‘I was doing a good job!’ Tati quivered with frustration.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Brett. ‘I offered you the CEO role, if you remember. I asked you to stay on and run the thing and you turned me down.’
‘That’s because hell would freeze over before I’d work for you,’ spat Tati. ‘And you know it.’
‘Exactly.’ Now it was Brett’s turn to sound frustrated. ‘That’s why I hired Dylan.’
‘Oh you are full of it!’ said Tati, slamming her empty glass down on a side table so hard she almost broke it. ‘Your offer to me was never genuine. You said yourself you were going to sell everything off. You only wanted to hire me so you could watch me fire all my staff and dismantle the business.’
‘Right. So when I change my mind, and keep the staff and decide to grow the bloody business instead – you’re still mad at me. You’re impossible to please, do you realize that Tatiana?’
‘How would you know?’ Tati shot back. ‘You’ve never tried to please me. You’ve never tried to please anyone but yourself, have you Brett?’
In answer Brett set down his own glass. Snaking one hand around her waist and the other at the back of her neck, he pulled her to him and kissed her, hard and passionately and for a long time. For a split second Tati stiffened, resisting him. Or was it herself she was resisting? But then she found herself kissing him back, her hands slipping underneath his shirt and clawing at the muscles on his back with a mind and life of their own.
He was kissing her neck now, moving down to her collar bone, then up again slowly till his lips brushed against the soft skin of her ear.
‘You don’t know what pleasure is,’ he whispered.
Tati closed her eyes and moaned, lost in the delicious sensation of his warm breath in her ear and his hands sliding down over her buttocks. Somehow the belt of her jeans was already undone. They slid to the floor.
‘What do you want?’ Brett asked her. His hands were under her sweater now, expertly unhooking the back of her bra.
Pulling away from him just slightly, so they were looking into each other’s eyes, Tati said slowly. ‘Furlings. I want Furlings.’ The faintest hint of a smile played at the corner of her lips. ‘What do you want, Brett?’
‘I want you and you know it,’ he responded angrily. Grabbing her hand he placed it against his rock-solid erection, straining for release from his suit trousers.
Tati stroked it, firmly but tantalizingly slowly. Leaning forward, she whispered in his ear. ‘Then sell me my house back.’
‘Never,’ groaned Brett, closing his eyes.
‘OK then,’ said Tati, wriggling out of his arms and refastening her bra. ‘I’m going home.’
‘No. You’re not going anywhere.’
It wasn’t a plea, or even a command. It was a simple statement of fact. Brett put his hands on her shoulders and walked slowly but determinedly forwards, pushing Tati backwards till her back was against the wall. Pressing down on her with the full weight of his body, he ran a finger along the line of her lips, then traced it up to her forehead, tenderly pushing back the stray wisps of hair that had fallen forward over her eyes.
‘OK, I’ll sell to you,’ he said.
Tati’s face lit up. ‘You will? Why now? Why after all this time? I mean, that’s wonderful. But I don’t under—’
‘For twenty million.’
Tati scowled. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. That’s double what the house is worth.’
Brett planted a single kiss softly on her lips. ‘Then don’t buy it.’
Her eyes blazed with fury. ‘You know I’m going to buy it. You arsehole.’
‘That’s right,’ Brett smiled. ‘And you know you’re going to sleep with me. Because you want it as much as I do.’
Scooping her into his arms, he carried her into the bedroom. There was no more talking now. Laying her down on the bed, Brett removed the rest of her clothes piece by piece, taking his time, savouring every moment. Tati kept her eyes open. Watching him watching her was the biggest turn-on of all. Brett didn’t admire her body, he devoured it, first with his eyes, and then with his fingers, lips and tongue, bringing Tati to the brink of release time after time but then pulling back right before she could climax. For so many years, ever since her marriage to Jason, she’d blocked out their last sexual encounter and the incredible sensations Brett had unleashed in her then. But what her conscious mind had erased, her body remembered in minute detail, every nerve and muscle arching towards him, straining to reach him and dance beneath his touch. No other lover, not even Leon di Clemente, could do what Brett Cranley did to her. He made her feel like a rare racing car that only he knew how to drive.
And he was right. He had always been right.