CHAPTER THREE
‘THIS IS RIDICULOUS!’
Franco Chatsfield was not a happy man.
They’d been talking all afternoon it seemed, Franco talking the deal up, dollar signs plastered thickly to every word, while Gus had listened eagerly, hanging on every gold-plated promise. Holly, meanwhile, had been busy hosing down Franco’s excess enthusiasm and finding flaws in the deal and still Franco’s signature was the only one so far on the contract.
It hadn’t been easy. Franco Chatsfield had made his offer sound better than good. He’d made it sound like it was the deal of a lifetime as he’d laid out figures and facts and promised an endless stream of dollars if only they would both sign on the dotted line.
To Gus it must have sounded like a dream come true, the culmination and validation of his life’s work.
Holly could understand why. She could see that in isolation, if the money was all that mattered, then the dollars looked amazing.
But that didn’t mean she was about to buckle. There was more to success than dollars, and she remembered a time when adverse publicity had almost ruined them. As long as the offer was coming from Chatsfield, a once-grand name now more synonymous with headlines and scandal, it was hard to see how they could ever do business.
Why didn’t her grandfather see it that way?
Half an hour ago the helicopter had departed, and Franco, stony-faced, had watched it take off and still the discussions wore on, and all the time she’d watched the skin of his face pull progressively tighter across his bones, until the tendons in his neck had become taut and corded and stained red with tension and he’d looked like a volcano about to erupt.
And then Gus had excused himself, promising to be back, and before Holly could wonder what he’d gone off in search of, Franco had erupted. He’d slammed his fist on the table and leapt from his chair, his eyes wild and jaw rigid as finally he gave in to the temptation to blow. ‘A complete and utter waste of time,’ he snarled as he prowled before the fire like a lion cheated of its kill. ‘We’re getting nowhere,’ he said, his back to her as he raked fingers through his long hair. He spun around and pinned his cold, winter-grey eyes on her, and she was struck anew by his height and power and his ability to eat up the space around him and shrink it down till there was just him and the fire and a hot lick of flame she could almost feel on her skin. ‘What is your problem?’ he growled. It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation.
Vaguely she was aware of a phone ringing but then it stopped and she knew Gus must have picked it up in the study.
Franco was still staring at her, hostile eyes demanding an answer. Holly didn’t bother with a smile. While there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that she’d stymied this man’s smug expectations of walking out of here with exactly what he wanted, something told her that smiling would not go down well right now.
But that didn’t mean she had to cower.
‘Seems to me, I’m not the one with a problem.’
‘You think? Because you would have to be the most intransigent, uncooperative, stubborn woman I have ever met.’
‘Why, thank you.’
‘That wasn’t a compliment.’
She arched an eyebrow over one glacier-blue eye. ‘I take them where I can find them.’
He snorted and turned away. Little wonder. The way she looked in those oversize, drab work clothes, compliments were no doubt thin on the ground.
He strode past the fireplace. He needed this contract signed and he’d get it signed, come hell or high water, and he refused to be beaten by a woman who’d dug her heels in from the very start. But how to make her shift her position?
The old man was already in his pocket. He just had to sway her.
The old man …
And he spun back around, finding a new weapon in his arsenal, a new direction from which to attack now that the old man had left the room and they were alone. ‘Why are you so against this deal?’ he demanded. ‘Your grandfather is keen to do business. So why are you so adamantly opposed to doing a deal with Chatsfield?’
She crossed her arms over her chest, her body language confirming just how far closed was her mind, although the act of defiance also revealed something else—something as unexpected as the transformation in her features when she smiled. For there was shape under that shapeless Purman sweater. Curves. And the heat of his anger morphed into a different kind of heat as his body stirred in response. He willed the reaction away, as unlikely as it was unwanted, as she said, ‘We can do better.’
‘Financially?’ he challenged, his eyes back on hers, his focus back on track. ‘Not a chance.’