An Heir For The World's Richest Man

‘You wish me to apologise for what happened in Morocco?’

Her eyes widened, the deep pools of blue pulling him in. ‘What? No. I said—’

‘I’m aware of what you said. Just as I’m aware what women tend to say often differs from what they truly mean.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘Sorry to disabuse you of the notion but I’m not like your other women. I’m not hiding behind some nefarious ulterior motive. And while it may bruise your ego to hear the word no for the first time in your life—’

‘Watch it, Saffie.’

She carried on regardless. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t want to be your assistant any more. My life is my own. I can do whatever I want. You have my letter. I’ve been in touch with HR. As soon as you accept, they’ll get my termination papers ready.’

She turned on her heel, presenting him with the rigid curve of her spine that again commanded his attention to the curve of her hips, the tempting swell of her bottom.

He cursed under his breath. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ The arctic snap in his voice froze her in place.

Giving him the time he needed to stride over to join her at the door.

They weren’t done. Far from it. He needed her far too much to let her walk out of his office.

Perhaps it was their close proximity that made her pulse race in her throat as she stared at him. Perhaps it was because she sensed he was about to pull out the big guns, as he was wont to do when the occasion demanded it.

Whatever the reason, he watched her drag her inner lip between her teeth, felt the unwelcome sensation deep in his pelvis.

Meu Deus. He needed to put this thing to bed, pronto.

‘What?’ she blurted.

‘There’s a clause in your contract that states all future employers will be vetted and approved by me. Tell me, do you think I’ll let you run off and work for Ashby?’

* * *

The demand was soft. So soft Saffie didn’t feel the warm knife slide into her ribs until it was too late.

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Because I wish to keep the best personal assistant I’ve ever had.’

There was a time when the flippant compliment would’ve lit up her day. Not any more. ‘I’m sure the next will do just as well.’

His nostrils flared. ‘You can have an extended vacation after we put the Archer deal to bed.’

‘Joao—’

‘I will get my pilot to fly you to any destination of your choosing. You have my word that I won’t ask you to return until you’re well rested and you’ve worked whatever...lingering discontentment you have out of your system. Whatever it takes to get my level-headed executive assistant back.’

Despite his more than generous offer, the words dropped like icy bullets from his lips, his body language broadcasting his extreme displeasure.

The intimacy of his proximity and the sheer headiness of his masculine scent sent heat blooming through her as he continued to stare her down, reminding her that she hadn’t always been level-headed.

She’d slipped and fallen from grace in Morocco.

His gaze dropped to her mouth, stayed and for a second she knew he was recalling it, too.

Then she realised she was full-on gnawing at her lip.

Her renowned rock-solid composure was slipping and, for the life of her, she couldn’t get herself under control.

‘I told you. I can’t stay here and get what I want.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘This accusation interests me greatly. Tell me on what basis you arrived at it,’ he invited silkily.

‘I’ve worked with you for four years. You might be progressive with your other employees, but I know, for instance, that the subject of families and babies doesn’t interest you.’

One eyebrow spiked. ‘You know this for a fact when you and I have never discussed it?’

‘We may not have, but I’ve been present when business acquaintances have brought up the subject. Your eyes glaze over and you change the topic as soon as possible.’

One thick shoulder rose and fell. ‘Because the subject of other people’s children bores me,’ he stated coldly.

Saffie forced herself to breathe through the sharp pang of hurt. ‘Well, if you’ll be so kind as to step out of my way, I’ll stop boring you.’

She went to move around him. His hand whipped out and captured her wrist. Heat blazed from the contact, raining sharp tingles and making her gasp, this time for a completely different reason.

At the very top of her list—and underscored in indelible ink—of ways to avoid her tightly reined composure slipping around Joao was to never come into direct physical contact with him.

She’d learned that lesson in one sizzling, unforgettable way.

The Montcrief Pipeline deal.

The months’ long negotiations for the Brazilian-Canadian deal had left her with little sleep and living on the very edge of her nerves alongside Joao.

Her usually unflappable boss had been like a man possessed, his focus on securing the multibillion-dollar contract razor-sharp.

It was the first time the name Pueblo Oliviera had truly registered. The first time she’d witnessed something other than the fervent need to bag the best deal. It’d been clear Montcrief was personal for Joao.

It hadn’t taken a genius to connect the dots and conclude that he wanted to win against Pueblo Oliviera.

His father.

Joao had not only bagged the Montcrief deal, he’d signed another multibillion-dollar deal that had granted him ownership of his third premier soccer team in Brazil.

The double-barrelled success against his father had triggered a euphoric celebration, Joao’s breathtaking exclusive Marrakesh villa and its grounds the scene of one of the most sophisticated parties Saffie and the entire executive staff had ever attended.

It had been there, surrounded by flame throwers, jugglers and exotic belly dancers, that she’d given in to illicit temptation, one that she couldn’t recall without her stomach flipping and her skin burning with remembered excitement.

She wished she could blame it on one too many glasses of the Krug Clos d’Ambonnay, two thousand dollars per bottle, which had been flowing at the party.

Or the singular thrill of attempting her first belly dance, dressed in the midriff-baring costume and exotic jewellery that had made her feel feminine and sexy.

No.

It had been the expression on Joao’s face when she’d looked up and found him leaning against a stone pillar, staring at her, the euphoric glaze of success glinting in his eyes.

It had been the unfettered excitement at seeing the heat in his eyes flame brighter as she’d swayed towards him.

And it had been the absolute rapture at the thickly muttered Portuguese words and searing brand of his touch when he’d jerked her close, stared down at her for a charged minute before kissing her with a sizzling intensity she’d never experienced before.

The kiss, the fever it’d sparked in her bloodstream, and the urge to taste danger, just once, had been too heady to deny. So when he’d swept her off her feet, she’d willingly twined her arms around his neck. When he’d walked away from the party, marched them up to his master suite and kicked the door shut, she’d almost wept with anticipation.

And when she’d finally known what it felt like to be the lust-drunk focus of Joao’s attention, what it felt like to be completely possessed by him, she’d feared her life would never be the same.

She’d been right.

‘You are not other people. You don’t bore me, Saffie. Quite the contrary.’ His growled words slammed her to the present.

To the reminder that the morning after that night in Morocco, Joao had greeted her with stinging indifference. As if what had happened was of little consequence to him.

Then and now.

Her pulse hammered against the fingers curled around her flesh. And she died a little knowing he could feel it, too. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

His gaze shifted to where he held her, to where his thumb was moving slowly, seductively across her skin. ‘You are my right hand,’ he said, his accent thickening ever so slightly. ‘One of the most important cogs in my business wheel. I would be a fool to let such an asset walk away. But if you need to hear the words, I value you for your intellect. Which is far from boring.’

Cog. Business. Asset.

Cold labels that spelled out all she would ever be to Joao. From the beginning she’d known that. Somewhere along the line she’d finally accepted it. So why did the words douse her with such icy, isolating coldness?

Joao Oliviera was the biggest shark in an immense ocean. And as with all sharks there would come a day when she would become his prey. When he would chew her up and spit her out without so much as a blink of his whisky-gold eyes before moving on. She had enough sense to rescue herself before that happened. Especially when she had a goal much closer to her heart.

‘You’re really determined to do this? To walk out on your career?’ he pressed.

She found the strength to reconnect with his gaze. ‘To leave you, yes.’

He stared at her for a long, unblinking minute before eyes that were far too shrewd leisurely travelled over her body. They lingered at the frantic pulse beating at her throat, the agitated rise and fall of her chest she couldn’t quite control, the dark purple silk of her blouse, right down to her legs and shoes before travelling back up again. This time they lingered on her hips, then her breasts, causing her flesh to tingle.

Reprieve came in the form of the phone on his desk ringing. Her inbuilt work ethic kicked in and she automatically glanced at it.

‘Leave it,’ he instructed gruffly. ‘One of your assistants can get it.’

Very early on, she’d realised the sheer volume of work Joao produced meant she had to delegate less-sensitive work to others and she’d hired two assistants who answered to her.

He leaned closer, wrapped her tighter in his intoxicating scent. ‘And nothing I can say can change your mind?’ His tone had turned deadly silky, the kind that could weave spells around her.

She shook her head. Nowhere on their trajectory did their interests collide. It was why it’d taken her years to summon up the strength to walk away.

The breakneck lifestyle Joao led was no place to make long-term plans. Certainly not one that included her yearning for a family of her own. A baby.

How many times had she booked a ski trip to Aspen only for him to ski one black run and decide he would much prefer the slopes in Switzerland, preferably that same day?

Hadn’t he woken her up in the middle of the night only a month ago and ordered her to arrange a tour of the Chilean vineyard he’d just purchased on the spur of the moment for forty million dollars? She had still been rubbing the sleep from her eyes when his private jet had taken off from his Greek island fifty minutes later.

And this relentless, sizzling awareness of him surely couldn’t be good for her health?

No, she couldn’t put this off any longer.

‘No. There’s nothing you can say to make me change my—’

‘I know this is about Morocco. Specifically the sex we had in Marrakesh, is it not?’ he enquired with a low, terse rumble that resonated deep inside her.

Saffie sagged against the door, very much aware her mouth was agape. ‘What?’ she murmured with a voice that didn’t sound like her own.

‘You can put it out of your mind, Saffie. It was a mistake that shouldn’t have happened. If you need it to satisfy you so you stay, then have my apologies,’ he continued tersely, his body held in military rigidness that didn’t in any way detract from the mouth-watering package.

‘I... No,’ she strained out.

Latin temper flared in his eyes. ‘You don’t accept my apology? Or is it the veracity of it you doubt?’

She almost laughed.

Joao was a great many things—ruthless, acerbic to the point of cruel sometimes, impossibly arrogant. Too damn good-looking for words. But in all his dealings, he had never spoken a word he didn’t mean. His core of integrity was the reason less powerful men envied him almost as much as they feared him. It was the reason she loved her job even when he slave-drove her to the brink of sanity sometimes. There was a synergy in their dynamic, a thrill that came from working so close to a brilliant mind that she never got bored with.

‘No, it’s not that,’ she stated.

She couldn’t stay.

This man was so dangerously intoxicating every atom in her body shrieked at her that anything other than walking away would be a mistake.

The Archer deal would be done in three months, sooner if Joao’s single-minded determination bore fruit.

But at what ultimate cost to her?

Her breath shuddered out.

Too high. The penalty would be too high.

He nudged her chin up with one finger, compelling her to meet his eyes once more. The dual thrill of touch and stare dragged her deeper into the cauldron of temptation.

‘Three months, Saffie. That is all I ask. Stay. Finish the deal with me. Then leave if you insist,’ he urged with a mesmerising drawl.

Three months. Not an eternity in the grand scheme of things, but, if she was having a hard time walking away now, how would it be in three months, knowing she’d once again put off pursuing the one thing that was so precious and close to her heart?

She couldn’t.

She sucked in a breath, the action bringing her far too close to his solid heat and the earthy, evocative scent she knew didn’t come from the grooming products his French parfumier specially designed for him and him alone. She knew it because one of her many, endless tasks was to pack for him and she’d given into a weak moment very early on and taken a long inhale of his aftershave. And then spent far too long after that attempting to decipher where that scent ended and his unique musk began.

She would probably never know.

Before the alarming weakness could totally take over her body, she turned blindly towards the door.

‘Saffie.’ Her name was a low growl. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Out for air. Or back to my desk. Either way my answer is still no.’

Her hand latched on the door but the heaviness of his silence stopped her from opening it. She fought a fierce battle against the need to turn, see his reaction to her response. But she was too scared. Silence meant that algorithm that passed for his brain was recalibrating, recalculating a way to get what he wanted.

Still, she wasn’t prepared for the words that came next.

‘I need you.’

Her lips parted in a stunned gasp. In four long years she’d never heard him utter those words. To her. To anyone. Joao wasn’t a man who needed.

He wanted. He desired. He took.

She spun around, her stunned senses seeking an explanation on his enigmatic face. ‘Are you manipulating me, Joao?’

Feet planted apart, hands on lean hips, his stare undaunted and unwavering, ‘I want you to stay,’ he stated with that brutal honesty that often disarmed and weakened an opponent before he went in for the kill. ‘I’ll do anything to achieve that. It also helps that you know me better than anyone else will in this lifetime.’

Swiftly she added that vital little extra needed to put the right spin on his words.

When it comes to business.

When it came to anticipating his needs and ensuring he had every last detail of a deal at his fingertips, she was second to none.

She was even exceptional at reading between the lines of his latest private liaisons and, more often than not, guessing when it was time to put together the staggeringly expensive it’s-been-fun-but-now-it’s-over package that soothed the most desolate of broken hearts.

But until recently she’d painstakingly safeguarded herself against the pitfalls of deeper emotional curiosity, had deliberately stopped herself from digging into the personal details that had seen Joao Oliviera dig himself out of a favela in Brazil to become one of the most powerful men in the world. Sure, the media had endless reports on his past and his page on the company website featured a three-paragraph bio, but besides a mother who’d reportedly died at a young age of thirty-five, there was very little else.

She had no idea what his favourite colour was, what had caused the deep, three-inch scar across his left palm, or where he went when he bade her a curt goodnight on Christmas Eve and disappeared for twenty-four hours. The holiday was the only day in the year when her phone didn’t ring with endless demands from him.

All she knew was that Joao was driven by a rabid intensity that bordered on the obsessive. Self-preservation dictated that she take herself out of his orbit.

‘I don’t know you, Joao. Not really. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to take a different path to achieve my goals.’

A muscle rippled in his jaw. ‘You thrive on the challenges I grant you, Saffie. You’ll be bored rigid in the slow lane.’

She couldn’t lie. In the past four years he’d shown her a lifestyle that most people tried to conjure in their wildest dreams and fell far short of. She’d seen the world many times over, had watched as he’d conquered it over and over again. Not to mention earning enough money and benefits to not need to work again for the rest of her life if she lived a quiet, uneventful existence.

She dismissed the dreary sensation that thought triggered, reminding herself that life would be far from dull with a baby in it.

‘My mind is made up, Joao. I’ll stretch out my four weeks’ notice period to six if—’

The imperious slash of his hand chopped off her response. ‘I don’t want you here with one foot out the door. I need you here, fully committed to the Archer deal. To me.’

‘What if this deal drags out longer than three months?’

‘It won’t. But be warned, Saffie. This is the last time I will ask.’

That final gauntlet snatched her breath from her lungs.

Saffie couldn’t deny that the thought of waking up without the adrenaline buzz of plugging herself into Oliviera Enterprises and Joao’s world had left her curiously empty, her horizon a grey landscape with only the glowing mirage of a baby to sustain her.

Granted, that glow had grown, the craving for a family she’d ignored for years suddenly rearing its head on her twenty-eighth birthday, reminding her that time was slipping through her fingers.

Her emotional well had been left depleted for the better part of half her life. She’d needed to put her emotions aside to nurse her foster mother through the long months of ill health and her eventual death. After that she’d shut herself off, unwilling to delve into her grief for fear she’d never find her way back out of the dark tunnel.

Ironically, it had been a terrifying incident on Joao’s private jet and the emergency landing in Canada in the first year of her working for him that had forced her to confront her grief. Joao had given her a rare day off, believing it was the incident that had left her shaken and withdrawn.

She’d spent it mourning the foster parent who’d come into her life late and exited far too early. It’d also shone a very harsh, self-reflecting light on the emptiness in her life. One she hadn’t wanted to face after that first, soul-destroying glimpse.

Luckily, having fallen in love with her new job, she’d been able to bury the emptiness. It hadn’t stayed buried. And with each passing year, the light had burned brighter until she couldn’t ignore the ache any more.

But while she’d experienced a soul-shaking satisfaction to be finally moving forward with her dream, hadn’t a part of her also felt a little shame that the dream she’d held onto for so long no longer felt enough? That a different yearning burned just as bright and it was all her fault for nurturing it?

She stared at Joao, caught the ferocious swell of determination in his eyes. They could part on acrimonious terms with a possibility of an employment tribunal in her future—depending on how difficult he chose to be. Or she could have twelve unforgettable, stimulating weeks with the most charismatic man she was likely to encounter in her whole lifetime, while guarding the deeper yearning in her heart.

‘I want to hear it, Saffie,’ Joao pressed again, spotting her weakening and going for the kill. ‘Three months of your undivided attention on the Archer deal with no talk of leaving.’

She swallowed, attempted to think through the euphoric haze shrouding her common sense. ‘Fine. I’ll stay until the Archer deal is done.’

Joao didn’t gloat.

What he did was stand to his full, imposing height, his gaze raking her frame, lingering on her hips, her breasts, before reconnecting with hers. Something shifted in his eyes, a calculating gleam that sent a spark of apprehension down her spine.

‘And, Joao?’

‘Sim?’ he prompted, intent eyes fixed on her as a muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘What is it?’

‘I want your word that you won’t stand in my way when the time comes.’

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