AllFreeNovel
Share Us
'Yes. Precisely. Hashing over the past. The usual thing/ he agreed, leaping on her phrase and repeating it with icy sarcasm. 'But innovation is everything in business— you must know that, Sorcha. Working for the family firm doesn't mean you have to undergo a common sense bypass.'
'You think you're very clever, don't you, Cesare?'
'I think that's a given,' he retorted softly. 'But this has nothing to do with ego or brains,
and everything to do with achievement! ’
His eyes were blazing now, and even though he was revelling in the mutinous expression on her lovely face it was by no means what motivated him. Because—no matter what unfinished business there was between him and Sorcha Whittaker—this was all about pride, and a very different kind of pride from the one she had wounded by her refusal to marry him.
He had taken on this task and it was a challenge—and Cesare was a man who always rose to a challenge and conquered it.
The Whittaker scheme interested him only in the way in which an overfed cat might be mildly interested in a small mouse which had foolishly strayed into its path. But the venture afforded him the delicious opportunity to seduce the only woman he'd ever asked to marry. Turning around the ailing company was a purely secondary consideration, and he knew that he could easily afford to fail. In fact, lesser men might have got some perverse kind of pleasure from seeing her made broke.
But even if he hadn't been loyal to Rupert, Cesare's nature and his need to succeed were such that he would not tolerate failure—of any kind—and didn't his relationship with Sorcha represent just that? Surely the ultimate satisfaction would be to bed her, win the praise of her family by reviving their fortunes, and make a packet for himself into the bargain? Put her for ever in his debt before walking away—this time for good, giving her the rest of her life to reflect on what she could have had. Yes. A perfect plan.
Prendere due piccioni con una fava. To kill two birds with one stone... He sighed. Si.
His raised his eyes, enjoying the frustration which she was failing to hide. 'Rupert has been trying to drum up more trade—but you've got a brain in your head, Sorcha. Didn't it occur to you to put it to use to try and work out why the products aren't selling?'
'You think it's that easy?'
He shook his dark head. 'Not easy, no. Simple, yes. Sit down.'
She hesitated, and then perched on the edge of the boardroom table instead of pulling out one of the chairs which stood around it. His eyes mocked her.
'Demonstrating your equality?' he murmured.
'You wouldn't know equality if it reached out and bit you!'
Laughing softly, he sat down in one of the soft leather chairs and leaned back to look at her, wondering if she would have chosen such a highly visible vantage point if she had realised the view it gave him of her derriere. Or that the material of her skirt was stretched so tightly over her bottom that he could see the faint outline of a thong.
His resulting erection made him wince. Serves you right, he thought, as he reached
down into his briefcase. 'I've been going back through the Whittakers advertising budget over the past year—'
'It would be madness to cut the budget’ she interjected quickly.
'I'm not suggesting we do—please don't put words in my mouth/ he snapped. Put your breast in my mouth instead. His erection grew even harder as he pulled out a copy of a popular women's magazine. 'Take a look at this.'
She did as he asked, glad to have the opportunity to look away from that hard and fascinating face and concentrate on something other than the soft, warm coil of desire which was slowly unfurling in the pit of her stomach.
Why couldn't she just be impartial to him—good looks or no good looks? She'd met men who were almost as hunky as Cesare—though it was true that they didn't seem to have his inbuilt arrogance, or the ability to be in charge of a situation wherever he happened to be at the time.
She didn't want to feel anything other than maybe a vaguely grown-up sensation of There's the man I thought I was in love with—the man who asked me to marry him. She wanted to feel that thing you were supposed to feel when you looked at someone from a past which seemed very dim and distant—that she was looking at a complete stranger. So why didn't she?
Trying to quell the tremble in her fingers, she flicked through the magazine he had given her. There was a big spread on a former weathergirl's latest attempt to conquer her weight problem, with a few tantalising insights as to why she was attracted to violent men, there were gossip items and recipes, a problem page and a fashion shoot, and—amongst the other advertisements—an ad for Whittakers.
Sorcha had grown up seeing bottles of the family sauce plastered over various publications since the year dot, so it was no big deal—but she always felt a little glow of satisfaction when she saw one of their full-colour promotions.
'You mean this?' She looked up at him. 'It's good, isn't it?'
'It's good for what it is’ he answered carefully.
"Why are you talking in riddles, Cesare—am I supposed to be looking for anything in particular?'
He studied her lips and thought how he would like to wipe that nonchalant expression off her beautiful face with a long, hard kiss. 'Does anything about it strike you as different?'
'Not really.'
