a cool wave on a blistering day. As mad as she’d been, at least Eva had had the good sense to give Carter the kiss-off.
He stood and came around his desk. “Glad you’re focusing on the bottom line, Marcus.”
“She said Ron found evidence Carter was marrying her for her money,” the older man stated.
“Yes,” Griffin said, not knowing how much Eva had revealed.
“How did he draw that conclusion?”
Griffin forced himself to shrug nonchalantly. “The usual stuff. A financial profile that showed Carter’s living on a borrowed dime. Some interesting conversations caught on tape.”
Since Marcus hadn’t yet said anything about Carter two-timing Eva, Griffin kept his mouth shut on the topic.
Marcus nodded, looking, in fact, as if he didn’t want Griffin to go into further detail.
Griffin didn’t blame him. He wished he didn’t know the particulars. He could only assume the situation was even more uncomfortable for Marcus, given that Eva was his daughter and only child.