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Her mouth went dry. ‘Perhaps we should talk in the bar downstairs?’
He brushed past her and pushed open the heavy doors, his lips twisting into a tight smile that only made her heart pound harder.
‘Afraid to be alone with me?’
Helena paused on the threshold. Should she be afraid of him? In spite of her jitters she balked at the idea. Leonardo Vincenti wasn’t thrilled to see her—that was painfully clear—but she knew this man. Had spent time with him. Been intimate with him in ways that marked her soul like no other man ever had.
Yes, she could sense the anger vibrating beneath his cloak of civility, but he would never lose control and lash out at her. He would never hurt her the way her father hurt her mother.
She smoothed her palm down the leg of her black trouser suit and assumed a lofty air. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, and strode into the room.
* * *
Leo closed the penthouse doors, strode to the wet bar and splashed a large measure of whisky into a crystal tumbler. He knocked back the potent liquid, snapped the empty glass onto the bar and looked at the woman whose presence was like a blowtorch to his veneer of calm.
‘Drink?’
‘No.’ She reinforced her refusal with a shake of her head that made her auburn curls bounce and sway. ‘But...thank you.’
Shorter, he noted. Her hair was shorter, the dark silky ribbons that had once tumbled to her waist now cropped into a sophisticated cut above her shoulders. Her face, too, had changed—thinner like her body and more striking somehow, her cheekbones strong and elegant, her jaw line firm. Bluish crescents underscored her eyes, but the rest of her skin was toned and smooth and free of imperfections. It was a face no man, unless blind, would pass by without stopping for a second appreciative look.
Helena Shaw, he reluctantly acknowledged, was no longer a pretty girl. Helena Shaw was a stunningly attractive woman.
Scowling, he reminded himself he had no interest in this woman’s attributes, physical or otherwise. He’d been bl
indsided by her beauty and guise of innocence once before—a grave error that had cost him infinitely more than his injured pride—and he’d vowed his mistake would not be repeated.
Not with any woman.
And especially not this one.
‘So, you want to talk.’ The last thing he wanted to do with this woman. Dio. He should have bodily removed her from the elevator downstairs and to hell with causing a scene. He banked the flare of anger in his gut and gestured towards a duo of deep leather sofas. ‘Sit,’ he instructed, then glanced at his watch. ‘You have ten minutes.’
She frowned—a delicate pinch of that smooth brow—then put her bag on the glass coffee table and perched on the edge of a sofa. She drew an audible breath.
‘The papers say you’ve launched a hostile takeover bid for my father’s company.’
He dropped onto the opposite sofa. ‘An accurate summary.’ He paused. ‘And...?’
She puffed out a sigh. ‘You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?’
Easy? That simple four-letter word made him grind his molars. This girl’s entire life had been easy. Her family’s excessive wealth, her father’s connections, had ensured she wanted for nothing. Unlike Leo and his sister who, after their mother’s death, had survived childhood in a murky world of poverty and neglect. For them, nothing came easy.
‘You want me to make this easy for you?’
Like hell he would.
She shook her head. ‘I want to understand why you’re doing this.’
So she could talk him out of it? Not a chance. He’d waited too many years to settle this score with her father. He returned her gaze for an extended beat. ‘It’s business.’
She laughed then: a short brittle sound, not the soft, sexy laughter that resided in his memory. ‘Please—this isn’t business. It’s...payback.’
Her voice conveniently wobbled on that last word, but her ploy for sympathy, if that was her angle, failed to move him.
‘And if I said this is payback, what would you say?’
‘I’d say two wrongs don’t make a right.’
