The Man to Be Reckoned With (8 page)

“Excuse me?” he said with such exaggerated arrogance that she lifted her gaze to his.

“Yes. To remind you that it's been almost three weeks and you haven't seen Robert yet. You said—”

“Heaven help a man who tangles with you.” He shook his head, resignation filling his eyes. “I'll see him tomorrow, fine? Now shut up and sit down.”

Switching his cell phone, he rattled off orders for a physician and his chauffeur.

“I don't need to—”

“Doctor or me, Riya?” he challenged.

“Doctor,” she said, sinking into the couch.

Even without looking at him, she was aware of his movements at the periphery of her vision. Heard the Velcro rip of his watch. What had happened to his Rolex? Frowning, she turned and saw him look at the display and note down something in a small notepad.

He wiped his face with a towel and Riya pulled her gaze away.

Not that she had missed the rippling muscles or the small birthmark he had on the inside of his biceps. Or that instead of turning her off, even being sweaty, he muddled her senses and filled her with an unbearable longing. Or that he kissed as if he could never stop. Or that he liked having utter control even as he shredded hers.

Or that she had liked it—the way he couldn't stop, the way he took control, the way he just made it hard for her to think, the way he knew exactly what would drive her wild with longing. That she had liked how good it felt to give herself over to him, body and mind, that she trusted him as she had never trusted anyone.

All of them were things she shouldn't know about him. A bunch of things she didn't want to know about herself.

She felt raw, exposed. All she wanted was to run. Far from him, far from herself.

Handing her a chilled bottle of water, he dropped to the couch, and Riya shot up from the couch. He tugged her down. Riya slinked to the edge, her breath coming in choppy bursts. Panic weaved through her.

“You and me, this can't happen, Nathan.”

“You can't control everything in life, Riya. I don't want this to happen either, but I've learned the hard way that you can't have everything the way you want it.”

She turned to him, desperation raising her tone. “Don't say that, don't just...accept this.”

His mouth took on a rueful twist. “What do you want me to do? Wave a wand that'll make it go away? The only solution I can think of is dragging you inside and giving us both what we so desperately want. Maybe we should get it out of the way, and things will be much clearer then.”

“This is probably your MO. Seduce a woman, say goodbye and walk away. And cut her out if she doesn't accept your decision. Like you did with Sonia. But I won't fall for you. You have no heart. You're the last kind of man that I should kiss, or want, or...”

Fury dawned in his eyes, turning them into blue fire. “Is it helping, then? If my being here is turning you inside out, how about you give me the blasted estate? I'll leave tonight.”

“No. I can't.”

“Damn it, Riya. You're not responsible for Jackie or Robert or anyone else. You were what? Twelve? Thirteen, when my mother died?”

“Robert regrets his mistakes. I know he does. He gave Jackie and me a home when we'd have been on the streets. He always had a kind word for me. He gave me shelter, security, food. He treated me like a daughter when my own father didn't bother to even ask after me in a decade.”

“Where is your father?”

“How the hell should I know? He never asked about me, never checked how Jackie has been all these years. And this is after he divorced her because she was emotionally volatile. And he let her take me. He let his volatile wife have charge of his eight-year-old daughter.

“For all her weak nature, Jackie at least looked after me in her own way. That's more than I can say for—”

“She didn't do you a favor by doing that, Riya. It was her minimum responsibility. And she failed you in that. She exposed you to her fears, to the staff's hatred at the estate. Don't you see the effects of that in yourself?”

“My life is perfectly fine, thank you. And my professional one even better, thanks to you. The last few days, working with you, have been amazing. I love your energy, I love the way you do things, Nathan. And if Travelogue can—”

“As of this morning, Travelogue has an investment of ten million dollars from RunAway International. I have ordered my lawyers to put the papers together.”

RunAway International Group
. The brilliant boutique of his companies offering flights, vacations, adventure trips through faraway lands... And now Travelogue was a part of that prestigious group.

Her small company...it was at once the most exciting and breathtaking prospect. She had no words left.

“I'll double the figure you make now and you'll have stock options in RunAway too. I've started the headhunt for a new CEO, and we'll find one by the time I leave.”

He was going to leave. That was what she had wanted; that was what she needed. That was their deal.

Then why did the prospect sit like a boulder on her chest? What had changed in a mere three weeks?

Concealing her confusion, Riya forced a smile and thanked him just as the physician knocked on the door.

All the way through him checking on her and the limo ride back to the estate, she couldn't figure out why reaching the goal she had set for herself, why impressing someone of Nathan's vision, why achieving the financial freedom she had always craved was suddenly not enough.

Whatever his behavior toward Robert, Nathan was unlike any other man she had ever met. All her rules, all her fears and insecurities, nothing stayed up when she was around him. He made her want to know him on a visceral level, made her want to abandon her own rules, made her yearn for a connection that she had denied herself for so long.

Nothing mattered with him. Not the pain of the past, not the fear for her future, only the present. And she couldn't let this continue. Already she was in too deep, lost at the thought of him leaving.

* * *

Nathan had no idea how long he stood staring at the closed door after Riya left, the silence of his suite pinging on his nerves. Everywhere he looked, he saw her now.

Laughing, smiling, arguing, kissing, moaning, gasping, glaring...even as she denied her nature, there was such an innocence and intensity to the emotions that played on her face.

He wanted her with a sharp, out-of-control need that crossed all lines. Now that he knew how she felt underneath him...

Everything inside him wanted to make her his. Ached to own her, possess her, show her how wild and good it could be between them, longed to make her admit that she felt something for him.

Why not?
a voice inside taunted him.

They were both free agents. They were both adults. And she wanted him. There was no doubt about that.

No.

How could he tangle with her knowing what she wanted in life? Even if she was determined to hide from it. How could he touch her knowing that when it was time to leave, she wouldn't be able to handle it?

She hadn't recovered even now from her father's abandonment, from her mother's negligence. Even his father's acceptance and caring of her hadn't been enough to erase that ache from her eyes.

It was in the way she was hiding from life, had slaved herself over her company and the estate, the way she took responsibility for the adults who should have looked after her.

In the way she had risked his wrath and her ruin just to make Robert smile. In the way all the light had gone out of her eyes when she mentioned her father.

And yet she was loyal, she was caring and she was strong. Exactly the kind of woman who could plunge him into his darkest fear if he let her. But by the same token, how was he supposed to walk away without stealing a part of her for himself?

CHAPTER SEVEN

N
ATHAN
PACED
THE
STUDY
in the home he had avoided thinking of for so many years, fighting the surge of memories that attacked him. The study had been one of his favorite rooms with huge floor-to-ceiling shelves covering two walls completely and French doors on the opposite side that opened onto the veranda.

Thick Persian rugs that had been his mother's pride covered the floor. He remembered playing with his toys on those rugs sitting at her feet.

The smell of old books and ancient leather stole through him swiftly, shaking loose things he had forgotten beneath layers of hurt and fear.

Emotions he didn't want to feel surged inside.

They had laughed here, the three of them. Spent numerous evenings in front of the fire—his father reading to him while his mother had sat in the cozy recliner with her knitting. There had been good years, he suddenly realized, years of laughter and joyful Christmases before ruined football games and hospital visits had become the norm. Before fear had become the norm, before fear had infiltrated every corner and nook.

Had it begun with his fainting and near dying at the football game? Had it begun when his mother had been gradually getting worse and worse? Or had it begun when his father had started his affair with Jackie?

Did it matter anymore?

“Hello, Nate,” his father said softly, and closed the door behind him.

Even having learned all the details of his father's illness from Maria, Nathan still wasn't prepared for the shock his father's appearance dealt him. As much as he wanted to not give a damn, he found he couldn't not care, couldn't not be affected by how frail he looked.

His blue gaze seemed dulled, haunted by dark circles underneath. His frame, always lean and spare, now looked downright skinny.

Alarm reverberated through Nate.

He didn't want to feel anything for his father. Damn Riya for forcing him to this. The blasted woman was making it hard on herself and him.

“It's so good to see you, Nate. Riya's been telling me all about your ventures and how powerful and successful you are. I'm very proud of you.”

Nathan could only nod. He couldn't speak. Was he as big a sap as Riya? Because one kind word from his father and he couldn't even breathe properly.

Fury, betrayal and so much more rose inside him. And that kind of emotional upheaval scared him more than the little fracture in his breathing the other night.

If he let one emotion in, they would all follow. Until all he felt would be fear.

There were too many things out of his control already. And to be in control, he had to remember things he'd rather forget, remember things that had driven him from his home, things that had driven him to live his life alone. “Let's not pretend that this is anything but the fear and regret a man faces once he sees death coming for him, Dad.”

His father flinched, and this time, nothing pierced Nathan. Not even satisfaction that he had landed a shot. Tears flooded those blue eyes that were so like his own. “I'm so sorry, Nathan, that you felt you couldn't stay here after she was gone.”

He couldn't bear this, this avalanche of fear and love, of need and despair that it always brought. “It was so hard to lose her like that, so hard to see my own fate reflected in her death. But to learn that you were with that woman. Can you imagine what that must have done to her?”

“I made a mistake, Nate, a ghastly one. I couldn't bear to see her wilt away. I let that fear drive me to Jackie. I was so ashamed of myself. And your mother...I instantly told her. And she forgave me, Nate.”

Shock waves pounded through Nate. “I don't believe you.”

He collapsed onto the settee and buried his head in his hands. There was an ache in his throat and he tried to breathe past it, but his dad's words already stole through him.

Because Jacqueline Spear was the one thing his mother hadn't been in that last year—vivacious, brimming with life, an anchor for a drowning man. He had assumed that his dad had done that to his mom. But what if it was the reverse?

What if seeing his mom lose all her will for life had driven his father to Jackie? It was still the worst kind of betrayal, but didn't Nathan know firsthand what fear could do? How it could turn someone inside out?

His dad reached him. “I don't blame you for not believing me. All these years, I have regretted so many things and the worst of it was that my cowardice drove you away. How many times I wished I had been stronger for you.”

“If you were sorry, then why did you bring them here? Jackie and Riya? What was that if not an insult to Mom's memory?”

Wiping his face with a shaking hand, his father met his gaze. “What I did was abhorrent. So much that I couldn't bear to look at Jackie for years after that, much less marry her. She was my biggest mistake given form. But I couldn't do anything to hurt Riya.

“I couldn't turn away from the child who needed a proper parent, and Jackie...she was still reeling from her separation from her husband. It was fear that drove us toward each other, that made us understand each other.

“Riya made me think of what I should have been to you, gave me a chance to rectify the mistake I made.”

Nathan nodded, his throat raw and aching, a ray of pure joy relieving the burden in his chest. Something good had come out of all the lies and betrayal.

Because this man who looked at him now, this man who had cared for someone else's daughter, he knew. This was the man he remembered as his father before everything had been ruined. “Is that why you gave her the estate?”

“I had no idea what had become of you. I had no way of reaching you. And when I thought I would die...I thought it a good thing that she have it.

“Riya loves this house, this estate, just like Anna did. Everything she touches blossoms. Jackie and Riya gave me a reason to live for, after I lost everything. I thought it fitting that it went to her.”

Nathan shook his head, the most perverse emotion taking hold of him. He should be a bigger man, he knew that. His mother had been generous and kind. She wouldn't have minded the estate going to Riya, going to someone who loved it just as much as she had. But he couldn't just walk away, couldn't sever the last thing that had some emotional meaning to him.

Couldn't let himself become a complete island severed from anything meaningful in the world. “She can have as much money as she wants instead. The estate is mine. If she'll listen to you, ask her to stop playing games with me and sign it over.”

His father frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I asked her to sell it to me, and the condition she put in front of me was that I see you. That I remain here for two months.”

“Oh.” His father sank to the couch, and Nate reached him instantly.

“What is it? Are you unwell again?”

“No. I...” His father sighed, regret in his eyes. “I ended up being another person who leaned on her too much. When she told me you were back, I told her to do whatever she could to keep you here. After all this, tell me you'll stay for the wedding, Nate.”

Nathan didn't want to hear the hope in his father's eyes, fought the sense of duty that he had ruthlessly pushed away all these years. His father had needed him just as much as Nathan had needed him.

But he hadn't been alone. Gratitude welled up inside Nathan for everything Riya had done for his dad.

The more he tried to do the right thing and stay away from temptation, the more entrenched she was becoming in his life.

Lifting his head, he met his dad's gaze. “I had already decided to stay for the wedding.”

A smile broke out on his father's face, transforming it. Clasping Nate's hand, he pumped it with joy. “I'm so glad. Will you live in the house again? Anna would have—”

Nathan shook his head.

He wished he could say yes, wished he could let his father back into his life, wished the loneliness that ate at him abated.

The bitterness inside him had shifted today. And the estate was the one place that meant something to him. It was also the one that would forever remind him that his time was always on a countdown, remind him of how his beautiful mother had turned into a shadow because of her fear.

Because Nathan remembered that fear, remembered what his father had left unsaid, realized that he thought he could protect Nathan from the bitter memory. But beneath his anger for his father, his fury toward what Jackie represented, Nate remembered his darkest fear now.

For the last year, his mother had become but a shadow of herself. It was what had driven his father, as deplorable as his action had been. It was what had filled Nathan with increasing fear for his own life. She had willed her heart condition to leach her life away, had only dwelled on being gone, on being parted from Nathan and his dad.

And in the end, she had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Her fear had leached any happiness, every joy from her life until death was all that had remained.

His father squeezed his shoulder, his voice a whisper. “You've achieved so much, Nate. You won't become like—”

And Nathan swallowed at the grief that rose through him. How perfectly his dad understood him without words.

Turning around, Nathan smiled at his father. “No, I won't. And that's why I can't stay.”

“I'm strong enough to face anything, Nate. I would never—”

Clasping his dad's hands, Nate smiled without humor. It was Riya's face that rose in front of his eyes. “I don't know that I am.”

Just as he had accepted his own limitations, Nathan accepted this too. Riya was dangerous to him like no other woman had ever been. Already he had broken so many of his own rules; already he was much too invested in her well-being, in her life.

He couldn't risk more.

He could never care for anyone so much that the fear of being parted would pervade every waking moment. Couldn't let any woman reduce him to that.

* * *

Over the next week, Nate arrived at the estate every evening to see his father. As if determined to create new memories for Nathan, his father insisted that he was too weak to leave the estate. And Nathan found a simple joy in indulging him.

The evenings would have been perfect, the most peaceful moments he had known in a while if not for Riya.

Every evening, he found the anticipation of seeing her build inside him. Only to learn that she was out on another errand, one of hundreds apparently and gone all evening. And the couple of times every day that he dropped into the offices of Travelogue, she was nowhere to be seen either.

One evening, he had even walked through the entire grounds and the house itself wondering if she was having his dad and the servants lie to him.

How could she be always out when he was visiting?

It had taken him a week to recognize the pattern.

The woman was avoiding him, going out of her way to make sure they didn't even lay eyes on each other. He remembered the fear that had leaped into her eyes when he suggested he give them both what they wanted.

There were three weeks until the wedding, and Nathan realized, with simmering fury, that she intended to avoid him until that day.

He should have been happy with that knowledge. Riya was not equipped in any way to take him on.

But as another day fell to dusk, he found himself thinking of her more and more. He was working long hours, negotiating a deal with an Arab prince about building a travel resort in his country, and yet every once in a while, he would look up from his laptop in his penthouse and imagine her on the floor, writhing beneath him, her curves rubbing against him, her gorgeous eyes darkened with arousal, her legs clamped around his waist.

His name falling from her lips like a languid caress.

Running a hand through his hair, he slammed his laptop with a force that rattled the glass table.

Pushing away a hundred other warnings his mind yelled at him, Nathan looked at his watch. It was a quarter past noon on Saturday, one where he should be on his private jet in less than half an hour, flying to Abu Dhabi for the weekend.

A fact that Riya was aware of. Switching his cell phone on, Nate called his virtual manager and ordered him to cancel all his plans for the day.

* * *

He found her in the grounds behind the house, knee deep in mud, pruning the rosebushes in the paths leading up to the gazebo.

The white sleeveless T-shirt she wore was plastered to her body, her skin tanned and glistened. Her long hair was gathered in a high ponytail while tendrils of it stuck to her forehead.

She looked as though she belonged there.

Nathan swallowed at the sensual picture she presented. Her skin was slick with sweat, and the cotton of her shirt displayed the globes of her breasts to utter perfection.

His reaction was feral, instantaneous, all-consuming. His mouth dried, all the blood rushing south. Never had deprivation of oxygen to his lungs felt so good. Never had the dizziness he felt just looking at her been so pleasurable before.

He cleared his throat and she looked up. A bead of sweat dripped down the long line of her throat and disappeared into her cleavage.

Nathan fisted his hands and shoved them in his pockets. He wanted to touch her, he wanted to push her down right there on the dirt, spread her out for him and cover her body with his own. He wanted to feel his heart labor to keep up as he plunged himself inside her and pushed them both over the edge.

“You've been avoiding me.”

“I've been busy with the wedding preparations. Jackie's been waiting for so long for it and she's so excited that she's practically useless and of course, Robert is ecstatic that you're here. There's a lot to do.”

“Then why didn't you ask for my help?”

Her movements stilled. He realized with a pang that she hadn't even considered it.

He got onto his haunches, and her gaze flew to him. “You really think hiding is the solution? Will you hide at the wedding too? Will you hide from everything that threatens to shred your damn rules? One day, you'll be a hundred years old, Riya, and you'll be alone and you'll realize you didn't live a moment of your life.”