She swallowed hard. ‘What happened…?’
His eyes narrowed to steely slits. ‘Just a lowly employee of Sinclair Industries who thought she would like a promotion.’
‘And she went to bed with you to get it?’
His face darkened ominously. ‘Luccy—’
‘What happened to her?’ Luccy persisted.
He shrugged. ‘After her employment was terminated? I have absolutely no idea.’ His eyes glittered angrily.
Luccy gulped. ‘I think I would like that glass of wine now,’ she said shakily.
‘I don’t believe getting drunk is the answer to your problems,’ Sin drawled mockingly even as he stood up to pour wine into the second glass before handing it to her.
Luccy ignored the comment, her hand trembling slightly as she took the glass from him. ‘So.’ She drew in a shaky breath after taking a sip of the chilled wine. ‘Where do we go from here?’
‘Where do you want us to go?’
Luccy looked up at him warily, seeing him for exactly what he was now. Not only the billionaire chairman of Sinclair Industries, but also a hard, powerful, and ruthless man. ‘What do you mean?’
He grimaced. ‘Well, obviously I have now made it clear to you that any attempt on your part to use our past—relationship, shall we say, as leverage of any kind, in order to renew your contract with PAN, is out of the question…’ He looked up as Luccy stood up abruptly, his expression one of hard challenge as she began to pace the room agitatedly.
Luccy made no attempt to disguise her dislike as she glared across the room at him. ‘I can assure you I did not—and most definitely still do not—have any intention of ever discussing that evening again. With anyone!’
‘I’m pleased to hear it.’
‘And that includes you!’ Luccy snapped as she saw Sin’s derisive expression. ‘It was a mistake—’
‘It was certainly a serious tactical error on your part,’ he agreed.
Luccy slammed her glass forcefully down onto the table, mildly surprised when it didn’t instantly shatter. ‘You seduced me that evening—’
‘I believe it was a mutual seduction,’ he corrected harshly.
‘If it was mutual then why are you bitching about it?’ Luccy was beyond even attempting to keep this conversation polite. Why should she bother when Sin had done nothing but insult her since coming to her studio this morning?
Why was he bitching? Sin questioned himself suddenly.
Probably because, although it had been ten years since he had last been this gullible, Sin could still clearly remember the humiliation he had felt, the sheer fury, at knowing how naïve and stupid he had been.
So much so that he could cheerfully have wrung Luccy’s neck right now.
He had found his conversation with Paul Bridger this morning offensive, to say the least. The other man, once he’d realised the purpose of Sin’s visit, becoming extremely insulting about Luccy as he talked of the way she had encouraged him to believe they would be going to bed together at the end of the evening. That those insults were obviously true, going on the part of their exchange Sin had overheard, had only made his own conversation with Bridger more unpleasant.
‘Nothing else to say?’ she challenged Sin scathingly now.
There were a lot of things Sin could have said. But he wasn’t about to say any of them. ‘I believe the next move is up to you.’
She scowled. ‘Obviously you will be terminating my employment with PAN Cosmetics immediately—’
‘No.’
She raised startled brows. ‘No…?’
Sin gave her a scathing glance of his own. ‘You have three months left to run on your present contract, I believe?’
She eyed him warily. ‘Yes, so?’
He nodded. ‘Then you will continue to fulfil your obligations to PAN Cosmetics for that amount of time.’
‘That’s very—surprising, of you,’ Luccy said warily.
‘It’s business, Luccy,’ Sin rasped.
‘And once that contract is over you will make sure I never work again, is that it?’ she asked.
He continued to look at her coldly for several long seconds. ‘I haven’t made my mind up about that yet.’
Luccy knew by the absolute implacability of his expression that there was no point in her continuing to proclaim her innocence; this man simply didn’t believe her. ‘Let me know when you have!’ she retorted before marching in the direction of the lift.
‘Where the hell are you going?’
‘I’m leaving, of course.’ She stabbed her finger on the button to open the lift doors.
Sin stood up. ‘I don’t believe we’ve finished talking yet—’
‘I have,’ she assured him grimly as she stepped into the lift, her eyes glittering as she turned to face him before the lift doors slowly closed.
Sin was scowling darkly as he listened to the lift descending, knowing that the conversation hadn’t gone at all as he had thought it would.
The tears he was sure he had seen glittering in Luccy’s eyes didn’t make much sense to him, either…
CHAPTER FIVE
‘CHAMPAGNE?’
Luccy didn’t need to turn and face the owner of that silkily soft voice to know who it belonged to. It might have been eight weeks since she had last heard it, but, as she had guessed at the time, she hadn’t succeeded in forgetting a single thing about Jacob ‘Sin’ Sinclair, least of all the silky seductiveness of his voice!
She had wondered about—and dreaded!—seeing him again at this glitzy party being given in the New York Sinclair hotel to celebrate the launch of PAN Cosmetics’ new brand of lipstick. But, as she was the photographer for all the publicity shots that had blitzed the media for the last month, it would have looked distinctly odd if Luccy had refused her own invitation to attend. Especially as she had decided that this particular photography assignment for PAN Cosmetics was to be her last…
Which didn’t make it any easier for her to break off her present conversation in order to turn and face Sin!
Despite the fact that the reception room in this New York hotel was full of the press, as well as the rich and famous, Sin had had absolutely no problem picking out Lucinda Harper-O’Neill in the sparkling crush of people. For one thing it was impossible not to spot that distinctive long, blue-black hair. For another, she was looking beautiful again in red…
Had she deliberately worn red again this evening as a challenge to him for that night two months ago?
Whatever her reason for wearing it, there was no doubting that Luccy looked stunningly beautiful, her low-necked, sleeveless red gown a shimmering sparkle of sequins that hinted at her curves rather than clung to them, and revealing a long expanse of shapely legs, the red high-heeled shoes she wore adding an extra three inches to her height. Her long blue-black hair was loose again tonight and curling silkily down the length of her spine, the deep blue of her eyes emphasised by long, curling black lashes, a delicate blush to her cheeks, and the fullness of her lips once again glossed a deep, tempting red.
Sin had stood across the room watching her for several minutes before approaching and speaking to her, his body tensing as he watched her conversing with one of the male executives of PAN Cosmetics, her beautiful face animated, her blue eyes glowing, her cheeks satiny smooth, and those red-glossed lips full