The Man to Be Reckoned With (5 page)

“This is your one chance to clear it all up,” he said, softening his voice. He wasn't bending the rules, but he was also very curious about what happened between her and her colleague.

“Last year, on New Year's Eve, a week after we had signed up the half millionth member, we had a party. Drew was drunk. I...I had a glass of white wine. We...ended up next to each other when it struck twelve. He...kissed me. In front of the whole company.” She looked away. But the small tremble that went through her couldn't be hidden. “I kissed him back...I think. Before I remembered to put a stop to it.”

“You think? It's not rocket science.”

She glared at him and pushed her hair back. “I don't know what happened or how I let it happen. Just that it was the stupidest thing I've ever done. In my defense, I had got the news that day that Robert was out of danger and with Travelogue making such a big milestone...” She ran shaking fingers over her face. “I've been kicking myself for losing control like that. I never meant to...”

“Enjoy a kiss?”

“Yes. For one thing, it was unprofessional. For another, it was reckless on so many levels. A relationship with any man is not in my plan right now. Career is my focus.”

Nathan frowned, seeing embarrassment and something else. He admired her drive to succeed in her career, understood that it might leave very little time for a personal life. If not for the thread of wistfulness in her face.

Every time he had a conversation with her, he was struck sharp by how innocent she was. Yet from everything Maria had told him with grudging respect, Riya had always worked hard, pretty much taken care of herself even when she was a child. Had helped his father every way she could.

The parameters of her life—Travelogue and its current client base, the estate, his father and her mother—they were all so rigidly defined. To step out of any of them, he realized, sent her into a tailspin.

And the one kiss reflected her age, she was calling it a momentary lapse in judgment.

“You have a plan for your life?” he asked, disbelief slowly cycling into something far more insidious.

She fidgeted in her seat. “A road map, yes... Drew is too volatile, unreliable. When I'm ready to settle down in a decade or so, I want a stable man who'll stand by me for the rest of my life, who'll be a good husband and father. Right now I can't allow myself to be sidetracked by—”

Slow anger simmered to life inside him. “It seems your plan allows for everything except living.”

Her gaze flew to him.

Nathan uncurled his fist, willing the unbidden anger to leave him. She was of no consequence to him. None.

What did it matter to him if the naive fool spent the rest of her life slaving over the estate and company, wasting her life instead of living it?

“Do you have a list of qualities and a timeline for when you'll meet and mate with this ideal specimen of manhood too?”

Her gaze flashed with warning. “My personal life has no bearing on you. I'm only telling you this because you're questioning my professional behavior.”

“Yet you dare ask me questions about my visits, about where I've been all these years.”

“That's because I've seen the pain you've caused Robert for so long. Much as I try, I can't help wondering what kind of man stays away from everything he knows for a decade, without once looking back. You didn't even stay for your mother's funeral. You didn't care about what happened to your father for a decade. You didn't come when Maria... If I hadn't realized that she knew where you were—”

“Enough.”

He leveled a hard look at her and Riya knew she had crossed a line.

“I want a new software model created within three weeks for an executive membership and a package from your team on the front end. You'll see the launch event.”

Her mouth fell open, her stomach dropping into a vacuum. “It can't be ready in three weeks. I'll need to redesign the whole software engine, and we don't have any of the product development team to put the package together. I have only worked behind the scenes till now.”

“Then step into the front. Work smarter and learn to delegate. Use your staff as more than your cheerleader. And the next time a colleague professes undying love to you on office premises and continues to harass you, you'll immediately file a report with HR.”

She slapped her palms against the table between them, something snapping in her. “How long will you hate me for what my mother did?”

“Don't overestimate your place in my life, Riya.” Each word dripped with cutting incisiveness. “Although thanks to your manipulation, I'm veering toward moderate annoyance.”

“Then how long will you punish me for lying?”

“Punish you?”

“Yes. Lording it over me, dragging me across the world, setting goals that ensure my failure, enforcing this...this...”

He stood up from his seat and she craned her neck.

“You've got quite the imagination for someone who's determined to live her life by a plan. We made a deal, one that you started. You're bending all out of shape now because I'm holding you to your end of it?”

His voice was soft, all the more efficient for it. The angrier she got, the calmer he grew. And perversely she wanted to ruffle that frosty, still exterior, wanted to make him angry, hurt, feel something.

That scared her more than anything.

“Or is it me personally that you can't deal with?”

She stood up, meaning to get away. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

He grasped her arm, the lean breadth of his body too close. “If we're going for all-out honesty, one of us has to state it for what it is.”

Panic unfurled in sharp bursts in her belly.

As long as it was unsaid, as long as it was just in her head, and in their glances and in his knowing, arrogant smile, she could still ignore it, she could still believe it to be just a by-product of how much power he held in her life right now.

“There's nothing to state.” She tugged at his fingers but his grip was relentless. Bending down, he neatly trapped her against her seat. His gaze moved over her as if it could touch her. Lingered over her eyes, her nose, her mouth. The sound of their breaths, labored and fast, surrounded her in the silence. She didn't understand where this energy was coming from or why it was so strong.

When she kissed Drew, it had been pleasant, nice. Like a breezy day on the coast, like sitting in front of a warm fire in cold winter.

When Nathan touched her, it felt as if she would come apart from the inside if he continued. Left her feeling shaken when he stopped. Probably how someone would feel when jumping off a cliff. How someone felt when playing with fire.

“Please, Nate, let me go.”

A smile wreathed his mouth. It was full of satisfaction, of understanding, even a little glimmer of resignation. The pads of his fingers pressed into her skin. His breath caressed the tip of her nose, his gaze dipping to her mouth. “You didn't wonder what would happen if I came back and turned your life upside down. You didn't expect this current that comes to life when we look at each other. Do you have a plan for what to do in this twisted situation we're in?”

Emotion, that emotion she wanted to see in him, it coated every word. This unbidden fire between them, for all his forcing the matter, he didn't like or want it any more than she did.

“Do you think your life is still completely in your control?” he asked.

“It would be if you weren't so determined to play games with me.”

“I haven't done one thing today that I wouldn't have even if you weren't the most beautiful, most infuriating, the strangest creature I've ever met.”

A soft gasp left her mouth at the vehemence in his words.

The small sound reverberated in the quiet cabin.

Releasing her, he stepped back, his gaze a wintry frost again. Glanced at her with unease. As if he didn't know what had happened.

“You are the problem, Riya. Not me. It rattles you when I come near you, when I lay a finger on you. You fight it by attributing motives to me. Tell me you'll sell the estate, and I'll have the pilot turn the plane around. Tell me you've had enough.”

“Why are you fighting me so much on this?” she said, desperation spewing from her. “What do you lose by talking to Robert a few times? What do you have in there, a big hard rock for a heart?”

Her attack took him by surprise. A scornful twist to his mouth, he stared at her. And Riya could literally see the minute he decided she wasn't worth it. Whatever it was.

Perverse disappointment flooded her and she stood immobile in its wake.

“I have no heart. At least not a working one.” His mouth barely moved, his jaw clenched tight. “I'll never forgive him for what he did to my mother. He let her down when she needed him. Flaunted his affair with Jackie in her face. Just the mere thought of him fills me with anger, reminds me of my own weakness.”

CHAPTER FIVE

R
IYA
STRAIGHTENED
IN
HER
leather seat as they touched down on the runway. She had spent the entire flight alternately staring at the screen and catching sneaky glances of Nathan. He, however, seemed to have very effectively removed her from his mind.

The new software model that he had demanded loomed high at the back of her mind, but she was way too restless to focus.

As much as it galled her, the infuriating man was right.

All these years, she had drowned herself in work, focused on the estate and Robert and Jackie. Had spent it all denying herself a normal life.

What was the point in inviting anyone into her life when all she faced in the end was pain and disappointment? When, inevitably, she would be deserted? A small mistake, and look how easily Drew had walked away from her. Wasn't it better than the hurt that followed if she allowed herself to form any kind of attachment, to constantly look inside and wonder what she was lacking?

For years, she had wondered why her father had given up on her so easily, why she wasn't enough for Jackie as she struggled herself...

Safer to focus on work, to develop her career. At least, the results were dependable. But it also meant she was woefully unequipped to deal with her attraction to Nathan. And all the ensuing little things she was sharply becoming aware of.

Simple things like how different the texture and feel of his hand was against hers. How the scent of him invaded her senses when he stood so close. How there was a constant battle within her between reveling in what he evoked and fear that she was losing control.

How slowly but surely his words were beginning to affect her...

As she followed him down the plane's stairs, she stilled on the second step, taking in the vast expanse of land, a beautiful landscape of beaches and water. Her mouth slack, she blinked at the sheer magnificence of it.

The island was a paradise and apparently Nathan's next billion-dollar venture.

A team of engineers and architects greeted him, all dressed in casual shorts and T-shirts. “Is Sonia still working?” he asked, and was told yes.

Her curiosity about the island and the project he had mentioned trumping everything else, Riya stayed behind him. His attention to detail, his incisive questions...it was like watching a super computer at work.

The island, she learned, was to be rented out as a private retreat to celebrities who wanted a slice of heaven to get away to, at a staggering half a million dollars per day. The tour they had been given, driving around in buggies, had permanently stuck her jaw to her chest.

There were a hundred acres of heaven, with six Balinese-style abodes, a submarine that could be chartered to see the untouched coral reef, a Jacuzzi that could apparently house two dozen people at once and an unnamed attraction that everyone mentioned with sheer excitement. Also included on the island were private beaches, infinity pools that led into the ocean, tennis courts, a wide array of water sports and every single abode came with a personal chef, a masseuse and a housekeeping staff of ten.

No small detail was beneath Nathan's attention. He had even asked after the scientific team dedicated to studying an almost extinct gecko that was native to the island.

The more Riya saw, the more guilt and awe gripped her insides.

He owned all this and he still wanted that small estate. He had chosen to accept her little deal when he could have done anything with her company, with her and not looked back. That didn't speak of a heartless, uncaring man, and Riya struggled to accept what it did mean.

Just the mere thought of him fills me with anger, reminds me of my own weakness.

His words pinged incessantly in her head all afternoon. Beneath the cold fury, there had been so much pain, an ache that she understood. All she knew was that his mother, Anna, had died of a heart condition. But why say Robert reminded him of his own weakness?

Seeing his dynamic interactions with his team, however, his face wreathed into laughter at something, she found it hard to see any weakness in him. He was gorgeous, wealthy and possessed of an incisive mind that had made him a billionaire.

Sometime since they had arrived, he had changed into khaki shorts and a cotton T-shirt. The relentless sun caressed his face, glinted in his beard, reflecting myriad shades of blue in his eyes. The watch on his wrist glinted expensively as he signaled to someone, and his hands and arms caught her attention.

His gaze found her right then, as though he was aware of her fascination, and she dragged her own back to the delicious food that they had been served. They were lunching on the covered terrace of one of the villas.

Fresh water cascaded into a whirlpool on the terrace below and poured into the enormous swimming pool, its water as clear as crystal. The living area was cavernous with tropical sunlight streaming in from every direction.

Using local stone and Brazilian hardwood floors, the villa was an architectural beauty that boasted ten bedrooms. Decorated with priceless antiques, Indian rugs, art pieces and bamboo furniture from Bali, the villa was situated above a hill providing a spectacular view of the beach.

The chocolate soufflé had barely melted in her mouth when Nathan sat down in the chair next to her.

“What do you think?” he asked, and his entire team had come to a grinding halt as though his very question to her demanded utter silence.

Riya had met his captivating gaze, warning herself not to read so much into a simple question. “Everything is brilliant, gorgeous,” she replied, feeling his scrutiny like a warm caress. “But you don't need Travelogue to find high-end customers for this place.”

She had known he had dragged her along only to make her uncomfortable. Still, disappointment slashed through her. For a few hours, she had forgotten their little deal, had felt like a part of his dynamic team, had realized how much she had been missing living in her own world.

“I have something else in mind for Travelogue. The island is the place we're testing it out. Also, every year, there will be three months when we'll offer up the six villas independently for a deal. A special sale for our low-end customers, a chance for an average man to experience a little slice of heaven.”

“And the income from those three months? It goes to a charity, doesn't it?”

The Anna Ramirez Foundation, she remembered, her heart feeling too big for her chest.

“Yes.”

“I don't know what to say. Nathan, I—”

“You get to do the work.” He cut her off on purpose. “I want you to build a new server plus a front-end package from your team that will tie this to the software model you will be designing. And we'll need—”

“Different tiers for pricing, and packages and even log-in portals for different members,” she replied, a keen sense of excitement vibrating through her.

She had a feeling she had scratched not even the surface of the man he was. And yet she had judged him for not seeing Robert all these years. It scared her and excited her, like nothing else, what else she might learn about him in the coming weeks. And there was no way to turn back from this, no way to curb the curiosity that swept through her.

“Maybe you'll last long enough with me, then,” he said, standing up.

Riya looked up, hanging between the urge to apologize, why she had no idea, and to leave the status quo. There was something about the tone of his voice that said he had neatly pushed her into the employee box. That he regretted the tiny little fracture in his control earlier.

The easy humor, the carefully constructed indifference, they were all a foil for something beneath, something deeper. Riya wanted to run away and delve deeper at the same time.

“Take a couple of hours off. The island heat can be too strong for newcomers.”

She nodded, feeling a strange sense of disappointment as he walked away.

* * *

Nathan was e-signing a bunch of documents for his virtual manager when he heard more than one long sigh from his engineering team and a subdued curse fall from the local construction crew they had hired.

Baffled by the sudden change in the tenor, he looked up from his tablet.

His own breath fisted in his chest. Languid energy uncoiled in his belly.

Clad in a white stretchy top that hugged the globes of her lush breasts, and denim shorts that showcased the lean muscles in her long legs, Riya was coming down the steep path. Her hair was tied into a high ponytail and swung left and right with her long stride. She wore flats, the strings of which tied around her ankles in the most sensual way.

He couldn't fault his team for losing their focus, nor fault her for her simple attire. The weather was a combination of damp and stifling heat.

Every inch of him thrummed with tension and anticipation. Locking his jaw, Nathan turned away. Fought the insidious thought supplied by his mind that he could have her if he wanted.

Her skin glistened golden in the sun. And it felt like raw silk, he knew now. And her brown eyes took on the darkest shade when he touched her. The faintest whiff of roses clung to her skin. Two tiny things about her that he would never be able to erase.

Even as he warned himself, his gaze traveled over the modest neckline of the sleeveless T-shirt that draped over her lush breasts and dipped to her waist.

She stopped and looked around her with a smile that only added to her appeal.

The need to run his fingers over that graceful line of her neck, to sink his hands into her hair, to shake loose the safe, sterile world she had built for herself, to be the one to wake her up to her own potential in every way was almost overwhelming.

She was like a beautiful butterfly that refused to leave the cocoon, and he wanted to be the one to lure her out.

With a curse that punctured the stunned silence around him, he shot up from his seat. Turned away from the temptation she presented. Reminded himself that he had conquered obstacles and fears that were far more dangerous.

Things were already too twisted between them. And from her episode with Drew, he knew she could never handle him.

Nathan needed the rule-following, road-map-for-my-life female in his life the way he needed a heart attack.

What he should do was to put her on a flight home immediately and forget her or her little deal.

And yet with the excitement thrumming through her as she reached them, her wide eyes taking in the equipment around, he couldn't find it in him to break his word.

Three more months of this torture, and he was already chafing against his own rules.

* * *

Pushing her shades on to keep the orange glare away, Riya looked around herself. All the guesses she had made were off by a mile. It was not a casino, or a resort or a theater or an architectural marvel of any kind.

A huge crane stood behind the working team. An enclosure that was as tall as her surrounded the crane.

Her heart beating with a thunderous roar, she stepped inside and stilled.

A raised platform with an exquisitely designed, waist-high iron railing that went all around sat center stage in the enclosure. The most luxurious little sofa with legroom in the front sat against the back wall, and Riya noted that it was riveted to the wooden floor of the platform. As she watched with spiraling curiosity, tiny little lights, strategically placed around the perimeter of the floor turned on, casting brilliant light around.

Two small tables sat on either side of the sofa. Exotic orchids in vases along with an assortment of other things like expensive chocolate and even a bucket of champagne in ice sat on the tables.

And the final thing she noticed was safety tethers on each side of the sofa.

Her breath hitched in her throat as she realized what the elaborate setup meant.

She turned around, determined to find out if the fantastic idea was really true, when Nathan and a tall brunette stepped inside the enclosure.

Meeting her gaze, Nathan tilted his head toward the newcomer. “This is Sonia Lopez. She's the project manager.”

A kind of suspended silence hung in the air where the woman obviously waited for him to say more and then gave up.

“Riya Mathur. She's the software architect on a company I acquired recently.”

Relief sweeping through her, Riya shook the woman's hand.

Sonia cast another quick look toward Nathan before stepping out of the enclosure.

Leaving her alone with Nathan.

She jerked as he clasped her wrist and tugged her toward the raised platform. “Let's go.”

Her eyes wide, fear beating a tattoo in her head, she shook her head. “No. I would very much like to be a spectator, thank you.”

The most unholy delight dawned in his eyes, a wicked fire that turned them into a fiery blue. His mouth curved into a smile; it was the most gorgeous he had ever seemed to her. There was no facade, no frost. Only pure, undisguised laughter at her cowardice. “Not a choice. If you want—”

Surprising him, she took a few steps forward and cast a quick glance at the setup. “It's not fair, Nathan. My going on this has nothing to do with my company's abilities.”

“Life's not fair, Riya. But you have to grab your thrills where you can.”

With that, he pulled her and they stepped through the railing.

“You sound like a little boy going on an adult ride for the first time.”

He clasped her hand and pulled her down to the sofa. Her knees quaking, she managed to stay still as he clipped the safety belt around them. And now, instead of an intangible one, there was a rope binding them together.

Breathe, Riya.

Within minutes, a faint whirring began and the crane unfolded, lifting them up into the sky.

Riya gasped and clasped his hand tighter, at the sheer magnificence of the feeling. Her mouth dry, she laughed giddily as they went higher and higher.

The whole island was laid out beneath them like a glittering jewel. The villas, the infinity pool, the beautiful grounds, she had never seen a more breathtaking sight. Her heart raced at a thunderous speed, a strange pull in her stomach.