CEO's Marriage Seduction / His Style of Seduction. Anna DePalo
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She’d called ahead to the restaurant so the staff could advise Carter when he arrived that she would be a little late.
Now, she found Carter exactly where she expected him. He was already seated, enjoying a glass of red wine and perusing the menu.
His face brightened when he spotted her. “Eva! Glad you’re here.”
He wouldn’t be glad for long, Eva thought.
She stopped when she reached his table, not bothering to take a seat.
Carter rose, and Eva watched the gesture cynically.
When she’d first met Carter, she’d been taken by his gentlemanly manners, but now she saw them as just another piece of artifice in his carefully constructed facade.
Her gaze moved over him.
He was wearing an off-white linen blazer over an open-collar light blue shirt that accentuated the paleness of his eyes. His dirty-blond hair was artfully mussed.
His appearance struck her now as too perfect, and Eva called herself a fool for the thousandth time in the last twenty-four hours.
She thought about Carter’s willingness to have kids right away, and wondered now whether his enthusiasm had been feigned. On the other hand, kids would have solidified his claim on her money.
Even Carter’s push for a big wedding appeared suspect in retrospect. A large wedding would have been a major networking opportunity for him since the cream of San Francisco society would have been in attendance.
Carter reached to pull out her chair, but she continued to stand where she was.
Belatedly, Carter took in her expression and frowned.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Tell me one thing,” she said bluntly. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Are you seeing another woman?”
Carter’s expression momentarily registered shock, and then went blank.
Oh, he was good, she thought.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he responded carefully, and then his face softened. “Eva, I’m engaged to you.”
He reached for her, but she sidestepped him. She’d been expecting delay and obfuscation.
She pulled the photos from the outer pocket of her purse and tossed them on the table. She watched as he scanned them.
Carter’s face first showed puzzlement, then shock and, finally, a subtle tightening of the muscles.
When Carter looked up at her, however, she realized he still wasn’t willing to give up the game. His expression was arranged in lines that were relaxed and reassuring.
“Eva, I can explain—”
“There’s more,” she said, cutting him off.
After Griffin had left her apartment yesterday, she’d retrieved the photos he’d left behind. She’d spread them out on her coffee table and stared at them until her mind was numb. They’d been incriminating enough—showing Carter dallying with a busty brunette—that she’d wondered what Griffin wasn’t letting her see. A videotape, perhaps?
Now, her eyes bore into Carter’s, and after several moments, she watched as his shoulders lowered.
“Who gave you these?” he demanded.
“Does it matter?” she retorted.
She knew she sounded just like Griffin had yesterday—dismissing the importance of the photos’ origin—but she didn’t care.
“Your father,” Carter guessed.
“Griffin Slater,” she shot back.
She took some satisfaction in contradicting him. Technically it had been Griffin who had handed her the photos.
Carter’s brows snapped together. “The guy I met at a gathering at your parents’ estate a few months ago? The CEO of Tremont REH?”
She nodded.
“Acting at your father’s request, I’ll bet,” Carter guessed again.
She said nothing, but her hands fisted at her sides.
After a moment, Carter’s lips quirked up in dry amusement. “Your father always hated me,” he said almost ruefully. “He had it in for me from the beginning,”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
Carter’s expression cooled. “What do you want me to say, Eva?”
“You were taking me for a ride! You lied to me—cheated on me!” she flung at him. “Were you planning to carry on with her right through the wedding and honeymoon?”
Carter glanced around them. “Eva, you’re creating a scene.”
“I don’t give a damn!”
“This isn’t the place to be having this discussion.”
“I can’t think of a better one, actually,” she retorted before coming to the point. “Why were you marrying me, Carter?”
He didn’t respond for a moment. Then his eyes took on a calculated edge. “What about your motives for marrying me? A baby.”
“I was up-front about my reproductive issues, Carter,” she snapped. “It hardly amounts to a betrayal of trust.”
She’d thought she’d been marrying Carter for all the right reasons. She hadn’t just wanted a baby. Had she?
“And that was some ride you were taking me on where Griffin Slater was concerned.”
“What?”
Carter raised his eyebrows. “Don’t ask me to believe there’s nothing between you and Mr. CEO. A guy doesn’t step up to the plate with evidence like this without a damned good reason. I saw the way he watched you at your parents’ party.”
Her eyes widened.
Unbelievable. Carter was turning the tables on her, making it seem as if she was the one who had to defend herself.
“Even if Griffin Slater was a hired gun,” Carter continued, “he could have just forked over the incriminating evidence to your father instead of going to console the devastated heiress himself.”
Carter’s tone was mocking, and her father’s words reverberated through her mind.
Heiress hunter.
She suddenly saw that Carter was like a penny dipped in acid. Fool’s gold.
And then she did the one thing guaranteed to dull the penny.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say devastated is the right word.” She grabbed the wineglass that had already been poured for her and tossed its contents in Carter’s face. “Mad as hell is more like it.”
Carter’s face turned red as he looked down at himself, his formerly pristine attire now splattered with wine. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“Getting even,” she replied with some satisfaction, though she knew it was a far cry from what he’d done to her.
She turned on her heel and marched out, ignoring the stares of the other diners and the waitstaff.
She could practically hear the eggs in her ovaries aging with every step.
She’d been wrong, she realized. Work wasn’t Carter’s mistress. But something—or more accurately, someone—else was, she thought bitterly.
How could she not have seen Carter for what he was? Had her desperation