Eclipse Bay

hint that you were the bastard who engineered the Galloway takeover.”
    “That was a two-year-old business deal. It had nothing to do with us.”
    “It had everything to do with us, and you knew it. That’s why you lied to me.”
    In spite of the hopelessness of the situation, or perhaps because of it, he started to get mad. “It’s not my fault the Galloway deal never came up between us. You never asked me about it.”
    “Why would I do that?” Her voice rose. “How was I supposed to guess that you were involved in it?”
    “You didn’t work at Galloway. How was I supposed to guess that you had a connection to the company?” he countered.
    “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you understand? That takeover was as ruthless, as cold-blooded, as anything I’ve ever seen in business. The fact that you were the hired gun who tore that company apart tells me exactly what kind of scum you really are.”
    “Elizabeth—”
    “People got hurt in that takeover.” Her hand clenched very tightly around the strap of her elegant shoulder bag. “Badly hurt. I don’t do business with men like you.”
    Jack saw Hugo, the maître d’, hovering uneasily at a nearby table, obviously at a loss to decide how to quell the escalating scene. The waiter who had been on the way to the booth with ice water and bread halted, unmoving, a short distance away. Everyone in the dining room, was listening now, but Elizabeth was oblivious to her audience.
    Jack was morbidly fascinated himself, even though he was at ground zero. He would never have guessed that Elizabeth was capable of such drama. For the past month she had seemed so calm, so composed, so controlled.
    “I think you’d better cool down,” he said quietly.
    “Give me one good reason.”
    “I’ll give you two. Number one, we’ve got an audience. Number two, when you finally do cool off you are going to regret this scene a lot more than I will.”
    She smiled at him with such freezing disdain that he was amazed there were no icicles in her hair. She waved one hand in a wide arc that encompassed the entire dining room. He took that as a very bad sign.
    “I don’t give a damn about our audience,” she said in ringing accents that no doubt carried all the way into the kitchen. “The way I look at it, I’m doing everyone here a public service by telling them that you are a lying SOB. I won’t regret a single thing about this scene.”
    “You will when you finally remember that we’ve got a signed, sealed contract for the Excalibur deal. Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other.”
    She blinked once. He saw the jolt of shock in her eyes. In the heat of her outrage, she had apparently forgotten the contract they had both signed yesterday morning.
    She rallied swiftly “I’ll call the Fund’s lawyers as soon as I get back to the office. Consider our contract null and void as of today.”
    “Don’t bother trying to bluff. You can’t get out of our deal just because you’ve decided I’m an SOB. You signed that damned contract, and I’m going to hold you to it.”
    “We’ll see about that.”
    He shrugged. “If you want to tie both of us up in court for the next ten or twelve months, be my guest. But I’ll fight you all the way, and I’ll win in the end. We both know it.”
    She was trapped, and he was pretty sure that she was too smart not to recognize that simple fact.
    There was a tense moment while he watched her come to terms with the realization that he had won.
    Frustrated rage flared once more in her face.
    “You will pay for this, Jack Fairfax.” She reached out and swept the pitcher of ice water off the tray held by the motionless waiter. “Sooner or later, I swear you will pay for what you did.”
    She dashed the contents of the water pitcher straight at him. He did not even try to duck. The only escape route was under the table, and somehow that option seemed more ignominious than staying in his seat.
    The icy water splashing in his face ignited the temper that he had been struggling to control. He looked at Elizabeth. She was staring at him, the first signs of shock and horror lighting her eyes. He knew that it was just beginning to dawn on her that she had made an almighty fool of herself.
    “This isn’t about the Galloway deal, is it?” he said softly. “This is about last night.”
    Clutching her purse, she took a step back as if he had struck her. “Don’t you dare bring up last night. This is not about last night, damn