- -
- 100%
- +
Ramirez Enterprises was housed in a sleek glass-and-steel building in Madrid’s financial district. The ride took over an hour in the thick traffic congesting the city’s heart. The limo crawled like a beetle, inching forward until an opening appeared, then shooting between narrow gaps that had Rebecca cringing each time, expecting the scrape of steel on steel. By the time the car pulled into the drive in front of the building and a doorman appeared, Rebecca was exhausted.
When Alejandro exited the car, Rebecca on his heels, a cadre of men and women with cameras rushed forward. Flashes snapped, and Rebecca instinctively pasted on her public persona. Growing up with a wealthy father and a social butterfly mother had at least given her unfailing poise when the media appeared. It didn’t happen to her much anymore, but of course Alejandro was a famous man in his own country. They’d been photographed often when she was last here. In fact, he’d gotten more attention than a pop star. She’d have thought it would have lessened now that he’d been away from bullfighting for so long, but apparently not.
“Señor Ramirez,” the reporters called in unison. “Señor Ramirez.”
Alejandro stopped, smiling broadly. He said a few words in Spanish, which caused several of the reporters to laugh.
“Can you tell us about the accusations of impropriety with construction permits in Dubai?” a man said in German-accented English.
“We are working with the Dubai authorities to get to the bottom of the matter,” Alejandro said smoothly. “I expect to begin construction very soon.”
“You’ve been accused of bribing officials and short-circuiting the process. How do you answer that charge?”
His smile never wavered. “I deny it, of course. If you will excuse me, my business awaits. Miss Layton?” he said, turning to where she stood near the car.
“Rebecca Layton?” someone said. “Of Layton International?”
Alejandro faced the cameras again. “I have recently acquired Layton International, as you will have seen if you read the business section. Miss Layton is here to ensure the smooth transfer of her former company’s holdings.”
Former company. Rebecca’s smile ached at the corners.
“How do you feel about the takeover, Miss Layton?”
Alejandro’s smile didn’t waver, but he shot her a warning glance. To hell with him.
Rebecca stepped forward. “I’m not happy about it, you may be assured. Layton International has been in the luxury hotel business for over a half century. We had hoped to continue, and were pursuing projects guaranteed to bring the Layton brand of luxury to new markets. This takeover is not the outcome we’d hoped for.”
The reporters buzzed. One question rose above the others. “Do you suspect any impropriety in the acquisition process?”
Rebecca clasped her hands together in front of her. She knew it made her look innocent and somewhat vulnerable. “No—that’s not possible, is it? The laws of our nations are very specific in regards to company stock and corporate mergers. Though Señor Ramirez might have wished to act immorally, I’m sure he did not do so.”
The questions rose to a fever-pitch. Rebecca strained to hear a single one over the din, but Alejandro appeared at her side, his hand on her elbow.
“That’s all for now,” he said, ushering her toward the sleek glass doors of the building.
She resisted the urge to smile when the doors closed behind them, leaving them in the quiet of a polished lobby. A pretty receptionist greeted them warmly. Alejandro nodded his head to the young woman and propelled Rebecca toward an elevator. Her shoes clicked across black marble inlaid with shiny gold squares. She briefly wondered if they were real gold—if Alejandro would dare to display his wealth so garishly. A uniformed man greeted them as they passed inside a private elevator, then pressed a button and exited, leaving them alone as the gleaming doors slid closed.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Rebecca leaned back against the brass rail and tried not to look like the cat that ate the canary. “What do you mean? I told them you did everything legally.” Legally, but not morally. She had no doubt he’d understood what she’d said out there.
His gray eyes flashed. “You know very well you are jeopardizing our stock value with comments such as those.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover from the dip.”
“Yes, but will I need to shed a few assets to keep earnings on projection?”
Her heart thumped at the threat, but she remained coolly unaffected on the outside. “Did you pay bribes in Dubai?”
“Do you think I would admit it to you if I had?”
She spoke before she could talk herself out of it. “You’ve grown fast over the years. I’ve wondered how you did it, but perhaps the secret to your success has little to do with business acumen and everything to do with your willingness to play dirty.”
His gaze sharpened. “You’d like to think so, no doubt. But I assure you everything I’ve gained has been earned through hard work. Unlike yourself, no?”
His reaction was not as harsh as she’d expected, but it sliced deep. It was a charge that stung, but not one she could deny. At least not in any way he would understand. She’d had to work hard to prove herself to her father, to prove that a daughter would be every bit as good as a son when it came to captaining the family business. Harder than anyone would ever know.
She would not, however, share those struggles with Alejandro—or indeed with anyone. The memories of what she’d endured were too painful.
His look was telling. “How it must anger you to know your fate is in my hands. Perhaps you should be nicer to me? Encourage me to be gracious? How is it you say in America? That you must use honey to get the flies, not vinegar?”
She stiffened. “Don’t you dare insult me by pretending I have a chance. You’ve already made up your mind, so why not just tell me what you want and be done with it? It’s clear you have a plan, regardless of what I say or do. Save us both the hassle.”
His gray gaze bored into hers. “What makes you think this is a—what was the word?—hassle for me?”
She speared her hair away from her face, having left the clip on the breakfast table. “I mean that since you already know what you want from me, let’s just get right to it and skip this other stuff.”
She sounded brave, though she was anything but. He could fire her here and now, put her on a plane and send her back to New York with nothing more than a bad case of jet lag and a rapidly dwindling bank account. She probably shouldn’t have baited him with her statement to the reporters, but she was tired of being at his mercy. She wanted this nightmare over, wanted her company back and her life free of this man.
“Get right to it?” he said softly. “Skip the foreplay? Sometimes this is a good idea.”
Rebecca’s breath caught at the sensual undertone of his voice. Was she imagining the heat in his gaze? The elevator seemed suddenly too small to contain the two of them.
“But not always,” he said, his voice caressing the words. “You may plead your case in front of my board.”
“They will vote as you want. What’s the point?” she said, her voice far huskier than she would have liked.
“Maybe.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out his PDA, frowning at the screen. The sexual tension emanating from him died as if he’d flipped a switch. He clicked the wheel, scrolling through the information there, shutting her out.
Rebecca gripped the railing, stunned both at the immediacy of her reaction and at his ability to turn off his own response. Because he had wanted her. She’d seen it. Hadn’t she? Or was this simply another part of his game?
Unbidden, images of him flashed into her head. The jagged scar of a bull’s horn slicing across his rib cage, the taut ripple and glide of muscle when he moved, the impressive jut of his erection. The ecstasy on his face when she straddled him and drove them both out of their minds with her slow thrusts.
He’d accused her of enduring his touch for the sake of her family business, of seeing him as nothing more than a bullfighter dirty from the ring. If only he believed that she’d truly loved him, how sexy she’d found him in spite of the barbarity of his former profession.
Standing in this elevator in his custom-fit suit, he was as far from the glittering garb of a matador as any man could be—and yet she still saw the bullfighter beneath the polish. The raw, hungry, intense man who could stand in a ring with one ton of angry bull barreling toward him and never, not even once, flinch. This was a man who could stare death in the face and not blink.
After their affair had ended, she’d actually gone through a torturous phase of tracking down and watching his recorded fights. Holding her breath while the bull charged, while the cape swept down, then whirled away as Alejandro went up high on his toes and plunged his sword home. She’d thought it barbaric, and yet Alejandro had once explained, when she’d been tracing his scar in the aftermath of their lovemaking, how honorable the fight was for both man and bull. It wasn’t her kind of thing—and yet there was a beauty in it.
A beauty in him.
She closed her eyes, remembered the heat of him, of the two of them twined together in his sheets. It had all gone so wrong, so horribly wrong. And she wasn’t the same person she’d been back then—the same starry-eyed girl with dreams of love and a life with the most magnetic man she’d ever met. The world had certainly taught her the folly of those beliefs, hadn’t it?
The elevator glided to a halt, the doors whispering open to let them into a spacious private office. Overstuffed chairs and a sleek sofa sat beneath a wall of books. A chrome and glass desk was positioned in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that ran the length of one wall. Alejandro went behind the desk and sat down without looking at her.
In the distance, the twin glass and steel structures of the Puerta de Europa leaned toward each other across the busy Paseo de Castellana. Much closer, the giant Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, where Madrilenians flocked to watch their soccer team, squatted against a bright blue sky.
“The board meeting will be in an hour. I suggest you prepare.” He picked up the phone and spoke to someone. A second later, a pretty woman opened the door.
“Please escort Señorita Layton to a desk, Maria.”
Rebecca followed the woman without another word, smiling and giving her thanks when Maria deposited her in a small, windowless office. Though she needed to prepare for the meeting, she first placed a call to the Cahill Group’s offices in London. Roger was out of town until tomorrow, so she hung up and clicked open her briefcase. A glance at the clock told her she had fifty minutes left.
She didn’t know what she’d encounter in that boardroom, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.
When she was finally called to the meeting, more than an hour after she’d been told she would be, she was ready. She’d spent the last two hours completing her projections, dragging her finance people out of bed to give her numbers, and making sure her arguments were sound. Layton International would be out of the red in six months if she were allowed to continue on the path she’d chosen.
And though it burned her up to have to humble herself to these people, to explain her plans and defend her actions, she had no choice. She had to keep her company intact until she could somehow manage to get it back.
But the board meeting went exactly as she’d predicted. What Alejandro wanted, the board would do. If he decided to dissect her company limb from limb, he was within his rights to do so.
Rebecca shoved papers into her briefcase as the board filed out. She was on dangerous ground here. She was only technically still CEO until Alejandro decided otherwise.
A wave of apprehension rolled through her. And he would decide otherwise. She had no doubt. He was simply dragging this out to torture her.
How could she be the one who lost the company started by her grandfather? No matter that her father had taken out astronomical loans and pledged every last share of stock as collateral, she was still the one in control when the axe fell. She should have stopped it.
How? a little voice asked.
It didn’t matter how. She should have simply known what to do. Her father would have.
Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose, breathed deeply. No—no one could have gotten them out of this mess. She simply had to deal with the situation as it was. She had to protect Layton International and the people who depended on her for their jobs.
“Why did you make me go through with that?” Rebecca demanded, frustration and anger churning together.
Alejandro shrugged a shoulder, his lazy stare infuriating. “If you do not like your new position, you can always quit.”
Rebecca snapped her briefcase closed, then stood and stared down at him as coolly as she could muster, given the erratic beating of her heart. “I’m returning to New York to do my job.”
“You forget who is in charge here, Señorita Layton.” Alejandro leaned back in his chair, legs sprawled out in front of him as he toyed with a pen on the table. He looked nothing like a billionaire and everything like a mischievous Greek god who’d deigned to dabble with the mortals again. “You work at my pleasure and you leave when I say so.”
“You don’t own me.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“Oh, but I do.”
He meant it. She could see that. And he intended to make her suffer for it.
“What did I ever see in you?” she forced out past the knot in her throat.
For some reason that got his attention. He climbed slowly to his feet, his eyes glittering. The look on his face was pure danger. For reasons she preferred not to explore, a tiny thrill shot through her.
She straightened her spine, refused to back down as he moved closer. “What are you going to do? Kiss me again?” Her voice was huskier than she would have liked. The thought of him kissing her, pressing his body against her, wasn’t nearly as repugnant as she wanted it to be.
Was she crazy? She didn’t want to remember what it was like between them, how much she’d once loved him. To feel anything at all for him, besides hate, was to betray everything her family had ever done for her.
“Would you like that, querida?” he said, moving toward her with lethal grace. “My mouth against yours?”
“No!” She resisted the urge to slink away. Where would she go? Against a wall? No, she’d stand here, take whatever he dished out. Give as good as she got. He might own her company—own her, in fact—but he would not control her. If he kissed her, she would remain cold and unresponsive.
She would.
“Your body says otherwise.” He practically purred as his finger grazed her cheek. She was proud when she didn’t betray herself with even the hint of a shiver. She stood stone-still and endured his touch. His fingers left fire in their wake as they ghosted over her skin.
“You are flushed, Rebecca.” His fingers fell away, his hot gaze dropping to caress her body inch by inch. He no longer touched her, but she felt like his hands were everywhere at once.
His eyes caught and held hers. He took a step closer, still not touching her, but invading her space with his overwhelming physicality. “Your nipples bud for me. Feel how they want my touch. Should I kiss them?”
“You’re mistaken,” she said, forcing herself not to glance down, not to see the proof of his words.
A sensual grin creased his handsome features. “I am never mistaken about such things. Your heart pounds for me. I can see it. It is like a frightened rabbit.”
“You’re standing too close. I don’t like it.”
He stepped in again, until the hard length of his body hemmed her against the conference table. He placed his arms on either side of her, trapping her. “I think you do. I think, in fact, that you want me desperately.”
“You’re wrong, Alejandro,” she said, lifting her head to look him in the eye and deliver what she prayed was a stern look. “I hate you. I don’t want you.”
And yet her skin sizzled from his nearness. Her brain threatened to disengage completely. Her body trembled in spite of her resolve; an ache bloomed in the feminine core of her, spread outward on currents of liquid heat.
Alejandro’s smile was too knowing, too masculine. “Sí, I feel your hatred. It is very strong. Very frightening for me.”
His head dipped toward her. Her eyes drifted closed and he chuckled low in his throat, a sound of male triumph. Any second he would kiss her. Any second she would allow it. In spite of all she’d said. She was too weak, too lonely and needy—
No.
She found the strength to lift her palms, to push against his chest. At the same instant a buzzer sliced through the room. Alejandro stepped away, Spanish curses—or so she assumed—falling from his lips as he reached for the phone.
“Sí?” he barked.
Rebecca snatched up her briefcase and purse. She had to get away from here. She had to get home, back to New York, before Alejandro stripped her of far more than her company.
Her hand was on the door when his fingers closed over her shoulder. She gasped as he spun her around, pressed her against the door, his hard thigh wedged between her legs. He gripped her chin, pushed her head back until she was staring him in the eye.
“You will not leave me again, Rebecca. I call the shots— comprende?” His voice was low, intense. She had the feeling his words were more than a statement of fact.
They were a vow.
In spite of the heat between them, a chill slid over her. “I’m going to the airport, Alejandro. There’s nothing for me here.”
His eyes were colder than frost as he let her go and took a step back. “Walk out that door and I will destroy Layton International. Your employees will be without jobs, your hotels sold or demolished, your assets carved up and absorbed into Ramirez Enterprises. I will make sure you never work in this industry again. No one will ever hire you, Rebecca. Walk out and it’s over.”
The depth of his fury stunned her. She wished she had the strength to do it, to walk out and not give a damn. But she couldn’t let him take away the livelihood of the people who depended on her. At this moment she didn’t care about herself—being anywhere but here, with him, would be less painful to her—but she couldn’t desert them.
“What do you want from me?”
He glared at her without speaking for so long that she wondered if he’d heard her. Just when she started to repeat the question, he turned away.
“All in good time.” He flicked a hand as if shooing away a bothersome fly. “You may go now.”
CHAPTER THREE
WHAT did he want from her, she’d asked. Alejandro stared at the blinking skyline of Madrid at night. His problems in Dubai should take precedence—he had a hotel to build and permits to straighten out before he could do so—yet he couldn’t seem to get the problem of Rebecca Layton out of his mind while he worked late.
He reached for the sherry he’d poured over twenty minutes ago, took a sip.
Damn her and her lies.
It was her fault he’d married Caridad. He would never have agreed to it had Rebecca not left him. Had she not stolen from him.
It wasn’t just that she’d yanked the safety net out from under him. While it would have taken him far longer to take Ramirez Enterprises global without the Cahill Group’s backing, he still could have done it without Caridad’s family contributing to his coffers.
No, what Rebecca’s betrayal had confirmed was the folly of allowing emotion to rule his head. He’d cared for her, had sometimes even envisioned the children they would have if he’d married her. He’d grown up with parents whose daily emotional drama should have inured him to any hint of sentiment, but Rebecca’s smokescreen of naive charm had pulled him into her web.
What a bloody idiot.
And then he’d returned to his suite one afternoon and found a severe-looking woman waiting for him and no sign of Rebecca. The woman had fanned open a thick folder and nattered at him about planning a wedding.
It had taken him several more minutes to realize that Rebecca’s suitcases were gone. The woman had simply shrugged. “Sí,” she’d said. “There was a pretty young woman. She wished you a happy marriage to Señorita Mendoza.”
That was when it dawned on him. His father, the old fool, had been urging him to marry Caridad since Roberto’s death. Arranged marriages were no longer commonplace, but they did happen from time to time. His father had seen it as a measure of his own importance to find a bride for his eldest son. Roberto hadn’t had the guts to object, which Juan Ramirez had known full well. He’d never have tried it with Alejandro. But then Roberto died. Señor Mendoza had loaned his father a lot of money, and Juan intended to deliver his famous son as payment if it was the last thing he did.
Alejandro had steadfastly refused. Apparently Juan had decided to step up the campaign. The timing could not have been worse.
Alejandro’s first thought had been to go after Rebecca. But she’d had a head start and he’d had no idea where she’d gone. His calls to her mobile phone had gone unanswered. Two days later she’d finally picked up. From London. She’d been cool and aloof, and he’d lost his temper. How dared she expect an explanation? All she’d needed was to accept that what he told her was the truth: he was not engaged.
Not surprisingly, she hadn’t believed him. He’d realized later that his alleged engagement was merely a convenient excuse for her to do what she’d always intended to do. The next day Roger Cahill had told him they were backing Layton International instead.
Rebecca had said she loved him, but she’d lied. He wasn’t good enough for her and never would be in her eyes.
You weren’t important enough.
It had pricked his pride, sliced a wound in his soul, the knowledge that this woman he’d cared about had used him. He’d vowed never again to believe protestations of love from any female. So he’d agreed to marry Caridad. Why not? Her breeding and social standing were impeccable. She would be the perfect hostess, the perfect tycoon’s wife, the perfect mother to his children.
He’d certainly been mistaken on that point. He could not have chosen a colder, more unfeeling woman for his wife if he’d tried.
Alejandro swallowed a mouthful of alcohol, welcomed the burn as it slid down his throat. Who could have guessed how much pain he would have to endure before his marriage was over? He’d never known such despair, such aching emptiness. Everything that had happened to him, everything that had sliced his soul to shreds and left him hollow inside, could be traced to that moment when Rebecca Layton had left him. If not for her, it would have turned out so differently.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.