He had everything he wanted. Money. Cars. Women. Power. And Culverwells.

There was only one thing left to make his achievements complete and that was Grace Tyler. She belonged in his bed, whether she liked it or not. And he meant to have her—even without her liking him if that was the way it had to be.

But she still wanted him. He’d have to be blind not to have noticed that betraying little flutter in her throat whenever he came within touching distance of her, the flushed cheeks and dilated pupils in the centre of her huge, man-drowning blue eyes. She still wanted him as much as he wanted her—if that were possible—and he wasn’t going to rest until her lovely legs were wrapped around him again and she was lying beneath him, sobbing out his name.

For Revenge or Redemption?

By

Elizabeth Power

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELIZABETH POWER wanted to be a writer from a very early age, but it wasn’t until she was nearly thirty that she took to writing seriously. Writing is now her life. Travelling ranks very highly among her pleasures, and so many places she has visited have been recreated in her books. Living in England’s West Country, Elizabeth likes nothing better than taking walks with her husband along the coast or in the adjoining woods, and enjoying all the wonders that nature has to offer.

FOR CAROL, SHEILA AND ROY

Chapter One

‘OPENING nights are always nerve-racking, Ms Tyler,’ the red-haired young woman with the clipboard told Grace reassuringly, pinning a microphone to the pearl-grey lapel of her designer jacket. ‘But this gallery’s going to do well. I just know it is!’ Her raised eyes skimmed a wall of contemporary paintings, signed prints and ceramics in the tall, glass case immediately behind Grace. ‘We’re doing the exterior shots first, so you won’t be on for a while yet.’ She tugged gently at the lapel, running deft fingers over the smooth sheen of the expensive fabric, brushing off a pale strand from Grace’s softly swept-up hair. ‘There! The camera’s going to love you!’ the woman enthused.

Which was more than the press did! Grace thought, remembering the hard time they had given her after her split with her fiancé, wealthy banker’s son Paul Harringdale, four months ago. Then the tabloid’s comments about her had ranged from “butterfly-minded” and “fickle” to “the tall, slinky blonde who wasn’t capable of making the right decision if her life depended upon it”. It had all been cheap reporting—and the fact that that last remark had come from a journalist who had pursued her romantically without success wasn’t worth losing sleep over—but it had hurt nevertheless.

‘Good luck,’ someone said in passing as the doors opened and invited guests, critics and members of the art world started pouring in.

‘Thanks. I’ll need it,’ Grace laughed over her shoulder, realising it was her friend, Beth Wilson, a curvaceous and vertically challenged brunette, as she liked to call herself; at four-feet-eleven, she assured everyone that life for her was always looking up. Also loyal and efficient, she was the woman Grace had appointed to run her small London gallery while she carried on with her main objective in life, which was to try to keep afloat the nationally renowned textile company that her grandfather had founded and which had run into serious problems since his death just over a year ago. And with no moral support from Corinne.

Since inheriting her husband’s share of the company, Corinne Culverwell had made it clear that she wasn’t interested in being actively involved in the business. Now, with showers of congratulations and good wishes seeming to come at her from every angle, Grace darted a glance around her as the launch party got under way, wondering why her step-grandmother—a name that always seemed inappropriate for a woman who was barely three years older than herself—had claimed that a prior engagement at the last minute prevented her from coming tonight.

Directing two well-wishers to the table where the champagne was being served, Grace noticed the camera crew packing up outside. She had to stay focused, she told herself firmly, steeling herself for the interview that was now imminent. Stay calm. Relaxed.

‘Hello, Grace.’

A prickling tension stiffened her spine as those two softly spoken words dragged her round to face the man who had uttered them.

Seth Mason! She couldn’t speak—couldn’t even breathe for a moment.

She would have recognised him from his voice alone, a deep, rich baritone voice with no trace of any accent. Yet those masculine features—strongly etched and yet tougher-edged in their maturity—were unforgettable too. How often had her dreams been plagued by the stirring images of that hard-boned face, those steel-grey eyes above that rather proud nose? The slightly wavy, thick black hair still curling well over his collar, with those few stray strands that still fell idly across his forehead.

‘Seth…’ Her voice tailed away in shock. Over the years she had both longed and dreaded to see him again, yet she had never expected that she would. Especially not here. Tonight. When she needed everything to go right for her!

From his superior height, his penetrating gaze locked onto hers and his firm, well-defined mouth—the mouth that had driven her mindless for him as it had covered hers—twisted almost mockingly at her discomfiture.

‘How long has it been, Grace? Eight…nine years?’

‘I—I don’t remember,’ she faltered, but she did. Those few fateful meetings with him were engraved on her memory like her five-times table. It had been eight years ago, just after her nineteenth birthday, when she had thought that everything in life was either black or white. That life was mapped out for her in just the way she wanted it to go and that anything she wanted was hers for the taking. But she had learned some hard lessons since then and none more painful than the ones she had suffered from her brief liaison with this man—when she had discovered that nothing could be taken without there being a price, and a very high price, to pay.

‘Don’t remember, or don’t want to?’ he challenged softly.

Flinching from the reminder of things she didn’t want to think about, she took some consolation from realising that they were concealed from most of the party by the tall case of ceramics. She ignored his velvet-sheathed barb and said with a nervous little laugh, ‘Well…fancy seeing you here.’

‘Fancy.’

‘Quite a surprise.’

‘I’ll bet.’

He was smiling down at her but there was no warmth in those slate-grey eyes. Eyes that were keener, more discerning, if that were possible, than when he’d been…what?…twenty-three? Twenty-four? A quick calculation told her that he would be in his early thirties now.

The tension between them stretched as tight as gut, and in an effort to try and slacken it she tilted her small pointed chin towards a display of watercolours by an up and coming artist and asked, ‘Are you interested in modern art?’

‘Among other things.’

She didn’t rise to his bait. He had an agenda, she was sure, and she wasn’t even going to question what it might be.

‘Did you just walk in off the street?’ His name certainly hadn’t been on the guest list. It would have leaped out at her instantly if it had been. Nor was he dressed to kill like a lot of the other guests. He was wearing an open-necked white shirt beneath a leather jacket that did nothing to conceal the breadth of his powerful shoulders, and his long legs were encased in black jeans that showed off a lean waist and narrow hips, a testament to the fact that he exercised regularly and hard.

‘Now, that would be rather too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?’ he supplied silkily, although he didn’t enlarge upon how he had managed to cross the threshold of her little gallery, and right at that moment Grace was far too strung up to care.

Making a more obvious point of looking around her this time, she asked, ‘Is there anything you fancy?’ And could have kicked herself for not choosing her words more carefully when she saw a rather feral smile touch his lips.

‘That’s a rather leading question, isn’t it?’ Rose colour deepened along her cheekbones as images, scents and sensations invaded every screaming corner of her mind. ‘But I think the answer to that has to be along the lines of once-bitten, twice shy.’

So he was still bearing a grudge for the way she had treated him! It didn’t help, telling herself that she probably would be too, had she been in his shoes.

‘Have you come here to look around?’ Angry sparks deepened her cornflower-blue eyes. ‘Or did you come here tonight simply to take pot shots at me?’

He laughed, an action that for a moment, as he lifted his head, showed off the corded strength of his tanned throat and made his features look altogether younger, less harshly etched. ‘You make me sound like a sniper.’

‘Do I?’ I wonder why? Grace thought ironically, sensing a lethal energy of purpose behind his composed façade, yet unable to determine exactly what that purpose was.

The dark strands of hair moved against his forehead as he viewed her obliquely. In spite of everything, Grace’s fingers burned with an absurd desire to brush them back. ‘Still answering every question with a question?’

‘It would seem so.’ She was amazed that he remembered saying that, even though she hadn’t forgotten one moment of those torrid hours she had spent with him. She met his gaze directly now. ‘And you?’ He’d been a boatyard hand from a poor background, manually skilled, hardworking—and far, far more exciting than any of the young men she’d known in her own social sphere. ‘Are you still living in the West Country?’ His nod was so slight as to be indiscernible. ‘Still messing about with boats?’ It was only her nervousness that made it sound so detrimental, but by the way those steely eyes narrowed he’d obviously taken it exactly the wrong way.

‘It would seem so,’ he drawled, lobbing her words back at her. ‘But then, what did you expect from a young man with too many ideas above his station? Wasn’t that what you as good as said before you went on to make me look an utter fool?’

She flinched from the reminder of things she had done when she had been too young and wrapped up in herself to know any better.

Defensively she said, ‘That was a long time ago.’

‘And that excuses your behaviour?’

No, because nothing could, she thought, ashamed, and it was that that made her snap back, ‘I wasn’t offering excuses.’

‘So what are you offering, Grace?’

‘You think I owe you something?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘It was eight years ago, for heaven’s sake!’

‘And you’re still the same person. Rich. Spoilt. And totally self-indulgent.’ This last remark accompanied a swift, assessing glance around the newly refurbished gallery with its pricey artwork, fine porcelain and tasteful furnishings—which owed more to her own flair for design than to cost. ‘And I’m still the poor boy from the wrong side of town.’

‘And whose fault’s that?’ His whole hostile attitude was causing little coils of fear to spiral through her. ‘It’s hardly mine! And if you persist in this—this—’

‘Dissecting of your character?’ He smiled, clearly savouring her lack of composure.

‘I’ll have you thrown off the premises,’ she ground out in a low voice, hoping that no one else could hear.

The lifting of a thick eyebrow reminded her of how ridiculous her threat was. His commanding height and solid frame gave him strength and fitness that put him light years ahead of anyone else milling around her little gallery. That oddly feral smile pulled at the corners of his devastating mouth again. ‘Going to do it yourself?’

Unwelcome sensations ripped through her as she thought about physically handling him, about the way his hard, warm body had felt beneath her hands: the strength of contoured muscle, the sinewy velvet of his wet skin.

‘I didn’t think so,’ he breathed.

He seemed so confident, so sure of himself, Grace marvelled, wondering what made him think he could just march in here and start flinging insults at her; wondering in turn why he hadn’t moved on. He had seemed so ambitious—full of high expectations, determined. And it was that determination to have what he wanted that had made him so exciting to her…

‘Why the Mona Lisa smile?’ he asked. ‘Does it give you some sort of warped satisfaction to know that life didn’t turn out the way we thought it would—for either of us?’

Grace lowered her gaze so as not to see the smugness in his eyes. If he thought—quite wrongly—that she’d been mocking him for not amounting to much then he was clearly enjoying reminding her of a future she had taken so much for granted when she had been young and so stupidly naïve.

Trying not to let him get to her, and still wearing a wistful little smile, she uttered, ‘Not as much satisfaction as it’s clearly given you.’

He dipped his head in an almost gallant gesture. ‘Then that makes us even.’

‘Really?’ She grasped a flute of champagne from the tray of drinks being offered to them, even though she had decided earlier to keep a clear head tonight. She noticed Seth shake his head quickly in silent refusal. ‘I hadn’t realised we were clocking up a score.’

‘Neither did I.’ His sensuous mouth curved from some inward amusement. ‘Are we?’

The pointed question caught her off-guard and before she could think of a suitable response to fling back he went on. ‘I stopped envying you, Grace. And people like you. I never did manage to master the art of using others in my bid to get the things I wanted, but I’m learning,’ he told her with scathing assurance. ‘Nor did I ever find it necessary to do what was expected of me just to impress my own elite little circle of friends.’

Her interviewer had finished his piece outside with the film crew and was talking to the producer on the pavement. Any minute now he would be in to talk to her.

How must she look? she thought, panicking, feeling totally harrowed after coming face to face with Seth Mason.

‘If all you want to do is take out your frustrations and your disappointments on me just because things didn’t turn out for you the way you thought they would…’ Flushed, uncomfortably sticky, she inhaled deeply, trying to stay calm, stay in control. ‘Then you could have chosen a more convenient time to do it! Or was your intention behind coming here tonight simply to unsettle me?’

He smiled, and his face was suddenly a picture of mock innocence. ‘Now, why would I want to do that?’

He knew why; they both knew why. She wanted to forget it, but it was obvious that he never had. Nor was he going to, she realised despairingly.

‘I was merely interested to see the newsworthy Grace Tyler’s new venture for myself, although I understand that it isn’t entirely new. I know that you inherited this shop some years ago and only recently had it transformed from a run-down, barely viable concern to this temple of fine art I see before me today.’

It was information he could have got from any sensation-seeking tabloid, Grace realised, but still she didn’t enjoy the feeling that he, or anyone, for that matter, knew so much about her.

‘Quite a diversion for you from the world of textiles,’ he commented. ‘But then you showed promise…in an artistic sense…’ His marked hesitation told her exactly what he thought about the other traits of her character. ‘Eight years ago. Let’s hope you have more success with this—’ his chin jerked upwards ‘—than you’ve had managing Culverwells—or any of your relationships, for that matter.’

Stung by his obvious reference to her recent broken engagement as well as the company’s problems, Grace looked up into that hard, cold but oh, so indecently handsome face with her mouth tightening.

Had he come to gloat?

‘My relationships don’t concern you.’ The only way to deal with this man, she decided, was to give back as much as he was giving her. Because it was obvious that a man with such a chip on his shoulder would never forgive her for the way she had treated him, even if she got down on her knees and begged him to, which she had no intention of doing! ‘As for my corporate interests, I don’t think that’s any of your business, either.’

A broad shoulder lifted in a careless shrug. ‘It’s everyone’s business,’ he stated, unconcerned by her outburst. ‘Your life, both personal and commercial, is public knowledge. And one only has to pick up a newspaper to know that your company’s in trouble.’

The media had made a meal of the fact, accusing her and the management team at Culverwells of bringing the problems about, when everyone who wasn’t so jaundiced towards her knew that the company was only another unfortunate victim of the economic downturn.

‘I hardly think a boat hand from…from the sticks is in a position to advise me on how I should be running my affairs!’ She didn’t want to say these things to him, to sound so scathing about how he earned his living, but she couldn’t help herself; she was goaded into it by his smug and overbearing attitude.

‘You’re right. It is none of my business.’ His smile was one of captivating charm for the redhead with the clipboard who was standing with the gallery manager a few feet away, gingerly indicating to Grace that they were ready to interview her. ‘Well, as I said, I wish you success.’

‘Thanks,’ Grace responded waspishly, aware of that undertone of something in his voice that assured her his wishes were hardly sincere. Even so, she plastered on a smile and crossed over to join her interviewer, wishing she was doing anything but having to face the camera after the unexpectedly tough ordeal of meeting Seth Mason again.

Outside in the cold November air, Seth stopped and watched with narrowed eyes over the display of paintings in the window as Grace faced a journalist who was renowned for making his interviewees sweat.

Smiling that soft, deceptive smile, she appeared cool, controlled and relaxed, answering some question the man asked her, those baby-blue eyes seeming to flummox her interviewer rather than the other way around.

She was as sylph-like as ever, and as beautiful, Seth appreciated, finding it all too easy to allow his gaze to slide over her lovely face, emphasised by her pale, loosely twisted hair, and her gentle curves beneath that flatteringly tailored suit. But she hadn’t changed, he thought, as he felt the inevitable hardening of his body, and he warned himself to remember exactly what type of woman she was. She would play with a man’s feelings until she was tired of her little game. The way she had dumped him and the last poor fool, her fiancé, was evidence of that. She was also still an unbelievable snob.

What she needed was someone to let her know that she couldn’t always have her own way; someone who would demand respect from her, and get it. In short, what she needed was someone who would bring her down a peg or two—and he was going to take immense satisfaction in being the one to do it.

Chapter Two

THE interview was over, and so was the party.

Grace breathed a sigh of relief.

The evening had gone well. In fact, Beth had taken several orders for quite a few of the paintings and sold one or two of the ceramics. The interview, too, had turned out satisfactorily, without her having to face any of the awkward questions she had been dreading. She should have been happy—and she was, she assured herself staunchly, except for that meeting earlier with Seth Mason.

She didn’t want to think about it. But as she went upstairs to the flat above the gallery, having locked up for the night, long-buried memories started crowding in around her and she couldn’t stop them coming no matter how hard she tried.

It had been shortly after her nineteenth birthday, during the last few weeks of her gap year between leaving college and starting university, when she had first met Seth in that small West Country coastal town.

She’d gone down from London to stay with her grandparents who had brought her up and who had had a summer home there, a modern mansion high in the wooded hills above the little resort.

On that fateful day that would stay for ever in her memory, she’d been out with her grandfather when he had decided to call into the little boatyard on the far side of town. She couldn’t even remember why, now. But, while Lance Culverwell had been in the scruffy little office, she had noticed Seth working on the hull of an old boat. She’d noted the way his broad back moved beneath his coarse denim shirt, the sleeves of which had been rolled up, exposing tanned, powerful arms as he’d driven rivets hard into the yielding metal, unconsciously raking back his untameably black hair, strands of which had fallen forward tantalisingly as he worked.

When he turned around, she looked quickly away, though not in time for him to fail to register where her gaze was resting on the hard, lean angles of his denim-clad hips.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even acknowledge her presence with a smile. But there was something so brooding in those steely-grey eyes as she chanced another glance in his direction that she felt herself grow hot with sensations she’d never experienced before just from a man looking at her. It was as though he could see through her red crop-top and virginal-white trousers to the wisp of fine lace that pushed up her suddenly sensitised breasts, and to her skimpy string, the satin triangle of which began to feel damp from more than just the heat of the day.

The faintest smile tugged at one corner of his mouth—a sexy mouth, she instantly decided, like his eyes, and the prominent jut of his rather arrogant-looking jaw. She didn’t acknowledge him, though, and wondered whether to or not. But then Lance Culverwell came out of the office with the owner of the boatyard, and she gave her smile to the two older men instead.

She didn’t look back as she walked over to the long, convertible Mercedes that was parked, top down, the gleaming silver on the gravel like a statement of her family’s position in life beside the older, far more modest vehicles that were parked there. Instinctively, though, she knew that his eyes were following her retreating figure, the way her hair cascaded down her back like a golden waterfall, and the not entirely involuntary sway of her hips as she prayed she wouldn’t miss her footing in her high-heeled sandals all the way back to the car. She even begged Lance Culverwell to let her drive, and she pulled out of that tired-looking little boatyard with her head high and her hair blowing in the breeze, laughing a little too brightly at some remark her grandfather made, wanting to get herself noticed—wanted—and by him.

He wasn’t right for her, of course. He was a mere boat hand, after all, and far removed from the professional type of young men she usually dated. But something had happened between her and that gorgeous hunk she’d exchanged glances with that day, something that defied cultural and financial differences, and the boundaries of class and status. It was something primeval and wholly animal that made her drive back from town in a fever of excitement, guessing that Lance Culverwell would be appalled if he knew what she was thinking, feeling—which was an overwhelming desire to see that paragon of masculinity who had made her so aware of herself as a woman again, and soon.

She didn’t have long to wait. It was the following week, after she had been shopping in town.

Laden with purchases for a party her grandparents were giving, she was just starting up the hill, wishing she hadn’t decided to walk down that morning but had brought her car instead, when one of her carrier bags suddenly slipped out of her hand just as she was crossing the road.

Making a lunge for it, and dropping another bag in the process, she sucked in a breath as a motorbike suddenly cruised to a halt in front of her and a black-booted foot nudged the first errant carrier to the side of the carriageway.

‘Hello again.’ The sexily curving mouth of the leather-clad figure on the bike was unmistakable: Seth Mason. She remembered her grandfather casually referring to him on the way home the previous week, and had hugged the name to her like a guilty secret. Her heart seemed to go into free fall as he spoke to her, then felt like it was beating out of control.

‘You’ve bitten off more than you can chew.’ He looked amused at her plight. His voice, though, was deep and so warm that she fell in love with it just standing there on that rural road as he bent to pick up the one bag she still hadn’t retrieved and restored it to her flustered arms. ‘You look as though you could do with a lift.’

Every instinct of survival screamed at Grace to refuse, to listen to the nagging little voice of wisdom that warned her that involving herself with this man would definitely be biting off more than she could chew! But everything about him was exciting, from his dark, enigmatic features to his hard, lean body and the heavy pulsing of the motorbike’s engine between those powerful, leather-clad thighs.

‘I’m Seth Mason…if you’re wondering,’ he stated dryly, after she deposited her bags in the pannier and sat astride the bike.

‘I know,’ she said, easing down her mini-skirt that had ridden up to reveal more golden thigh than she wanted him to see.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me your name?’ A distinct edge crept into his voice as he added, ‘Or do you think I should know it?’

Grace had laughed at that. ‘Don’t you?’ she asked cheekily.

From the look he sent over his shoulder, he wasn’t particularly impressed.

‘I’m Grace,’ she told him quickly in the light of his challenging, brooding gaze.

‘Here.’ He thrust a crash helmet into her hand. ‘Put this on.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘If you want to ride with me, you do.’

He was responsible for her safety, that was what he was saying. The thought of having his protection sent a little frisson through Grace.

Somewhat nervously she said, ‘I’ve never been on a motorbike before.’

‘Then hold on to me,’ was his firm command.

Even now, letting herself into the flat, Grace could still remember the thrill of putting her arms around his hard, masculine body. Of laying her cheek against the warm leather that spanned his back while the bike had throbbed and vibrated like a live thing beneath them.

‘Lean when I do!’ he shouted back above the engine’s sudden roar. ‘Don’t pull against me.’

Never in a million years! the young Grace sighed inwardly, utterly enthralled, though she kept her feelings to herself for the unusually lengthy journey home.

‘You took the long way round.’ She pretended to chastise him, stepping off the bike. Her legs felt like jelly and for more reasons than just the vibration, or the speed with which he had driven the powerful machine along a particularly fast stretch of road.

Something tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘Well, they do say a girl always remembers her first time.’

Her cheeks felt as though they were on fire as she took off her helmet and handed it back to him. ‘I will. It was truly unforgettable. Thanks.’ But her voice shook at the images his comment about a girl’s first time gave rise to. What would he say, she wondered, if he knew that there never had been a first time in that most basic of respects? That she was still a virgin? Would he lose interest in her? Because she was sure there was interest there. Or would he regard her as a challenge, like a lot of the men she’d dated had, backing off when they’d realised she wasn’t an easy lay?

He was looking at the impressive security gates, and the big house with its curving drive visible behind them, but as she moved to retrieve her purchases from the pannier he said, ‘Would you like a hand carrying those in?’

Setting the electric gates in motion, she laughed, saying, ‘I don’t think that’s really necessary, do you?’ But then, impelled by something outside her usually reserved nature, she was shocked to hear herself adding provocatively, ‘Or do you?’

It was a game she had been playing with him; she knew that now—in hindsight. Now that she had the benefit of maturity on her side. But she had wanted him, so badly, even while she’d known that a relationship with a man like Seth Mason was strictly taboo.

She cringed now as she thought about her behaviour at that time. Even so, she couldn’t stop the memories from spilling over into every nook and cranny of her consciousness, no matter how much she wanted to hold them at bay.

‘Exactly what do you want from me, Grace?’

She remembered those words like they’d been spoken yesterday as, helmet removed, he’d come round to the rear of the bike and helped recover the last of her bags.

She took it from him with a hooked finger, laughing, but nervously this time. ‘Who says I want anything from you?’

He studied her long and hard, those penetrating grey eyes so disquieting that she was the first one to break eye-contact. Distinctly she remembered now how vividly blue the sky had been behind his gleaming ebony head, and how the colours of the busy Lizzies in the borders along her grandparents’ drive had dazzled her eyes almost painfully with their brilliance as she averted her gaze from his unsettling regard.

‘You know where to find me,’ he drawled, turning away from her with almost marked indifference, so that she felt deflated as she moved along the drive.

The starting up of his bike was an explosion of sound that ripped through the air and which brought her round to see only the back of his arrogant figure as he shot off like an avenging angel down the long, steep hill. The roar of his engine seemed to stamp his personality on every brick and balcony of the quiet, prestigious neighbourhood, and seemed to linger long after he had gone.

She didn’t go down to the boatyard again. She couldn’t bring herself to be so totally brazen as to let him think she was actually chasing him, even though it was torture for her not to make some feeble excuse to her grandparents and sneak down into town to see him.

In fact it was completely by accident when she met him again. With her grandparents visiting friends farther afield for a couple of days, she was out walking alone, exploring the more secluded coves along the coast.

Climbing over a jutting promontory of rocks, she clambered down onto the shingle of a small deserted beach some way from the town. Deserted, except for Seth Mason.

On the opposite side of the beach, wearing a white T-shirt and cut-off jeans, he was crouching down, his back turned to her, doing something to the lowered sail of a small wooden dinghy.

Grace’s first instinct was to turn and head quickly and quietly back in the direction she had come from, but in her haste she slipped, and it was the crunch of her sandals on the shingle as she fought for her balance that succeeded in giving her away.

He looked round, getting to his feet, while she could only stand there taking in his muscular torso beneath the straining fabric of his T-shirt and the latent strength of his powerful, hair-covered limbs.

‘Are you going to join me?’ he called across to her, sounding unsurprised to see her there, as if he had been expecting her. ‘Or are you just a vision designed to lure unsuspecting sailors into the sea?’

She laughed then, moving towards him, her awkwardness easing. ‘Like Lorelei?’

‘Yes. Like Lorelei.’ He was watching her approach with studied appreciation. ‘Have you been sent here simply to bring about my destruction?’

She laughed again, but more self-consciously this time, because his masculine gaze was moving disconcertingly over the soft gold of her shoulders above her strapless red top, travelling all the way down to her long golden legs exposed by what she suddenly considered were far-too-short white shorts. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Didn’t she have a song so sweet it could make any man lose his course?’

She wondered if he was applying that analogy to her, and knew a small thrill in guessing that he probably was.

‘And do you have one, Seth Mason?’

He turned back to the dinghy perched on its trailer, and started to hoist the sail, checking something in the rigging. With a hand shielding her eyes from the sun, Grace watched the breeze tugging at the small orange triangle.

‘Do I have a what?’

Turning her attention to the bunching muscles in those powerful arms, she said, ‘A course.’

Solid and purposeful, his work taking all of his attention, he didn’t say anything until he’d drawn the small sail down again.

‘Why,’ he enquired suddenly, turning back to her, ‘does everything you say sound like a challenge?’

She remembered being puzzled by his remark. ‘Does it?’

‘And why do you answer every question with a question?’

‘Do I?’ she’d exclaimed, and then realised what she’d said and burst out laughing.

As he laughed with her it seemed to change his whole personality from one of dark, brooding excitement to one of devastating charm.

Caught in the snare of his masculinity, she could only gaze up at his tanned and rugged features; at the amusement in those sharp, discerning eyes; at those strong, white teeth and that wide, oh, so sexy mouth. Madly she wondered how that mouth would feel covering, pressing down on, plundering hers.

‘Do you do anything else but mess about with boats?’ Her voice cracked as she asked it. In her heady state she wondered if he might have guessed at the way she was feeling and wondered, mortified, if he might take her question as another kind of come-on, because where he was concerned she couldn’t seem to help herself.

‘That’s about the size of it.’ His tone reverted to that familiarly curt and non-communicative way he had of answering her, like he was challenging her to criticise all he did—the person he was.

She walked round to the other side of the dinghy. ‘Is this one yours?’

A hard satisfaction lit his face at that. ‘She’s not worth much.’ Lovingly he ran a hand over the boat’s smooth contours, a long, tanned hand that had Grace speculating at how it might caress a woman’s body. ‘But she delivers what she promises.’

She sent him an oblique glance. ‘And what’s that?’ she quizzed, wondering instantly why she had asked it.

Heavy-lidded eyes fringed by thick, black eyelashes swept over her scantily clad body, and there was a sensual curve to the hard, masculine mouth as he uttered in a deeply caressing tone, ‘Just pure pleasure.’

And he wasn’t just talking about sailing his boat! There was a sexual tension between them that screamed for release, unacknowledged but as tangible as the hard shingle beneath her feet and the sun that played across her face and bare shoulders.

To break the dangerous spell that threatened to lead her into a situation she didn’t know how to handle, she searched desperately for something to say. Remembering his reference to the sea-nymph, earlier and deciding that there was much more to him than she could possibly guess at, without thinking she found herself suddenly babbling, ‘Where did you study the romantic writers?’

‘I didn’t.’ He started pushing the boat towards the water’s edge. ‘Not everyone’s lucky enough to go to university.’ She wondered if that remark was a dig at her, and her family’s wealth and position, but she let it go. ‘I have a widowed mother.’ Foster mother, as it had turned out. ‘And foster siblings to support.’ The boat was down in the water then, released from its support, bobbing on the gentle waves. ‘I pick things up.’

Nothing would escape him, Grace decided, before he said, dismissing the subject, ‘Right. She’s ready.’ He was holding the rope that was still attached to the trailer. ‘Do you like the water?’ he threw back over his shoulder. ‘Or would it be another first for you if I took you out for a spin around the bay?’

‘Are you asking me?’ Her heart had started to beat like crazy.

‘Is that a yes?’

She nodded, too excited because he’d asked her to say anything else. But quickly, as he leaped into the boat, she slipped off her sandals and started wading in.

‘You’re right, this is a first. I’ve never been in a dinghy before,’ she gabbled, too conscious of the callused warmth of the hand he extended to help her, although she couldn’t avoid adding with a provocative little smile as she was climbing in, ‘My grandparents have a yacht.’

Suddenly she was being yanked down so forcefully beside him that she gave a little scream as the boat rocked precariously, and she had to make a grab for the soft fabric of his T-shirt to steady herself.

‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he drawled.

Caught for a moment in the circle of his arms, aware of the deep contours of his chest and the heavy thunder of his heart beneath, she thought that he was going to kiss her as he dipped his head.

Instead, with his lashes coming down to hide any emotion in those steel-grey eyes, he said, ‘Take the rudder while I get the sail up,’ before moving away from her, leaving her fiercely and inexplicably disappointed.

It was an unforgettable afternoon. They sailed until the sun began to dip towards the sea while they seemed to talk about nothing and everything. She learned about his background—how he had never known his father and how he had been given up by his mother when he was three years old; about the orphanages he’d lived in and the foster homes. He had been with the family he was living with now, he told her, since he was fifteen. Now they were his responsibility, he stated with a surprising degree of pride. Just as they had made him theirs in the beginning.

He reminded her of how she had asked him earlier if he had a course, and he told her of his interest in architecture and his intention one day to build a new house for his foster mother. Marina-side, he said. With a view of boats from every balcony.

She laughed at that and said, ‘All yours, of course!’

He didn’t share her laughter, lost as he was in his personal fantasy. ‘I think I’ll put it there,’ he speculated, pointing to the piece of derelict industrial wasteland where the tall chimneys of a disused power-station created a blot on the landscape.

‘There?’ She frowned, wrinkling her nose in distaste. ‘I don’t think she’d thank you for that!’ She laughed again.

‘And what about you? Do you have a dream, Grace?’ His tone was slightly off-hand as though he didn’t think too much of her making fun of his dreams. ‘Or do you have so much that there’s nothing left worth striving for?’

‘No. Of course not!’ she stated indignantly. ‘I intend to settle down. Marry.’

‘What—some ex-public-school type that Daddy’s vetted who’ll give you two-point-five children and a houseful of business associates to entertain?’

She didn’t tell him that her father didn’t figure in her life, that he’d given up his paternal duties after she’d caused her mother’s death simply by being born. Those things were too private—too personal—to share with a total stranger, however handsome or amazingly sexy he might be.

Instead, guessing that it was mere envy that made him speak so derisively of her future, she asked, ‘And what’s wrong with that?’

‘And that’s all you intend to do?’

‘No,’ she argued, wondering why he made it sound so mundane, unromantic, as she watched him lowering the sail. ‘There’s the company. I’m earmarked to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps one day.’

‘Ah, yes, the company. And that’s it—cut and dried? With no deviating from the pre-arranged course, no surprises, no dreams of your own?’

‘Dreams are for people who crave things they haven’t a hope of ever attaining,’ she stated, feeling a little piqued. ‘We inhabit different worlds. In mine the future’s carved out for us, and that’s the way I like it.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he said dismissively, giving all his attention then to securing a rope around a mooring buoy, while Grace had been glad to let the subject drop.

A little later, when he was leaning back relaxing for a few minutes with his face to the sun, she took a small sketch-pad from the big silver beach-bag she’d brought out with her that morning and drew a cormorant sitting on a rock drying its outstretched wings in the early-evening sun.

‘You’re good. You’re very good,’ Seth praised over her shoulder, making her clasp the drawing to her, warmed by his compliment, but suddenly terribly self-conscious at her efforts.

‘You’re too talented to be embarrassed about it. Let me see,’ he insisted, but in reaching for her pad his fingers accidentally brushed the soft outer swell of her breast beneath her top, and it was that which had put the spark to the powder keg waiting to blow.

‘Would you care for a swim?’ His voice was suddenly thickened by desire, the grey eyes holding hers communicating a message that was as sensual as the feelings that were raging through her.

‘I—I don’t have any swimwear,’ she responded, excitement coiling in her stomach.

His mouth compressed wryly. ‘Neither do I.’

She looked away from him, suddenly nervous as she’d laid down her sketch pad. ‘OK. But turn around.’

He laughed, but did as she requested, while she made short work of stepping out of her shorts and pulling her red bandeau-top over her head.

Without looking at him, she stepped nimbly out of the boat and plunged into the sea, gasping from the unexpected coldness of the water.

Coming up for air some way from the dinghy, she heard the deep plunge of Seth’s body breaking the surface of the water just behind her.

They were moored near a small cove with a beckoning crescent of soft golden sand. Above and around it rose the sheer rugged face of the cliffs, making the small beach inaccessible to anyone without a boat.

Scrambling ashore first, Grace stood there on the wet sand in nothing but her flesh-coloured string, wondering how she could feel so free, so uninhibited. What she hadn’t reckoned on was the impact of Seth’s masculinity as he emerged from the water, hair plastered to his head, rivulets cascading over his hair-coarsened chest and powerful limbs; he was like some marauding sea-god, bronze from head to toe and unashamedly potent in his glorious nakedness.

None of the men Grace knew would have dared to walk naked like this, and she could only stand there and let her eyes feast on the sheer perfection of his body.

She should have crossed her arms over her own nakedness, turned away, but it didn’t even occur to her—and anyway, she couldn’t have torn her eyes away from him even if she’d wanted to.

Instead, raising her arms, she slipped her hands under the wet sheet of her hair, lifted it up and let her head tip back, revelling in the proud glory of her femininity.

She knew how she would look to him with her body at full stretch, the opposite to everything he was. Her long legs were silky and golden, her flat stomach smooth between the gently curving bowl of her hips and her breasts high and full, their sensitive tips hardening into tight buds from the excitement of all that she was inviting.

He came up to her and she lifted her head, her blue eyes beneath her long, wet lashes slumberous with desire, a desire such as she had never known before.

He didn’t say a word and Grace gasped from the wet warmth of the arm that was suddenly circling her midriff, pulling her against him. The damp matt of his chest hair was a delight against her swollen nipples; he was already erect, and she’d felt the thrusting strength of his manhood against her abdomen.

His breath was warm against her face as his other hand shaped its oval structure; his fingers, first tender, then turning into a hard demand as they capped the back of her head, tilting her mouth upward to accept the burning invasion of his.

His hands moved over her with such possessive mastery that she became like a wild thing in his arms, her pleasure heightening out of control, as he slid down her body to take first one and then the other of her heavy, throbbing breasts into his mouth.

There was no need for words. She scarcely knew him, but she didn’t need to know any more. From that first instant when their eyes had met in that boatyard, she had known instinctively that he was destined to be the master of her body. And when he peeled off her wet string and laid her down on the sand, positioning himself above her, she knew that every glance, every word and every measured sentence that had passed between them since they met had all been a prelude to this moment—the moment when he pushed through the last boundary and the taboo that separated them to claim the surprisingly painless gift of her virginity.

It had all been her own fault, Grace thought now as she went through into her rather bijou kitchen to fix herself some supper, berating herself, as she had done so many times over the years, for the way she had encouraged him. But as she filled her kettle, reached into the fridge and took out a carton of milk, some cheese and margarine, then hunted around for her tin of crackers, she knew that she hadn’t had it in her power to stop it happening.

Her lower abdomen tightened almost painfully as she recalled how tender a lover Seth Mason had been even then, as a very young man—which led her to the reluctant speculation of just how experienced he would be now, until she realised what she was doing.

Did she care? He might be married, for all she knew. And, even if he were, what was it to her? Now? After all these years?

Finding the crackers, she started to spread margarine over one of the small discs with such vehemence that it split in several places, sending a shower of brittle crumbs across the worktop.

A mild little curse escaped her as she went to grab a piece of kitchen roll and dampen it under the tap.

What she had felt for Seth Mason had been crazy and totally irrational, a teenager’s crush on someone who merely excited her because she knew her family wouldn’t approve. Forbidden fruit—wasn’t that what they called it? Her brows knitted in painful reverie as she began mopping up crumbs from the work top.

In spite of that, though, she had made a date with him for the following evening, arranging to meet on the beach where his boat was kept, because her grandparents were back by then and she had strictly forbidden him to pick her up from the house.

But she had forgotten the dinner party that she had been expected to attend with her grandparents that evening, which she hadn’t been able to get out of, and she’d had no way of contacting Seth without anyone finding out. She’d forgotten to get his mobile-phone number, and she hadn’t been able to ring him at the boatyard as she’d learned that the owner—his boss—and her grandfather were old friends. So she had broken their date without a word—no message of regret, no apology. Which would have been rude enough, she thought, straightening up and dropping the soiled kitchen-paper into the bin, without that final blow to his ego.

The following day she had seen him again when she’d gone down to town with her grandfather and Fiona, the daughter of a neighbour just a couple of years older than Grace who had elected to come with them.

Having left her grandfather at the newsagent’s, Grace was walking along the high Street with Fiona when she suddenly looked up and saw Seth coming out of a shop.

Seth saw her too, and started to close the few yards between them, but then he held back, waiting for her to make the first move. She noticed the burning question in his eyes: where were you last night? No one with half an eye could have mistaken his smouldering desire for her that he made no attempt to hide.

A flame leaped in her from the memory of their mutual passion, of his hard hands on her body and the thrusting power of his maleness as he had driven her to a mind-blowing orgasm. But panic leaped with it, along with shame and fear of anyone finding out that she’d been associating with him and telling her grandfather. Fiona Petherington was a terrible gossip, as well as the biggest of snobs. ‘Look at the way that boy’s looking at you!’ she’d remarked witheringly. ‘Who is he? Do you know him?’

‘Oh, him,’ Grace remembered answering, as coolly as she was able to. ‘Just some boat boy who’s been sniffing round me. Quite sexy, if you don’t mind slumming it.’ Then she’d cut him dead and walked straight past him—and as she passed she realised from the look on his face that he’d overheard.

The memory of her behaviour that day still made her cringe. But she had paid for it less than ten minutes later. Having left her snobbish companion talking to two other neighbours that they had bumped into outside the chemist’s, she popped across the road to the bank. She didn’t know whether Seth had followed her or not but as she came out of the building he was striding up the steps outside.

She could still feel the angry bite of his fingers around her wrist as he drew level with her, could still see the condemnation in those angry eyes.

‘Slumming it, were you? Is that what you thought you were doing with me down there in the sand?’ It was a harsh demand, but low enough so that anyone passing couldn’t hear. ‘You think you’re so high and mighty, don’t you?’ he breathed when she struggled free without answering, shockingly aware of Lance Culverwell coming up the steps to meet her. ‘Well, go ahead, have your five minutes of amusement. But don’t think that anything we did on that beach was for any other reason than because I knew I could!’

Those words still lacerated her as much as they had then, even though at the time she had known she deserved them. Making love with him had been so incredible for her that, crazily, even after her shameful treatment of him, she’d wanted to believe that they had been incredible for him, too.

But Lance Culverwell had had his suspicions about what had gone on. His interrogation had been relentless, and there had been rows back at the house. The following morning she had been packed off to London with her grandmother and she had never seen Seth again. Until today.

Pushing back the plate of crackers and cheese that she suddenly had no appetite for, she tried telling herself not to think about Seth Mason, to forget about him altogether. She hadn’t seen him in eight years before he had turned up at the gallery this evening, so there was no reason why she was ever likely to see him again.

Yes, she’d acted abominably, Grace admitted, but that was before she’d learned that pleasure, however fleeting, had to be paid for. Because six weeks after their uninhibited passion on that beach she had discovered that she was pregnant. That she was having Seth’s baby. Seth Mason, who wasn’t good enough even to be seen out with in her and her family’s opinion, was going to be the father of her child!

Chapter Three

‘WHAT do you have to say about the dawn raid on Culverwells, Ms Tyler?’ A microphone was thrust in her face and cameras flashed in a bid to capture the slim young blonde in the scooped-necked black t-shirt, combat trousers and trainers whose arm, draped with a casual jacket, was already reaching out to the revolving door.

‘No comment.’ She’d come straight in from New York and she couldn’t deal with the press now, not while she was tired, jet-lagged and wondering what the hell had been going on while she had been away. She would deal with them later, she decided, when she had had a chance to speak to Corinne. But her grandfather’s widow hadn’t been answering her calls, either at home or on her mobile. Grace knew that the only way anything could have happened to Culverwells was if Corinne had been behind it.

‘Surely you must have some statement to make? There will be changes in management—redundancies—surely?’

‘I said, no comment.’

‘But you can’t really think…?’

Their persistent questions were mercifully cut off by the revolving door. She was inside the modern, air-conditioned building, the head office of the company that still bore her grandfather’s name, even though it was in public ownership.

The silver-haired, moustached features of Lance Culverwell gazed down at her from the huge framed portrait in the plush reception area and, grabbing a moment to steady herself, Grace gazed back at it with tears of anger and frustration biting behind her eyes.

Oh, Granddad! What have you done?

It had been a shock to everyone when he had died last year and left everything he had, including his company shares, to his bride of two years. Not that Grace had begrudged Corinne anything; she’d been Lance Culverwell’s wife, after all. But her grandfather had been so smitten by the ex-model that he couldn’t have—or wouldn’t have—even contemplated anything like this happening, Grace thought despairingly.

A dawn raid, that journalist outside had called the takeover, giving rise to a picture in Grace’s mind of masked men on horseback brandishing rifles, intent on plundering the company’s safe.

If only it were that simple! she thought giddily, clutching her bum bag—which was the only piece of luggage she hadn’t instructed the taxi driver to drop off at her flat—as she took the executive lift to the top floor.

‘Grace! I tried and tried to reach you…’ The portly figure of Casey Strong, her marketing manager, rushed forward to meet Grace before she had barely stepped out of the lift. Greyhaired and due for retirement any day, he was flushed and out of breath. ‘Your phone was off.’

‘I’ve been in the air!’ She had come straight from the airport, having spent most of her time in New York trying to persuade one of their best customers not to take their business away from Culverwells. It was a PR job that hadn’t yet produced the result she wanted, as the company’s governing body was taking time to consider what its future action would be.

‘Grace! You’re here at last!’ It was Simone Phillips, her PA, who knew the problems that Culverwells was facing as well as anyone. It was the middle-aged, matronly Simone, who had finally managed to get hold of her with the shocking news of the takeover just as Grace had been coming through customs.

‘It’s Corinne. She’s sold out!’ the woman declared, confirming Grace’s worst suspicions. ‘And so has Paul Harringdale—your ex.’ Paul had had a big enough stake in the company to give him and Grace an equal share with Corinne. Which was why Lance Culverwell had probably thought his company would be in safe hands and his granddaughter well provided-for, Grace realised bitterly; he would never have dreamed she would terminate her engagement as she had amidst a good deal of adverse publicity.

‘We’ve got a new CEO, and there’s already talk of a massive shake-up in upper management so he can get his own board up and running, like, yesterday!’ she told Grace dramatically. ‘The only up side is that he’s gorgeous and single, which means he’s probably as ruthless as hell and will probably be ousting us all at the first opportunity!’

‘Over my dead body!’ Grace resolved aloud, pushing wide the door to the board room which had been standing ajar. To meet a sea of new faces all swivelling in her direction as her fighting words intruded on something the new CEO had been saying.

‘If that’s the way you want it,’ a deep voice, ominously familiar, told her from the far end of the table. ‘But it’s usually my method to do these things without anyone’s actual blood on my hands.’

As the tall, impeccably dressed man in the dark suit and immaculate white shirt stood up, Grace’s mouth dropped open.

Seth Mason!

‘Hello again, Grace.’ His deep, calm tones only emphasised the vortex of confusion that her mind had suddenly become.

It was Seth Mason. But how could it be? How could he have made the leap from a boat-fitter, or whatever he had been, to this international business-mogul? Because that was what Simone had called the man who had taken over when she had reached Grace so desperately on her mobile phone just after she’d stepped off that plane. And there was no doubt that Seth was the new CEO.

‘Do you two know each other?’ Grace wasn’t sure where the question came from, only half aware that one or two of the older men had risen to their feet when they had realised who she was. She could feel everyone’s eyes skimming over her crumpled and totally inappropriate clothes.

The dynamo at the opposite end of the table raised an eyebrow in mocking query. He was waiting for her response, which she was too dumbfounded to give.

‘Oh, I think Ms Tyler will tell you—we go way back.’

She was still standing there near the door, unable to think properly, unable to speak; her only coherent thought was that Corinne obviously hadn’t had the courage to speak to her until Grace had found out for herself what had happened.

‘Can I have a word with you?’ She couldn’t believe how squeaky her voice sounded.

The subtle lift of a broad shoulder was the action of a man who couldn’t be fazed. ‘Fire away.’

In private, her eyes demanded.

The new man in charge glanced around at the others members of his team.

‘Would you excuse us?’ There was no disputing the depth of command in Seth Mason’s voice.

Chair legs scraped over the polished floor as everyone complied. To Grace it seemed like for ever before they had all filed out.

‘You had something you wanted to say?’ he prompted when the door closed behind the last of them, leaving her alone with him in the room where all the major decisions were made.

Yes, she did, she had a lot to say to him! But his smouldering sexuality was something she hadn’t reckoned on being so disturbed by, now that there was no one else around.

Images swam before her eyes of the way he had been eight years ago—of the feel of warm leather as he’d drawn her back against him where she’d sat astride that bike; of the warmth of his breath on her throat as one sure, strong hand had slid up to cup her breast, already too sensitive from his attentions…

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she challenged angrily, dumping her jacket and bag down on the table and trying not to let his raw masculinity affect her. ‘You must have known about this two weeks ago, that night you turned up at my gallery! Why didn’t you say anything about this then?’

‘And spoil the surprise?’

Of course. That was the whole point of takeovers like this—so the company being taken over wouldn’t have time to organise any opposition to it. Grace gritted her teeth, her breathing shallow, breasts rising and falling sharply beneath her T-shirt.

‘You led me to believe…’ That he was still working in that boatyard. That he was…She couldn’t think clearly enough to remember exactly what he had said. ‘You let me think…’

‘I did nothing of the sort,’ he denied coldly. ‘You jumped to your own conclusions with that discriminating little brain of yours.’ A humourless smile curved his mouth as he came around the long table. ‘What is it they say about giving someone enough rope?’

Grace raked her fingers agitatedly through her hair. It must look a mess—she looked a mess, she thought, standing there like a street urchin in her own boardroom. The hasty clean-up she had managed in the cramped washroom on the plane did nothing to make her feel adequately groomed beside his impeccable image.

‘Well, you’ve come a long way, haven’t you?’

‘Not nearly far enough yet. Not by a long chalk.’ Hostility seemed to emanate from every immaculately clothed pore.

‘What do you mean?’ Grace challenged, eyeing him warily.

He uttered a soft laugh. ‘I mean I’ve waited a long time for this moment, and I intend savouring every satisfying minute.’

Unconsciously, she moistened her lips. ‘Is that what this takeover’s all about? Revenge?’

He laughed again, a harsh, curt sound this time. ‘I prefer to call it making the most of one’s opportunities.’

‘What? Vindictively buying up enough shares so that you could steal my grandfather’s company from under my nose?’

‘Vindictive? Possibly. But not stolen, Grace, acquired—and quite legitimately. And hardly from under your nose. You’ve been enjoying yourself in New York for the past week or so, I understand, so you can hardly expect a man in my position not to salvage the spoils when you go off designer shopping—or whatever it is a woman like you does alone in the Big Apple—while your ship is sinking.’

‘I didn’t desert. And Culverwells isn’t sinking.’ If only it wasn’t! she thought despairingly. Nor was I ‘designer shopping’! she wanted to fling at him. But she decided that it wouldn’t be worth the time or the effort, any more than it would be to tell him that she had sorely needed any free time she might have had in New York, as it was the first real break she had taken in the past eighteen months. ‘OK. We’d hit a slump. But we would have pulled ourselves out of it eventually. We were surviving.’

‘A pity your shareholders didn’t share your confidence. It’s clearly that bury-your-head-in-the-sand attitude that has put Culverwells into the state it’s in today. Or have you been too busy with your rich boyfriends and your fancy little gallery that you didn’t recognise disaster when you saw it?’

There was a glass of water on the table by the note pad in front of a vacated chair, the back of which she hadn’t realised she was clutching. She had to restrain the strongest urge to pick the glass up and fling the contents right into his smug and incredibly handsome face.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he warned softly, disconcertingly aware.

‘I’ve never buried my head in the sand. None of us has!’ she retaliated fiercely, ignoring his pointed reference to the company she kept. ‘It’s been down to global forces and the dropping off of sales because the market’s been depressed. It still grates, doesn’t it? That I was born to all this when you—you were…’

‘What? Not good enough to tread the same ground you walked on?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You didn’t have to.’

No, she had made her opinion of him quite clear with those disparaging comments she hadn’t meant him to hear before simply ignoring him in the street!

She couldn’t deal with thinking about that right now. In fact, she could only deal with the shame of it by tossing back, ‘So you think my team and I are just going to lie down while you sit at that table, lording it over us and throwing your weight around?’

‘I don’t actually care what you do, Grace,’ he assured her, his body lean and hard as he moved purposefully towards her, as hard as those grey eyes that didn’t leave hers for a second. ‘And may I remind you that there was a time—however short—when my weight wasn’t something you were totally averse to?’

A rush of heat coursed through Grace’s veins, bringing hot colour up over her throat into her cheeks. Unbidden, those images surfaced again, and she saw him as he had been on that beach, those long fingers marked with grease as he’d worked on his dinghy. She smelled the salt of the sea air, felt the sun’s warmth caress her skin, and then felt the thrill of that hard, masculine body pressing her down, down into the sand.

‘That was a mistake,’ she said shakily.

‘You’re darn right it was. On both our parts. But, as the saying goes, None of our mistakes need ever be permanent.’

‘Meaning?’ He was so close now that her breath seemed to lock in her lungs.

‘Meaning you taught me a lot, Grace. I should be eternally grateful to you.’

‘For what?’

‘For showing me exactly how to handle women like you.’

A sharp emotion sliced through her, piercing and unexpected. Evenly, though, she said, ‘You don’t intimidate me, Seth, if that’s what you’re trying to do. And, as for salving that macho ego of yours, I think you managed that quite adequately eight years ago.’

Grace wasn’t sure if he needed to be reminded, but those heavy eyelids drooped and a cleft deepened between those amazing eyes.

Seth felt momentarily uncomfortable at the reminder of having said something that, even then, was beneath his usual code of ethics. He couldn’t even remember the exact words he had used, only that they had been a flaying retaliation for the way she had treated him.

‘Yes, well…’ He was regaining his cool, reclaiming the upper hand—which was what he needed to do, he reminded himself, with this calculating little madam. ‘No man appreciates being snubbed by someone who only forty-eight hours before was sobbing with the pleasure of having him inside her.’

A deep throb made itself felt way down in her lower body. Surely she couldn’t still be attracted to a man who with one swoop had just seized all that her grandfather had worked for—and whose only motive, where she was concerned, was to seek revenge?

‘So this is how it’s going to be.’ His abrupt return to business put her off-balance to say the least, before he went on to give her a brief résumé of his plans for Culverwell’s. ‘I shan’t make any unnecessary redundancies, unless I see areas of overstaffing or anything that will be detrimental long-term to the company and its other employees if I desist. I’ll keep you on as my assistant—I can’t deny that your expertise in the field of textiles will be invaluable. If you co-operate and accept my leadership, you won’t have anything to worry about where your job is concerned. If you don’t…’

‘You’ll have me fired, right?’

He didn’t affirm or deny that statement. His narrowing eyes, though, resembled hard chips of steel, and harsh lines suddenly bracketed his mouth.

‘Like your grandfather was instrumental in doing to me?’

Grace frowned. ‘What are you talking about? You didn’t work for my grandfather.’

‘Directly, no, but he had interests in that boatyard, and enough clout with its owner to see that I was swiftly dispatched for even daring to breathe on his precious granddaughter, let alone lay my rough, rude hands on her supposedly chaste little body.’

His derision at the kind of girl he thought she was stung more than she wanted to admit. He didn’t know she’d been a virgin. It had all been so easy; how could he have known?

‘I—I didn’t know.’ She was shaking her head now in horrified rejection at Lance Culverwell ever stooping to do what Seth was accusing him of—and because of her. ‘Really, I didn’t.’ But it would explain Seth’s driving motive all these years, she realised—to get even with her family.

‘Is that contrition I see in your eyes, Grace? Surely not! It really doesn’t become you.’

‘Why? Because you think I’m not capable of any feeling?’ Surprisingly, the notion that he could even consider that cut deep—but it was just her pride that hurt, she convinced herself. Nothing else. ‘Anyway…’ Her reluctant gaze swept over the thick, black hair, which even an expensive cut hadn’t altogether tamed, over the designer suit and exclusive black shoes. Ignoring the sudden quickening of her heart-rate that just looking at him produced, she said waspishly, ‘It doesn’t seem to have hurt you any.’

‘Not so much as my mother who was already struggling to make ends meet. But, hey! What’s a man’s job when you live in a nice, comfortable mansion with more food than you could ever eat and servants to fetch and carry for you at the snap of your fingers?’ His hostility and resentment burned in him like an eternal flame. ‘And you complain that I think you aren’t capable of any feelings? I’m quite sure that you and your kind don’t have any regrets about trampling on others to get what you want, particularly those worse off than yourself.’

She flinched from his continual need to verbally flay her.

‘You don’t know my kind, Seth Mason. You haven’t the first idea what sort of woman I am.’

‘Haven’t I?’ he grated. ‘Then all the more reason why I should keep you around to discover this new Grace Tyler for myself—and I think it’s going to be a very enlightening journey.’

‘Get lost!’

‘As much as you’d like that, Grace, I’m afraid that this time that isn’t going to happen. I’m calling the shots now. Take it or leave it, but I don’t think you’ll walk away with your tail between your legs like a disciplined little lap-dog because you’re way too proud and you’ve got far too much to lose. No. You’ll take it, and, before I’ve finished with you, lying down!’

His innuendo was obvious. But he had her just where he wanted her, she realised, because as he had already made clear he knew she’d stick it out. It was the only way she would have any say in, or be able to hang on to, even a part of all that her grandfather had spent his life working for, she thought. She despaired at how the woman he had been so besotted by could have thrown her on the mercy of a man like Seth Mason. Nevertheless, that pride that he had spoken off a moment ago had her flinging back recklessly, ‘You reckon?’

‘Don’t present me with a challenge, Grace. I think it only fair to tell you that I thrive on them.’ Which was obvious, she thought, shuddering from the determination in him, otherwise he wouldn’t have got to where he was today.

‘That’s big of you,’ she retorted, knowing she was playing with fire but unable to let him have the last word. ‘Well, let me tell you, I haven’t worked my butt off getting where I have in this firm to be walked over by an arrogant, overbearing, jumped-up boatyard worker from the back of beyond! I’ll work alongside you for the sake of the company, but let’s get one thing clear—you might have pulled yourself up out of the next best thing to the gutter…’ Angrily, she snatched up her jacket and bag. ‘But you’ll never, ever, get me into bed with you again!’

The walls seemed to shake as she slammed the boardroom door behind her.

‘Wow! What, already? He’s a fast worker!’ That dry comment from Simone, who was just coming along the corridor, fell onto the deafening silence that followed.

‘That isn’t funny, Simone.’ Hot and shaking from her outburst, Grace felt uncomfortably sticky beneath her travel-creased clothes.

‘No, I can’t say amusement was the overriding emotion coming out of that boardroom. Care to tell me where you know him from?’

‘No.’

Her PA pulled a knowing face. ‘That memorable, was it?’

‘I’m sorry, Simone,’ Grace apologised, not meaning to have spoken so sharply to her assistant. ‘I guess I’m suffering from a chronic case of jet lag.’ She shook her head to try and clear it. ‘Among other things,’ she exhaled, her eyes swivelling towards the room she had just so dramatically vacated. She couldn’t believe that this wasn’t some farcical nightmare that she would wake up from any minute. An inner anguish pleated her forehead as she tagged on, ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Not long enough for him to bring out a side of your nature I’ve never seen—or heard.’ This with a roll of her eyes towards the ceiling. ‘Are you all right? Can I get you something?’

‘Yes. Enough Culverwell shares to give me a majority holding.’ So that I won’t lose all that was precious to my grandfather—to me—to a man hell-bent on revenge!

Simone grimaced sympathetically. ‘No can do, girl. I think all we can do is co-operate with him and the new management and pray that we’ve still got jobs this time next week.’

‘How can I co-operate—?’ The boardroom door suddenly opening left Grace’s words hanging in mid-sentence.

Seth Mason emerged, appearing more dynamic and commanding in the narrower confines of the corridor, if that were possible. He sent Grace a stripping glance. She had been way too rude in there, and something told her he wasn’t going to let her get away with it.

‘Simone, I’d like you to bring your note pad in here. But first will you have a word with whoever it is you need to see about having self-closing hinges fitted on all principal doors?’

‘Certainly, Mr Mason,’ Simone responded with what seemed to Grace like annoying deference to the new CEO, before she caught the covert glance her assistant sent her. It conveyed the message already obvious from Seth’s instructions; he isn’t going to take anyone slamming doors in his face!

‘I see,’ she said, rounding on him as the other woman tripped off towards the lift. ‘So she’s your PA now, is she?’

‘No,’ he surprised her by answering, ‘But I thought you wouldn’t mind my making use of her until my own arrives.’

‘It so happens, I do mind. And no one makes use of anyone in this company,’ she enlightened him, piqued by the dismissive manner in which he had just spoken about a member of her team. ‘I just thought I ought to warn you, otherwise you might wonder why you’ve got a full-blown mutiny on your hands.’

‘Thanks for the warning.’ He smiled indolently, making her body react to him in a way that made her brain chastise her for her stupidity. ‘It was just a figure of speech. Why don’t you go home, Grace?’ Strangely, his tone had softened, become dangerously caressing in its sensuality. She had a feeling that it was some sort of mind game he was playing with her. ‘Grab a couple of hours’ sleep? Freshen up a bit?’ His gaze raked with disconcerting thoroughness over her dishevelled appearance. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do and I’m sure you’ll agree that no one can give their best if they aren’t functioning on all cylinders.’

Was that concern in his eyes? she wondered, then dismissed the notion, deciding that it was probably pity. The type one would have for an animal one has just snared as one mulled over the most humane way to make the kill.

‘Perhaps you’d prefer it if I didn’t come back at all!’ Her fighting spirit rose to her defence, challenging him.

‘On the contrary,’ he said, and this time his mouth curved in a fragment of a smile that did nothing to warm his eyes, just merely showed her how calm he was in contrast. ‘As I’ve already explained, I’m going to spend every satisfying minute working with you.’

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