Rival's Challenge

So now she had brand-new shoes biting into her feet on top of everything else. She put down the pen and fiddled nervously with her white shirt and hoped that the frill detail down the centre where the buttons were didn’t appear too frivolous. She’d been more frivolous in the past twelve hours than in her entire life. And she was not frivolous. Her mother was frivolous. Flighty. Selfish. Orla was hard-working, serious. Frugal.

She’d pulled her hair back into a sleek ponytail and her heavy fringe offered the faint illusion that she could hide behind it.

Just then they heard voices out in the corridor and all the tiny hairs all over Orla’s body seemed to stand up on end for no apparent reason. The door opened slightly and a huge dark shape loomed just out of sight.

Then the door opened fully and a man walked in with another man in tow. A cold seeping horror spread through Orla’s body. Shock knocked the breath out of her chest. She couldn’t believe her eyes. He was striding in now, clad in a pristine three-piece dark suit that hugged his huge muscular frame. His jaw was clean-shaven. He was stupendously gorgeous. Arresting. Sexual charisma was a tangible aura around him.

Orla was dimly aware that her own assistant had straightened in the chair beside her. The unconscious action of a woman in the presence of a virile alpha male. In spite of being in her middle-aged years with a healthy brood of children and a loving husband.

Orla felt a surge of something that made her want to turn to her assistant, one of her best friends, and snarl at her.

And then the man’s eyes fell on the people waiting for him. And one in particular. Her. He stopped in his tracks on the other side of the table. That dark compelling gaze on hers. She saw the shock in their depths before it was quickly veiled.

Her lungs burned because she hadn’t drawn a breath. A million things seemed to lodge in her throat and in her belly: mortification, embarrassment, anger. Shock. Desire.

The Chatsfield solicitor was standing now and saying, ‘Antonio, I’d like you to meet Orla Kennedy of the Kennedy Group, her solicitor Tom Barry and her assistant, Susan White. Miss Kennedy, I’d like you to meet Antonio Chatsfield and his assistant, David Markusson.’

Orla was dimly aware of the people either side of them both standing to reach across the table to shake one another’s hands. She was paralysed. Her mystery lover was Antonio Marco Chatsfield. The eldest son of the notorious Chatsfield family. She had read up on him prior to this meeting. Ironically he was almost the only one of whom there were no recent photos as he’d been in the army and then the secretive world of private security for years.

If he’d joined the regular army Orla might have seen pictures. But he hadn’t. He’d joined the famed and mythic French Foreign Legion and had served with them for seven years. It was where one entered and assumed another identity. Highly secretive and closed to the outside world. Effectively Antonio Chatsfield had been a ghost until his recent return to the family fold.

But he was no ghost. He was very solid and very real and he was looking at her now and waiting for her to do something. Orla’s brain felt sluggish with shock.

Her assistant, Susan, discreetly nudged her with her foot, under the table. That physical contact seemed to jolt Orla out of her fog and she stood up and put out her hand, her training and innate manners dictating the automatic moves of social training.

After shaking hands with his assistant, her hand was clasped in his much bigger one—tightly—and the fire of his touch seemed to explode the memory box open in Orla’s brain and body. She was barely able to hold back the onslaught of a thousand lurid images: writhing underneath him, sobbing, panting, gasping. Clenching her legs tighter around his hips, begging him to go deeper, harder.

‘Miss Kennedy,’

he said in that deep voice. His eyes had darkened to black and Orla imagined she could see veritable sparks shooting her way. Something in her hardened as she pushed down those images to a deep place of personal shame. She gripped his hand back just as tightly.

‘Mr Chatsfield.’

He didn’t let her go. He drawled, ‘It’s funny but I could have sworn we’ve met somewhere before.’

Hot mortification threatened to swamp Orla but she refused to let it rise. If her eyes could have killed, he’d have been vaporised on the spot. She gritted out, ‘Believe me, Mr Chatsfield, we’ve never met. I think I would have recalled it, as your family are so memorable.’

Antonio Chatsfield’s eyes flashed at that none too subtle barb and his hand was so tight on hers now that Orla could feel her bones grind together. She bit back the need to cry out. And then abruptly he released her. Orla wanted to cradle her hand to her chest but didn’t, not wanting to show him a moment of vulnerability.

There were two of them who’d conspired to pretend to be someone else last night. He had no right to lambaste her silently for it, or allude to it in front of these people.

He said with a deceptive lightness which surely had to be meant only for her ears, ‘I must have been mistaken, then, because the woman I’m thinking of is called Kate.’

Orla’s face paled even more when she saw the curious look of her assistant from out of the corner of her eye as she sat back down. Her second name was Kate. They’d both used their second names. It wasn’t even funny.

CHAPTER THREE

THE MEETING PASSED in a blur, with much of the discussion revolving around complicated legalese talk between the solicitors. In those instances Antonio sat back in his chair and regarded Orla steadily, forcing her to try and glare him out, refusing to be intimidated. She had nothing to be ashamed of, she assured herself stoutly. She always ended up looking away first though, as those eyes brought her back in time to only a few hours before and she couldn’t halt the lurid images from taking over.

He positively radiated hostility and at one stage Susan leant close and said sotto voce, ‘What’s up Chatsfield’s nose? I’d heard he was charming … but he’s looking at us as if we’re something he found on the bottom of his shoe.’

Not us, Orla replied silently, just me. And the more he sent out those silent vibes, the angrier she got.

The Chatsfield solicitor was looking at everyone around the table now. ‘Well, it would appear as if everything is in order for us to begin negotiations regarding a potential takeover of the Kennedy Group.’

Orla saw the smallest of smirks play around Antonio Chatsfield’s mouth and something inside her blew up. She stood up and put her hands on the table and stared straight at him. ‘With all due respect, I disagree. From what I’ve seen here today I’m not sure that I want to continue discussions of a possible takeover by the Chatsfields.’

Orla heard her assistant and solicitor gasp simultaneously. She felt quivery with rage inside. He was playing with her, punishing her. She hated this feeling of vulnerability and exposure.