by Maya Blake
He didn’t deign to utter a response. Cold eyes raked her from head to toe. Then he strode out with arrogant indifference.
Elise slammed the door hard. And even before she turned the key, she was cursing the hot scald of tears choking her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ELISE SLEPT THROUGH her alarm and woke up at seven-thirty. The ominous start to the day thankfully didn’t earn her Alejandro’s scorn because he wasn’t in the office when she hurried in just after quarter past eight. She breathed a sigh of relief when Margo informed her he would be out of the office all morning.
She got on with putting finishing touches to the work she’d left unfinished yesterday. As she recalled the unfortunate end to the evening, her heart dipped with disappointment and hurt.
Enough! Knowing she would always be in some way tarred with the same brush when it came to her parents, she’d learned to toughen up at an early age. Alejandro had merely lucked out and cornered her in a weak moment after coercing her to spill her guts about Brian.
Nothing more.
When the words continued to echo hollowly at the back of her mind, Elise decided to use her free time for the head-clearing run she hadn’t managed that morning. She struck out for nearby Millennium Park, the exertion and the light April breeze doing an effective job of clearing her tension and lending a little perspective.
Last night, she’d got carried away. She’d glimpsed sympathy that had been sorely lacking on all fronts following Brian’s assault and had grasped it with both hands. Then she’d followed it by falling into a web of sexual attraction while ignoring the accompanying pitfalls.
But she had put on the brakes. There was nothing to feel guilty about. If anything, Alejandro’s attitude was what should be causing her grief. And yet, all through the night of tossing and turning, that fleeting expression on his face had haunted her. Continued to haunt her. For a single moment, just before he’d accused her of comparing him to Brian, she’d glimpsed a sharp pain, felt an alignment of her own hurt. As much as she wanted to dismiss it, the notion wouldn’t die. Nor could she deny his sympathy and comfort had been genuine.
But afterwards...
Was she attributing more humanity to him than was warranted? Accepting her thoughts were going around in futile circles, she completed her run, performed her stretches, and returned to SNV.
She walked through the doors and was crossing the foyer to the drink fountain when she saw Alejandro.
Except it wasn’t Alejandro.
The hair, stature and innate confidence that were imprinted on him were almost identical. But apart from the visual confirmation when the man turned from calling for the lift, her stomach didn’t quite dive and clench the same way it did in Alejandro’s presence.
This was Alejandro’s brother. The resemblance was uncanny. All the way down to his lifted eyebrow when he realised he was the object of scrutiny.
Her very blatant scrutiny.
A very male, very confident smile curved his lips as he abandoned the lift and sauntered towards her. His return scrutiny didn’t make her skin prickle the way Alejandro’s did, but nevertheless Elise grew conscious of the cling of Lycra and sheen of sweat coating her skin.
‘A beautiful woman who shows dedication in taking care of herself is a sexy thing to behold.’
His voice, so much like Alejandro’s, but also so different, made her smile emerge a little weaker than usual. ‘You don’t know me from a lamp post, so what makes you think I’m in any way dedicated? For all you know this could be the start of a very late New Year’s resolution.’
His gaze drifted from her head to the tips of her trainers and back again. ‘Then I commend you for the excellent, decidedly non-lamp-post-like framework you’re building on.’ His words held the same Spanish intonation that curled around Alejandro’s.
Laughter bubbled up, easy and unexpected, providing a touch of relief from her roiling thoughts. ‘I’m not sure whether to thank you for the compliment or roll my eyes at that smooth line.’
‘Gael Aguilar.’ He held out his hand. ‘And you wound me.’
She shook his hand. ‘You’re Alejandro’s brother,’ she confirmed.
A shadow crossed Gael’s features. ‘For my sins, yes.’
A sixth sense warned her his words were meant literally. The lift arrived and she stepped into the small space beside him. She couldn’t help but notice with every floor that passed, his tension escalated.
This brother wasn’t anticipating an amicable meeting.
And with Alejandro, was there any other kind?
Elise cleared her throat. ‘I hope you can sort things out with the Japanese deal.’
His eyes hardened for a moment, before he smiled. ‘That outcome would depend entirely on my brother.’
She frowned.
‘You look shocked. What has my brother been telling you about me?’
‘Nothing, save that he expects the same thing from you.’
A smile, icy but tinged with a hint of bleakness, tweaked his lips. ‘What can I say? We’re not known for giving quarter,’ he rasped.
The doors opened and they stepped into the hallway. ‘It was—’
‘Elise!’
They both turned at the thunderous summons. Heat and ice invaded her body, both bringing equally painful awareness, as Alejandro’s incandescent gaze slashed over her, dashed to his brother, and then remained fixed on Gael.
* * *
Alejandro had never experienced possessiveness about anyone or anything in his life. Sure, he was attached to the success he’d worked hard for, but he possessed nothing in life that would cause him physical pain to part with. He’d learned at a very early age that affection or material things given one day could be taken away the next with no rhyme or reason. Every occurrence in his life as a child had revolved around whether his mother had decided to be happy, or whether she was locked into playing the wronged wife, visiting her misery and pain on everyone around her. And that had solely depended on whether his father was in the mood to reprise his role of philanderer or not.
Everything in his life had been coated with a transience that had forced him to create a bubble around himself. Because if he get didn’t attached in the first place, he wouldn’t feel the loss. The logic was absurdly simple.
But for some reason, right from the very beginning, he’d detested the interest Elise garnered from every single person she came into contact with. Acknowledging the curious problem privately to himself hadn’t seen it diminish. Getting a taste of her last night and then being forced to walk away, after realising just how transient she was, had done something to him. He couldn’t place his finger on what it was, save for the knowledge that she’d stirred something so powerful and turbulent within him, he hadn’t been able to concentrate worth a damn all day.
Seeing her standing next to his brother, Gael’s barely disguised interest in her visible even across the space between them, Alejandro wanted to breach the distance, claim her by branding his name on the skin she didn’t have any qualms about exposing, in the most blatant way possible. That bubble of self-denial he’d existed in was gone, leaving a stone labelled Need in his gut, which seemed to grow heavier with each second.
Dios. This was beyond unacceptable.
‘Did you want something, Alejandro?’ Elise said, her chin lifted in challenge.
‘Other than to request that you be at your desk where you’re supposed to be?’
Her eyes darkened, her gaze flickering to Gael with a touch of embarrassment. A second later, her lips pursed. ‘Sorry, my bad. I thought the shackles attached to my desk were for decorative purposes only. Let me change out of my running gear and I’ll get back on the workhorse.’
He caught Gael’s low chuckle, but he couldn’t look at his brother. Not when the sight of Elise approaching ripped his senses wide open with voracious hunger, reminding him of her scent, her responsiveness beneath his touch.
He dragged his gaze from her hips, forced his scrutiny u
p past her luscious breasts, her slender neck, to her face, and locked his knees to remain upright.
Every day since her first day at SNV, she’d arrived fully but impeccably made-up. Today, her face held the barest hint of artificial colour. Her skin glowed with a natural beauty, her eyes even more vivid without the added frills.
Gael had seen her like this first...
Irrational, primitive jealousy threatened to shame him, but it was shoved aside by other emotions rippling through him.
Emotions that involved his brother.
His eyes finally shifted to Gael. Lingered against his will. A tug pulled at him deep inside. In the decade since they’d last seen each other, his brother had grown in resemblance to the man Alejandro himself saw every day when he looked in the mirror.
A carbon copy of their father. The man who’d betrayed his family over and over again.
He admitted to himself that the resemblance made it hard for him to look at Gael. Alejandro also admitted it might have contributed to him leaving California all those years ago. Acceptance of that flaw made him swallow. And wish he’d never sent that email suggesting a meeting.
‘I’m here, Andro,’ Gael stated when they were six feet from each other. ‘Are we going to waste the day imitating a Mexican standoff or are you going to make me an offer I can’t refuse?’
Alejandro thrust his clenched fists into his pockets, willing his gaze not to stray to Elise as she walked past and headed for the changing room. When the door swung shut behind her, he narrowed his eyes at his brother. ‘We’ll take the meeting in my office. And don’t call me that.’
Gael’s lips pursed as he fell into step beside him. ‘Still as touchy as ever, I see. It’s surprising you’ve managed to pull off a few impressive deals over the years while wearing your emotions on your sleeve.’
Alejandro slammed his office door and faced Gael. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he snapped.
‘It’s obvious you have a thing for that gorgeous creature out there, and don’t bother denying it. For a second there, you looked ready to drop kick me. I’m guessing the rumours about you being a shark in the boardroom are false, then?’ Gael taunted.
Alejandro forced his shoulders to relax. Going to the drinks cabinet, he poured two shots of single malt whisky and held one out to Gael. His brother accepted his with one raised eyebrow, but didn’t drink it.
Alejandro downed his in one go, memories of last night almost pushing him into slamming the glass down. ‘There’s nothing going on between Elise and I. She’s here to do a specific job. Once her usefulness is expended, she’ll be duly compensated and disposed of. End of story.’
Gael gave a low whistle as he strolled confidently to the window. ‘Consider my concerns about your softness revised.’ He appreciated the view for a long minute, then turned. ‘I don’t intend to back down on the Japanese deal. Toredo needs this deal—’
‘Your company specialises in offering streaming media and cloud-based services. It’s not an e-commerce outfit like mine or Ishikawa Corp. There are a dozen companies you can merge with that better suit your business—’
‘But none with a similar foothold in Asia,’ Gael countered. ‘This has the potential to be the perfect merger for me to combine e-commerce with streaming media.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m yet to be convinced there’s a downside to it.’
Alejandro pursed his lips. ‘I’ll repeat what I said to you yesterday.’ The bite of further frustration made him slash a hand through his hair, uncaring whether the sign made him appear anything other than in total control. ‘There will be other deals. I’ll help you secure the next one, if you need it. Walk away from this one.’
Gael’s lips curled and his fingers tightened around the glass. ‘I haven’t asked for or needed your aid for a long time, not since I came to you for help in finding my mother when I was thirteen and you turned me down flat.’
Another tug in his chest, this time one he recognised as guilt, made him tense, even while his frustration grew. ‘You accuse me of being soft, and yet you can’t seem to let go of the past. I didn’t want to get involved in your mess then, and I want to even less now.’
Gael’s jaw clenched. ‘You knew where she was, Andro. Despite our father lying through his teeth that he wasn’t with her, you knew they were shacked up in that godforsaken apartment he kept on the side for his mistresses. For three weeks, I had to live with not knowing whether she was alive or dead.’
Alejandro’s face stiffened, his whole body numb as he held himself rigidly in the present. ‘You found her in the end, did you not?’ he bit out.
‘No thanks to you. You made it clear then that I was nothing to you. That you didn’t even want the whiff of this bastard brother anywhere near you. I got the message loud and clear.’
Alejandro gritted his teeth. ‘Regardless of what your imagination conjured up, I had my hands full with other matters.’ Like keeping his mother from going off the deep end when she realised once again that her husband’s promises of fidelity meant nothing.
Gael’s mouth twisted as he set the glass down without drinking the whisky. ‘Sí, ensuring your popularity as the school’s soccer star was firmly in place so you could continue dating the hottest girls was much more important than helping me out when I needed it. If your best offer is to tell me to walk away, then this meeting has been a colossal waste of my time.’ He flicked a glance at his watch. ‘I guess I’ll be on my way. Thanks for the drink.’
Quick strides saw him at the door before Alejandro exhaled. ‘What will it take?’
Gael froze. ‘Que?’
‘For you to drop this deal. What will it take?’
His brother’s hazel eyes turned a dark, dangerous green. ‘We’re blood, Andro. There’s no bribe on earth that will remove that fact. And no amount of money that will appease my need to see you lose. Just once. Hasta luego,’ he threw in sarcastically, before the door slammed behind him.
Alejandro braced his hands on top of the desk, his chest expanding and contracting for a full minute, before he dropped into his chair.
He’d expected it to go better. And of all the reminders of Gael he’d wanted to avoid, the reference to those hellish weeks was at the top of his list. Because that was the time when he’d finally accepted his father was beyond redemption. That his mother cared more about steeping herself in the frenzied, dysfunctional state of her marriage than she did about her son.
Bitterness, awakened and rancid, dredged through him. His fist curled on top of the file on his desk as he fought it back down. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed that way, his gaze turned inward in memory.
The sound of the door opening and shutting, followed by the click of heels, finally dragged him from his unwanted musings.
She’d changed into a dress. Some sort of grey wool blend, high-necked thing that ended just above her knee and left her slender arms exposed. On her wrist a delicate bracelet drew his attention to her soft skin. He’d touched that skin last night. Tasted it.
Still hungered for it.
Reining in his unwanted craving, he watched her cross to her office. Alejandro found himself upright and following her before he’d fully computed the move. She was leaning over her desk, stretching for a file when he reached the doorway. Leaning against the frame, he questioned for the umpteenth time what it was about her that drove this unchecked compulsion within him.
She turned, and jumped. ‘Uh... I didn’t see you there.’ She thrust the file she held at him. ‘This is what I was working on this morning. I wouldn’t like you to think I was idling away the time while you were out of the office.’
He took the file. ‘I owe you an apology. Last night... I shouldn’t have reacted quite so—’
‘Ogre-tastically?’
Despite himself, a smile attempted to lift his mood. ‘I was going to say “unprofessionally”. My apologies.’
Her strikingly long lashes swept down for a moment. ‘And I would’ve been better advised to keep things f
rom getting too...personal.’
The reminder that there was something he needed to do had him striding forward to her desk to press the intercom.
‘Sir?’
‘Draft a memo to the marketing department. I want all contracts with Brian Grey’s company terminated immediately.’
Elise gasped.
‘Umm...yes, sir.’
He hung up. She stared at him, her parted lips trembling for a second before her gaze dropped. ‘I don’t need you to fight my battles for me, Alejandro.’
‘And yet, it is done,’ he stated, the rage that burned in his gut threatening to erupt all over again. His emotions when he’d left Elise last night had skittered close to the edge. Returning to the restaurant to confront the bastard had been high on his list but he accepted that satisfaction from violence would be fleeting. But this...this was a good start. And he intended to pay the piece of scum back in many varied ways. As for what she’d said about her parents... His gut clenched harder. Parents were a subject he wasn’t yet willing to touch.
Her stunning eyes rose to his once more. ‘I...don’t know what to say.’
‘Then let’s move on.’
She nodded after a moment. ‘How did things go with your brother?’
His laugh was a touch self-deprecating. ‘As badly as I suspected they would.’
She smoothed back her fringe, a nervous tic of hers he’d noticed. ‘I’m guessing from that tight-jawed look you’re wearing that you couldn’t find any middle ground?’
‘You sound disappointed, guapa. Perhaps you expect too much for a first meeting in ten years.’
Her eyes widened. ‘That’s how long it’s been since you saw each other?’
Alejandro felt that twinge again. ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘He reminded me of a past I wanted to leave behind.’
‘Reminded? As in the past tense?’
He frowned, caught off guard by the slip. Shaking his head, he changed the subject. ‘Did you find me anything I can use?’
A look, almost of disappointment, crossed her face. ‘Nothing that would aid your war, but there’s something else. Before you use it though, can I just suggest that SNV and Toredo could be different arms of the same company? Is a three-way merger out of the question?’
