For a second, Nico was catapulted back to that ballroom.What have you done?Woodward had asked him, pretending to sound confused, and Nico had had no response, because at that point he hadn’t even known what he was accused of.
But he wasn’t that naïve, powerless boy any more, and this woman, whoever she was, was now under his authority, whether she recognised it or not.
‘I haven’t done anything to her,’ Nico replied coolly as he straightened. ‘She fainted and I’m waiting for her to come to.’
‘She most likely fainted because she hasn’t slept or eaten in nearly two days, since this whole thing started,’ the woman replied as she shook her head, her tone implying that it was his fault.
‘Maybe you should call for a doctor,’ Nico suggested in the same cool tone. ‘And for some food.’ He slid his phone out of his pocket. ‘On second thoughts, I will.’
The woman watched him as he called one of his staff and bit out the necessary instructions, and he could feel her animosity as well as her curiosity, a pulsing, palpable thing.
‘No one here understands why you took over Infinite Innovations in such an aggressive way,’ she remarked as he slid his phone back into his pocket and then stooped to pick up Ashley. She was surprisingly light, curling into him with a faint moan that stirred his senses. He tamped down the instinctive, sympathetic response. She might have fainted, but she still deserved everything that was coming to her.
‘We can’t help but wonder,’ the woman continued, ‘if you have some secret agenda.’
‘No secret,’ he replied as he laid Ashley down on the love seat against one wall and left it at that. He wanted Ashley Woodward conscious for this conversation. ‘An EMT will be here in a few minutes,’ he stated, ‘to check her over.’
The woman was still staring at him, her eyes narrowed in assessment, and then flaring with recognition. ‘Wait a minute, I recognise you,’ she said with dawning realisation. ‘Rossi… You’re NicoRossi.’ She shook her head slowly, looking incredulous. ‘Right?’
Nico spared the woman a brief, cold glance. He’d changed his name to his mother’s maiden name nine years ago and never looked back, but his past was not the shameful secret so many seemed to think it should be. ‘Once upon a time,’ he conceded coolly.
The woman drew a breath. ‘I was at that ball,’ she said quietly.
His whole body tensed as he absorbed that simply stated fact, before he raked her with a dismissive look. ‘Enjoyed the show?’ he drawled.
She squared her shoulders. ‘I’m Ruth Boxall. My husband, Phillip Boxall, was the CFO of Woodward Investments.’
His immediate supervisor. A lightning streak of rage flashed through him, hard and fast, obliterating every other thought for a few blistering seconds. ‘The man who stood aside and said nothing,’ he finally remarked in arctic tones.
‘Five years ago, he went to prison with Ashley’s father.’
He arched an eyebrow. ‘Do you expect me to feel sorry for him? Or you?’
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Of course not.’
‘Good, because I don’t.’
‘But…’ Ruth Boxall glanced down at Ashley, still supine on the sofa, her golden lashes brushing pale cheeks. ‘If this is some kind of revenge, you must realise that Ashley had nothing to do with any of that—’
‘I’ll be the judge of her involvement,’ Nico cut her off.
Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘I’m serious.’
‘So am I.’ His voice was as hard as iron. He neither needed nor wanted to hear this woman’s pathetic excuses.
‘We didn’t know it back then, that you were innocent,’ Ruth Boxall said quietly. ‘I didn’t, and Ashley didn’t either. And in any case… This might come as a surprise, but she doesn’t even—’
‘Save it for someone who cares,’ Nico snapped. The old injustice, and the accompanying fury, rose in him in a hot tide and he didn’t have time for these feelings. He’d come here for one purpose—to destroy the last remaining Woodward holding—nothing else.
‘As for believing I was guilty…’ he couldn’t resist adding bitingly, ‘The twenty-year-old hireling managed to embezzle millions even though nothing was ever found in his bank account, his lifestyle hadn’t changed at all and he’d only been working for the company for six months? That all makes such perfect sense.’
‘Chase explained all that,’ Ruth protested. ‘In court.’ She sounded regretful, which made Nico seethe with fury. Even if Phillip Boxall or Ashley hadn’t known—and that was an absolutely enormous ‘if’—the idea that anyone thought it mattered that they were sorrynow, sixteen years later, just added insult to grievous injury. ‘He said you’d sent the money to some relatives in Italy,’ the woman explained. ‘There were bank transactions; they showed them in court…’
‘Transactions he’d made in my name, to people I didn’t even know.’ Nico shook his head, the old anger racing like fire through his veins once more, threatening to ignite with the injustice of it. Dismantling Infinite Innovations was hardly fair recompense for all he’d suffered, but it was a start.
On the sofa, Ashley stirred, and Nico stooped down once again. ‘An EMT is coming,’ he murmured, annoyed by the sense of protectiveness that surged up in him, just as it had all those years ago, but he told himself it was surely a normal response to any woman in distress. He was a decent man, despite what Ashley Woodward and her sidekick might think of him.
‘Did she recognise you?’ the woman asked in a hoarse voice. ‘She wouldn’t, though—’
