‘Well, I’m waiting. I suppose waiting in bed would be out of the question?’ he said, a wicked gleam in his eyes.
She swept her wet hair back from her face. ‘You’ve got that right,’ she snarled, and with a defiant toss of her head she glared at him. What the hell? she thought. He might as well have the whole truth; he couldn’t hurt her more than he already had. ‘I know you were behind the offer to buy Lawson’s long before we ever met.’
‘An oversight on my part. If I had known, the first and only time I visited the site, that the owner’s daughter was such a beauty, I would have insisted on meeting you,’ he informed her with a sexy grin.
She couldn’t believe the audacity of the man; he still thought it was funny. He really was a heartless beast and the anger drained out of her. ‘Don’t pr
etend, Alex. You know exactly what I mean. I do not appreciate being married for the property I own,’ she said bitterly.
The amusement vanished from his eyes; his mouth hardened in a thin, ominous line. ‘If that is what you really think, then perhaps it is time we talked.’ Turning, he walked back into the bedroom.
Lisa had no choice but to follow him. He had stopped in the middle of the floor and now moved around to face her. She glanced at him, a tall, dark giant of a man with cool, remote eyes, and then quickly looked away. She saw the rumpled bed, her mouth twisting in disgust at the evidence of her own weakness where Alex was concerned. What was the point of talking? Alex hadn’t denied marrying her in an attempt to gain control of the company. There was nothing more to say…
She half turned, but long tanned fingers closed over her shoulders and wheeled her back to face him.
‘You can’t throw out an accusation like that and walk away, Lisa.’ His dark eyes raked over her hostile face. ‘When I married you, the company you owned was the last thing on my mind.’ His deep husky drawl feathered along her taut nerves as smooth as silk. ‘And, if you remember, the first day I took you out I told you I was the owner of Solomos International and asked you if it would be a problem. You said no.’
‘But you never told me you were Xela Properties.’ Lisa snorted. ‘A very sneaky omission on your part.’
‘I naturally supposed you knew. It is all there on our web site, and with your love of computers I find it amazing you’re now telling me you never bothered to check it out. Any businessman worth his salt, when presented with a buy-out, would naturally investigate the company making the offer,’ he said with cool reasoning.
Lisa stared up at him, appalled. What he said was true, but at the time her mother had just been diagnosed as terminally ill. The offer had been refused and banished from their minds. But he was right, damn him! Yet she was still convinced that if he had really wanted her to know he would have come straight out and told her. ‘Very plausible, but I don’t believe you,’ she countered with a disdainful shake of her head. ‘I know everything.’
‘Not everything.’ His sensual mouth twisted in the shadow of a smile. ‘You are so young, so impulsive, Lisa, but life is rarely black and white, as I have told you before.’ His long fingers kneaded her shoulders.
But Lisa wasn’t fooled. He used his powerful masculine sensuality as a weapon to control her. Call me an idiot, why don’t you? she thought furiously, incensed anew by his superior, patronising air.
‘Please spare me your platitudes. I know you have already bought thirty five per cent of the company. But understand this: I will do my damnedest to make sure that that is all you get.’ Lisa let fly with all the pent-up fury of the last week. ‘You disgust me. You are the most devious, despicable man I have ever had the misfortune to meet, and my sincerest wish is that I never have to set eyes on you again.’ And with one great effort she pushed him away.
‘Believe me, Lisa. I would never hurt you,’ Alex said softly.
‘Trying to take over my company is not supposed to hurt?’ She eyed him bitterly. In his own way, Alex probably saw nothing wrong in what he had done. He was a businessman first, last and always.
‘I am not trying to take over anything. I have bought out the other shareholders, that is all,’ he asserted.
‘That is impossible.’ She knew he had bought the Lee shares, but Harold’s? Never! ‘I don’t believe you.’ Her stormy blue eyes clashed with his. ‘You’re lying. Harold would never sell without consulting me.’ She saw a flash of what looked like pity in his dark gaze, and a peculiar sense of foreboding rose up inside her.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Lisa. Andrew Scott, my London manager, completed the deal last Tuesday. But it was for your own good.’
Nothing was more calculated to stiffen Lisa’s backbone than her most hated phrase in the English language: For your own good. Invariably, it meant the exact opposite. ‘And how did you persuade Harold to betray me?’ she asked flatly.
‘I didn’t have to; he loves you. Apparently you convinced him it was time to move on.’
With a rising sense of inevitability, she cleared her throat, determined to go down fighting. ‘Now you’re going to tell me it’s for my own good that Lawson Designer Glass will be razed to the ground to make way for some poxy redevelopment,’ she prompted sarcastically. ‘Well, it won’t work; I still have overall control.’ She was lying, but she was banking on Alex not knowing that.
His firm mouth quirked at the corners. ‘Actually you do not have a majority; the Hospice sold their shares yesterday.’
Shock held her rigid. Her anguished eyes roamed over his arrogant dark head. ‘Oh, God!’ Lisa exclaimed. Alex now owned fifty-three percent of Lawson’s. He had done it. Bought her company from under her. ‘You really are the devil! You used sex to blind me, while robbing me blind.’ How could she have fallen in love with a man so lacking in any moral fibre? A man who had played on her innocence of the male sex to manipulate her into marriage and, cruellest of all, to rob her of her birthright. Easily, she thought sadly. She had recognised the dark power of his personality the moment she had met him. But love had blinded her to the ruthlessness inherent in the man.
‘I seem to recall, not so long ago, your body welcoming mine with an eagerness you could not hide. Far from being the devil, I am your guardian angel,’ Alex offered tautly, his narrowed eyes colliding with hers. ‘I bought the shares so you could keep your company.’
A harsh laugh escaped her. ‘Excuse me, but it was already mine,’ she reminded him bitterly, ignoring his crack about sex.
‘If I had not bought the shares, somebody else would have done.’ Alex shrugged. ‘Solomos International is an incredibly wealthy company, Lisa. We invest in many and varied projects all over the world. Do you really think it matters to me if we have one more site?’ he said, exasperation lacing his tone. ‘In fact, I have decided to cut back on my workload since meeting you.’ He glanced at her lovely proud face, and something very like compassion moved in his dark eyes. ‘I know it’s not your fault you ended up in the position you have, Lisa. Grief can do funny things and make fools of us all. It was an admirable gesture in memory of your mother to donate those shares, but it did put your business in a vulnerable position. You’re an intelligent woman, but you are very young and lack experience. Have you any idea how quickly you would have been out on your ear if any other firm had bought into your company?’ Not waiting for an answer, he added, ‘You were a sitting duck when you made that gift to the hospice.’
‘And you shot me down.’ But it was slowly dawning on her that there was an awful lot of truth in what Alex said. Had she made a terrible mistake?
‘The hell I did,’ he said savagely, reaching out and grabbing her shoulders. ‘I saved it for you.’