LITMIR.BIZ

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all that beauty and fire.

      Exquisite almond-shaped, golden brown eyes, defiant, scared and hidden behind spectacles, a high forehead, a straight, distinctive nose that hinted at stubbornness and a bow-shaped mouth. All this on the backdrop of a golden caramel-colored silky smooth complexion, as though Jackie’s alabaster and her Indian father’s brown had been mixed in perfect proportions.

      She had dressed to underplay everything about herself, and this only spurred him on to observe more. It was like a cloud hovering over a mountaintop, trying to hide the magnificence of the peak beneath it.

      A wary and puzzled look lingered in her eyes since she had stepped inside. Which meant it was only a matter of time before she remembered him.

      Because he had changed his last name, and he looked eons different from the sobbing seventeen-year-old she had seen eleven years ago.

      He should just tell her and get it over with, he knew. And yet he kept quiet, his curiosity about her drumming out every other instinct.

      “I had to call in a lot of favors to find your investors. Once they were informed of my intent, they were more than happy to accommodate me. Apparently they’re not happy with the ways things are being run.”

      “You mean disappointed about the bucket loads of money they want us to make?” A flash of regret crossed her face as soon as she said it.

      She was nervous, which was what he’d intended.

      “And that’s wrong how, Ms. Mathur? Why do you think investors fund start-ups? Out of the goodness of their hearts?”

      “I don’t think so. But there’s growth and there’s risk.” She took a deep breath as though striving to get herself under control. “And if it’s profits that you’re after, then why buy us at all?”

      “Let’s just say it caught my fancy.”

      Frustration radiated out of her. “Our livelihood, everything we’ve worked toward the past four years is hanging in the balance. And all you’re talking about is late night shopping, things catching your fancy. Maybe living your life on the periphery of civilization all these years, cut off from your fellow man, traipsing through the world with no ties—”

      “Riya, no....” She heard Drew’s soft warning behind her. But she was far too scared to pay heed.

      “—has made you see only profit margins, but for us, the human element is just as important as the bottom line.”

      “You make me sound like a lone wolf, Ms. Mathur.”

      “Well, you are one, aren’t you?” She closed her eyes and fought for control. “Look, all I care about is what you intend to do with the company. With us.”

      Something inched into his features, hardening the look in his eyes. “Leave us alone, Mr. Anderson.”

      “No,” Riya said aloud as Mr. Ramirez walked around the table and toward her. Panic made her words rushed. “There’s nothing you have to say to me that Drew can’t hear.”

      Stopping next to her, Drew met her gaze finally. The resignation in his eyes knocked the breath out of her as nothing else could. “Drew, whatever you’re thinking, we can fight this. We own the patent to the software engine—”

      “Does nothing else matter to you except the blasted company? Statues possess more feelings than you do.”

      Bitterness spewed from every word, and the hurt festering beneath them lanced through her. She paled under his attack, struggled to put into words why.

      “I’m done, Riya,” Drew said, with a hint of regret.

      “But, Drew, I...”

      His hands on her shoulders, Drew bent and kissed her cheek, all the while the deep-set ice-blue gaze of the arrogant man who was kicking Drew out stayed on her without blinking.

      Something flitted in that gaze. An insinuation? A challenge? There one minute, chased away by a cool mockery the next.

      But Riya didn’t look away. Locking her hands by her side, she stood frozen to the spot.

      Stepping back from her, Drew turned. “I’ll set up something with your assistant, Nathan.”

      Without breaking her gaze, the hateful man nodded.

      “Goodbye, Riya.”

      The words felt so final that Riya shivered.

      Leaving her flailing in the middle of the room, Drew closed the door behind him. It felt as if she were locked in a cage with a wild animal even as her mind was sifting and delving deeper.

       Nathan...Nathan...Nathaniel Ramirez. Owns a group of travel and vacation companies called RunAway International, has traveled the world since he was seventeen...

      A strange shiver began at the base of her spine, inched everywhere. She pushed her fingers through her hair, a nervous gesture she had never gotten over. “What did Drew mean?”

      “Mr. Anderson decided he wanted to move on. From...” His gaze swept over her, a puzzle in it. “...Travelogue,” he finished, leaving something unsaid.

      Riya felt as if he had slapped her. He had said so much without saying anything, and she couldn’t even defend herself against what she didn’t understand. She had never felt more out of her depth. “Who the hell do you think you are? And you can’t just kick him out. Drew and I own—”

      “He sold his share of the stock. To me. I now own seventy-five percent of your company. I’m your new partner, Riya. Or boss, or really...there are so many things we could call each other.”

       CHAPTER TWO

      AND JUST LIKE THAT, her name on his lips, spoken like a soft invocation, unlocked the memory her mind had been trying to grasp from the moment she looked into that ice-blue gaze.

       “She’s dead. And she died knowing that your trashy mother is just waiting at the gates, ready to come in and take her place. I hope you both rot in hell.”

      The memory of that long-ago day flashed through her so vividly that Riya had to grab the chair to steady her shaking legs.

      Robert’s wife had been Anna. Anna Ramirez.

      Little shivers spewed all over and she hugged herself. She had brought this on herself. “You’re Nathan Keys. You’re Robert’s son. I read about you and I never realized...”

      He nodded and Riya felt her breath leave her in a big rush.

      Her little lie had worked and here he was, with the largest of her company’s stock, her livelihood in his hand.

      Robert’s son, the boy who had run away from home after his mother’s death, the son of the married man with whom her mother had taken up, the son of the man who had been more a father to her than her own had ever been.

       The son she had been trying to bring back to Robert.

      She had lied to Maria about selling the estate, hoping it would lure him back home. Thought she would give Nathan a chance she had never had with her own father.

      A hysterical laugh rose through her.

      Leaning against the far wall, his legs crossed together in casual elegance, he smiled, his tanned skin glinting in contrast against the white of his teeth. “What? No ‘welcome home’ greeting for your almost stepbrother, Riya?”

      There were so many things wrong about his fake greeting, the worst of which was how aware she was of him in the small room. Mortification drenching her inside, Riya glared at him. “You’re kidding me, right?”

      “My acceptance of your offer for familial solidarity is almost a decade late, but—”

      Her chest fell and rose as she fought for a breath.

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