‘Good to see you did not fib your way in this time,’ she said. It was the first thing that came into her head as her heart lurched at the sight of him. She made an exaggerated gesture with one slender arm. ‘Be my guest.’
He pushed past her and she caught the slightest scent of his cologne—sandalwood, maybe. Whatever it was, it had a disturbing effect on her. Her stomach fluttered as if a thousand butterflies had taken up residence, and angrily she told herself not to be so stupid.
This was business. Zac had said so, and her father had told her he would check him out with her. The female on Zac’s arm last night confirmed he had certainly moved on in the sexual stakes…Sally would bet her last cent the willowy model had not said no.
‘Sarcasm does not become you, Sally.’
‘How would you know? You don’t know me,’ she snapped angrily, following him into the living room. He had removed his wet jacket and was in the process of looping it over the small stair rail, his back to her.
Slowly he turned round and stared at her with narrowed eyes, his expression unreadable.
‘Maybe not completely…’ His eyes narrowed further, scanning her slender body with deliberate provocation and making her remember their last encounter here. ‘But I am going to—very well…’ His smile was chilling.
‘Not in this lifetime,’ she said, her temper rising, the image of him with his latest conquest still in the forefront of her mind.
He took a step towards her. ‘You have spoken to your father?’ he queried, his dark eyes fixed intently on her flushed face.
The mention of her dad was enough to make her tense, and it didn’t help that, minus his jacket, the black cotton tee shirt Zac wore moulded every muscle of his broad chest. She tried to ignore his much superior height and strength, but the sheer physical impact of the man was enough to make her go weak at the knees. ‘Yes, of course I have,’ she said bravely, holding his gaze.
‘And you think you have a choice?’ he demanded, with a mocking lift of one dark eyebrow.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ And she didn’t. Simply looking at the damn man turned her brain to jelly. Gathering every shred of control she possessed, she continued. ‘All I know is my father called me and told me he had given you my phone number. I didn’t bother to tell him you already knew it,’ she slotted in sarcastically. ‘Then he told me everything.’
‘Everything? And you still think you have a choice?’ he queried, his dark eyes holding her.
‘Yes,’ she declared emphatically. ‘Apparently, you are renowned for cutting the workforce or closing a place down altogether when you take over a company, and he is worried about his job. He may not be much of a husband, but I can assure you my mother is in a private nursing home and he does pay the fees. Whatever else my dad is, he is a good accountant. In fact, I don’t know why you bothered coming here. We could just as easily have had this conversation over the telephone.’
Dark eyes full of contempt held hers for a long tense moment. ‘You amaze me,’ he finally drawled, and a frisson of alarm ran down her spine as his face darkened thunderously. ‘You really don’t give a damn.’
Pride made her face him, but inside she was shaking and her legs threatened to give way. ‘If you are referring to my father…not particularly,’ she responded, and she was not about to explain why. ‘Now, if there is nothing more, I would like you to leave.’
Not waiting for his response, she turned and crossed to the sofa. Picking up the remote control, she switched off the television. She needed to do something to escape Zac’s overpowering physical presence, and just prayed he would go—before her legs gave way beneath her and she collapsed in a heap at his feet.
‘There is something more,’ he said bitingly, turning his black head with chilling slowness to look at her with hard dark eyes. ‘A lot more,’ he added, walking towards her. ‘The not inconsiderable sum of over one million pounds, stolen from the company, and how you can continue to live the way you do with your father in prison.’
Chapter Seven
PRIDE held Sally’s head high, though the mention of a million pounds and prison had shocked her to the core. Her father was a fool over women, but she had never thought he was a thief. But then she had no idea to what depths he could sink in pursuit of his sybaritic lifestyle. She wouldn’t put anything past him…
‘Perfectly,’ she answered Zac’s question. ‘Contrary to what you believe, my farther does not give me a penny and nor would I want him to. I can’t stand him. He is everything I loathe in a man—a chauvinistic, womanising, unfaithful creep. Unfortunately, my mother loves him, and I love my mother, so I am obliged to be civil to him but that is all. I would not throw him a lifebelt if he was drowning, so whatever he has done is of no consequence to me,’ she declared, letting all her anger and bitterness at her father spill out. ‘I have taken care of myself for years now, and will continue to do so.’
‘How?’ His upper lip curled in a sneer. ‘On your back?’
Her hand shot out and slapped his arrogant face. ‘How dare you?’ she spat, and hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her. She sounded like an outraged virgin…which she was.
His head jerked back in surprise, and before she knew what was happening he caught her shoulders and dragged her towards him.
‘No one strikes me and gets away with it,’ he grated through his teeth. ‘Consider yourself lucky. If you were a man I’d have knocked you cold by now.’ His dark eyes leaping with barely controlled rage, he added with deadly emphasis, ‘But there are alternatives.’
Sally’s pulse raced and she began to panic, seeing the menace and the threat of violence in his body. Frantically, she lashed out and tried to punch him, but his hands slipped down her back, pinioning her arms at her sides. His dark head bent and his mouth caught hers to inflict its own powerful method of retaliation.
She tried to twist her head away from his ruthless searching mouth, but Zac was stronger, and he kept her trapped against him, unable to escape the vengeful dominance of his savage kiss.
When he finally stopped ravaging her mouth she was left gasping for breath, her legs like rubber. Still held against him, she could feel the heavy thud of his heart even as her own raced. Then something strange happened. Their eyes met and fused, and her heart leapt crazily at the predatory sexual aw
areness in his. She stared, wide-eyed, and to her shame it wasn’t disgust that made her tremble but the heat of arousal curling in her pelvis.
A fierce tension arced in the air between them. How did he manage to affect her like this? His touch was like being struck by lightning, igniting a flame inside her every time he came near her. Mortified by her own weakness, with a terrific effort of will she made herself rigid in his hold. But her control was not needed. As she watched his expression changed from primitive male aggression to one of icy control…he was every inch the hard-faced captain of industry once more.