Billionaire Boss, M.d.

Two

Lili’s heart plummeted as the world emptied of everything but this overwhelming entity who had her in his crosshairs.

Before she obeyed the flight mechanisms that screamed for her to run, tossing a “Don’t bother firing me, I quit” over her shoulder, Antonio Balducci started talking, pinning her down even more.

“As my reconstructive surgeries do incorporate an aesthetic element, I do invest in the development and manufacture of all aesthetic disciplines and products.”

His voice. That perfectly modulated melody of cultured lethality. A glacial sound of hair-raising beauty. Pouring all over her like a freezing/searing deluge.

Oh, crap. She hadn’t thought this through. Hadn’t thought at all. That bitter outburst had just...well, burst out of her. What if he got verbally combative?

She’d flay him right back, that was what. Before she ran.

But before she snatched the next breath, still transfixing her with that impossibly blue stare, he went on, serene and far more menacing because of it, “As you’ll see from the info I provided, only twenty percent of my operations focus on the ‘popular, feel-good, cash-cow’ side of my specialty.”

Whoa. He was quoting what she’d said. When she’d thought he’d only realized she’d been talking—and criticizing him openly—just before her tirade ended.

But he hadn’t only heard her, he’d memorized what she’d said. He’d even sounded like her when he’d quoted her. She had a feeling he could recite everything she’d said word for word. Which shouldn’t surprise her. It only substantiated her theory of him being some sort of post–human being.

His eyes bored into her, making her feel he’d drilled a hole into her skull and was probing her brain. “The remaining eighty percent of my operations revolve around the more relevant sides of my field of interest, and those of others. Problem is those don’t generate media coverage or capture the market’s imagination. This is just the state of the world. I didn’t invent it.”

“No, you just exploit it.”

At her volley, he tilted his head, as if plunging deeper into her mind. Then those chiseled lips twitched and her stuttering heart burst into a stumbling gallop.

“The pursuit of luxury products tends to trump necessary ones and ‘cash cows’ are such for a reason. Alas, human beings will be human beings. I assure you, I have no role in their condition. So what would you have me do? Not provide them with what they wish for? Judge their foibles and let someone else reap the benefits of catering to them? Benefits I eventually put to uses you might deem to approve of?”

Was he teasing her? Nah. He couldn’t be.

“And aesthetic concerns are not frivolous luxuries. No matter how you view them, they do greatly affect people’s psychological and mental health. I don’t morally grade what people need or consider worth paying for. Who’s to say that products that reverse the signs of aging aren’t as important to a substantial percentage of people as depression treatment? And would you view me and my business any kinder if you knew I also research the latter? And am involved in actual aging reversal research, too?”

Okay, he was teasing her. Poking fun at her, more like, making her criticism sound misinformed and holier-than-thou, or at the very least naive. And seeming to draw appreciation from everyone in the room while at it, adding to the unhealthy awe he’d already garnered.

He only made her feel like a hedgehog with its bristles standing on end. Mostly because she found her own lips twitching, too.

So, the man had a sense of humor. Had he come complete with it, or had he had it grafted as another weapon in his overflowing arsenal? Or did he realize the benefits of manipulating lesser beings with the illusion of ease and indulgence, and had a subroutine written into his program that he could activate at will?

“Among the commendable-by-your-standards investments I can afford to make with the profits of not-so-commendable ones, there are ones in my own field. Restoring functionality, for instance. Thanks to the money-generating machines, I can invest heavily into integrated prosthetics, microsurgery appliances and research, scar prevention and treatment, and lately, muscle and nerve tissue regeneration. That endeavor will be the main focus of this facility in our collaboration. I’m not even putting a limit to the budget for this one. Whatever it takes to reach a breakthrough, I’ll provide the resources.”

Then just as he’d given her his undiluted attention, he took it away, making her feel as if he’d taken the chair and the ground beneath it right out from under her.

Before she realized she had a response to his rebuttal, she found herself sitting up, her pose confrontational, her tone even more challenging. “Well, it’s all quite laudable, I’m sure, that—while not advancing basic science as only someone of your clout and resources can—you invest in advancing your field. But ‘this facility’ already has its own array of ‘commendable’ projects under way, and it would be a loss that can’t be measured in money if we shelved them to head in the direction where you point us. Just because you acquired our services doesn’t mean you can cancel all our efforts, or should dictate which breakthrough is worth benefiting from our expertise backed by your unlimited funds and clout.”

This time everyone in the room turned to stab her on the pointy edge of their disapproval. The canny man had already won them over to his side, promising them shiny new projects, not to mention endless means to frolic in the land of scientific possibilities to their hearts’ content.

This time, Balducci didn’t give her the courtesy of a response. His argument had been designed to win her over, or at least chastise her. From her renewed attack he must have decided further response wouldn’t make a difference. As the epitome of pragmatism someone of his success must be, he’d decided she wasn’t worth the extra effort. He wouldn’t waste more time on a dissenting cog now that he was certain he had the rest of the machine wagging its components awaiting his directives.

Turning his attention to the rest, he directed everyone to read the folder carefully. Everyone’s roles and projects for the next year were spelled out to the last detail. Tomorrow would be the first working day under the new management, and he would be available at the provided email or phone number for any questions, concerns or minor adjustments. Any major suggestions would be discussed in the next general meeting. He closed by thanking everyone in such a way as to have them swooning all over again before he dismissed the assembly.

Everyone rose to shuffle around him, waiting their turn to catch his eye or shake his hand. Lili cursed them for the limpets they’d turned into, and cursed him for turning them into such. Still, she was thankful for the milling crowd that gave her the cover under which to escape. Snatching her bag up, leaving the folder behind, she rose. Head down, giving him the widest berth she could, she made a beeline for the door. To her dismay, he was making short work of everyone, and those he’d dismissed were already squeezing out of the room, hindering her escape. She barely curbed the urge to push through them and forced herself to take her turn walking out. Still she bristled at the censure and pity in their oblique gazes, but mostly at his disconcerting vibe at her back.

In minutes, she burst out into LA’s summer afternoon. She usually hated the transition from the beloved seclusion of her lab and the building’s controlled climate to the hot, humid bustle of the sprawling city. But now she was relieved to be out of what had become a place she’d hate to set foot in again. The place that was now Antonio Balducci’s.

She’d reached her Mazda in the parking lot when she felt as if an arrow had lodged between her shoulder blades.

It was his voice. Calling her.

What the hell!

Though her hand froze in midair with the remote, her thoughts streaked ahead. Did she dread him so much, like a kid dreads the headmaster singling her out, that she was imagining it? Even if he had called her, he must be here only to get his car, too.

In the next millisecond her analytical mind negated that theory. Antonio Balducci wouldn’t use public parking. He wouldn’t have driven himself here in the first place. One of those people who followed in his wake like efficient phantoms must be his chauffeur. He couldn’t have just stumbled on her. Which meant he must have pursued her specifically, and very quickly. Which made even less sense than any other theory.

As her mind burned rubber, his voice carried to her on the warm, moist breeze again, the very sound of forbearance.

“Dr. Accardi, I’d appreciate a word.”

She swung around, her face scrunching against the declining sun in a scowl. “What for?”

She groaned at how petulant and aggressive she sounded. But this guy tripped all her wires. Watching him approach her like a sleek panther sent them haywire. He was so big he made the parking lot claustrophobic, so unhurried he made her feel cornered, so unearthly gorgeous he made her every nerve ache.

When he stopped two feet away, he siphoned the air from the world. Harsh sunlight struck deepest blue and indigo off his raven hair—which she realized had a smattering of silver at the temples—and threw his every feature in sharp relief, intensifying his beauty. She was sure she looked horrible in such unforgiving lighting, but Dr. Paragon here? He was even more perfect at such total exposure.

As the word exposure dragged her mind places it didn’t want to go, she yanked it back and squinted way up at him even from her five-foot-eight height. She mentally kicked herself for not having her sunglasses as a barrier to hide behind, as protection against his all-seeing gaze. But since she always went home long after sundown, frequently not at all, she rarely packed them. As if they would have been an extra burden in her mobile home of a tote bag. But that was what she was—always ready for all possibilities in her work, and the personification of unpreparedness in her personal life. Which she now was in such a close encounter with the monolith before her.

Just as she thought he’d stare down at her until he melted her at his feet, he raised his hand, making her notice the folder he’d been holding all the time.

“I brought you this,” he said. “You must have forgotten it.”

He followed her to give her the folder she’d left behind?

Her mind raced to decipher him and his actions as her senses crackled with his nearness. When she spoke, she sounded exasperated, even if she was more so with herself. “No, I haven’t forgotten it.”

“So you left it on purpose.”

“Apart from omission or commission, are there any other reasons I could have left it behind?”

One corner of his lips lifted in acknowledgment of her chastising logic, intensifying his already staggering effect. She hated to think how he’d look outright smiling or laughing.

“My apologies for the redundant comment. Will asking about the reason you did leave it meet with the same exasperation?”

She exhaled, trying to find the civil, easygoing person inside her who was generally in the driver’s seat...and failing. “From what I read about you, and from the evidence of your achievements and power, you possess an unchartable IQ. I’m sure you need none of it to work out the reason I did.”

“Indeed. Your motivation is quite clear. It was a material rejection to underscore your verbal one. I had just hoped it was a simple oversight on your part.”

“And since you now know it wasn’t, if this will be all...”

His forward movement cut off her backward one, along with her air supply again. “Actually, it won’t be all. Bringing you the folder was incidental to the main reason I sought you out.” He employed another of those pauses he used like weapons, making her bate whatever breath was left in her lungs. “I’d like to further discuss your objections to my policies.”

She gaped up at him. That was the last thing she would have thought he’d say, or want. Not that she could actually think with him so near. She could only react.

Not finding any appropriate reaction, the first thing that surfaced in her mind was another accusation. “You said you didn’t want to hold us up.”

He gave a conceding tilt of his head that made his hair rearrange itself into another pattern of perfection. She could swear she heard the silk swish and sigh.

“I did make it clear I meant those who have a nine-to-five schedule. You’re not one of those. In fact, you’re the only one who almost makes this place your home.”

She stared into his spellbinding eyes as he stared back with the same intentness.

How did he know that?

How? Because the man had a level of intelligence and efficiency she’d never before encountered. It stood to reason he’d researched the staff before he’d acquired them. Though she’d thought they’d be too insignificant for him individually, she had to revise that opinion. To reach his level of success he couldn’t be a detached leader who left details to others. He had to be hands-on. Nothing and no one was too trivial or below his notice.

She wouldn’t be surprised if he had invasive info on everyone who held or would hold any position in his businesses...and had memorized it, too. Thinking that disconcerted her on a primal level. Even if there wasn’t much about her to know, just that he did know it put her at an even bigger disadvantage, if that was even possible.

“Nothing to go back home to?”

His quiet question surprised an unfiltered answer from her. “There never really was.”

Her dismay deepened at the contemplative cast that came over his gaze. She’d exposed herself even more, and she held him accountable for it, him with his damned hypnotic power.

But her consternation was swept away by the surge of memories. Memories of growing up with only her mother, who moved her around so much following her medical career she’d never stayed long enough in one place to form real friendships. Only when Lili had entered medical school herself had her mother finally settled in LA, just before she fell prey to early-onset Alzheimer’s. Lili had gone back to live with her, before being forced to put her in a home for four years before her death a year ago. Her mother’s house remained a place to crash when she wasn’t working. Being a workaholic was what saved her from feeling lonely. It was the only other thing she’d inherited from her mother. Hopefully. Home had always been wherever she worked. This lab had been her home for the past three years. Her haven. Until he happened.

“There you go again.”

“There I go what again?”

His lips spread wider. The ground beneath her tilted. “Using me as target practice for your poison-laced glances.”

Choking on the heart that his smile yanked into her throat, she shrugged. “They’re just dipped in heavy tranquilizers. Or loaded with fifty thousand volts.”

At that, he did something she’d dreaded in theory, but had thought would never come to pass in reality. Not in her presence.

He threw his head back and laughed.

And his laughter was...horrible. It did terrible things to her insides, had her hormones rushing in torrents in her system.

Great. Just great. Just when she discovered she had those kinds of hormones after all, they had to be activated by him of all men. And in broad daylight. When he was laughing his magnificent head off at her, no less.

To make things worse, one big, elegant hand rose to wipe his left cheek. He’d laughed so hard, it had wrung a tear from his eye. Fantastic.

But what was really worth marveling at was how moisture smeared his hewn flesh. Her thoughts caught fire imagining him drenched in exertion, during or after he’d—

Shaking away the sensual images only lodged them deeper into her brain. Her tongue tingled with until-now unknown urges—the sudden longing to drag him down to her, so she could trace that cheekbone, taste his virility. Only his hand combing back the hair that had fallen over his forehead distracted her from those idiotic impulses. The hand of the virtuoso surgeon he was, powerful, graceful, skillful...in every possible way, no doubt—

For God’s sake, stop. Stop noticing his every detail and getting arrhythmia over each one!

But in the absence of others, she had no buffer against his sheer charisma and sensual power—both of which she was certain he didn’t even mean to exercise on her. A man like him must have them on all the time on auto. She’d never even thought men like him existed outside of legends and fairy tales.

After she’d become a jumbled mess, he sobered, the wattage of his smile dazzling her.

“So you don’t want me dead, just incapacitated.”

She fidgeted, her tote getting heavier by the second. “Ideally, long enough to remove you from my path. I want you gone from my world, not the one at large.”

“That’s big of you.”

Nerves jangling at the outright teasing she could no longer mistake, she sighed. “When it doesn’t come to my lab—yours now—I do recognize that, even if it’s to your humongous advantage, you are a formidable force for good.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Considering your views of me back there it’s unexpected to hear you admit that.”

“I’m a surprise a second. To myself most of all today. I sure didn’t mean to say any of the things I said back there.”

“So you didn’t mean them?”

“I said I didn’t mean to say them.”

“So you did mean them.”

“Can’t mean anything more, in the context of my own concerns.” She shot him a defiant glance, this man who’d detained her because he could do anything he wanted and have the world bend over backward to accommodate him. “You’re sadly misguided if you think you’ll get an apology or a retraction.”

“You’ve given me both when you deigned to recognize my worth to the world.”

“Still doesn’t change the fact that I wish I had the power to make you disappear.”

He shook his head, his grin widening, wreaking more havoc with her already compromised nerves.

“What do you find so funny now?” she mumbled sullenly.

“Not funny, delightful. You’re definitely not the first person to wish to eliminate me, but you’re the first to tell me so to my face.”

“Hey, watch your terminology. You go around using words like poison-laced and eliminate, and if something ever befalls you, I’m a prime suspect. I only wish to be rid of your disruption. All I want is to go back to work tomorrow to the news that you’ve withdrawn your bid and let us be.”

“And if a way presented itself for you to make this happen?”

“I wouldn’t hesitate.”

He gave another chuckle. “It doesn’t seem you were handed discretion at the cosmic assembly line. Are you this blunt with everyone?”

Noticing the watchfulness that entered his gaze at this question, getting the feeling that he somehow didn’t relish the idea, she shrugged a shoulder. “Not since I was a kid. Or at least I thought so, until just before you arrived and Brian told me I’m transparent. I thought it was only my expressions that everyone could read, that I wasn’t as incontinent verbally, then you started your hypnotic session and I felt my colleagues being assimilated into your hive mind, and I...well, any tact I thought I cultivated evaporated.”

“You don’t like this about yourself.” It was a statement, not a question. “You should. In fact, you should continue being as outspoken about the grievance you have with me. I have a feeling it goes beyond objecting to the change in course I’m proposing.”

She almost snorted. “Proposing? You mean dictating. And you think that’s not enough for me to consider you and your takeover the worst thing that could happen to this place?”

“I didn’t get the impression anyone else shared that unfavorable opinion.”

This time, she did snort. “Of course, you didn’t. You must be surprised there was even one dissenting voice.” Her blood frothed again at how her colleagues had succumbed to him without even a fight. “You know very well the effect you have on people.”

“I only noticed the inflammatory one I had on you.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m the mad scientist type.”

“Aren’t you all supposed to be that?”

She exhaled. “I thought so. But the promise of open-ended coddling proved irresistible to my colleagues.”

“But not to you.”

Her shoulders hunched with futility. “Yeah.”

The blue of his eyes seemed to intensify. “Why? What makes you so resistant? Why is the promise of everything you’ve ever dreamed of at your fingertips not as alluring to you?”

“I told you why in agonizing detail and you already know I hate redundancy. Especially after you took such pleasure in deconstructing my argument and having the last word.”

“I don’t remember I had the last word.”

“You didn’t bother to have it. You just ignored mine.”

“I chose not to engage you again in front of everyone, decided to do so in private. As I am doing now.”

“You shouldn’t have. I have nothing more to say.”

“So do you only take exception to leaving your own project behind?”

“I take exception to being forced to.”

“Your results won’t evaporate if you shelve them for a while.”

“I see no reason to while I’m making progress.”

“There are many reasons, scientific and financial. You’ll also gain expertise working on my projects, your own work would eventually benefit.”

“If you think I need expertise you shouldn’t want me working on your projects.”

“I meant added expertise. I wouldn’t have paid all that money if I thought you were anything but the best.”

She waved his placating response away. “You didn’t pay anything for me. That hundred million—”

“Two hundred million. Half of which is funding for phase one of all the projects I have planned for you.”

She forced her open mouth closed. “What’s a hundred million dollars more, huh? But whatever you paid was for our collective services and obedience, probably for the rest of our lives. Now that you’ve found one troublemaking apple in your bushel, you can always toss it out.”

“I have no intention of tossing you out.”

“Well, I intend to jump out of the cart myself.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re contemplating quitting?”

“I’m done contemplating.”

His expression went blank. But though there was nothing to read in it anymore, she felt she was getting the first real glimpse of what he hid beneath the polished exterior of the genius surgeon and suave businessman. Something lurked below his placid surface, something more sharp-edged than his state-of-the-art scalpels. Someone utterly ruthless. No, more. Someone lethal.

Which was stupid. Whatever else he was, this man was a healer. He didn’t end lives, he saved them. All these feverish thoughts must be the sun frying her brain. Or was it such intense and close exposure to him?