LITMIR.BIZ

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latter, he was well used to it, but he’d also been expecting the same smell of fear that the night clerk had radiated. Yet the way she’d blushed when he’d looked at her, and then plucked at her napkin like an adolescent on her first date rather than meet his gaze across the table, was something different.

      By rights she should be fearful. Surely she realized how vulnerable her position was? He sipped his coffee, all the time weighing her up, trying to put his finger on exactly what it was about her that struck him as not quite right. She sat shifting in her chair, her eyes never quite meeting his, her teeth plucking at her lower lip like she was uncomfortable in the pause. Good.

      Silence could be useful like that, telling you more about a person than when they spoke. Like her body was telling him right now. So she was uncomfortable when he looked at her—why was that? Most women had no problem with his perusal—most welcomed it, many more invited it.

      And she must be used to men looking at her. She was really no hardship to look at, even in her mousy little manager’s outfit. She had pleasant enough features; maybe her nose was a little crooked, but there were curves under that corporate shirt that hinted at some kind of promise.

      She made a small sound in the back of her throat, and he unapologetically adjusted his gaze higher. ‘Mr Carrazzo,’ she ventured cautiously, staring from behind her glasses at a point somewhere over his shoulder. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of pencilling in a ten-thirty a.m. meeting with the staff to outline what plans you have for Ashton House, but in the meantime, perhaps you might permit me to summarize some of the staff’s concerns?’

      He gave a brief nod, still more interested in what it was about this woman that bothered him than any pointless attempts at getting him to change his mind.

      ‘Ashton House is the premiere hotel accommodation in the Adelaide Hills,’ she began. ‘A boutique-hotel, whose roots go back to the mid-eighteen hundreds. Here we employ fifty staff, all of whom are now anxious to know where their jobs stand. More than anxious given the way you’ve seen fit to close at least half of the other properties you’ve acquired in the last two years. Naturally, the staff is nervous. They need to know if they have a future here, and for that they need an assurance that Ashton House will be retained by you as a boutique-hotel.’

      ‘Is there any particular reason why I should keep it?’

      Mackenzi blinked, clearly thrown by his question. ‘Because it’s worth it. Nothing else in the Adelaide Hills, probably in all of Adelaide, comes close.’

      ‘Why?’ he demanded, already bored. ‘What is it that brings people here?’

      ‘The beauty of the district, for a start,’ she countered. ‘The views…’

      He turned his gaze pointedly to the expanse of windows beside them, where nothing existed but a swirling world of white. ‘Oh yes,’ he mocked. ‘I can understand that.’

      She slumped back in her chair and he smiled. She’d dropped herself into that one and she knew it. Maybe that was what her nervousness was about—she was just completely out of her depth, too inexperienced to know what it felt like to have the rug pulled out from under your feet. In which case this experience could only benefit her.

      He took a sip of his coffee, already satisfied he would meet little opposition with his current plans, and turned his attention back to the article he’d been reading.

      ‘Mr Carrazzo.’

      He looked up, half-surprised she hadn’t already scampered off somewhere to nurse her shaky nerves and bruised ego.

      ‘If you don’t mind me saying, the staff has a right to know what the future holds for their jobs. They need to know, now that you’ve taken possession of Ashton House, exactly what you have planned for it.’

      His breakfast arrived and he bided his time, letting the tense-looking waitress place his plate just so, grinding on pepper, and topping up his coffee. On the waitress he could sense the familiar fear, the overwhelming need to please and then get the hell away from him. So why not on the woman sitting opposite—who appeared to be all fire and sparks one minute, nervous like a schoolgirl the next?

      ‘I own Ashton House,’ he said, injecting his voice with more than a hint of menace. ‘I can do with it whatever I damn well please.’

      He watched her chest swell on a breath as she sat up ramrod straight, her hands clasped tightly together on the table. ‘Like you’ve done with those others you’ve acquired?’

      ‘Those properties are hardly your concern.’

      ‘But what you’ve done with them is! Three perfectly good businesses destroyed, three hotels gutted and turned into apartment blocks. And all for what?’

      Revenge, he thought, rolling the word around like he was savouring it. How sweet it is. But he didn’t expect anyone else to understand. Nobody else could. Nobody else had been to that black hole he’d been thrust into and had had to clamber his way out of, one bleeding hand over the other. ‘That’s progress,’ he tossed off casually. ‘The world moves on.’

      ‘And is that the kind of progress you have in mind for Ashton House? Are you planning for the world to “move on” here too—so you can fill up the world with more of your precious apartment blocks?’

      Dante put his knife and fork down deliberately before taking another sip of his coffee, contemplating her over the rim of his cup. Her colour was up again, the chest below her shirt rising and falling rapidly, and once again he had the feeling there was something he was missing.

      Or was it just that she was the first person he’d met along this journey who hadn’t moved out of his way and bowed to the inevitable? He would never have expected such impassioned argument from someone who’d looked so meek and nervous when she’d first appeared.

      ‘Not an option,’ he said, shrugging off that line of thought, and getting back to her question in the next breath. ‘The local council here would never approve it.’

      ‘Which means you’ve considered it, then!’

      It was an accusation rather than a question, but he ignored the jibe. He hadn’t come here to make friends with anyone, and he didn’t care what anyone thought. It was far too late for that. ‘As it happens, I have an entirely different fate in mind for Ashton House.’

      ‘What does that mean exactly?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Do you plan to keep Ashton House going after all?’

      Despite her cautious words, he could see the hope lining her features, hope that he knew would be tragically short- lived. He leaned back low in his chair, his hands finding his pockets as a smile of satisfaction tugged at the corners of his mouth. He’d achieved almost everything he’d set out to do just seventeen short years ago, and the proximity to his goal was like a drug fuelling his bloodstream. Now there was just one final act.

      He couldn’t think about it without smiling. ‘I’m going to destroy it,’ he told her. ‘I’m going to pull out every window and every door and then leave it to the elements to moulder, until it’s nothing more than a crumbling ruin.’

      Shock exploded inside her, wrenching away her voice, so that when it came it was more breath than voice, a whisper that felt like she’d swallowed sandpaper. ‘Why would you do that?’

      ‘Because I can.’

      His voice was cold as ice, his eyes devoid of life. No, Mackenzi realized, shaking her head with disbelief at his callous announcement—not lifeless. They were frozen and hard, but there was anger lurking in those dark depths, anger that swirled between them now like the dank fog rolling past the windows.

      Terrifying eyes on a terrifying man. No wonder the former owners had been devastated when they’d finally lost control of Ashton House to this man. Poor Sara and Jonas. They’d tried valiantly to fend off the corporate raider, losing property after property to his insatiable greed.

      Shock

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