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to stay firmly in the background. It was time to initiate phase two of his battle for her company. And this intense, consuming need for her couldn’t stand in the way of that.
    He wouldn’t let it.
    The elevator stopped on the fortieth floor and, satisfied he’d put this crazy attraction for her firmly in its place, he stepped into the plush inner sanctum of McBride Media. It was time to storm the castle.
    After braving the speculative looks of her assistant as she took his coat and escorted him down the hall, he smiled to himself while running the gauntlet toward Keira’s office. Gazes rose over laptops as the various occupants of the offices he passed glanced up at him, recognition hitting each face in turn. Within moments, he knew the grapevine would be humming that the enemy had breached the inner sanctum.
    She sat behind a sleek desk, the cherry wood fashioned into a table with uniquely angled legs that managed to give the piece a very contemporary yet classic look. Just like Keira. Other than a small stack of folders, a thin laptop, and a phone, the desk was neat. Elegant. Refined. Also just like Keira.
    She rose and moved toward him, her hand extended and her polite smile firmly planted. As their hands met, he didn’t miss the wariness that peeked through the dark brown of her eyes. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Cooper.”
    “Thank you for making the time.”
    She gave brief instructions to her assistant to bring in a coffee service before gesturing him to a chair opposite her desk. He didn’t miss the fact that she had a small meeting table across the room that she didn’t invite him to sit at. He admired the move and the business sense that went with it. A seat at that table would suggest they were equals. The two of them on opposite sides of her desk suggested she was in control.
    For now , he reassured himself.
    Only for now.
    Once settled in her chair, she folded her hands on the desktop and offered him a smile. It was bland and well-mannered, as if she could erase what had happened between them the night before if she simply shot enough politeness in his direction. “I have to admit, I’m surprised by your visit. I assumed the next steps would go through our lawyers.”
    “I wanted to see you again. Get a feel for the company. Talk to you about what you see as McBride’s strengths and weaknesses.”
    Keira waved her assistant in with the coffee and held her comments until the woman had again departed from the room after setting down two steaming mugs. “I can’t see how there would be any circumstance in which I’d give you information that would help you take over my company. In fact, I’m honestly surprised someone of your business experience would even suggest it.”
    “I’m going to take over the company and I’d like to build on what you’ve already created. I think we got off to a poor start. I have no intention of letting go of you or your sisters once the deal is finalized. I need good people at the top and the three of you are more than adept.”
    “Yes, we are.” She reached for her coffee, the same wary gaze she’d worn the evening before staring back at him.
    “And you don’t believe I know that?”
    “I don’t claim to know what you believe, Mr. Cooper.”
    He couldn’t say what it was about her expression that chafed, but he didn’t find the same satisfaction he’d felt in deals past when an opponent had stared at him with a cautious and distrustful gaze. That expression in Keira’s warm chocolate-brown eyes was almost…embarrassing? And it wasn’t because she was a woman, he told himself. He couldn’t care less who sat across from him in a business negotiation. It was the deal that mattered.
    Or it had always mattered. Before. So what was different now? And why did he see something else hovering in the depths of that mistrustful gaze?
    Like pity.
    Tamping down an unexpected tide of anger, Nathan reached for his mug, his movements deliberate.
    “I think