Читать книгу The Debt / Cross My Hart - Clare Connelly - Страница 18

Ellie

THE DAY PROVED to be long and not only due to the driving I had to do in the interminable Parisian traffic.

It was also due to the presence of the man sitting in the limo behind me.

I tried very hard to pretend he didn’t exist, but it was difficult when every time I looked in my rear-view mirror, I caught a glimpse of him.

Sometimes he had his attention on his laptop and sometimes he was looking out of the window as he talked on his phone. And then there were also times I found his gaze on mine, a burning look in it, as if he were waiting impatiently for some kind of response from me.

Except I didn’t know what response he wanted.

I’d lied when I’d told him I’d slept perfectly well. I hadn’t. I’d spent all night going over what had happened in the limo and why I’d stupidly burst into emotional tears afterwards like a silly virgin.

Had it been the way he’d stroked me at the end? Or had it been due to the sheer power of the physical release? Either way, I’d hated it and I definitely didn’t want it to happen again.

Pleasure I could handle, but a big no to all that emotional bullshit. It only reminded me of how I’d felt after the Mark incident and how pissed off Dad had been at me at the way I’d handled it. Sure, kneeing Mark in the balls had been an instinctive reaction, but that had caused a whole lot of extra drama that had ended up with him making all sorts of extortionate demands.

No fuss, that was key, and yet here I was, making a fuss about the sex by crying, not to mention giving Mr Evans a piece of my mind for being rude to me.

I didn’t know what was happening, especially considering I still needed to ask him about Australis and our debt.

Finding the right moment to broach the topic proved difficult, however.

When he wasn’t in a meeting, he was on his phone, and it wasn’t until I’d picked him up from his last appointment and was taking him to the airport that he finally put the phone away, directing his attention to the laptop.

Ideally I would have liked to pull the car over, but he was pressed for time since the meeting had dragged on, and the traffic to Charles de Gaulle was a nightmare, so there was no time to stop.

I was just going to have to ask flat out.

Trying to ignore the fact that I’d complicated matters first by having sex with him and then letting my anger get the better of me and calling him out for being rude, I swallowed my nerves and checked him in the rear-view mirror.

He had his attention on his laptop, his face set in lines of fierce concentration.

Bloody hell, this wasn’t a good time, either. But what else could I do? He’d be flying out in a couple of hours and then my opportunity would be gone completely.

It was now or never.

‘Can I ask you something, Mr Evans?’ I asked, straight out.

He didn’t look up. ‘What did I say about small talk?’

‘It’s not small talk.’

‘Bill doesn’t talk at all.’

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.

I didn’t want to look in the rear-view mirror. I didn’t want to meet his fascinating blue eyes, not again. ‘I know you’ve got every right to withdraw your money,’ I went on doggedly, ‘but I’m asking you personally at least to put it on hold. If I get funding for my project, it has the potential to do really well and then I could pay you back with a ton of interest.’

Again, silence.

Dammit. I’d bloody well screwed this up, hadn’t I? Sex had ruined it and then mentioning my stupid project probably hadn’t helped.

There was pressure at the back of my throat, a heaviness in my chest. Shit, that was pathetic. Dad would be appalled. He’d tell me to pull myself together, that it was my mess and crying about it wasn’t going to help anyone. I just had to suck it up and deal with it. That was the Little way.

The airport was coming up and soon I’d have to stop and let Mr Evans out. He’d walk away from me and that would be my opportunity gone.

‘I can show you pictures,’ I said uselessly. ‘My design is pretty unique, so if you want to see an example of—’

‘No.’ The word was flat, unequivocal.

‘Mr Evans—’

‘I said no.’ The was no mistaking the note of absolute authority in his cold, gritty voice.

The discussion was over.

Hot, angry words filled my mouth, but I kept it closed, my jaw aching with the strain.

Don’t make a fuss.

‘Hey, no worries.’ I forced my mouth into a smile. ‘Can’t blame a girl for trying though, eh?’

He said nothing, the silence in the car becoming thick and suffocating. Full of his anger and something else I didn’t understand.

I pulled the limo up in the drop-off area outside the airport and only then, gathering my courage, did I glance into the mirror.

But he was putting his laptop away and not looking at me.

I stared at him, unable to help myself. His face was guarded, the white seams of his scars stark against his olive skin. A muscle flickered in his hard, strong jaw. And I couldn’t help noticing that he had the longest, darkest lashes I’d ever seen on a man.

My fingers itched to touch him, a throb between my thighs reminding me of what he’d felt like inside me, surging into me, taking me hard and fast, the wild thrill of having a man like that under my hands…

Abruptly he looked and the vivid colour of his eyes caught me, held me.

‘Goodbye, Miss Little,’ he said expressionlessly.

And then he was gone.