As if of their own volition her eyes went to his mouth. Something fell off a high shelf in her stomach as she looked at that slanted contour, the vermillion borders defining a mouth that could be hard and yet soft, salty and sensual and devastatingly addictive. She had been kissed since but no one came even close to his mesmerising expertise. No one else had shaken her to the core of her being, evoking a response from hers that was both terrifying and exciting. It was as if his mouth could unlock a part of her personality no one else had ever had access to. He could undo her. Unravel her. Topple her from the very foundations of her being, leaving her in a thousand tiny pieces like a carelessly scattered jigsaw.
His finger glided to the base of her chin and, with the tiniest amount of pressure, raised it so her eyes connected with his. ‘That’s probably a good thing considering I’m now your boss.’
Isabelle dipped out of his hold and folded her arms across her chest, glaring at him icily. ‘I’m not taking orders from you.’
His mouth came up again in that amused arc. ‘You heard what your stepmother said. I now have majority share.’
She unlocked her arms and clenched her fists instead. ‘How did you get her to give them to you? No doubt by spinning some fantastical tale to woo her to your side. She was supposed to give them to me.’
One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Is that a sense of entitlement I can hear?’
Isabelle clenched her jaw so hard it felt like two tectonic plates grinding together. ‘I’ve worked for this hotel since I was a kid,’ she said. ‘I’ve spent most of my life learning everything about the business from the ground up. I’ve worked in housekeeping. I’ve worked in the kitchen. I’ve made it my business to understand every aspect of management. When your aunt captivated my father, I was the one who held the fort so the staff didn’t lose their focus. I was the one who worked ridiculously long days to keep things steady. I was the one who came up with the creative plan for the future. I’m the one who has put everything else in my life on hold so I can keep the Harrington brand alive and competitive in a constantly changing and challenging market. Liliana of all people knew that. She had no right to hand it to you.’
‘They were her shares,’ he said. ‘She could do what she liked.’
Isabelle let out a rude word. ‘Yes, that just about sums Liliana up, doesn’t it? She does what she damn well wants and expects everyone else to suck it up.’
His gaze studied her for a lengthy moment. ‘How long have you known?’
‘About her being the Liliana?’
He gave a single nod, his expression as inscrutable as ever.
‘A while.’
‘How long?’
Isabelle pursed her lips. ‘I take it you knew before she walked into that meeting?’
His eyes never wavered from hers. ‘I joined a few dots in the past twenty-four hours. It’s hard to hide your identity these days. A quick search on the internet and you can find out just about anything about someone, even if they’re doing their best to hide.’
Had he done a Google search on her? Isabelle wondered. She could hardly criticise considering she’d been cyberstalking him for years. Checking on who he was seeing—not that he saw anyone for long—what places he visited, where he holidayed. He was known as the Prince of Pickups. Maybe not quite as bad as his cousin Lucca Chatsfield had been before he married, but Spencer could easily install a turnstile in his bedroom.
She blew out a whooshing breath. ‘I confronted her about it a few months ago. I felt it was cruel to keep her family in the dark for so long. I understand someone wanting to be a recluse for a bit but what sort of person walks away from a six-week-old baby?’
‘Apparently she had postnatal depression.’
Isabelle gave him a cynical look. ‘For twenty-odd years?’
He shrugged as if it didn’t much concern him. ‘She must have known she couldn’t keep her identity a secret too much longer.’
A feather of suspicion lifted the hairs on the back of Isabelle’s neck. ‘Did you bribe her?’
He gave a deep rumble of self-deprecating laughter. ‘My, oh, my, you do have an appalling opinion of me, don’t you, darling?’