was brilliant with computers, but the mysteries of high finance were lost on her. The race for money had never interested her. From an early age, her parents had impressed upon her the importance of recognising value in the things that money couldn’t buy. Her father was a parish priest and both her parents lived a life that was rooted in the fundamental importance of putting the needs of other people first. Katy didn’t care who earned what or how much money anyone had. She had been brought up with a different set of values. For better or for worse, she occasionally thought.
‘I don’t care about any of that,’ she said unevenly, when there was a brief lull in his cold tabulation of her transgressions. It seemed a good moment to set him straight because she was beginning to have a nasty feeling that he was circling her like a predator, preparing to attack.
Was he going to sack her? She would survive. The bottom line was that that was the very worst he could do. He wasn’t some kind of mediaeval war lord who could have her hung, drawn and quartered because she’d disobeyed him.
‘Whether you care about a deal that isn’t going to impact on you or not is immaterial. Either by design or incompetence, you’re now in possession of information that could unravel nearly a year and a half of intense negotiation.’
‘To start with, I’m obviously very sorry about what happened. It’s been a very complex job and, if I accidentally happened upon information I shouldn’t have, then I apologise. I didn’t mean to. In fact, I’m not at all interested in your deal, Mr Cipriani. You gave me a job to do and I was doing it to the best of my ability.’
‘Which clearly wasn’t up to the promised standard, because an error of the magnitude of the one you made is inexcusable.’
‘But that’s not fair!’
‘Remind me to give you a life lesson about what’s fair and what isn’t. I’m not interested in your excuses, Miss Brennan. I’m interested in working out a solution to bypass the headache you created.’
Katy’s mind had stung at his criticism of her ability. She was good at what she did. Brilliant, even. To have her competence called into question attacked the very heart of her.
‘If you look at the quality of what I’ve done, sir, you’ll find that I’ve done an excellent job. I realise that I may have stumbled upon information that should have not been available to me, but you have my word that anything I’ve uncovered stays right here with me.’
‘And I’m to believe you because...?’
‘Because I’m telling you the truth!’
‘I’m sorry to drag you into the world of reality, Miss Brennan, but taking things at face value, including other people’s sincerely meant promises, is something I don’t do.’ He leaned back into his chair and looked at her.
Without trying, Lucas was capable of exuding the sort of lethal cool that made grown men quake in their shoes. A chit of a girl who was destined for the scrapheap should have been a breeze but for some reason he was finding some of his formidable focus diluted by her arresting good looks.
He went for tall, career-driven brunettes who were rarely seen without their armour of high-end designer suits and killer heels. He enjoyed the back and forth of intellectual repartee and had oftentimes found himself embroiled in heated debates about work-related issues.
His women knew the difference between a bear market and a bull market and would have sneered at anyone who didn’t.
They were alpha females and that was the way he liked it.
He had seen the damage caused to rich men by airheads and bimbos. His fun-loving, amiable father had had ten good years of marriage to Lucas’s mother and then, when Annabel Cipriani had died, he had promptly lost himself in a succession of stunningly sexy blondes, intelligence not a prerequisite.
He had been taken to the cleaners three times and it was a miracle that any family money, of which there had been a considerable sum at the starting block, had been left in the coffers.
But far worse than the nuisance of having his bank accounts bled by rapacious gold-diggers was the hope his father stupidly had always invested in the women he ended up marrying. Hope that they would be there for him, would somehow give him the emotional support he had had with his first wife. He had been looking for love and that weakness had opened him up to being used over and over again.
Lucas had absorbed all this from the side lines and had learned the necessary lessons: avoid emotional investment and you’d never end up getting hurt. Indeed, bimbos he could handle, though they repulsed him. At least they were a known quantity. What he really didn’t do were women who demanded anything from him he knew he was incapable of giving, which was why he always went for women as emotionally and financially independent as him. They obeyed the same rules that he did and were as dismissive of emotional, overblown scenes as he was.
The fact was that, if you didn’t let anyone in, then you were protected from disappointment, and not just the superficial disappointment of discovering that some replaceable woman was more interested in your bank account than she was in you.
He had learned more valuable lessons about the sort of weaknesses that could permanently scar and so he had locked his heart away and thrown away the key and, in truth, he had never had a moment’s doubt that he had done the right thing.
‘Are you still in contact with the man?’ he murmured, watching her like a hawk.
‘No! I am not!’ Heated colour made her face burn. She found that she was gripping the arms of the chair for dear life, her whole body rigid with affront that he would even ask her such a personal question. ‘Are you going to sack me, Mr Cipriani? Because, if you are, then perhaps you could just get on with it.’
Her temples were beginning to throb painfully. Of course she was going to be sacked. This wasn’t going to be a ticking off before being dismissed back to Shoreditch to resume her duties as normal, nor was she simply going to be removed from the task at which inadvertently she had blundered.
She had been hauled in here like a common criminal so that she could be fired. No one-month’s notice, no final warning, and there was no way that she could even consider a plea of unfair dismissal. She would be left without her main source of income and that was something she would just have to deal with.
And the guy sitting in front of her having fun being judge, jury and executioner didn’t give a hoot as to whether she was telling the truth or not, or whether her life would be affected by an abrupt sacking or not.
‘Regrettably, it’s not quite so straightforward—’
‘Why not?’ Katy interrupted feverishly. ‘You obviously don’t believe a word I’ve told you and I know I certainly wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the project again. If you just wanted me off it, you would have probably told Tim, my manager, and let him pass the message on to me. The fact that I’ve been summoned here tells me that you’re going to give me the boot, but not before you make sure I know why. Will you at the very least give me a reference, Mr Cipriani? I’ve worked extremely hard for your company for the past year and a half and I’ve had nothing but glowing reports on the work I’ve done. I think I deserve some credit for that.’
Lucas marvelled that she could think, for a minute, that he had so much time on his hands that he would personally call her in just to sack her. She was looking at him with an urgent expression, her green eyes defiant.
Again distracted, he found himself saying, ‘I noticed on your file that you only work two days a week for my company. Why is that?’
‘Sorry?’ Katy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
‘It’s unusual for someone of your age to be a part-time employee. That’s generally the domain of women with children of school age who want to earn a little money but can’t afford the demands of a full-time job.’
‘I... I have another job,’ she admitted, wondering where this was heading and whether she needed to be on her guard. ‘I work