by Lucy Monroe
Beyond that, she was sickened by their proposed plans to use legal means to force Simon to design for the merged company. She didn’t know if it would work, but it would drive a huge wedge between him and his cousin. If the merger went through, their relationship would be strained enough.
It wasn’t right.
She wanted to warn Simon and tell him about her suspicion that Daniel was working on the other shareholders in an attempt to override Simon at a shareholders’ meeting with their votes added to Eric’s. Amidst all that was her worry that Extant Corporation knew details about Simon’s current projects that they shouldn’t know. She had no idea how they’d gotten the information, but Daniel had certainly implied they had it.
But she still worked for Extant and she could not convince herself that she had the right to say anything as long as she was an employee of the company.
The fact that she wanted to say anything at all was a huge deviation from the way she would have responded before meeting Simon Brant and falling in love with him. A few weeks ago, her entire future had been bound up with her job. That wasn’t true anymore. Even if Simon didn’t want her as a permanent fixture in his life, she was afraid that, in one way or another, she was going to be.
She laid her hand over her stomach, the queasy feeling not gone completely. Whether that was due to the rocking motion of the ferry or something inside her own body would be determined when she reached Simon’s house and used the early pregnancy test kit she’d bought after leaving the restaurant.
“Amanda . . .”
At the sound of Simon calling her name, she came out of the bathroom, feeling curiously light-headed.
All she saw was Simon’s back. He’d turned around and headed back out of the room already.
“I’m right here.”
He pivoted back to face her, his expression strangely blank. “So you are. Where’s your watch?”
She’d forgotten to put the combination watch-communication unit on that morning. “I don’t know, beside the bed probably.”
He turned to look and her gaze followed his. Sure enough, there it was on the nightstand.
“Simon, I—”
“Eric just called,” he interrupted, swinging back to face her. “Our second cousins are demanding a special meeting of the shareholders to discuss the proposed merger with Extant Corporation.”
It was her worst fears realized. Dizziness came over her and she swayed. “I see.”
“Do you?”
She nodded, still too loopy from what she had learned in the bathroom to measure her responses. “I expected something like this.”
“Are you saying you knew your boss was talking to the other shareholders for Brant Computers?”
Her brow wrinkled at the flat tone in Simon’s voice.
“Yes.” She’d known. She hadn’t wanted it to be true, but she’d suspected and it turned out her suspicions were right.
“So, what was this all about?” He swept his hand toward the bed. “Your way of keeping me occupied while your boss got my cousins hot for the merger?”
“What?” His words didn’t make any sense.
“You promised me you weren’t using sex to manipulate me into agreeing to the merger, but I should have asked a different question, shouldn’t I?”
Suddenly his meaning became clear, and so did the reason why Daniel hadn’t told her he was sending Lance to Port Mulqueen. She had unwittingly done exactly what Simon had accused her of. Daniel had used her like a paid prostitute. Knowing she wasn’t guilty in her own heart was little consolation with Simon looking at her with such a wealth of disgust in his gunmetal eyes. Daniel had used her, but the possibility that Simon believed she’d done it on purpose, gutted her.
She went hot, then cold with the most excruciating pain. “You think I made love to you to—” She clapped her hand over her mouth and ran back into the bathroom.
She barely made it to the sink before being sick. She hadn’t eaten anything since coming back to the island, so she dry-heaved and it hurt. But then everything hurt right now. She couldn’t get a deep breath and hot tears burned a path down her cheeks as she bent over the sink.
Two strong arms came around her. One held a washcloth which he wet under the tap and then used to wipe her face.
“Shh, baby. It’s okay. Relax.”
She closed her eyes and let him comfort her because she felt physically too weak to fight him and her emotions were decimated.
Her stomach finally settled and he swept her into his arms, carrying her back into the bedroom.
He laid her gently on the bed. His hand brushed her cheek, but she kept her eyes shut. She didn’t want to look at him right now, didn’t want to see eyes she was used to seeing burn with passion, or light up with humor, or with what she’d convinced herself was caring, now burn with resentment. It hurt.
“Amanda . . .”
She turned away from him and curled up on her side. “Lance thinks that if they get the merger through, the combined companies can force you to give them first option on your designs with some kind of legal injunction based on implied contracts.”
She spoke quietly, but she knew he could hear her.
His hand settled on her shoulder. “Baby—”
“And I think Daniel knows whatever it is you’re working on right now.”
Now Simon knew it all. If Eric had waited to call just one hour, she would have told Simon everything and he would never have accused her of something so despicable. She would never have had to know what a low opinion he had of her morals, or that whatever he felt for her, it wasn’t love.
You didn’t think things like that about people you loved. She didn’t have a lot of experience with the emotion, but she knew deep in her heart that she would not have even considered a similar scenario with Simon in the deceiving role. She’d never entertained doubts about him using sex to manipulate her either, not like he’d wondered about her in the beginning.
But then, she loved him.
“That doesn’t matter.” Simon’s voice was gravelly above her.
She shook his hand off her shoulder. “It’s all that matters.”
Damn it. Why was she so weak right now? She just wanted to get up and leave, but she didn’t think her legs would hold her. And where would she go? Not back to Port Mulqueen. Her job there was over. Her job was over, period.
She could go home.
She was unemployed, but she still had her condo. After faxing in her resignation without giving notice, she doubted she’d get any kind of reference. It might be a while before she found another job. If things got really tight, she could list it with her mother’s real estate agency and make at least one person happy.
He rolled her onto her back by exerting steady pressure on her shoulder. His gray gaze was mesmerizing. “Are you pregnant with my baby, Amanda?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad.”
Was he? She guessed he could be. You didn’t have to love the mother of your child to want it, did you? Simon would be a wonderful father, but that wasn’t something she could deal with thinking about right now. She’d never considered being a single parent, giving birth to a child by a man who didn’t love her.
“What are you going to do about the merger?”
“Eric’s on his way over now. We’re going to talk.”
“I hope you can work it out between you.”
Simon looked down at the woman he had made love to so exquisitely the night before. She had burned like living flame in his arms and told him she loved him. Her Hershey dark chocolate eyes were lifeless now, as if that incredible fire had gone out and all that remained was dead ashes.
She was talking about the merger as if it was the only thing that mattered.
As if being pregnant with his child didn’t matter.
As if he didn’t matter.
She wanted him and Eric to work things out, but there was no room for compromise. He couldn’t agree to the merger, especially after wha
t she’d just told him about her boss’s plans. He didn’t want corrupt management working with his company.
He wished he could give her what she wanted. Make it all right and make her happy, but he couldn’t.
He touched her again, relieved when she didn’t reject him. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
He wanted to ask where they went from there, but she looked so fragile and he wasn’t sure he could take the answer when it came. Maybe she didn’t think they went anywhere. Maybe they were a done deal as far as she was concerned.
She’d admitted to knowing her boss was working behind the scenes to make the merger go ahead, but accusing her of using sex to keep him occupied in the meantime had been stupid. He was the one who had kidnapped her and convinced her to stay. She had too many hang-ups about her own ability to attract a man to have planned to use it in some nefarious manner.
He was an idiot.
And his idiocy had been born of jealousy, along with a feeling of betrayal which he should not have experienced. He knew her job came first. Right from the beginning, he’d known that. But he’d wanted more and so, had made her pay for it when he didn’t get it.
Remembering the sound of her heaving over the sink, the pasty white complexion of her face and the tears, he felt like the world’s biggest heel.
“You have nothing to apologize for, but I do. I shouldn’t have accused you of using what we have. I know it wasn’t like that.”
Her eyes begged him to mean it, for once her emotions as clear to him as a perfectly polished optical lens.
He pulled her into his arms, holding her so tight she squeaked.
He loosened his hold just a little. “Please, Amanda. Forgive me. I didn’t mean it.”
She cuddled into him and he felt like he’d cracked the secret to fiber-optic computer processing.
“Are you sure?” Her voice was muffled by his chest.
“Positive. I was the one who kidnapped you, remember?”
“I remember, but I thought you had forgotten.” That was all she said, but he sensed there was more going on in her mind.
He also sensed that right now she had no intention of opening up to him.
They stayed that way for a long time, her allowing him to hold her. Finally, she squirmed in his arms and he let her move back a little so he could see her face.
“Do you think you can convince Eric to vote against the merger?”
“I don’t know.” Remembering her words earlier, he asked, “Why did you tell me about Daniel and Lance’s plans?”
“Because what they want to do is wrong. I tried to talk Daniel out of starting a family war, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“He doesn’t care about anything but the bottom line.”
Far from being offended by that indictment against her boss, she nodded her head sadly. “You’re right. He even wanted me to try to convince you to change your mind using sex as my weapon.”
“Is that where you got the idea I might be worried about it?”
“Yes.” Her voice was small, almost like a child’s.
“He’s a bastard, honey.”
“But a smart one. He and Lance are going to do their best to overrule you at the shareholder meeting.”
“They won’t be there. The only people allowed in the room are shareholders and their legal representative.”
“Then be prepared for Lance suddenly taking on one of your cousins as a client.”
She was right. He smiled grimly. “I’ll be ready for him.” He laid his hand across her belly. “Are you happy about the baby?”
“I don’t know. It’s all such a shock.” She put her hand on top of his. “I’d rather not talk about any of that until this thing with the merger has been decided.”
He almost asked her if she was going to withhold the baby from him if he succeeded in scuttling the merger, but stopped himself in time. He did not need another “dumb man” moment for her to file away in her memory banks and use as reference material when they did get around to talking about the baby and the future.
“Okay. Eric’s going to be here soon. I’d better get downstairs.”
She nodded, her expression hiding her emotions and her thoughts. “I think I’ll go for a walk.”
In other words, she was giving him time alone with his cousin.
Simon leaned down and kissed her, putting feelings he could not yet put into words into the pressure of his lips. Her response was everything it had always been and he shuddered inwardly with relief.
“I really am sorry for being such an idiot,” he said when he pulled away.
“Thank you, Simon. That means a lot to me.”
He left her with a soft smile curving her lips.
Eric lounged back on the sofa, looking a hell of a lot more relaxed than Simon felt. “So you’re saying Amanda told you that her boss plans to sue you for your designs if the merger goes through and you make good on your threat to put them up for the highest bidder?”
“It’s not a threat, Eric.”
“Yeah. I know that, you know that. But, according to Amanda, Extant management thinks you’re bluffing.”
“Right. The legal recourse is a contingency plan.”
Eric nodded. “It’s not a very good plan.”
“They’re counting on you being as numb to ethics as they are.”
“Bastards.”
That was pretty much what Simon thought too.
“That Lance Rogers is a smooth operator, but under the surface he’s slime.”
“Glad to hear you figured that out.”
“I didn’t like the way he treated Amanda at dinner the other night, and you know how I feel about being lied to. He was so sure I wouldn’t care that he’d told me she knew he was in Port Mulqueen when she didn’t, that he didn’t even bother to apologize for it.”
Simon told Eric the bare bones about Amanda’s marriage to Lance. He didn’t expose her private pain and humiliation, but he wanted his cousin to know what kind of man Lance was. “And he’s the guy Extant Corporation chose to replace Amanda as negotiator for the deal.”
Arctic lights glinted in Eric’s blue gaze. “A big part of my approval of this deal was wrapped up in Amanda. She’s a straight player. That spoke well for Extant.”
“You said was. You’re no longer one-hundred percent behind the deal?”
“Are you kidding? They went behind our backs and approached the other shareholders, they sent a second negotiator who is pure slime, but their plans to try to force you to sell your designs to the merged company is the clincher for me. If this is the way Extant Corporation’s management operates, there’s no way I’m merging my company with theirs.”
Simon smiled. Extant’s attempt to force his hand had backfired magnificently. “Amanda also thinks they’ve got some inside knowledge into what I’m working on.”
Eric looked shocked. “How could they have that?”
“I’m not sure, but my guess is they’ve had someone monitoring my supply purchases. Some of the equipment and components I’m using right now have very limited application.”
“But you don’t make your purchases through the company. Even if they had an inside man, and I’m not convinced they do, your activities couldn’t be tracked through Brant Computers.”
“But if they learned the names of my suppliers, hacked into my credit card records or even monitored deliveries via the ferry, they could get some idea.”
“What are you working on right now that has Extant Corp so interested in acquiring you and Brant Computers?”
“I’m close to proof of concept on a fiber-optic processor.”
Eric whistled. “The first company out with that baby is going to take over lead position in the industry.”
“Yes.”
“No wonder you’ve been so against the merger.”
“I’m against it because I think it’s wrong.”
Eric sighed. “You’ve made me do a lot of thinking the past month and last
week when Rogers was making such an effort to sell me on the merger, I realized how many of his arguments completely dismissed employee welfare.”
“Amanda didn’t. She believed that merging the companies would be best for the employees in the long run.”
“Does she still believe it?”
Simon looked out the window where he could see Amanda’s small figure in the distance. “I don’t know, but whatever she believes, she told me what they were planning to do.”
“She’s in love with you.”
Warmth coursed through Simon. “Yeah, I think she is.”
“How do you feel about her?”
“I want her to stay. She belongs to me.”
“Does she realize that?”
“I don’t know. She may decide to dump me when I cost her her job success.”
Eric shook his head. “Are you blind? She told you what you needed to know to convince me to side with you on the merger.”
“She couldn’t know it would have that affect on you.”
“Sure she did. Simon, Amanda and I have been talking the proposed merger for weeks. She knew me pretty well by the time she flew up from California. She knew that I would go ballistic at the idea of them trying to trump up that implied contract crap.”
“You think she knew she was scuttling the last chance at the merger going through?”
Eric looked at him like he was brain-dead, which was not an expression Simon was used to receiving. “Yes.”
For the first time in days, real hope took root in Simon that he and Amanda had a future. “So what do you think my chances are of convincing her to stay in Washington permanently?”
“If the question is accompanied by a marriage proposal, I’d say pretty darn good. Amanda is a traditional little thing despite the fact that she looked like sex personified the other night.”
Remembering her in the dress he’d ripped from her luscious body had a predictable effect on Simon. “I think you’re right.”
She was not a woman who would look at single motherhood with equanimity, but his stupid accusation had made her back off from discussing the baby until after the merger issue was settled. He’d thought maybe that was because she wasn’t sure how she felt about a man who would damage her career, but now he realized she didn’t want him thinking their relationship had anything to do with the merger.