She must have heard stories about him in the news or online. She had to know that he could literally destroy her father’s companies with a single phone call. And yet…she’d stood up to him. She’d called him out, calling him a pompous ass. No, it hadn’t been pompous. What was the word she’d used? Patronizing.
Yep, that was it. Patronizing. And she’d been right. He’d been condescending and patronizing.
Damn, he loved a woman who didn’t put up with his crap. Too often, women were with him only for his money, hoping to make it onto easy street by marrying him. Never before had he been even slightly interested in proposing marriage, no matter how adorably they’d hinted that they would be interested. Not until Lana. And even now, what he’d proposed hadn’t really been a marriage proposal. It had been a business proposition. A merger.
Instantly, that word produced tempting images in his mind. Erotic images of him merging intimately with Lana. In bed. In his living room. On that massive desk in her father’s office. Christoph wasn’t the kind of man to limit his intimate interludes to a bedroom. He eyed the conference table in front of him speculatively. Yes, he could easily picture Lana bent over the table, her soft, round bottom right there for his delectation. He pictured himself sliding into her tight body, his hands cupping her breasts as he thrust into her and…
Kolasi! He was in actual pain with desire! How ridiculous was that? He was aching for a woman who…made him laugh at her preposterous manners and…and everything else about her. She was just incredible. That fire in her hazel eyes and the stubborn pride in her slender shoulders when she determinedly stood up to him was amazing.
He didn’t doubt for a single moment that she would take him up on his offer of marriage. Unfortunately for his throbbing libido, and judging by the look of chaos on her father’s desk, she had no idea how desperately her father’s company…correction, her company…needed a massive influx of cash. He estimated that she’d last perhaps a week before she gave in and came to him.
He’d gladly give her the help she desperately needed. He already had a business plan in place. Christoph was ready to save the jobs that were at risk during this transitional period. As soon as he took over, his presence would reassure the company’s creditors that their financing was safe. He doubted she could make payroll this week, much less next week. Not to mention, she’d have to do some serious scrambling in order to make the required capital payments to the bank. If she missed even one payment, or indicated to her bankers that there was a problem, there would be dire consequences to deal with.
Thinking about some of those consequences, he picked up his phone and dialed a number.
Chapter 3
A month! The woman had somehow lasted a full month! Damn her!
Christoph lifted the perfectly chilled glass of champagne to his lips as he watched Lana move along the perimeter of the elegant ballroom. She was stunning, he thought. Her glorious curls were pinned up on top of her head, exposing the graceful line of her neck. There were small diamonds at her ears, and more graced her throat. He thought about nibbling right where the sparkling diamonds teased her skin. He’d wager that she was slightly ticklish there. Just thinking about her possible reaction had his body reacting almost to the point of pain. Dekara, he wanted to explore every one of those delightful possibilities! He wanted to find every sexy spot on her surprisingly lush body that would make her moan with need.
For him!
He watched as she approached a tall, arrogant man. Her banker, he knew. Lifting the glass of champagne to his lips, but not really tasting it, he watched as she smiled up at the banker. Predictably, the idiot was flattered at Lana’s attentions, agreeing to a dance.
Stupid, Christoph thought. He considered warning her. It would be a terrible move on her part to ask this particular banker for leniency on the capital payments due in just a few days. Definitely not a good strategy. A more savvy business person would know alternative ways to deal with this kind of a situation.
Christoph knew that Lana had been hiding the struggling financial situation of her company from everyone, including the employees and business associates, as well as her competitors, for the past several weeks. He knew how desperately she was fighting to keep the business solvent simply because he had made it his business to know.
Even as he thought it, the banker’s face turned serious. Christoph knew the man, knew that Evan Yantis was a good, solid banker, but also incredibly conservative. Evan didn’t take risks and, if Lana had been in the business world for a bit longer, she would have known that. In one sense, she was smart to approach him here. It was always good to discuss business during social events. But no, it wasn’t good to spring something like missing a debt payment on a banker, even one well lubricated by booze and dancing.
Christoph placed his drink on a passing waiter’s tray, ignoring the stunned and annoyed expressions from the people who had been trying to gain his attention. He didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment. His focus was solely on the lovely woman who was making a grave mistake. Evan was saying something and Lana obviously didn’t like it. She stiffened, silently alerting the banker that the issue was even more dire than she was letting on.
Excellent time to step in and take over in order to circumvent the problem, he decided.
“My dear, do you mind if I finish this dance? I’ve missed you,” he said smoothly. With a nod to the shocked banker, he spun Lana around in a way that guaranteed she would have to hang onto him or look foolish trying to avoid him. She chose to hang on and he pulled her close. Closer than the other dancers in an effort to give the impression that Lana was important to him.
He supposed she was. Important in several ways, he was starting to discover. He wanted to defeat her and yet, he also wanted her to thrive. Those two goals were very different. Opposites, even. One couldn’t defeat one’s enemy if one was going to help them to prosper. At least, that wasn’t the way he usually did business. Normally, when Christoph took on an opponent or competition, he crushed them.
For some reason, he didn’t want Lana defeated. He definitely wanted her in his bed, yes. But defeated and destroyed? No. Not at all. Which, that sentiment in itself, was pretty shocking.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, obviously furious at his maneuvering.
He shifted, turning slightly so that she was once again forced to lean into him. “You were asking Evan Yantis for an extension on your loan payment,” he murmured, bending lower so that it looked like their conversation was intimate.
Lana started to pull away, but he tightened his grip. “How did you know that?” she asked, lowering her voice as well. She looked around, but her worried glance only gave the impression that he’d just said something wicked and she didn’t want anyone to overhear her response. Lana’s attempts to hide her emotions were almost laughable.
He didn’t respond for a moment, swaying to the music and looking down at her. He might have laughed at the soft blush that stained her cheeks, but he was having a hard time controlling his body’s lust. That in itself was odd. He was all about control and knew how to control others.
Lana huffed, her eyes narrowing. “How did you know what we were discussing?” she demanded again, impatient and looking as if she might try to hurt him.
There was that delicious spunk again. He chuckled and leaned forward again. “Because when you started the conversation, Evan was smiling. Thirty seconds into the discussion, he was frowning. And thirty seconds after that,” he bent down to tease the skin right underneath that taunting diamond earring, “he was lecturing you on the value of meeting your financial obligations.”
Lana sighed and stopped fighting. He wasn’t going release her until he was ready and she didn’t want to attract attention. Looking around, she spotted Evan on the side of the ballroom, discussing something with the head of the bank. The bank that she owed a very large payment to in two days’ time.
“He was. And…”
“And you’re pissed o
ff about his condescending tone, aren’t you?” he supplied when she trailed off.
Lana sighed, and he suspected that she was trying very hard not to stomp on his toes. “Yes.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to marry you just to save my father’s company.”
“I suppose you think that marrying me is an easy solution to your problems and you don’t like easy outs, is that it?” When she didn’t answer, he smiled slightly. “So, if you’re unwilling to take my business advice, what are you going to do?” he asked, interested in spite of himself.
She sighed and was silent for a long moment. He wondered if she’d actually tell him, but he didn’t push her, wanting to know what she might do next.
So he was surprised when she answered, “I’m going to sell my father’s house.” She paused, unaware of the pain in her eyes as she continued, “And his island. I’ve been trying to hire a business manager who can step in and fix things. I guess I’ll have to increase my efforts there.” And she nodded decidedly.
He smiled, and she gritted her teeth at the patronizing expression. Unfortunately, his next words made her heart sink as the inevitable started to close in on her.
“Your father already took out a second and third mortgage on his house. And unfortunately, there aren’t many buyers for private islands at the moment. I suspect that you could get a good price for that piece of land, but selling it will take time, months, maybe even years. Furthermore, you need the right kind of buyer for something like that. Not everyone has several million dollars lying around. And even if they do, they probably don’t want to dump it into an island. But I’ll keep an ear open for someone who might want it and will send them your way.” He spun her around and Lana clung to his strong, broad shoulders for support.
“As for hiring someone strong enough and capable enough to take over running things, that’s a smart idea. But it costs money and takes time. You need a specialized firm with expertise in hiring someone to run a company the size of your father’s. Since you’re already short on cash, hiring a head hunter might not be a viable option.” He watched her lovely eyes and knew the precise moment that she accepted that he was telling the truth. “Finding someone who can run a business as complex as your father’s will be difficult. It isn’t as if you can just put a job opening on the job sites. Not to mention, the right person is probably still employed somewhere else. Once you find that person, it could take months of negotiations to finalize an employment package.” He didn’t like the look of defeat in her pretty eyes, but he couldn’t let her go on thinking that her plan would work.
He continued, needing her to understand the full extent of the challenge ahead of her. “Besides, even if you were to find the right person immediately and the negotiations for their employment are swift, it will still take a new person months to get up to speed enough to resolve the issues left behind by your father.” He seized his opportunity and kissed her as she took a breath to argue. For the brief moment, the room spun, and Lana stumbled slightly
Thankfully, he anticipated the affect his gesture would have on her, and tightened his arms around her, keeping her from tripping over her own feet.
“You’ve already discovered that your father is cash poor.”
She blinked back the tears of frustration, turning so that his broad shoulders hid her face from the crowds watching them. “I have. And I don’t understand why. I thought…”
He pulled her closer, helping to hide her face from the gawkers. Lana would be his wife soon, despite her resistance to the inevitable. But he didn’t want others talking about her. “He made several large capital expenditures lately. It was a smart move, one that I also did,” he told her, easing her confusion. “Your father wanted the latest technology installed on all of his ships. The thefts from the Somali pirates off the coast of Africa were eating into his profits and this newest technology meant that he could track where the ships were taken if they were ever boarded.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “At the risk of hearing an answer I don’t want to hear, what would you suggest I do now?”
He smiled slightly and he felt the shiver race through her. No longer was his smile cold and calculating as she remembered it from past encounters. Now his smile was almost warm. Seductive. Triumphant.
“Marry me.”
Chapter 4
Lana looked away as she tried desperately to hide the frantic pounding of her heart. His hands loosened around hers, but she found she couldn’t pull away. Absently, she realized that the music had changed but they hadn’t left the dance floor. She was pretty sure that was significant. Especially to the people avidly watching from the sidelines. But in her mind, all she could focus on were possible alternatives to marrying this man. And in truth, she wasn’t opposed to marriage. She’d love to get married and have children. Just not to this particular man.
She even looked around, looking for someone, anyone, else. Someone she could marry and hand over the reins of her father’s failing empire. It didn’t have to be a real marriage. She could propose a business arrangement to someone. She could negotiate an arrangement where her “husband” took over for a certain period of time and then, after a respectable period, they could amicably separate, then go their separate ways.
But she doubted that marriage to Christoph would be amicable in any way. She didn’t like him and there was that danger warning that blared in her head every time she got close to him.
“I can’t,” she whispered, even as she accepted that she had no alternative.
“You can,” he argued. “I’m not that bad.”
A laugh snuck up on her. “Should I survey the people here on how they perceive you, Christoph? Do you think they’d agree that you’re ‘not that bad’ and recommend I marry you?”
He chuckled and Lana couldn’t stop the shiver of awareness that shot through her. Unfortunately, his gaze sharpened, telling her without a doubt that he felt her shiver and knew exactly what caused it. Awareness.
“Every person in this room would agree with half of that statement.”
She didn’t need clarification on which half. Lana knew without a doubt that everyone would recommend that she marry him. “I can’t marry you,” she repeated.
“Why not?”
He spun her again and she allowed it, even leaning in to him so she didn’t fall. Interesting how she trusted him so completely at this particular moment but what she was about to do and why she was here made her think she shouldn’t trust him.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice. She’d spent the last two days brainstorming with her father’s lawyers, trying to figure out a way to break the terms of her father’s will. When neither of the men could come up with even one viable idea – or at least one that wouldn’t take years and a significant amount of money and legal fees, she’d called in her father’s managers. They were all surprised by the situation and horrified by the lack of cash flow. Even worse, they didn’t have any ideas either. The following day, several of them were absent on surprise, urgent “meetings”. Lana suspected that they’d gone home the previous night and called their contacts within the industry, ready to jump ship.
So in the end, the bank wouldn’t relax the terms of her father’s loan, the will couldn’t be broken, and there weren’t any viable candidates who had the expertise to turn the business situation around.
Hence, her presence here tonight. She hadn’t wanted to attend this function. She’d received the invitation weeks ago, but until today, she’d dismissed the event. She hated social gatherings like this. They were pretentious, irritating, and boring.
Lana abruptly realized that they were no longer dancing. He’d led her off the dance floor and out of the ballroom. She watched with increasing trepidation as he led her into a book-lined office and quietly closed the door behind them. The scent of lemon polish was thick in the room and she walked over to one of the dark leather chairs, gripping it with
her fingers. She suspected that the views through the huge windows were stunning during the day, but the darkness of night added to the intimate atmosphere now.
“You’re nervous,” he observed, interrupting her thoughts. “Why?”
She tried to smile, but the expression didn’t materialize. “Because you make me nervous.”
He smiled slightly, gesturing towards the dark leather sofa, indicating that she should sit down. Unfortunately, she didn’t anticipate that he would sit next to her. Close to her! The heat from his body emanated from him, warming her up but also making her too hot. She tried to inch away, to make some space between their bodies, but he stopped her with a simple touch to her hand.
“I don’t mean to make you nervous.”
She laughed at that. “I don’t think you realize how terrifying you are to the rest of the world.”
His lips curled up slightly. Not really a smile, but…probably the best she was going to get under the circumstances. “The rest of the world, yes. But I don’t want you to be afraid.”
Looking down at her knees, she braced her hands over them. The movement allowed her to pull her hand away from his.
“Fine.” She closed her eyes and felt the wave of strange emotions hit her. And yes, she braced herself for his reaction.
Her Enemy, Her Lover (The Ladies of The Burling School Book 1) Page 2