No. No. She shook her head, rejecting the awful clawing sense of déjà vu. “He didn’t have me at his side. My return to Blackstone’s has nothing to do with my personal relationship with Ric.” But the words sounded hollow, booming with the memory of that day when he’d introduced her, when he’d sung her praises, when he’d sought her gaze across the boardroom table.
Had everyone noticed that connection? Was she such a blind fool?
“Your return was the talk of the office,” Ryan confirmed. “Especially after you took off to the outback.”
Just the two of them. In the company jet. Of course there would have been talk, talk that was only confirmed by the society columns’ pictures of them together—a reunited couple—in this week’s papers.
But that didn’t mean Ryan was right, or that Perrini had used her to further his own ambitions. “He would have won that vote,” she told Ryan, “with or without my support.”
“You’re wrong. He needed you as leverage in that boardroom. He said he’d do whatever it took to get you back, and it seems that you let him.”
Her brother’s words struck like a slap, bringing her head up and washing the blood from her heart. “Then perhaps you should have warned me of this earlier.”
“I did.”
That day in the boardroom, when she’d said she was a big girl, that she wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
She sucked in a breath, struggling to hold herself together and managing to do so by repeating those same words in her mind. She would not make the same mistake again. She would not assume too much. She would find out the whole story, from Perrini, before making any rash judgements.
Ric wasn’t in his office and his PA knew nothing of his whereabouts other than he was not due back until midday. Kimberley knew he had a lunch meeting with several department heads, he’d told her that morning, after he’d returned from an early swim and they’d talked about their plans for the day over breakfast on the deck.
At the time she’d been smiling, thinking I could get used to this start to every day, this routine, this simple bond of sharing. This man who filled my heart.
Right now that same heart was knotted and tense over Ryan’s disclosure. Quite likely she was overreacting or Ryan had misinterpreted. He saw Ric as his adversary and had always been a little too keen to point out the negative aspects of his ambition. That reasoning didn’t ease her anxiety.
Too restless to settle, too tied in knots to concentrate, she paced to her window. The lunch meeting would keep him tied up for most of the afternoon and if she left this discussion until after work she feared it would grow and fester and explode in a heated volley of accusations. She didn’t want that. She wanted a calm, controlled conversation.
Tomorrow was her birthday. Ric was taking her to a private retreat in the mountains, where the staff and he would pander to her every need. If she didn’t get this sorted now, she feared the fallout might cast a shadow over their plans.
She tapped her phone against the palm of her hand for a moment before turning it over, decision made. With a finger that quavered only slightly, she dialled the number of his mobile phone.
Ric’s phone buzzed as he was leaving the car dealership in the newly purchased Porsche. He could have taken the call handsfree but when he saw Kim’s name on the caller ID he chose to pick up. Her voice he preferred in his ear, private and intimate, a gift to his hormones.
He grinned as he steered the sports car over to the kerb with a gentle caress of the wheel. She handled superbly—smooth, responsive, amenable, with a fiery strength beneath the sleek, sophisticated exterior. Pretty much like the woman he’d bought it for, as part of the birthday package. He aimed to make her very, very happy and very, very appreciative.
He flipped open the phone. “Any chance you can take a quick break?”
“I…yes.” She sounded slightly taken back, the frown obvious in her voice. “I need to talk to you. That’s why I called.”
“Sounds ominous,” he said lightly. The beat of silence afterward sounded even more so. His grin faded. His hormones subsided. He switched gears instantly, to the implications of her need to talk. “Meet me out the front in fifteen minutes. Look for the silver Porsche.”
She hesitated beside the kerb, a frown drawing her brows tight. Jump in, he’d said, but by her expression he might as well have said jump into the shark tank.
She drew a breath, snapped her gaze to his. “Can we go somewhere private, somewhere we can just…talk?”
Everything about her, from her choice of words to her troubled eyes to her fingers tapping the frame of the opened door—to the fact that she hadn’t seemed to notice he was driving a strange car—stirred a warning in Ric’s gut. This wasn’t business. This was about them. “If you get in before I score a ticket for loitering in a no-stopping zone, then I’ll find somewhere private. We’ll talk.”
That got her moving. Although once she’d slid into the low seat and buckled up, she sat tense and motionless while he negotiated the midmorning traffic.
“You want to give me a hint?” he asked, stopped at a red.
For a second he wondered if she would answer. If she’d even heard. But slowly she turned her head to look at him. “I ran into Ryan this morning.”
The alarm in his gut shrilled. He should have guessed this would be a Blackstone doing, that Ryan wouldn’t take his defeat last week lying down. The light changed and he scooted ahead of the traffic, picking a route to a quiet residential area close to the city centre.
“And he’s told you something to sour your perception of me?” he guessed. His voice sounded mild, matter-of-fact, his question measured—a surprise when his blood rankled with a mix of anger and disappointment. Forget mild. He cut her a sharp look. “Why the hell would you even listen to him?”
“I’m not taking his word, Ric. I want to hear your side of the story.”
She used the word story. A piece of fiction. Good choice of word, he thought. He turned down a dead-end street and found a park outside a neat row of terraces. He switched off the engine and turned in his seat. “Then you’d better spell out the charge I’m answering to.”
She nodded, her gaze not quite steady on his. He could tell she was collecting herself, choosing her words carefully, and the idea of that self-censorship fired his irritation like an accelerant.
“No pussyfooting,” he said shortly. “Just say what you have to say, Kim.”
Her chin came up. “Did you say you would do ‘whatever it takes’ to get me back to Blackstone’s?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “That’s exactly what I said.”
She blinked, the shock of disillusionment bright in her eyes. Before she could respond Ric leaned closer and captured those wounded eyes with the resolute strength of his.
“I said it and I meant it, Kim. When I went to New Zealand, I had a simple agenda. Getting to you before the media, doing whatever I could to soften the blow of the news about your father and bringing you home to your family. But as soon as I climbed in that car with you and you turned those eyes and that tongue of yours on me, I knew I wanted more.
“Make no mistake, Kim,” he said, low and serious, “I was always going to do whatever I could to get you back.”
“Even offer me a directorship in the company?”
“That had nothing to do with my personal agenda. I told you the night you came to dinner. Business and personal, two separate entities.”
Nearby a small dog started to yap, distracting her attention. He could tell she remained ambivalent, chewing over his words and searching out the argument points.
“I thought we covered all of this that night,” he continued brusquely “If there’s anything else I didn’t make crystal clear, or if your brother passed on any other information for the purpose of creating trouble, he—”
“That wasn’t his purpose. His concern over your motives is genuine. And so is mine.”
“You choose to believe him over me?”
“I want to understand, that’s all. Everything that led to your offer and why you targeted me. No one has convinced me why I was so indispensable. Why me and not Uncle William? He has the necessary Blackstone name, plus he’s spent a lifetime in the mining industry. He invested start-up capital in the company and yet his name didn’t come up once at the meeting last week as a prospective director. Why not? Did he turn the offer down? Or was it Howard’s daughter you needed on your side at last week’s meeting?”
Ric heard the last sentence loudest. It hung between them, heavily shaded with the true nature of her distrust. “William had a falling-out with Howard last year over selling his stake in the company. He would have been our last choice.”
“Because he sold his shares?”
“Because he sold to Matt Hammond.”
That bald pronouncement shocked a disbelieving laugh from her mouth. She started to say something, then shut her mouth and shook her head before trying again a second later. “Matt isn’t a market player. And he despises Blackstone’s. William owned a substantial holding. Why would Matt outlay such a significant sum on opposition stock?”
“For the joy of sending Howard apoplectic.”
This time she didn’t laugh in either shock or incredulity. She looked away, staring blindly out the side window. When she finally turned her eyes back on him they shimmered with more than disbelief. Wounded disillusionment dimmed their dark beauty, but not the spark of her voice or the pride that held her chin high. “So this all comes back to vengeance. Matt acquired Blackstone shares and you couldn’t risk me siding with him, not if I’m to inherit a sizeable parcel of shares.”
“That’s only the business equation.”
“Wasn’t there an element of payback in the personal, too?” she asked, bitterness sharpening her tone. “Because Matt took your new plaything?”
“No. I always wanted you. For me. For what we are together. Hasn’t this last week meant anything to you? Hasn’t it shown you what I want with you? I don’t know what else I can say to convince you.”
“Perhaps you can’t. Perhaps the mistrust and the doubts have been eating away at me too long. Perhaps the scars are too deep. Perhaps what you told me last week in Janderra explained too well why you have to keep climbing that ladder, doing whatever it takes, to prove yourself better than the Blackstones or the Perrinis back in Italy. To show your mother did the right thing and that you’re the equal of everyone in this world. Perhaps I’ll never be able to trust that you want me—just me—not the Blackstone name and all the power and privilege that comes with it.”
The resonance of her passionate declaration engulfed them in the long, weighty aftermath. It was reminiscent of another time, another place, another fight, one Ric had made a prideful mess of, but this time he wasn’t letting go as easily. He was all out of words but he had one remaining weapon, and he aimed to wield its power ruthlessly.
With a decisive efficiency of movement, he turned, buckled and started the engine. “Buckle up,” he said shortly. “We’re going for a drive.”
“Take me back to the office,” she said. And when he ignored her, joining the link road to the Harbour Bridge, she sat up straighter. Indignation coloured her cheeks and desperation edged her words. “You can’t make me go with you. Let me out.”
“You’re coming with me. You’re listening to me. Then you can make up your mind.”
“And if I won’t listen?”
He cut her a sideways look of lethal intent. “If you can look me in the eye and say you don’t love me and that I don’t have a chance to prove myself worthy of you and your Blackstone name, I will let you out right now, here or wherever you demand.”
Eyes blazing, she stared him down, but when she opened her mouth to speak, the words didn’t come. The truth glimmered in her eyes, rare and precious as green diamond, for one unguarded second before she looked away. And Ric’s heart started beating again.
After he forced that silent admission, Kimberley was too wrapped up in miserable anguish to care where he was taking her. It didn’t matter. He could talk about wanting her until he was blue in the face and she would listen and it would make no difference. Wanting her had never been in dispute. Respecting her, trusting her, seeing her as more than a Blackstone and a boardroom asset to be won back from the enemy—those were the things she needed and which she feared she could never earn from Ric Perrini. He’d played her again, using her to get the result he needed for his future at Blackstone’s, and her misery was compounded knowing how swiftly and easily she’d fallen into his plans.
And now he knew that she loved him.
Could this hurt any more? Was there anything left to bring her right to her knees?
Dimly she heard the rumble of his voice as he spoke on the phone, and with a sharp mental slap, she forced her mind back into focus. She was pitiful, wallowing in the pit of despair she’d dug for herself while he’d moved on, calling his PA and cancelling the lunch meeting.
“Do you need to clear your schedule at the office?” he asked.
Ah, yes, her handcrafted position at Blackstone’s. A paste job. And not even a good one, she realised, now that she saw it with the clarity of hindsight. Yet she’d been seduced by the dazzle of Perrini’s description, by the picture he’d painted…the one she’d wanted to see. It was her own contemptible fault, because she’d wanted it to be the real deal. She’d wanted that youthful dream, engraved into her heart the first time her father took her into the Blackstone’s workrooms to see the magical transformation of rough diamond to polished gemstone.
“If you do, Vina can make the calls,” Perrini continued.
Kimberley shook her head. She didn’t need his PA. There wasn’t much to cancel. “I’ll call Holly. I have an appointment late this afternoon. Do I need to cancel or will we be back by then?”
“Cancel it.”
She did, not because of that terse demand but because the appointment was to meet Briana Davenport for the first time at the Da Vinci’s elegant Louvre Bar. Whatever the outcome of this mysterious drive, Kimberley knew she would be in no mood for polite small talk over drinks with Marise Hammond’s supermodel sister.
“What is this about?” she asked after flipping her phone closed. While she’d been wallowing they’d crossed the bridge and turned east through the affluent middle harbour suburbs, heading toward the northern beaches.
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
Twelve
W hen was fifteen minutes later.
Where was a cul-de-sac high on a bluff overlooking the Manly peninsula.
He killed the sports car’s engine, and before Kimberley had a chance to take in more than a first impression of peace and space and elevation he’d strode around and opened her door.
“Come on,” he said, leaning down to unbuckle her seat belt. “I have something to show you.”
For a split second his eyes met hers, and if she didn’t know better she would have read the shadows in their depths as nervousness. Then he straightened with his usual smooth efficiency and she huffed out a breath. Not nerves, just determination to turn her around with whatever smoke-and-mirrors show he had planned.
Gathering her cynicism around her like a cloak, she stepped from the car’s cool interior into the late morning heat. His hand at her elbow steered her from the paved footpath toward a thickly grassed block that rose from street level to meet the brilliant blue of a cloudless sky. Kimberley’s heart fluttered into an edgy beat that rippled like goose bumps over her skin despite the summer sun. Either nerves or the steep slope they climbed turned her knees wonky, but he steadied her with a grip on her arm.
“You should have told me we were hiking. I would have chosen more appropriate foot—” Her breath caught on a gasp as they crested the rise and she caught sight of the view. Not just harbour, not just beaches, but bushland and treetops. “Who owns this land?” She turned on him, regathering her resolve to deflect whatever he threw at her. “Why have you
brought me here?”
“It’s mine.” A muscle jumped in his cheek. “I bought it nine years ago, after my wife left me.”
After she’d left…Kimberley shook her head, not comprehending. “Why?”
“When I first joined Blackstone’s and when you met me, my ambition was all about proving myself, just as you said.”
“Proving yourself to whom?”
“The boss at BJ Resources who tossed my application aside because I didn’t attend a GPS school. Every pizza shop and liquor store I ran deliveries for. The family who excommunicated my mother when she disgraced the Perrini name with her pregnancy.” He turned away suddenly. Hands on hips, he stood surveying the view for a long, breathless moment. Then he exhaled and turned back to face her. “The Blackstone directors. Howard. You.”
Every one of those telling revelations punched a huge chip out of Kimberley’s resolve. This was the Perrini he’d never exposed, the real man beneath the polished facade. Although a part of her ached to pick apart each of those clues, another recognised that the details didn’t matter. Concisely and eloquently he had told the complete story.
“And this?” she asked, gesturing at the land around them. “What is this to prove?”
“When I came to New Zealand to bring you home, I had the deeds to this block of land in my pocket. Proof that I wanted a future together, that I was looking forward to the time when we’d build a home here. I chose this land with that future—our future—in mind. I could see us bringing up our children here. There’s a school right down there.” He pointed off to their right, and Kimberley closed her eyes, her heart pounding so painfully hard she felt it in every cell of her body. “And over there is the beach where I’ll teach them to swim and surf.
“I bought this block as a proof of my commitment to our future and the only thing that’s changed is that the future is now. I want everything I see here—the home, the kids, the family—and I want them with you.”
Vows & a Vengeful Groom Page 14