The Billionaire Bargain #3(5)
THREE
Damn, but that man looked good enough to eat. My dreams hadn’t lied to me—he was ripped, almost bursting the buttons of his white starched pressed shirt, black slacks complementing the powerful lines of his legs. A lock of golden-brown hair dangled above those mocking blue eyes, his full lips twisted in a sardonic smirk.
“I—I—I—” I stammered. “I wasn’t expecting you—”
“Yes?” he said, distantly amused. “Presumably you did have something to say, however, so why don’t you get on with it.” He yawned, strolling to the window and examining his cuff link in the light there. “Could you hurry it up a little? I’ve things to do.”
His voice was ice cold, his humor nothing more than a knife. He spoke to me as if I were insignificant.
He spoke to me as if I were a stranger.
I took a deep breath and tried to tamp down my feelings. Professional, I was going to be professional. “What’s with the money in my bank account?”
“Surely you’re familiar with the concept of payment for services rendered,” Grant said cuttingly. I could feel my cheeks burning, but a worthy comeback eluded me.
He turned to me, and looked my body up and down with a distant sort of distaste, as if I were a poorly planned purchase he was glad to have returned to the store. “You performed…a service. You’ve been compensated. End of story.”
“I told you that I didn’t want money—” I choked out.
“It will hardly fit the PR profile if I don’t pay you off with something,” Grant said, cutting me off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Certainly no one could argue that you didn’t deserve it. Yours was a flawless performance of affection and loyalty—no one could have doubted it.” He smiled, and there was no joy in it, but for a moment I caught a flicker in his gaze, almost caught sight of the old Grant hiding there before he turned his back on me and stared out the window. “Your artifice helped buy time to turn this company around.”
“That’s not the point,” I said, stung without really understanding why. I hadn’t really been performing, I really had loved him—but he wanted the performance, so why was he upset? Why was I insulted? “I can’t accept—”
“It’s not like you don’t need it,” he interjected. I felt my cheeks flame again, hating that he was right. Grant turned and edged toward the door, making to leave. “I’ve seen the state of your apartment, remember. Of course, there are some things this won’t be able to fix, like your propensity for John Steed posters. It really is a pity that money can’t buy taste.”
Fresh anger rose in my veins like magma in a volcano. “Dammit, Grant, we still have to work together. Can’t you at least be civil!?”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Grant’s entire body locked tight, and he wheeled around, stalking slowly towards me while the rage built like blue flames in his eyes. “Oh, I doubt you’ll be working here much longer, Lacey. A talented girl like you, I’m sure you’ll find somewhere else much more suited to your ambitions.”
His words were like a slap in the face. “Oh, are you firing me now?” I snapped, refusing to back down. “That’s your modus operandi, isn’t it, as soon as someone disagrees with you or doesn’t give you exactly what you want—”
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” Grant snarled. The ice was completely gone now, replaced by fire. “You never understood me, and you never understood the company. You just needed us as stepping stones on your way to bigger and better things, so I suggest that while we have to ‘work together’—” he was right across the desk from me now, his hands gripping the wooden edge—“you stay the hell out of my way, and don’t try for one second to pretend you ever cared about…about this company.”
He stood on the other side of the desk, seething down at me, and my own anger allowed me to meet his gaze with a matching fury.
As I shot to my feet, my legs and my voice both shaking with rage, I grabbed his lapel and yanked him even closer toward me. “How dare you say I don’t care about the company when—”
My hand was on his lapel.
“When…” I repeated.
My mouth forgot what it was saying.
My hand was on his lapel, and his mouth was so close to mine, and we were both breathing so hard, and his pupils were dilated and he just smelled so good and I wanted to grab him and kiss him and say that I never wanted to leave him and that I never would again, never—
Grant’s eyes went cold again. “No need to get hysterical, Miss Newman.” He plucked my hand from his lapel gingerly, as if it were a fly he had found in his soup. “It was only business. I don’t see what you’re getting so emotional about. You wanted it over.” He smiled, and I shivered at how empty and dead an expression it was. “So it’s over.”
He stalked to the door and pulled it open, revealing a cluster of employees who had been eavesdropping just outside. They froze mid ear-strain before scattering back to their cubicles and copy machines. Great. Just what I needed: more fuel for the gossip inferno. More fires to put out.
Grant turned back, silhouetted in the doorway, and my pathetic, traitorous heart leapt into my throat, but all he said was, “Best to move on, Miss Newman.”