Ashley dropped her hand as she stared at him incredulously. She wished she had the strength to laugh, but she was far closer to crying. ‘Tryfainting? What do you think that was this morning, some sort of tactic?’ she asked. This time she did manage a laugh, a sorry huff of despair. ‘If so,’ she told him, ‘It obviously failed. Miserably.’
‘You’ve been trying suchtacticswith me since I first walked in on you with your blouse unbuttoned,’ he drawled coldly, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Too bad you can’t stick to one act. You have to be either the fainting lily or the hard-nosed businesswoman or the beguiling temptress, not all three in turns.’ He bared his teeth in a steely smile. ‘Otherwise they play against each other, and it doesn’t work.’
He seemed to be speaking in riddles he thought she should understand. Ashley shook her head, weary now. In that moment, she didn’t think she had the strength to fight for anything—not herself, not her employees, not Infinite Innovations.
‘I really don’t understand you,’ she told him wearily. ‘And I don’t think I ever will. What I do know is that you mess with my head and my body way too much for me to keep going back for another round. I think… I think I need to walk away from this. From you. From…everything.’
She nodded slowly, her insides leaden, as the realisation spread heavily through her. She couldn’t fight for Infinite Innovations any more, not against this man. Not for the sake of her own sanity, her own self. She’d have to find some other way to help the people she’d hired that did not involve Nico Galletti.
‘You can have the company,’ she told him, flinging her hands up. ‘I mean, obviously, since you already do. Dismantle it, destroy it, do whatever you want.’ She shrugged her shoulders dispiritedly, unable to meet his eyes, hating the thought of seeing triumph gleaming in their silvery depths. ‘I can start over,’ she stated, clinging to that one fact. ‘I did it once already, and I’ll do it again.’ Even if she couldn’t imagine having the strength to do so right now. One day she would; she’d make sure of it.
Nico Galletti might have taken everything she’d worked hard for, but he could not take her sense of self. He could not rob her of her future. ‘This ends here,’ she stated, and was glad that she finally sounded strong.
Lifting her chin to give him one last look, his own expression utterly inscrutable, she turned for the door. Walking out on Nico Galletti would be her last act of defiance. As her legs wobbled and her ankle gave a punishing twang, she just hoped she could make it to the door.
Each step felt endless, although it was only half a dozen yards. Nico didn’t speak, and Ashley felt a prickling between her shoulder blades, sensing his iron-hard glare directed right at her as she forced herself to put one foot in front of another. One step, two steps, three…
Finally, she made it. A pent-up breath of relief escaped her in a soft rush. Then, as Ashley’s fingers curled around the door handle, Nico finally spoke.
‘Why,’ he asked quietly, ‘Did you wear that dress?’
The rage had left him, like a tidal wave that had surged up suddenly and obliterated everything before receding, leaving only devastation in its wake. For a few minutes, he had not been able to think or respond clearly to anything. ToAshley. And from within the embers of that rage had come the most inconvenient, overwhelming desire… It was unsettling, to feel so much in relation to this woman, and not to be able to control it, because he’d always prized himself on his steely sense of self-control. Yet Ashley Woodward had been able to obliterate it with one calculated move.
Except, judging from her response in these last few heightened minutes, ithadn’tbeen calculated. Yet how could it not have been? To wear that dress and the jewels, even style her hair the same… Surely that had to have been intentional?
It was, Nico determined, time finally to get some answers. Answers that weren’t clouded by Ashley’s obfuscation or his own painful memories of just how treacherous the Woodwards could be.
For several seconds, she remained standing with her back to him, her hand on the door, her head slightly bowed so a single golden curl rested against the nape of her neck and trailed onto one smooth shoulder. Nico had the most inconvenient urge to lift that curl, kiss that sensitive skin… He forced himself to banish the thought.
Slowly Ashley turned round. She looked exhausted, defeated, her slender shoulders slumped and shadows like bruises beneath her jade-green eyes.
‘The dress?’ she repeated. ‘Why are you asking about mydress?’
‘I just want to know why you wore it.’ He kept his tone even, determined not to give into the anger he still felt lapping at his senses. Was she really playing dumb even now? ‘You must have had a reason.’
She twisted her shoulders in a shrug that felt stingingly dismissive. ‘It was in my closet. I needed something to wear.’
‘Don’t,’ he warned her in a low voice, ‘Be flippant.’
‘I am struggling to understand why you care what dress I’m wearing,’ Ashley replied. She sounded exhausted rather than angry. ‘You had a dozen brought to my apartment. Presumably any of those would have satisfied you.’ She glanced down at the crystal-strewn dress he remembered so well. ‘Why not this one?’
‘The question remains,whythis one?’ Nico asked, his tone sharpening. She was making him appear foolish or even strange for fixating on the dress. Was that part of her plan? ‘I just want to know what you’re playing at,’ he stated. ‘Because it’s obviously something.’
‘What I’mplayingat?’ she repeated, taking a step towards him. Colour flared in her pale cheeks and her eyes glittered like the crystals on her dress as she drew in an agitated breath. ‘I’m not playing at anything. But, while we’re at it, why don’t you tell me whatyou’replaying at? Why did you get so angry tonight? Because I don’t think I’ve seen anyone so furious, and I still have no idea what it was about. Mydress?’
She sounded so incredulous. Once again, Nico had no idea what to think.Could she actually be innocent?Had she somehow forgotten the whole episode,everything, the way she’d forgotten her breakdown last night?
He stared at her, wishing he could see beneath those stormy eyes, that silken skin. ‘You wore that dress,’ he finally ground out, ‘The night we met.’
Ashley’s eyes widened and her whole body went still. ‘The night we met?’ she repeated in a whisper, sounding shocked.
‘I said you had a part in ruining my life,’ he reminded her. ‘Didn’t you realise we must have met before?’
She shook her head, a few tendrils of hair falling from her elegant chignon and framing her pale, heart-shaped face. ‘To be honest, I thought that was just a bit of…hyperbole.’
‘It wasn’t.Trust me.’ He deliberately echoed the words her father had used time and time again as he’d asked Nico to send emails, open accounts or add figures. All of it had been to incriminate him, and he’d been too trusting and dumb to believe it.
‘When…?’ Ashley licked her lips, her wide-eyed gaze locked on his. ‘When did we meet?’
