Nina Harrington - Revenge In The Boardroom

Serena felt sick for a moment at the derision in his voice. The evidence of just how personal his judgement was appeared entrenched in bitter experience.

Luca stepped back. ‘We should eat.’

Serena’s anger dissipated as she watched Luca turn away abruptly to light the camping stove near the fire. She reeled with this new knowledge of his own experience. And reeled at how much she’d told him of herself with such little prompting. She felt relieved now that she hadn’t spilled her guts entirely.

No wonder he’d come down on her like a ton of bricks and believed the worst. Still...it didn’t excuse him. And she told herself fiercely that she didn’t feel a tug of something treacherous at the thought of him coping with an alcoholic parent. After all, she still bore the guilt of her sister having to deal with her .

Suddenly, in light of that conversation, she felt too raw to sit in Luca’s company and risk that insightful mind being turned on her again. And fatigue was creeping over her like a relentless wave.

‘Don’t prepare anything for me. I’m not feeling hungry. I think I’ll turn in now.’

Luca looked up at her from over his shoulder. He seemed to bite back whatever he was going to say and shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

Serena grabbed her backpack and went into the tent, relieved to see that it was more spacious inside than she might have imagined. She could only do a basic toilette, and after taking off her boots and rolling out her sleeping bag carefully on one side of the tent she curled up and dived into the exhausted sleep of oblivion.

Anything to avoid thinking about the man who had comprehensively turned her world upside down in the last thirty-six hours and come far too close to where she still had so much locked away.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE FOLLOWING MORNING Luca heard movement from the tent and his whole body tensed. When he’d turned in last night Serena had been curled up in a ball inside her sleeping bag, some long hair trailing in tantalising golden strands around her head, her breathing deep and even. And once again he’d felt the sting of his conscience at knowing she’d gone to bed with no food, and her feet rubbed raw from new boots.

What she’d told him the previous evening had shocked him. She’d been taking medication since she was a child. Out of control even then. It was so at odds with the woman she seemed to be now that he almost couldn’t believe it.

She’d sounded defiant when she’d told him that she’d been addicted by the age of twelve. Something inside him had recoiled with disgust at the thought. It was one thing to have a mother who was an addict as an adult. But a child ?

Serena had given him the distinct impression that even then she’d known what she was doing and had revelled in it. But even as he thought that, something about the way she’d said it niggled at him. It didn’t sit right.

Was she telling the truth?

Why would she lie after all this time? an inner voice pointed out. And if she hadn’t ever done recreational drugs then maybe she really hadn’t planted them on him that night... He didn’t like the way the knowledge sank like a stone in his belly.

The crush and chaos of the club that night came back to him and a flash of a memory caught him unawares: Serena’s hand slipping into his. He’d looked down at her and she’d been wide-eyed, her face pale. That had been just before the Italian police had separated them roughly and searched them.

The memory mocked him now. He’d always believed that look to have been Serena’s guilt and pseudo-vulnerability, knowing what she’d just done. But if it hadn’t been guilt it had been something far more ambiguous. It made him think of her passionate defence when he’d questioned her trustworthiness. And why on earth did that gnaw at him now? Making him feel almost guilty?

The flaps of the tent moved and the object of his thoughts emerged, blinking in the dawn light. She’d pulled her hair up into a bun on top of her head, and when that blue gaze caught his, Luca’s insides tightened. He cursed her silently—and himself for bringing her here and putting questions into his head.

For possibly being innocent of the charges he’d levelled against her .

She straightened up and her gaze was wary. ‘Morning.’

Her voice was sleep-rough enough to tug forcibly at Luca’s simmering desire. She should look creased and dishevelled and grimy, but she looked gorgeous. Her skin was as dewy and clear as if she’d just emerged from a spa, not a night spent in a rudimentary tent in the middle of the jungle.

He thrust a bowl of protein-rich tinned food towards her. ‘Here—eat this.’

There was the most minute flash of something in her eyes as she acknowledged his lack of greeting, but she took the bowl and a spoon and sat down on a nearby log to eat, barely wincing at the less than appetising meal. Yet another blow to Luca’s firmly entrenched antipathy.

He looked at her and forced himself to ignore that dart of guilt he’d just felt—to remember that thanks to his mother’s stellar example he knew all about the mercurial nature of addicts. How as soon as you thought they truly were intent on making a change they went and did the exact opposite. From a young age Luca had witnessed first-hand just how brutal that lack of regard could be and he’d never forgotten it.

Serena looked up at him. She’d finished her meal, and Luca felt slightly winded at the intensity of her gaze. He reached down and took the bowl and handed her a protein bar. His voice gruff, which irritated him, he said, ‘Eat this too.’

‘But I’m full now. I—’

Luca held it out and said tersely, ‘Eat it, Serena. I can’t afford for you to be weak. We have a long walk today.’

Serena’s eyes flashed properly at that, and she stood up with smooth grace and took the bar from his outstretched hand. Tension bristled and crackled between them.

Serena cursed herself for thinking, hoping that some kind of a truce might have grown between them. And she cursed herself again for revealing what she had last night.

Luca was cleaning up the camp, packing things away, getting ready to move on. When she’d woken a while ago it had taken long seconds for her to realise where she was and with whom. A sense of exultation had rushed through her at knowing they were still in the jungle and that she’d survived the first day, that she hadn’t shown Luca any weakness.

Then she’d remembered the gentleness of his hands on her feet and had felt hot. And then she’d got hotter, acknowledging that only extreme exhaustion had knocked her out enough to sleep through sharing such an intimate space with him.

Before Luca might see some of that heat in her expression or in her eyes, Serena busied herself with rolling up the sleeping bags and starting to take down the tent efficiently.

‘Where did you learn to do that?’ came Luca’s voice, its tone incredulous.

Serena barely glanced at him, prickling. ‘We used to go on camping trips while we were in rehab. It was part of the programme.’

She tensed, waiting for him to be derisive or to ask her about it, but he didn’t. He just went and started unpegging the other side of the tent. Serena hadn’t shared her experience of rehab with anyone—not even her sister. Even though her sister had been the one who had sacrificed almost everything to ensure Serena’s care, working herself to the bone and putting herself unwittingly at the mercy of a man she’d betrayed years before and who had come looking for revenge.

Against the odds, though, Siena and Andreas had fallen in love and were now blissfully happy, with a toddler and a baby. Sometimes their intense happiness made Serena feel unaccountably alienated, and she hated herself for the weakness. But it was the same with her half-brother Rocco and his wife and children. If she’d never believed in love or genuine happiness theirs mocked her for it every time she saw them.