Billionaire's Pursuit of Love: Destiny Romance Read Free Page B

kill. Could the man be any more arrogant? Had he always been this way? Back then?
    The waiter arrived to take their drinks order. Without deference to her, Blake ordered a bottle of champagne.
    ‘Celebrating something?’ she asked, layering on some heavy-lacquered sarcasm.
    ‘You,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about me over the years.’
    She’d done more than think about him. She’d tried everything she could to find him. For years she’d held onto the hope that he’d come back. He never did.
    ‘Nope and I’m glad.’ She sat back, trying to look as though she meant it. ‘Imagine wasting my emotional energy on a man who cares so little for the environment.’ This would be the best way to survive the evening. Angsty sparring about global issues.
    ‘I’m confused,’ he said, pinning her with his eyes. ‘You’re the one who lied and I’m the one being roasted.’
    Her heart stilled. ‘Lied?’ Had he found out? ‘What lie?’
    ‘You promised you’d be in touch.’
    Her shoulders relaxed. She needed to get a grip.
    ‘And how do you propose I’d have done that exactly? Telepathy?’ she asked, with hard-worn bitterness. ‘You used me and then you disappeared.’ She wasn’t going to tell him how desperately she’d tried to find him. Begging every employee at his hotel for something. A name. A telephone number. An address. Something. Anything. But when you only have a first name and a six-foot brick wall of privacy policies, all the begging in the world still comes to nothing.
    ‘What’re you talking about?’ he asked.
    ‘You vanished in the middle of the night. It’s not like you were trying to bash down my door.’
    ‘I didn’t know how to find you.’ He reached across the table and took her hand. She tried to pull away. He held it more tightly. ‘I bet you still don’t have a mobile phone. I left a letter for you at your hotel and at mine. You didn’t get either?’
    Unease inched its way up her spine.
Her hotel?
Ah, that lie. The heady scent of the roses turned sour.
    ‘No.’ She slid her hand from his and gulped down some champagne. ‘How convenient, two letters and I didn’t receive either.’
    ‘That’s not the only interesting aspect of this saga,’ he said, topping up her glass. ‘As soon as I landed back in England, I called your hotel.’ He placed the bottle back in the silver ice bucket. ‘They had no record of you.’
    Breathing got a little harder. She played with the stem of her champagne flute. But there was no way she was going to allow this to be her fault. He was the Houdini who’d left without so much as a thanks-for-the-good-time-baby.
    ‘I checked at your hotel after you didn’t meet me,’ she threw back at him. ‘Nothing.’
    ‘I can’t explain that,’ he said simply. ‘But perhaps you can clarify why when I called the newspaper you said you worked for, it too had no record of you.’
    ‘You called the
Brunei Gazette
?’ Her heart beat harder than a death-metal drummer. She blinked stupidly at him. He’d tried to find her? She averted her gaze to the glowing curtain. Could that really be true?
    ‘Yes, I called the
Gazette
,’ he continued. ‘No one by the name of Sarah Walker worked there.’ His statement held an edge, sharp and accusing.
    ‘Ah, that. Well, that’s a long story.’
    ‘I’ve got all night.’
    The waiter arrived, outlined the evening’s specials and took their order. It gave her a few minutes to regroup. As soon as the waiter slipped through the curtain of light, she moved the conversation onto safer ground.
    ‘The Sanctuary has a government inspection in eight weeks. We need to raise one hundred thousand pounds to make urgent repairs or we’ll be closed down.’ The words tasted salty and desperate. She hated begging this man. But beggars, choosers and all that. ‘The Sanctuary supports the surrounding community; without us, the local economy will be devastated.’ Her voice wobbled a fraction