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“It is interesting you would mention my position as CEO,” he said, a bit forbiddingly. Maybe a little ruthlessly. He reminded himself that he did not have to play these games. That he was choosing to engage with Bennett Schuyler’s unfathomable directions, to serve his own ends. His own appalling sentimentality, perhaps. “If I were you, Annika, I would bear in mind the difference that exists between us. As far as I’m aware, that museum of yours is the only thing that you could possibly do with yourself. Having made yourself essentially unhirable in any other capacity.”
She looked unmoved by any ruthlessness or forbidding tones on his part. “That’s quite a leap. I haven’t actually attempted to get myself hired anywhere else. But if I did, I’m sure that I would be an excellent candidate. For any number of reasons.”
“You would not be,” he said shortly. “On the other hand, while I would like to keep my position at Schuyler Corporation, it is not essential. At the end of the day, Annika, I am me.”
She blinked at that. And then, with no apparent understanding of the danger she was in, she rolled her eyes.
Those impossibly green eyes. Directly at him.
Ranieri ground his teeth together, but pushed on. “I can go anywhere. Most corporations would sing hosannas at my approach. I can see that you want to argue this.” And it pleased him, perhaps more than it should, when her green eyes blazed but her mouth snapped shut. “But once again, that is the function of arrogance. Yours, not mine. This is reality. You want to be very, very careful here, I think.”
He had the impression that she wanted to rage at him, and found himself intrigued by the notion. What would rage look like on her? She was already flushed. It made her cheeks brighter, and he found himself wondering if that flush extended all over.
Clearly, he needed a woman. Badly. It was obviously an emergency if he was lowering himself to imaginingflusheson Annika Schuyler’s body.
And maybe it was even more lowering than that, because when she pulled in a breath, he found himself tensing. Everywhere.
As if he wanted her to shift all of this into a different place. A place of anger.Passion, something in him whispered.Isn’t that what you wanted?
But instead, she let that breath out again. And though he didn’t see her move, he had the impression that she lengthened, somehow. Ranieri had never thought her the least bit elegant or graceful in any way, and yet she had the look of it, then. As if there was something innately graceful about her when she chose to show it. As if, when she pleased, she could posture up like any other debutante worth her salt.
He would not forget that.
“I’ll need you to be very clear here,” she said quietly. “I want to make sure I’m understanding you completely.”
“I think you understand me just fine,” he replied carelessly. Mostly to see if the tone he used brought out the red in her cheeks, and it did. “But for the sake of argument, Annika, why don’t we say simply that as far as you and I are concerned, I am your CEO.”
And surely he was much less of a man than he should have been, because when she sputtered at that, he enjoyed it.
Not because he’d clearly won another negotiation, so of course he liked it. He always liked winning, or he wouldn’t make sure to do it so often.
But this victory felt personal.
Ranieri decided he would hold that against her, too.
CHAPTER THREE
ANNIKADIDN’TRECALLagreeing to anything.
She knew full well she hadn’t.
But her actual, verbal agreement was unnecessary, apparently. Because Ranieri took control. He looked as if he meant to laugh at her, there in that conference room where she’d so foolishly believed for a giddy moment that she might have the upper hand.
When, as far she knew when it involved this man, no one ever had the upper hand. There was a reason he was feared and loathed and revered and admired wherever he went.
“You might consider putting your shoes back on,” he told her in that icy way of his, perfectly calibrated to make her feel as ashamed of herself as she had when she was a teenage girl besieged by her own hormones. What an unpleasant reminder of those dark years. “Unless, of course, it is your goal to impress upon the entirety of this law firm that you are, at heart, distressingly bohemian unto your embarrassing soul.”
His expression suggested that if she took that route, she might find herself in even less of a good position concerning her father’s final wishes.
She could have argued about that. But it felt like she was aiming for nothing but a Pyrrhic victory and she wasn’t in the mood for self-immolation on such a tough day. Annika bit her tongue and kept her protestations to herself. She slid her feet back into her shoes, tried to pretend they weren’t the torture devices she knew they were, and then limped out after Ranieri. He merely stalked to the conference room door in his obviously handcrafted Italian shoes—likely made for him personally, with love, by teams of rapturous artisans—flung it open, and somehow summoned the entire team of lawyers to his side. Simply by appearing, she had to think. Because she would have heard him if he’d yelled, snapped his fingers, or did whatever it was he did to make them all dance to his tune.
He exists, a voice in her said glumly.That’s the beginning and the end of everything, including you.
Annika was not a glum person, generally speaking. That was why she was good at what she did, getting people to donate money to keep the museum running smoothly with an eye toward a Schuyler-less future one day, keeping the staff happy, and making sure it remained a desirable destination in a city with museums for every mood.
Yet her father’s will and his demands had her feeling pretty distinctly glum, all the same.
Ranieri barked out commands, the lawyers scuttled about taking notes and aggressively agreeing to everything he said—big surprise—and the next thing she knew, Annika was seated in the back of a gleaming limo, gliding through Manhattan traffic as if even the usual Midtown snarls did not dare keep this man waiting.
