Her Indecent Proposal (The BAD BOY BILLIONAIRES Collection) by Judy Angelo

desk,
he folded his arms across his chest and scowled at her.
    “My business, dear Sloane,” she said, her voice suspiciously sweet,
“is not so much with you as with your wife.”
    Sloane’s jaw almost dropped.  He caught himself just in time.  “My
wife?  You don’t even know her.”
    “Oh, but I do.”  Zena came farther into the office, her movements as
seductive as a cat, as she came to stand just a few feet away from Sloane.  “Everybody
knows Melanie Parker of Parker Broadcasting, heiress to a billion-dollar
empire.”
    Sloane looked at her askance.  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means, my dear sweet Sloane, that I have you by the you know
what.”  She was even closer now, so close that Sloane could see a fleck of gold
in her eyes.  “You hurt me.  You walked out on me when I needed you most, and I
never forgot that.”
    “I walked out on you?”  Sloane stared back at her, incredulous. 
“You were the one who defiled our relationship by cheating.”  The woman was
obviously deranged, living in a totally warped reality. 
    “You could have forgiven me,” she said, her voice rising with her
anger.  “I was searching, trying to find myself.  That was all it was.  He
meant nothing to me, but you did.”
    “Yeah, right.”  He regarded her with disgust.  “Not even a fool
without a brain would believe that.”
    “Well, it’s true.”  Her nostrils flared and her chest rose and fell
with her agitated breathing.  “I had to talk to you, to explain, but you
refused all my calls.  You even had me thrown out of your office building. 
Well, after that, I was left with no other option but to hate you.  It was
either that or go mad.”
    Sloane stared at her in disbelief.  “You left and went to Europe,
Zena. You started a new life, a damn successful one at that.  Are you telling
me that you’ve held on to your hatred of me all these years?”
    “Yes,” she spat, “and all these years I’ve wanted to find a way to
get my revenge.  Touching you would be too easy.  Now you have someone in your
life who you loved enough to marry.  She’s my target.”
    At her words a flash of panic went through him but, just as fast, it
turned to anger.  Fingers itching to reach out and grab her, he clenched his
hands at his sides.  “You are literally mad,” he said through gritted teeth. 
“You’ve been bearing a grudge for ten years for something you did, not me.  I
asked you to marry me, you fool.”
    “Yes, and then you dumped me.”
    “For good reason.”
    “For something we could have worked out.”
    Sloane raised his eyebrows at that and then he shook his head.  He’d
been one hundred percent right. The woman was off her rocker.  How could she
have stayed silent all these years, living a grand life as a movie star in
Europe, and then, as soon as he got married…
    And then it dawned on him.  That was what had triggered this.  She
must have seen the announcement of the engagement and then the photos of the
wedding.  The paparazzi were everywhere.  The tabloids had had a field day with
both stories.  He wasn’t surprised at all that she’d found out.
    The media attention on him must have brought the old grudge to the
fore and so she’d come back to torture him.  And he wasn’t going to believe
that cock-and-bull story about shooting a scene in Montreal.  Too much of a
coincidence.  No, she’d orchestrated the whole thing so that she could come
back and create havoc in his life.
    “If you so much as harm one hair on-”
    “Too late, honey,” Zena smirked.  “The deed is already done.”
    “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”  Sloane’s hands shot out. 
He grasped Zena by the upper arms and dragged her to within inches of his
face.  He wasn’t in the habit of manhandling women but this was not the time
for self control.  “What have you done to Melanie?”
    Zena did not seem the least bit perturbed.  In fact, she curved
toward