For Revenge or Redemption? (8 page)

Just like everyone else, she had worked hard over that initial period to get the transition of management running smoothly, staying late at the office, sometimes going without meals—something she had often done in the past, much to her grandfather’s disapproval. But Seth was a phenomenon with reserves of energy that outstripped hers and even the most dynamic of the other executives and she was determined, if she could, to try to keep up with him. How he managed to control his business interests, keeping them all running efficiently even from a span of hundreds of miles, was beyond Grace—although it did give credit to his judgement in engaging only the best staff needed to run each and every enterprise he presided over.

Which made his decision to have her working closely with him something she might have taken a pride in, if it hadn’t been for the knowledge that he harboured a bitter desire to make her pay for her actions in the past—and in the most basic way possible. So whenever he was around, his presence alone seemed to shatter her equilibrium, stretching her nerves as taut as guitar strings, so that she began losing sleep as well.

‘You look ghastly,’ he remarked when he returned briefly late one afternoon on a flying visit to the office. ‘Simone tells me you’ve been working all hours and neglecting to look after yourself—like missing lunch on more occasions than is healthy—and we can’t have that, can we? I don’t want a weak, undernourished lover in my bed.’

‘Then you’ll just have to find yourself one with more generous proportions, won’t you?’ Grace threw back, refraining from telling him that she’d had a recent stomach upset, which was probably why she looked so pale. She was unwilling to acknowledge how fit, strong and how terrifyingly attractive he looked in comparison, with the brilliant white collar of his shirt emphasising his olive skin and his black, untameable hair and that fine-tailored dark suit he was wearing accentuating the lean, hard lines of his body. ‘I’m sure you’ll find plenty at Weight Watchers!’

He laughed, as he always did when she tried to fend off his determined remarks about making her his mistress.

‘You’ll eat,’ he ordered, catching her hand. ‘Starting now.’ A glance at the clock on the wall showed that it was already four-thirty.

‘Not with you.’ She tried to pull away but his grip only tightened in response.

‘With me. And on my expense account. This is a business dinner, and one I expect you to honour.’

He meant it; she could always tell when business came uppermost on his agenda. Which was how, twenty minutes later, she found herself being handed out of the chauffeur-driven Mercedes he often used around the city and guided into the tastefully furnished little restaurant which was glowing with seasonal warmth and which, Seth had told her on hte way there, served exquisitely cooked meals throughout the day.

‘I hadn’t realised how hungry I was,’ she accepted reluctantly as she tucked into a home-made lasagne with salad and huge chunks of crusty bread, while Seth had a gammon steak with all the trimmings.

‘I thought you might want to see this,’ he said when they had finished.

It was an email addressed to Seth, from the customers that Grace had visited in New York, agreeing to continue to trade
with Culverwells now that it was under Mason’s corporate umbrella.

‘That must make you feel quite smug,’ she remarked, unable to keep the edge out of her voice.

‘Not at all.’ He wiped his mouth with his napkin, laid it down on the table. ‘The PR job you did in New York obviously paid off.’ So he was acknowledging now that she hadn’t flown off to the Big Apple just to go designer shopping, as he’d originally accused her of doing. ‘And
I’m
in this simply to restore Culverwells to a healthy balance sheet.’

‘And to make yourself even more millions while doing so.’

‘Well, naturally. I’m a businessman,’ he stressed, pushing his empty plate forward before sitting back on his chair. ‘That would obviously come into the equation. But one thing I’m not in this business for is to antagonise you.’

‘Really?’ She looked at him dubiously, picking up her glass of sparkling water, which reflected the festive, coloured lights adorning the bar. ‘You could have fooled me.’

‘That’s a totally separate issue,’ he stated, ignoring the jibe. ‘One thing I learned on the road to where I am now is never to let personal and business dealings overlap. Did you know your grandfather took risks in other areas that weren’t always to the good of the company?’

His question, coming out of the blue, threw her for a moment. She looked at him over her glass, a mixture of puzzlement and wounded accusation in her eyes.

‘My grandfather would never have done anything underhanded.’

‘I’m not saying he did.’ He had ordered one small glass of wine for himself—rich and ruby red—which left tears around the bowl as he finished drinking, and put the glass back down on the oak-stained table. ‘He invested unwisely—with the best intentions, I’m sure, but against the advice of more circumspect members of his board. By then his judgement was
probably clouded by more…personal matters.’ Which, as he had already pointed out, he himself would never allow to happen. ‘Ones that, I believe he realised at the end, hadn’t really been worth risking his company for.’

He meant Corinne, but Grace wasn’t sure what else he was driving at.

‘What do you mean?’ she queried, her forehead pleating.

‘Did you know that your grandfather had made an appointment with his solicitor for the day after he died with the intention of changing his will?’ Grace felt the colour drain from her face. ‘You didn’t.’ Amazingly, that strong-boned face was etched with something almost close to commiseration.

She shook her head several times as though to clear it. ‘How did you find out?’

‘I have my sources.’

Of course. He would have access to everything now—letters. Files. Company diaries. Even her, if she allowed herself to succumb to that lethal attraction.

‘Perhaps he realised the mistake he was making and had decided to do something about it,’ he said.

But instead he had had that heart attack, and his real wishes had never been known. She wondered if Seth was thinking what she was—that if Lance Culverwell hadn’t died when he had things could have been so different. Grace would probably have control of the company, and Seth could never have taken it over as he had.

‘I’m afraid all your admirable efforts to save Culverwells wouldn’t have amounted to anything without the injection of cash it sorely needed for reinvestment,’ she heard Seth telling her, as if he knew the path her thoughts had taken.

Which only a man with his obvious wealth and influence could provide, she acknowledged reluctantly.

‘Be careful,’ she murmured. She was choked by her feelings for the grandfather she’d been unable to help believing had let her down, on top of a barrage of conflicting emotions
towards the man sitting opposite her—although for reasons she didn’t dare to question. ‘That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.’

‘Your ability as a businesswoman, Grace, has never been in any doubt.’

She made a sceptical sound down her nostrils. ‘But other aspects of my character have?’ When an elevated eyebrow was his only response, she went on, ‘Anyway, that isn’t what you said the day you took over Culverwells.’

‘I know what I said,’ he rasped. ‘That was before I’d had a chance to study just how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve put into the firm, given of yourself, to get the best out of your fellow directors and your staff.’ He lifted his glass again. ‘I salute you, Grace. It isn’t every day, in my experience, one comes across such single-minded dedication—particularly in a woman. And before you say I’m being sexist—’ he put up his other hand, staving off the retort that was teetering on her lips ‘—I’m not. I merely stated in my
own
experience. Most of the women I’ve known in top management have had to split their time between their jobs and their families, particularly their children, which makes it very hard to remain ruthlessly single-minded indefinitely. You, fortunately, have had no such distractions.’

‘No.’ With a rueful curl to her mouth she looked down at her glass, wondering what he would have said had he known that if fate hadn’t intervened she would have had a child now. And not just any child.
His
child.

‘Come on,’ he said, surprisingly gently, perhaps sensing her sudden change of mood, probably thinking it was because of losing her previous position in the company. ‘I’ll take you home.’

The gallery lights below her flat had only just gone out when the huge white car pulled up outside.

‘Beth’s been working late,’ Grace commented, getting out
of the car just as the gallery door opened and the curvy little brunette came out.

Exchanging a few words with her friend, Grace couldn’t help noticing the way Beth looked appreciatively at Seth who was moving around the bonnet of the gleaming white Mercedes.

‘How do you do it?’ she whispered to Grace, clearly awestruck.

Reluctantly, because Seth had overheard, Grace introduced Beth to him. What woman was safe from him? she despaired as the two of them shook hands and the gallery manager seemed to visibly melt beneath Seth’s devastating smile.

‘So, you’re the Seth Mason I’ve been hearing all about!’ All smiles herself, Beth sounded slightly breathless as she let Seth know with that unusually tactless remark that Grace had been discussing him with her. ‘Didn’t I see you at the opening night?’ She looked at Grace then back to the tall, rather untamed-looking man beside her for confirmation.

‘It’s…possible,’ Seth answered rather evasively.

‘It’s all right, Beth, I’ll lock up,’ Grace offered, relieved when her friend took the hint and tripped lightly away without causing Grace any further embarrassment, after falling over herself to express her pleasure at having met Seth.

‘Going to ask me in for coffee?’

He was standing there just behind her and, after he had just bought her the meal, Grace didn’t feel she could refuse.

When she complied somewhat uneasily, she saw him nod briefly to his driver.

‘You said coffee—not breakfast,’ she reminded him with her heart racing as the large saloon pulled away.

‘He was parked on double yellows. He’ll amuse himself without breaking any traffic regulations until I give him a call.’

Which told
her
, she thought, feeling suitably chastened. She was relieved though that the gallery door was still unlocked,
which meant that she could take him through to the small sitting room at the back of the shop rather than up to the crowding intimacy of her flat.

Flicking on the lights and securing the doors behind him so that no one would think the gallery was still open, she left him browsing the display of paintings while she went through to the tiny kitchen behind the stock room and made two mugs of instant coffee, pouring milk into her own and remembering that, in the office, Seth always drank his black.

He was studying a simply framed pen-and-ink seascape which was concealed from public view in a small recess behind the counter when she came back. He stooped closer, reading the scrawled signature at the bottom.

‘Matthew Tyler.’

‘My father.’

He took the mug she handed to him. ‘Of course. I understand his paintings sell for thousands—tens of thousands—these days.’

Grace nodded.

‘I believe his sculptures aren’t doing so badly, either.’ When she didn’t respond with so much as a gesture this time, he tagged on, ‘You must be very proud of him.’

Was she?

To avoid answering, she took a hasty sip of her coffee and burnt her tongue in the process.

‘I didn’t really know him,’ she said, trying to sound noncommittal when she had recovered enough to speak.

‘And is this the only thing you have of his?’ He glanced at her briefly.

‘Besides this shop?’

She was reminded from his lack of surprise that he knew about that already. ‘No loft full of unsold masterpieces?’

‘I should be so lucky,’ she said with a grimace. ‘I don’t think he’d done anything for a long time before he died. Anything that wasn’t unfinished or crossed through had been
sold, or thrown away. I’ve been told he was an obsessive perfectionist.’

‘So this was all he left you to remember him by?’ He was still studying the sketch, his Adam’s apple working as he took sips of his coffee.

‘Well, no, to be fair, there was one other item.’

He sliced her a glance, obviously expecting her to enlarge, but she didn’t.

With her head tilted to one side, she gave her attention to the drawing. ‘It’s good,’ she appraised a little stiffly. ‘But it isn’t one of his best.’

His best, according to the experts, was the bronze figure she had sold, created from a sketch that Matthew Tyler had made of his daughter during one of his rare and fleeting appearances in her life. He had only come to see her then, during those agonising weeks after her miscarriage, because Lance Culverwell had sent for him, because she had been so unwell, so low…

‘The sculptures were his forte,’ she told him with her gaze still trained on the wall, wondering if those intelligent eyes she could feel suddenly resting on her profile could guess at the tension behind her tightly controlled features.

How could she talk about that bronze to anyone—least of all him? Explain the emotions that had driven her to selling it?

She didn’t even chance looking at Seth, afraid that he would see those emotions now scoring her face.

‘What is it?’ he asked quietly, far, far too aware.

She gave a gasp as the lights in the gallery suddenly went out, leaving them in darkness.

‘Oh, no, not a power cut,’ Grace groaned, though she was grateful for the diversion from his probing question in spite of the inconvenience of having no electricity.

‘I…don’t think so.’ Seth was looking at the festively lit shops on the other side of the road and the street lamp that was
glowing brightly immediately outside the gallery. ‘It might be that something’s blown your fuses,’ he stated.

She uttered a nervous little laugh. ‘Just my luck!’

‘Do you know where your trip switch is?’