The Man to Be Reckoned With

“Does nothing else matter to you except the blasted company? Statues possess more feelings than you do.”

Bitterness spewed from every word, and the hurt festering beneath them lanced through her. She paled under his attack, struggled to put into words why.

“I’m done, Riya,” Drew said, with a hint of regret.

“But, Drew, I...”

His hands on her shoulders, Drew bent and kissed her cheek, all the while the deep-set ice-blue gaze of the arrogant man who was kicking Drew out stayed on her without blinking.

Something flitted in that gaze. An insinuation? A challenge? There one minute, chased away by a cool mockery the next.

But Riya didn’t look away. Locking her hands by her side, she stood frozen to the spot.

Stepping back from her, Drew turned. “I’ll set up something with your assistant, Nathan.”

Without breaking her gaze, the hateful man nodded.

“Goodbye, Riya.”

The words felt so final that Riya shivered.

Leaving her flailing in the middle of the room, Drew closed the door behind him. It felt as if she were locked in a cage with a wild animal even as her mind was sifting and delving deeper.

Nathan...Nathan...Nathaniel Ramirez. Owns a group of travel and vacation companies called RunAway International, has traveled the world since he was seventeen...

A strange shiver began at the base of her spine, inched everywhere. She pushed her fingers through her hair, a nervous gesture she had never gotten over. “What did Drew mean?”

“Mr. Anderson decided he wanted to move on. From...” His gaze swept over her, a puzzle in it. “...Travelogue,” he finished, leaving something unsaid.

Riya felt as if he had slapped her. He had said so much without saying anything, and she couldn’t even defend herself against what she didn’t understand. She had never felt more out of her depth. “Who the hell do you think you are? And you can’t just kick him out. Drew and I own—”

“He sold his share of the stock. To me. I now own seventy-five percent of your company. I’m your new partner, Riya. Or boss, or really...there are so many things we could call each other.”

CHAPTER TWO

AND JUST LIKE THAT, her name on his lips, spoken like a soft invocation, unlocked the memory her mind had been trying to grasp from the moment she looked into that ice-blue gaze.

“She’s dead. And she died knowing that your trashy mother is just waiting at the gates, ready to come in and take her place. I hope you both rot in hell.”

The memory of that long-ago day flashed through her so vividly that Riya had to grab the chair to steady her shaking legs.

Robert’s wife had been Anna. Anna Ramirez.

Little shivers spewed all over and she hugged herself. She had brought this on herself. “You’re Nathan Keys. You’re Robert’s son. I read about you and I never realized...”

He nodded and Riya felt her breath leave her in a big rush.

Her little lie had worked and here he was, with the largest of her company’s stock, her livelihood in his hand.

Robert’s son, the boy who had run away from home after his mother’s death, the son of the married man with whom her mother had taken up, the son of the man who had been more a father to her than her own had ever been.

The son she had been trying to bring back to Robert.

She had lied to Maria about selling the estate, hoping it would lure him back home. Thought she would give Nathan a chance she had never had with her own father.

A hysterical laugh rose through her.

Leaning against the far wall, his legs crossed together in casual elegance, he smiled, his tanned skin glinting in contrast against the white of his teeth. “What? No ‘welcome home’ greeting for your almost stepbrother, Riya?”

There were so many things wrong about his fake greeting, the worst of which was how aware she was of him in the small room. Mortification drenching her inside, Riya glared at him. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“My acceptance of your offer for familial solidarity is almost a decade late, but—”

Her chest fell and rose as she fought for a breath. “You...you waltz in here, get rid of my business partner, wave the biggest chunk of my company in my face—” she pushed her shaking fingers through her hair “—and you want welcome?”

He stayed silent and her stride ate up the distance between them. Fear was a stringent pulse in her head. “If this is revenge for my mother’s affair with your father, let me tell you—”

“I don’t give a damn about your mother or my father.”

The very lack of emotion in his words stilled Riya’s thoughts. He was going to be livid when he learned what she had intended. “Then what is this?”

“You refused every offer I had my lawyers put forward for the sale of the estate.”

Her gut twisting with fear, Riya flopped into a chair. Hiding her face in her hands, she fought through it. He had moved to acquire her company because she refused his escalating offers for the sale of the estate.

What would he do when he learned she had never intended to sell it in the first place? What had she brought on herself?

* * *

Nathan stared at the lustrous swath of dark brown hair that fell like a curtain over Riya. Even as impatience pulled at him, he stood transfixed, stunned anew by the sharpness of his reaction to her.

Every minute they spent in this confining room, his awareness of her grew like an avalanche that couldn’t be stopped.

How she wore no makeup and yet the very lack of it only heightened her beautiful skin and sharp features.

How everything about her beauty was underplayed like her professional but bland brown dress shirt and trousers.

And how utterly she failed at masking that beauty.

How exquisitely expressive her wide, almond-shaped eyes were and how she fluttered those long lashes down when she wanted to hide her expression.

Her slender shoulders trembled and he felt a pang of regret. “All I want is the estate. However high I went, you kept refusing my offers. Refused to even give a reason.”

She looked up, the flash of fear in her eyes still just as obvious. But now there was a resolve too. “So you made a play for my company?”

“Yes. It’s called leverage. Believe me, as innovative as your software engine is, your little company is not RunAway International material. Sign on the dotted line today and you’ll leave here a rich woman. I’ll even leave you to run your boring company. Of course, you’ll run it into the ground in two years the way you’re going, but being the uncaring bastard that I am, I’ll let you ruin your and your staff’s future.”

“What about all the money you spent on acquiring it?”

“A drop in the ocean. I’m sure the stock will be worthless in a couple of years anyway.”

Riya chafed at his grating confidence that she would only ruin the company. But she couldn’t focus on that now, and there was no good way to put it.

“I didn’t accept those offers because I never intended to sell the estate to anyone. I still don’t.”

“Then why did Maria assume that...”

Every inch of his face tightened as if it had been poured over by concrete and had permanently set with the fury in those chilling eyes. He was still leaning against the table, and yet he looked as if the seams of his control would burst any second.

But he didn’t move, didn’t lose control even by the flicker of a muscle. Only the sheer frost in his gaze was testament to the fury in his eyes. Finally he blinked and Riya felt the tightness in her chest relent infinitesimally.

The most unholy glint appeared in his eye, sending a ripple of apprehension through her.

“You manipulated Maria and me.” His words rang with awe and derision, his gaze studying her, as if he was reevaluating and coming to an unsavory conclusion. He moved toward her slowly. “You laid bread crumbs very cleverly to make sure I trailed after you.”

“Yes.”

The single word sounded like a boom in the wake of his silent chill.

“You took advantage of my attachment to that estate. You knew I would go as high as you wanted.”

Forcing a laugh, which sounded as artificial as it felt, she took a step back, her nerves stretching tighter and tighter.

“Actually I took advantage of your hatred for me and Jackie.” And because his silence confirmed it, she continued, battling the ugly truth. “I wasn’t even sure it would work. Maria just barely tolerates me. How would I know she would come tattling to you?”

Shaking his head, he covered another step. Though it was cowardly, Riya couldn’t stop herself from stepping back again. “Don’t minimize your accomplishment now. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

Heat flamed her cheeks. “Fine. Something she had said a few months ago stuck with me. About how you might have considered coming back long ago if only Jackie and I were gone. About how much you loved the estate, even the staff, and how dare Robert give it to me? About how I was stealing even this from you.”

“So you decided luring me here would make you the maximum amount of money on the estate.”

“That’s not true. I felt guilty. I never asked Robert for the estate. I know it’s not—”

“And your guilt, your insecurities give you the right to play games with me?”

The depth of his perception awed Riya. Despite constantly reminding herself that she had been too young to change anything, she had remembered his grief-stricken words again and again, felt guilt carve a permanent place inside her gut.

His gaze met hers, an icy resolve in it, and Riya forgot what she had been about to say. There was not an inch of that grief-stricken boy in him. Only a cold fire, an absolute detachment.

He reached her, and her heart slammed against her rib cage. She couldn’t blink, couldn’t look away from that piercing blue. And a slow tremor took root in her muscles. Like the time when she’d had the flu. Only in a less hurting and more disconcerting way. As if every fiber of her were a stringent pulse vibrating in tune to his every move.

His lean body neatly caging her against the alcove, his gaze was a fiery frost. “Why are you doing this?”

“You were gone for eleven years. Eleven years during which time I helped Robert with the administration of the estate, with the staff, with everything. You were off doing who knows what and I slogged over every account, every expense and income number, in the face of a staff that hated the very sight of me. I did everything I could to keep that place going.” She had tried to be a model daughter to Robert and Jackie, had taken care of him when he fell sick.

Nothing she had done had removed the shadows of guilt and ache in Robert’s eyes.

“That’s what this is all about? What I offered wasn’t enough?” Nathan said, coming closer. Satisfaction practically coated every word. “Name your price.”

“I don’t want money. I was trying to explain how much that estate means to me...I was—”

“Then what the hell do you want? How dare you manipulate me after your mother turned my mother’s last few days into the worst of her life?”

It took every ounce of her will to stand still, bearing the judgment in that gaze. The pain in his words cut through her. “I want you to see Robert.”

The silence that dawned was so tense that Riya felt the tension wind around them like a tangible rope. The knot in his brow cleared; the icy blue of his eyes widened. It was the last thing he had expected to hear. That she had surprised him left her only shaking in her leather pumps.

“No.”

Fisting her hands behind her, Riya pushed the words that refused to come under his scornful gaze. “Then I won’t sign it over. Ever.”

She could practically hear him size her up, reassess his assumptions about her in the way disbelief and then pity filled his gaze. He looked at her as though he was seeing her anew.

“Don’t lose what you’ve built trying to alleviate some weird guilt. Don’t push me into doing something I don’t want to. That estate, it’s the one thing in the entire world that means something to me.”

His words were laden with emotion and so much more. And she understood that attachment, because she loved the estate too. But she couldn’t weaken now, now that he was here in San Francisco, so close to Robert.

“I’ve already made my decision.”

He ran his fingers through his overlong hair, his gaze a winter frost. There was a tremble in the taut line of his shoulders, a hoarse thread in his tone when he spoke. “I’ll drag you through the courts. Your company, I’m going to tear it to pieces. Is it still worth it?”

Riya swayed, the impact of what he was saying sweeping through her with the force of a gale. To see her company pulled apart and sold for pieces... Every inch of her revolted at the mere thought. Desperation filled her words.

“I deceived you. My staff has nothing to do with this. Can you be so heartless to take away their jobs?”

Their gazes locked and held. And every second felt like an eternity to her.

Finally he spoke, his mouth a tight line. “Yes.”

The fight deflated out of Riya and she held herself together by sheer will. Her company was everything to her. But if Robert hadn’t been there for her when she needed an adult with a kind word, Riya couldn’t bear to imagine what her life would have been today.

“Fine. The estate, it’s rightfully yours, I believe that. And eventually it will be. But a legal battle will take years. Robert said he made sure the deed was ironclad, exactly to avoid this kind of battle if he died suddenly.”

“Because he’s determined to rob even this from me?”

“No. You’re misunderstanding him. He thought he was going to die. He... A long, drawn-out court battle is what you want for your mother’s house? For Maria and the staff who have looked after the house all these years, for your mother’s memory?”

His jaw flexed tight, the vein in his temple flickering threateningly. “You have no right to speak of her.”

The utter loathing in his words slashed through her. Because he was right. His fury was justified.

She had no right to even speak of his mother, no right to her estate. To this day, she was equal parts amazed and perplexed that Robert had even deeded it to her.

For the first time in her life, she truly wished she was more like her mother—carefree, blissfully ignorant of everything around her but her own happiness. Wished she could turn her back on this man who threatened everything she had built, wished she could turn her back on the shadows that haunted Robert’s eyes.

“I’ve no right to speak of her, true, but I’m sure she would never have wanted you to hate him all your life. Everyone’s always talking about what a generous and kind lady she was and—”

He flinched as though she had laid a hand on him. “You have no idea what she’d have wanted.” He stood at the window, just as Drew had done, his wide frame blocking the sunlight from coming in. Contrary to the cold, heartless man she had called him, he looked like a volcano of simmering emotions.

“Get out. I have nothing more to say to you.”

Riya closed the door behind her, her legs shaking. Panic pounded through her.

Would he break Travelogue into pieces? How could she fight to keep what was hers? How was she to convince him that it was only Robert’s haunting pain that had driven her to this?

Her head reeling, she stepped into the huge, open area laid out with open cabins.

The staff had already figured out that Drew was gone. The faint scraping and shuffling of chairs, the concerned glances in her direction—they were looking to her to provide some direction.

But Riya had no way to save the day, no answer to give to those hopeful looks. She grabbed her handbag and left, unable to think of anything else but temporary escape.

* * *

Nathan stared at the closed door, still trying to control his raging emotions. One flimsy, fragile woman had so nearly eroded his self-control.

It had taken him a few years to get over the grief of his mother’s death, to accept the fatality of his own condition. He’d been so scared, alone and he’d lashed out at the world.

But in the end, he had not only accepted it but also tailored his life to live it without being haunted by the fear of dying every minute. Had made sure he’d not formed an attachment to anyone, made sure that no relationship could leave him weak. Like the way it had left his mother in the end.

Had gloried in each day he had, lived it to the fullest.

Today, he hadn’t been able to help himself from taunting the manipulative minx, from pushing her. But for all the steely will with which she had manipulated him, there was a naiveté to her that cooled his interest. In a million years, he wouldn’t have expected his father to command such loyalty in anyone. So much that she was risking everything she owned.

But nothing he did or could do would shake that resolve. Despite the very clever way she had manipulated Maria and taken advantage of his attachment to the estate, he had to admire that resolve. And she was right about one more thing.

Engaging his father in a legal battle would gain him nothing but a deadlock for years to come. He would win in the end, but when, he didn’t know.

Time was the one thing that Nate didn’t have the luxury or certainty of.

He wanted that estate, and convincing Riya to sell it back to him as soon as possible would be the biggest win of his life. He couldn’t dismantle her company for no good reason, couldn’t just play with the livelihood of so many people.

But he had learned enough about the smart, steel-willed beauty. Just the thought of those beautiful eyes widening with awareness and shock, the way she held herself rigid when he had neared her, brought a smile to his face.

He was going to enjoy convincing her to sell the estate to him.

CHAPTER THREE

BY THE TIME Riya drove past the electronically manned gates and along the gravel driveway lined with the tall century-old oaks, she was still wondering what she would say to Jackie or how she would bring up the subject of Nathan. Jackie had the most singular way of looking at the world and the people in it. Only interested in how they affected her own life and happiness.

Riya pulled the window down and took a deep breath. The smell of pine needles and the fragrance of the roses greeted her.

The sight of the mansion emerging just as the driveway straightened always revived her, filled her with an indescribable joy. For her, the brick mansion meant home.

Driving around the courtyard, she pulled into the garage, parked and leaned her forehead on the steering wheel. Disappointment and a perverse anger filled her. Nathan didn’t love the estate as she did, had been gone for a decade without a thought for it.

Would probably kick them all out, her especially, without a second thought. And to leave this place, to say goodbye finally? The very thought made her chest hurt.

Grabbing her laptop bag and her handbag, she stepped out of her car. All she wanted was to have a bath and sink into her bed and deal with everything tomorrow. She entered the vast, homely kitchen through the back door intending to go up quietly when Jackie called her.

Dressed in a cream silk pantsuit, she looked perfectly put together, as always. Except for the frown marring her brow.

“Riya! I’ve been calling you for hours and you didn’t answer a single time.” Her painted mouth trembled. “He’s here, just...appeared out of thin air, after all these years.”

Riya froze, her gaze flying around the house, her heart ratcheting in her chest. Fighting the rising panic, because of course it had always fallen to her to be the calm one, she straightened her spine. “Mom,” she said loudly. “Calm down.”

She called her that so infrequently now that Jackie looked at her with alarm.

“Now tell me clearly what happened.”

“Nathaniel is here,” her mother said, awe coating her words. “Apparently he’s some big-shot billionaire who can ruin us with one word or—”

“He said that to you?”

“Of course not. He won’t even meet my eyes. It’s as if I’m not there, standing right in front of him. That witch Maria said it. He looks so different too, all lean and so coldly distant and arrogant.”

Riya nodded, surprised that Jackie had noticed it too. There was something she couldn’t pinpoint about Nathan either. A sort of cool detachment, a layer of frost as if nothing or no one could touch him. And yet he had been so angry when she refused to sign over the estate.

“Even Maria took a few seconds to recognize him. He just stood there looking as if he owned the place, when he didn’t even ask after Robert all these years.” Riya bit the inside of her cheek to keep from correcting her mother that the estate was his. “He arrived a couple of hours ago. Showed up at the front door and sent the staff into a frenzy. They were all crying and laughing, and Robert’s not even in town. He won’t say why he’s here.”

How? She hadn’t even seen his car in the garage. “Where is he? Did he say what he wants?”

“He’s been wandering around the estate, drops in every half hour or so. Maria said he wants to see you.”

Riya’s heart sank to her feet.

A calculating look emerged in her mother’s eyes, her panic forgotten. “Why is he looking for you? I’m still shaking from the shock of seeing him, and all this time, if you’d known that he was—”

“Hello, Riya.”

Every time he said her name, it was like flipping a switch on inside her. A caress. An invitation. For what, she didn’t even want to speculate. Her skin tingling, Riya turned.

He stood at the huge arched entrance into the kitchen.

Once again, Riya felt the impact of his presence like a magnet pulled toward a slab of iron.

The beard was still unshaved, but he had changed. Now his clothes reflected the casual power he exuded so easily. The rumpled shirt had been exchanged for a white dress shirt and a formal jacket this time. The snowy-white collar a contrast against his sunburned skin. His hair gleamed with wetness, looked more black than brown.

He looked knee-meltingly gorgeous. Case in point, her knees practically buckled beneath her.

“You didn’t come back to the office, haven’t been answering my calls,” he said, waving his cell phone.

“I didn’t realize I was supposed to be at your beck and call,” she retorted, not trusting the invasive intimacy of his smile. In fact, she had liked him better when he was angry and threatening. “Not everything I do is about you.”

That small smile turned into a grin, and his teeth gleamed against his tanned skin. It lit up his whole face, softening the harsh angles of his features. And the mouth...she had been right. It was made for smiling and something else that she didn’t want to think about.

“From now on, it’s going to be all about me,” he said, stretching his arms by his sides. The casual gesture drew her gaze to the breadth of his shoulders. That jacket was cut perfectly, following the wide swath of his shoulders and the narrowing of his waist.

Alarm spiked through her. “No.”

“I have a proposition for you.” Something glimmered in his gaze. “You’re not chickening out already, are you?”

Jackie gasped, and Riya wondered if her mother could explode from the tension radiating from her. She infused steel into her voice. “We don’t have a deal.”

“We do now. You’ve...persuaded me to take a chance on you, Riya.”

There was no way to arrest the heat blooming up her face. He was doing it on purpose. Saying her name like that, insinuating with that smile that there was more between them than his hatred and her risky gamble. She wanted to run away and hide in her bedroom, hope it was all a bad dream.

Next to her, Jackie began again. “Riya, how dare you not tell me—”