Ruthless Revenge: Passionate Possession. Cathy Williams

wrapped up in his own life, with no vision of anything happening outside it.

      But she had still been living at home, in her final years at school. Why hadn’t she asked more probing questions when her mother’s health had begun to fail? The doctor had talked about stress, and now Sophie marvelled that she hadn’t dug deeper to find out what the stress had been all about, because on the surface her mother could not have been living a less stressed-out life.

      And neither had she questioned the frequency with which Roger’s name had cropped up in conversations or the number of times he’d been invited along to the house for various parties. She had been amused at his enthusiasm and had eventually drifted into going out with him; she had never suspected the amount of encouragement he had got from her parents.

      All told, she had allowed herself to be wrapped up in cotton wool. So when that cotton wool had been cruelly yanked off, she had been far more shell-shocked than she might otherwise have been.

      Everything had hit her at once. She had been bombarded from all sides and, in the middle of this, had had to wise up quickly to the trauma of discovering just how ill her father was and the lengths he had gone to to protect them all from knowing.

      She should have been there helping out long before the bomb had detonated, splintering shrapnel through their lives.

      If she had been, then perhaps the company could have taken a different direction. And, if it had taken a different direction, then she wouldn’t be here now, at the mercy of a guy who could still send her senses reeling, whatever her head was telling her.

      Once in London, Sophie took a black cab to the premises of the office in Notting Hill.

      Oliver had told her that things were coming along brilliantly but he had undersold just how much had been done in the space of a few days. It wasn’t just about the paint job on the outside or the impressive potted plants or the newly painted black door with its gold lettering announcing the name of the company.

      Standing back, Sophie’s mouth fell open as she took in the smart exterior. Then the door opened and she was staring at a casually dressed Javier, who, in return, stared back at her as he continued to lounge indolently against the door frame. Arms folded, he was already projecting the signs of ownership so that, as she took a few tentative steps towards him, she felt herself to be the visitor.

      ‘Wow.’ She hovered, waiting for him to step back, which he did after a couple of seconds, taking his time to unfold his gloriously elegant body and then stand aside so that she had to brush past him, immediately turning around and establishing a safe physical distance between them. ‘It’s completely changed on the outside.’

      ‘There’s no point having an office that repels potential clients,’ Javier said drily.

      Yet again, she was in work attire. The sort of clothes that drained her natural beauty.

      ‘Why have you shown up wearing a suit?’ he asked, strolling past her and expecting her to follow, which she duly did. ‘And where is your bag? You do realise that you will be relocating to London for the foreseeable future?’

      ‘I’ve been giving that some thought...’

      Javier stopped and turned to look at her. ‘Forget it.’

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘Remember the terms and conditions? One of them is that you relocate down here so that you can oversee the running of the London arm of the business.’

      ‘Yes, but—’

      ‘No buts, Sophie.’ His voice was cool and unyielding. He hooked his fingers on the waistband of his black jeans, which sat low on his lean hips, and held her stare. ‘You don’t get to dip in and out of this. You’re on the letterhead, along with your brother, and of course myself. Don’t think that you’re going to reap the rewards without doing any of the hard graft. I intend to oversee proceedings initially but I need to be assured that you and your brother won’t run the company back into the ground the second my back’s turned. Don’t forget, this isn’t a charity gesture of goodwill on my part. I’m not parting with cash if I don’t think that there will be a decent return on my investment.’

      Sophie thought that she’d been right. It was all about the money for him. Yes, there was a personal connection, but the animosity of their break-up wasn’t paramount in his decision to help them. What mattered was that he was being handed a potentially very profitable business with an age-old reputation at a very cheap price because she and Oliver were desperate.

      She imagined that, once the company was sorted, its reputation would not only be repaired but would ensure gold-plated business and a return of all the customers they had sadly lost over the years.

      Right now, Oliver had an interest in a third of the company, but he would quickly lose interest and, she foresaw, would cash in his shares, take the money and head back to California, where he could continue his sporting career in a teaching capacity.

      In due course, Javier would have invested in a very worthwhile project at a very good price.

      And their past history did not figure in the calculations. In fact, she wondered whether he felt anything at all about what had happened between them.

      ‘I thought I might commute down.’

      Javier burst out laughing before sobering up to look at her with a gimlet-eyed warning. ‘I wouldn’t even entertain that notion if I were you,’ he informed her in the sort of voice that did not expect contradiction. ‘In the first few weeks there will probably be a great deal of overtime, and hopping on and off a train to try to get the work done just isn’t going to cut it.’

      ‘I have nowhere to stay here.’ Once upon a time, there had been a snazzy apartment in Kensington but, she had discovered, that had been mortgaged up to the hilt when the company had started shedding customers and losing profit. It had been sold ages ago.

      ‘Your brother has stayed in a hotel when he’s been down.’ Javier’s eyes roved over her flushed face. ‘But,’ he mused with soft speculation, ‘as you’re going to be here for considerably longer, I have already made arrangements for you to have use of one of my apartments in Notting Hill. You’ll be within convenient walking distance of the company. No excuse for slacking off.’

      ‘No!’ She broke out in clammy perspiration.

      ‘Reason being...?’

      ‘I...I can’t just decamp down here to London, Javier!’

      ‘This isn’t something that’s open to debate.’

      ‘You don’t understand.’

      ‘Then enlighten me.’ They hadn’t even stepped foot into the renovated office and already they were arguing.

      He couldn’t credit that he had originally played with the thought of helping her in return for having her. He couldn’t think of anything less satisfying than having her blackmailed into coming to him as a reluctant and resentful partner when he wanted her hot, wet and willing...

      He also couldn’t credit that he had simplistically imagined that one scratch would ease this itch that had surfaced with such surprising speed the second her brother had opened that door back into the past. The more he saw of her, the more he thought of her, the more dangerously deep his unfinished business with her felt. One or two nights wasn’t going to be enough.

      ‘I have to keep an eye on the house,’ she said with obvious reluctance.

      ‘What house?’

      ‘The family home.’

      ‘Why? Is it in imminent danger of falling down if you’re not at hand with some sticking plaster and masking tape?’

      Bitter tears sprang to her eyes and she fought them down as a red mist of anger swirled through her in a tidal rush.

      ‘Since when did you get so arrogant?’ she flung at him. They stared at one another in electric silence before she broke eye