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Nathalie frowned. “For what?”
“For not giving you a chance eight years ago. I didn’t think you’d be around long enough for it to matter.” Facing forward, she pushed open the door and strode in with a flourish, leaving Nathalie to trail in her wake.
“I told you not to disturb me, Therese.” Philip Montague’s dry upper-class British accent tightened Nathalie’s shoulders and set loose butterflies in her stomach. The older man perched behind a massive teak desk and hadn’t looked up from the sheath of papers in front of him.
His office was just as she’d pictured it. Steeped in tradition, like him. Wood-paneled walls, leather furniture, and oil paintings of fox hunts and English countryside.
“I’m not your secretary,” Becca said. “There’s someone here to see you.”
Nathalie squared her shoulders at the faint air of challenge in Becca’s voice.
Ryder’s father barely lifted his gaze to peer first at his daughter, then past her. Wintry blue-gray eyes met hers. She would have missed the slight dilation of his pupils if she hadn’t been paying close attention.
He set down the pen in his right hand and sat back in his brown leather executive chair. “Thank you, Rebecca. You may leave now.”
“Naturally,” Becca muttered. The heavy door shut behind her with an ominous thud.
Ryder’s father had aged. Lines grooved his face, his mouth turned down slightly at the corners, his hair thinner at the crown. Anger churned her stomach as bitter memories assailed her.
“Ms. Williams, you are looking well.”
“Thank you.”
“I understand congratulations are in order. Williams Advanced Avionics software is sure to be part of every military aircraft developed in the next twenty years.” His smile, if one could call it that, was brief. “I should have had Oliver Winfield ask for a share of future earnings when he helped your father’s firm.”
Her answering smile was cool. “When you gave him money to help bail out my father’s firm, you mean. However, your investment, if we can call it that—after all, that sounds so much better than bribe—is what brings me here today.”
She pulled out the envelope Don had given her and placed it on the desk. “The value of the contracts the Winfield Group paid to Williams Advanced Avionics. With interest.”
Her announcement succeeded in getting a reaction.
Philip’s jaw flexed. He stared at the envelope for a long moment before picking it up. “It wasn’t a requirement that you pay me back.”
“Of course not. It was blood money. A mistake that cost us both someone we love very much.”
The earl sagged. Suddenly, the powerful scion of the Montague family seemed like a tired old man. “Yes, it has.”
Dammit. She would not feel sorry for him.
“My son and I have never understood each other.” He raised his eyes to hers and she almost gasped at the pain shadowing them. “But I do love him.”
Philip pushed to his feet and came around the desk to stand in front of her. “I didn’t think you would fit into our world, and I let my biases turn me into someone I’d rather not be. I wronged you and Ryder terribly. I’m…sorry.”
Her eyes widened. Had the great Philip Montague, Earl of Cannington, CEO of Arborleigh Holdings, just apologized to her? The regret in his eyes seemed genuine.
She shifted on her feet. “Thank you for that.”
They stood for a moment in awkward silence.
“Have you returned to London for Ryder?”
“I returned for me. And for Ryder.” A note of challenge crept into Nathalie’s voice as she narrowed her eyes at Ryder’s father. “Will you have a problem with that?”
Not that she cared if he did. No more letting this man intimidate her.
His gaze considered her. “No,” he said finally. “I wish you well.”
“Goodbye, Lord Cannington.” She offered her hand as he opened his office door.