Naughty or Nice

‘What the hell...?’ he mutters.

I follow his line of sight, but already my nerves sizzle. My father doesn’t ever show unease—he doesn’t do emotion, particularly in a business setting like tonight’s launch party. My launch

party.

‘Did you invite him?’

‘Wh—?’ The word dies and my entire body draws tight.

I see him. I see the exact cause of my father’s unease and feel it seep into my very skin. My mood dies with it. The champagne flute trembles in my hand and I know I should look away, but I can’t.

Ten years and still my eyes are hooked on him.

Lucas Waring.

My family’s nemesis.

My heart’s downfall.

‘No,’ I manage to say.

I shouldn’t be surprised—not when the room is full of his peers.

Peers? Are you dreaming?

They’re not his equal. No one is. Waring Holdings has it all and now here is Lucas, wanting...what?

‘He can’t possibly think you’ll be interested in working with him.’

My father speaks my mind exactly. He can’t. But what else?

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

I’m not the eighteen-year-old girl I once was, and I’m not the woman I became soon after that, determined to evade him. I am in control now. This is my night. This is work.

‘Excuse me.’

‘No.’ My father steps into my path. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’

I hold his eye as my lips twitch. What I want to say is Stop treating me like a child, but in my mind that sounds petulant and childlike in itself. Instead I smile up at him. ‘He’s made the effort to come. I should at least see what he wants.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing, Dad. Giving someone as powerful as Lucas the cold shoulder tonight of all nights would send the wrong message to the room.’

My father grunts and swigs his champagne. He knows I’m right. He didn’t get where he is today by letting personal differences get in his way. But then it’s the first time I’m aware of that Lucas has dared venture near any of us in five long years.

Ever since my family shut him out and the blame for the demise of the company he co-owned with Nate seemed to land firmly at his feet.

I questioned it at the time. I continued to question it each and every time Nate screwed up after that. It couldn’t have been down to Lucas—not entirely. But it seems Lucas has suffered the same as me.

Nate’s golden halo failed to shift.

I can’t deny I’m curious as to what truly went down. And I also can’t deny that his presence here tonight only serves to help my cause, my product. It’ll feed the frenzy already taking hold as companies vie for my business.

Or it’ll send them running, because they’ll think there’s no chance in hell you’ll look anywhere else but him.

Not him—his business, Eva!