Chapter One #3
‘Why is that not a surprise?’ Ashley muttered as she thrust her chin up defiantly in a way he definitely didn’t remember, keeping his gaze the whole while. She began to button up her blouse so that intriguing scrap of lace and glimpse of creamy skin was hidden from view.
Perversely and annoyingly, Nico felt the loss.
For a few taut seconds, he let himself be entranced by that enticing, disappearing view of her long, slender fingers slipping in and out of the button holes of her cheap blouse, a faint flush pinkening her porcelain cheeks.
The way Ashley Woodward unblinkingly held his gaze the whole time with those deep, emerald eyes was strangely erotic, considering he was pretty sure she was not trying to inflame him—although perhaps he shouldn’t put such a pathetic ploy past her.
Sixteen years ago, she’d flirted with him on her father’s command.
Was she so deluded as to think the same cheap ploy would work twice?
Never. Although, Nico had to acknowledge, Ashley Woodward looked more furious than flirtatious, the colour deepening in her pale cheeks, her narrowed eyes sparkling like slits of jade, her hair in tumbled gold waves about her shoulders.
He felt something in him stir in response and he decided he’d had enough of the accidental— or not—strip tease.
Ashley Woodward had beguiled him once. He would not allow her to do so again.
‘I think you knew full well I wasn’t a gentleman already,’ he remarked coldly, and Ashley frowned, her golden eyebrows snapping together as she shook her head, so a few more curling tendrils framed her face and fell about her shoulders.
As beautiful as she was, she looked a mess—her skirt crumpled, her hair falling from its pins, a ladder in her nylons from thigh to ankle.
He realised she wasn’t even wearing shoes.
Was all that a ploy too? Did she think this made her more approachable? Was she hoping he’d have pity on her?
Again, never.
‘Why would I know that?’ she asked, sounding both curious and exasperated.
She bent down to hunt for her shoes, giving Nico a pleasant view of her rear, her skirt stretching taut over the firm flesh.
‘I don’t know anything about you,’ she continued, jamming one sensible pump on her foot and then the other.
‘Except the fact that you swooped in and took over my company for no reason at all that I can figure out. It’s like…
like you had a vendetta, when I’ve never seen you before in my life. ’
She shook her head in disgust as she straightened and finished tucking in her blouse before meeting his gaze directly once more, her jade eyes flashing but also disconcertingly clear and seemingly empty of guile.
For a second, truly flummoxed, Nico could only stare.
All right, this he hadn’t expected. He’d envisioned Ashley Woodward as furious, scornful, dismissive…
or hurt, woebegone, weeping. He would have taken any of those reactions in his stride and enjoyed milking them for what they were worth…
But Ashley Woodward was acting as if she didn’t remember him.
Could it be possible? Could that tumultuous scene in the Woodward ballroom, when he’d been dragged away in chains, have been so insignificant to her that she’d forgotten her part in sending an innocent man to jail?
A man she’d flirted with and even kissed, all as a way to trap him further.
Had she managed to forget that too? Or what about the sham of a trial, when she’d sat stony-faced in the second row, never looking him in the eye once?
For two weeks she’d come every day. Had she forgotten that?
Nico hadn’t forgotten any of it. At twenty years old, he’d been both beaten down and hardened by his childhood of near-constant struggle, and walking into the Woodward ballroom had felt like stepping into a fairy tale.
It was the first time he’d worn a dinner suit—Chase Woodward had lent him one—or tasted champagne.
The first time he’d felt as if his life had possibility and hope.
And Ashley Woodward, with her tinkling laugh and shy smile, had been, ever so briefly, part of that.
Of course, it hadn’t taken him long to realise she’d just been entertaining him on her father’s orders.
Later, during the trial, the prosecuting attorney had argued that Nico had not only been helping himself to Chase Woodward’s money, but to his daughter as well.
He’d painted a picture of a man beset by greed and shameless entitlement, which had so clearly been part of Woodward’s plan.
And Ashley had been part of all that… Nico would never forget the completely cold look on her face when he’d been handcuffed right in front of her. Moments before, they’d shared a sweet yet lingering kiss. And then, when he’d begged her to help him, she’d turned away without a word.
She had to remember. This was some elaborate ploy, pathetic and absurd, to make him take pity on her.
Or was it an even more pathetic power play—an attempt to make him feel wrongfooted and at a disadvantage, as if he was so unimportant she couldn’t even remember his arrest and trial?
The old Woodward arrogance showing itself yet again…
Whatever the reason, Nico wasn’t buying it.
‘For someone who is purportedly a CEO of their own company, your memory skills are sadly lacking,’ he told her coldly, but all he got was a blank stare in return.
‘My memory skills?’ she repeated. ‘Of what?’
Annoyance bit deeply. ‘This little game might be amusing to you, Miss Woodward—or maybe it’s a last roll of the dice—but it won’t work.’
She shook her head slowly, her arms folded under her high, firm breasts. ‘Mr Galletti, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Nico gave her a long, hard stare which she returned, her gaze clear but also fearful, although he could tell she was trying to hide it.
For the first time, Nico considered the veracity of her claim.
Could she really have forgotten him? Admittedly, it had been sixteen years, and since then she’d sat through another, far longer and more damning trial, that of her own father.
And, in reality, what had been life- and even soul-destroying for him had barely impinged on the tranquil perfection of her glamorous socialite life, in which she acted as her father’s hostess and cheerleader, attending party after party by his side.
But he’d still thought she would remember.
The fact that she might not was utterly shaming, and shame was an emotion he no longer let himself feel.
So the ice princess might not remember him…
fine. If that really was true, he’d use that knowledge to his advantage—and it would make him enjoy Ashley Woodward’s complete fall from grace all the more, because she wouldn’t even know why it was happening.
Let her wonder. Let her reel, as he once had, and have no idea why her world was falling apart.
He’d be the one to make it happen, but he wouldn’t tell her why. That, Nico decided, would be an even sweeter revenge.