Tara Pammi - The Man to Be Reckoned With

Guilt settling heavily on her shoulders, Riya sighed. If only life were as simple as her mom thought it was. “It’s his estate we’re living in. One of these days, he was bound to return.”

“Just when Robert has finally agreed to the wedding and—”

Unable to hear another word of her mom’s self-absorption, she cut across her. “Robert will be happy to see him. I can’t just send him away, even if I wanted to.”

Her elegant hands wringing in front of her, Jackie walked around the huge dining table. “What does he want with you?”

“He wants the estate back.”

“No,” Jackie said, her tone rising, her gaze stricken. “He’ll probably just kick us out if you do that. You can’t—”

Even as she wished her mother would think of Riya’s feelings for once, she softened her tone. Whatever her weaknesses, Jackie had found stability and peace here with Robert and the estate. “I can’t stop him from taking what is rightfully his, Jackie.”

Jackie’s gaze zoomed somewhere far away, and Riya locked out the urge to shake her mom. That look meant nothing she said was going to get through to her now. “I don’t care what you have to do. Just make sure he doesn’t have the house back. Do something, anything to send him back, Riya.”

“I can’t take him on,” Riya said, looking away. If Jackie found out he was here because of what Riya had done... “If I fight him on this, he threatened to drag us through the courts. I don’t have a choice.”

“Of course you can. You have Robert on your side. He’ll never agree to Nathan taking the estate from you. If there’s a long court battle, then so be it. You can’t lose the house, Riya. I can’t take this uncertainty, this kind of stress at this stage of my life.”

And there was the heart of the matter. Bitterness pooled in her throat, but Riya shook it away. As she always did. “Robert will look after you, Jackie. Nothing will happen to you.”

“Does it occur to you that maybe it’s you I could be worried about?”

“There’s no precedent for me to think that, is there?”

Jackie paled.

Now Riya felt like the green scum that lived under a rock.

Jackie sighed. “You slogged over the estate for years. Where was Nathan when he was needed? Do whatever you have to do, but make sure you hold on to this house.

“You have just as much right to this as he. Or even more.”

Nathan’s dark smile as he’d stood close to her sent a shiver over her skin. His offer for Travelogue was more than she’d hoped for, but she didn’t like the look in his eyes.

It wasn’t just that ever-present energy between them. It was more. As if he could see through her, into the heart of her. As if he could see her fears and insecurities and found them laughable. As if he knew how to use them to trip her up.

She just had to remember that whatever he threw at her, she could cope with it. The only danger was if he had true interest in her. He didn’t. Nathan was a man who traveled the world over.

Like everyone else in her life, she would matter very little to him once he realized she wouldn’t budge from her goal. And then he would leave her alone.

For years, she had lived with the knowledge that her father hadn’t cared about her. For Jackie, she was nothing but a crutch of safety, the one who would never leave her. For Robert, she had been the means to assuage his guilt about Nathan and his mom. Not that she didn’t appreciate his kindness.

But the truth was no one had ever really cared about her, about her fears, her happiness. And Nathan would be no different.

CHAPTER FOUR

WHEN RIYA ARRIVED at work Monday morning, it was to find Nathan leaning against the redbrick building, head bent down to his tablet.

Pulling in a breath, she forced her nerves to calm down. She had agreed to this, actually forced him into this. Now she had to see this through for Robert and for her own company.

The shabby street instantly looked different, felt different. And more than one woman sent him lingering looks as they walked past. But he was unaware of the attention he was drawing.

Today, he was dressed in a V-necked gray T-shirt coupled with blue jeans that hugged his lean hips and thighs in a very nerve-racking way. His hair gleamed with wetness, his beard still hiding his mouth. The veins bulging in his forearms, the stretch of the cotton across his chest. Every time she set eyes on him, something pinged inside her.

So early in the morning, with no caffeine in her system, he was just too much testosterone to stomach.

“You’re wasting my pilot’s time.” His gaze didn’t waver from his tablet.

“Pilot? What are you talking about?” Feeling heat in her cheeks, she dug through her bag for her phone.

For the first time in two years since she and Drew had started Travelogue, she had resolutely refused to check her work email. Now she just felt stupid because she had obviously missed some important communication.

“Not completely together still? Had to abandon the mother ship early today?”

“I need coffee before I can deal with you,” she muttered. “I turned off my email client all weekend.”

She had hardly finished speaking when his chauffeur appeared by her side with a coffee cup. Nathan’s gaze lingered on her as she took a few much-needed sips.

His perception surprised her, but she wasn’t going to confide about Jackie to him. Or anything for that matter. For all his generous offer, she didn’t trust his intentions.

“I thought you slaved night and day, weekends and whatnot to build Travelogue. Didn’t have a life outside of the company and the estate. Apparently you’re a paragon of hard work and dedication and every other virtue. Except for the ‘small incident’ with Mr. Anderson.”

Feeling like a lamb being led to slaughter under his watchful, almost indulgent gaze, she gulped too much on her next sip and squealed. He was instantly at her side, concern softening his mouth.

She jerked away as his palm landed on her back, scalded by his touch more than the coffee. Feeling like an irresponsible idiot, she cleared her throat. “Just...tell me what’s on the agenda today.”

Wicked lights glinted in his gaze. “British Virgin Islands.”

Her leg dangled midway over the footpath as if she were a puppet being pulled by strings. “Like going there? Us?”

“Yes.”

Alarm bells clanged in her head. “Why?”

He moved closer. She caught the instant need to step back. “A project of mine has come to the execution stages. It’ll suit very well to see what your precious team and you are made of. Sort of a test before I flush you guys.”

“A trip to Virgin Islands just to test us seems like the kind of extravagance that adds a lot of overhead to small, itty-bitty companies. I would rather—”

“Didn’t I tell you? Your finances, your projects—everything’s on probation.” Arrogance dripped from his every word, every gesture. “A skeleton crew will keep the website and sales going.”

She swallowed the protest that rose to her lips. She’d have to just show him what she and her team were made of. Navigating to the calendar on her phone, she synced it and opened his shared calendar. Tilting her head up, she leveled a direct look at him. “Robert is back tonight. Should I go ahead and block your time, then?”

A mocking smile lingered on his lips as he studied her. Her breath felt tight in her chest as she willed herself to stay still under the devouring gaze. “We won’t return for a few days.”

“I don’t see the need for—”

“I’m beginning to see why your investors were so eager to jump ship. You don’t want to make money, and you don’t listen to advice or input of any kind. It’s almost as though you live and work in isolation.”