His eyes narrowed as if he could read my thoughts, and he ran a hand through his ruffled brown hair as if to draw my attention to its tousled state, and further fire my jealousy.
I felt myself go weak at the knees just looking at him. Oh, that bastard. How could he still be so sexy to me after everything he had put me through?
“Couldn’t get enough after all?” Grant drawled lazily, propping himself in the doorway at an angle that both effectively barred my entry and showed off his biceps and pecs to drool-inducing advantage.
Focus, Lacey!
I squared my shoulders and barreled forward, the shock of my advance knocking him out of the way despite his strength advantage. I walked rapidly down the hall; it was a lot easier to keep my resolve when I didn’t have to look him in the face. “We need to talk.”
“My, my, you are eager,” Grant snapped from behind me, abandoning all pretense of languor. I heard the door slam shut in anger. “Has it been a whole hour for you?”
I whirled on him, anger flaring. “Will you cut the bullshit for once? We’re in real trouble!”
Something about my tone, or maybe my eyes, must have alerted him that I really meant what I was saying, because he took a step back and raised his hands defensively before lowering them and asking, slowly, “What kind of trouble?”
I was so surprised by his capitulation that it took me a few seconds to find the words. Only when his eyebrow began to rise did I blurt out: “Portia is engineering a hostile takeover!”
I led us into the living room and told him everything I had observed at Rama, pulling up the information on James C. Brandt on Kate’s phone—sending out a quick mental thank-you to her for letting me borrow it—to show him the long and storied history his hedge fund had of partnering with an ally within the company, and using that person to divide loyalties and smooth the way for his takeover. As I talked, Grant’s face grew more and more worried, but the skepticism failed to fade entirely from his eyes.
“Why on Earth would Portia do such a thing?” he said when I finally ran out of breath. He ran a hand through his hair, looking baffled, uncertain, and concerned at the same time. And perhaps a little hurt? “She has everything she needs in her current position, and I’ve responded to all her concerns as best I can. What could she stand to gain?”
“I can’t say, Grant, I’m not in her head,” I said wearily, sinking down onto the couch. I looked up at him earnestly. “But you saw how she was acting in the meeting. All that sudden concern over costs? Making allies beforehand to try to ambush and pressure you? Playing nicey-nice to keep the conversation rolling after you said things that would have gotten your head bitten off any other time? Tell me you’re not a little bit weirded out about all that.”
Grant chewed his lip, looking off into the distance. “It was strange, I admit. I didn’t pay the attention to it at the time that I could have, because…”
I waited for him to finish the sentence, but he let it trail off and began to pace around instead.
I jumped back in. “Is there anything else? Has anything else she’s done lately pinged your radar?”
Grant paused thoughtfully. “She stopped by after you…left. She was acting very concerned, but I didn’t think—and later she was asking questions, lots of questions, but I thought she was just trying to distract me from…And I saw her talking to my secretary when I know she can’t stand the woman; she could have been pumping her for information. I didn’t think anything of it at the time because…”
He trailed off again.
“There’s a shareholder meeting at the end of the week,” I said when it became clear that he was going to leave that sentence dangling there. “If Portia’s going to make a play, she’ll have to put it to a vote there.”
“Yes,” he said absently, and echoed, “If she’s going to make a play…”
And that was what it came down to, I guess. If he believed me that she was going to do it. “Do you believe me?” I asked.
“The evidence is…mounting,” he said, but he still looked distracted.
“Well, then, what are we going to do?”
“I suppose—” Grant began musingly, and for a whole second my heart soared with the giddy hope that he was going to approach this problem like a reasonable human being. But then his eyes narrowed in suspicion, and his gaze swung back to me, accusing. “Why do you even care?”
“Excuse me?!” I spluttered.
“You’ve made it quite clear that you don’t give a fuck about the company,” he snapped, his red-hot anger making his accent crisp and near-British as he bit off the words. “Or me, for that matter. So why the show? Why the mad dash to my apartment to save the day? Perhaps you’re hoping for a nice little bonus—or maybe you’re allied with Portia and this is a feint on your part, to throw me off guard?”