Her haughty expression became even haughtier and she shuddered, as if the very mention of money was in some way vulgar, and Conall felt a flicker of pleasure as he realised he was enjoying himself. Because it was a long time since a woman had shown him anything except an eager green light.
‘I don’t think you understand, Mr...Devlin,’ she continued, spitting his name out as if it were poison, ‘that you will get your money. I’m quite happy to pay the current market value as rent. I just need to speak to my bank,’ she concluded.
He gave a smile. ‘Good luck with that.’
She was getting angry now. He could see it in the sudden glitter of her eyes and the way she curled her scarlet fingernails so that they looked like talons against the faded denim of her skinny jeans. And he felt a corresponding flicker of something he didn’t recognise. Something he tried to push away as he stared into the furious tremble of her lips.
‘You may know my father and my brother,’ she said, ‘but that certainly doesn’t give you the authority to make pronouncements about things which are none of your business. Things about which you know nothing. Like my finances.’
‘Oh, I know more about those than you might realise,’ he said. ‘More than you would probably be comfortable with.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe what you like, baby,’ he said softly. ‘Because you’ll soon find out what’s true. But it doesn’t have to get acrimonious. I’m going to be very magnanimous, Amber, because your father and I go back a long way. And I’m going to make you an offer.’
Her magnificent eyes narrowed suspiciously.
‘What kind of offer?’
‘I’m going to offer you a job and the chance to redeem yourself. And if you accept, we’ll see about giving you an apartment more suited to a woman on a working wage, rather than this—’ He gave an expansive wave of his hand. ‘Which you have to admit is more suited to someone on a millionaire’s salary.’
She was staring at him incredulously, as if she couldn’t believe what he’d just said. As if he were suddenly going to smile and tell her that he’d simply been teasing and she could have whatever it was she wanted. Was that how men usually behaved towards her? he wondered. Of course it was. When you looked the way she looked, men would fall over themselves whenever she clicked her beautifully manicured fingers.
‘And if I don’t accept?’
He shrugged. ‘That will make things a little more difficult. I will be forced to give you a month’s notice and after that to change the locks, and I’m afraid you’ll be on your own.’
She jumped to her feet, her eyes spitting green fire—looking as if she’d like to rush across the room and rake those scarlet talons all over him. And wasn’t there a primitive side of him which wished she would go right ahead? Take them right down his chest to his groin. Curve those red nails around his balls and gently scrape them, before replacing them with the lick of her tongue.
But she didn’t. She just stood there sucking in a deep breath and trying to compose herself...while his erotic little fantasies meant that he was having to do exactly the same.
‘I may not know much about the law, Mr Devlin,’ she said, biting out the words like splinters of ice, ‘but even I know that you aren’t allowed to throw a sitting tenant out onto the streets.’
‘But you’re not a tenant, Amber, and you never have been,’ he said, trying not to show the sudden triumph which rushed through him. Because although she might be spoilt and thoroughly objectionable, she was going to learn enough of life’s harsher lessons in the coming weeks, without him rubbing salt into the wound. He picked his next words carefully. ‘Your father has been letting you live here as a favour, nothing more. You didn’t sign any agreements—’
‘Of course I didn’t—because he’s my father!’
‘Which means that your occupancy was simply an act of kindness. And now he has sold it to me, I’m afraid he no longer has any interest or claims on the property. And as a consequence, neither do you.’
Wildly, she shook her head and ebony tendrils of hair flew around it. ‘He wouldn’t just have sprung it on me like this! He would have told me!’ she said, her voice rising.
‘He said he’d sent you a letter to inform you what was happening, and so had the bank.’
Amber shot an anguished glance over at the pile of mail which lay unopened on the desk. She had a terrible habit of putting letters to one side and ignoring them. She’d done it for longer than she could remember. Letters only ever contained bad news and all her bills were paid by direct debit and if people wanted her that badly, they could always send an email. Because that was what people did, wasn’t it?
But in the meantime, she wasn’t going to take any notice of this shadowed-jawed man with the mocking voice and a presence which was strangely unsettling. All she had to do was to speak to her father. There had to be some kind of mistake. There had to. Either that, or Daddy’s brain wasn’t as sharp as it had once been. Why else would he choose to sell one of the jewels in his property crown to this...this thug?
‘I’d like you to leave now, Mr Devlin.’
He raised dark and mocking brows. ‘So you’re not interested in my offer? A proper job for the first time in your privileged life? The chance to show the world that you’re more than just a vapid socialite who flits from party to party?’
‘I’d sooner work for the devil than work for you,’ she retorted, watching as he rose from the sofa and moved across the room until he was towering over her, with a grim expression on his dark face.
‘Make an appointment to see me when you’re ready to see sense,’ he said, putting a business card down on the coffee table.
‘That just isn’t going to happen—be very sure about that,’ she said, pulling a cigarette from the pack and glaring at him defiantly, as if daring him to stop her again. ‘Now go to hell, will you?’
‘Oh, believe me, baby,’ he said softly. ‘Hell would be a preferable alternative to a minute more spent in your company.’