Читать книгу Revenge At The Altar - Louise Fuller - Страница 9
ОглавлениеAS THE WHEELS of her private jet hit the runway Margot Duvernay looked up from her laptop and gazed pensively out of the window, her fingers twisting at the ‘Team Bride’ wristband on her arm.
As CEO of the legendary House of Duvernay champagne business, she worked hard. The last five years had been particularly challenging, both emotionally and financially—so much so that, incredibly, Gisele’s bachelorette week in Monte Carlo was the first time off she’d had in months.
But her father Emile’s unexpected message had abruptly cut short her stay.
Walking purposefully across the T tarmac, she climbed into the waiting air-conditioned limousine and pulled out her phone. She replayed his message, frowning at the giggling and the Bossa Nova music she could hear in the background. If only she had picked it up sooner, she thought regretfully, her soft brown eyes creasing. Emile was just so unreliable, and so easily distracted...
But on the plus side he had definitely mentioned selling his shares, and that was a first.
Leaning back against the seat, she watched as the beautiful mansard-roofed headquarters of her family’s two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old business came into view, feeling a familiar mix of pride and responsibility. She loved everything about the building—the cool, quiet interior, the sense of history in the wood-panelled boardroom and the symmetry of the façade. To her, it was more than just bricks and plaster. It was a legacy—and also a burden.
Just like the position of CEO.
Margot breathed out slowly.
Growing up, she had never imagined being in charge of Duvernay—never once wanted the power or the responsibility. By nature, she loathed being in the spotlight, and after graduating she’d been happy to head up the company’s newly created environmental department.
However, her older brother Yves’s tragic death on the ski slopes of Verbier had left her with no alternative but to take over the family business. Of course, Emile would have liked the status of running a global brand. But even if he hadn’t been cold-shouldered by his in-laws, he preferred topping up his tan to analyzing market trends. Her brother Louis might have been taller than her, but at just sixteen he had been far too young to step up, and her grandfather had been too old, too devastated by grief. It had been hard enough for him to deal with his daughter’s accidental drug overdose, but the shock of losing his grandson too had caused a series of strokes from which he had still not fully recovered.
And so it had been left to Margot to do what she had always done—pick up the pieces—and that was why she was hurrying back to Epernay this morning.
Inside the brightly lit foyer, the reassuring familiarity of everything calmed her slightly, but as she stepped into the lift her phone began to vibrate in her hand and she felt her composure wobble. Glancing down at the screen, she drew in a quick, shaky breath and her heart began to pound with a mixture of hope and relief.
Thank goodness! Finally it was her father.
‘Emile. I was just about to call you—’
‘Really? I thought you might be sulking.’
Gritting her teeth, Margot felt a spasm of irritation. Honestly, her father was so exasperating, and so monumentally thoughtless sometimes. When he hadn’t returned her messages she had started to panic, to worry that maybe he’d changed his mind. Clearly, though, he’d just been playing hard to get.
But now she could hear the elation in his voice and suddenly she didn’t care about his stupid games. What mattered was that she knew he’d been telling the truth. Finally he was ready to sell the shares.
Her heart began to beat faster.
The timing couldn’t be better.
Not only would it mean that the business would be whole again in time for her brother Louis’s wedding, it would also give her grandfather a much-needed boost. Since his last stroke he hadn’t been himself, but this would be the perfect tonic. For this wedding was more than just a romantic ceremony—it was about continuing the family name and ensuring the future of Duvernay.
She felt her chest tighten. And, of course, for her, buying back her father’s shares would have an additional and thankfully undisclosed benefit of sending a strong message to the bank.
‘Oh, Papa.’ Her father was such a child, but today of all days she was prepared to indulge him, and so, despite her annoyance, she spoke placatingly. ‘You know I’ve been trying to get hold of you. I must have rung you at least a dozen times.’
She felt a rush of excitement as she played back her father’s rambling message inside her head. He’d mentioned something about flying up to Reims, but that had been hours ago. She glanced at her watch. Surely he must be here by now?
Her mouth was suddenly almost too dry to get words out. ‘Where are you staying? I can come to you, or I can send a car to pick you up.’
Her pulse accelerated. She couldn’t believe it. Finally it was happening. The moment she’d been waiting for almost her whole life.
Buying back the ‘lost’ shares, as her grandfather referred to them, was a goal that had preoccupied her since she’d taken over the reins of the business. In doing so, she would not only make Duvernay whole again, she would also bring closure to the whole sorry complex mess of her parents’ marriage and the repercussions that had followed her mother’s tragic death.
She felt her pulse tremble.
Her father and her grandparents had always had a fraught relationship. Emile might look like a film star, but to them he was just a horse trainer—eloping with their nineteen-year-old daughter had not endeared him to her straitlaced and image-conscious family. His decision to live off Colette’s trust fund had merely deepened the rift.
But after her death, it had been his refusal to turn over her shares to his children that had turned a difficult relationship into a bitter stand-off.
Emile had always claimed it was an act of self-preservation. Her grandparents had seen it as an act of spite. Either way, the facts were undeniable. Her father had threatened to take her and her brothers to Switzerland if he wasn’t allowed to hold on to the shares, and her grandfather had agreed to his demands on two conditions: that he give up custody of his children to his in-laws and that they keep their mother’s name.
Margot shivered. Once she had thought that grief might bring the two sides of her family closer. In fact the reverse had happened. There was still such bad blood between Emile and his in-laws that even now they both took every opportunity to point-score.
But maybe now that might finally change.
The thought made her heart leap upwards. It would just be so wonderful to put all of this behind them before Louis’s wedding. Her first task, though, was to pin Emile down...
‘Papa?’ she repeated, trying to sound casual. ‘Just tell me where you’d like to meet.’
‘That’s why I’m calling—’
His voice had changed. He sounded a little uneasy—defiant, almost—and briefly she wondered why. But before she had a chance to give it any more thought he started talking again.
‘I did try, so you can’t blame me—Not now, chérie, put it over there. I waited as long as I could...’
Hearing a soft but unmistakably feminine murmur, Margot frowned. Even now her father couldn’t manage to give her his full and undivided attention. Her mouth thinned. No doubt he was already celebrating the upcoming sale of his shares with his current batch of hangers-on.
And then her heartbeat froze, and she felt her fingers tighten involuntarily around the phone as his words bumped into one another inside her head like dodgems at the funfair. ‘Blame you for what?’
‘I waited as long as I could, poussin, but it was such a good offer—’
His use of her childhood nickname as much as his wheedling tone sent a ripple of alarm over her skin. Her father only ever called her poussin—little chick—when he wanted something or when he wanted to be forgiven.
‘What offer?’ she said slowly.
The lift doors opened and she stepped out into the glass-ceilinged atrium. Straight ahead, she noticed her PA hovering nervously in front of her office door, and her heart gave a sickening thump.
‘What have you done, Papa?
‘I’ve done what I should have done a long time ago.’ The wheedling tone had shifted, become defensive. ‘So I hope you’re not going to make a fuss, Margot. I mean, it’s what you’ve been telling me to do for years—sell my shares. And now I have. And I have to say I got a damn good price for them too.’
It was as if a bomb had exploded inside her head. Blood was roaring in her ears and the floor seemed to ripple beneath her feet.
‘You said that if you were going to sell your shares you’d come to me first.’ Margot felt panic, hot and slippery, run down her spine.
‘And I did.’ There was a burst of laughter in the background and she felt her father’s attention shift and divert away from her. ‘But you didn’t pick up.’
‘I couldn’t. I was having a massage.’ She let out a breath. ‘Look, Papa, we can sort this out. Just don’t sign anything, okay? Just stay where you are and I will come to you.’
‘It’s too late now. I signed the paperwork first thing this morning. And I mean first thing. He got me out of bed,’ he grumbled. ‘Anyway, there’s no point in getting out of shape with me—just talk to him. He should be there by now.’
‘Who—?’ she began, but even without the tell-tale clink of ice against glass she could tell her father was no longer listening.
She heard the click of his lighter, then the slow expulsion of smoke. ‘Apparently that’s why it all had to be done so early. He wanted to get up to Epernay...take a look around headquarters.’
Margot gazed dazedly across the honey-coloured parquet floor. No wonder her staff were looking so confused. Clearly the newest Duvernay shareholder was already on site. But who was he—and what had he told them?
Her pulse stuttered in time with her footsteps. There were already enough rumours circulating around the company as it was—and what would the bank think if they heard that Emile had suddenly decided to sell his shares?
Silently she cursed herself for not picking up her messages—and her father for being so utterly, irredeemably selfish.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Emile was saying briskly.
Now that the worst was over he was clearly itching to be gone.
‘You’re so rational and practical, poussin.’
She could almost see him shuddering even at the concept of such qualities.
‘Just talk to him. Maybe you can persuade him to sell them back to you.’
He was desperate to be off. If Margot had been the sort to scream or hurl abuse she would have unleashed the tide of invective churning in her throat. But she wasn’t. A lifetime of watching the soap opera that had been her parents’ marriage had cured her of any desire for a scene. For a moment, though, she considered telling Emile in the most irrational, impractical terms exactly what she thought of him.
Only, really, what was the point? Her father’s ‘me first’ morality was precisely why he’d kept the shares in the first place.
‘Although somehow I doubt it...’
Her father exhaled again, and she pictured him stubbing out his cigarette with the same careless force with which he had upended her dreams of taking back control of Duvernay.
‘He seemed absolutely set on having them. But, truthfully, I think I might have done you a favour. I mean, he is the man of the moment, right?’
The man of the moment.
Margot blinked. Her brain was whirling, her thoughts flying in a hundred directions. She had read that headline. Not the article, for that would have been too painful. But, walking through the centre of Paris last month, she had found it impossible to tear her gaze away from the newsstands. Or more particularly the head-and-shoulders shot that had accompanied the article, and those eyes—one blue, one green—staring down the Champs-Élysées as if he owned it.
‘Man of the moment?’
Her voice sounded blurred, shapeless—like a candle flame that had burnt the whole wick and was floundering in wax.
‘Yeah—Max Montigny. They say he can turn water into wine, so I guess he’ll give those stuffy vignerons a run for their money—Yeah, I’ll be right there.’
Margot tried to speak, but her breath was thick and tangled in her throat. ‘Papa—’ she began, but it was too late. He was talking over her.
‘Look, call me later—well, maybe not later, but whenever. I love you, but I have to go—’
The phone went dead.
But not as dead as she felt.
Max Montigny.
It had been almost ten years since she’d last seen him. Ten years of trying to pretend their relationship, his lies, her heartbreak, that none of it had happened. And she’d done a pretty good job, she thought dully.
Of course it had helped that only Yves had ever known the full story. To everyone else Max had been at first a trusted employee, and later a favoured friend of the family.
To her, though, he had been a fantasy made flesh. With smooth dark hair, a profile so pure it looked as though it had been cut with a knife, and a lean, muscular body that hummed with energy, he had been like a dark star that seemed to tug at all her five senses whenever she was within his orbit.
Only as far as he was concerned Margot had been invisible. No, maybe not invisible. He had noticed her, but only in the same jokey way that her own brother had—smiling at her off-handedly as he joined the family for dinner, or casually offering to drive her into town when it was raining.
And then one day, instead of looking through her, he had stared at her so intently she had forgotten to breathe, forgotten to look away.
Remembering that moment, the impossibility of not holding his gaze, her cheeks felt suddenly as though they were on fire.
She had been captivated by him, enthralled and enchanted. She would have followed him blindly into darkness, and in a way she had—for she had gone into his arms and to his bed, given herself to him willingly, eagerly.
From then on he had been everything to her. Her man of the moment. Her man for ever.
Until the day he’d broken her heart and walked out of her life without so much as a flicker of remorse in those haunting eyes.
Afterwards, the pain had been unbearable. Feigning illness, she’d stayed in bed for days, curled up small and still beneath her duvet, chest aching with anguish, throat tight with tears she hadn’t allowed herself to weep for fear that her grandfather would notice.
But now was not the time for tears either and, swallowing the hard shard of misery in her throat, Margot greeted her PA with what she hoped was a reasonable approximation of her usual composure.
‘Good morning, Simone.’
‘Good morning, madame.’ Simone hesitated. Colour was creeping over her cheekbones and she seemed flustered. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were coming in today. But he—Mr Montigny, I mean—he said you were expecting him.’
Smiling, Margot nodded. So it was true. Just for a moment she had hoped—wanted to believe that she had somehow misunderstood Emile. But this was confirmation. Max was here.
‘I hope that’s okay...?’
Her PA’s voice trailed off and Margot felt her own cheekbones start to ache with the effort of smiling. Poor Simone! Her normally poised PA looked flushed and jumpy. But then no doubt she’d been a recent recipient of the famous but sadly superficial Montigny charm.
‘Yes, it’s fine, Simone. And it’s my fault—I should have called ahead. Is he in my office?’
She felt a stab of anger. Max had only been back in her life for a matter of minutes and already she was lying for him.
Simone shook her head, her confusion giving way to obvious relief. ‘No, he said that he would like to see the boardroom. I didn’t think it would be a problem...’
Margot kept smiling but she felt a sudden savage urge to cry, to rage against the injustice and cruelty of it all. If only she could be like any other normal young woman, like Gisele and her friends, drinking cocktails and flirting with waiters.
But crying and raging was not the Duvernay way—or at least, not in public—and instead she merely nodded again. ‘It’s not. In fact, I’ll go and give him the full guided tour myself.’
Straight out the door and out of my life, she thought savagely.
Turning, she walked towards the boardroom, her eyes fixed on the polished brass door handle. If only she could just keep on walking. Only what would be the point? Max Montigny wasn’t here by chance. Nor was he just going to give up and disappear. Like it or not, the only way she was going to turn him back into being nothing more than a painful memory was by confronting him.
And, lifting her chin, she turned the door handle and stepped into the boardroom.
She saw him immediately, and although she had expected to feel something, nothing could have prepared her for the rush of despair and regret that swept over her.
It was nearly ten years since he had walked out of her life. Ten years was a long time, and everyone said that time was a great healer. But if that was true why, then, was her body trembling? And why did her heart feel like a lead weight?
Surely he shouldn’t matter to her any more? But, seeing him again, she felt the same reaction she had that first time, aged just nineteen. That he couldn’t be real. That no actual living man could be so unutterably beautiful. It wasn’t possible or fair.
He was facing away from her, slumped in one of the leather armchairs that were arranged around the long oval table, his long legs sprawled negligently in front of him, seemingly admiring the view from the window.
Her heart was racing, but her legs and arms seemed to have stopped working. Gazing at the back of his head, at the smooth dark hair that she had so loved to caress, she thought she might throw up.
How could this be happening? she thought dully. But that was the wrong question. What she needed to ask—and answer—was how could she stop it happening? How could she get him out of her boardroom and out of her life?
Letting out a breath, she closed the door and watched, mesmerised, as slowly he swung round in the chair to face her. She stared at him in silence. This was the man who had not only broken her heart, but shattered her pride and her romantic ideals. Once she had loved him. And afterwards she had hated him.
Only clearly her feelings weren’t that simple—or maybe she had just forgotten how effortlessly Max could throw her off balance. For although heat was rising up inside her, she knew that it wasn’t the arid heat of loathing but something that felt a lot like desire.
Her mouth was suddenly dry, and her heart was beating so fast and so loud that it sounded like a drumroll—as though Max was the winner in some game show. She breathed in sharply. But what was his prize?
Gazing into his eyes—those incredible heterochromatic eyes—she saw herself reflected in the blue and green, no longer nineteen, but still dazzled and dazed.
All those years ago he had been model-handsome, turning heads as easily as he now turned grapes into wine and wine into profit. His straight, patrician jaw and high cheekbones had hinted at a breathtaking adult beauty to come, and that promise had been more than met. A shiver ran through her body. Met, and enhanced by a dark grey suit that seemed purposely designed to draw her gaze to the spectacular body that she knew lay beneath.
Her breath caught in her chest and, petrified that the expression on her face might reveal her thoughts, she pushed aside the unsettling image of a naked Max and forced herself to meet his gaze.
He smiled, and the line of his mouth arrowed through her skin.
‘Margot...it’s been a long time.’
As he spoke she felt a tingling shock. His voice hadn’t changed, and that wasn’t fair, for—like his eyes—it was utterly distinctive, and made even the dullest of words sound like spring water. It was just so soft, sexy...
And utterly untrustworthy, she reminded herself irritably. Having been on the receiving end of it, she knew from first-hand experience that the softness was like spun sugar—a clever trick designed to seduce, and to gift-wrap the parcel of lies that came out of his mouth.
‘Not long enough,’ she said coolly.
Ignoring the heat snaking over her skin, she stalked to the opposite end of the room and dropped her bag on the table. ‘Why don’t you give it another decade—or two, even?’
He seemed unmoved by her rudeness—or maybe, judging by the slight up-curve to his mouth, a little amused. ‘I’m sorry you feel like that. Given the change in our relationship—’
‘We don’t have a relationship,’ she snapped.
They never had. It was one of the facts that she’d forced herself to accept over the years—that, no matter how physically close they’d been, Max was a cipher to her. In love, and blindsided by how beautiful, how alive he’d made her feel in bed, she hadn’t noticed that there had been none of the prerequisites for a happy, healthy relationship—honesty, openness, trust...
The truth was that she’d never really known him at all. He, though, had clearly found her embarrassingly easy to read. Unsurprisingly! She’d been that most clichéd of adolescents: a clueless teenager infatuated with her brother’s best friend. And, of course, her family was not just famous but infamous.
Even now, the thought of her being so transparently smitten made her cringe.
‘We don’t have a relationship,’ she repeated. ‘And a signature on a piece of paper isn’t about to change that.’
His gaze held hers, and a mocking smile tugged at his mouth as he rotated the chair back and forth.
‘Really?’ He spoke mildly, as though they were discussing the possibility of rain. ‘Why don’t we call my lawyer? Or yours? See if they agree with that statement.’
Her head snapped up. It was a bonus that Max hadn’t spoken to Pierre yet, but the very fact that he was hinting at the possibility of doing so made her throat tighten.
‘That won’t be necessary. This matter is between you and me.’
‘But I thought you said we didn’t have any relationship?’
She glared at him, hearing and hating the goading note in his voice.
‘We don’t. And we won’t. I meant that this matter is private, and I intend to keep it that way.’
Max stared coldly across the table. Did she really think that he was going to let that happen? That she was in control of this situation.
Nearly a decade ago he had been, if not happy, then willing to keep their relationship under wraps. She had told him she needed time. That she needed to find the right moment to tell her family the truth. And he had let her beauty and her desirability blind him to the real truth—that he was a secret she would never be willing to share.
But he wasn’t about to let history repeat itself.
‘Are you sure about that? I mean, you know what they say about good intentions, Margot,’ he said softly. ‘Do you really want to head down that particular road?’
There was a taut, quivering silence, and Margot felt her face drain of colour, felt her body, her heart, shrinking away from his threat.
There’s no need! she wanted to shout into his handsome face. You’ve already cast me out of heaven and into a hell of your making.
But she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how raw her wounds still were and how much he had mattered to her.
She returned his gaze coldly. ‘Are you threatening me?’
Watching the flush of colour spread over her collarbone, Max tilted his head backwards, savouring her fury. He had never seen her angry before—in fact he’d never seen her express any strong emotion.
At least not outside the bedroom.
His pulse twitched and a memory stole into his head of that first time in his room—how the directness of her gaze had held him captive as she had pressed her body against his, her fingers cutting into his back, her breath warm against his mouth.
Margot might have been serious and serene on the surface, but the first time he had kissed her properly had been a revelation. She’d been so passionate and unfettered. In fact, it had been not so much a revelation as a revolution—all heat and hunger and urgency.
Suddenly he was vibrating with a hunger of his own, and he felt heat break out on his skin. Slowly, he slid his hands over the armrests of the chair to stop himself from reaching out and pulling her against him. The muscles in his jaw tensed and he gritted his teeth.
‘Only the weak and the incompetent resort to threats. I’m merely making conversation.’ He looked straight into her flushed face. ‘You remember conversation, don’t you, Margot? It’s the thing you used to interrupt by dragging me to bed.’
Margot stared at him, her body pulsing with equal parts longing and loathing. If only she could throw his words back in his face. But it was true. Her desire for him had been frantic and inexorable.
She lifted her chin. So what if it had? Enjoying sex wasn’t a crime. And it certainly wasn’t sneaky or dishonest—like, say, deliberately setting out to seduce someone for their money.
Eyes narrowing, she yanked out one of the chairs with uncharacteristic roughness and sat down on it. Pulling her bag closer, she reached inside.
Max watched in silence as she pulled out a fountain pen and a leather-bound case. Ignoring him, she flipped it open and began writing with swift, sure strokes. Then, laying the pen down, she tore the paper she’d been writing on free and pushed it across the table towards him.
It was a cheque.
A cheque!
His breathing jerked and his jaw felt suddenly as though it was hewn from basalt. He didn’t move, didn’t even lower his gaze, just kept his eyes locked on her face as with effort he held on to the fast-fraying threads of his temper.
‘What’s that?’ he asked softly.
Her mouth thinned. ‘I don’t know how your mind works, Max, and I don’t want to, but I know why you’re here. It’s the same reason you were here ten years ago. Money.’ Margot gestured towards the cheque. ‘So why don’t you just take it and go?’
He was watching her thoughtfully, his expression somewhere between incredulous and mocking. But there was a tension in him that hadn’t been there before.
‘That’s amazing,’ he said finally. ‘I didn’t know people actually did this kind of thing in real life. I thought it was just in films—’
‘If only this was a film,’ she said coldly. ‘Then I could just leave you on the cutting room floor.’
Max gazed across the room, anger shrinking his focus so that all he could see was the small rectangular piece of paper lying on the tabletop. Of course it would come down to money. That was all their relationship had ever been about. Or, more precisely, his complete and utter lack of it.
Margot was a Duvernay, and Duvernays didn’t marry poor outsiders. His breath seemed to harden in his lungs. Not even when they had claimed them as family, welcomed them into their home and their lives.
Briefly he let the pain and anger of his memories seep through his veins. Officially he might have been just on the payroll, but for nearly three years he had been treated like a member of the clan—and, stupid idiot that he was, he had actually come to believe in the fiction that although blood made you related, it was loyalty that made you family.
Later, when his perception hadn’t been blunted by desire and emotion, it had been easy to see that any invitation into the inner sanctum had been on their terms, and it had never extended to marrying the daughter of the house.
Only by then he had lost his job, his home and his pride. He had been left penniless and powerless.
But times had changed. Leaning back, he smiled coldly. ‘It’s not enough.’
Margot clenched her jaw, her brown eyes glowing with anger like peat on a fire. ‘Oh, believe me, it is.’
Even if she had written a row of zeros it would be more than he deserved. He had already cost her enough—no, too much—in pain and regret.
‘So take it and go.’
He shifted in his seat, and she felt another stab of anger that he should be able to do this to her. That after everything he’d already taken he could just swan back into her life, into her boardroom, and demand more.
Controlling her emotions, she closed her chequebook with exaggerated care and looked up at him. ‘Why are you here, Max?’
He shrugged. ‘Isn’t that obvious? I’m a shareholder and a director now, so I thought we should talk.’
‘You could have just telephoned,’ she snapped.
‘What?’ His mouth curved up at one corner. ‘And miss all the fun.’ He let his eyes home in on the pulse beating at the base of her throat. ‘Besides, I wanted to choose my office.’
She watched almost hypnotised as he gestured lazily around the room. ‘Pick out a desk...wallpaper maybe...’
Folding her arms to stop her hands shaking, she glowered at him. The shock of everything—her father’s phone message, Max buying the shares, his sudden and unwelcome reappearance in her life—was suddenly too much to endure a moment longer.
‘Just stop it, okay? Stop it. This is insane. You can’t seriously expect to work here. Or want to.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is there a problem?’
She looked at him in disbelief. ‘Yes, of course there’s a problem. You and me...our history—’
Breaking off, she fought to control the sudden jab of pain at the memory of just how cruelly one-sided that history had been.
‘I don’t care how many shares you buy, you are not stepping foot in this boardroom again. So how much is it?’ She forced a business-like tone into her voice. ‘How much do you want?’
She waited for his reply but it didn’t come. And then, as the silence seemed to stretch beyond all normal limits, she felt her spine stiffen with horror as slowly he shook his head.
‘I don’t want and I certainly don’t need your money.’
Watching the doubt and confusion in her eyes, he felt suddenly immensely satisfied. Buying the shares had been an act of insanity on so many levels, but now, having Margot in front of him, knowing that his mere presence had dragged her here, it all felt worth it.
Colour was spreading slowly over her cheeks.
‘Take the cheque or don’t—I don’t care.’ She lifted her chin. ‘But either way this conversation is over. And now I suggest you leave before I have you removed—’
‘That’s not going to happen.’ His voice sounded normal—pleasant, even—but she felt a shiver of apprehension, for there was a strand of steel running through every syllable that matched the combative glint in his eyes.
‘I’m not just the hired help now, baby. I’m CEO of a global wine business. More importantly, as of today, I’m a bona fide director of this company.’
He paused, and she felt as if the air was being sucked out of the room as he let his gaze linger on her face. Pulse racing, she realised that only a very foolish woman would underestimate a man like Max Montigny.
‘Your company.’
He lounged back, and suddenly her heart was thumping against her ribs.
‘Although that may be about to change.’
‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was like a whisper. She cleared her throat. ‘What are you talking about?’
He shrugged. ‘Right now you might live in the big chateau, have a private jet and a chauffeur-driven limousine, but I’ve seen your accounts.’
She frowned, started to object, but he simply smiled and she fell silent, for there was something knowing in the gaze that was making her skin start to prickle with fear and apprehension.
‘Your father showed them to me. And they make pretty bleak reading. Desperate, in fact. Oh, it all looks good on the outside, but you’re haemorrhaging money.’
Margot could feel the colour draining from her face. His words were detonating inside her head like grenades. Suddenly she was deaf, dazed, reeling blindly through the dust and rubble of the mess she had sought so hard to contain, struggling to breathe.
‘That’s not true,’ she said hoarsely. Her lungs felt as though they were being squeezed in a vice. ‘We’ve just had a difficult few months—
‘More like five years.’ He stared at her for a long moment, his gaze impassive. ‘You asked me why I’m here. Well, that’s it. That’s why. Your family is about to be ruined and I want to be here to see it.’
He stared at her steadily, his eyes straight and unblinking, and Margot stared back at him, stilled, almost mesmerised by his words. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about retribution. You and your family ruined my life, and now I get to watch your world implode.’
Margot shook her head. Stiffening her shoulders, she forced herself to look him in the eye. ‘No, you seduced me, and then you asked me to marry you just so you could get your hands on my money.’
For a moment he didn’t reply, then he shrugged, and it was that offhand gesture—the casual dismissal of the way he’d broken her heart—that told her more clearly than any words that he was being serious.
Watching the light fade from Margot’s eyes, Max told himself he didn’t care. She deserved everything that was coming. They all did.
‘And I paid for that. You and your family made sure I lost everything. I couldn’t even get a reference. No vineyard would touch me.’
Remembering the shock and helplessness he’d felt in the hours and days following Margot’s rejection, he bit down hard, using the pain of the past to block out her pale, stunned face.
‘Now it’s your turn.’
He leaned back against the leather upholstery, his eyes never leaving hers.
‘I only bought shares in your company to get a ringside seat.’
