Her Deal with the Devil

‘Haven’t had time.’ She picked up her glass again, using it as a security measure. ‘Work keeps me busy.’

‘Will you fling that macaron at me if I quote you the old “all work and no play” angle?’

‘No, because I’ve heard it all before.’ Her fingers clutched the glass so tightly her knuckles stood out. ‘Besides, I play.’

Defensive and nervous. Yep, definitely not the woman he remembered.

‘How?’

She frowned. ‘How what?’

‘How do you play? What do you do for kicks?’

The fact that she screwed up her nose to think and took for ever to answer spoke volumes.

‘You’re a workaholic.’

She puffed up with indignation. ‘I do other stuff.’

‘Like?’

‘Yoga. Pilates. Meditation.’

He laughed, unable to mesh a vision of the long-striding, book-wielding girl going places with an image of Sapphire sitting still long enough to contemplate anything beyond Sea-borns’ profit margins.

‘What’s so funny?’

He shrugged and stirred his espresso. ‘You’re different than how I remember.’

Tension pinched the corners of her mouth. ‘I was a kid back then.’

‘No, you were a young woman on the verge of greatness. And I’m having a hard time reconciling my memory of you then with who you are now.’

He willed her to look at him, and when she did the fear in her gaze made him want to bundle her into his arms.

Closely followed by a mental what the hell? He’d learned the last time that Sapphire didn’t value his comfort and he’d be an idiot to be taken in by her vulnerability again. For all he knew she could be using it as a ploy to soften him up before the presentation tomorrow.

‘I’m still the same person in here,’ she murmured, pressing her hand to her chest. But the slight wobble of her bottom lip told him otherwise.

She wasn’t the same, not by a long shot, and it irked that deep down, in a metrosexual place he rarely acknowledged, he actually cared. Crazy when he didn’t really know her, had never known her beyond being someone to tease unmercifully for the simple fact she’d made it easy.

He could have probed and prodded and grilled her some more, but she seemed so defenceless, so broken, he didn’t have the heart to do it.

So he reverted to type.

‘Maybe it’s the casual exercise gear that threw me?’ He winked. ‘I much prefer you in a school uniform.’

‘You’re a sick man,’ she said, the glint of amusement in her eyes vindication that he’d done the right thing in not pushing her.

‘Well, then, maybe you should don a nurse’s uniform instead and—’

‘Unbelievable.’ She pursed lips in disapproval and his chest tightened inexplicably. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’

‘You have.’ On impulse he touched the back of her hand and she eased it away, grabbing a teaspoon to scoop milk froth off the top of her cappuccino.

‘Ten years is a long time—what did you expect? To find me dissecting frogs and acing element quizzes?’

He couldn’t figure why she vacillated all over the place but there was something wrong here, some part of the bigger picture he wasn’t seeing, and if he were relying on her to help push Fourde Fashion into the stratosphere he needed to know what he was dealing with.

It was good business sense. It was an excuse for his concern and he was sticking to it.

‘Did you stop to consider my kiss may have ruined you for other men?’

Her eyes widened in shock at his deliberately outrageous taunt a second before she picked up several sugar sachets and flung them. He caught the lot in one hand.

He’d wanted a reaction and he’d got it. It was a start.

‘Newsflash: that kiss meant nothing. You caught me at a bad time and it ended up being two hormonal teens making out in a moment of madness.’ She crossed her arms and glared, outraged and defiant. ‘And I think it’s poor form, you bringing it up a decade later when we’re potentially on the verge of working together.’

‘Another thing that’s changed. You used to be brutally honest. Saying that kiss meant nothing?’ He tsk-tsked. ‘Never thought I’d see the day when you told a fib.’

He baited her again, wondering how far she’d go before he got a glimpse at the truth. He moved the sugar out of her reach just in case.

‘I’m not playing this game with you.’ She slammed her palms on the table and leaned forward, blue eyes flashing fire. ‘No reminiscing or teasing. No pretending to be buddies. And definitely no talk of kissing.’

She waved a hand between them.

‘You and me? Potential work colleagues. Our aim? To make our businesses a lot of money. So quit pretending to be my best buddy, because I don’t need a friend—I need a guarantee.’

Ouch. This brutal honesty he remembered.

‘Of what?’

‘That you’ll give me a fair hearing tomorrow and you’ll judge my presentation on merit and not on our past rel—friendship.’

‘You can say it, you know.’ He cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify his exaggerated whisper. ‘Rel-a-tion-ship.’

When she swore, he almost fist-pumped the air. This was more like it. Sapphire riled and feisty. He could handle her this way, firing quips and barbs to get a rise. The withdrawn, almost melancholic woman she’d been a few minutes ago confused the hell out of him.

‘This is important to me,’ she said, her tone low and ominous. ‘You may have it easy, being given a subsidiary of your folks’ company to play with while you’re in Melbourne for however long you care to stick around. Me? Seaborns is everything, and I’ll do whatever it takes, including aligning our jewellery with your fashion, to ensure my company is never threatened again.’

Not much made Patrick quick to anger—bar anyone casting aspersions on how hard he worked.

He’d had a gutful of people doubting him. Doubting his capabilities, doubting his creativity, doubting his business brain.

It was why he’d leapt at the chance to head up this new branch. It was why his main goal was to show the world what he was made of. He intended to prove all the doubters wrong—including his parents.

Patrick Fourde had left the mistakes of his past behind and he had what it took to be a success beyond the family name and all it stood for.