Billionaire's Ultimate Acquisition

He rubbed his chin between his index finger and thumb in a musing fashion, the sound of his stubble catching on his skin making Isabelle’s insides coil tightly with desire. She remembered all too well how sexy his raspy skin felt against her smoother one. How it had left red marks on her face when he’d kissed her. Why, oh, why couldn’t she forget? If only she could wipe her memory of him, of all she had experienced in his arms, then maybe she could get through this with at least some fragment of her pride intact.

‘I was thinking something a little more classy,’ he said.

She gave him a contemptuous look. ‘Somehow that’s not a word I readily associate with you.’

The line of his mouth hardened a fraction but then his phone rang and he dismissed her with a look as he answered it. ‘I released a press statement this morning,’ he said to the person on the phone. ‘I already gave an interview half an hour ago. Yes, that’s right. Miss Harrington is delighted with the outcome and is as we speak organising a ball to celebrate the takeover.’

Isabelle glared at him, mouthing, ‘What the …?’

He held up his hand like a stop sign. ‘Yes, we have an excellent working relationship…Yes, you can quote me.’ He clicked off his phone and slipped it back in his trouser pocket. ‘Journalists. I swear I’ve had fifty calls and it’s not even lunchtime.’

She flattened her mouth. ‘You told them I was happy about this? Are you out of your mind? Who’s going to believe it?’

‘Do you know nothing about marketing?’

Isabelle aligned her shoulders, bristling with impotent rage. ‘You have no right to speak to the press on my behalf. I’ll give my own exclusive interview when I’m good and ready and tell them what a prize jerk you are.’

A muscled tightened near his mouth and his blue eyes hardened to flint. ‘You want people to come to this hotel?’ he said. ‘Then you have to show them this is a place that’s buzzing. Not with gossip and innuendo but with a can-do vibe. Show a little professionalism, Isabelle. You’ve got a good product but you’re not showcasing it to its potential.’

She glared at him all the more furiously, her heart pounding with a surge of adrenalin. ‘So you’re basically telling me I’m crap at my job? Is that what you’re saying?’

He raised his eyes to the ceiling in a God-give-me-patience manner. ‘Look, let’s sit down and discuss this like two adults and …’

She planted her hands on her hips. ‘So now you’re implying I’m childish.’

He drew in a deep breath and released it. ‘You’re giving a very fine impression of a kid having a tantrum because things haven’t gone your way. Quit it with the teddy tossing so we can get on with the job of running this hotel.’

Isabelle stepped right up to him, poking a finger to his sternum. ‘Take that back. Now.’

He stood like a block of marble. Intractable. Immovable. His steely gaze holding hers in an unwavering lock that made the floor of her belly shiver like a breeze whispering across the surface of a lake. ‘I’m not apologising for stating a fact,’ he said. ‘Grow up or get out.’

She drilled her finger further into the concrete-hard wall of his chest. ‘You want me to leave? Then you’ll have to carry me out because I’m not go—hey! What the hell are you doing? Put me down!’

He scooped her up and carried her fireman-style to the door of his suite. Isabelle drummed his back and shoulders with her fists, kicking her legs up and down like a kid having a tantrum—the irony of which didn’t escape her—but she was beyond caring. How dare he treat her like this? What if one of her staff saw her carried out of his suite like a sack of potatoes? She would never live it down. Hatred surged like a flood inside her. It threatened to burst out of every pore of her skin. She dug her fingernails into his back, intent on inflicting as much physical hurt as the emotional hurt he was inflicting on her.

He let out a vicious curse and dumped her unceremoniously on the floor in front of him. The only reason she landed on her feet and not on her head was because he had dragged her down the front of his body, every hard plane and contour coming into contact with hers. ‘Stop it, you crazy little wildcat,’ he growled.

Isabelle was breathing hard. How she would love to wipe that imperious look off his too-handsome face, but his hands had shackled hers. She felt the steel bracelet of his fingers overlapping her wrists where her pulse was skyrocketing. His touch burned her, ignited her senses into a heated frenzy. She knew if she didn’t get away from him she would shamefully betray herself.

She tried to bring her knee to his groin but he countered it by pushing her back against the office door, his arms pinning hers either side of her head in a cage of latent male strength. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

She gave him a gimlet glare, trying to ignore the warm minty scent of his breath as it mingled with hers. Trying to ignore the unbearable temptation of his grimly set mouth. Desperately trying to ignore the ridge of his swelling erection in response to her being flush against him. Her body recognised the primal call of the flesh, of the urge of raw earthy lust she had suppressed for most of her adult life. He triggered it like no one else could. It was a force that was as unstoppable as a rising king tide. She could feel it moving in her blood, the pulse of need so strong, so consuming, it overcame any mental obstacle she had put up to resist him. Her pelvis ached to get even closer as the heat and potency of his arousal hardened. The air was so thick with erotic tension it all but vibrated. ‘You never used to be so caveman-ish,’ she said. ‘Or have things got so desperate you have to club your partners into submission?’

His eyes dipped to her mouth, his hands around her wrists loosening a fraction. ‘I really want to kiss you right now but something tells me that would be dangerous.’

She gave him an arch look. ‘Because I’ll scratch your eyes out?’

He gave a low chuckle of laughter. ‘That’s not the only risk.’ He tipped up her chin, his thumb pressing down on her lower lip, on and off like he was pressing a switch. ‘Kissing can lead to other things.’

‘Face slaps?’

His smile was ruefully lopsided. ‘I probably deserved it given the circumstances.’

Isabelle frowned. ‘What circumstances? You wanted my hotel and you brazenly came after it. What other circumstances can there be other than your bull-headed arrogance?’

He dropped his hold and stepped back from her. ‘Your brother gave me the impression you were okay with the takeover.’

Her frown deepened. ‘What? And you believed him given our history?’

He rubbed a hand over the top of his head. ‘Yeah, I know. Dumb of me, but I didn’t know he knew about our history. Hardly anyone did, remember?’

Isabelle remembered all too well, and when their fling had ended she was immensely grateful for it. For some reason Spencer had kept her out of the eye of the press, unusual for him at the time. Also unusual was the fact their relationship hadn’t been a one-, two-or three-night stand. It had actually been a relationship…or so she had thought. He had seen her for close to a month, every night, even during the day when his work schedule and her study timetable allowed. That was why her expectations had been so ridiculously high, foolishly naively high. He had never shown any other girl the attention he had shown her. He had made her feel as if she was someone special. He had bought her gorgeous jewellery and bunch after bunch of flowers, expensive chocolates, champagne suppers, taken her dancing till the wee hours in exclusive intimate clubs where the press didn’t harass them. She had allowed herself to think he was falling in love with her. She had even thought he was going to propose to her, that he was only biding his time so as not to rush her. How could she have not seen it for what it was? No wonder he’d kept her away from the press. He hadn’t wanted his reputation as a playboy tainted by such seemingly smitten behaviour.

All her girlhood dreams of being swept off her feet by a handsome man who saw her as his soul mate were destroyed when she’d heard about the wager. The hurt had been devastating. Crushing. Cutting her hopes to shreds. Leaving her bitter and angry and feeling exploited in a way she had never felt before. She had given him everything of herself and yet she had been little more to him than a game.

But then to add salt to an already festering wound, a couple of weeks after their breakup she’d found out she was pregnant. The shock had been paralysing. She did a total of twenty tests, one after the other, day after day, week after week, desperately hoping it was a mistake, that she’d somehow misread the results. But each and every time the two lines would appear.

Her mind couldn’t accept it even as her body started to show the signs—the nausea, the breast tenderness, the relentless tiredness. How could she possibly be pregnant? The question had been on a constant loop in her brain. They had used protection every time. It couldn’t possibly be true. She went even further into a state of denial, burying herself deep in it in the desperate hope that things would magically return to normal.

Week after week went past and still she kept the knowledge to herself, unable to think of how to handle a baby and her career, not to mention telling Spencer he was to become a father.

Her confusion over the prospect of becoming a mother and thus being tied to Spencer for ever through the bond of their child had added another layer of anguish. She didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of a termination but neither did she want to be in contact with Spencer. Ever.

But just as she was starting to get her head and heart around the idea of being a mother she’d lost the baby just before the four-month mark. She told no one but Sophie. The only thing she had left of her tiny baby was an ultrasound image. It had been a little girl.

‘In hindsight I should’ve realised you wouldn’t let the hotel go without a fight,’ Spencer said into the bruised silence. ‘But he was pretty convincing, said you were on board with it. That you thought it was a good move forward for The Harrington.’

Isabelle rolled her eyes and moved away from the door, pointedly rubbing at her wrists where his hands had imprisoned her. ‘Did you think of calling me first to see what I thought about it?’

He looked at her for a long moment. ‘Would you have taken my call?’

She let out a long whoosh of a breath. ‘You may have a point.’

Another little silence passed.

‘I know you’re angry about the way things have been handled,’ he said. ‘I would be too, if the roles were reversed. But I want this to work, Isabelle. I want to make The Harrington a success. But I can’t do that if you’re working against me. We have to do this as a team or not at all.’

Isabelle pulled at her lower lip with her teeth. ‘What if we don’t share the same vision for the hotel? You’re a Chatsfield. You have that brand hardwired in your DNA.’

‘It’s not as hardwired as you think.’

She looked at the suddenly grim set to his mouth, the hardened line of his jaw, as if he regretted his statement. ‘What do you mean?’

A distant look came into his eyes as if he had cordoned off a section of his personality: No Entry. Even the way he folded his arms across his broad chest warned her about going any further. ‘Tell me what your vision for the hotel is. Give it to me in three words.’

Isabelle smoothed her hands down the side of her pencil-slim skirt. ‘Private. Exclusive. Luxurious.’

He gave a slow nod. ‘How is that different from any of your closest competitors?’