Only it had turned out she’d made other plans.
Mission clearly accomplished, she had been sneaking out through the back door.
Watching her clutch the arm of a floppy-haired young man as she climbed into his made-you-look orange Lamborghini, he’d been devastated.
He took another mouthful of coffee and swallowed, wishing it could wash away the bitterness in his heart.
It had only been later, when the scandal had broken and he’d had time to think, that he’d realised he had been set up. All of it—her kissing him, her taking his phone—had just been an attempt to distract him, and as soon as his back had been turned it had been time for her to go. She’d even made up some lame excuse to Alicia about feeling ill.
The fact that he had been so easily duped had bruised his ego, but it had been the disconnect between the seemingly sweet child he’d once known and the woman she had become that had been most unsettling.
He would never forgive Mimi and her relatives for what they had done. Their greed and duplicity had nearly ruined his family. But it was the knowledge of how close he’d come to having unprotected sex with her, and the possible consequences of that act, that had convinced him to come to this lunch.
This time he was going to protect his family—and teach her a lesson for taking him as a fool.
‘Okay, fine.’
Mimi’s voice pulled him back to the present and, tipping his head back, he met her gaze.
‘Okay fine, what?’ he asked softly.
‘I’m willing to call a truce if you are. But I don’t really see any point in us dragging this conversation out any longer.’
‘I disagree. We need to discuss you filming the wedding. She’s serious, you know?’ he added. ‘About wanting you to do it.’
She raised her chin, and he felt the shock of her forget-me-not-blue eyes zigzag through his body like a jolt of electricity.
‘I know she is, but whatever she said about it being your idea, I know it wasn’t, so you don’t need to worry. I’m not going to do it.’
She glanced away, and he felt his shoulders stiffen against the crisp white poplin of his shirt. Her desire to leave was so tangible it felt like a living, breathing thing on the table between them, and had this conversation been happening at any point up until a couple of days ago he would have been showing her the door. Hell, he would have been holding it open for her.
But that had been before he’d spoken to Alicia.
His jaw tightened. After his mother’s death, and the series of strokes that had left his father’s health permanently impaired, he had sworn to protect his sister and do everything in his power to make her happy. And he still felt the same way—perhaps even more so. It was, after all, partly his fault that their father was so fragile and that the business was only just now recovering its former strength.
Clearly he’d rather Mimi wasn’t within a hundred miles of the wedding, but Alicia’s happiness and his family’s reputation were all that mattered to him. Suggesting Mimi film the wedding had been the first thing to come to mind as he had tried to stem his sister’s tears and find an alternative to Mimi being maid of honour.
But now that he’d had time to think the idea of her filming the wedding was actually appealing on other levels too—for wouldn’t it be safer to have her fully occupied rather than just floating around unsupervised, as she had been at his sister’s twenty-first birthday party?
And who better to do the supervising than him? That way he could ensure her behaviour wouldn’t bring his family’s name into disrepute, and make her life as difficult and uncomfortable as she had made his.
‘It was my idea,’ he said softly.
She looked up at him, her blue eyes widening with scorn at what she obviously took to be a bare-faced lie.
‘Of course it was. I mean you love having me around. That was obvious after—’
She broke off, frowning.
‘After what?’ he asked slowly.
Inhaling a shaky breath, she shook her head. ‘So tell me, then, Basa, why exactly do you want me to film your sister’s wedding?’
He shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘What do you mean, “why not”?’
‘I mean why wouldn’t you do it?’ he said patiently.