ruthless, using whatever advantage he was given.
She had no intention of giving him any more by letting him know just how he affected her.
His thick brown hair made a woman want to grab and take hold. His moody blue eyes were consuming and observant. Rumor had it that he liked to watch, from a room high above the floor of his clubs.
An unwanted shiver snaked down her spine. Alyssa shook it off. Now was not the time. She had to get a grip. The man was here to destroy her business, something she’d spent the past two years building. She’d be damned if she was going to let him. She needed her mind clear and her faculties focused.
He wore a precisely tailored business suit. The material was expensive and skimmed across his body in a way that highlighted the lean muscles and tight build hidden beneath. It was a far cry from the tight jeans, frayed at the hem, and skintight black T-shirt he’d worn the first time they met.
Then he’d looked like an outlaw. An air of danger had clung to his skin along with the scent of alcohol, musk and something purely male. But that wasn’t what had drawn her. Beneath that there’d been a...vulnerability. A misery she recognized, understood and, for some strange reason, wanted to soothe.
Apparently that had been a lie, as well.
She wanted to think the business suit was an improvement, but somehow not even that facade could hide the edge of savagery, the tiger pacing lazily behind iron bars. You just knew if he ever broke free, that deceptive drowsiness would disappear and he’d rip your head off.
Beckett Kayne moved with that same kind of powerful, predatory grace.
Biting back a growl of frustration—at herself—Alyssa watched him drop into the chair across from her and cut a smile over her people. Two seats down, Deirdre sighed, the soft gush of air difficult to misinterpret. He hadn’t even opened his mouth and she was already mesmerized.
The one saving grace was that Kayne didn’t even bother to look in Deirdre’s direction. His eyes were trained unflinchingly on her.
A few seconds stretched into thirty, sixty and then more. Alyssa fought the heavy weight of silence. The pressure built, as if her insides were frantically moving while she sat perfectly still, waiting for him to make the first move. The sensation was unnerving...almost as much as Beckett Kayne’s scrutiny.
Something wicked flashed in his eyes, but before she could blink it was gone. Tingles raced across her skin. Slowly, the most amazing smile stretched his mouth. Wide, knowing and enigmatic, for some reason it made fear spin deep in the pit of her belly.
“Ms. Vaughn, wonderful to finally meet you.”
The warm, throaty rumble of his voice didn’t help to quell the churning. In fact, it made it worse. There was an edge to his words, some deeper meaning that made her muscles tense.
Could he actually remember?
No, surely not.
“I’m afraid I can’t say the same, Mr. Kayne.” Grinding her teeth together, Alyssa struggled to keep her emotions in check and tone civil. “I don’t appreciate the position you’ve put us in.”
She’d hoped to see a flash of regret. Or maybe just something that proved the man had a heart. To her surprise, instead of dimming, his smile morphed. His eyelids went heavy, dropping into a lazy, sensual squint. His mouth crooked, pulling higher on one side. Some might say it was a flaw, his one imperfection. But after all these years it was the thing she remembered most.
It made him human. Attainable. Real.
Once her gaze was snagged, Alyssa fought to force it away from his lips. And failed. It was the only reason she noticed the telltale twitch of humor.
“You gave me no choice, Ms. Vaughn, by ignoring my requests to do business together.”
Blowing out a sound of frustration, Alyssa couldn’t stop her voice from rising. “Perhaps you should invest in a dictionary, Mr. Kayne. It might fill in some of the gaps your lack of education has apparently left. Not giving you the answer you want isn’t the same as ignoring you.”
His lips flattened into a compressed line. Disappointment clawed at her. That she did ignore. Or tried.
“We weren’t interested in doing business with you.”
“Yes, you made that abundantly clear, although I have no idea why. The problem is you made that decision while simultaneously leaving yourselves vulnerable. I’ve never been the kind of man to walk away from an open invitation.”
Probably sensing just how close she was to losing it, Mitch stepped in before she said something that would derail any possibility of finding a reasonable solution to the situation.
“Taking out that loan was hardly an invitation.”
Kayne shrugged his shoulders, the motion smooth and negligent. “That’s the problem with doing business with friends. Taking out a private loan with a personal acquaintance instead of a bank is always risky. Less legal oversight governing the contract.”
Alyssa’s jaw ached from the pressure to keep her mouth from overriding her brain. She’d had plenty of practice swallowing her words, but for some reason the ones she swallowed now were more bitter than any others.
They’d tried to get a conventional loan and none of the banks would back them. Why would they, when the business was already in the red? The bank’s algorithms and number crunchers couldn’t take their upcoming success into account. They were weeks away from a huge influx of capital when their first app sold. And they had another that would be ready within the next two months.
Both she and Mitch had already been tapped out, savings gone and mortgaged to the gills. They’d only needed a few months’ operating capital to make it through, though, and everything would be fine. They’d been so close....
When Mitch had suggested going to a family friend for the money, someone he trusted and had known for most of his life, it had seemed an obvious solution. Sure, it carried more risk, but they’d felt fairly safe and confident in taking that chance.
Hindsight was definitely twenty-twenty.
Apparently, the connection Mitch had counted on had been outweighed by blind greed. According to their sources, Beckett had purchased their loan for almost a fourth more than the face value of the contract.
They were supposed to have six months to pay off the loan. More than enough time to bridge the gap. However, Kayne had decided to activate an escape clause, which allowed him to call the loan due at any point during the term. And he was pulling the trigger.
They had less than two weeks to come up with a huge chunk of change or Beckett Kayne would legally own V&D, including all their intellectual property—specifically, the app he so desperately wanted. She had no intention of letting him have Watch Me.
Not only would it gall her to lose the technology to the man, but they desperately needed the funds from selling the app to keep V&D moving forward.
A few days ago, Alyssa would have said there was no way she could hate Beckett Kayne any more than she already did. She’d have been wrong about that, too. Frustration and desperation warred inside her.
Her hands clenched into tight fists beneath the table as she tried to reign in her emotional turmoil before it bubbled up and spilled out all over the place like a destructive, scorching flow of lava.
“You can’t tell me that in all your years as a businessman, you never took a calculated risk?”
His churning gaze zeroed back on her. “Of course. The difference is, I made damn sure the reward was worth it.”
Realizing this line of discussion was getting them nowhere, Alyssa cut to the chase. “What do you want, Kayne?”
“I would have thought that was obvious.”
A frustrated sound buzzed in the back of her throat. “I’d rather you spell it out for me