Page 26 of Incognito (Royally Reckless #1)

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“ S eeing you twice in less than twenty-four hours?” Clay winked and Natasha’s skin prickled with dread. “Are you sure you still haven’t got a thing for me?”

Natasha heard the click of the door to his office behind her and wondered if it was too late to bolt after Clay’s secretary.

If his smarminess made her skin crawl last night, seeing him again so soon made her want to retch.

Ignoring his pathetic greeting, she said, “Thanks for seeing me. I have something for you.”

She kept her tone brusque, business-like. She had to, otherwise she’d scream at him.

“This sounds promising.”

With an insolent smile, he leaned back in his gigantic director’s chair, hands clasped behind his head like a smug prick, surrounded by a plush office overlooking a million dollar view.

She’d once been impressed by this: his status in the business world, his confidence, his suave looks. But now she saw it for what it was, a set of fake props for a conman. The type of man who set out to make an innocent woman fall in love with him in an attempt to get his hands on one of Melbourne’s premier hotels.

Clay could’ve gone after any other hotel—he already owned several of them—but he had to have the best, the crowning glory, the hotel that had been in a family for generations—so he set out to get his grubby hands on Telford Towers the only way he knew how.

By deception.

“I’ve got the final payment for you, and the contract for you to sign.”

“You’re kidding?” His cocky grin slipped, only to be replaced by a cruel twist of his thin lips.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes.” Especially considering she happened to be looking at one. “Here.” She threw the contract onto his desk. “Sign next to the cross.”

He barely glanced at the contract and scowled. “The hotel’s about to go under. How did you get the money so quickly?”

Forcing a sickly sweet smile, knowing it would infuriate him further, she said, “That’s none of your business. Now, sign along the dotted line like we agreed and let’s put this behind us.”

Clay’s eyes narrowed to nasty slits as he sat upright, his palms slamming the monstrous mahogany desk.

“You weren’t supposed to make the final payment. You were supposed to lose the lot, to me!”

Revulsion rose like acid bile in her throat and she swallowed with effort. She knew someone had been undercutting their supplies and interfering with the behind the scenes running of Telford Towers, and as much as she suspected Clay’s hand in it, hearing the man she’d once been engaged to admit his treachery made her physically ill.

“It was always about getting your grubby hands on Telford Towers for you, wasn’t it?”

His sneer said more than any eloquent words. “If you’d married me like you were supposed to, none of this would’ve happened. I’d be the current owner of your pathetic little family hovel, you’d still be running around like an errand girl, we’d have been happy.”

He shook his head, his upper lip curled in derision. “You wouldn’t have had to pay back the money I gave you, I wouldn’t have threatened to run a smear campaign on the hotel. Instead, you had to make a big song and dance about discovering my girlfriend, I told you a few home truths, and look where we ended up. Squabbling like a couple of kids.”

She knew the exact moment he’d give it one last try, the sly gleam of cunning lending his opaque eyes a demonic edge. A desperate man reached for desperate means and she knew what would come before the slime ball opened his mouth.

“Come on, babe. We can give it one last try. Let’s put all this crap behind us and start afresh.” He held his hands out, palms up, like he had nothing to hide. “You know we’d be a dynamite team in the hotelier field, the best in the business. What do you say?”

Drop dead?

Bite me?

Fuck off?

A whole host of less polite responses sprung to mind, but Natasha swallowed them all. While her feet itched to turn around and make a run for the door, she stood still and tapped the contract in front of him.

“As you can see, this is a legally binding document. It states that my debt to you is clear, that there will be no further business between us. Is that clear?”

He stood so quickly she took a step back, her momentary sign of weakness making his cold eyes glitter with triumph.

“What if I don’t sign?” He jabbed a finger in her direction. “What if I instigate that smear campaign as I threatened before, and drag your precious family through the mud?”

It took every ounce of self control for Natasha not to pick up the nearest paperweight and throw it at him.

“You will sign and you can keep your empty threats. You want to play dirty?” She squared her shoulders. “Go ahead and try me.”

His sneer solidified her resolve to rid herself of this slime once and for all. “What are you going to do?”

“Fight back.” Clenching her hands into fists, she said, “The only reason I let you get away with any of this is because of my mother. You knew about her heart condition, you knew she was a worrier who’d been advised to avoid stress, but what did you do? You ram the fact you loaned us money down our throats and that you wanted it paid back in blood.”

Her voice choked with raw emotion—the devastation of losing her mother bubbling to the surface, the cold, hard rage—that he’d been the cause of it all.

Taking a step forward, she pointed at him. “You killed her. With your pathetic ruse to make me love you to get your grubby hands on the hotel and your outrageous demands for payback with interest. You rubbed our noses in it, rubbed her nose in it, and you killed her, you bastard.”

His jaw dropped and if it didn’t take a huge effort to keep her fury in check, she would’ve laughed at his shock.

“Well, guess what, Clay? The damage is done. I’ve lost my mother thanks to you, so any smear campaign you run now can’t hurt her. I gave into your demands for her sake, to avoid further scandal ruining her health. But that’s a moot point now.” She waved him away. “Go ahead, do your worst. The Telford name can hold its own, but can the same be said for your precious ego? Do you want me to tell the whole of Melbourne how you really do business, and ruin your reputation in the process? Go ahead and try me.”

He snorted, but she glimpsed fear in his eyes. “No one will believe you.”

She towered over him, wishing she could take a swing, knowing she’d never give him the satisfaction.

“You really take me for a fool, don’t you? I have documents stating the original loan amount and the cashed cheque details made out to you. Everyone will know you’re a shark, a greedy, manipulative user. So just keep my proof in mind if you feel the urge to open that big mouth of yours and slander my hotel.”

As Clay’s cheeks turned puce with rage, she tapped the contract. “Sign here. I don’t have all day.”

She had him.

His threats may have frightened her at the start when she would’ve done anything to save her family the pain of living through the mess she’d made, but not anymore. She’d lost her mother, she’d lost her pride, and she’d almost lost the hotel courtesy of trusting the wrong man.

But she’d repaid her debt, every last cent she’d once seen as a generous handout from a caring fiancé who strutted into her life with pledges of love and endless devotion and financial support.

Instead, the scheming lowlife had demanded full payment plus interest when she ended their engagement and she agreed to his terms for the sake of her family.

Now, Clay wouldn’t bother her again. He had an enormous ego and valued appearances beyond anything; he would never risk his society cronies or his business associates finding out what he’d done to her. Repaying a debt was one thing, charging her interest to stop him ruining her family via slander in the hotel business, another.

Finally, she’d repaid every penny of his exorbitant interest charges, and as he picked up a silver pen, signed the contract, and turned his back on her, she was free.

She folded the contract, tucked it into her purse, headed for the door, and didn’t look back.

She held her head high and practically floated from the Collins Street skyscraper, intent on putting as much distance between Clay and her past as possible.

However, her elation lasted all of two seconds as she boarded a tram, sat, and glanced out the window at the stunning Sofitel hotel—one of her major competitors—and spotted a familiar figure standing beside a gleaming silver stretch limo

Dante hadn’t left.

He’d merely changed hotels, if the valet opening the door for him and doffing his hat was any indication.

If he hadn’t left the country as she assumed, he’d changed hotels because he couldn’t stand to be near her.

It was the only explanation that made sense.

Tears flooded her eyes and she blinked them away. She must’ve made a mistake. It couldn’t have been Dante.

But as she watched the broad-shouldered guy in a designer suit, his too-long hair now trimmed to within an inch of its life, his too-blue eyes fixed on a thick pile of documentation in his hands, she had her answer.

Dante had resumed his princely duties.

He’d returned to normalcy, to his usual life that didn’t include her, and seeing him dressed in a suit, clean shaven and short haired, merely reinforced that the guy she’d known didn’t exist.

He never had.

Dante had been trying to escape his life for whatever reasons and she’d got caught in the crossfire. Stupidly, irrevocably caught in crossfire that had wounded her heart along the way.

Watching the limo pull away, she swiped at her eyes and sank back into her seat.

Dante hadn’t left the country.

He’d left her.

And for a woman who’d learned to cope with whatever traumas life threw her way, it hurt more than she could’ve imagined.