‘Why?’ He shook his head and placed his glass on the table, turning in his seat to give her his full attention. ‘I just don’t understand it. You’ve done enough for him already. From all the digging I’ve done, it’s clear you’re the brains behind this operation—you’re the reason the company has done so well. What is it that Andrews has over you to make you care so much?’
Her head swam with his admiration of her even as her need to defend Tony was roused. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Then make me understand.’
‘Tony’s a good man—a really good man,’ she stressed when she saw he would refute her. ‘He’s not just a business partner to me.’
His jaw clenched and he looked away. ‘I see.’
‘No, I don’t mean it that way,’ she rushed out, feeling her mutinous body getting high on the tension in his. ‘Seriously, there’s never been anything like that between us.’
Her impulsive need to reassure him riled her. Yes, it helped Tony’s case, but she wasn’t blind to the infuriating fact that she cared for Marcus’s opinion.
Raising her chin defiantly, she said, ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
His eyes locked with hers, their depths so fierce she had the wretched impulse to take her words back.
‘You’re probably right,’ he said, ‘but it pays to know exactly what I’m walking into.’
She fidgeted beneath his probing gaze, not liking the direction of their conversation. It was too private. Too personal. She wanted an out and it came swiftly, loaded with heat.
‘Like you knew what you were walking into when you slept with me?’
He stilled, and his intensity was all the more severe for it. ‘And I told you I couldn’t think straight with you seducing me.’
Her lower belly contracted, cutting off her breath. The ache was instant and dizzying as the memory of those moments in the car flooded her. She tried to push it out, not to dwell, but she knew he was reliving it too, could read it in the flecks lighting up his gaze.
‘We’re digressing,’ she said, her voice annoyingly elevated, and she looked away, staring at the calming piano in desperation, hoping he would get the message.
She heard him shift and her pulse skipped. Was he reaching for her?
‘You’re right,’ came his level response. ‘Let’s get back to Tony.’
Surprise, disappointment—all manner of things she shouldn’t feel washed through her and she chanced a glance his way. He’d settled back, drink in hand, one arm draped casually over the sofa-back.
Bastard—how did he do that?
She lifted her glass to her lips, using the drink for cover. Her voice wasn’t ready—hell, her brain wasn’t...
‘What I was trying to say,’ she said eventually, ‘is that I’ve known Tony a long time and he’s done a lot for me.’
He nodded his acceptance of that much and she continued on. ‘We met at a university recruitment fair in my final year and I impressed him enough that he offered me a job before I’d even graduated. I guess he saw the potential in me, and the drive to make it big.’
‘I’m sure he did. I imagine you were a force to be reckoned with even back then.’
She smiled slightly. Was that how people saw her? How he saw her?
‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘but I had my reasons and he understood them.’
‘Reasons?’
She hesitated. Not many people knew her true motivation, but Tony did—and that was what it really boiled down to. ‘It was more than just a desire to make something of myself. I h
ad to be successful and Tony did everything he could to help me.’
‘Had to?’
She took a breath and let it out with her next words. ‘My father died when I left for university.’ There—she’d said it. It always killed her a little when she voiced it. But she needed him to know, to understand. ‘He left behind me, my mother and my younger sister.’