LITMIR.BIZ

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      Callum doubted she regretted her lack of courtesy. Yet when her gaze met his again, he read apprehension in the wide eyes. What was she frightened about? Even as he watched, she straightened her spine and the moment of vulnerability vanished.

      He waved to the two boxy leather sofas facing each other under an immense wooden bookshelf packed with books. A tall Christmas tree covered with red bows and silver balls reminded Callum that it was the season of reconciliation. But Miranda’s frozen face warned him that reconciliation was the last thing on her mind. And how could he blame her? Feeling carefully for words, he said, “Look, let’s start over.”

      Ignoring him, Miranda passed the cozy seating arrangement heading for a round walnut conference table beside a wall of glass, where she slung her coat and black bag over the closest of the four chairs in a militant fashion.

      Okay, so she was going to play this tough, all business. Callum gave a mental shrug and seated himself opposite her. “I asked you to come in because I have a proposition for you.”

      “A proposition?” Confusion clouded her features. “For me?”

      He rocked his chair back. “You’re a chef, right?” Hell, he knew she was—he’d paid for every cent of her exclusive training. Though he’d been surprised to learn she’d used her qualifications to gain employment at a popular pub chain rather than some fashionable, upmarket café or boutique hotel. Before she could question how he knew she was a chef, he added, “Adrian told me you work at one of The Golden Goose outlets.”

      He’d stopped to inquire how young Adrian was getting along as a temporary driver for the company. The young man had been grateful for the vacation job and had revealed that Miranda dreamed of one day starting her own catering business. That had given Callum the perfect solution…a way to wipe Miranda Owen from his conscience forever. He gave her his most charming grin.

      “Yes,” she said guardedly.

      She certainly wasn’t blowing him away with an effusive response. Tipping his chair back to earth, he leaned forward and planted his elbows on the conference table. “Here’s the deal. I plan to invite the outgoing chairman of a company Ironstone Insurance has recently taken over to a private dinner party at my home on Saturday night.”

      “He’ll come?”

      “Oh, yes. Gordon’s staying on as a shareholder and I want to introduce him to the other directors. It’s a celebration.”

      The melting brown eyes hardened. “I suppose that makes sense. Your brothers will want to get on side with a significant shareholder.”

      Callum stopped smiling. The merger had been his initiative—a successful one that would give Ironstone Insurance a strategic advantage over their competitors for years to come. And Gordon Harris had been even hungrier for the merger than the Ironstone family. Gordon wanted to retire, to take it easy. But Miranda’s words stopped Callum from confessing that there was another, more celebratory reason for the dinner. That would only lead to a dig about protecting his assets.

      Two fine lines furrowed her brow. “When you say Saturday…do you mean this week?” At his nod the lines deepened. “That doesn’t leave much time.”

      He’d intended to railroad her into agreeing…and not leave any time for second thoughts.

      “You don’t think you can do it?” he challenged.

      Angry fire kindled in the caramel eyes. “How many people?”

      Hiding a grin of triumph, Callum rose to his feet and retrieved a manila folder from the polished expanse of his desk. Returning to the conference table, he dropped the file in front of her. “The details are all in there.”

      If he could start Miranda on the road to success, introduce her to some people, perhaps he’d be able to forget the hatred a pair of eighteen-year-old eyes had once held…

      Or at least that had been the plan.

      But having met Miranda again, he had a suspicion it wasn’t going to be nearly that simple.

      Standing behind her, all too conscious of the subtle fragrance of warm vanilla she exuded, Callum watched her elegant fingers flip the file open to the first page of the agreement his PA had prepared. Her shoulders stiffened as she read the figure he proposed to pay for a one-night job.

      Satisfaction swept through him. She wouldn’t refuse. His offer was too good. Helping Miranda get started in a business that must presently be nothing more than an impossible dream would be the perfect way to excise the disturbing memory of the wild accusations she’d flung at him.

       You killed my father.

      Of course he knew he hadn’t, didn’t he? Thomas Owen had killed himself once he realized there would be a trial—where he would almost certainly be found guilty on the overwhelming evidence against him. The courts showed no mercy against employees who stole from their employers. Thomas Owen would have known he was facing prison.

      Yet Thomas’s suicide had shaken Callum more than he cared to admit, leaving him haunted by a long shadow of guilt.

      A legacy that he was determined to shake.

      The black-and-white print on the paper in front of her blurred. Miranda was no longer aware of the maple-wood furniture, or Callum’s spacious office. Instead she experienced again the hot ball of misery that had burned constantly in her chest from the moment her father’s PA had called with the news of her father’s arrest.

       Impossible.

      But her father’s assistant had insisted it was true: the police had been, and had taken her father away. Miranda needed to get hold of her mother urgently. Callum Ironstone would be issuing a press statement soon.

      At barely eighteen, Miranda’s first sighting of Callum Ironstone on television had swung rapidly from interest in the handsome devil with dark hair, a sensual mouth and eyes that held a mesmerizing intensity, to hatred when she’d heard what he had to say. The press statement had been brief but damning.

      All of it lies. By the time it came to an end, Miranda was numb with disbelief.

      There had been a mistake. Yet Callum Ironstone clearly didn’t believe that. Rage had set in. Her father was not a thief.

      Her father was granted bail, and emerged from the courthouse pale, shaken, but determined to clear his name. He had done nothing to justify the indignity the Ironstones had heaped upon him after two decades loyal service. Miranda had been confident it would all be sorted out.

      But what followed had been traumatic. And, in the end, Thomas Owen simply gave up. Miranda could still remember the set, serious face of the policewoman who’d knocked on the door to break the news that her father was dead.

      Then came the funeral. Miranda’s hands grew clammy and nerves fluttered in her stomach at the memory of the last terrible occasion she’d seen Callum Ironstone—it still made her cringe. Devastated by her father’s death, her white-hot hatred boiling over, she’d confronted him in the stone-walled forecourt of the church.

      The men beside him moved to cut her off. But she barged past them. Standing in front of Callum, she inspected him with angry eyes. “How could you take a good man’s life and destroy it?” she’d challenged.

      His jaw had set, and his face had grown harder than the marble tombstones in the churchyard. “He stole money from me.”

      “So you decided to teach him a lesson and humiliate him?”

      A flush seared his carved cheekbones.

      A man who resembled Callum—a brother perhaps—stepped forward. “Wait a minute, young lady—”

      She brushed him aside, focusing all her emotion on Callum. “You killed him. You know that?” Tears of rage and pain spilled onto her cheeks. “He worked for you for twenty years, you gave him a gold watch, yet you never gave him a chance?”

      Her

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