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Something that should have perished at the same time he turned their ‘relationship’ into a financial transaction.
Despair and frustration punched her in the gut. She didn’t want to feel like this. She shouldn’t be feeling like this. Gabriel Silva was a cold-blooded chancer, and the only reason she was even deigning to meet him was Alistair, the man standing beside him.
Stepping forward, Gabriel held out his hand and she stood there, her heart lurching against her ribs. Now, even though it hurt to look at him, it was impossible to turn away.
‘Ms Cavendish.’
He was smiling, and suddenly she couldn’t seem to breathe, because the Gabriel she had fallen in love with had rarely smiled. When he had it had been miraculous—like the ‘fire rainbows’ they had seen above Dorset on one of their secret weekends away together. Only this smile was something entirely different. It was calculated, disposable, and purely for Alistair’s benefit.
She knew that the moment their gazes met and his eyes slammed into hers with such force that she almost lost her balance.
On the days when she thought she might choke on her sadness she would imagine this moment. Imagine how she would deliver a cool, cutting critique of his character. Instead, she said quietly, ‘Mr Silva.’
Reaching out, she took his outstretched hand, intending simply to shake it briefly. But as their palms brushed she felt a jolt of heat, sharp and stinging, like the lick of a flame. His eyes locked with hers and his hand momentarily tightened.
‘So this is the family firm,’ he said softly, finally loosening his grip. ‘Although I understand from Alistair that your father didn’t work here?’
‘No.’ She flexed her fingers, trying to look calm and unaffected. Trying to forget that jolt of heat. Trying not to let her brain linger on how simply shaking hands with him could make her feel so on edge and exposed. ‘He thought he lacked the talent for business,’ she said stiffly.
In truth, Oscar Cavendish had been smart, and ruthless enough to have reached the top in whatever profession he chose. But he had been lazy and self-indulgent and, unlike Alistair, instead of working at the law firm founded jointly by their great-great-great-grandfathers—or working at all, for that matter—he’d preferred to live off the dividends from his shares in the business.
‘And yet he was instrumental in kick-startingmycareer.’
Her heart thudded painfully as he held her gaze.
‘Without his input I would never have been able to make that first investment.’
Input.
The word tasted like ash in her mouth. That was one way of describing it. But it was a little opaque, imprecise...misleading, even. Most people—herself and Alistair, for example—would call it a bribe, although no doubt Oscar had called it something less vulgar. An inducement, perhaps. Either way, Gabriel had accepted the money. He had been paid to break her heart.
Are you proud of yourself? Of what you did?
A part of her wanted to beat her fists against his chest and scream bitter, accusatory questions at him. Only that would take them back to the past, and she didn’t want to go there. She didn’t want to scrape a wound that was still weeping and sore. She just wanted to get this over with, and then get as far away from him as soon as possible.
‘Well, thank you for sharing that with me.’
She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. It made her feel like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. But this time she wasn’t going to let him flatten her.
She had met him, and looked him in the eye, and now she was done.
Straightening her slim shoulders, she lifted her chin. ‘I’ll let you two get down to business.’
‘Of course, of course...’ Oblivious to the current of tension swimming around the room, Alistair nodded enthusiastically. ‘That’s why we’re all here.’
Actually, it wasn’t, Gabriel thought shifting back in his seat, his lowered gaze fixed on Dove’s delicate profile. He was here for one reason and one reason only: revenge. The acquisition of Fairlight Holdings was necessary only to achieve that goal.
The woman standing in front of him also had a part to play. Not that she knew that yet. But no matter. Revenge was a dish best eaten cold, so why not drag things out for just a little longer? Make sure everything was nice and chilled. A couple of minutes would make no difference in the scheme of things. In fact, he was going to enjoy every moment of making her squirm. It was the least she deserved after the way she had treated him.
Remembering the expression on Oscar’s smoothly, handsome face as he apologised for his daughter’s ‘change of heart’, he felt his back tensed against the chair.
What heart? Dove Cavendish didn’t have one. She was a living, breathing Snow Queen, with ice in her veins, and even now the memory of that conversation with her father burned him—almost as much as her beauty dazzled him.
She was still beautiful.
More than beautiful, he corrected himself reluctantly. She could be a mythical goddess, with her long pale blonde hair and ethereal silvery grey eyes. He had been looking into those same silvery grey eyes when she’d told him she loved him.
Was it any wonder he had been smitten?
