The Dare Collection November 2018. Christy McKellen

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       CHAPTER FIVE

      Gideon

      I STARED AT the overweight middle-aged Russian sitting across the table from me, wondering if I’d get away with punching him in the face before his goons wrestled me to the floor.

      Probably not. But I was sorely tempted. Four excruciating days after setting off from the Côte d’Azur, we were nowhere near agreeing on the final terms of the construction deal. The only thing Vadim seemed interested in while we sailed past Portofino and the Amalfi Coast was making a dent in my caviar and vodka supplies. Many times I’d come close to calling it and walking away.

      But I’d put too much blood and sweat into this four-billion-pound deal to walk away. Besides, I knew my impatience to seal this deal stemmed from another source.

      Leonora Branson.

      What I’d tasted in the casino back in Monaco had only stimulated my appetite for more. What I hadn’t taken into account was that the need would intensify to insane proportions.

      It didn’t help my frustration that Leonora and her yacht had lived up to their reputation and delivered everything I’d hoped for and more.

      Hell, it’d probably worked a little too well where Vadim was concerned. The man seemed determined to take partying to a whole new level. But I was done with his stalling bullshit.

      As for Leonora herself...

      I wanted her to be mine without the yoke of the idiotic terms I’d agreed to weighing me down. Put bluntly, I’d never felt anything like this in my life. Not even with Penny in those wild days before she’d shown her true colours.

      And yet within hours of meeting Leonora I’d referenced the double betrayal that’d nearly sent me tumbling down a self-destructive rabbit hole.

      Even in retrospect I didn’t regret showing a little bit of myself to Leonora and telling her about the family that was the bane of my existence. And while the little witch tortured me with her tight uniform and sultry looks whenever she was in my presence, Leonora had otherwise remained supremely professional.

      Which of course meant I couldn’t go five minutes without thinking about her, without silently offering up my left bollock to be done with this deal just so I could hear that breathless ‘Fuck me, Gideon’ again.

      Frankly, my insane need for her was disconcerting the shit out of me. That pathetic leaping in my chest when I’d spotted her on the marina on Monday hadn’t happened since those foolish days back at Oxford when Penny Winston-Jones had strategically placed herself in my orbit and I’d been daft enough to believe it was a fucking cosmic event.

      Despite all the warning signs, I’d carried on believing that nonsense, right until I’d found her flat on her back, freely giving away what I’d possessively believed to be mine to another man.

      And not just another man. My cousin. My best friend.

      The man whose name was in the subject line of the unopened email currently sitting in my inbox. I had no intention of acknowledging the email or having anything to do with Damian. Now or ever.

      So I refocused on the beefy Russian. ‘There’s no getting around this issue, Vadim. This is what we agreed to four months ago. It’s still the only deal on the table where the subcontractors are concerned.’

      Vadim shook his head. ‘It’s an insult that they will not deal with me directly.’

      I exhaled. ‘Let me be blunt. The contractors won’t deal with you because you’ve missed more than a few payments.’ I raised my hand when he spluttered a protest in his mother tongue. ‘These things happen, we all know that. But your interior ministry won’t proceed unless a third party oversees the subcontractors. This is where my company comes in. You still get paid and save yourself the time and energy of having to deal with subcontractors.’

      ‘For an extra fee for you, of course.’

      ‘The Mortimer Group isn’t a charity. And I think, for a three-billion-pound profit, you can withstand a small insult, correct? Just think, two years from now, when we’ve built the most impressive stadium-and-hotel complex the world has ever seen, you get the last laugh.’ I gritted my teeth and shamelessly stroked his ego, knowing the subject of money and prestige never failed to win him over. ‘So how about we get this deal done?’

      He lifted his shot glass, his movements slower, expression circumspect.

      I decided to play my ace in the hole. ‘One more thing. I have it on good authority that if this deal isn’t completed by the end of this week, you’ll receive a notice officially withdrawing the tender on Monday.’

      He jackknifed upright, the complacency gone. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

      ‘Feel free to look into it. I’m just trying to save us both time, but my company will be happy to wait and deal with the next person who wins the tender.’

      His smile evaporated. ‘They dare to give me an ultimatum?’

      I shrugged. ‘I’m just giving you the facts, plain and simple. Five of your companies are fitting out the hotels and leisure attractions attached to the stadium once they’re built, with a further two running them for the first ten years. That was our deal.’

      ‘Okay, I’ll think about it. Now, it’s time for lunch. Your chef has promised me a feast of the best lobster. You will join me for caviar and champagne while we wait for him to delight us, da?’

      I hid a grimace and followed him out of my office, grateful for the state-of-the-art gym on the lower deck I used twice a day to keep fit. ‘Sure, why not?’

      His gregarious smile reappeared. СКАЧАТЬ