‘I expected you’d sleep longer.’
He smiled. ‘So you thought you’d get a head start on running the company before I woke up?’
She frowned. ‘And why would you possibly think that?’
He gestured around the spacious office. ‘Because you’re here, barely twenty-four hours after my father’s death, in his office, occupying his desk.’
She put down her pen and leaned back in her chair—his father’s chair—her eyes narrowing to icy blue channels. ‘Is that what you’re worried about? That I might want to take your precious birthright away from you? That I might steal your inheritance and whisk Bastiani Pearls away from you while you’re not looking?’
‘You wouldn’t stand a chance!’ He squeezed the words through lips dragged tight, his jaw held rigid.
She smiled, a smile that exposed her even white teeth but extended no further. ‘Then maybe it’s just as well I’m not interested.’
‘So how do you explain being here now?’ he demanded, moving closer to the broad desk. ‘It’s Saturday. Not exactly office hours.’
I had to get out of the house, she thought. I had to get awayfrom you. But she wouldn’t say it. Didn’t want to admit the blatant honesty of her thoughts, even to herself. Instead she steeled herself against his approach and said, ‘I have work to do. Laurence and I were involved in a project together last week when he took ill. The file was still on his desk. And I really didn’t think he’d mind me borrowing his office for a while.’
‘What kind of work?’ he demanded, shrugging off her sarcasm like he expected it.
She surveyed him as he made his way around the desk to her side, taking in the cool-looking chinos and fine-knit shirt, resenting every lean stride he took closer to her. He was dressed for the heat, so why was it that her temperature was suddenly rising?
Damn the man! She’d told herself all night—she’d promised herself—that now they’d got their first meeting out of the way, now that they both knew where they stood with each other, that she’d be immune to his power and his sheer masculine force. And finally she’d convinced herself that that would be the case, that she could wear her anger like steel plating around her. But she’d been kidding herself. Otherwise, why else would she have fled the house at first light? And why else would she be feeling the encroaching heat of this man like the kiss of a blowtorch?
Her anger was still there, and the resentment—with just one comment, he’d managed to resurrect that in spades—but there was no avoiding the Bastiani aura.
Like father, like son.
Laurence’s power had made him a powerful colleague to work with, a fascinating and inspiring mentor. Zane, though, seemed to take the family trait to a new level, his proximity grating on her resistance, his raw masculine magnetism and fresh man-scent leaving her feeling strangely vulnerable.
‘What are these?’ he asked, looking down at the drawings on the desk, breaking her out of her reflections.
‘The new range,’ she said, feeling a note of pride creep into her voice as he sorted through the designs she’d been working on for over six months. ‘We’ve called them the Passion Collection. The launch is a little over three months away.’
‘Here?’
‘Like all our collections, we’ll launch in Broome first, at the Stairway to the Moon festival, then we’ll take the collection nationwide with an event at the Sydney Opera House one week later. We’ll follow that up with the dealer visits, where we take selected designs to New York and London. No doubt you’ll expect to come along, in Laurence’s place.’
She tried to infuse some kind of welcome note to her voice, but if he was impressed by the demanding launch schedule or wanted any part of it, he didn’t show it. ‘These designs are very ambitious,’ he said instead. ‘Extraordinarily so.’
‘Thank you.’
He looked around sharply. ‘These are yours?’
She nodded. Every last one of them. ‘That is why I was employed here,’ she told him, holding his gaze. ‘I design settings for the pearls the Bastiani Corporation produces.’
‘Then you must realise that wasn’t exactly a compliment. These designs will never work.’
She stilled, not believing what she was hearing. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘These designs—“The Passion Collection”: A Lovers’ Embrace. It’s a fine concept, but don’t you think it’s too ambitious to achieve with just pearls and gold and gemstones? You’ll never pull it off. We can’t have an entire collection based around such a crazy idea. It’s too much of a risk.’
‘It will work,’ she argued, trying to banish the doubt demons that assailed her creative mind at every opportunity without Zane’s input to spur them on. ‘Yes, it’s ambitious, and, yes, it’s a risk, but it’s already in production. And it’s almost complete.’
‘But not finished and not proven. So the Bastiani Corporation is pinning its future hopes on a collection that could be a major failure?’
‘Laurence was passionate about this collection. He was behind it one hundred percent.’
‘Laurence isn’t here now.’
‘But I am. And I’ve been designing pearl collections for Bastiani ever since I started working here—so far very successfully. There’s no reason to think this one won’t be as successful.’
He put down the drawing he’d been holding and swivelled, leaning back against the desk, his hands poised either side of his legs. ‘You’d hardly claim anything else.’
He was too close. Dealing with him while he’d had his back to her was one thing, having him staring her down while hovering alongside was something else. It made her wish she’d pulled on a whole lot more this morning than a floral wrap skirt and a cool, lemon-coloured singlet top. She pushed herself out of her chair, using the pretext of filling her water glass at the cooler, and only turned when she’d taken three steadying breaths.
‘Well, I don’t intend to let Laurence or the company down now,’ she said, in a bid to regain her composure. ‘And while we’re on the topic, did you ever bother to read those financial reports I know your father had sent to you regularly?’ she asked. ‘Did you ever take note of what they told you, and of how the profits of the Bastiani Corporation took off exponentially, when instead of selling cultured pearl stocks and basic design elements, we started selling themed collections twice a year?’
‘And you’re claiming the credit for that, I presume?’ He practically snorted the words out, without bothering to make any attempt to answer her question.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’m not claiming the credit. Laurence took me on as a junior designer when I was barely out of design school. He said he wanted someone fresh, with no preconceived or outmoded ideas of how pearl jewellery should look. So together we worked on the idea of a themed collection, an entire range that would display the beauty and mystique of the most magnificent and highly prized pearls in the world. So, it was Laurence who had the vision, who had the dream of expanding his business in a way the company had never done before. But the designs were all mine.’
She stopped, feeling suddenly heady, as if oxygen was in short supply. All through her impassioned speech he’d sat, coolly surveying her from his position against the desk, his eyes hooded, almost slumberous.
If she didn’t like his attitude, she resented his silent scrutiny even more. In desperation, she took a sip from the glass, trying to fill the space in the conversation, suddenly glad she’d had the foresight to fill her glass now that her mouth and lips had turned desert dry. Condensation beaded as she tilted the