Tycoon's One-Night Revenge Read Online Free Page B

want me? And to be honest with the answers.”
    Heat flared in his quicksilver eyes. “You don’t believe I could have just wanted you?”
    “You wanted me,” she replied, “and you made sure you got me. You just didn’t disclose your reasons until after you’d had me.”
    A muscle ticked in his cheek and his mouth tightened in an uncompromising line, but for a fraction of a second, she imagined a softened note of regret in his eyes. Then he turned and started toward the kitchen. He’d only taken a half-dozen strides—she’d barely had time to suck in a deep breath to ease the pounding in her chest—when he swung back around to face her.
    Oh, yes, she’d definitely imagined the softening. Now his expression was inscrutable, but the sharp lines of his cheekbones and the straight set of his mouth lent him a hard, dangerous aura. Her instincts shivered back to high alert.
    “You didn’t mention this place.” He indicated his surroundings with a sweep of his hand. “Where does it fit into the Carlisle-Horton merger?”
    “It didn’t initially, not until after Alex proposed.”
    “Which was when?”
    Susannah pressed her lips together and withheld her none-of-your-business response. He wanted the facts; she would give him the facts. Then, perhaps, he might see the impossibility of his quest. “In late July, just after our weekend. I was feeling a little…burned by that experience.”
    “And so you were receptive to a cold, business-contract proposal?”
    “I was receptive to his honesty,” she replied, and was rewarded by the glint of irritation in his eyes. Good. He’d delivered enough backhanded blows, he deserved to take one back. “I weighed up the pros and cons. I talked it over with my mother, and in the process, she found out what had happened between us. To say she wasn’t happy would be an understatement.”
    “Your mother requires approval of your lovers?”
    “She wasn’t happy that you’d used me to influence your bid. She withdrew her approval.”
    The spark of irritation she’d lit in his eyes turned cold and hard. “She occupies one seat in that boardroom. Are you saying the rest of the board agreed?”
    “Not immediately but as Edward Horton’s widow her opinion holds some sway. She argued against your business scruples and they listened but they also had your bid on the table. So my mother asked for a week to come up with an alternate buyer.”
    “So she found Carlisle and added a clause to the marriage contract. ‘You can have my daughter, but only if you better the bid we have for The Palisades.’” He made a short, rough sound, the perfect punctuation for the scathing tone of his delivery. “And that’s where you came in, with your intimate knowledge of my bid.”
    “No,” Susannah objected vehemently. “I had no part in that.”
    “Are you saying this was all concocted between your mother and Carlisle? Without your knowledge?”
    “I agreed to the marriage contract. I agreed to all the terms, including The Palisades. I didn’t want you to get this place. I didn’t want to ever see you again.” An objection lit his eyes and she hurried on, not wanting to argue that point. “But I did not divulge anything about your bid. How could I have known what to divulge, for heaven’s sake? Do you think I read your mind or that you murmured sweet multimillion-dollar figures in your sleep or that I sneaked a look at your files?”
    Susannah stopped, her eyes widening at the stillness in his face. He did think that. She shook her head slowly and coughed out a disbelieving laugh.
    “How, exactly, do you think I might have managed that? We spent all our time here—” she waved her arm, indicating the rooms around them, but her tone was as cool and disparaging as the subject demanded “—in the villa I had booked. Do you think that after wearing you out in the bedroom, I picked your room key from your pocket and clambered down the cliffside in the dead of night to peek at