‘Sure I can’t change your mind?’
Ah, fuck it, another ten minutes isn’t going to hurt...
* * *
‘Zara, Shit-Bag is on line one—he’s after a number for a contact, apparently.’
EJ, her PA and right hand, leant back over her office chair, her head appearing through the open doorway to Zara’s private office. Not even her black-rimmed glasses were big enough to conceal her raised auburn brow and sparking blue gaze. She was as pissed at taking the call as Zara was to receive it.
‘Tell him I have an appointment. I’ll call him back.’ It wasn’t a lie, she did, and she needed to get moving if she wasn’t going to be late. She had the whole day mapped out touring London with her latest client, Julia Larsson, showing her abodes that matched the property brief they’d mapped out together to a T.
‘Righto,’ EJ said, dropping back into her own space. Although it wasn’t really as if the rest of her team had any designated space as such. Not yet.
Other than her office, the walls were only partially in place, the refit as per her design spec was halfway through completion and they were all living with a rather open workspace in the interim. Not that it really mattered. Zara only had a handful of employees currently, but it paid to have space for her expansion plans and, more importantly, it paid to have the right kind of space to entertain the right kind of clients.
The kind of space she’d had up until five months ago when Shit-Bag had left her no choice but to walk out of her former company. Six months of trying to work together following their break-up having taken their toll.
‘Err, Zara, he says it’s urgent.’
EJ walked her chai
r back into view and gave her an apologetic grimace, making a derogatory hand signal against the receiver at the same time. The latter succeeded in pulling out a smirk. How very different from the way EJ had reacted to him in the early days. How very different from every woman when first being caught in his charismatic web. She’d been no exception. Falling for his clean and slick appearance, a voice that rumbled with teasing provocation no matter what was being said and a body fit for a boxing ring.
Yeah, you fell for it, all right, but no more—you’re older and wiser for it now.
‘It’s okay,’ she assured her, ‘let him through.’
Her tummy twisted, but her smile at EJ was solid. She wasn’t going to upset her with her own discomfort. And she most definitely wasn’t going to let him hear how much he could still hurt her.
She lifted the phone receiver and accepted the call. ‘Charles, what is it?’
‘Zara, be a good girl and send me Tristan Black’s phone number, will you?’
His brash condescension had her teeth clenching, her anger flaring. Did I really find that cockney arrogance sexy once?
‘I’m rather busy right now,’ she said neutrally, using the anger to her advantage. Anger she could work with, it was so much easier to control than pain. ‘I’ll see if I can find it later and send it on.’
‘Come on, Zara, darling, it’s urgent and you know full well you have his number.’ If she didn’t know him better she’d think she caught the hint of panic, as though he could sense she was about to cut the call. Which she was. But panic? What could be so important that he needed to reach Tristan this second? ‘Look, our blasted systems have gone down and I don’t seem to have it on my mobile.’
‘Perhaps that’s because he was my client.’ She couldn’t help the barbed comment. But hell, he’d refused to let her take anyone, enforcing the restrictive contract clauses to the letter. She’d been lucky to set her new business up at all. Even luckier to take EJ with her.
It didn’t matter that he was the reason she’d had to leave in the first place. That she’d been the one who had worked twenty-four-seven to make it the success it had become. The success it still was, only now it was his baby, he was the one reaping all the benefit.
‘Very true,’ he said smoothly, his composure back so swiftly she’d probably imagined the crack—it was too much to hope for after all. ‘But, you know, my client now, of course.’
She clenched her fist around the phone, his smarmy tone and gibe making her want to hurl. The sooner she could have him off the line, the better. ‘I’ll dig it out and send it on, good—’
‘Wait, there’s something else...’
She halted midway through hanging up, the skin at the back of her neck prickling as her memory bank came alive. She knew that tone, knew it meant some big revelation or other. Wasn’t it just how he’d sounded when he’d finally been forced to admit all his extra-curricular activities?
‘What is it?’ She asked the question even though every instinct told her she didn’t want to know. The awkward cough he gave only confirming it. ‘Charles, spit it out, I don’t have all day.’
‘I’m getting married.’
The air caught in her lungs, ice seeping through her veins. Of all the things she could have imagined it being, it certainly wasn’t that.
The great bachelor, Charles Eddison, finally getting hitched. Five years and he’d failed to make an honest woman of her. She’d loved him with all of her being and yet it hadn’t been enough. And now, one year after their break-up, someone had managed to do it, someone had been special enough...