Men of Power

Although she wasn’t quite so lucky as she walked through the main house with the intention of going up to her bedroom to get her bag before leaving.

‘Drink?’ Dominick growled as she passed the doorway to the sitting room, holding up the glass of brandy he was obviously enjoying.

Kenzie entered the room slowly. It was a beautiful gold and cream room, and the early evening sunshine shining in through the huge bay windows should have looked warm and welcoming, but failed to succeed when it was being dominated by the presence of the tall, darkly brooding man standing beside the unlit fireplace.

Kenzie eyed him in challenge. ‘Am I going to need one?’

His mouth twisted humourlessly. ‘Probably,’ he drawled calmly, moving to the drinks cabinet to pour a second brandy before putting it down on the coffee-table that stood in front of the sofa.

Either Dominick no longer wanted to touch her again, even accidentally, or this was a move on his part to force her to sit down on the gold-coloured sofa, the fact of her having to look up at him instantly putting her on the defensive.

She would take a guess on it being the latter!

Kenzie moved to pick up the glass before strolling over to stand in front of one of the windows, her back to the garden, and the sun streaming in behind her putting her face into shadow.

She hadn’t rushed to return to the house, and had taken some time to try to think how she was going to get away. She had tried to decide how she would deal with Dominick if she didn’t manage to leave without seeing him again, knowing that her uninhibited response to him in the pool-house had put her at a definite disadvantage.

It was a disadvantage she intended taking back if she could.

‘I believe I did try to warn you that statistically those sort of—experiments, never work out,’ she reminded him before taking a sip of her brandy, her gaze remaining unwaveringly on his.

Dominick studied her through narrowed lids, filled with the need to hurt and kiss her at the same time!

To hurt her because he couldn’t stand the thought of her making love to a man like Jerome Carlton in the way she just had with him. To kiss her because that once hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough!

Instead he looked at her coldly. ‘Obviously not,’ he agreed icily, enjoying the angry flush that suddenly coloured her cheeks.

She hadn’t liked him saying that. Good. Because he wasn’t enjoying himself, either.

And he had expected to. During the months since Kenzie had walked out on him, the thought of what was going to happen next had been the driving force behind all of his actions. He had believed that revenge would be sweet, and this added bonus of making love with Kenzie more than he could possibly have hoped for. But the only result of that was that he knew he still wanted her, damn it!

‘Better?’ he scorned as Kenzie took another sip of her brandy.

Kenzie didn’t respond as he had thought she would, her green eyes glittering with anger rather than tears as she met his gaze full on. ‘The brandy is excellent,’ she bit out coolly.

He had to admire her, Dominick acknowledged grudgingly; after the passion they had shared down in the pool-house, and his harshness afterwards, he knew Kenzie must be feeling more than a little unsure of herself, but not by so much as a blink of the eye did she reveal that emotion.

Instead she looked tall and self-possessed, and the bitter rage that welled up inside him made him want to wipe that air of confidence off her beautiful face!

‘So aren’t you curious to know why your boyfriend had to delay his visit to England for a couple of days?’ he asked tauntingly.

Kenzie tensed, but only inwardly; after the humiliation Dominick had tried to inflict earlier she had no intention of letting him see how upset she really was.

She had reacted instinctively to Dominick’s lovemaking; she couldn’t have denied her response to him even if she had wanted to. How Dominick must be loving that. In fact, his scathing comments afterwards had already shown her that he did. They both knew now exactly how ‘unwilling’ she hadn’t been!

For a while, a very brief while, Dominick had once again been the man she loved, the experienced but considerate lover who had initiated her into all the pleasures of lovemaking. Even though Dominick refused to believe it, he was the only man she had ever made love with.

But the Dominick he had been after their lovemaking, the Dominick he was now, wasn’t the man she had fallen in love with.

Had she really thought that their making love would make any difference to Dominick? To the way he felt about her now?

She hadn’t been thinking at all, that was the problem. From the first moment Dominick had touched her, she had only been able to feel!

She drew in a controlling breath. ‘If by the phrase “boyfriend” you are referring to Jerome—’

‘How many other boyfriends do you have, Kenzie?’ Dominick mocked, his brown eyes as hard as pebbles, and his mouth a thin, derisive line.

Her cheeks became flushed in spite of herself. For one thing, at forty-two, Jerome was hardly a boy, and for another, he had never been a boyfriend or anything else in the least intimate to her!

‘My marriage to you hasn’t exactly made me eager to return to the dating circuit!’ she told him accusingly. She was sure the same couldn’t be said for Dominick; as she knew only too well, he might not believe in love, but he was an extremely sensual man, and had been involved with lots of women before the two of them had met.

His mouth tightened. ‘I very much doubt that’s the reason for the oversight, Kenzie. I feel sure that Jerome Carlton is no more eager to share you than I was!’

Kenzie breathed her impatience. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that I am not, nor have I ever been, involved in an affair with Jerome Carlton?’ Her eyes glittered with anger.

Dominick gave an uninterested shrug. ‘You’re the one that feels that need, Kenzie, not me.’

‘And anyway, what do you know about Jerome’s delay in coming to England?’ she prompted impatiently, sure from his attitude that Dominick did know something.

The scowl disappeared from Dominick’s brow as he gave a relaxed smile. ‘Quite a lot, as it happens,’ he answered easily.

Kenzie swallowed hard. ‘And are you going to tell me?’

‘I was going to leave it to Carlton to do that—but why not?’ Dominick shrugged. ‘About two years ago Carlton Cosmetics hit a few financial difficulties, at which point Carlton decided to float forty-nine per cent of the company shares on the open market, retaining thirty-one per cent for himself, and ten per cent to his two siblings, a younger brother and sister.’

Kenzie had met both Adrian and Caroline Carlton. Adrian actually worked for the company, and she had found him as charming as Jerome, whereas Caroline Carlton had no interest in her brothers or the family-run company, and was only concerned with the income she received from it.

Kenzie moistened her lips. ‘And?’

He grimaced. ‘At a guess I would say that Carlton has spent the last few days running around in ever-decreasing circles trying to work out how he came to lose control of fifty-one per cent of the shares of his own company!’

He watched with satisfaction as the colour drained from Kenzie’s cheeks, her eyes darkening to fathomless pits of green glass.

‘You—’ She swallowed. ‘Tell me you aren’t the one responsible for that, Dominick!’ she gasped in disbelief.

He gave a humourless smile. ‘Now what possible reason would I have to lie to you about something like that, Kenzie?’

She stared at him disbelievingly for several long seconds before moving to the sofa and sitting down abruptly, her hands trembling as her fingers curled about the brandy glass.

‘I did warn you you might need the brandy,’ Dominick said, with a smug look on his face.

Kenzie was breathing shallowly, feeling so stunned she couldn’t move or speak. It was incredible to think that for the last four months Dominick had been plotting and scheming—

So these were the ‘plans’ he had still had to finalize on Wednesday!

But why had he done this? He didn’t love her; he had never loved her, so why should her leaving him have bothered him in the slightest—even if he did persist in believing she had left him for the arms of another man?

Pride.

She had damaged that Masters pride, and Dominick had taken retribution for it.

But in what a way—!

‘I can’t believe you did this, Dominick,’ she said quietly, shaking her head in disbelief.

Dominick’s top lip curled contemptuously. ‘If you have any doubts that I’m the person who now owns fifty-one per cent of Carlton Cosmetics, then don’t,’ he assured her confidently before drinking the remainder of the brandy in his glass, enjoying the smooth burning sensation of the alcohol as it slid down his throat. ‘But I’m afraid Carlton only learnt of the takeover very recently when Caroline told him that she had sold her ten per cent of the company shares. To me,’ he added with satisfaction. He shrugged impassively, his dark eyes narrowing as he watched Kenzie’s reaction.

Pained disbelief. Followed by slow acceptance which quickly turned into an anger that now burned in the depths of her glittering green eyes and the twin spots of colour in her cheeks. She slammed her brandy glass down on the coffee-table before standing up to glare at him.

She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe that even you could do something so despicable—’

‘Even me?’ he echoed. ‘Careful now, Kenzie. Unless you haven’t realized it yet, my shares in Carlton Cosmetics mean that your contract with the company now belongs to me…’ he pointed out softly.

Kenzie stared at him for several long, painful seconds, still stunned that Dominick could have deliberately bought control of Carlton Cosmetics. With the help of Caroline Carlton, Jerome’s own sister!

Not that the latter altogether surprised her; Caroline never made any secret where her interest in the company lay, and Kenzie didn’t doubt that Dominick had made Caroline a very tempting financial offer for her shares.

As for her own contract with Carlton Cosmetics—!

She shook her head. ‘I’ll never work for you, Dominick.’

‘Then I’ll have to sue you for breach of contract.’

‘My contract is with Jerome.’

‘Your contract is with Carlton Cosmetics!’ he corrected harshly.

‘Of which I am now the majority shareholder.’

It had taken four months of finding out exactly who the shareholders of Carlton Cosmetics were, then cajoling and charming those shareholders into selling to him. Confirmation on Wednesday for the purchase of the last ten per cent from Jerome Carlton’s own sister, Caroline, meant Dominick was now in control of the company formerly run by the man who had seduced and bedded his wife. And at the same time he had taken control of the eight months left of Kenzie’s year-long contract with the company.

Retribution, indeed!

Kenzie, although still standing tall and proud, was deathly pale now as the full weight of what Dominick was saying hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.

‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have to sue me, Dominick,’ she finally breathed raggedly. ‘Because there is no way I will ever work for you! In fact—’ she straightened ‘—after today, after what you’ve done, I never want to set eyes on you again!’

‘Really?’ he taunted.

‘Yes—really!’ she echoed forcefully.

‘That might be a little difficult, Kenzie, when I have every intention of becoming completely involved in all aspects of Carlton Cosmetics,’ Dominick stated.

How could Dominick have done this? she wondered in a daze.

Kenzie had known him as many things since she had first met him: as the man she loved; the man she married; the man she couldn’t stay with any more because he was incapable of returning her love, and then the deeply angry man who had challenged her to walk away from him.

But the Dominick he was now was consumed with a need for revenge, on Jerome Carlton, and on her, to the extent that he had taken that vengeance by trying to ruin both of them.

She didn’t doubt that he had ruined Jerome.

And he would succeed in ruining her too if she refused to continue working for Carlton Cosmetics and he sued her for breach of contract. Something, after today, she was sure he was more than capable of doing!

She gave a disbelieving shake of her head. ‘I think I can understand your need to get back at me, Dominick,’ she said dully. ‘But why you felt it necessary to drag Jerome into your vendetta is totally beyond me—’

‘Is it?’ he cut in fiercely. ‘Then you obviously don’t know me very well, Kenzie.’

She looked at him with blank, unemotional eyes. ‘I’m beginning to think that I never knew you at all,’ she murmured quietly. ‘One thing I do know—I’ll never forgive you for doing this, Dominick. Never,’ she assured him softly before turning away.

‘Where are you going?’ he called after her harshly.

She glanced back at him with dull eyes. ‘Away from here. Away from you,’ she said with emphasis.

‘Do you really think it’s going to be that easy, Kenzie?’ he scorned.

Leaving him the first time had been horrible, but leaving the stranger he had become now wasn’t difficult at all!

But that wasn’t what Dominick meant, of course, his controlling interest of Carlton Cosmetics meaning that if she couldn’t break her contract—and Dominick seemed pretty certain that she couldn’t!—then for the next eight months, at least, the two of them would be bound together and forced to meet.

She gave him a pitying look. ‘Do you know the saddest part of all this, Dominick?’ She frowned. ‘No, of course you don’t,’ she answered her own question derisively. ‘Your behaviour—what you’ve done…’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Oh, I can’t deny that the next eight months are going to be difficult—’

‘I’m sure you can’t,’ he rasped.

‘But you don’t see what you’ve really done at all, do you, Dominick?’ Kenzie sighed. ‘No matter what you might believe, until now I’ve only ever had a working relationship with Jerome, but now, after what you’ve done to him because of that relationship, you’ve actually succeeded in uniting the two of us. Against you, if nothing else.’

‘That’s nothing new,’ he dismissed scathingly.

‘I feel sorry for you, Dominick,’ she whispered. ‘I really do.’

‘Don’t waste your pity,’ he advised harshly.

‘No,’ she accepted heavily, giving him one last sorrowful glance before turning on her heel and leaving the room.

Dominick stood rigidly as he heard her ascent up the stairs, followed seconds later by the lightness of her step as she came back down again, listening as the front door closed behind her with soft finality as she left the house altogether.

Kenzie was walking out on him for the second time!

Strangely, he felt none of the satisfaction that he had thought, either at having made love to her in the way he had, or on telling her of his controlling interest in Carlton Cosmetics. He could only remember the disgust in her face when she had realized what he had done, and her disbelief.

Her hatred…

Kenzie really did hate him now, he realized as he poured himself another brandy. It had been there in her face as she had looked at him that last time, and in the pained disillusionment in her eyes.

Well, it was what he had wanted, wasn’t it—what the last four months, and this weekend, had all been about?

Then why did that cold dish of revenge feel so much like a leaden weight, giving him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach rather than the fulfilment he had expected to feel…?

CHAPTER TWELVE

WHATEVER Kenzie had expected Dominick’s next move to be after that awful day at Bedforth Manor, she was left in suspense for the next five weeks, as the time passed with no word or sight of him.

Not that the silence wasn’t a relief. It was just surprising at the same time.

But this evening that was going to come to an abrupt end because tonight was the launch party of Carlton Cosmetics’ new fragrance, an event that, as the promotional face of the company, required Kenzie’s attendance. She had flown to New York especially for the occasion, and, as she knew from conversations with Jerome, Dominick had every intention of being at the party too.

She and Jerome, united as she had warned Dominick they would be, had consulted with a lawyer to see if there wasn’t something to be done about Dominick’s stranglehold on Carlton Cosmetics and her own contract with the company. But, as she might already have guessed, there was nothing illegal about Dominick’s purchase of the shares, and there was no suitable let-out clause in her own contract, either—not wanting to work for your estranged husband wasn’t reason enough, apparently!

Dominick, with his usual thoroughness, had tied the company, and her, up in legalities that simply couldn’t be broken.

So they were stuck with it, and Dominick, a fact that, understandably, didn’t sit too well with Jerome.

‘The brute should be making his grand entrance any time soon!’

Jerome muttered as he joined Kenzie near the entrance of the reception room at one of New York’s most prominent hotels. Chandeliers glittered over the elegant heads of the society guests and members of the media, and the room was abuzz with conversation and the soft music being played by a string quartet.

It wasn’t too difficult, in the circumstances, to guess which ‘brute’ Jerome was referring to!

‘Perhaps he’ll do us all a favour and decide not to come, after all,’ she dismissed distractedly, totally on edge as she kept half an eye on the door while she circuited the room talking and smiling with the other guests.

‘We couldn’t be that lucky.’ Jerome scowled, still boyishly attractive despite his forty-two years.

But Jerome’s looks were such that they had never appealed to Kenzie. Firstly because when she had met him she had still been married to Dominick and had had no interest in other men, and then later simply because she wasn’t attracted to him. As she hadn’t been to any man after she and Dominick had parted…

‘Here he comes now,’ Jerome announced scathingly.

Kenzie tensed so suddenly that she spilt some of the champagne from her glass over her fingers, fingers that gripped the slender stem of the flute so tightly it was in danger of snapping.

‘And, damn it, he’s brought Caroline with him!’ Jerome added angrily.

Kenzie was licking the champagne from her fingers when she turned in time to see cameras snapping as Dominick made his entrance. He looked tall and powerful in his black evening suit, snowy white shirt and red tie—the colour of which exactly matched the clinging red dress Kenzie was wearing, she was totally dismayed to see.

Standing at his side, looking beautifully triumphant, was Caroline Carlton, her blonde hair tumbling loosely over her bare shoulders, and the black shimmering dress she wore clinging to the fullness of her voluptuous figure.

Kenzie hadn’t known Dominick was bringing anyone with him this evening—he hadn’t deigned to inform anyone what his plans were—but it didn’t come as a complete surprise to her that he should have chosen to bring Caroline.

There had been an almighty row between Caroline and her two brothers when they had found out what she had done, resulting in Caroline being banned from coming anywhere near them, or Carlton Cosmetics, ever again.

No doubt it was amusing Dominick greatly to bring the other woman to an event she hadn’t been invited to!

‘Perhaps we should try to disconcert him and go over and say hello,’ she suggested softly, aware that the majority of the guests were now watching them. They were all aware of Dominick’s takeover of Carlton Cosmetics—it had been a nine-day wonder in the newspapers a month ago—and they were obviously curious to see what would happen next, the media in particular.

But as there had still been no announcement of the impending divorce between Kenzie and Dominick—he still hadn’t signed and returned the papers—none of the press seemed to be aware of any estrangement between the two of them, thank goodness!

Jerome gave her a glowering glance. ‘You go over and say hello—I’m going to get myself another drink!’ he muttered disgustedly before disappearing into the crowd.

Kenzie closed her eyes briefly. Six and a half more months of her contract, that was all she had to get through—

‘You’re looking very beautiful this evening, Kenzie,’ Dominick whispered huskily as he appeared at her side.

He watched as Kenzie turned to look at him with startled green eyes, her cheeks seeming to pale slightly beneath expertly applied make-up.

Make-up that Dominick knew only too well Kenzie didn’t really need, her natural beauty such that it required no enhancement.

She looked amazing in her clinging red dress, her breasts pert, waist slender—perhaps a little more so than he remembered—and her hips were curvaceously sensual. She seemed to stand out in this roomful of ‘beautiful people’ with the brightness of a shimmering flame, so much so that Dominick had had no trouble in immediately locating her when he had arrived, even as he’d smiled for the cameras that had clicked so annoyingly in his face.

‘Champagne?’ He offered her one of the two glasses he had carried over with him.

She raised her dark eyebrows at him. ‘Shouldn’t you be offering that to Caroline?’

He shrugged. ‘I believe she has gone over to have a chat with her elder brother.’

Kenzie glanced across the room to where Jerome and Caroline looked to be in the middle of a heated, if muted, conversation. ‘Not a pleasant one, by the look of it,’ she dismissed coolly, totally ignoring the champagne he offered her. ‘Doesn’t it bother you that you’ve caused a total rift in the Carlton family?’

Knowing how important Kenzie’s family was to her—important enough for her to have made the bargain with him in the first place!—Dominick could see that being a problem for her, possibly more of one than his usurping Jerome’s control over Carlton Cosmetics had been.

‘But of course it doesn’t bother you,’ Kenzie answered her own question dismissively. ‘I’m sure it only serves to confirm for you once again the fragility of family relationships!’

Dominick’s mouth tightened at the barb. The last five weeks of deliberately staying away from Kenzie hadn’t been easy for him, his emotions fluctuating between wanting to see her again and knowing that he was the last person she wanted to see. Something she had made very plain the last time they had been together.

The problem—and it was a problem that had grown greater with each passing day—was that he wanted to see Kenzie.

That last time they were together, making love beside the pool at Bedforth Manor, had been earth-shattering for him, and was a memory he hadn’t been able to get out of his head.

Kenzie had told him their marriage was over, that she wanted a divorce, and yet could she have made love to him in the way she had if she felt nothing for him?

More to the point, could he have made love to her in the way he had if he didn’t have feelings for her…?

He had always been a man completely in control of his emotions, and yet that day beside the pool he had completely lost that control—and had felt truly alive for the first time in months!

It hadn’t helped that, with Kenzie’s departure that day, the anger that had burned so dangerously in him for the previous four months seemed to have disappeared, leaving him with a feeling of leaden nausea that refused to go away.

It had always been his intention to actually be present when Jerome Carlton was told that he had lost control of his own company, but after that last conversation with Kenzie, and the look of disappointment and disgust she had given him before she had left, he had stayed away rather than have to see that look in Kenzie’s face again.