Deal With The Devil: Secrets of a Ruthless Tycoon / The Most Expensive Lie of All / The Magnate's Manifesto

‘I own it.’ He strolled through into the living area, which had been signposted by that glimpse of wall art. Following behind him, Brianna saw that it was a massive piece of abstract art and that there were several others on the walls. They provided the only glimpse of colour against a palette that was uniformly white: white walls, white rug against the dark wooden floor, white leather furniture.

‘I thought you were broke.’ Brianna dubiously eyed the chair to which she was being directed. She yawned and he instantly told her that she should get some rest.

‘I’d prefer to find out what’s going on.’

‘In which case, you might need a drink.’ He strolled towards a cabinet and she looked around her, only to refocus as he thrust a glass with some amber liquid into her hand.

He sat down next to her and leaned forward, cradling his drink while he took in her flushed face. He noticed that she couldn’t meet his eyes and he had to steel himself against a wave of sickening emotion.

‘We should never have slept together,’ he delivered abruptly and Brianna’s eyes shot to his.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean...’ He swirled his drink round and then swallowed a long mouthful. Never had he needed a swig of alcohol more. ‘When I arrived in Ballybay, it was not my intention to get involved with anyone. It was something that just seemed to happen, but it could have and should have been prevented. I blame myself entirely for that, Brianna.’

Hurt lanced through Brianna. Was this the same guy about whom she had been nurturing silly, girlish daydreams involving an improbable future? One where he stuck his hat on the door and decided to stay put, so that they could explore what they had? She felt her colour rise as mortification kicked in with a vengeance.

‘And why is that?’

‘Because I knew you for what you were, despite what you said. You told me that you were tough, that you weren’t looking for anything committed, that you wanted nothing more from me than sex, pure and simple. I chose to believe you because I was attracted to you. I chose to ignore the voice of reason telling me that you weren’t half as tough as you claimed to be.’ Even now—and he could see her stiffening as she absorbed what he was saying—there was still a softness to her mouth that belied anything hard.

He found that he just couldn’t remain sitting next to her. He couldn’t feel the warmth she was radiating without all his thoughts going into a tailspin.

‘I’m pretty tough, Leo. I’ve been on my own for a long time and I’ve managed fine.’

Leo prowled through the room, barely taking in the exquisite, breathtakingly expensive minimalist décor, and not paying a scrap of attention to the Serpentine glittering hundreds of metres in the distance, a black, broad stripe beyond the bank of trees.

‘You’ve taken over your father’s pub,’ he said heavily, finishing the rest of his drink in one long gulp and dumping the glass on the low, squat table between the sofa and the chairs. It was of beaten metal and had cost the earth. ‘You know how to handle hard work, but that’s not what I’m talking about and we both know that. I told you from the start that I was just passing through and that hasn’t changed. Not for me. I’m...I’m sorry.’

‘I understood the rules, Leo.’ Her cheeks were stinging and her hands didn’t want to keep still. She had to grip the glass tightly to stop them from shaking. ‘I just don’t get...’ she waved her hand to encompass the room in which they were sitting, with its floor-to-ceiling glass windows, its expensive abstract art and weirdly soulless, uncomfortable furniture ‘...all of this. What sort of job did you have before?’

Leo sighed and rubbed his eyes. It was late to begin this conversation. It didn’t feel like the right time, but then what would be the right time? In the morning? The following afternoon? A not-so-distant point in the future? There was no right time.

‘No past tense, Brianna.’

‘Sorry?’

‘There’s no past tense. I never gave my job up.’ He laughed mirthlessly at the notion of any such thing ever happening. He was defined by his work, always had been. Apart from the past few weeks, when he had played truant for the first time in his life.

‘You never gave your job up...but...?’

‘I run a very large and very complex network of companies, Brianna. I’m the boss. I own them. My employees report to me. That’s why I can afford all of this, as well as a house in the Caribbean, an apartment in New York and another in Hong Kong. Have another sip of that drink. It’ll steady your nerves. It’s a lot to take in, and I’m sorry about that, but like I said I never anticipated getting in so deep...I never thought that I would have to sit here and have this conversation with you, or anyone else, for that matter.’

Brianna took a swig of the brandy he had poured for her and felt it burn her throat. She had a thousand angry questions running through her head but they were all silenced by the one, very big realisation—he had lied to her. She didn’t know why, and she wasn’t even sure that it mattered, because nothing could change the simple truth that he had lied. She felt numb just thinking about it.

‘So you’re not a writer.’

‘Brianna, I’m sorry. No. The last time I did any kind of creative writing was when I was in school, and even then it had never been one of my stronger subjects.’ She wasn’t crying and somehow that made it all the harder. He had fired a lot of people in his time, had told aspiring employees that their aspirations were misplaced, but nothing had prepared him for what he was feeling now.

‘Right.’

Unable to keep still, he sprang to his feet and began pacing the room. His thoughts veered irrationally, comparing the cold, elegant beauty of his sitting room and the warm, untidy cosiness of the tiny lounge at the back of her pub, and he was instantly angry with himself for allowing that small loss of self-control.

He had had numerous girlfriends in the past. He had always told them that commitment wasn’t an option and, although quite a few had made the mistake of getting it into their heads that he might have been lying, he had never felt a moment’s regret in telling the deluded ones goodbye.

‘So what were you doing in Ballybay?’ she asked. ‘Did you just decide on the spur of the moment that you needed a break from...from the big apartment with the fancy paintings and all those companies you own? Did you think that you needed to get up close and personal with how the other half lives?’

She laughed bitterly. ‘Poor Leo. What a blow to have ended up stuck in my pub with no mod cons, having to clear snow and help with the washing up. How you must have missed your flash car and designer clothes! I bet you didn’t bank on having to stick around for as long as you did.’

‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.’

But he had flushed darkly and was finding it difficult to meet her fierce, accusatory green-eyed stare. ‘I’m sorry,’ Brianna apologised with saccharine insincerity. ‘I find it really hard to be sweet and smiling when I’ve just discovered that the guy I’ve been sleeping with is a liar.’

‘Which never made our passion any less incendiary.’

Her eyes tangled with his and she felt the hot, slow burn of an unwitting arousal that made her ball her hands into angry fists. Unbelievable: her body responding to some primitive vibe that was still running between them like a live current that couldn’t be switched off.

‘Why did you bother to make up some stupid story about being a writer?’ she flung at him. ‘Why didn’t you say that you were just another rich businessman who wanted to spend a few days slumming it and winding down? Why the fairy story? Was that all part of the let’s adopt a different persona?’ She kept her eyes firmly focused on his face but she was still taking in the perfection of the whole, the amazing body, the strong arms, the length of his legs. Knowing exactly what he looked like underneath the clothes didn’t help. ‘Well?’ she persisted in the face of his silence.

‘The story is a little more complex than a bid to take time out from my life here...’

‘What do you mean?’ She was overwhelmed by a wave of giddiness. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his face and she found that she was sitting ramrod erect, as rigid as a plank of wood, her hands positioned squarely on her knees.

‘There was a reason I came to Ballybay.’ Always in control of all situations, Leo scowled at the unpleasant and uncustomary sensation of finding himself on the back foot. Suddenly the clinical, expensive sophistication of his surroundings irritated the hell out of him. It was an unsuitable environment in which to be having this sort of highly personal conversation. But would ‘warm and cosy’ have made any difference? He had to do what he had to do. That was just the way life was. She would be hurt, but she was young and she would get over it. It wasn’t as though he had made her promises he had had no intention of keeping!

He unrealistically told himself that she might even benefit from the experience. She had not had a lover for years. He had crashed through that icy barrier and reintroduced her to normal, physical interaction between two people; had opened the door for her to move forward and get back out there in the real world, find herself a guy to settle down with...

That thought seemed spectacularly unappealing and he jettisoned it immediately. No point losing track of the moment and getting wrapped up in useless speculation and hypotheses.

‘A reason?’

‘I was looking for someone.’ He sat heavily on the chair facing hers and, as her posture was tense and upright, so his was the exact opposite as he leaned towards her, legs wide apart, his strong forearms resting on his thighs. He could feel her hurt withdrawal from him and it did weird things to his state of mind.

‘Who?’

‘It might help if I told you a little bit about myself, Brianna.’

‘You mean aside from the lies you’ve already told me?’

‘The lies were necessary, or at least it seemed so at the time.’

‘Lies are never necessary.’

‘And that’s a point we can possibly debate at a later date. For now, let me start by telling you that I was adopted at birth. It’s nothing that is a state secret, but the reason I came to Ballybay is because I traced my birth mother a few years ago and I concluded that finding her was something I had to do. Not while my adoptive parents were still alive. I loved them very much; I would never have wanted to hurt them in any way.’