Page 43 of Hate to Crave You
Julianna
Here we are again,Julianna thought as she took the chair next to her father.
The Montrose team was already seated and ready to go. She glanced at Roman, but he was staring at a spot on the floor, pointedly ignoring her. Michael glanced her way, aloofness written all over his face.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Edgar Templeton said as he strode into the boardroom.
They were back at the same luxury hotel where they’d met several days earlier, in the same boardroom and it appeared even the same staff were available, offering coffee and croissants to anybody who might be hungry. Julianna accepted the offer of coffee but her nerves were strung too tight for her to eat anything.
She wished Roman would look at her.
She also sort of wished she’d not simply climbed into the cab after the elevator incident the other day. She wasn’t a fool. She’d known the instant she arrived at his place that he was angry. Hell, he was practically strumming with it. He’d brought her over to toy with her, to fuck her, and when he’d snarled about howfunit had been, she’d felt disappointment and yet she found she couldn’t exactly blame him for throwing her words back into her face.
And she missed him.
How could she miss somebody she’d only spoken with a handful of times?
She didn’t know, but it was the truth of it and that was a huge part of why nerves were dancing around inside her belly.
She missed the stupid jerk.
“Your coffee, ma’am.”
The voice from just behind her caught her off guard and she almost knocked the steaming brew out of the woman’s hand as she turned around. “Ah, sorry. My mind was wandering,” she said, forcing a smile. She glanced at the woman’s name tag. “My apologies, Sally.”
“Of course. No trouble.” Sally offered cream and sugar, then finished up her rounds of the room before discreetly exiting.
Once she was gone, Templeton rose from his seat at the head of the table.
“Let’s cut right to the chase.” He braced his hands on the surface of the dark, mahogany surface and looked from Julianna and her father over to Roman and Michael Montrose. “I’ve reviewed the bids and I’ll be blunt. They aren’t even close to the actual worth of the prototype and the mines.”
Julianna sensed her father’s surprise.
Because of where she was sitting, she could see the faint reaction Roman had before he hid it. She probably wouldn’t have noticed it before she’d spent time with him, but now, seeing the fine tightening around his eyes and mouth was as clear as night and day to her. His father’s face remained unreadable, but she had no doubt that Michael wasn’t pleased either.
“The practical aspects of the prototype you both had a chance to study…” Edgar spread his hands wide and shook his head. “Just from those alone, you stand to increase your company’s net worth exponentially. I won’t bother to ask if your teams ran the appropriate tests. I’m sure you did.”
His gaze slid to the Montrose side of the table.
Was it Julianna’s imagination or did his gaze linger on Roman overlong?
Then he was looking at her and her father briefly before continuing. “And I expect you put into consideration the value of the mines. When I estimate the worth of my company’s new tech and those mines…your two bidstogetheraren’t enough.” He shook his head, looking the faintest bit disgruntled.
“You do realize that the returns in mining are diminishing, don’t you, Edgar?” Michael said, waving a hand as if nothing Edgar had said meant much of anything. “The figures get smaller every single year.”
“Not that much smaller,” the other man said, shaking his head.
“My concern is more about the technology,” Charles said, lightly brushing Julianna’s hand when she would have spoken. “Tech has a way of catching up on a universal level. Others will make the same discovery your team has—it could be that my people are already on the trail.” His smile grew sly. “We were just a few months behind you on the software enhancements your people developed with ground-penetrating radar, you know. We werethisclose.”
“I’m well aware.” Edgar chuckled. “You’ve got some sharp people, Charles.” He glanced over at Michael and nodded. “You as well, Michael. Keep in mind, though. You both signed non-compete contracts that barred any sort of reverse engineering using what your team might have discovered while they had the prototype in their possession. It’s not that I don’t trust you boys. We go back a long, long time. Our friendship even predates this silly thirty-year squabble the two of you have going.” His smile went sly as he slanted a look directly at Charles. “As to tech catching up on a universal level, I think we’ve got a few years yet before anybody catches up. I’ve got a secret weapon, you might say.”
Julianna had no doubt as to what that secret weapon was.
Edgar’s youngest son was something of a savant—if she remembered right. William had graduated from college at the age of fifteen and had gone to work for his father immediately out of school. Some of his first developments had stunned gemologists who had been in the field for decades.
“Look, I’m not a hugely motivated seller at the moment,” Edgar continued. “I won’t sell for pennies when I know the value of what I have to offer.”
“We hardly offeredpennies,” Michael scoffed.
