My hottest Billionaire a Boss

Two

Somehow she made herself move forward, stiffening her back, her neck,

so that the threatening weakness in her legs didn’t show. She was sure

that the result was to make her look as if she was marching stiffly like a

wooden toy as she crossed the worn gold-and burgundy-coloured carpet,

the gathered crowd of friends and neighbours parting like the Red Sea

as she moved towards the man in the doorway.

And all the way across the room he watched her come. Those dark,

dangerous eyes were fixed on her face as she walked towards him, the

burning gaze never flickering, the dark concentration so fierce that she

almost felt it sear her skin where it landed.

What was he doing here? And why would he turn up now—at the worst

possible moment?

‘Don’t come back!’ In the darkness of her mind she heard her own voice in an echo of the words that she had flung at him. ‘Don’t ever come back! I

never ever want to see you again.’

And, ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ he’d said, the tone of the words turning the

endearment into the exact opposite. ‘One taste of hell is enough for any

man in his lifetime. I will not be fool enough to risk that again.’

And yet now here he was, big and dark and large as life. Larger than life

when compared with the younger man he had been when she had last seen

him. Those years had filled out his lean, rangy frame, giving him an image

of solid power that seemed to fill the doorway in which he stood, blocking

out the light from the hallway behind him.

For one sudden, terrifying moment she had a sense that he was blocking

her way out too. Closing off her way of escape, making sure that she

stayed trapped in the room. Her heart seemed to rise up into her throat,

beating frantically so that she found it difficult to breathe, and for a

moment the sight of his hard-boned, strongly carved face blurred before

her eyes, fading into a hissing, whirling mist.

Not for the first time that morning she ardently wished that he had

been able to be with her today. But her fiancé had an important business

meeting in USA, one that couldn’t be cancelled for anything, and so she

had been denied the comfort and support of having him at her side

through today’s ordeal. If she had known—or even dreamed—that

Edward was going to reappear from whatever dark place he had

crawled into seven years ago then she would have begged Nick to stay,

no matter what. But then how could she ever have imagined that her

shameful past would come back to haunt her in this way, in the form of

this man?

What had he come for? Why was he here? She had always feared that one day he would turn up, dark and dangerous, seeking vengeance for the

way he believed she’d treated him. The image of those gleaming black jet

eyes, the expression in them promising burning retribution as he’d flung

one last viciously contemptuous look in her direction had haunted her

dreams for months afterwards. It had been a long time before the

memory had faded and even now it could still come back to haunt her

when she was tired or feeling low.

But then reality surfaced and she shook her head slightly, feeling the

haze clear, the panic ebb away. Nick had announced Edward as

he had every other person who was attending the funeral. The butler had

been expecting him because He had said that he was coming—

even if he was the last person on earth thatshe had been thinking to

meet. And that meant that he should be treated as any other guest

today. Surely she could manage that even if she would not truly be able

to breathe easily until he left the house—left USA—and she knew he

was out of her life again.

So—‘Mr Edward…’ She made herself say it, forced her voice to sound at

least calm and indifferent so that if one hadn’t known that they had met

in the past and the savage hostility that now burned between them, at

least it couldn’t be guessed from her tone. ‘Thank you for coming.’

She forced herself to put out her hand too. Every last bit of training

that her mother had instilled into her made her do it. Courtesy to guests

was something Riya had always insisted on and even now she couldn’t

go against the rules that had been instilled into her. But it was all she

could do not to flinch when the burn of his skin against her own actually

scorched her palm, sending stinging sensations shooting along every

nerve.

‘Miss … Seen up this close, he was even more imposing, more devastating than he

had been in the moment that he had walked into the room. Even in the

elegant heels she wore, she was still several inches below him in height,

needing to tilt her head back to meet him eye to eye. His tanned olive

skin seemed almost impossibly vibrant and alive in contrast to the early

spring pallor of the rest of the guests. He was wearing black, like

everyone else in the room, but he wore it like no one else in the room.

His clothes were of a far better quality than anything the newly

employed stable hand she had known would ever have been able to afford

all those years ago. The long black overcoat worn loose over a black shirt

and beautifully tailored black suit hung from the width of his powerful

shoulders with the dramatic effect of a cloak or a greatcoat worn by

some swashbuckling highwayman. The thunderous downpour

outside had soaked into the fine material, making it even darker, even

sleeker in patches. Raindrops from the same storm were scattered

through the black silk of his hair, sparkling like diamonds against the

polished jet strands that they clung to, and the moisture had even spiked

the impossibly lush, thick lashes that fringed the ebony darkness of his

eyes.

‘My sympathy on your loss.’

It sounded like the most polite of responses, at least on the surface, but

there was a controlled savagery underlying his tone that caught on the

tightness of her nerves and tugged hard, making her stomach muscles

clench on a wave of panic. It sounded almost as if he was having to force

himself to speak at all. But when she looked into his face all she saw was

a calm civility, the smooth veneer of a public mask that hid whatever

truth was in his mind.

He couldn’t hide it in his eyes though, and what she saw in their darkness made her shiver inwardly. Her own guilty memories added an extra uneasy

layer to the tension that claimed her.

‘I believe that Mr let you know of my father’s death…’

‘He did. He telephoned me as soon as he knew. I was away on business at

the time or I would have been here sooner.’

The dark eyes still clashed with hers as he answered, their total lack of

expression giving away nothing at all. He knew what she was doing; the

faint half smile that curled the corners of the beautifully shaped mouth

told her that. He knew that she was trying to probe into his reasons for

being here, hunt out the hidden explanation for his sudden and

unexpected appearance. Because there had to be one. He hadn’t just

appeared out of the blue to pay his respects at her father’s funeral.

Respect had been the last thing that this man had felt for jetu. A

bitter hatred had been the only emotion that had flared between the two

men. A hatred that her own foolish behaviour and unthinking actions had

fed till breaking-point had been reached and the explosions that had

resulted had almost destroyed them all.

No. Hastily she corrected herself. It hadn’t damaged at all. At

least not emotionally, which was how it had devastated her. Emotionally,

he had walked out of here scot-free, not even a mark on him. And he had

left her to pick up the pieces of the life she had known.

Financially, it had been a very different matter. In that case, he had

every reason to hate her as much as he had her father—more—

because she was the reason he had lost his job; the reason he had had to

leave in the first place. So now, ‘I don’t understand…’ she began, but at that precise moment

Nick stepped forward again, clearing his throat in the way that he

always did to draw attention to the fact that he had something to say.

‘The funeral director is ready, Miss Lisa. If you’d like to lead the

way…’

‘But I…’

She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes went to Edward, still

standing, dark and watchful, in the doorway. She had been thrown

completely off balance by his sudden and unexpected arrival and she was

unsure of how to proceed. It was as if the ground had suddenly shaken

violently beneath her feet so that when it was still again nothing was in

quite the same place as before and her sense of equilibrium had vanished

with it. Instead, in its place was a terrible sense of unease and

apprehension, all of it centred in the man before her.

‘You…’ she tried again but, even as she spoke, he was moving, standing

aside with a controlled grace and leaving the doorway open before her.

‘You have things to attend to,’ he said softly, that note of control still

keeping his voice low and smooth. The voice of perfect courtesy, perfect

concern, if she didn’t look into his face, into the cold burn of his eyes.

‘We will talk later.’

Was she imagining things? Was it her uneasy conscience, her unhappy

memories that made her hear his words as a dark promise, almost a

threat, instead of a polite reassurance? Could no one else hear that ominous undertone that shaded the words, turned the effect of them

into something like the trail of small, icy footprints across her skin,

raising every tiny hair in a sense of desperate apprehension? And the

cold, assessing glance from those deep set eyes that flashed just once at

her face told her he was watching her every move, seeing the play of

emotions across her face and understanding the reasons for it.

He knew that she would do anything rather than risk any sort of public

scene here and now, in front of the upper class county set who had been
hi’s friends. That her need to make sure that this last thing she

could do for her late father was carried out with dignity and

restraint would put a control on her tongue that she would rather die

than break. And he was playing on that fact, coldly and deliberately.