“Let’s not do this to each other, Heath,” Ann whispered, swallowing hard. He had hardly been with her a minute and already they were drawing blood.
“Why not? Is it too late to tell the truth?”
“It’s too late for everything.”
“But not too late to write a check. You’ve been out of touch; Annie, I’m not the same lowlife you left behind in Hispaniola when you skipped town.”
Ann heard the flinty edge in his voice, saw the steel gleam in his eyes. “Must we play this game? I know you hate me, Heath, so exactly what are you doing here?” she asked wearily.
“I’m here to save your bacon, Annie. Isn’t that what one old friend should do for another?”
“We were never friends.”
“We were much more than that,” he said in a low tone, holding her gaze.
Ann looked away from him. “Do you have seven million dollars?” she asked in a scoffing tone.
“Yes.”
She looked back at him in amazement. He was completely serious.
“Find that hard to believe, do you, rich girl?” he said sarcastically. “Oh, excuse me, I guess that term doesn’t apply to you anymore, does it?”
“There’s no point to this exercise, Heath. You’ve obviously come to torture me but you will have to get in line. My brother and all of his creditors are way ahead of you.”
“Don’t you want to hear my generous offer?”
“No.”
“You don’t think I mean it, do you? Well I do, and I have the money.”
“How did you get it?”
“Ah, so you are curious. Do you think I stole it?”
Ann didn’t answer.
“That would be in line with the Talbot opinion of me, wouldn’t it?” he said nastily. “Though it seems your brother is more into larceny than I am these days.”
That was a low and calculated blow, and Ann bit her lip, still saying nothing.
He stared hard at her, then seemed to relent, looking down pensively and then up again at her face.
“You recall I was always good around boats. Anyway, after you left me at the altar, so to speak, I joined the navy. While working for Uncle Sam I invented a new type of sealing valve that prevents water from getting into a boat’s motor, and I later sold the patent to a private company for several million dollars.”
Ann listened, astonished that she had never heard about this upward turn in his fortunes.
“I invested the money in Bimini Boat Works, and built it into a multi-outlet facility with marinas all over the Keys and mainland Florida.”
“You’re Bimini Boat Works?” Ann said incredulously. She had seen the company’s billboards and advertisements everywhere since she returned to Florida.
“I take it nobody told you,” he replied flatly, reading her stunned expression.
“I don’t think anybody knew. My mother’s been dead for five years and my brother Tim hasn’t been in Florida much since my father passed away. He ran ScriptSoft from Massachusetts.”
“Ran it into the ground, you mean. And you haven’t exactly been in touch, have you?” he said with a thin smile. “Couldn’t wait to scrape Hispaniola from the soles of your shoes, Princess?”
“That isn’t fair, Heath. I didn’t want to see anybody. My memories of Port Lisbon were...very painful.”
“Oh, not as painful as mine, lady,” he said softly, watching her face. “Not as painful as mine, I was the one who got dumped, remember?”
“You don’t know what happened, Heath. You never heard the full story,” Ann protested.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve got some lovely explanation all worked out, something classy and reasonable to satisfy your delicate conscience. You wouldn’t want to think of yourself as a woman who would lead a man on to the brink of distraction and then ditch him for a better deal, would you? You could never live with that.” He leaned against Caldwell’s desk, folding his arms and crossing his legs at the ankle in a characteristic posture.
“You won’t believe anything I say, so why should I try? You just want to enjoy my downfall and your corresponding triumph.”
“Quite a reversal of fortunes, isn’t it, Princess?” Heath said softly, a dangerous light in his eyes that Ann recalled very well. He had looked like that when her father had threatened to separate them, all those years ago.
“I can see that you’re savoring every second of it.”
“Tell me Annie,” he said tauntingly, “would you have called me up for a loan if you’d known I was flush?”
“Go to hell,” Ann said.
“Ah, that’s my girl. I don’t know what you’ve been doing while your brother was pissing away your company but it obviously hasn’t killed your spirit entirely.”
“So that’s why you’re here?” she said dully. “To witness my humiliation?”
“Partly.”
“Well, you’ve done so. Now you can go.”
“But I’m not finished yet. Don’t you want to hear my generous offer?”
“No.”
“I see. It’s okay with you if your dissolute brother remains behind bars? I can get him out, you know. I can get him out and hire the best lawyers to defend him. They’ll help him to plead reduced capacity because of his gambling addiction. He might not spend a minute more in jail.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ll get to that.”
“Tell me now.”
“All in good time. I can also save ScriptSoft, buy the majority interest and open up the cash flow to pump up the stock price. The ScriptSoft scandal would vanish from the papers, and the board of directors would get happy. They might even drop the charges against your brother, who knows? It’s possible the SEC could go easy on him if the company shows recovery, what do you think?”
“What do you want, Heath?” Ann said again, tightly, barely able to speak.
“I want you to marry me.”
Ann stood abruptly and tried to push past him. He grabbed her arm and held her in a viselike grip.
“Let me go.”
He didn’t move. “I can remember a time when my touch was not so repulsive to you,” he said silkily.
“I said, let me go, or I’ll scream for Caldwell,” Ann vowed, struggling silently as his fingers dug into her wrist.
“Do you think I would care?” he said. “After waiting all this time to see you in this position, do you think I would actually give a damn?”
Ann yanked hard and he released her abruptly at the same time so that she stumbled. He watched, refusing to aid her, as she grabbed a plant stand and righted herself. She paused breathlessly for several seconds before saying, “I don’t know what position you imagine I am in, Heath, but I’m certainly not desperate enough to marry you and fulfill your most elaborate revenge fantasies. I know you would love to make me dependent on you and force me to pay every day of my life for what you think I did to you.”
“What I know you did to me, Princess,” he said softly. “And regardless of my possible motives, do you have any choice but to accept my offer?”
“I always have a choice,” Ann said proudly.
“Really? Do you know what will happen to your brother if he remains in prison? As I recall, he looks a lot like you. The cons really love to get their hands on those blond and beautiful types. It’s their favorite kind of fresh meat.”
Ann looked sick.
“You were quite close to Tim when you were kids, weren’t you? I seem to remember that you were very fond of him.”
“Shut up,” she said.
“It’s a shame he was so weak, isn’t it? Maybe it was because your daddy gave him everything, including his company. When you have to earn every dime yourself, you’re not likely to throw it away at the gambling tables. Timmy got quite a reputation as an easy mark, did you know that?”
“And you just sat around waiting for this to happen, waiting to spring your trap, didn’t you?” Ann said bitterly.
“I certainly kept track of the situation.”
“How did you know I was here?”