Читать книгу The Heiress's 2-Week Affair - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 11

The moment Matt pushed the door open and walked into his spacious glass-enclosed office, the phone on his desk began ringing.

Talk about timing. An exasperated sound escaped his lips, and he looked over his shoulder at Natalie. “Do you mind if I get that?”

She gestured toward the multilined console on his desk. “Go ahead.”

His being on the phone would give her a few more seconds to pull herself together, she thought. She hadn’t realized seeing him again would affect her like this, shaking her to the core. If anything, his physique seemed more buff, harder, somehow. And looking into his blue eyes had her reliving bits and pieces of the past that made her feel so vulnerable. So much for being over him.

“Schaffer,” Matt said as he put the receiver to his ear.

Natalie caught the shadow of a frown forming on his lips just before he turned his back to her. Matt lowered his voice, and even though she couldn’t actually make out all the words, there was no missing the annoyed undercurrent.

“I don’t have time for this, Scott,” Matt finally said, cutting his older brother short on the other end of the line. He’d been in town less than two weeks and already Scott was seeking him out, dumping his problems in his lap. He wasn’t about to allow himself to get sucked back into this kind of a rut again. He was done with all that. Done. “This time, you’re going to have to bail yourself out of trouble.”

The voice on the other end of the line begged indulgence.

Because this was his brother and because, God-only-knew-why but family still meant something to him despite all the turmoil it had caused in his life, Matt spared his older brother a minute more.

He sighed again, weary. “All right, I’ll call you later. Until then, don’t do anything stupid.” Matt broke the connection before Scott could add another layer to the tale of woe that he’d been spinning.

Replacing the receiver in its cradle, Matt turned back around to look at Natalie. She looked stern, he thought. And beautiful despite her frown. “Sorry.”

Her eyes met his. Hers were unfathomable. “Of course you are.”

He would have had to have been deaf not to hear the sarcastic edge in her voice.

He had it coming, Matt thought, and he couldn’t blame her, not after the way they had parted company. But he still felt in his heart that he had done the right thing.

Even if it hurt like hell at the time.

He wasn’t exactly feeling terrific right now, he realized. Eight years and he still wanted her. Maybe even more than ever. He’d often wondered over the years, in isolated moments when he found himself alone, if he would ever get over her. He had his answer now. And it was a resounding “No.”

She didn’t need to know that, either, he thought, doing his best to appear impassive.

The next thing out of Natalie’s mouth threw him for a loop.

“Did you have my sister killed?”

It took him a second to find his tongue. “What?” The implication behind the question had him reeling. How could she even think that? “Do you actually believe that I would be capable of something like that?”

Though she was certain that she gave no indication of it, she was struggling against her attraction to him. The fact that she could feel that, after all that had happened, disgusted her. She was supposed to be a stronger person than that. Right now, Natalie felt as if her emotions had been dumped into a blender, the button set on “high.”

“I discovered a long time ago that I’m not exactly a great judge of character.”

He had that coming, too, Matt thought. He refrained from commenting on her words. Instead, he answered her unsettling question.

“No, I didn’t kill Candace.” And then he hit her with a question of his own. “What could have possibly been my motive?”

She’d asked because her father had planted the idea in her head, but she didn’t want to bring him into the conversation just yet. “When they found her, Candace’s ring was missing.”