‘What do I want from you?’ Galletti mused, taking yet another step closer so she could feel his warm breath fanning her face, the heat of his body rolling off in intoxicating waves that caused the heat in her own to flare hotter. ‘The answer to that, Miss Woodward, is…absolutely nothing.’
For a second, Ashley could only stare at him. The rush of awareness she felt morphed into something even more powerful—hope. For what she already realised was an infuriatingly futile moment, she thought he meant he didn’t want her company. That this whole hostile takeover was a bad dream, or a joke.That everything was going to be okay…
But when had anything in her life been okay? When had she ever been handed a happy ending, no matter how charmed her life looked from the outside? No, she’d had to forge everything good for herself, with hard work, blood, sweat and many, many tears.
This was going to be no different, she realised with a leaden certainty as Nico Galletti turned away from her, effectively dismissing her, that magnetic tug she’d felt towards him severed in an instant.
‘You can gather your things,’ he tossed over his shoulder before checking the Rolex that gleamed on one muscular wrist. ‘I want you out of this building in five minutes.’
Nico kept his back to Ashley Woodward as he struggled to compose himself. He might once have been boyishly attracted to the ice princess he’d known, but he’d really thought he’d left those schoolboy feelings behind long ago. The thirty-four-year-old Ashley Woodward he’d encountered today had clearly fallen on some hard times, judging by the quality of her clothes and the smallness of her office; and she wasn’t, in many regards, anything like the couture-swathed socialite he’d known long ago. But she still possessed the same arrogant attitude…even if her obvious once-over had both amused and inflamed him, an unsettling response he had no intention of entertaining for a second longer.
He wanted her gone.
She still hadn’t moved.
‘Your five minutes,’ he informed her without turning around, ‘Started…’ He paused to ostentatiously check his watch. ‘Thirty-seven seconds ago.’
‘Wait.’ Ashley’s voice was a whisper, and an elemental part of him surged with satisfaction. Now he’d have her where he wanted her:begging. As he’d once begged. Swiftly he pushed that humiliating memory to the far reaches of his mind.
‘I know you hold all the cards in this situation,’ she continued, her voice getting stronger, ‘But can’t you at least tell me what your intentions are for my company?’
Slowly, now completely and coldly in control of his wayward response to this infuriating woman, Nico turned round. ‘I just did.’
‘Yes, but…’ She licked her lips, her tongue darting out to moisten their lush fullness, and Nico impatiently flicked his gaze away. He definitely did not need that kind of distraction. ‘You haven’t told me what your intentions for thecompanyare. The employees… There are twenty-two…’
‘Twenty-two?’ he scoffed derisively, although he knew the number as well as she did. He’d done his research. Infinite Innovations had started four years ago as a small, private company investing in ridiculous inventions—science-fiction-worthy concepts that bordered on the absurd. The only reason that it had been viable for it to go public was due to one invention in which it had invested that had become moderately successful—a robotic toothbrush, of all things.
The whole thing had elements of the absurd—in particular that Ashley Woodward was the CEO seeking out such bizarre concepts. After their brief interaction at that ball, he’d assumed she was shallow and vapid, as well as cruelly indifferent. Shehadto be, to have acted the way she had back then.
When he’d researched Infinite Innovations, he’d presumed that it was as a front for some other, more nefarious business dealings, although he’d yet to find any evidence. It simply didn’t have the reputation, or the resources, to champion such innovative causes. Really, all he was doing was putting this company—and its CEO—out of its eventual misery.
‘We’re not a large company,’ Ashley replied in a voice quivering with dignity. ‘Which is why the takeover was such a surprise. Most people haven’t heard of us—’
‘Obviously,’ Nico cut across her, ‘I had.’
‘Yes, butwhy? Why do this?’ Her voice rose, wavered and broke. Nico watched her with cool disinterest as she sucked in a breath, pushing her hands through her hair. ‘I just don’t understand,’ she muttered, half to herself. ‘Why would you take over a tiny tech company just to fireme?’
She lifted her tortured gaze to his, her moss-green eyes widening in sudden, fearful realisation. ‘Wait…is this about myfather?’ She sounded incredulous.
‘Your father?’ he repeated tonelessly. ‘Why would it be about your father?’
‘Who, then?’ she demanded, her voice rising once again, spiking with anger and impatience. ‘And why won’t you justtellme? This whole cryptic thing is very YA, you know.’
Nico frowned, feeling irritatingly wrong-footed by not knowing the term. ‘YA?’
‘Young adult,’ Ashley clarified impatiently. ‘Enough with the brooding princeling act, okay? Just tell me what’s going on so I candealwith it.’
He almost laughed at that, although he couldn’t have said why. Nothing about the Woodward family was remotely amusing. ‘What’s going on,’ he informed her, ‘Is I am firing you. It’s now been five minutes so, if you don’t get going, I will be very tempted to call security.’
He slid his phone out of his pocket for good measure. ‘What’s also happening,’ he continued in the same mock-pleasant voice, ‘Is that I am about to fire your twenty-two employees, inform your investorsandinventors that Infinite Innovations is ceasing to operate, and liquidate any assets—and I know there aren’t that many—to be subsumed into Galletti Finance. By the end of the business day today, Infinite Innovations will effectively cease to exist.’
For a few taut seconds Ashley simply stared at him. Her face drained of colour, and her eyes went glassy as her lips parted soundlessly. Then, without saying a word, she turned slowly away from him and walked to the desk, her narrow back to him, one hand resting on her chair, as if for support, as she bowed her head.
Nico felt the tiniest flicker of pity and then quickly quashed it. She deserved this, every single bit of it. He was not going to feel sorry for crushing her company, or even her dreams. Ashley Woodward had surprised him several times in the course of their brief interview, but that didn’t mean she’d changed. It also didn’t mean she was undeserving of what was coming to her.
She was Chase Woodward’s daughter. She’d watched him get arrested. She’d conspired in keeping him at that damned ball, and she’d turned away when he’d asked for her help. And, besides all that, in her complete shallow selfishness, she might have evenforgottenhim.
This was happening. ‘Well?’ he bit out, his phone still in hand. ‘Do I need to call security?’
