by Maya Blake
The knock on the door halted a response. Margo entered. ‘Your food is ready. Shall I set it up in here or the dining room?’
Alejandro pried himself from the wall. ‘In here. And take the rest of the afternoon off, Margo.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘Enjoy your weekend.’
The food was delivered. Gael devoured half of the club sandwich before he sat back and wiped his mouth on a napkin. Alejandro lost his appetite after one bite.
‘The Ishikawas are prepared to go forward with the merger. With both of us.’
Alejandro opened his mouth to dismiss the offer outright, but paused. ‘Why?’
‘Why not? It’s the best of all worlds. You bring the e-commerce arm, I deliver the digital streaming and cloud-based services. They provide the infrastructure. Together we’ll be unstoppable.’
Just as Elise had suggested.
He watched Gael pick up his remaining sandwich and bite into it, and tried to swallow past the ashes in his own mouth.
Pushing his plate away, he shook his head. ‘There are no guarantees they won’t start getting us to jump through hoops again. It doesn’t work for me.’
Gael’s unforgiving gaze connected with his. ‘Is that the real reason? Or it is something—or someone—else? Someone like Elise, perhaps?’
He froze. ‘Watch it,’ he warned.
Of course, his brother didn’t heed him. ‘Six months later and you’re still hung up about her?’
‘Suficiente!’
Gael plucked a bottle of water off the table and gulped down several mouthfuls. ‘Have you seen her since Kyoto?’
Alejandro’s insides knotted. Icy fury and other emotions he didn’t want to name wrestled within him. ‘No. Why are you asking me this?’
‘Because you’re right. There’s one tiny condition to this deal.’
A hot curse erupted from him before he could stop it. ‘I’m overwhelmed with shock.’
Gael grimaced. ‘The old man wants Elise back in on the deal.’
‘Ni hablar! Hell, no.’
Gael’s jaw clenched. ‘We’re both businessmen, Andro. There have been women in the past and there will be women in the future—hey, don’t growl at me. If you intend to live like a monk, go right ahead. But you’re letting her get in the way of a revolutionary deal. The longest she’ll need to be involved in the negotiations is a couple of months. Are you telling me you can’t handle that?’
‘Don’t test me, Gael,’ he snarled, deeply unsettled by the raw sensations moving inside him.
His brother eyed him for a minute, then reached into his pocket. ‘Your private life is your own. But this is business.’ He pulled out a folded piece of paper and set it down on the table. ‘You’ll need this if you want the deal to go ahead. When you decide, call me.’ Gael walked to the door. ‘Thanks for lunch,’ he tossed over his shoulder before he exited.
Alejandro stared at the paper for a full minute before he reached for it. The address was out of state. In fact it was several states away. But it wasn’t the other side of the world. It isn’t Kyoto.
The distant thrumming of his blood gathered speed. Grew louder.
The image of her in another man’s arms tore through him. He’d walked away. He needed to let this be.
But...
I am different... Shame you’re too blind to see it.
She’d dared to taunt him. And in the last six months, those words had flashed through his mind more times than he cared for.
I am different...
He stared at the address until the letters were burned into his retinas.
It looked as if he was going to Montana.
* * *
The sound of the vehicle thundering down the dirt road was different from the rattle of tractors or Steven’s banged-up old truck. Elise was in the zone, so she didn’t lift her head or move an inch from her position beneath the apple tree. She continued to sketch, sending a silent plea that her rare moment of concentration wouldn’t be disturbed.
Peace had been so hard to come by. Ironically, the more breathtaking the landscape in Montana grew, the unhappier she became. Summer had been the worst. Sultry evenings that were handpicked for harvest and lovers had seen her curled up in bed, stifling her sobs with her fist. In those desolate weeks, she’d wished for the numbness of May and June, when her emotions had remained in suspended animation. Because with the thaw had come the stark truth that her feelings for Alejandro were in no way resolved. Another truth was knowing the way she’d handled that last night in Kyoto had hammered nails into a door she wished she could prise open just one last time.
The thaw had exposed the depth of her craving for him; how deep the hurt and pain that resided in her heart ran. It’d also reminded her why she’d had to end any hope of a connection with Alejandro.
There’s no heart there to sustain meaningful relationships.
Elise hadn’t known a handful of words could turn her world black until she’d heard them.
Then she’d known.
She’d been fooling herself by contemplating a dalliance with Alejandro. So she’d drawn a definite line through any possibility. She’d needed to, to preserve her own heart.
Except her heart had gone and broken all the same. On top of that, he’d taken her creativity away again. For four long months, she’d been unable to pick up her pencil. Even drawing him had been too much when all she could recall was his face that last time she’d seen him.
The urge to abandon her dream again had been strong, but the thought of losing both Alejandro and her art had been unbearable, so she’d soldiered on.
The first attempts had been shockingly abysmal. But she’d persisted, dredged pockets of time when Alejandro hadn’t been dominating her thoughts. Pockets where she’d dreamed he was standing before her, a hint of a smile on his face even as those mesmeric eyes bore into her—
‘Elise.’
Her head jerked up. The pencil dropped from her numb fingers. Vital air strangled in her lungs as she blinked hard, sure he was an apparition.
‘Alejandro?’
He crested the hill and towered over her, his eyes inscrutable as he stared down at her.
‘What—’ She stopped, looked around. Nothing gave her a clue, so she attempted again. ‘What are you doing here?’
His mouth firmed in a painfully familiar show of displeasure. ‘Hunting you down, of course. What else?’ His tone implied he wouldn’t otherwise be caught dead in the rolling mountains of the mid-west.
‘And why would you want to do that?’ she queried, her heart still attempting to jackhammer out of her chest. To give herself something to do besides stare with fervid attention at his enthralling face, his hard-packed—albeit leaner—body, she started gathering up her art supplies.
‘We have unfinished business.’
A gasp attempted to form. It died in her throat. ‘No. I’m sure we don’t.’ That last night in Kyoto had been definitive in every way. The reminder was effective in reducing her pulse from light speed to mere jet propelled.
She stood, zipped up her sketch case and fiercely resisted the urge to smooth her unruly hair. She’d let it grow in the last six months, her inclination to groom it, or herself, non-existent. The result was a wavy mess that hung halfway down her back, framing the denim shorts and a seriously unsexy plain T-shirt she’d picked up on one of her rare trips into Portland.
When his silence thickened, she risked a glance at Alejandro. To find his rapier-sharp gaze scouring her from head to toe.
‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘You didn’t come all this way to tell me that, I’m sure.’ She started down the hill.
He caught her arm. ‘We need to talk, Elise.’
‘I can’t imagine what you’d want to talk to me about.’ She tried to pull away. Admittedly she didn’t put much effort into it because the tingling warmth seeping into her felt embarrassingly good.
Alejandro’s hold firmed nevert
heless. ‘The man I met down there. Who is he?’ he scythed at her.
‘Steven? He owns the ranch.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing.’
His nostrils flared. ‘Elise.’
She tugged harder. He released her, but prowled closer when she stepped back. ‘What gives you the right to come here and question me? We said all we had to say in Kyoto, remember? Our business is over and done with.’
Arctic green eyes snapped at her. ‘Not quite.’
Dread found a foothold inside her. ‘What are you talking about? You terminated the contract with Jameson. I saw the paperwork.’
‘I suspended it because I had no interim work to make up for the unfinished commission, but I paid the full commission your parents demanded.’
Cold disbelief engulfed her. ‘You can’t possibly want me back. What do you need me for that your PR department can’t handle?’
Emotion flicked in his eyes, but the slant of the mid-afternoon sun made it difficult for her to read it accurately. ‘The Ishikawa deal is back on. Kenzo insists you be part of my team.’
Her heart lurched. Squashing the despondency that came from knowing Alejandro was truly only here for business, she shook her head. ‘I can’t just...leave.’
His face tightened. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I have responsibilities. Jobs I have to do around the ranch in order to pay my way.’
He frowned. ‘You left Chicago to mess around with cows and horses? What about your art? Or pursuing your dream?’
Elise took a few more steps away from him, as if that would stop the probing questions. ‘I’m not playing twenty questions with you, Alejandro. Especially about my personal life. What I would like to do is to work something out with you about how to pay off the rest of the commission—’
‘You can pay it off by coming back to finish what you started. I’m afraid it’s non-negotiable.’
She raised her head then, stared into his beautiful, implacable face. The thought of going back to work in close proximity with Alejandro, suffering his presence while knowing that there would never be a future for them together, slayed her. She couldn’t do it.
‘I can’t.’
Restless energy charged from him. ‘Sí, you can. You speak about responsibilities and obligations. You have a responsibility to finish what you started with SNV.’
‘Or what?’ she flung at him, desperation fuelling the brazen demand.
He stared down at her for a handful of seconds, before he shook his head. ‘I won’t threaten you, Elise.’ His voice was low, a little ragged around the edges. ‘You showed me your true colours in Kyoto. So I’ll leave it entirely up to you as to whether you want to do the right thing or not.’
If only he’d threatened. Or tried to blackmail her. She would’ve stood a chance. But Alejandro hadn’t achieved global success without knowing which buttons to press to achieve the results he wanted. And by striking at the heart of her integrity, he’d left her with nothing to fight back.
‘So is that a yes?’ he pressed. He’d moved closer. Enough for her to feel his body heat. She locked her knees to prevent herself from closing the gap between them, inhaling the scent she hadn’t realised all those months ago that she would miss until it was gone.
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On how long until you expect this merger to be finalised.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s the hurry?’
‘I have a life to get on with. I may be contractually obligated to finish what I started with you, but that doesn’t mean I’m content to put my life on hold indefinitely.’
His mouth compressed. In the distance, a tractor droned on. ‘Are you in such a hurry to get back here? To your lazy afternoons under the apple tree?’ he sneered.
‘If that’s your roundabout way of asking if I miss the cut-throat world of high finance, then no, I don’t miss it. I miss nothing at all about Chicago.’
Ripples of emotions ghosted over his face, and had she wanted to fool herself, she’d have imagined her words had wounded him somehow. But she was too busy convincing herself of the lies she told her heart to fathom his feelings.
Besides, she needed to remember that the only reason he was here was because of his precious merger. ‘How long, Alejandro?’ she asked briskly.
‘One month. Six weeks at the most, to accommodate visits to the countries we settle on for the initial satellite bases of operation. Is that agreeable to you?’ he asked.
Six weeks to draw a definite line under her association with Alejandro. To train her heart to live without him all over again.
She swallowed past the rock of anguish lodged in her midriff, and, with a single jerk of her head, sealed her fate. ‘Yes.’
He took the case and waited, silent and powerful as she gathered the small picnic basket and blanket, then escorted her down the hill to the ranch house.
When she saw the sleek SUV parked in front of the ranch house, her heart jumped into her throat. ‘When do you need me to come to Chicago? I’ll look into flights tonight and email you tomorrow...’
She trailed off as he shook his head. ‘I didn’t come all this way to return without you, Elise. You’ll pack what you need and we’ll take my plane back tonight.’
She didn’t see the point in arguing. Apart from the fruitlessness of it, going back with Alejandro would mean she wouldn’t have to raid her meagre savings to pay for her flight.
Handing in her notice and turning her back on Jameson PR had been freeing, but it’d also left her without an income.
As for her parents, they had tried to guilt her into staying. There’d been accusations revolving around the loss of the SNV contract, but Elise had been too steeped in the fog of pain to pay them much attention. Her debt to her parents was paid. Her father had made a half-hearted attempt to stay in touch during her first weeks in Montana. Her mother had emailed.
Elise had answered dutifully, but her heart had been too heavy to make much of an attempt. It still was. But she’d accepted that the only way her parents would truly embrace her was if she shared their dreams. It hurt to know that would never happen, but she would learn to live with it.
Steven stepped out onto the porch. He nodded at her, then his gaze swung to Alejandro.
Her old college friend’s offer of room and board in return for odd jobs around his ranch had saved Elise six months ago. Steven Bosworth had for the most part let her be, content to share the odd beer with her on his porch when his busy day was done.
She’d seen the concerned looks he’d sent her when he thought she wasn’t aware, but thankfully he hadn’t pushed her.
‘Steven, this is—’
‘There’s no need to introduce us. We’ve already met,’ Alejandro inserted, his voice tight.
‘Everything all right, Elise?’ Steven asked.
‘Yes, I’m just—’
‘I’m on a tight schedule, Elise. You have five minutes to pack,’ Alejandro said, his deep voice thick with formidable authority.
‘You’re being rude. And I’ll be more than five minutes. If you’re in that much of a hurry, leave without me. I’ll catch the next available flight,’ Elise said firmly.
Eyes the colour of frozen moss glared at her. She glared right back, but, in some corner of her being, excitement leaped. She’d never thought she’d ever cross paths with Alejandro again, never mind lock horns with him. Now that she was, she wanted to argue with him for ever.
The thought was frightening enough to propel her back a step.
He shadowed her move. ‘Ten minutes, Elise.’
‘Twenty, Alejandro.’
He didn’t respond, only made the short trip to his SUV, her sketch case still in his hand. Pressing on a fob, he tossed the case into the back and slammed the boot.
Returning to the front of the vehicle, he leaned against the bumper, arms crossed, eyes laser-fixed on her. ‘You have nineteen minutes, and counting. One second over that a
nd I’ll drag you out.’
The sound she made was unladylike. Turning, she startled, having forgotten Steven’s silent witnessing of their exchange from the porch. Heat rushed up her face as she grimaced.
‘I guess from all that...spiky conversation that you’re leaving?’ he murmured.
She nodded as she climbed the porch. ‘I’m sorry, Steven. I don’t really have a choice.’
His eyes narrowed, but she waved him away. ‘It’s not as grim as that. I just have...unfinished business to attend to,’ she said, repeating Alejandro’s words.
‘Okay. Will you be back?’ he asked.
About to answer in the affirmative, Elise stopped. ‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. Steven’s ranch had been a much-needed sanctuary, but she couldn’t hide out here for ever. Once Alejandro was well and truly behind her, it would be time to forge the path she’d always dreamed of.
She swallowed past the ragged pain still lodged in her midriff, and smiled at Steven. ‘I’ll let you know in a day or two, okay?’
He nodded, his sand-coloured hair gleaming gold in the late afternoon sun. ‘You have a standing invitation to stay any time you want. Least I can do to repay you for the free PR and advice on how to get the stud farm up and running.’ His glance slid past her to a bristling Alejandro. ‘You better hop to it before something catches fire around here.’
She glanced over at Alejandro. His jaw was locked. His eyes mere slits as he observed them. Sucking in a breath, she darted into the century-old two-storey ranch house Steven had inherited along with the farm. Her room was at the top of the stairs.
As she packed her meagre belongings into the single suitcase, she accepted that her stay here had only ever been a stop-gap. She’d been marking time until she could come alive again.
But while she felt alive now, her heart dipped with wrenching anguish to also accept that in a few short weeks she would need to continue feeling alive, without Alejandro.
The man in question was stalking the porch when she opened the front door. And he kept right on coming. Once he had possession of her suitcase, he caught her arm and started to lead her away.
‘Wait.’ She ignored his growl, and crossed over to Steven, giving him a quick hug. ‘Thanks for everything.’
