Billionaire's Ultimate Acquisition

Isabelle compressed her lips until they hurt. ‘It won’t work. I’m not that silly little fool you deliberately set out to seduce ten years ago.’

His eyes went to her mouth, and then back to her eyes, something softening in the hard planes of his face as if he was remembering what they had shared. ‘I never thought you were a fool.’

She tried not to notice how deep and gravelly his voice had become. How his eyes had darkened to a deep inky blue, how his mouth looked so firm and yet so sensually contoured her own lips ached to feel their pressure against them. The primal need he aroused in her was frightening. Why couldn’t she control her response to him? Just being in his presence stirred her senses into mania. She became aware of every area of her flesh he had touched in the past, as if being in his presence activated sensors like a tracking device. She could smell the lime notes of his aftershave with its understory of something woodsy and clean and cool and fresh with the sharp tang of outdoors. He’d shaved that morning, but even so she could see the tiny pinpricks of stubble along his jaw and surrounding his mouth. She’d felt that sexy rasp against her skin, the way it had teased her flesh, catching on her softness, reminding her of all that was different between them.

Isabelle gave herself a mental shake-slap-shake. She had to stop thinking about the past and concentrate on here and now. He didn’t want her. He wanted her hotel. He was playing with her, luring her in with that deadly Chatsfield charm. She knew exactly what he was thinking. How much more malleable and cooperative would she be if she was in his bed? He would seduce her senseless to get her to sign anything, to agree to anything, in that dazed state of slavish infatuation she had demonstrated in the past. Before she knew it he would have reinvented her hotel into some lurid facsimile of a Chatsfield hotel. The Chatsfields were synonymous with style, spectacle and scandal. The Harrington’s reputation as an elegant and luxurious haven would be desecrated.

She straightened her shoulders. ‘I’ll get the duty manager to show you around the hotel.’

‘I want you.’

Isabelle upped her chin. How did he manage to make three words sound so blatantly sexual? ‘I have a prior engagement.’

Searing heat passed from his gaze to hers. ‘Cancel it.’

She gave him an arctic glare. ‘What are you going to do if I don’t? Fire me?’

The edge of his mouth lifted as if he was amused at having that sort of power over her. Isabelle didn’t find it amusing. She found it nauseating. ‘I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you what I want to do with you,’ he said with an enigmatic smile.

Her face flooded with heat. It was the one thing she prided herself on—maintaining her cool composure—and yet with a single look he could melt her resolve like a blowtorch on butter. Getting away from him before she betrayed herself was top priority. ‘Don’t you realise there are laws regarding sexual harassment in the workplace?’ she said.

His eyes studied hers for a pulsing moment. ‘Are you dating anyone?’

‘Yes.’ The lie was easy. Providing evidence would be the kicker. Isabelle did a quick run-through of her contacts. Surely there was someone she could call on to pose as a standin date. If not, she would try Internet dating. One way or the other she would find someone. How hard could it be?

If he was disappointed in her answer he certainly didn’t show it. ‘When will you be back from your appointment?’

‘Why?’

‘I’d like to run through some ideas with you.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘What sort of ideas?’

He gave a soft laugh. ‘Anyone would think I had a bulldozer waiting at the front door to plough down the place as soon as your back was turned.’

She gave him a hardened look. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me. There isn’t a lot of subtlety about your methods.’

His crooked smile made something inside her chest tighten so she couldn’t inflate her lungs. ‘I’ll meet you in my office at five p.m. There are other things I have to see to first.’

‘Fine.’ Isabelle gave his legs a pointed look. ‘Do you mind?’

He pulled them back towards the desk and waved a hand for her to pass. ‘After you.’

She eyeballed him. ‘I’m not leaving you alone in my office.’

‘What?’ The twinkling look was back in his eyes. ‘Do you think I’m going to go through your drawers?’

Isabelle blushed so hotly she could feel it prickling over her scalp. She sucked in a breath and made to go past him but he stood just as she did. He towered over her, his body so close to hers she could feel the warmth of it radiating towards her like the glow of a sun lamp.

He grazed the back of her tightly clenched hand with a lazy fingertip. ‘Isn’t it time we quit with the pistols-at-dawn routine? We’re batting for the same team now.’

Isabelle pulled her hand back close to her body and glared at him, her lips so tight she could barely spit the words out. ‘I despise everything about you. This is nothing but a game to you. You’ve deliberately set out to gain the advantage, working in the background using whatever means you could to outwit me. But I’m not giving up without a fight. You might control the majority share but you can’t control me.’

His eyes blazed back, the first sign she had nettled his cool control. ‘That’s rich coming from you. Who was the one who tried to undermine me by using their friend to get the scoop on my brother James? But that spectacularly backfired, didn’t it?’

Isabelle gave a cough of scornful laughter. ‘And what about you? Getting your brother Ben to pretend to be engaged to my sister to drum up a press fest? But that didn’t work out quite the way you planned, did it? He and Olivia fell in love for real.’

‘More fool them.’

‘Oh, yes, that’s exactly what you would say, isn’t it? You’re the “use them and lose them” type.’

‘Damn it, Isabelle,’ he said. ‘I did not use you.’

She drew herself up to her full height, giving him a fulminating glare. ‘How much did you win?’

His savage frown made him appear older than his thirty-four years. ‘Look, it was a silly joke between a couple of mates. It was crass and I’m sorry you found out about it.’

Isabelle’s eyes flared in outrage. ‘You’re sorry I found out about it? How about being sorry for actually doing it, damn it!’

He scraped a hand through his dark brown hair as he let out a muttered curse. ‘All right,’ he said heavily. ‘I’m sorry.’

Isabelle refused to be mollified with an apology that was ten years too late. As far as she was concerned he could never atone for what he’d done—for how he’d made her feel. For the emotional trauma she went through. Putting the pregnancy aside—because she did not think about that anymore—she had lost the little confidence she’d had. It had taken her years to date again and even now she avoided the whole process of trying to establish trust with someone she didn’t know. She could never relax, to be herself. She was always on guard in case someone took advantage of her. These days she used men like Spencer had used her. Sex was sex. It was a physical need she satisfied just as she would thirst or hunger—when she felt like it. Not that she put herself out there much. She could barely recall the last time she’d had sex except to remember it wasn’t particularly satisfying.

‘You can keep your apology,’ she said. ‘As far as I’m concerned we can never be anything but enemies. There isn’t a person on this earth I hate more.’

‘You know what they say about keeping your enemies close.’

Isabelle gave him a withering look. ‘Dream on, Chatsfield. I’m already taken.’

CHAPTER TWO (#u956bd1d6-010a-5c86-b315-56562d5db4bb)

SPENCER PRESSED HIS lips together as the door slammed in his face. That went well, he thought. He let out a long sigh and turned around and surveyed the neat organised office Isabelle had just stormed out of in spite of insisting she wouldn’t leave him in it alone. The polished antique furniture and the classic soft furnishings were a visible statement of Old Money. A little old-fashioned for his taste but he could see the appeal for the highend market.

Isabelle thought he was playing at hotels, did she? She hadn’t pulled in a decent profit since her father died the year before. He didn’t want to rub her nose in it but if she didn’t ease off with the insults he would have to take his gloves off. He wasn’t going to have his name associated with anything that wasn’t successful. He had a point to prove to his family and he was not going to let little axe-grinding Isabelle Harrington stand in his way.

It had been fun outmanoeuvring her over the past few months. He liked the challenge of outsmarting her. She gave as good as she got, which secretly impressed him. He hadn’t noticed that streak of stubbornness in her ten years ago.

Ten years.

How could it have been that long? She was even more beautiful at thirty-two. Her black hair was as glossy as a raven’s wing; her brown eyes were the colour of a single-malt whisky, her skin as clear and pure as porcelain. She had a slender figure, not rail thin but curves where a man wanted curves to be.

How could he have forgotten how gorgeous she was? When he’d seen her seven months ago he’d felt the same knockout punch to his guts. The way she walked into the boardroom earlier snatched his breath clean away. Not that he’d shown it, of course. If she knew half of what he was thinking he’d be toast. Her hair had been swinging around her head and shoulders in layered waves, her lush mouth primed in a confident smile. Had she just come from her lover’s bed? He hadn’t heard a whisper about her love life. He’d got the impression she lived and breathed work. The thought of her with someone else was like a sudden toothache—annoying, distracting, painful. He wasn’t the jealous type…or at least he hadn’t been until now. He’d never had a reason to be. He didn’t hold any woman long enough for the right to feel a sense of loyalty from her.

But for the past few months something about Isabelle had gnawed away at him, a nibble at a time. He liked that she was prepared to stand up to him. She tried to countermove him at every point. She was smart, she was disciplined and she was tactical. She wasn’t intimidated by the Chatsfield name, although she had no idea he had no real claim on it. No one, apart from his brother Ben, knew Michael Chatsfield wasn’t Spencer’s real father.

The empty feeling he got whenever he allowed that thought to drift into his mind was like having his guts scraped out with a rusty spoon. The loss of his identity, ripped away from him when he’d overheard a few angrily thrown words between his parents as an adult. His parents. What a sick joke. His mother had always acted towards him as if he were an embarrassment to her. She could barely bring herself to touch him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been shown any affection or warmth. It took until that wretched Christmas when he was twenty-nine to figure out why. It didn’t matter how hard he worked to please her or his father. He could ace straight A’s in school and bring home every sporting trophy he could get his hands on. Nothing made either of them proud and accepting of him. Nothing he did ever made him feel loved or wanted.

It annoyed him that he still struggled with it. He felt he should have put it behind him by now. He was moving on with his life. He had goals and plans. He didn’t need his mother or Michael.