Read When Tempting a Rogue for Free Online

frown grew as she realized the paper was from her own desk.
    It was the marker she gave Angelwood.
    “ How did you get this?” she demanded.
    “I won it,” he replied coolly. “Last night at cards. Don’t even think of tearing it up; it’s a binding contract.”
    She knew that, damn him to hell. “What do you intend to do with it?”
    “I had thought to collect.”
    “I don’t have that kind of money readily available—” Didn’t have it at all!
    “I don’t want money.”
    Vienne stiffened. So this is what it came to. Had the wonderful young man she had shared her bed with truly sunk so low? She thrust the paper at him. “What do you want?”
    He took it and refolded it, forcing her to wait as he slipped it into his inside breast pocket. “I want an additional two percent share in the emporium scheme.”
    She could have laughed, her initial relief was so great. “Is that all?”
    He nodded. “That is all.”
    “Fine. Come by the club later today. I’ll have the paperwork drawn up.”
    Trystan offered his hand. “Shall we shake on it, then?”
    She stared at his hand. It looked bigger than she remembered, but perhaps it was the gloves he wore. “Do you not trust my word, Lord Trystan?”
    “Just treating this as I would any other transaction, Madame La Rieux.” Meaning, she realized, that he was treating her just as he would any man. The thought pleased her— almost as much as it irritated her.
    She slipped her hand into his, gasping slightly as the strength of his long fingers closed around hers. “We have an accord,” she said. “Two percent in exchange for the marker.” Why hadn’t she thought to make Angelwood the same offer? Losing two percent still gave her the controlling share in the venture. She’d been very careful not to allow any one investor to buy in too deeply as to upset her control of the project. Even with the two percent gone, she still had a full fifty percent of her own.
    “Very good,” Trystan replied, releasing her hand. “I will come by at three. I have many ideas I would like to discuss with you for the venture. I would like to see your architect’s designs as well.”
    Vienne smiled at him, rather like she would smile at anyone who made such a request. “Of course you do, and I look forward to hearing them, but I cannot take the suggestions of one investor over all others, Lord Trystan. It wouldn’t be good business.”
    He met her gaze calmly, so calmly that it immediately set off warning bells in Vienne’s head. “But I’m not simply one investor, Vienne.”
    It was the first time he’d called her by her Christian name since his return to London. “Perhaps you should explain to me just what you believe your role to be,” she suggested. Surely he wasn’t about to throw their past in her face? “I don’t believe a what—twenty-two-percent share—guarantees you a say in design.”
    A ghost of a smile curved his lips, forming a cold knot between Vienne’s shoulder blades. “I have more than twenty-two percent interest in this scheme.”
    Vienne quickly redid the math in her head. She knew how much of an investment he’d bought. She’d seen the papers. “How much do you believe you own?”
    “With the two percent you just gave me? Half.”
    She laughed around the lump in her stomach. “Impossible! No one investor was sold such a large sum.”
    “No, they weren’t. You were very careful about that. I had to buy Jack Friday—Farrington’s—shares from him, and I had to buy the rest through various other concerns I own. The last bit came from Angelwood, and now you yourself. I have all the papers to back up my claim. Believe me when I tell you that I do indeed own a fifty-percent share in this scheme.”
    No. The blood rushed from Vienne’s head in one hot surge that left her dizzy and swaying on her feet. “Why?” Such a helpless lament, but she couldn’t seem to stop it from falling from her lips. Was it revenge? Why would he go to such