“What do you find so funny now?” she mumbled sullenly.
“Not funny, delightful. You’re definitely not the first person to wish to eliminate me, but you’re the first to tell me so to my face.”
“Hey, watch your terminology. You go around using words like poison-laced and eliminate, and if something ever befalls you, I’m a prime suspect. I only wish to be rid of your disruption. All I want is to go back to work tomorrow to the news that you’ve withdrawn your bid and let us be.”
“And if a way presented itself for you to make this happen?”
“I wouldn’t hesitate.”
He gave another chuckle. “It doesn’t seem you were handed discretion at the cosmic assembly line. Are you this blunt with everyone?”
Noticing the watchfulness that entered his gaze at this question, getting the feeling that he somehow didn’t relish the idea, she shrugged a shoulder. “Not since I was a kid. Or at least I thought so, until just before you arrived and Brian told me I’m transparent. I thought it was only my expressions that everyone could read, that I wasn’t as incontinent verbally, then you started your hypnotic session and I felt my colleagues being assimilated into your hive mind, and I...well, any tact I thought I cultivated evaporated.”
“You don’t like this about yourself.” It was a statement, not a question. “You should. In fact, you should continue being as outspoken about the grievance you have with me. I have a feeling it goes beyond objecting to the change in course I’m proposing.”
She almost snorted. “Proposing? You mean dictating. And you think that’s not enough for me to consider you and your takeover the worst thing that could happen to this place?”
“I didn’t get the impression anyone else shared that unfavorable opinion.”
This time, she did snort. “Of course, you didn’t. You must be surprised there was even one dissenting voice.” Her blood frothed again at how her colleagues had succumbed to him without even a fight. “You know very well the effect you have on people.”
“I only noticed the inflammatory one I had on you.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m the mad scientist type.”
“Aren’t you all supposed to be that?”
She exhaled. “I thought so. But the promise of open-ended coddling proved irresistible to my colleagues.”
“But not to you.”
Her shoulders hunched with futility. “Yeah.”
The blue of his eyes seemed to intensify. “Why? What makes you so resistant? Why is the promise of everything you’ve ever dreamed of at your fingertips not as alluring to you?”
“I told you why in agonizing detail and you already know I hate redundancy. Especially after you took such pleasure in deconstructing my argument and having the last word.”
“I don’t remember I had the last word.”
“You didn’t bother to have it. You just ignored mine.”
“I chose not to engage you again in front of everyone, decided to do so in private. As I am doing now.”
“You shouldn’t have. I have nothing more to say.”
“So do you only take exception to leaving your own project behind?”
“I take exception to being forced to.”
“Your results won’t evaporate if you shelve them for a while.”
“I see no reason to while I’m making progress.”
“There are many reasons, scientific and financial. You’ll also gain expertise working on my projects, your own work would eventually benefit.”
“If you think I need expertise you shouldn’t want me working on your projects.”
“I meant added expertise. I wouldn’t have paid all that money if I thought you were anything but the best.”
She waved his placating response away. “You didn’t pay anything for me. That hundred million—”
“Two hundred million. Half of which is funding for phase one of all the projects I have planned for you.”
She forced her open mouth closed. “What’s a hundred million dollars more, huh? But whatever you paid was for our collective services and obedience, probably for the rest of our lives. Now that you’ve found one troublemaking apple in your bushel, you can always toss it out.”
“I have no intention of tossing you out.”
“Well, I intend to jump out of the cart myself.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re contemplating quitting?”
“I’m done contemplating.”
His expression went blank. But though there was nothing to read in it anymore, she felt she was getting the first real glimpse of what he hid beneath the polished exterior of the genius surgeon and suave businessman. Something lurked below his placid surface, something more sharp-edged than his state-of-the-art scalpels. Someone utterly ruthless. No, more. Someone lethal.
Which was stupid. Whatever else he was, this man was a healer. He didn’t end lives, he saved them. All these feverish thoughts must be the sun frying her brain. Or was it such intense and close exposure to him?
Then he spoke again, sending her every hair standing on end. “It’s clear contemplation has nothing to do with your decision. I wouldn’t even call such a knee-jerk reaction one.”
He again sounded like when he’d been addressing their assembly, making her realize how deliberate and calculated he had been in comparison to how he’d been talking to her now. He had been out to subdue and mesmerize everyone. He was trying to make her bow to his will now.
Well, he should have realized by now that his tried and true methods only backfired with her.
Bent on walking away this time, she stood as tall as she could. “Call it what you like. I quit, Dr. Balducci. I’m sure my loss will be nothing more than a negligible annoyance, since BIL is chock-full of those who will ecstatically do your bidding.”
“You can’t quit, Dr. Accardi.”
“Because the lump sum you paid included my price? Just a sec...” She took the bag off her shoulder, rummaged for her wallet, pulled the money she found and stuck the bills out to him.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
Extending her hand as close as she dared get to him, she met his glowering with her own. “I don’t know what the going rate per head was, but taking into account the premises and everything else, I’m sure I didn’t cost you more than that.”
His eyes fell to the notes before he raised them to her, full of mockery. “I assure you, you cost me much more than that.”
She refused to lower her hand. “You let me know exactly what I cost you, and I’ll pay for my freedom in installments. Consider this the first one.”
As he realized she wasn’t joking, his gaze clashed with hers as if to make her cower before him. She was sure such a glare had brought many adversaries to their knees. Tough, it was going to let him down this time. Even if she felt he’d set her on fire if she held his stare any longer.
A second before she averted her own eyes, he suddenly looked down at the money. He plucked three hundred-dollar bills from the bunch before he raised his eyes again and almost knocked her flat on her back with the mischief filling them.
“Now you really can’t quit.”
She gaped at his wicked grin. “What?”
“You just paid me for shares in your facility. Now you have to stay and run the place with me. Or for me.”
Before another thought could fire in her stalled brain, he turned and strode away.
Out of nowhere, a sleek black limo slithered soundlessly up to him.
Before he got in, he turned to her with a mock salute and said, “See you tomorrow, partner.”
Three
Antonio caught himself grinning again and again all the way back to his mansion in Holmby Hills.
Shaking his head for the umpteenth time since he’d left Liliana Accardi gaping at him as if he’d grown a spiked tail and leather wings and taken flight, he again wondered what the hell had happened in that parking lot. Actually, what the hell had happened since she’d blasted him in that meeting room.
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