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Gage grabbed the back of a chair while flicking through something on the phone screen. The leather dented under his grip. He pulled the chair out from the table. Undid the button on his suit jacket with calm precision and sat. Then—only then—did he look at her.
It was like being stabbed by an icicle. A cold thrust, deep into the heart of her, his vivid blue eyes piercing and frigid. Was he remembering the last time they’d spoken, in that terrible phone call her father had given her no option but to make? It was all she could do not to rise from this chair, say Thank you for your time and flee.
She’d never expected to have to face him again. She’d hidden out in France after being banished there seven years ago—the deal she’d struck to save Gage, to protect him from secrets he could never know. Secrets that would destroy him, and his family. She’d hold those in her heart for ever. Except she was done running. Running turned things into a disaster, as she and Gage both knew. They’d reaped the poisoned rewards of their own actions years before.
‘Ms Chevalier.’ His voice was all dark nights and silk sheets and her damned heart tripped over itself in guilty pleasure at the sound. ‘Thank you for coming.’
Eve forced herself to look into his beautiful face. It was chiselled in a way it hadn’t been in his early twenties. All softness had been hewn away, leaving a specimen of male near-perfection. The only thing marring it was the sliver of a scar under his right eye and the merest bump on the bridge of his nose where it had no doubt broken under the crack of a clenched fist. Her fingers itc
hed to stroke over the flaws, to whisper how sorry she was for the wounds her father had left. But the cold disdain in his gaze told her there were no number of apologies she could offer that would make him forgive her.
‘Gage. Thank you for inviting us here.’ His eyes widened a fraction. She’d bet anything that everyone called him Mr Caron. Eve refused to play that game. While she might be prepared to beg for his help eventually, she’d start this negotiation as his equal.
‘You can thank me at the end of the meeting when you see what I’m offering.’
‘Getting straight to business. I like that.’
The corner of Gage’s mouth kicked up in the hint of a smile that told her she’d pay, and he’d enjoy extracting the price. ‘If you’d liked business a little more, perhaps Knight Enterprises wouldn’t be in the desperate state that it is.’
Eve gritted her teeth. She’d tried to grab the reins when she’d sensed things were careening off track, but no one had wanted to listen to her. They’d parked her in France and let her play with the businesses there. The US was her daddy’s domain, and he’d taken risks on things he shouldn’t have. Too many chances that hadn’t paid off. Now the company was fat and bloated and incapable of surviving the coming storm.
‘My father and the board were responsible for the US division.’
‘And yet you’re here instead of him.’
Eve stiffened. She’d locked down news of her father’s illness, determined to keep it quiet until she’d been able to assess the full scope of the disaster he’d wrought. The silence had bought her time, and that time had almost run out.
‘Right where you want me?’
‘I’d say almost the perfect position. Are you going to prostrate yourself? Beg me to help you wade your way out of the mire you’ve created?
Her solicitor started forward, beginning to rise from his chair. If he stepped in, she’d lose ground here. She wasn’t some little girl who needed defending. She’d been fighting for herself and winning for years. Eve held up her hand and her solicitor stopped, sat back down, muttering under his breath. Gage raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
He’d soon learn she was no pushover, not anymore.
‘The failings were my father’s. His choices are not mine, and I refuse to own them for that reason.’
‘I’m pleased to see you owning your decisions, Eve. Does that mean you’ll take responsibility for what’s coming your way?’
She reached for her glass, tried to keep the water inside still and steady as she sipped. The cold liquid hit her knotted stomach, which heaved in protest. She swallowed the sickening sensation down. She was made of stronger stuff now. She’d fought and won against bigger demons from her past than Gage Caron.
‘I’ve never shirked responsibility for my actions, ever.’
He laughed, but there was nothing entertaining about the sound. Gage straightened some papers in front of him. Laid his perfect hands flat on the polished table-top. ‘Well, hasn’t this been fun. Let me be blunt. Knight’s financial state is parlous. You’ve not grown organically or strategically but instead purchased anything and everything, particularly companies that Caron was considering.’
‘If Caron considered them, I’d assume they were sound investments.’
Gage’s eyes sparked something of a warning, a vicious kind of pleasure burning behind the polar blue.
‘I rejected them as high risk with too little return.’
That’s not what her father had said. Hugo Chevalier had taken delight in gloating, especially to her, about how he’d stolen yet another company from Gage, like some brutal, never-ending purgatory. Gage speared her with his frigid gaze again.
‘Knight was welcome to them. Each and every one.’
Cold dread trickled through her. It wouldn’t have been hard to manipulate her father, his quest for revenge all-encompassing, an unhealthy obsession. She’d only fuelled it by running with Gage, when all they’d hoped had been that the inevitability of a youthful marriage might heal the wounds between their families.
What a naïve, childish dream.
