Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
T HE FOLLOWING DAY , Faye paced up and down in the reception room at the family home. She hadn’t slept a wink. Her head was full of questions and revelations and sheer...shock. Still.
Primo Holt had asked her for a drink under false pretences.
Her anger and humiliation still burned bright.
He wanted to marry her .
Faye stopped pacing as she recalled how he’d tried to persuade her to stay at the bar, but she’d insisted on leaving.
He’d said to her before she’d left, ‘I may have made an error in being so upfront, but after meeting you I thought you’d appreciate this approach more.’
More than what? Faye had asked herself as she’d made her way back to the family home in Westchester. He’d insisted on his driver taking her. In the end she’d accepted that offer, feeling that after inviting her out to have a joke at her expense it was the least he could do.
But it had been no joke.
He’d been deadly serious, because he’d had an agenda all along, while she’d been staring lustfully at his mouth. The memory made her burn. And she hadn’t even known the full extent of his agenda until this morning, when he’d arrived at the house to have a meeting with her father.
A prearranged meeting.
The sense of exposure made her insides curdle. She’d believed that Primo Holt had fancied her, and that that was why he’d asked her for a drink. It had been a total charade. He’d just wanted to see her up close before going into a meeting with her father, and she knew exactly what that would be about. Because, as those men last night had alluded to, her father was in a weak position and Primo Holt was making his real intentions very clear.
To take over MacKenzie Enterprises.
Faye cursed herself. How could she have been so blind? So naive? God knew, she more than most women knew what this world was like and how everyone in it was a commodity. She’d learned that lesson after her first marriage, because as soon as she’d become a worthless commodity her husband had cut her loose. Less than a year into their marriage.
She veered away from that particular memory, focusing her ire on Primo Holt again. She’d been distracted by a hard body and a pretty— no —a spectacular face. Proving that in spite of everything she really was as weak and susceptible as any blushing debutante.
At least he didn’t woo you , pointed out a little voice.
Faye shuddered delicately. There was that, at least. He hadn’t drawn out the charade. That would have been worse. At least she’d only been under the illusion that he fancied her for about an hour, and not for weeks. She would have exposed herself even more.
Because the truth was that she’d found him far too exciting and thrilling, and if he’d tried to do something like kiss her—Her face burned at the knowledge that she would have let him.
He’d awoken a dormant fire inside her. A fire she’d buried ever since she’d been so badly burned by her marriage. A fire that she wasn’t entirely sure she’d ever felt before. Not even with her husband.
There was a light knock on the door and Faye tensed. ‘Come in.’
Mary, their housekeeper, appeared in the doorway. ‘Mr Holt has finished his meeting with your father. He’d like to see you before he leaves.’
I bet he would .
Faye felt like petulantly refusing to see him, but she knew she couldn’t. This was so much bigger now than their mortifying non-date last night.
‘Of course. Please show him in.’
Mary stood back, and Faye could see the way the older woman’s eyes widened as she admitted the tall, powerful form of Primo Holt. He was wearing a steel-grey three-piece suit. Hair brushed back from his forehead. He looked as if he’d stepped out of a photoshoot for male models—except he was no male model. He was too big...too imposing. She realised then that in spite of his veneer of civility there was something wild about him. Untamed. It excited her.
He walked in and Faye crossed her arms over her chest. When she’d found out that he was due to visit her father that day she’d dressed carefully in tailored trousers and a silk shirt, buttoned up. Hair pulled back into a bun. The thought of giving him any kind of impression that she fancied him made her cringe.
That sense of exposure made her say now, ‘Why the great charade last night? Why didn’t you tell me you already had a meeting planned with my father?’
He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t a charade. I did want to meet you face to face.’
She arched a brow. ‘And what? Do a bit of tyre-kicking before you pursued your real agenda? Which I presume is to take advantage of my father’s current situation?’ Before he could answer, she said, ‘You’re no better than those other vultures who were there last night, feigning concern for his welfare. You’re more devious.’
He winced. ‘I guess I deserved that.’ His expression cleared. ‘I meant what I said, though. I respect your father and I respect the business your family have built up. The truth is that, yes, I had a plan to meet with your father, but it just so happens that I’m also in need of a wife. I hadn’t specifically planned on meeting you before talking with your father, but when I found out you’d been invited to that party last night it was too good an opportunity to pass up.’
This only made Faye’s sense of humiliation more intense—especially when she remembered her reaction to him. ‘And what, pray tell, were you going to do if you decided after meeting me that I was not someone you cared to propose to?’
He made a minute movement with one broad shoulder. ‘I would have still spoken to your father, but I would have been pursuing a wife elsewhere.’
Faye smiled tightly. ‘How convenient for you that you deemed me suitable after...what...?’ She lifted her wrist and pretended to look at a watch, then looked back to him. ‘About an hour? How could you have been so sure you want me as a wife?’
A muscle in his jaw ticked. Faye didn’t care.
And then, before he could speak, something struck her and she felt slightly nauseous. ‘You had me investigated, didn’t you?’
She turned away and started to pace, her mind spinning with recrimination. Of course! How could I be so stupid?
She turned to face Primo again, folding her arms across her chest again. ‘No one in our world acts spontaneously. Tell me, where was I on the list?’
That muscle ticked again, but he had the grace not to feign ignorance. ‘You were top. Because of your association with your father.’
‘Lucky me,’ Faye said caustically. ‘And lucky you to have had such a quick search. Pity, though, that it’s come to nothing.’
‘I wouldn’t be so quick to reject a perfectly good offer.’
Faye’s jaw dropped. When she could manage it, she said, ‘You are unbelievably arrogant.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed easily, ‘I am arrogant. But I think you’ll find it’s born out of knowing I work hard. I’m very good at what I do and it’s not out of a sense of entitlement.’
His easy acceptance of what she’d just accused him of took the wind out of her sails a little. She couldn’t imagine many people accusing Primo Holt of arrogance. And getting away with it.
She hated to admit it, but he intrigued her—and he was right. He’d always had a reputation for working as hard as his employees, not expecting them to do anything he wouldn’t, and as Holt Industries encompassed everything from real estate to media corporations, that was some feat.
‘So, you’re hoping for some kind of value package deal? Is that it? Bag a wife and take over MacKenzie Enterprises at the same time?’
He put his hands in his pockets, and that made Faye want to look down. But she resisted the urge. He rocked back on his heels. Supremely at ease, in spite of the crackling undercurrents. Maybe she was the only one who could feel them?
‘You have to admit that it would be a convenient solution all round,’ he said.
Faye scoffed. ‘Convenient for you, you mean.’
Primo suddenly looked serious. ‘Do you realise how weakened your father is right now? The board could force him out within weeks if he continues as he is. He should never have taken the advice to sell off so many shares.’
Faye felt sick again. Primo spoke the stark truth. She’d said as much to her father herself. He’d given in to the lure of handing over a little more control, and at the urging of a bad advisor he’d let go of more than he’d intended.
Faye couldn’t help sounding a little bitter. ‘I suppose you’d like us to believe you have only our best interests at heart?’
‘I won’t lie and tell you that, no. Right now, you and your father have no personal relevance for me. But I do have the company’s best interests at heart because it’s a good business opportunity.’
You have no personal relevance for me.
Those words struck at Faye in a place they shouldn’t be striking. This man was a stranger.
‘Am I to read between the lines and surmise that if we were married we would have more “personal relevance”? Which would then translate into a sense of responsibility to our family legacy?’
Primo’s eyes flashed. A ghost of a smile made one corner of his mouth quirk. ‘That would be one way of looking at it, yes.’
Faye’s eyes went wide. He was making those vultures from last night look like bunny rabbits. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so cynical and arrogant and downright—’
Primo held up a hand. ‘Please, save your breath. I know exactly what I am.’
Faye closed her mouth. She’d always considered herself a pretty level person, but this man managed to get her worked up in a way that no one else ever had. He made her feel defensive, exposed, and full of hot, volatile things.
Fighting to regain some semblance of control in the face of Primo Holt’s nonchalance, Faye asked, ‘Why do you think it’s such a good business opportunity?’
He answered without missing a beat. ‘You’re a legacy brand that’s been a cornerstone of supplying and managing the construction industry since the eighteen-hundreds. That’s the kind of name and reputation money can’t buy. By letting me take majority control, your father can be assured of its survival for another couple of generations, hopefully. And, yes, it will add to the Holt Industries portfolio. Anyone else will likely not have the same respect for your father or the name.’
He went on.
‘I won’t lie. We would restructure—we’d have to. The reason your father came so close to handing over his majority share was because you’re haemorrhaging liquidity. This way your father would get to see out the business he’s cultivated his whole life and can ensure it lasts on into the future.’
‘Positively altruistic,’ Faye commented dryly.
Primo shook his head. ‘Not at all. I fully expect it to become a thriving profitable company again, but if it doesn’t I will carve it up and parcel it off without hesitation.’ He smiled, and it was a shark’s smile. ‘However, I have every confidence it won’t come to that. Your father’s company has just diversified too much. It needs to focus on what it was always known for before, as an iron and steel foundry.’
Once again a little jolt of recognition went through Faye. That was what she’d been saying to her father for years. But he’d always tell her that she couldn’t possibly understand the intricacies of a billion-dollar business. He’d never resented her for being an only child and a girl, and not being interested in taking her place on the board, but she knew he’d been disappointed the business would essentially die out with him.
But maybe now...it wouldn’t.
As if hearing her thoughts, Primo added, ‘Your father isn’t going to live for ever, Faye. By doing this deal with me, he’ll protect the MacKenzie name and reputation after he’s gone.’
Faye’s insides twisted. She knew her father was getting old. And tired. His weariness was what had led to his making a bad decision to trust someone else’s advice.
But this was only part of the reason Primo Holt was here.
‘And that, I presume, is contingent on our marriage?’
‘I’m not saying the marriage is a prerequisite for the business deal...but, as I’ve pointed out, it would ensure a certain level of loyalty and security and commitment to a long-term investment that can’t be bought or negotiated.’
Faye pretended to sniff the air. ‘Maybe I’m going a little crazy, but I could swear there’s a smell of...of blackmail in the air, with base notes of cynicism.’
Primo let out a bark of laughter. ‘Hardly! I’d call it...an incentive.’
He looked at her, eyes twinkling. She was amusing him.
He said, ‘I don’t know how you can be born into our world and not be cynical. At least then one isn’t at the mercy of delusion and disappointment. I wouldn’t be offering to marry you if I didn’t feel like we’d make a good couple, Faye. Two of America’s foremost families forming a union, both personally and professionally, would be considered quite a sweet incentive by most.’
Sweet. A little shiver went through Faye. Nothing about this man said sweet. He conjured up words like hard ... ruthless. Not sweet .
She looked at him, more curious than she’d like to admit considering the subject of this conversation. ‘And what do you get out of the marriage?’
‘Reputational stability. I’m thirty-five. My single status has been having an adverse effect on some of my deals lately. I’m not considered trustworthy. It’s old-fashioned, and a bit archaic, but it’s there. And I want to marry someone who is my equal, not some debutante.’
Faye wasn’t sure if she should feel flattered or not. But she had to admit that she liked it that he wasn’t one of those men who seemed to think it would make him look more virile to marry a woman a decade younger.
‘Why haven’t you married before now?’
He answered without hesitation. ‘It’s not an institution I have any interest in. I have no delusions about love, or romance. I saw only toxicity in my parents’ marriage, and I’ve never had any desire to risk repeating that. However, I have always known that one day I would have to marry, and the longer I remain single, the more speculation about my personal life is eclipsing the business—and that’s not acceptable.’
He continued.
‘As much as I see it as a necessary evil, I do think that with the right kind of wife one’s standing, socially and professionally, can be enhanced, and that’s what I’d be hoping for.’
Wow, that’s cold .
Faye hadn’t expected such a brutally clinical answer, but at least he wasn’t pretending that it would be anything but a marriage of convenience.
She said, ‘As I’m sure your team informed you when collating their dossier on my suitability, I was married and I am now divorced. I don’t particularly want to repeat the experience.’
‘It wasn’t good?’
No. She’d believed herself in love with her husband, and he with her, but she’d been wrong. Getting divorced within a year of her wedding day had been humiliating and hurtful.
Faye lifted her chin. ‘Not particularly, no. Hence my lack of desire to jump into another marriage.’
‘This would be different.’
‘How?’
‘As you said, you’re no wide-eyed ingenue. Neither am I. We’d be going into this with the understanding that it is an agreement made between two adults who can see the benefits of such a union. No emotional artifice.’
Faye felt a little breathless all of a sudden. No, there was no emotional artifice, and he wasn’t wide-eyed. He was worldly-wise and experienced.
Once again she had a disconcerting flash of his head coming closer to hers...how he might take her face in his hands, angling it up towards him so he could kiss her so deeply that—
‘You must be fielding curiosity about your personal life too,’ he noted.
Faye smiled thinly. ‘At the age of thirty, I think most people consider me irrelevant.’
Primo’s gaze dropped over her body and then moved back up again, so thoroughly and slowly that it was bordering on insolent. When his eyes met hers again he said, very clearly, ‘You are most definitely not irrelevant.’
Faye hated how that affected her. Because she had no doubt that he turned this easy charm on everyone, bending them to his will.
Deep down, she had been feeling an increasing sense of becoming invisible. Of resigning herself to the fact that she might be alone for the rest of her life. Too independent for some men, too intelligent for others. Too burned by her marriage to let anyone get too close. Too afraid of exposing herself like that again in a world where love-matches didn’t really exist.
She’d somehow forgotten that when she’d met her husband, and had thought that maybe she’d buck the trend, like her parents had, and would have a real marriage.
But it had become clear pretty quickly—at the first bump in the road—that their marriage hadn’t been founded on much at all. A lesson Faye hadn’t forgotten and wouldn’t ever forget.
So in some ways, much as it galled her to admit it, what Primo was proposing wasn’t altogether unappealing. Faye knew her father worried about her. He was an old conservative romantic, and she knew that he would be happier if she were married. She would do anything to make her father happy. But this...?
Then she thought of something Primo hadn’t mentioned and her insides twisted. She knew how to put him off the idea of marrying her.
‘What about children? I presume they’re a part of your long-term plan? You have responsibilities to your own family legacy.’
‘Of course—and, yes, that’s also part of why I’m inclined to consider marriage at this point. I know I have a duty to create a lasting legacy in the form of a family.’
Faye couldn’t help but feel a little sad when she heard the way he laid that out, as if it were just something on a checklist. It was the way most of their peers in their milieu behaved towards having children—it was a strategic thing to secure bloodlines and fortunes. Not—heaven forbid—because they might actually want to invest in the notion of creating a family out of love.
But that was how she’d always envisaged having a family. Not because it was strategic, but because she wanted to recreate the love and security her parents had given to her.
Faye wanted to feel relief that she was about to end this...whatever this was with Primo Holt...before it had even started, but what she did feel was a little more conflicted.
She said, ‘Well, I’m not in the market for having children. Under no circumstances. I won’t provide you with heirs, so ultimately this marriage would have no long-term benefit for you or your family name. It’ll have to be a business deal without the marital benefits, I’m afraid.’
Primo looked at Faye for a long moment. She epitomised sleek elegance, with her hair pulled back. She wore a silk shirt. Tailored trousers nipped in at her waist that drew the eye to her long legs.
The fire he’d sensed last night under the surface of that elegance was on full display now. He imagined the pulse throbbing at sensitive points of her body and his own body responded. He had to grit his jaw and call on every ounce of control he possessed not to embarrass himself.
He’d been curious to see if she’d have the same effect on him today, and if anything it was stronger. And what was disconcerting was the realisation that they’d orbited each other for years—all their lives—and this chemistry had been lying in wait until they’d come close enough to touch.
He focused on what she’d just said. She didn’t want children. That didn’t cause him a huge amount of concern at this point. They barely knew each other, after all. Surely after time spent together they would discuss the matter again and she might feel differently.
Primo’s philosophy on having a family was basically: do no harm. The bar of parenting he’d experienced had been so low as to be practically non-existent. His mother’s abandonment of her two sons hadn’t been preceded by much care and attention, and yet Primo could remember having to pull his brother Quin away from where he’d been clinging on to their mother’s legs as she’d tried to leave. Primo always carried that memory with him, as a reminder never to let his emotions get in the way of reality.
And their father might as well have abandoned them for all the care and attention he’d given them.
So, as far as Primo was concerned, if he did have a family, he would do his utmost to treat his children with respect and give them a sense of inclusion that he’d never experienced. As for anything more than that? That was in the realm of fiction and fantasies.
‘Children...family...that’s not something we have to discuss now. I realise that this is a lot to absorb.’
Faye was still tense. ‘I don’t think you’re listening to me.’
Oh, Primo was listening. But she was telling him one thing with her mouth and another thing entirely with her eyes and the flush in her cheeks. While the electricity between them was strong enough to light up an entire state. He had an urge to close the distance between them and slide his hand around to the back of her neck, cover her mouth. He wanted to taste her. He imagined she was spicy and tart and sweet all at once. She would surprise him. He was sure of it. And he was still sure, in spite of her protestations, that she was the right choice for him.
She wasn’t remotely intimidated by him. Anticipation burned low in his gut. He had to have her.
He said, ‘I’ve told you that I think a union between us would be advantageous to any deal with your father, but if you don’t want to marry me it won’t affect that. I don’t play games.’
She inclined her head slightly. ‘I appreciate that. Even if you have admitted that a marriage would make the deal more binding.’
‘All I ask is that you at least give this proposal some thought.’
He could almost see the inner struggle on her face behind those gold and green eyes. Mesmerising.
‘Fine,’ she eventually said, tight-lipped. ‘I’ll think about it. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.’
Primo looked at her and said. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I think you’d enjoy watching my demise from lack of oxygen.’
To his surprise, Faye let out a helpless burst of laughter before quickly covering her mouth and sobering.
She wanted him .
He knew it.
He took a step backwards, even though everything in him resisted moving away from her, and said, ‘Regardless of what you decide, Faye, you can’t deny that there is something between us.’
Before she could respond to that, either to agree or deny, Primo turned and walked out of the room.
It was only when he was in his car on the way back into town that he was able to reflect and realise that for the first time in a long time—if ever—he couldn’t foretell what would happen.
Oh, he knew her father would agree to the deal—he’d be a fool not to. But as for Faye? Primo genuinely had no clue. She could go either way.
There was a tingling tightness in his gut...a sense of something shimmering just out of reach. It was so unusual and so rare that at first he didn’t even know what it was. But then it struck him... What he was experiencing was as banal and common as a cold. It was excitement.
He let out a bark of surprised laughter at the notion, causing his driver to send him a concerned glance in the rearview mirror.