‘Why don’t you sit down?’ He gestured to the sofa and Ashley frowned at him.
‘Why,’ she couldn’t help but ask, ‘Are you being so polite?’
‘I believe we need to clear up a few things,’ Nico replied smoothly. ‘Come. Sit.’ He strolled over to her, cupping her elbow under his palm as he helped her over to the sofa. Ashley wanted to resist, but she knew she needed his help, and she also needed to sit down. She did her best not to react to the heat of his palm under her elbows, the spicy scent of his cologne hitting her nostrils and the sight of him without his suit jacket, so she could fully appreciate the breadth of his shoulders and the sculpted definition of his powerful biceps.
After she lowered herself into one of the deep leather sofas, Nico sat opposite her, crossing one leg over the other, his arms stretched out along the back of the sofa. He looked every inch the powerful magnate, totally at ease and in his element…whereas Ashley felt downtrodden and at a disadvantage. She still hadn’t showeredorbrushed her teeth today, her hair was a mess and her ankle throbbed. And then there was her business to think about, or lack of… The memory of this morning’s events made her stomach cramp, far from the first time, and, taking a deep breath, she launched into her plan of attack.
‘Look, whatever my father did to you—and I’m assuming it had something to do with money, because he stole alotof people’s money—I had nothing to do with it. I never had anything to do with my father’s business interests whatsoever. He’d wanted a son, you know, to pass it all onto, and overall I think I was a pretty big disappointment to him, in a lot of ways.’
His eyebrows drew together at that, and Ashley hurried on. ‘I know Infinite Innovations might seem like some sort of reinvention of Woodward Investments, but it really isn’t. I mean, there weren’t even a couple of computers left after the police went through it all. Everything was either seized or sold, right down to the last pen.’
From somewhere, she found a desperation-tinged laugh. ‘Destroying my company will havezeroeffect on him, I promise you. He’s in some minimum-security prison in Florida, probably conning all the guards out of their life savings.’ She rolled her eyes as if it was some joke, when in truth even thinking about her father was enough to have her feel the start of an anxiety attack. She took a careful breath, willing her heart to stop racing. ‘He had absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever,’ she stated firmly.
Nico cocked his head, his gaze resting on her thoughtfully. His eyelashes were impossibly thick and lush, Asley thought numbly; his lips too. What man had eyelashes like that, especially such a potently masculine one as Nico Galletti? Or lips? And why was she thinking about them, remembering how his lips had felt on hers, so thrilling and yet also weirdly familiar, almost as if she’d remembered his touch…?
‘Phillip Boxall was your father’s right-hand man,’ Nico remarked in a voice that sounded disconcertingly pleasant, considering how narrowed his eyes were; they were like slits of silver, his mouth pursed in what seemed like condemnation.
‘Yes…he’s my godfather,’ Ashley explained uncertainly. ‘He went to prison because he couldn’t convince the court that he hadn’t known about my father’s dealings, but I believed him when he said he didn’t, and so did Ruth. I’ve known her for a long time.’
Did Nico suspect Phillip or even Ruth of colluding with her father? She was sure nothing could be further from the truth. Ruth had been unfailingly kind since she’d helped Ashley start Infinite Innovations. ‘She was…there for me,’ she said haltingly, ‘After things…fell apart.’ And that was all she wanted to say about that.
‘Just like her husband was there for your father,’ Nico pointed out in that same pleasant voice.
‘He worked for him,’ Ashley corrected. ‘And he thought he was his friend. Trust me, Phillip was not—’
‘Trustyou?’ Nico cut her off, and now his voice was as hard as iron, making Ashley feel as if she’d run face-first into a brick wall. She blinked, reeling from his unrelenting tone. ‘I will never,’ he informed her curtly, ‘Trust a Woodward ever again.’
She stared at him uncertainly, her lips parting soundlessly as she took in the colour that slashed his cheekbones, the blaze of fury in his eyes. ‘What did my father do to you?’ she whispered.
‘You honestly don’t remember?’ The words were bitten off, spat out.
What?‘No, why would I?’ Ashley cried. ‘I told you, I had nothing to do with his—’
‘You were there.’ The words, spoken with such quiet finality, made Ashley fall silent, even more shocked than before.
‘Where?’she finally asked helplessly.
‘A charity ball at your house. You held it every year, apparently.’
‘The fundraiser for breast cancer,’ Ashley confirmed slowly. ‘Yes, my mother arranged it. Her sister died of breast cancer when she was just in her thirties.’ And from the age of sixteen Ashley had been forced to act as her father’s hostess, no matter that she’d hated the role. ‘But what does that ball have to do with…’ she gestured helplessly between them ‘…this?’
Nico hesitated, and then in one abrupt movement he rose from the sofa and walked to the window, his hands thrust into the pockets of his trousers so his shirt stretched tautly across his powerful shoulders as he stood with his back to her. A full minute ticked by with neither of them saying anything.
Had she met Nico at one of those balls? Those years were a painful blur she’d done her best to forget, Ashley acknowleged. It was too painful to remember her father’s cold anger which had been masked by an easy charm that, stupidly, had made her want to please him, even as he’d belittled her and her mother time and time again. It had been a pattern she had never had the courage to break, and, in its own way, his arrest had provided a freedom Ashley knew she’d never have had the strength to seize otherwise.
But she didn’t have any recollection of Nico, and he was surely a man she wouldn’t have been able to forget, no matter how much she might want to forget those pain-filled years.
‘There’s no need to rake over the past in this way,’ Nico finally remarked, his back still to her. Now he sounded different, diffident, as if the issue was of no matter to him, all the fury and fire gone. He turned around slowly, his face as expressionless as a beautiful, blank canvas, and somehow the emptiness of his expression was even more unnerving. ‘What matters is the future.’
‘The future,’ Ashley repeated uncertainly. She wanted to agree with him, but… ‘Whatfuture?’ she made herself ask. ‘As of this morning, Infinite Innovationshasno future, at least according to you.’ His expression didn’t change, and yet something about his stance, his silence, made hope stumble through Ashley’s chest like a drunken sailor. She lurched upright, even though it hurt her ankle. ‘Wait…are you saying you might have changed your mind?’
Nico stared at her imperturbably for another endless few seconds. ‘A good businessman is always willing to change his mind when new information becomes available,’ he finally stated tonelessly.
‘New information?’ As tired and overwhelmed as she was, Ashley struggled to make sense of his words. ‘What new information?’
‘Why don’t you tell me,’ Nico suggested as she strolled back towards the sofa, his hands still in his pockets, ‘What the impetus for starting Infinite Innovations was?’
Ashley stared at him, taken aback by his sudden curiosity. Was this some sort of trap? She didn’t like talking about her background because it hurt too much, for all sorts of reasons, and she really didn’t feel like talking about it with Nico Galletti, who seemed sure to use any such information against her…or her mother. She couldn’t allow that to happen.
