His Sweet Revenge: Wedding Vow of Revenge / His Ultimate Prize / Bound by a Child

“There’s more.”

“What?”

“You aren’t going to believe this.” Hawk had had a hard time believing it himself. “It is simply too damn perfect.”

“And it is?”

“She graduated with her degree in business six months ago and has been in Primo Tech’s management training program for the past four of those months.”

Angelo had bought the hi-tech company in Portland, Oregon, three years ago. Just like all the other companies he bought and resuscitated, it was becoming a lead player in its industry. However, the success of his company was no doubt not nearly as interesting to him in that moment as the fact Tara Peters was employed there.

“It’s fate.”

Hawk’s laugh was every bit as skeptical as Angelo’s. “That is one way of looking at it.”

Angelo sat at his desk after Hawk left, perusing the file on Tara Peters. Hawk had included still shots from several of her fashion shows. They showed a woman of ethereal beauty, shrouded by innocence, but wearing clothing that would tempt a saint to sin. On her tall, model slim body, that nevertheless had curves in all the right places, they were more than a temptation…they were downright provocation.

Her dark brown eyes in the perfectly proportioned oval face, surrounded by a cascade of silky chestnut hair intrigued him…even knowing she had once been Baron Randall’s.

He flipped through the photos until he came to those included with the tabloid articles that had sensationalized her breakup with Randall. The difference between the two sets of pictures wrenched at something inside Angelo he thought long dead. Those same chocolate-dark eyes now reflected the pain of betrayal and lost innocence.

Just like his mother’s had.

He needed to assimilate this piece of information and decide how best to act on it. He didn’t have much time, either. If for no other reason than that Baron Randall would go looking for Tara Peters the minute his wife filed the divorce petition.

That gave Angelo a month, maybe less to act on his newfound knowledge of Randall’s unexpected weakness.

The man who had stolen his company and destroyed his mother deserved to be ruined on every level and Angelo was going to make damn sure that happened.

Tara Peters laughed at the other junior execs around her, at least the female ones. They were primping for the arrival of Angelo Gordon like he was a rock star or something.

“Aren’t you even going to put on lipstick?” Danette Michaels demanded with her usual forthrightness after glossing her own lips and putting her compact mirror away in her desk drawer. “He’s supposed to do a tour of this floor sometime today.”

“No lipstick.” Tara had spent years wearing just the right makeup, dressing with flair, and flaunting the assets that had made her a top model at the age of twenty.

They had also brought her to the notice of Baron Randall and for that alone, she would spend the rest of her life devoid of makeup and dressing in conservative business attire.

Never again.

She straightened the papers on her desk. “My only interest in impressing Mr. Gordon is with my work and I don’t need lipstick to do it.”

Danette rolled her eyes. “You are such an all work and no play kind of girl. Did you ever hear that makes you boring and can give you ulcers before you’re thirty?”

Coming from a woman who had her first serious boyfriend at the age of twenty-one, that was pretty funny.

“My twenty-four-year-old stomach is just fine, thank you and better boring than stomped on I always say.”

“Not every man in the world is like that jerk, Baron Randall.”

Like most people, Danette had read the tabloid accounts of Tara getting dumped by Baron so he could marry his oil heiress. However, unlike most people, the younger woman had not let the stories color her view of Tara. She thought Baron was a world class pig and that her friend was better off without him.

Tara agreed. Now.

But two years ago, she’d felt like she would die from the pain and humiliation of the all too public breakup.

“Of course they aren’t,” she said, trying to stave off another lecture about getting back on the horse so she wouldn’t forget how to ride. Between Danette and her mother, she’d heard it about a thousand times too many. “But right now I’m not interested in finding out. I don’t have time for a man in my life and honestly, I don’t see how you can, either.”

Danette shrugged, her amber cat eyes twinkling.

“Some of us are better at multitasking than others,” she said with a grin. “Anyway, even if your career is all you care about, you should want to make a good impression on Angelo Gordon. He owns this company and several like it.”

“I do want to impress him…with my business acumen.”

“He’s already impressed, Tara.”

Tara spun in her chair to face her manager, surprised Mr. Curtiss was here instead of in the schmoozing session with the upper managers and the company owner.

“Mr. Gordon wants to speak to you privately.”

Tension stiffened her spine as the words reminded her of a similar conversation she’d had with her modeling agent. The woman had told her that Baron Randall wanted to meet her. Tara, naïve idiot that she had been four years ago, had been both flattered and impressed.

“Why alone?”

If her manager thought that an odd question, he didn’t let it show. “He’s impressed with your report on workplace effectiveness. He wants to discuss it with you.”

Relaxing, she smiled. Business. It was just about business, nothing like that other time when the introduction had been a prelude to seduction.

“That’s great, Tara,” Danette said, “I heard the guy is a genius. If he appreciates your brains already, I guess it’s true.”

“Does he want to see me right now?” she asked, feeling a little light-headed.

Sure, she’d daydreamed about the owner of the company being so impressed with her recommendations he wanted to talk to her. What junior executive didn’t? But that kind of stuff didn’t happen in the real world.

Her manager looked at his watch and frowned. “Five minutes ago, actually. I got waylaid by a phone call on my way to tell you.”

Tara Peters walked into Angelo’s temporary office with her back straight and a credible expression of confidence. The only giveaway to her nervousness at being summoned by the owner of the company was the tight clenching of her fingers into small fists at her sides.

Her bone structure was delicate for a woman of her height, which no doubt explained her success as a cat-walk model.

Yet, she looked very different from the still shots of her fashion shows that Hawk had included in the Tara Peters file. Nor did she resemble the pictures that had accompanied the tabloid articles after her breakup with Randall.

All the photos had shown a stunning woman who made the most of her beauty, but no one would accuse this Tara Peters of trading on her beauty to succeed in her job.

She had confined the glorious length of her signature chestnut hair in a tight French braid that fell down her back. She wore no makeup and the small ovals of her nails were unpolished, but buffed. The navy-blue slacks and blazer she wore disguised her figure very well.

He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but her current no-nonsense, almost androgynous attire fit Hawk’s report on her behavior since Baron Randall married another woman.

Tara didn’t date and appeared uninterested in attracting men. Was she still hung up on the monster? The thought did not sit well with Angelo and his usually impassive face creased in a frown before he realized it.