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Five years of utter misery. Five years of burying her past and trying to get on with her life. It was like ignoring an enormous wound and hoping that it would heal by itself.
But it hadn’t healed. Maybe a divorce was the answer.
‘We made a mistake, Zander,’ she croaked, wishing her insides didn’t feel so raw. ‘Let’s put it right.’
Then maybe she could finally let go and get on with her life.
There was a long silence and Zander watched her thoughtfully. ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘Do this job for me, and I’ll consider it.’
‘No!’ She didn’t want him to turn it into one of his deals. She just wanted him to leave before she fell apart. ‘I don’t want to work for you again.’
It was just too painful. Seeing him again.
Being this close—
He paced slowly across the carpet, infuriatingly calm in the face of her growing anger. ‘You’re running a business, Lauranne. Can you afford to turn away wealthy clients?’
‘Whatever you offered would never be enough to even vaguely tempt me to work for you again,’ she said bitterly. ‘There’s more to a business than money.’
He laughed. ‘If you think that then it’s a wonder you’re still trading.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t expect you to understand what I mean,’ she flung back, her eyes blazing with the fire of past injuries. ‘You only ever look at the bottom line.’
‘Where else is there to look?’
‘At people! People matter, Zander. People have feelings—’ She broke off, horrified with herself for becoming so emotional. How could it still hurt so much? Whoever said that time heals had never been in love with Zander Volakis. She was rapidly discovering that time hadn’t healed anything at all. Trying to calm herself, she reached out and poured herself a glass of water with a shaking hand. ‘Believe it or not, when I refused to see you I was not issuing you with a challenge.’ She’d been protecting herself. ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with you and I can’t think why you would want me to work for you again.’
‘Because I need someone to do a good job.’
Her fingers tightened around the glass and she glared at him, hating him for coming back into her life. Hating herself for reacting so strongly. ‘And what makes you think I’d do a good job for you?’
‘Three reasons come to mind,’ he drawled lazily. ‘Firstly because I will pay you an indecent sum of money that you can’t afford to turn down; secondly because if you don’t do a good job, then I won’t give you that divorce that you suddenly seem to want so much.’
Lauranne licked dry lips. ‘You said three reasons.’ Her voice was little more than a croak. ‘What’s the third?’
He smiled. ‘Thirdly you will do the very best job you can, because if you mess up then I’ll ruin you and I’ll ruin Farrer.’ He gave a casual shrug. ‘Simple really.’
The glass slid from her hand and shattered on the floor. Like my life, Lauranne thought numbly, not even bothering to pick up the pieces as she stared at Zander. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I never joke about work,’ he said smoothly. ‘You should know that much about me.’
She did know. When it came to work, Zander was single-minded. Driven.
She tried another tack. ‘You can’t possibly want me to work for you again. Not after everything that happened.’
‘Five years ago I wasn’t safe to be in the same room as you,’ he agreed, ‘but thankfully I’ve moved on since then. You’ll work for me, Lauranne.?
?? He delivered his statement with cool confidence, his total lack of emotion in direct contrast to her own highly charged feelings. His careless, arrogant assumption that she’d eventually agree to his demands increased the tension in the room by dramatic degrees.
‘You fired me,’ she said, her voice shaking with a passion so powerful that it threatened to consume her usually rational self. ‘You fired me publicly and then ruined my reputation so thoroughly that no other company would touch me.’
He shrugged, casually dismissive of her passionate statement. ‘What happened between us is in the past. Fortunately for you, I’m willing to forget what you did.’
She gaped at him, rendered speechless by his overwhelming arrogance.
Forget?
Had their marriage really affected him so little that he could forget?
