she would never figure out how to resist whatever it was that he did so easily.
“What will you do once I sign over the estate to you? Kick Robert and Jackie out?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we can all live under one roof like a happy family. Would that pacify your guilt?”
The idea of it was so absurd that Riya stared at him, taken aback.
“Horrifying prospect, isn’t it? Me and you, me and your mother, me and Robert—it’s a disaster every which way.”
“This is all so funny and trivial to you...you don’t care...” She had to pause to breathe. “You have all these resources, you own a damn plane and yet you couldn’t have visited Robert once in all these years?
The cabin resounded with her outburst.
“It’s not a one-for-one anymore, Riya.”
He slid some papers toward her, and the words Disciplinary Action printed neatly on top stole the remaining breaths from Riya’s lungs.
She fingered the papers, her heart sinking. “What is this?”
“His mismanagement of the company in the last few months meant Drew was the dispensable one between the two of you, for now. But it doesn’t mean you’re without culpability. I need to know the source of the problem between you two.”
“Ammunition to make me dispensable too?”
“I’m making sure it’s documented properly. It’s a standard HR policy in my group of companies.”
* * *
Nathan leaned back into his seat, wondering at the puzzle that Riya Mathur was. The software engine she had built, he’d been told by one of his own architects, was extraordinarily complex. And yet she blanched at using it to its full potential by expanding the client base, at spreading her wings in any way.
“This is your one chance to clear it all up,” he said, softening his voice. He wasn’t bending the rules, but he was also very curious about what happened between her and her colleague.
“Last year, on New Year’s Eve, a week after we had signed up the half millionth member, we had a party. Drew was drunk. I...I had a glass of white wine. We...ended up next to each other when it struck twelve. He...kissed me. In front of the whole company.” She looked away. But the small tremble that went through her couldn’t be hidden. “I kissed him back...I think. Before I remembered to put a stop to it.”
“You think? It’s not rocket science.”
She glared at him and pushed her hair back. “I don’t know what happened or how I let it happen. Just that it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. In my defense, I had got the news that day that Robert was out of danger and with Travelogue making such a big milestone...” She ran shaking fingers over her face. “I’ve been kicking myself for losing control like that. I never meant to...”
“Enjoy a kiss?”
“Yes. For one thing, it was unprofessional. For another, it was reckless on so many levels. A relationship with any man is not in my plan right now. Career is my focus.”
Nathan frowned, seeing embarrassment and something else. He admired her drive to succeed in her career, understood that it might leave very little time for a personal life. If not for the thread of wistfulness in her face.
Every time he had a conversation with her, he was struck sharp by how innocent she was. Yet from everything Maria had told him with grudging respect, Riya had always worked hard, pretty much taken care of herself even when she was a child. Had helped his father every way she could.
The parameters of her life—Travelogue and its current client base, the estate, his father and her mother—they were all so rigidly defined. To step out of any of them, he realized, sent her into a tailspin.
And the one kiss reflected her age, she was calling it a momentary lapse in judgment.
“You have a plan for your life?” he asked, disbelief slowly cycling into something far more insidious.
She fidgeted in her seat. “A road map, yes... Drew is too volatile, unreliable. When I’m ready to settle down in a decade or so, I want a stable man who’ll stand by me for the rest of my life, who’ll be a good husband and father. Right now I can’t allow myself to be sidetracked by—”
Slow anger simmered to life inside him. “It seems your plan allows for everything except living.”
Her gaze flew to him.
Nathan uncurled his fist, willing the unbidden anger to leave him. She was of no consequence to him. None.
What did it matter to him if the naive fool spent the rest of her life slaving over the estate and company, wasting her life instead of living it?
“Do you have a list of qualities and a timeline for when you’ll meet and mate with this ideal specimen of manhood too?”
Her gaze flashed with warning. “My personal life has no bearing on you. I’m only telling you this because you’re questioning my professional behavior.”
“Yet you dare ask me questions about my visits, about where I’ve been all these years.”
“That’s because I’ve seen the pain you’ve caused Robert for so long. Much as I try, I can’t help wondering what kind of man stays away from everything he knows for a decade, without once looking back. You didn’t even stay for your mother’s funeral. You didn’t care about what happened to your father for a decade. You didn’t come when Maria... If I hadn’t realized that she knew where you were—”
“Enough.”
He leveled a hard look at her and Riya knew she had crossed a line.
“I want a new software model created within three weeks for an executive membership and a package from your team on the front end. You’ll see the launch event.”
Her mouth fell open, her stomach dropping into a vacuum. “It can’t be ready in three weeks. I’ll need to redesign the whole software engine, and we don’t have any of the product development team to put the package together. I have only worked behind the scenes till now.”
“Then step into the front. Work smarter and learn to delegate. Use your staff as more than your cheerleader. And the next time a colleague professes undying love to you on office premises and continues to harass you, you’ll immediately file a report with HR.”
She slapped her palms against the table between them, something snapping in her. “How long will you hate me for what my mother did?”
“Don’t overestimate your place in my life, Riya.” Each word dripped with cutting incisiveness. “Although thanks to your manipulation, I’m veering toward moderate annoyance.”
“Then how long will you punish me for lying?”
“Punish you?”
“Yes. Lording it over me, dragging me across the world, setting goals that ensure my failure, enforcing this...this...”
He stood up from his seat and she craned her neck.
“You’ve got quite the imagination for someone who’s determined to live her life by a plan. We made a deal, one that you started. You’re bending all out of shape now because I’m holding you to your end of it?”
His voice was soft, all the more efficient for it. The angrier she got, the calmer he grew. And perversely she wanted to ruffle that frosty, still exterior, wanted to make him angry, hurt, feel something.
That scared her more than anything.
“Or is it me personally that you can’t deal with?”
She stood up, meaning to get away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He grasped her arm, the lean breadth of his body