Her first thought was that he belonged in a motorcycle club and not in a boardroom.
Electric eyes, a brilliant shade of ice blue, set deep in a starkly angled face, collided with hers. That gaze was familiar and strange, amused and serious. A spark of recognition lit up inside her, yet Riya had no idea where she had seen him.
Dark blond hair, so unruly and long that her fingers itched to smooth it back, fell onto his forehead. Copper highlights shimmered in his hair. The sunlight streaming in played hide-and-seek with the hollows of his cheekbones, the planes darker than the hollows. Which meant he spent a lot of time outdoors.
His skin, what she could see of it, was sunburned and looked rough. An untrimmed beard covered his jaw and chin, copper glinting in it too.
That beard, those haphazard clothes, his overall appearance—they should have diluted the intensity of his presence in the small room. It should have made him look less authoritative. Except those eyes negated everything.
They had a bright, alert look to them, a sardonic humor lurking beneath the sharp stare he directed at her.
He wore a dark leather jacket that had obviously seen better days, under which the collar of a faded shirt peeked through.
A cough from behind her brought her up short and Riya felt her cheeks heat up.
Amusement deepened in those eyes.
“Who are you?” The awkwardly phrased question zoomed out of her mouth before she realized. Suddenly it was tantamount that she remember him.
Because she did, Riya realized with a certainty.
He leaned back into his chair, not in the least affected by her tone. There was a sense of contained movement about him even though he remained seated. As though he was forcing his body to do it, as though staying still was an unnatural state for him.
“Nathaniel Ramirez.”
Riya’s mouth fell open as an article she had read just a few months ago in a travel magazine flashed through her mind’s eye.
Luxury Travel Mogul. Virtual Entrepreneur. Billionaire Loner.
Nathaniel Ramirez had been called a visionary in developing hotels that were an extension of the environment, a man who had made millions with zero investment. The string of temporary hotels, which he’d envisioned and built with various landowners in different parts of the world, were all the rage for celebrities who wanted a private vacation, away from prying eyes.
He had tapped into a market that not only had met an existing demand but had opened a whole new industry to the local men in so many remote corners of the world.
And more than any of that, he was an enigma who’d traveled the world over since he was seventeen, didn’t stay in one place past a few months, didn’t own a home anywhere in the world and worst of all, had no family ties or relationships.
Even the magazine hadn’t been able to get a picture of him. It had been a virtual interview.
The quintessential loner, the magazine had called him, the perfect personality for a man who traveled the world over and over. The fact that he made money doing it was just a perk, someone had heard him remark.
He’d only said his name, and nothing more about what he was doing here, in San Francisco, in Travelogue, in their start-up company’s headquarters.
Why? Why would he give his name instead of stating why he was here?
She threw a quick look behind her and noticed Drew still stood unmoving at the bay windows, his mouth tight, his gaze swinging between her and Mr. Ramirez.
“You make a living out of traveling the world. What can a small online travel sales company do for you?” She shot Drew a look of pure desperation. “And why are you sitting in Drew’s chair?”
The intensity of his gaze, while nothing new to Riya, still had a disconcerting element to it. Men stared at her. All the time.
She had never learned how to handle the attention or divert it, much less enjoy it, as Jackie did. Only painstakingly cultivated an indifference to those heated, lingering looks. But something about him made it harder.
Finally he uncoiled from his lounging position. And a strange little wave of apprehension skittered through her.
“I bought controlling interest in Travelogue last night, Ms. Mathur.”
She blinked, his soft declaration ringing in her ears. “I bought a gallon of milk and bread last night.”
The sarcastic words fell easily from her mouth while inside, she struggled not to give in to the fear gripping her.
* * *
“It wasn’t that simple,” Nathan said, getting up from the uncomfortable chair. The whole cabin was both inconvenient and way too small for him. Every way he turned, there was a desk or chair or a pile of books ready to bang into him. He felt boxed in.
Walking around the table, he stopped at arm’s length from her, the fear hidden under her sarcastic barb obvious. Gratification filled him even as he gave the rampant curiosity inside him free rein.
Like mother, like daughter.
He pushed the insidiously nasty thought away. True, Riya Mathur was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and as a man who had traveled to all the corners of the world, he’d seen more than his share.
She was also, apparently, extremely smart and as possessed of the talent for messing with men’s minds as her mother, if everything he had heard and Drew Anderson’s blatantly obvious craze for her was anything to go by.
But where Jacqueline met the world with a devil-may-care attitude, flaunting her beauty with an irreverent smile, her daughter’s beauty was diluted with intelligence and a carefully constructed air of indifference.
Which, he realized with a self-deprecating smile, made every male of the species assume himself equal to the task of unraveling all that beauty and fire.
Exquisite almond-shaped, golden brown eyes, defiant, scared and hidden behind spectacles, a high forehead, a straight, distinctive nose that hinted at stubbornness and a bow-shaped mouth. All this on the backdrop of a golden caramel-colored silky smooth complexion, as though Jackie’s alabaster and her Indian father’s brown had been mixed in perfect proportions.
She had dressed to underplay everything about herself, and this only spurred him on to observe more. It was like a cloud hovering over a mountaintop, trying to hide the magnificence of the peak beneath it.
A wary and puzzled look lingered in her eyes since she had stepped inside. Which meant it was only a matter of time before she remembered him.
Because he had changed his last name, and he looked eons different from the sobbing seventeen-year-old she had seen eleven years ago.
He should just tell her and get it over with, he knew. And yet he kept quiet, his curiosity about her drumming out every other instinct.
“I had to call in a lot of favors to find your investors. Once they were informed of my intent, they were more than happy to accommodate me. Apparently they’re not happy with the ways things are being run.”
“You mean disappointed about the bucket loads of money they want us to make?” A flash of regret crossed her face as soon as she said it.
She was nervous, which was what he’d intended.
“And that’s wrong how, Ms. Mathur? Why do you think investors fund start-ups? Out of the goodness of their hearts?”
“I don’t think so. But there’s growth and there’s risk.” She took a deep breath as though striving to get herself under control. “And if it’s profits that you’re after,