LITMIR.BIZ

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briefcase from where she must have dropped it onto the floor near the desk. She hadn’t even noticed and her cheeks burned. She grabbed it inelegantly and looked up at him, forcing her brain to work.

      Stiffly she said, ‘I’m sorry that I can’t persuade you to rethink your plans to invest. Good day, Mr Sanchis.’

      His voice took on a far more ambiguous tone. ‘Don’t be sorry. Meeting you was certainly … interesting.’

      Mortification rushed through Jesse. Interesting felt like a slap in the face. She couldn’t be further removed from this man’s world, which she imagined to be peopled with all sorts of sensual pleasures and women to match. Never had she felt so gauche. Bitter gall rose in her throat, tasting of defeat, but she couldn’t deal with that now—not in such close proximity to this man.

      She turned and walked blindly to the door across what felt like acres and acres of dark grey carpet. The door was heavy, and it was only when it shut behind her with a quiet thud that she breathed in again, light-headed from holding her breath.

      The rather austere-looking middle-aged secretary stood up to show her to the outer door, saying politely, ‘Good day, Miss Moriarty, I trust you can find your way back to the lift?’

      Jesse nodded and said her thanks. It was only when she’d stepped into the sleek lift to descend that the enormity of what had just happened and what it now meant hit her.

      Luc stared at the closed door for an inordinately long moment. A delicate scent tickled his nostrils, and he realised it was her scent. It was somehow opulent and sexy. Totally at odds with the uptight image she portrayed. And yet the thought of that buttoned-up shirt sent a very unwelcome shot of desire through his lower body.

      Luc scowled and shook his head, turning to face the spectacular view of London, digging his hands into his pockets. Jesse Moriarty was an enigma, all right, with her bizarre request for him not to invest in O’Brien Construction. What the hell was she up to? Why was it so important that she’d spend millions to stop him?

      A disembodied voice came from the phone on his desk. ‘Luc, the video conference call is ready. They’re waiting in New York for you to join them.’

      Luc turned and strode towards his desk. ‘Thanks, Deborah, just give me a minute …’

      As Luc shifted his mind from Jesse Moriarty with more difficulty than he’d like to admit, he recalled the way she’d visibly flinched away from the barest of contacts with his hand. Definitely gay, he surmised, not liking the way something within him rebelled at that thought.

      Cursing this uncharacteristic blip in his concentration, he turned his attention to the next item on his agenda.

      Jesse sat in a huge armchair which was positioned right in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in her penthouse apartment. The view, much like the one in Luc Sanchis’s office today, encompassed London’s city centre. Her legs were curled up beneath her and she’d changed into loose sweats, a tank top and a cashmere V-necked jumper. Her hands were tightly clasped around a mug of tea. The rest of the apartment around her was dark, the only light coming from her kitchen which was off the main living area.

      Jesse usually found this time of night and the view soothing. It always served to remind her of just how far she’d come: from the monosyllabic, grief-stricken, traumatised child she’d been to a woman who controlled a multi-million-pound company and who had been named Entrepreneur of the Year by a leading financial establishment.

      She’d been a young girl filled with blind rage and grief who had discovered she could escape from real life into school and do better than everyone around her. It hadn’t earned her any friends in the series of grim comprehensives she’d gone to, but gradually she’d seen a way she could use her intelligence to climb out of her challenged circumstances and had earned a scholarship to university.

      Her hatred had morphed into something more ambitious: a desire to be able to stand in front of her father one day and let him know that she was the architect of his downfall. To let him know that she hadn’t forgotten, and that he hadn’t escaped unscathed from the sins of his past. Jesse’s mother could have been saved if she’d received adequate medical treatment in time, but her father had been too drunk and self-absorbed to care.

      He’d killed her as effectively as if he’d done it with his own bare hands.

      Jesse’s hands tightened around her mug unconsciously as she recalled standing in front of her father last week. It had only been her second time seeing him in the flesh since she was a child. The first time had been at that function where she’d run into Luc Sanchis—literally—a year ago. Seeing her father that night had shaken her to her core, and she’d realised she needed to be a lot more prepared for when she came face to face with him.

      Last week he’d had no idea that the JM in JM Holdings stood for Jesse Moriarty. She’d received an awful jolt to be reminded that she’d inherited her distinctive eye colour from him, but he hadn’t recognised her and she’d hated the dart of hurt when she’d realised that.

      He’d blithely launched into a spiel about how he needed a sizeable investment to stay afloat, and all the while Jesse had battled waves of sickness as she’d been hurtled back in time to when he’d stood over her, sweating, his belt marked with her blood.

      She’d cut short his obsequious appeal and stood up. When he’d realised who she was he’d morphed effortlessly back into a bully and tyrant. He’d stood up too, small eyes piggy in his fleshy face, and sneered at her. ‘Don’t tell me this is some sort of petty revenge; did you lie awake at night dreaming of this moment?’

      Jesse had flushed, because she had. It was the only thing that had got her through years of loneliness and bullying. The long, unending and terrifying months of grief after her mother’s death. The way the world around her had become a place of deep hostility, insecurity and fear, peopled by faceless social workers and harried foster carers in the grimmest parts of England.

      ‘You’re pathetic,’ her father had spat out. ‘Just like your mother was pathetic and naive. I should have forced her to get rid of you when I had the chance, but she begged me to let her keep you … and this is how you repay me?’

      Jesse had focused on the deep abiding grief she felt, drawing on it for strength. ‘This moment is only the culmination of my efforts to see you destroyed. No one will help you now, and when you descend into the hell of oblivion I’ll be there to witness every moment of it.’

      Jesse shivered a little as the distasteful memory faded. She wanted a feeling of triumph to break through the numbness but it was elusive. All she did feel, in truth, was weary. As if she’d been toiling for a long time with nothing to show for it … Yet she’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams and she’d finally begun to realise her most personal and fervent desire …

      She put down her cup and walked to the window, leaning her forehead against it, her hands on the glass either side of her shoulders. The irony of the thick glass between her and the view struck her with a sad note. Her whole life she’d felt somehow separated from everything around her.

      She could picture what lay behind her all too easily: the very bare and ascetic nature of her apartment, which mirrored her personal life. Even though she’d bought it three years before, the only furniture she owned was her bed, the armchair and some kitchen furniture. She’d bought nothing because despite the wealth she’d accrued and the success she’d garnered she still didn’t feel settled. She still feared her world being upended at any moment.

      All she’d ever known was the certainty of inconsistency—every time she’d come to trust a social worker they’d moved on; every time she’d felt safe in a foster home she’d been moved. She’d long ago learnt to rely only on herself, trust only herself. The only constant in her life that she could depend on was her hatred of her father …

      She hadn’t cultivated friends or a social life. Once she’d been vulnerable, and there had been a man. She’d succumbed to his seduction because on some level she’d craved human contact, some tenderness. But

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