Maid for the Billionaire(55)

It didn't help that he was still gorgeous.

If life were fair at all, Stephan would have been rounder in the middle with a receding hairline. Several inches above six feet, he was a striking mixture of his Scandinavian mother and his Italian father — thick blond hair, eyes so blue they caught ones attention from across a room, and a natural muscular physique that most men spent hours in gyms trying to emulate. But life wasn't fair, and his good looks were just as necessary to ignore this time around as they had been seven years ago.

"Thank you for seeing me," Nicole said, the words caught in her throat. Nothing about his expression or his mannerisms implied that he would entertain her request. She wasn‘t about to turn tail and run, though, just because he was looking her over like she'd tracked mud across his priceless rug.

"I am flying out of town in less than an hour. What do you want, Nicole?" His voice implied that whatever it was, the likelihood that she was going to get it was close to zero.

Ever so carefully, Nicole sat on the unforgiving, white chair before Stephan's desk. She smoothed the knee of her navy pants suit and crossed her ankles to one side, hoping she didn't look as anxious as she felt. "Can't you at least try to be civil, Stephan?"

The jaded man who sized her up now bore little resemblance to the young man who had visited his father's company frequently over several months for no other reason than to saunter through her office, looking like he'd just returned from surfing, and ask her if she'd go out with him. She‘d always said no, and he‘d always smiled as if her refusal had just made him like her more.

He wasn't smiling now.

He stood and walked to the front of his glass desk. "We both know this isn't a social visit.

I'll admit I'm surprised that your brother stooped to sending you. His deal must be in worse shape than I thought."

Nicole clutched the purse on her lap. "Dominic didn't send me."

Stephan leaned back, crossing his arms across his wide chest. Despite his expensive tailored suit and silk tie, he looked anything but tame. He had clawed his way from near bankruptcy back to the front page of financial magazines and the experience had hardened him. "Riiiiight," he drawled.

It doesn’t matter what he thinks of me. "I need your help," she said.

His eyes narrowed while he weighed her statement. "You needed something and you thought of me? How touching. Did you consider the time we haven't spoken and the circumstances of our last conversation before you came here?"

"You know I had nothing to do with what happened."

A careless shrug of his shoulder volleyed that he knew no such thing.

"Stephan. I don't even talk to my brother. I hate him. If I had known that he was going to buy..."

"Steal..." Stephan interjected.

"If I had known anything about what was going to happen, I would have tried to stop him."

"Easy to say now."

"What do you want me to say, Stephan? I went to him when it happened. He wouldn't listen to me. I tried to apologize to your family. What more do you want from me?"

"I guess the real question is - What do you want from me?"

Nicole shut the door on the welling response from within her. He wasn‘t asking her what she had once wanted, what she‘d spent many lonely nights dreaming could happen between them. He didn‘t want to hear about that foolishness any more than she wanted to resurrect it. No, today was about something much more concrete, and the only thing she still allowed herself to care about. "My father left me his company, but he named Dominic the acting CEO for a year."

Stephan barked out a laugh. "Genius. Dominic was the one sabotaging your father's company, it makes sense that he's the one to turn it around."

"Do you know what Dominic will do with the company as soon as he gets his hands on it?

He's going to fire everyone at the top and put his own people in there."

"And?"

"And I can't let that happen."

"Because you need to be in control."

Does it matter? He wouldn't believe her. He'd made up his mind about her a long time ago.

"I just need to know if you can put the past aside long enough to help me."

No didn‘t require vocalization; it shone in his ice-cold eyes and the stiff set of his shoulders.

"I can make it worth your while," she added quickly, playing her last card in this game.

He pushed off from the desk. Suddenly interested. "Now this I have to hear."

It would slow the rebound of the company, but if Stephan didn‘t agree to help her, she was going to lose it all anyway. "I own the patent to a new conversion software. I could sign it over to you."

He leaned closer. Close enough that she could smell the light scent of his aftershave. Close enough to block out her view of everything but him.

"Disappointing," he said.

"What is?" She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Beneath her modest navy jacket and silk blouse, her body was having some very immodest reactions to his nearness. She didn‘t want to remember how those lips, the ones that were so close that she could lean forward and taste them, had felt on her neck, on other parts that were now straining against lace - begging for his attention.

She met his eyes and realized that he was watching her reaction intently; testing something, something they both knew was there, something that was better left unsaid.