‘Then what is it? As I said, I’m waiting for someone, and it would be better if you weren’t here when she arrives.’
She.
Annie ignored the rolling in her gut.
She knew he’d dated since they broke up.Everyoneknew he’d dated. One of the richest men in the world, responsible for several tech innovations, as well as world-famous property developments, from Sydney to Dubai to Shanghai and Paris, Theodoros Leonidas had taken his foster parents’ not-insignificant wealth and somehow turned it into a global powerhouse.
No, not somehow. She knew how he’d done it.
Because as often as there were pictures of him printed in the papers with beautiful women on his arm, there were stories written about him in the financial broadsheets: his ruthless, dog-eat-dog, take no prisoners negotiation style credited with his ability to make some of the toughest deals, and to walk away from anything that didn’t serve him.
So what if he was waiting for a woman? That had nothing to do with Annie. She wasn’t here for personal reasons, but rather, for business.
‘I have a proposition for you,’ she said, a little unevenly, glugging back some more wine.
‘I see,’ he murmured, though his voice was now as cynical as his half smile had been earlier. ‘How fascinating. And here I thought I had nothing to offer you.’
She flinched. ‘It’s better if we leave the past in the past.’
He dipped his head once, in what she took to be an agreement to that.
She took one more sip for courage. ‘I’m here with an investment opportunity,’ she said, faltering slightly.
His expression was sheer mockery now. ‘Because you think I need help in that department?’
He could not make it any clearer how he felt about her if he grabbed a permanent marker and scrawled across the table, ‘Annie Langley is Scum’.
Did she deserve that? Maybe. Every accusation he’d levelled at her in their break-up argument had been fair, and she understood the things he hadn’t said. She’d chosen her parents over him, and to someone like Theo, that had been a betrayal. One he couldn’t forgive. But he’d also misunderstood her reasoning. He’d thought it was because she was a snob, that her parents were snobs. He’d thought it was because he had grown up poor, that he didn’t belong in their world. While that might have been true for some of Annie’s friends, money had nothing to do with her parents’ reactions. Not really. At its heart had just been their overarching need to keep her safe, and alive. Like they’d failed to do, from their perspective, for her older sister, Mary.
‘And I’m here because you’re the only person I know who can help.’
‘Which is it, Annie? Charity or opportunity?’
She’d at least hoped he’d express a little concern when she told him it was about help, but there was that same icy tone in his voice.
‘Both, I suppose.’
‘Fascinating. Why don’t you start at the beginning? You have precisely as long as it takes for my date to arrive so if I were you, I would not sit there fumbling with your hands longer than is necessary.’
She felt like the gauche teenager lusting after him that she’d once been. She swallowed, glancing away, his cruelty cutting her in a way she hadn’t expected. Her eyes came to land on the wall just behind his shoulder.
‘I’m looking for someone to buy a forty-five per cent stake in my parents’ company,’ she said.
She wasn’t looking at him, so did not see the way he reacted to that, the tension that tautened his whole expression, the way his eyes darkened to almost black. Annie couldn’t bring herself to see what she thought might be triumph in his face as she admitted, ‘It’s not in good shape, but there is so much scope for improvement and growth. You’d be getting a relative bargain and we’d…’be able to keep going.
The infusion of cash was just what she needed. And the addition of someone like Theo, to reassure their staff? They had been hemorrhaging leadership positions. The company was in an untenable position.
‘I do not buy partial shares of companies,’ he said, reaching for his scotch and taking a drink before replacing it on the tabletop. Her eyes slid to his and her heart twisted inside her chest.
‘I know.’ She swallowed. ‘But I thought, in this instance—’
‘That I would make an exception? And why, exactly would you think that, Annie?’ He leaned forward a little way, bracinghis elbows on the table, and she bit into her cheek, as she was reminded of just how big he was, how much larger than her. She’d always felt so safe, pressed to his side, or wrapped in his arms, like he was some kind of gladiator who could protect her from everything.
‘Let me guess. Because, once upon a time, a long time ago, we went out, you think I owe you some kind of favour?’
She flinched again, visibly recoiling against his crude characterization of their relationship. ‘We—did more than go out.’
His lip curled in that derisive way she’d seen several times already tonight. ‘If you insist.’