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Lysander usually at least listened to his father, but right then? He wanted to be home and inside his beautiful lover. "Call my assistant and make an appointment."
"Is that any way to treat your father?" Baptiste asked with a frown.
"We are leaving. If you would like to walk us out…" Lysander left the rest unsaid.
If his father wanted to talk to him that badly, he would say what he needed to between the table and the door to the outside.
Unfortunately, as soon as Baptiste stood, so did Cyrus.
CHAPTER 16
"You must realize how badly this looks for our family," was his father's opening salvo.
Baptiste waited until they were almost to the exit doors, where few gala attendees were around to overhear the quietly spoken words. Lysander's father was more circumspect than Rowan's, but no less obvious to him.
With that sentence, Lysander knew that the property deal was not Cyrus's alone. Their father had a stake in it as well, or Andino Enterprises did. If Baptiste were genuinely concerned about the effect of his son's behavior on the family's reputation, he would have told Cyrus to keep it in his pants during his marriage to Rowan.
No, his worry was about that parcel of land, and no doubt the shares in Andino Enterprises that Rowan had been given in the divorce too. Baptiste had a vested interest in seeing Rowan and Cyrus reconciled.
Over Lysander's dead, cold and bankrupt body. No way in hell.
Lysander was not an Andino and the success of that company meant nothing to him. He couldn't care less who controlled the family shares, and he definitely had no compunction about gouging the land developer on Rowan's behalf.
Lysander did not slow his and Rowan's progress across the cavernous hotel lobby. "I disagree."
"Taking your brother's leavings as your mistress is beneath you." Baptiste's voice echoed with disgust.
Rowan stiffened beside Lysander, a soft gasp falling from her lovely mouth. Rage rolled through him with gale force.
His body stiff with fury, he stopped in the middle of the lobby, and turned to face his father and Cyrus. His brother's smarmy features looked smug, the look he gave Rowan full of superiority.
Neither Baptiste, nor Cyrus, were targeting Lysander. What they didn't seem to realize was that by aiming their vitriol at Rowan, they might as well have been.
"Do you know why my company has grown exponentially faster than Andino Enterprises in the past decade?" he asked, his tone flat.
Neither his father, nor his brother, liked that reminder and both scowled.
He did not wait to see if they would hazard a guess and answered his own question. "Because I do my research. I make sure I know my opponents before I take them on."
"I know my wife," Cyrus said scornfully. "She'll get over this little rebellion and come back to me."
"Ex-wife," Lysander gritted, the look on his face making his half-brother take a step backward.
It wasn't enough. Lysander wanted him and his father gone. He turned his sulfuric glare on his father. "I am not married. Rowan is not my mistress. She is my lover and she is nobody's leavings."
Rowan squeezed his hand. She had something she wanted to say. He refrained from adding the demand his father apologize so she could say it.
Drawing herself up, she gave the two men she'd once called family a scathing look. "Comments like that are beneath you, Baptiste. I am an independent,singlewoman who can sleep with whomever I want. And right now, I want that to be Lysander."
He didn't like theright noweven though he had specified that their relationship would not be permanent.
Damn it. What was she doing to him?
"I apologize, Rowan," Lysander's father said stiffly.
She inclined her head regally and looked directly at her ex. "I understand why you think I'm such a pushover, Cyrus. You mistook my naivete and desire to please my parents as an indication of a lack of intelligence and weak will. Neither are attributes I carry."
"He doesn’t know you at all, does he?" Lysander looked down at the magnificent woman at his side.
