Sweeter Than Revenge (4 page)

“Is that what you’re wearing, baby?” Harper asked her in a low voice.

. long, tense pause followed and then Maria spoke. “What’s wrong with this?”

“I was hoping you’d wear that strapless dress. I want everyone to see how beautiful you are. You know I need to make a good impression tonight. Can you change for me?”

Outraged, David listened and prayed Maria would flatten Harper where he stood for making such a ridiculous request. But then, unbelievably, there was a swatting sound—did that jackass have the nerve to smack her on the butt?—and Maria spoke.

“Okay,” she said tightly.

David couldn’t believe it.

Maria went upstairs while David seethed in impotent silence. Ellis came out of his office, saw George, and took him back to his office to show him his new driver. David went out to the foyer to wait at the base of the curved staircase for Maria.

She came right back, this time wearing a strapless black dress that was off the charts in the sexiness department. He couldn’t begin to imagine how all those delicious, velvety-brown curves managed to stay restrained, but they did. Maria looked heart-stopping, a trophy beyond any man’s wildest dreams. And if anyone bothered to look beyond the hair, the face and the body—something George Harper obviously never did—they’d also see that she looked self-conscious and miserable.

Seeing David at the bottom of the stairs, she seemed to shrink, and crossed her arms over her chest as she descended. Something on his face must have made her think she needed to defend herself.

“I just thought I’d change—” she began.

Though he had no right whatsoever to speak his mind, David’s indignation made it impossible for him to keep his lips together and his big fat mouth shut. He saw Maria’s future, as if someone had handed him a crystal ball: her youth, her desire to please, her strong father, her overbearing, older boyfriend who ignored her feelings every chance he got. If she spent too much more time around those two men, they’d swallow her whole and burp up her bones. There was no way David could stand silently by and let Maria disappear.

“Don’t let him treat you like that,” he told her in a low, urgent voice he hardly recognized as his own. “You’respecial. If he doesn’t know how lucky he is to be with you, then he’s an even bigger punk than I think he is.”

She seemed dazed, as if she didn’t know what to make of all his fervor. Her mouth opened, but her voice was on a five-second delay. “Everyone thinks I’m the lucky one,” Maria said finally. “They keep saying how rich and smart George is—”

“George,” he said, unable to keep the hostility out of his voice over being forced to say the man’s name, “wants a doll he can show off.”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t all men want dolls?”

“I don’t.”

Their gazes locked and held, and so many things pulsed between them that he couldn’t begin to analyze them all. Understanding. Knowledge. Longing. Passion. Unthinkingly, he took a step closer to her—he had to becloser to her—but then they heard the laughing, approaching voices of Ellis and Harper, and another beautiful moment was spoiled.

But as David watched her leave for her date, he knew that something powerful had been born tonight—something undeniable—and one day soon he and Maria would have to deal with it.

“Ahem.”

The rumble of Ellis clearing his throat brought David back to the present with an uncomfortable start and no idea how long he’d been daydreaming. Ellis’s bland face showed no expression in particular, but his sharp, focused gaze told David they were about to enter delicate territory.

“I hope I haven’t put you in a tough position,” said Ellis.

“How’s that?”

“Working with Maria. Supervising her. The two of you have a past, after all.”

David forced a blank stare. Have a past,eh? Was that the euphemism these days for a blistering affair that left nothing behind but scorched earth? Or maybe the only thing that’d been scorched was him.

“That is ancient history, Ellis.” He tried to look reproachful. “I’m surprised you’d even mention it. Maria and I both moved on with our lives years ago.”

“That’s what I thought.” A beat passed while Ellis stared over the fine crystal as he sipped his tea. “Still, I…” Dropping his head in a pretty good hangdog move, he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. It seemed like there might still be a little chemistry there when you saw each other just now.”

David shrugged ruefully. “Well, she hasn’t been tapped with an ugly stick while I was gone, has she?”

They both laughed and the tiny bit of tension that had been between them passed, but that in David’s body didn’t. The image of Maria, sleek and oiled, curved and bare, toned and ripe, would haunt him until his dying day, possibly surpassing even the image of the first time he saw her. Before today he’d nursed the ridiculous hope that he’d either exaggerated her beauty after all these years or that she’d gone to seed and gained thirty pounds or so.

No dice.

He should’ve known. Maria Johnson would never let herself go, and looking good was an area in her life in which she was willing to work hard. And boy, did it pay off.

The years had only deepened her looks. A new wisdom—or was it cynicism?—shone from those dark eyes, and it fascinated him. As did the long hair, dark once but now the same honey color as her skin. Was it still as soft? He’d never know.

He knew he’d never see a more beautiful woman if he lived to be two hundred. But luckily all he had to do was think of the twisted black heart that lay beneath those glorious breasts, and his blood cooled right off.

Sort of.

He’d known she was divorced, of course. Known she’d had a short, rocky marriage, heard rumors about George’s infidelities, and the large award of spousal support. Maria Johnson had always been on his radar. He just hadn’t expected to be this…overwhelmed by seeing her again.

“So,” Ellis said, “you won’t have any problems keeping it professional?”

David blinked. Once, twice—he knew he was doing it, but couldn’t stop.

Did Ellis know how hard it’d been for him to keep his hands off his daughter’s body just now? How his fingers had curled with the need to rip off those four silly sets of string and tissue-sized scraps that hid Maria from him? How the faint musk from between her legs had nearly brought him to his knees?

Ellis watched him expectantly and David swallowed hard. Lying in the business setting or to the general public was one thing, but he’d never be good at lying right to Ellis’s face.

“Of course not.”

He took a hasty and belabored sip of tea. Not since Cain told God he didn’t know where his brother was had anyone told a bigger lie. No. Not since he’d told Maria he’d just up and decided to move back to Cincinnati had anyone told a bigger lie.

The truth was, he’d come here for the sole purpose of getting even with Maria Johnson. She’d ruined his life when she married another man, and now she had to answer for it. He’d come back for her four years ago, but she hadn’t bothered to wait for him. Now she’d have to pay.

Revenge. It was the only thing he could think of that would rouse him from the undead state he’d been in all this time. Oh, sure, he gave a pretty good impression of a normal human being, but he wasn’t alive.Walking, talking, working and screwing—he had those things down to a science. But laughing?Having fun? Connecting with people? Oh, no. He hadn’t done that for four years. Because of that woman he was as soulless as any vampire.

But he would liveagain. Maria’s downfall would restore him to himself. She’d hexed him, and ruining her financially was the only antidote he could think of. And it would work. He knew it.

Never had he dreamed he’d be lucky enough to get this clear a shot at her. What he’d told her was true, as far as it went: he’d decided he needed to come back to Cincinnati and punish Maria, figuring he’d work out the details later. He’d bought a house and called Ellis to touch base with his old boss and mentor to let him know he was coming. And then Lady Luck smiled on David. Ellis had unknowingly handed Maria over on a silver platter, giving David the instrument of her torture by making him her boss.

And what a fine, sharp blade it was. So Maria had to work for her money? What could possibly be easier? Maria was pampered and helpless, and she had precious little confidence in herself. She’d shoot herself in the foot with no help from him, but he’d help her anyway. And spoiled Maria wouldn’t see one red cent of her inheritance for five more years.

The irony was almost too much. Maria, the pretty princess, dumped him for a rich man, and now sheneeded money. And guess who had it? He struggled not to laugh. Not only did he control herfuture and whether she’d get hermoney, he controlled his own. Last time he checked the other day, his own holdings were worth a cool $19.8 million, courtesy of his well-timed investment in a little software dot-com. Poor Maria. If only she’d had a little faith in him. If only she’d waited. He’d have given her the world on a string.

For years he’d worked like a dog, saving and investing, building his wealth bit by bit. That had been the only thing that mattered in his life, other than revenge. There were times when he wondered if he hadn’t worked so hard solely for the purpose of coming back here one day and throwing it in Maria’s face, but he didn’t want to think about that. Maria already controlled way too much of his life.

Bitterness tightened his throat until he tasted bile on the back of his tongue.

He wouldn’t touch her, no matter how much he really, reallywanted to. Nothing physical this time. Not so much as a peck on the cheek. No way. That way lay madness.

“So,” Ellis said. “You enjoyed Seattle?”

“Yeah. Great city.”

“What’d you do out there? Besides head up that PR firm, I mean.”

Meeting Ellis’s level gaze, David started unpleasantly. Though the man’s expression was neutral, David had the sudden realization that Ellis knewabout David’s new tax bracket and wanted to see if David would mention it. He shouldn’t be surprised; a man like Ellis was well-read and well-connected in the business world, and a couple of magazines had reported on David’s investment savvy. Still, David had no plans to reveal his fortune until he was good and ready and could use it to his strategic advantage.

“Oh, this and that,” David told Ellis.

There. He hadn’t lied—he didn’t want to lie to Ellis again, especially when Ellis would know he was lying—but he also hadn’t given Ellis the whole story or encouraged him to ask any more questions. Ellis seemed to know he’d hit a brick wall, and didn’t seem to mind.

He smiled ruefully. “You know she’ll try to weasel her way out of this, don’t you? Are you sure you can handle this job?” Ellis studied his face, no doubt looking for signs of weakness.

“Ellis,” David said with absolute sincerity, “I’ve been waiting years for this moment. This is the opportunity of a lifetime for me. I’m not going to screw it up.”

Ellis’s grin was both satisfied and reassured. “Good.”

Chapter 4

Maria stepped out of the mirrored elevator, walked past the glass table with its enormous crystal vase of red and white hydrangeas and through the double glass doors into her father’s office, which occupied the top two floors—the advertising department downstairs and the public relations department up here—of one of the sleek towers downtown on Fifth Street. It was eight fifty-three the next morning, and she was really late and really annoyed. The cooling half-caf cappuccino she’d picked up from a gourmet coffee shop on the way in did nothing to sweeten her disposition, and neither did the elegant office, a bastion of happy little worker bees, with its austere—almost bare—modern furniture in glass, black leather, red microsuede and shining chrome.

Her father prided himself on keeping the place hip and edgy, in a constant battle to prove to the rest of the world that a PR firm catering to a mostly creative clientele in the music, book and television industries could thrive outside of L.A. and New York. But the low thrum of PG-rated hip-hop music in the lobby, the occasional gray, red or black wall, and the jarring geometric art prints throughout always seemed a little strange to Maria. His antique-strewn house on the one hand and this mecca of cool elegance on the other was a little odd, like the hip MAC counter next to the traditional Estée Lauder counter in the makeup department at Macy’s.

Resigned, Maria hitched her black Hermès Birkin bag more firmly on her arm, plastered a smile on her face and walked up to the receptionist. The woman sat at her post behind a black-granite countertop in front of a curved divider. The words Ellis Johnson Public Relationsblared in bold letters over her shoulder.

Maria slipped her sunglasses off and smiled. “Good morning, Jane. How are you?”

Jane, a plump woman who’d been with Ellis since at least the first ice age, grinned and flushed until her face was the same vivid red as her dyed hair. “Good morning, Maria! Welcome aboard!”

“Thank you. Should I go to my father’s office or…?”

“Oh, no. Everyone’s still in the staff meeting. Ellis said to send you in as soon as you got here.”

“Staff meeting?”

“In the conference room. It started at eight o’clock. Great suit, by the way.”

Maria grinned as she wove her way through the maze of secretarial cubicles to the far corner of the office. It was a great suit, she thought, smoothing the nubbly fire-engine-red raw silk. She’d tried on more outfits than she cared to remember, finally deciding on one of her vintage, form-fitted suits—cinched at the waist with a long, narrow skirt. Maybe if she dressed the part, she’d eventually feel like she hadn’t been sent to Leavenworth for the year.

Her spirits lifted.

Sometime between yesterday and right now, after she finally stopped sulking, she’d decided this job mandate could be an adventure. A nice diversion. She’d worked before, after all, and it hadn’t killed her. Why couldn’t she do that again? Why not have a positive attitude?

She might even enjoy herself. The firm had some exciting clients; the other day she’d overheard her father on the phone at home and he’d mentioned the rapper Shaggy D, who was as hot right now as the steam room at the club. Surely, Ellis would put her right out front with him and all their major clients.

Oh, sure, he’d said she’d start out as a grunt, but if she knew anything about her father, he wouldn’t let his daughter ruin her manicure with filing. She’d wheedle and cry a little if she needed to, and then Ellis would change his mind—he alwayschanged his mind—and give her something interesting to do. With any luck she’d be flying out to the coast in no time and going to a few client parties in L.A.

Nothing too challenging would be involved, of course. Her father knew her skills involved looking good and making people feel comfortable. Thatshe could do. She’d take it day by day, and in a year at the latest she could retire to the pool again, with enough money to buy all the paperbacks she could ever want.

Without bothering to knock, she eased open the door to the conference room and slipped inside. About twenty heads swiveled in her direction, and then everyone wedged at the crowded conference table stared at her with wide, saucer eyes. David, looking surly in a khaki suit, cream shirt and yellow tie, sat at the far end of the table with a thick stack of files in front of him.

Uh-oh. She’d had no idea a meeting was on the agenda, otherwise she would have moved a little more quickly this morning and not tried on quiteso many outfits before choosing this one. Embarrassed to be the center of attention, she managed a weak smile and wondered where at the crowded table she could sit.

“Good morning,” she said.

A general murmur of greeting answered her.

David frowned. “Glad you could join us. Everyone, this is Maria Johnson. Maria, this is—” his sweeping hand encompassed the entire table “—everyone. All the other account assistants.”

The crowd called a chorus of Hi, Marias to her and Maria flashed a smile.

A young man, dark-skinned and dreadlocked—rather handsome, actually—leaped to his feet right in front of her, nearly knocking over his chair in the process. “I’m Kwasi. Take my seat.”

“Thankyou, Kwasi,” she said, sliding into the chair.

Across the table, a plain-Jane sister, with brown glasses, overgrown hairy brows, a short black bob and an awful yellow blouse that did nothing for her sallow coloring, frowned at her. Maria knew she wouldn’t be making friends with thatone, but of course women usually weren’t her biggest fans anyway.

“Actually,” David said to the room at large although his narrow-eyed gaze drifted between Maria and Kwasi, “we’re finished. Maria, I’d like a word with you.”

With a collective sigh of relief, everyone surged to their feet, grabbed their various pens and pads of paper, and streamed toward the door, all watching her with open curiosity. Several of the men smiled at her, but none of the women did. Maria stared after them, wishing she could mingle with the crowd and drift out rather than deal with David and his flashing eyes.

Help arrived in the unexpected form of her father, who appeared in the hall and struggled against the group like a salmon swimming downstream while all his cronies swam up. Finally the crowd thinned and Ellis shut the door.

“Hello, Sugar.” He kissed Maria on the cheek and then strode around the table to shake David’s hand. “My breakfast meeting ran a little late. What’d I miss?”

Uh-oh. Maria shot David a desperate, pleading look—please don’t tell on me!—to which he responded with a raised eyebrow and amused smirk. Clearly he would not be denied the pleasure of tattling and turning her over to the warden.

“The question isn’t what youmissed, Ellis.” David’s measured tone did nothing to disguise his unmitigated glee at putting Maria onto the hot seat with her father. “It’s what Mariamissed. You tend to miss a thing or two when you show up nearly an hour late for your first day of work.”

Ellis’s face darkened and his troubled gaze swung back to Maria. “That true?”

“I suppose,” she said, sighing.

Dropping his head, Ellis rubbed the back of his neck. “Anything to say for yourself?”

Maria’s face burned with embarrassment and impotent anger, at herself as much as David. She imagined that by now her cheeks must be bright enough to power a runway strip at the airport so planes could land at night. Ellis no doubt wanted her to offer some mitigating circumstance—a flat tire, emergency appendectomy or alien invasion—that explained why she was so late, but she didn’t have one other than not wanting to be here.

Raising her chin, she stood proud and returned her father’s level gaze. “No.”

Ellis sighed harshly and looked past her to David, who shrugged and shook his head, gestures that screamed, Don’t look at me because I don’t know what to do with her, either, but what’d you expect from Maria in the first place?

“Well, Maria,” Ellis said coolly, “I’ll let your boss deal with you now. I’ll deal with you later.”

“Of course you will,” she muttered, seething at being treated like a two-year-old.

Pursing his lips, Ellis left, leaving her alone with David, who looked like he wanted to run several of her fingers through the office shredding machine. Weak-kneed and breathless, but determined not to show it, Maria squared her shoulders and faced him.

“Sit down,” David snarled. Jerking his left arm out, he glanced impatiently at his watch and indicated a chair right next to him. “I don’t have all day.”

Without a word—no matter how nasty he was to her, she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of losing her temper—she ignored his clear instruction and dropped into the chair nearest her, twenty feet away from him at the other end of the enormous table. The corresponding tic in his tight jaw was especially satisfying. Just to see how far she could push the arrogant jerk, she raised her chin and gave him her most defiant stare. She wasn’t about to apologize for being late. Not to him. If he didn’t like it, that was just too bad.

He watched her, brows lowered, in moody silence, apparently either plotting her gruesome death or trying to decide what to do with her. After a minute he got up and strode off. At the sideboard beneath a particularly ugly wall sculpture of swirls and squares, he poured a glass of ice water from the pitcher.

“If you come to work an hour late again, you’re fired.” He raised the glass to his lips and drank in deep, loud gulps.

“I’ll try to remember that,” she said to his back, and he snorted. “What’d I miss?”

“Well, I met all the account assistants.” He studied the sculpture with absolute absorption, as if it was the Mona Lisa. “And then I talked about the importance of teamwork. Then we divided up the workload.”

“So I didn’t miss anything important, then.”

He didn’t seem to care for her little attempt at humor. With an angry thunk and a splash of water, he slammed his glass back on the tray, and then swung around to face her. If she’d been a weaker woman she’d have ducked before the cold fury in his eyes.

“Why are you so mad at me?” she asked, poking the lion with her stick, provoking him because she needed to the way she needed water to drink and food to eat.

“I’m not mad at you. I don’t feel anything for you.” Turning again, he reclaimed his seat and flipped through his stack of files, keeping his head lowered.

She believed him. Once upon a time, he’d looked at her with warmth and longing, but no more. Now the ice in his tone matched the frigidity in his eyes, and the room vibrated with his animosity—malevolent and black. Clearly he couldn’t think bad enough thoughts about her.

The ache of loss low in her belly plagued her again, stronger now. She remembered when he’d smiled at her, laughed with her and looked at her as if she was the single most glorious creature ever born. Young and foolish, she’d actually believed he loved her. Had it really been in this same lifetime?

“You don’t feel anything for me?” she echoed bitterly. “Tell me something I don’tknow.”

His head snapped up and he smiled crookedly. “Kwasi, on the other hand, seems to like you.”

“So?”

His jaw tightened. Looking down again, he found the file he’d been looking for, yanked it out and flipped it open, rattling papers. Abruptly he slammed the file shut, glared up at her and gestured with his pen. His lips pursed a couple of times, as if they meant to forcibly restrain something from coming out of his mouth, but then he spoke anyway.

“Leave him alone.” He jabbed the pen at her on each syllable for emphasis. “I don’t want you flashing your pretty little smile at him, messing up morale and having all the men sniffing after you. Do you understand me?”

Nearly blinded with fury—exactly what kind of woman did he think she was?—she smiled sweetly. “Why, David,” she said in her silkiest voice, “you sound jealous.”

She’d expected him to laugh and sneer, to make another nasty comment. What she didn’t expect was for him to wince. For one brief second out of time she could have sworn he looked hurt. Almost vulnerable. But she blinked and whatever it was she thought she saw was gone and the cold mask was back.

In fact, he looked smug and calculating—as if he had a bombshell to drop and couldn’t wait to see her reaction. Unease skittered up her spine.

“Don’t you want to know what you’re going to be doing?” he asked pleasantly.

Somehow she kept her smile from slipping. “Of course. I assume I’ll have a really short training period, and then I’ll be working with you with clients, making media contacts, things like that. You’ll want to work with my strengths since I’m a people person.”

He stared at her in surprise, then threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Uh, no. Sorry to burst your bubble, Princess.”

Her stomach knotted. He didn’t look sorry at all, the pompous ass. He looked gleeful. “What do you mean?” she snapped.

“Well,” he said, still chuckling, “I’m the director.Of this whole office.I’m in charge of everything.You’re in charge of coffee, tea and soda. Got it?”

“I am the owner’s daughter.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” A disquieting light shone in his eyes, hot and satisfied, and his low voice was ruthless. “That won’t get you diddly or squat in my office. And I don’t want you strutting around here, lording it over everyone else, okay? You’ve got no seniority and no clout. The guys in the mailroom are higher on the totem pole than you are. The janitor is higher on the totem pole than you are. Don’t forget it.”