‘I hope you’re not going to tell me you’ve applied the brakes because of some ancient family feud?’ One look at the chips of ice in his eyes told her the answer.
‘My lawyers advised me to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. You can never be too careful in business.’ A wry twist of his sexy mouth accompanied the minute narrowing of the stare he settled on her. ‘And they uncovered a mistake with the paperwork.’
‘A mistake?’
No.
Harley’s cashmere clung, her skin growing clammy. She’d checked and double, no, triple checked the forms before passing them to her lawyers. And she paid them fat bonuses to compensate for her...limitations. Limitations that had dogged her whole life.
‘So it has nothing to do with the fact I’m the purchaser? I, after all, haven’t changed my name.’ She stepped nearer, the subtle, manly scent of him warming the air between them and sending her head into a tailspin.
The hard smile returned.
‘I admit, when I contacted the Give Foundation to discuss the misfiled documents, your name was...familiar. But I assure you, Ms Jacob, I have no ulterior motives. I’m a straight-up businessman—no agenda.’ A shrug. ‘What you see is what you get—delivered with a handshake, of course.’
Harley leaned in, her feet welded to the spot. If he expected her to be intimidated, or even conciliatory, he’d chosen the wrong sparring partner. She was used to being one step behind, used to criticism. She usually came out snarling to compensate. Another Hal Jacob lesson...
‘I assure you, Mr Demont, as the purchaser, any...mistake is an oversight and easily rectified.’
Please let it be easily rectified. If this deal collapsed, Hal would find out. Bad enough he was already fiercely opposed to this purchase. In fact he was opposed to all of his youngest daughter’s choices.
‘There’s no reason to delay. I’m watertight.’ She lifted her chin. Fake it ’til you make it.
But inside the familiar icy sweats erupted. Her whole life, dyslexia had thwarted her every ambition, but this mistake carried ten times the impact. She wanted the Morris Building—perfect for her needs and in a prime location.
But she’d messed up. Again. She could almost hear her father’s flat-voiced disappointment. The unspoken ‘I told you so’ she’d been hearing since the second grade. The last thing she needed was to prove Hal right, or, worse, let herself down once more.
She forced her breaths to slow, talking herself back from the ledge as she’d done many times over the years when the familiar panic set in. New York had plenty of real estate. She knew that better than anyone. Even though he hadn’t approved of her latest venture, Hal had offered her a bargain deal on an alternative building, keeping it in the family.
If she weren’t so determined to go it alone, she could capitulate. But then she’d have to confess to her father she’d sabotaged her project, one Hal Jacob considered a waste of time, through a simple clerical error, which a five-year-old could probably spot.
Nope. Not going there.
‘Watertight? Are you?’ A dubious sneer. ‘Jacob Holdings have been known, in the past, to act with a ruthlessness that I find...off-putting.’
Was he actually looking down his straight nose at her? Her shoulders dropped a notch. She’d grown used to condescension, was used to being dismissed. She’d spent her whole life feeling stupid, embarrassed, unworthy. Not that he knew that. But his words stung as if he’d struck at the most vulnerable part of her with pinpoint accuracy.
‘I prefer to deal with more...agreeable clients.’ He gathered his belongings from the table, tucking his phone into his pants pocket. ‘And until the documentation is corrected...’ Another shrug.
Harley’s pulse ricocheted around her body. So her instincts had been right. He carried the Lane/Jacob grudge, the same grudge that had soured not only their respective fathers’ business dealings, but also their families’ friendship.
‘I’m not Jacob Holdings.’ She forced her fingers to relax. ‘This deal has nothing to do with my family.’ If only she hadn’t messed up, her words would pack more punch.
His eyes flicked over her as if she hadn’t spoken, or her arguments carried little weight with him. He’d made his opinion. Nothing, it seemed, would shake it.
‘We’ll see.’ Completely unfazed, he offered her a tight smile and strode across the cavernous space towards the bank of elevators.
Taking a split second to admire his muscular ass under the fine wool of his pants, Harley hurried after his ground-eating strides, which made light work of the obstacles littering the floor, her own footfalls hindered by the clingy, tight-fitting dress.
Damn her dyslexia. Would its insidious grip on everything she tried to achieve never lessen? She’d personally handed him the ammunition to shoot down her dreams for the Morris Building. Another of her dreams destined for the ‘Harley tries hard, but...’ pile.
Part of her wasn’t surprised—the little girl inside who’d always craved the same pride afforded her siblings’ achievements. Of course those achievements could be measured academically—the right degree from the right school.
But how dared Jack insinuate the company she’d painstakingly built single-handed in spite of her father and her dyslexia, and Jacob Holdings, the family-run business with Hal at the helm, were bedfellows. She’d fought long and hard to forge her own path unencumbered by her surname.
Her turbulent hit-and-miss education, her enforced deviation from the Harvard to Jacob Holdings fast track her siblings had pursued and her determination to make it alone meant she’d forsaken her family name, despite its power to open any door in Manhattan.
She’d deliberately named her company Give for anonymity. Of course, it was impossible to completely disassociate herself from her New York heiress reputation. Fighting not only her family, who would see her firmly back in the fold, but also the few men of her past, who failed to understand why she eschewed a life of vacuous privilege to make it alone.
Dammit, why was he so tall, his legs so long?
‘Wait.’
The elevator doors slid open. Jack disappeared inside and Harley trotted the final few paces to catch up. If he thought she’d simply slink away with her tail between her legs and their deal in tatters, he’d underestimated her.
So she’d made a mistake—she could own it and make it right. This was her deal, her dream—to build a dyslexia school with state-of-the-art practices and affordable to all. Nothing would stand between her and fulfilling that dream. Not Hal, not her fierce reawakened attraction to the man dangling the deal overhead like some sort of petty revenge and especially not the arrogant asshole Jacques Lane had become. In fact, as today had proved, the only thing that could derail her plans was Harley herself.
She’d almost made it to the elevator doors when her spike heel caught on a plastic dustsheet and her body lurched forward, destined for the concrete floor. She flailed her arms, clutching at nothing but dusty air.
Her file of documents and her purse hit the floor and then she slammed against a wall of solid chest. The air left her in a thump as Jack caught her, hauling her entire body up until every inch of her from shoulder to thigh was pressed against a firm mass of lithe muscle and hard man.
In less than a second she’d gone from seething after him to the sublime thrill of full-on body contact.
Her muscles froze.
Her brain forgot even the most basic of functions.
Her calm and compelling argument died on her tongue.
Jack’s scent washed over her, vaguely familiar and enticingly foreign—clean, spicy, male—triggering a cascade of emotional