LITMIR.BIZ

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was but it was still the vibrant tangle of colour it had been when he had first met her. Chestnut interweaved with copper with strands of strawberry blonde threaded through in a colourful display of natural highlights.

      And she hadn’t put on an ounce over the years. Indeed, she looked slimmer than ever. Gaunt, even, with smudges of strain showing under her violet eyes.

      Financial stress would do that to a person, he thought, especially a person who had been brought up to expect the finest things in life.

      But for all that she was as beautiful as he remembered, with that elusive quality of hesitancy that had first attracted him to her. She looked like a model, leggy, rangy and startlingly pretty, but she lacked the hard edges of someone with model looks and that was a powerful source of attraction. She had always seemed to be ever so slightly puzzled when guys spun round to stare at her.

      Complete act, he now realised. Just one of the many things about her that had roped him in, one of the many things that had been fake.

      ‘So...’ he drawled, relaxing back in his chair. ‘Where to begin? Such a long time since we last saw one another...’

      Sophie was fast realising that there was going to be no loan. He had requested an audience with her because he could, because he had known that she would be unable to refuse. He had asked to see her so that he could send her away with a flea in her ear over how he thought he had been treated by her the last time they had been together.

      She was sitting here in front of him simply because revenge was a dish best served cold.

      She cleared her throat, back ramrod-straight, hands clutching the bag on her lap, a leftover designer relic back from the good old days when money, apparently, had been no object.

      ‘My brother informs me that you might be amenable to providing us with a loan.’ She didn’t want to go down memory lane and, since this was a business meeting, why not cut to the chase? He wasn’t going to lend them the money anyway, so what was the point of prolonging the agony?

      Though there was some rebellious part of her that was compelled to steal glances at the man who had once held her heart captive in his hand.

      He was still so beautiful. A wave of memories washed over her and she seemed to see, in front of her, the guy who could make her laugh, who could make her tingle all over whenever he rested his eyes on her; the guy who had lusted after her and had pursued her with the sort of intent and passion she had never experienced in her life before.

      She blinked; the image was gone and she was back in the present, cringing as he continued to assess her with utterly cool detachment.

      ‘Tut-tut-tut, Sophie. Don’t tell me that you seriously expected to walk into my office and find yourself presented with a loan arrangement all ready and waiting for you to sign, before disappearing back to...remind where it is...the wilds of Yorkshire?’ He shook his head with rueful incredulity, as though chastising her for being a complete moron. ‘I think we should at least relax and chat a bit before we begin discussing...money...’

      Sophie wondered whether this meant that he would actually agree to lend them the money they so desperately needed.

      ‘I would offer you coffee or tea, but my secretary has gone for the day. I can, of course...’ He levered himself out of the chair and Sophie noted the length and muscularity of his body.

      He had been lean and menacing years ago, with the sort of physical strength that can only be thinly hidden behind clothes. He was just as menacing now, more so because he now wielded power, and a great deal of it.

      She watched as he made his way over to a bar, which she now noticed at the far side of his office, in a separate, airy room which overlooked the streets below on two sides.

      It was an obscenely luxurious office suite. All that was missing was a bed.

      Heat stung her cheeks and she licked her lips nervously. For all she knew, he was married with a couple of kids, even though he didn’t look it. He certainly would have a woman tucked away somewhere.

      ‘Have a drink with me, Sophie...’

      ‘I’d rather not.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because...’ Her voice trailed off and she noted that he had ignored her completely and was now strolling towards her with a glass of wine in his hand.

      ‘Because...what?’ Instead of returning to his chair, he perched on the edge of his desk and looked down at her with his head tilted to one side.

      ‘Why don’t you just lay into me and get it over and done with?’ she muttered, taking the drink from him and nursing the glass. She stared up at him defiantly, her violet eyes clashing with his unreadable, dark-as-night ones. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have come here.’

      ‘Lay into you?’ Javier queried smoothly. He shrugged. ‘Things happen and relationships bite the dust. We were young. It’s no big deal.’

      ‘Yes,’ Sophie agreed uneasily.

      ‘So your brother tells me that you are now a widow...’

      ‘Roger died in an accident three years ago.’

      ‘Tragic. You must have been heartbroken.’

      ‘It’s always tragic when someone is snatched away in the prime of their life.’ She ignored the sarcasm in his voice; she certainly wasn’t going to pretend to play the part of heartbroken widow when her marriage had been a sham from beginning to end. ‘And perhaps you don’t know but my father is also no longer with us. I’m not sure if Ollie told you, but he suffered a brain tumour towards the end. So life, you see, has been very challenging, for me and my brother, but I’m sure you must have guessed that the minute he showed up here.’ She lowered her eyes and then nervously sipped some of the wine before resting the glass on the desk.

      She wanted to ask whether it was okay to do that or whether he should get a coaster or something.

      But then, really rich people never worried about silly little things like wine glass ring-marks on their expensive wooden desks, did they?

      ‘You have my sympathies.’ Less sincere condolences had seldom been spoken. ‘And your mother?’

      ‘She lives in Cornwall now. We...we bought her a little cottage there so that she could be far from... Well, her health has been poor and the sea air does her good... And you?’

      ‘What about me?’ Javier frowned, eased himself off the desk and returned to where he had been sitting.

      ‘Have you married? Got children?’ The artificiality of the situation threatened to bring on a bout of manic laughter. It was surreal, sitting here making small talk with a guy who probably hated her guts, even though, thankfully, she had not been subjected to the sort of blistering attack she had been fearing.

      At least, not yet.

      At any rate, she could always walk out...although he had dangled that carrot in front of her, intimated that he would indeed be willing to discuss the terms and conditions of helping them. Could she seriously afford to let her pride come in the way of some sort of solution to their problems?

      If she had been the only one affected, then yes, but there was her brother, her mother, those faithful employees left working, through loyalty, for poor salaries in the ever-shrinking family business.

      ‘This isn’t about me,’ Javier fielded silkily. ‘Although, in answer to your question, I have reached the conclusion that women, as a long-term proposition, have no place in my life at this point in time. So, times have changed for you,’ he murmured, moving on with the conversation. He reached into his drawer and extracted a sheet of paper, which he swivelled so that it was facing her.

      ‘Your company accounts. From riches to rags in the space of a few years, although, if you look carefully, you’ll see that the company has been mismanaged for somewhat longer than a handful of years. Your dearly departed husband seems to have failed to live up to whatever promise there

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