Well, this was off to a great start. Go me.
I gripped the wheel tightly, trying to hang on to my determination to keep this low-key and not a big deal. ‘I’m not Bill.’
‘No,’ he said flatly, his attention still on the screen. ‘You’re not.’
Okay, well, I was just going to have to go for it. I didn’t want to let Dad down, not again.
‘I need a favour,’ I said, throwing caution to the winds. ‘I need to talk to you about an investment.’
That caught his attention.
His head lifted, electric gaze coming straight to mine. ‘What?’
Time for my spiel.
‘So, my family makes supercars, all built by hand in our workshop in Sydney, and we were lucky enough to get a cash injection from your venture capital firm a few years ago. But, business hasn’t been great and we’re not able to make the returns that were expected.’ Shit, I was talking too fast; I needed to slow down. ‘So, we tried contacting Evans Investment to give us some more time before the investment was withdrawn, but they weren’t very receptive. I thought that if I spoke to you directly—’
‘That I would automatically be fine with potentially losing my investment?’ he interrupted, his voice sharp, hard, the look in his eyes cutting me to shreds. ‘Is that why you had sex with me?’
A cold shock pulsed down my spine.
Did he really think that?
But there was no mistaking the icy blue light glittering in his eyes. Not just annoyance or irritation, but genuine anger.
Yes, he really did think that.
We’d come to a red light so I was able to give him my full attention. ‘No,’ I said fiercely, forgetting all about the need to keep things light and no drama. ‘I had sex with you because I wanted to. Not for any other reason.’
But there were storms in his eyes, electric tension gathering in the air inside the car. ‘Are you sure? It’s been done before.’
Anger gnawed at me. How dare he think that? I would never use sex to get what I wanted and certainly not after Mark. ‘No,’ I repeated, with more force this time. ‘That’s...oh, my God, that’s the last thing I would ever do.’
He ignored that. ‘Do you know how many people have tried to use me to get what they want over the years?’ His voice was cold and gritty as sleet, his accent even more cut-glass than normal. ‘Many, many people, Miss Little. Believe me, you’re not the first.’
Heat surged through my cheeks. ‘I wasn’t intending to have sex with you. I just wanted to talk to you.’
‘But you didn’t, did you? You liked the idea of my cock instead.’
I struggled to get a handle on my anger. ‘So? It’s just sex, mate. Like you said, no big deal. So, could we talk about the investment that Dad—?’
‘No,’ he cut me off, the word cold as an arctic frost. ‘We will not talk about the investment. We will not talk about anything at all. This conversation, Miss Little, is done.’
Behind me someone honked their horn and I realised the light had turned green, leaving me no choice but to begin driving again.
I slammed my foot on the gas, trying to get a grip on my boiling emotions, very conscious that if I let rip the way I wanted to, I was in danger of screwing this up completely.
I couldn’t do what I’d done with Mark and let my anger get the better of me. Certainly kneeing Mr Evans in the balls wouldn’t help, which meant I needed to try something else, think of another angle that might interest him.
There is something else.
No, I couldn’t tell him about my personal project, not after Dad had poured scorn on it. It wouldn’t work and was going to end up being a huge waste of money, that was what Dad had said.
Still, I didn’t have that many options. And besides, I had to fix this. Especially since it was my fault that this was a problem in the first place.
‘I have my own project,’ I said into the silence, ignoring the nervous tension in my gut. ‘I’m designing an electric supercar. I think it could be a game changer, but Dad won’t fund it because he doesn’t approve. Not that he has the money, anyway, but if I could just get some backing for a prototype, it could turn Australis around, I’m sure of it.’
Silence from the back seat.