‘Just let me remind you, Grace, that there were two of us involved in that kiss—and you responded to me. As for my takeover of Culverwells, one day you might just thank me for stepping in when I did.’
‘Never!’
‘Never say never,’ he ridiculed. ‘So, we can do this the easy way by being civil and trying to get on…’
‘Giving in to your assaults, you mean?’
‘Or we can go on just the way we’re going,’ he said, ignoring her remark, ‘And keep up this pointless war. It makes little difference to me.’
‘You started it,’ she said, and couldn’t help cringing at how childish that sounded even to her own ears.
‘Oh, no. You began it, my love.’ The endearment made its mark, but only because he spoke with such lethal softness. ‘Way, way before I’d done anything to earn your contempt.’
‘But now you have earned it, so will you just please leave?’
Stooping to pick up his car keys, he didn’t stay to argue, only turning as he reached her sitting-room door.
‘Get an early night. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,’ he informed her with all the blandness of an employer to a subordinate.
A couple of seconds later she heard him close the hall door after him. Biting back tears of frustration, Grace spotted the flowers still lying on the table and, picking them up, hurled them across the room in the direction that he had gone.
Chapter Five
SETH wasn’t in when Grace arrived at the office the following morning and she couldn’t have been more relieved.
After all her protestations yesterday about not winding up in bed with him, it had taken only one kiss from him to show her that, where he was concerned, she had no more control over her physical responses than she did over the weather.
As she slipped off her jacket, hung it over the coat stand and then tried to settle down to work she wondered—just as she had done until she’d fallen into a heavy slumber the previous night—she wondered why she had responded to him so disgracefully. Why, when his only interest in her was to seek revenge?
Was it because all her emotions had been so highly charged yesterday—because she had been shattered from a sleepless overnight flight, even before she had suffered the shock of Culverwells being taken over? Or was it simply because she had no resistance whatsoever where Seth Mason was concerned, and that nature—or whatever one could call it, she thought witheringly—would try its utmost to get them into bed whenever they were alone together?
She groaned to herself as she opened her post, staring down at a letter she had unfolded and reading it without digesting a word.
She was still the same woman who had got into that taxi yesterday morning, determined to fight Culverwells’ new CEO for all she was worth, wasn’t she? So, she might have played right into his hands and made a total fool of herself, but she still had her fighting spirit and her determination to do what was right for the company.
When the internal phone on her desk buzzed, though, and Seth’s deep voice came over the line insisting that she came up to his office, Grace’s heart started to pound.
Was he going to fire her, now that she had been weak and stupid enough to show him that she was still as affected by him as she had been as a senseless teenager? she worried. Or was he determined to hold out for the ultimate prize that would make his vengeance complete—her total capitulation in his bed?
He was rifling through the filing cabinet when she walked into his office and she gritted her teeth, steeling herself for the worst.
‘Good morning, Grace.’ He pushed the drawer closed without even looking up. ‘I trust you slept well?’
Following his impeccably clothed figure with mutinous eyes, she had the strongest desire to hit him as he moved back to his desk.
Restraining the urge, she dragged her wayward appreciation from the silver-grey jacket spanning his broad shoulders to answer bitingly, ‘I’d had less than three hours’ sleep the previous night. What did you expect?’
He sat down, picked up a gold pen and began writing with it. ‘Does that mean you’re in better shape to deal with more pressing matters today?’
‘What’s come up?’ She swallowed, despairing at the way her voice faltered. Did this mean that he hadn’t summoned her here to fire her?
‘The Poulson account. I believe you were dealing with it.’ He looked up at her now, and she could have kicked herself from the way the smouldering intensity of his eyes made her stomach flip. ‘It seems they’re quibbling over assignment dates. It appears from previous correspondence that they can be very difficult to deal with. It also appears that they will only listen to you.’
Grace tried to steady her voice, even though her whole body seemed to be trembling. ‘I’ve built up a rapport with them.’ It seemed wrong, talking to him like this, discussing business like formal colleagues, as though those impassioned moments in her flat a little over twelve hours ago had never happened. ‘They can be rather awkward at first, but I’ve found that with a little bit of diplomacy and persuasion they come around.’
From his position of authority his eyes made a cursory survey of her dark-blue slimline skirt, the rather prim little green and navy blouse and her neatly swept-up hair. ‘Most people do.’
He applied just the right amount of sexual undertone in the way he said that to bring the colour flooding into her cheeks. There had certainly been nothing diplomatic or persuasive about the way he had urged her into responding to him!
Trying not to look at him, she moved around the desk to pick up the letter he had laid aside for her to look at, at the same time as he reached for his memo pad. His sleeve brushed her bare forearm, a touch so light and yet so sensual that she recoiled from the contact, feeling as though an electrical current was suddenly zinging through her.
Breath held, she urged her feet to carry her over to the filing cabinet, her head swimming. She couldn’t concentrate, or even think straight, when he was near her.
‘What’s wrong, Grace?’ He was there, his tanned, very masculine hand rammed flat against the drawer, preventing her from opening it. ‘Unwilling to acknowledge what I can still do to you? What we still do to each other?’
Every muscle locking rigid, Grace could scarcely breathe from the alluring, masculine scent of him, from that lethal sexual magnetism that seemed to be pulling her into its dangerous sphere.
‘If you’re referring to last night, I scarcely knew what I was doing.’
‘No?’ He looked sceptical.
As well he might! she thought despairingly.
‘Why would I want that?’ she croaked, clutching the letter she was holding to her breast like it was a lifeline. ‘Why, when I despise you? When there aren’t words strong enough to describe what you’re doing?’ A jerk of her head indicated what had been her grandfather’s desk and the power it gave the man who sat behind it.
‘Because you can’t help yourself, Grace, any more than I can.’ He was leaning on the cabinet now, his indolent manner unable to conceal that underlying restless vitality about him as he stood supported by his bent arm, one long finger resting against his tough, implacable jaw. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong—you aren’t my idea of the perfect partner, either. But we aren’t talking about a loving, trusting relationship, are we?’
As that finger moved to touch her cheek, Grace twisted her head away in angry rejection.
‘I wouldn’t have a relationship with you, Seth Mason, if you were the last