Elizabeth Duke - Takeover Engagement

‘I’ll be making sure I speak to all my Maxi Board people.’

She moistened her lips with a quick sip of wine. ‘Will you…will you mention to him that I got stuck in that lift with you on my way up to meet him?’ Would he bother? No doubt he had better things to do on his only day at the conference than arrange a private conversation with one of his engineers on an errant girlfriend’s behalf.

‘I have a better idea,’ Case murmured. ‘I think he’d rather you tell him yourself.’

She flushed. Just as she’d thought. He had more important things to bother about in his limited time there. ‘I—I will. Naturally. When he gets back—’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ he slid in smoothly.

‘What—what do you mean? That I should try to ring him? At the conference?’

‘I was thinking of a more personal approach. Face to face.’ He eyed her coolly. ‘Why don’t you fly up with me on Friday and stay at Surfers for a couple of days? I have a spare plane ticket. You could patch things up with David and then visit your mother in Brisbane at the weekend. It’s only a short drive from Surfers.’

She gaped at him. He had it all worked out! Was this how he was used to operating? Making spur-of-themoment decisions affecting other people, even people he barely knew, confident that they’d fall in with his plans…as she’d fallen in with his plans for lunch?

‘That—that’s crazy!’ she spluttered. ‘I can’t just—’

‘Why not?’ He sat back indolently, his expression gently mocking. ‘Can’t you postpone your appointments for one day? Hand over any urgent cases to one of your colleagues?’

‘No!’ she cried, even as her mind leapt at the prospect.

‘You’re saying no before you’ve even thought it over. Look, you’ll have one and a bit days to organise things before we go. One weekday off isn’t so difficult to arrange, is it? And with the weekend to follow you could have virtually three days in Queensland. You’ll have time to see David and patch things up with him, time to visit your mother, even time to enjoy some tropical sunshine. There won’t be any expense. Maxi Board will cover all that. We’ve a block booking at the conference hotel. I’ll handle all that.’

He was making her head reel. ‘I couldn’t let you—’

‘But I insist. I find it’s in my own interests to keep my employees and their…loved ones happy. Why are you hesitating?’ His eyes impaled hers. ‘You do want to be reunited with David, don’t you? Or…do you?’

‘Yes, of course I—’ She broke off, then cried, ‘But not like this! I—I feel I’m being—’ She was about to say ‘manipulated’, but recalled, just in time, that he was David’s boss.

‘Steamrollered?’ Case suggested, amused irony in his voice.

She felt a rush of heat to her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry to sound ungrateful, but…’ She trailed off with a flutter of her hands.

‘But you don’t like feeling steamrollered.’ There was a grudging respect in his voice. And maybe a trace of surprise. ‘You felt your friend David was steamrollering you too, by giving you that ultimatum, didn’t you? Well, I certainly don’t wish you to feel steamrollered, Lucy…or manipulated,’ he added with the ghost of a smile, as if he’d known all along that that was what she’d been thinking. ‘But I would like you to think about it.’

The black eyes were steady on hers…compelling in their intensity. She found it impossible to look away.

‘I—I don’t have anything suitable to wear,’ she argued, and realised, with horror, that she was weakening…teetering on the edge of giving in.

A sceptical eyebrow shot up. ‘I can’t believe that. A sporty, outdoor girl like you. Not that I’d bother too much, if I were you. There are boutiques full of glamorous resort-wear at Surfers. Buy what you need when you get there. You might like to pack an evening dress, though…there’s a dinner dance the night we arrive. I’m sure David will want you to be there.’

Lucy’s mind whirled, temptation warring with a flash of resentment at his high-handed assumption that everyone had the time and the money to buy whatever their heart desired.

It was obvious that he was a man used to giving orders and making snap decisions—with money no object—and having people fall in with whatever he decided. As head of a giant enterprise like the one he now controlled, she guessed he’d have to be decisive. But that didn’t give him the right…

‘And will your…wife be flying up with us?’ she asked, eyeing him ingenuously. ‘To be with you at the dinner dance?’

There was an electric pause. She saw his mouth twist into a smile that was more derisive than amused.

‘You obviously don’t know too much about me,’ he said curtly. ‘I happen to be divorced.’

Divorced! For some odd reason that surprised her. And…disappointed her? Why was it that nobody could stay married any more? Not her parents, not her brother, not even this stunningly successful, dynamic man. Did nobody these days take marriage seriously? There were odd exceptions, of course, like Case Travers’ own parents, who’d stayed happily married, by all reports, for forty-odd years. But they were a rarity, sadly.

‘You disapprove,’ he said, his tone sardonic.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she denied quickly. ‘My own brother’s divorced. And my parents. I know it…happens. It happens all the time. Were you married for long?’ she couldn’t resist asking.

‘Two years.’ He sounded terse now, his eyes on his wine glass, not on her. It was obvious he didn’t want to talk about it.

But some perverse imp of curiosity drove her on. ‘Do you have any children?’

‘No children.’ His eyes lifted, chilly now as they met hers. He seemed annoyed that she wasn’t taking the hint. ‘Mercifully, we didn’t have that complication,’ he said tonelessly.

She steeled herself not to blink under his cold gaze, or look away. ‘You asked me some rather personal questions,’ she reminded him. ‘Yet you won’t allow me the same right?’

He heaved a sigh, his eyes losing some of their cold glitter, his expression resigned now. But his tone, when he spoke, was still cool, tinged now with irony. ‘What do you want to know? Why my wife left me?’

His wife had left him? It hadn’t been a mutual decision, then? She found it hard to believe that any woman would willingly walk out of a marriage to this man…this ravishingly attractive, magnetic dynamo. But she didn’t know him, of course. Maybe, in private, he was a monster. Or maybe he’d played around. That was more like it. Her lip twisted. He had the looks, the money, the power, the charisma to chase after any woman he wanted or lusted after. The realisation brought with it a swift qualm. And here she was, agreeing to fly up north with him…

‘I take it, by that curl of your lip, that you’re imagining all kinds of lurid things about me,’ he taunted softly, his glittering eyes causing a wave of heat to rise up her throat. ‘Let me put your mind at ease. My wife, far from seeing me as a philandering Lothario or a physical threat, accused me of being dull and boring.’

Dull and boring? This man? She stared at him, her heart inexplicably lightening all of a sudden. She let her tight lips relax, ignoring the quiver deep down inside her which was warning her that nothing about this man was safe, let alone dull and boring.

‘And are you?’ she heard herself asking him.

He flashed a smile…a self-deprecating but breathtakingly attractive smile. ‘I’m not a wildly social animal. She is.’

He wasn’t? She found that hard to believe too. A man of his background and exalted position in life? She cast a look up at him from under her lashes, imagining him in a social context, at ease, in command of himself and those around him, the focus of all eyes. Female eyes in particular. If he wasn’t a social animal it couldn’t be due to any lack of social skills, or any lack of charm or appeal.