‘At that fundraising ball for breast cancer. The one your mother set up. I told you before.’ He couldn’t keep from sounding impatient, because to him it was so obvious. The fact that she hadn’t pressed him on any point before just made her look guiltier. She must have known. She so clearly remembered.
‘Yes,’ Ashley replied slowly, ‘But… I didn’t realise… You didn’t say we’d actuallymet…’ She shook her head. ‘I think I would have remembered that.’
‘I suppose you met a lot of people,’ Nico replied evenly, daring her to agree. To say their meeting hadn’t been significant in any way, when he’d already told her it had changed his life.
‘Yes, but…’ She was silent, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she frowned in thought. ‘Obviously it must have been a fairly significant meeting,’ she finally said, ‘To have the effect you claim it had. To “ruin your life”.’
The words would have gratified him, save for the needling note of doubt in her voice.Thatsent a fresh wave of fury through him, but he tamped it down. ‘I don’tclaim,’ he bit out. ‘I know.’
‘All right.’ Ashley lifted her chin and, in the tilt of it, as well as the set of her lips and the flash of her eyes, Nico knew that, just as he’d doubted her, now she doubted him. ‘Then tell me about it. How did we meet? What did we say? And how on earth did meeting me ruin your life?’
She sounded scornful now, and Nico had to wait several seconds before replying to make sure his voice was as cold and even as he needed it to be. ‘I’m not about to go into all that here,’ he told her.
Her eyes flashed with more scorn. ‘Then where?’
‘My apartment,’ he decided. ‘We need to talk in private.’
‘I am not,’ Ashley informed him, her eyes flashing all the more, ‘Going to your apartment so you can…can…’ She shook her head, unwilling to finish just what they both knew he could do, and what she would welcome.
‘Trust me,’ Nico told her with acid sweetness. ‘You’re not that irresistible.’
‘Neither are you,’ she fired back, but the flush rising to her heated cheeks told otherwise.
He took a step towards her. ‘Do you want me to prove that to you?’ he demanded in a low voice, and for a heightened second it felt as if the very air between them twanged with electric, sexual energy.
They stared at each other as a thousand memories of what she’d felt like in his arms, beneath his hands, flashed through his mind, reminding him of just how truly irresistible she was, never mind him.
‘No, I don’t,’ she said at last, her voice little more than a husk. ‘Which is why I’m not going to your apartment.’
‘And if I promise I won’t touch you?’ He didn’t want the complication either, no matter that desire was already racing through him, tightening every muscle and heightening every sense.
She tilted her chin. ‘Is that a promise I can trust you to keep?’
‘I don’t break my promises,’ he assured her stonily. ‘And I don’t force myself on unwilling women.’ He held her gaze, daring to deny it. They both knew just how willing she’d been.
‘Fine,’ she finally said shortly, the colour still surging in her cheeks. ‘As long as we’re both clear that neither of us is irresistible.’ Her mouth quirked cynically, and her chin lifted once more. ‘Lead the way.’
Chapter Eleven
ASHLEY FELT ASif she were walking into the lion’s den or even the very mouth of hell as she stepped into the lift that soared straight to Nico Galletti’s penthouse apartment in SoHo. They’d barely spoken as they’d gone from hotel to limo to building; Ashley had asked whether they should make one last appearance for their guests, but Nico had dismissed the idea.
‘I think they’ve seen more than enough,’ he’d replied tersely, taking her elbow to steer her out to his waiting car.
On the ride downtown, with the limo sliding through darkened streets, Ashley had wondered if she was making a serious mistake. She didn’t trust Nico Galletti about anything, she knew that much, but she didn’t know much else…which was why she’d agreed to come back with him.
She needed to figure out why Nico was so suspicious of her. Had she really met him back at that ball? Those tumultuous years had blurred together in her mind, a kaleidoscope of images and emotions she’d longed only to forget, and had been grateful when it seemed as if she had. But she hadn’t thought she’d forgottenthatmuch… .
But what if she had? She’d managed to forget an entire episode from last night. Had she forgotten more than she realised? Or…was Nico messing with her mind, another one of his little power games? He had accused her of playing at something, and now Ashley was wondering ifhewas.
But if it really was some kind of simple misunderstanding…
Except nothing about this situation felt remotely simple, Ashley acknowledged, and she doubted a single conversation was going to clear anything up. Maybe it would make things even more complicated, because whatever had happened between them back then seemed to have struck at their very hearts and souls…and left scars. A few quick words of explanation—an apology, heartfelt or otherwise—wasn’t going to undo the damage. It might even make things worse.
But for the sake of her own conscience as well as sanity, as well as that of her employees, Ashley knew she needed to get to the bottom of whatever had driven Nico Galletti to initiate a hostile takeover of a company that shouldn’t mean anything to him.
‘Some place,’ she remarked dryly as she stepped into the soaring space of his penthouse apartment, everything sleek and modern, with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides overlooking the southern tip of Manhattan. ‘Especially for a boy from Brooklyn.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ he replied in an even dryer tone as he shed his dinner jacket, the muscles of his shoulders and arm rippling under the smooth white fabric of his shirt. Ashley jerked her gaze away. She definitely did not need that distraction right now.
