by Lucy Monroe
Randi couldn’t deny it. The new shelter liaison had started her job running, preempting several potential problems in the first few hours she’d been there.
“She would be a better manager for the shelters,” Randi admitted.
“No, but she will be a great resource and she’s making it possible for you to visit Spain.”
“It’s not a vacation. Baz is forcing me to go so he can ensure I don’t do the interview after promising not to.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“What else?”
“The man fell for you and he’s looking for the time and opportunity to prove to you that he’s not the monster you’ve decided he is.”
“Kayla,” Randi groaned. “I know you found happiness with your longtime best friend, but not every guy is as trustworthy as Andreas.”
Randi wasn’t sure any man was. Her trust factor was at zero right now.
“Andreas is not exactly perfect.”
“Don’t be telling falsehood to your sister.” Andreas’s voice came over the phone from somewhere near Kayla.
Kayla and Randi both laughed.
“Well, he’s not lacking self-confidence anyway,” Randi said with a smile, surprised at the feeling of lightness in her chest.
“Trust me, he’s hurt me. More than once. Loving someone means you figure out how to forgive the stuff that can’t be changed.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then that relationship isn’t good for you.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Life is anything but.”
“You know I’ve always wanted to travel to Europe.”
“And you know that Andreas and I would have happily taken you. This isn’t about seeing the bullfighters of Madrid.”
Randi shivered. “No, it’s not about that, for sure.”
“You want to find out if you can learn to trust the man again.”
“Isn’t that just opening myself up for more pain?”
“Life isn’t just complicated, it’s risky, but if you don’t take the risks, you can’t have the rewards.”
Randi didn’t reply. Her thoughts were too jumbled.
“Randi?” Andreas asked.
“I’m here. Kayla gave you her phone.”
“I may have confiscated it.”
“What’s going on?”
“It is just that I see a lot of similarity between myself and Baz.”
“You do?”
“I had him investigated.”
“You knew he was related to Carl Madison?”
“I found out the same day you did. The final report came in about an hour before your phone call to Kayla. I hadn’t even told my wife yet.”
“You were looking out for me.”
“Always. You are my sister now, too.”
“Thank you.”
“No thanks necessary. Just give the man a chance. He’s ruthless in business, but he is not underhanded. He has integrity.”
“He deceived me.”
“He did, but do you really think he only took you to bed to get your agreement to cancel the interview?”
“He admitted it.”
“He may have been deceiving himself.”
“Or not.”
“Or not. But if your sister hadn’t known me better than I knew myself, if she hadn’t stuck by my side that first time I ended our romantic relationship, remained my friend, I would have been lost. I would not be the man I am today.”
“Kayla is pretty special.”
“So are you, Miranda Smith.”
Just not special enough for Baz to want her for herself and not what she could do for him.
* * *
Basilio bit back a sigh as Miranda accepted a fizzy mineral water from the flight attendant, her usual warmth and enthusiasm glaringly absent. She wasn’t rude. She did not pout. But the bright inner light he’d grown enamored of was not shining from her.
There was no pleasure in knowing that his deception was the most likely culprit.
He did not understand how his actions could have such a profound effect on her after such a short time together, but then his own reaction to Miranda confused Basilio. The day she’d found out Basilio’s connection to Carlos’s family, her pain, her clear sense of betrayal, both had made Basilio feel like a monster. He’d been unable to allow her to just walk away, and the interview had been the last thing on his mind when he chased after her.
He had made efforts to prevent her from ejecting him completely from her life that he would not have made for any other woman.
Again, his desire to bring her to Spain had nothing to do with protecting his family and everything to do with protecting something precious.
It smacked loudly of an emotional decision. Basilio did not do overly emotional. It was too dangerous a barometer for rational choices.
And yet here he was, on the Perez jet, sitting in his favorite leather chair facing the table he usually used to work, Miranda right beside him, her inner fire banked.
He could not leave it like that.
He needed a conversational gambit, something to spark the natural curiosity she’d shown so far. Even after she’d become angry with him, she hadn’t been able to hide her interest in his life back in Spain. That was why he’d taken the risk of trying to convince her to come with him to his home in Madrid. “You will like the hacienda.”
She looked up from her e-reader, a tiny spark of interest flaring before she blanked her face. “Will I?”
“It is over two hundred years old.”
“Inside Madrid?”
“On the outskirts of the city, but there are many historic buildings in the city center.”
Triumph rang through him when curiosity flared in her pretty gray eyes. “When I lived in Southern California, one of my favorite things to do was visiting Old Town San Diego. The buildings were so beautiful, the museums that showed an old way of life, fascinating.”
“The Mission Style architecture there has a great deal of Spanish influence.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Hopefully you will find the original to the inspiration as interesting.”
She set her e-reader down on the table. “You really want me to see this trip as some kind of vacation, don’t you?”
“I would prefer you were looking forward to the benefits, yes.” He wanted to show her his home, had a completely irrational desire for her to fall in love with it.
She gave him a skeptical look, her posture stiff. “As opposed to the detriments?”
“And what are those, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “What about having to leave the job I love, the shelter’s clients that are so important to me, at the last minute?”
“But you’ve left them in good hands and you will stay connected, sí?”
“That is the hope. Regardless, I wasn’t planning on an international trip right now. Or any trip of any kind, and I know you know that.” She adjusted her fitted suit jacket, so unlike her usual clothing, but no less alluring.
The blue-gray fabric brought out the color of her eyes, the cut highlighting her elegant curves. Basilio wanted nothing more than to peel away the layers, revealing the entrancing body beneath.
“Life is full of surprises.” Like meeting a woman who played such havoc with his self-restraint.
“Not all of them are pleasant.”
“But surely a trip to Spain is.”
“Just because you love your home doesn’t mean everyone will.”
“But you are not just everyone.”
She frowned at him, her gaze filled with wariness. “Whatever that means.”
“I find it better to accept and seek to gain from life’s little vagaries, rather
than get mired in the plan that might have been.”
“You? Mr. Control Freak?”
He would have denied the moniker, but thought now was not the time. “Indeed.”
“I have a hard time seeing it.”
“You think I was anticipating a trip to America a week ago?” He’d had to cancel important meetings and work at inconvenient hours to stay as long as he had.
“I suppose not.” She chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. “I didn’t make you come, though, did I?”
“No, but meeting you was the benefit of doing so.” She looked like she was going to protest that, so he continued. “Business rarely goes exactly as one might expect. I’ve purchased properties I didn’t expect to, let go of ones I thought I would initially keep. And all those things have worked out for the best.”
She sighed, her eyes warm with unexpected compassion. “I suppose all those new stepmoms taught you to roll with the punches early on.”
“Perhaps you are right.” Really, there was no maybe about it.
Basilio had figured out early on that he could rail against the constant changes his father’s love life imposed on him, or he could seek to thrive in each new circumstance. Basilio chose to thrive.
“I think my experiences did the opposite for me.” She looked away to the window in silence for long seconds before turning her head to meet his gaze again. Hers filled with unexpected vulnerability. “I don’t like surprises. They make me nervous. Change is always hard for me.”
“I imagine with a mother as unstable as yours, you learned your own lessons early. Like not all surprises are good ones.”
Her hands fisted in her lap, her gray eyes widening in surprise. “You know about my mom?”
He nodded. “I wanted to wait for you to tell me, but you have probably already figured out that patience is not one of my virtues.”
“Considering how fast you got me into bed, I’d say not.”
And he wanted her there again. “You did not complain.”
“No, but then I was convinced you couldn’t have any agenda but wanting sex. Even if you weren’t offering anything more than a night of pleasure, that felt safe to me.”
“Despite your lack of experience, you accepted the lack of commitment with equanimity.” Not to mention their instant focus on the physical. “It surprised me.” And delighted him by turn.
“Believing there could be no way you were lying about your motives for getting me into bed gave me a false sense of security. I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship. I was looking for honesty.”
“Considering your past, I can now understand why that would have been so important to you.” He hated that Miranda no longer trusted him, or felt safe being physically intimate with him.
He’d been unable to convince her that he no longer had ulterior motives where she was concerned, and he knew that was his own fault.
She fidgeted with the buttons on her jacket, picked up her e-reader and then put it back down again. Finally, she took a deep breath, let it out and asked, “So, you had me investigated?”
“I had done that early on.” Surely she would have realized that by now? “I ordered a deeper look. I got the report last night.”
“I wondered what you were reading while I watched my movies. I thought it was work.”
“It was, for part of the night. Being away from my office has been a challenge.”
“Was looking at a Portland property a lie, too?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.
Her irritation should not have been a turn-on, but he found her feistiness exciting. Doing his best to ignore his body’s response to her, he answered, “No. There is an old hotel I was interested in, but ultimately it would require millions in remodeling to bring it up to present codes and update the facility to the standards of other similar Perez Holdings. It’s a beautiful property, though.”
“That’s too bad.”
He hoped that was disappointment he heard in her voice, and that a little of it at least was because without a property he’d have little reason—that she would accept at present anyway—to return to Portland.
Deciding to test that theory, he offered, “My broker found me another potential property.”
Her gaze locked onto his. “He did?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think of it?” she asked with poorly disguised eagerness.
Relief that she still wanted a reason for him to return to Portland, even if she didn’t want to admit it, made him speak with warm enthusiasm. “It has a lot of potential.”
“So you’ll come back to Portland.”
“Sí.” He smiled. “For more than the hotel.” And what she did with that knowledge was up to her.
CHAPTER TEN
THE WARINESS CAME back into Randi’s expression before she turned her head to look out the window again. “Anyway, you know about my mom.”
Surprised by the return to a subject he could tell was difficult for her, he answered honestly. “I know what the investigator was able to find out in a twenty-four-hour window. She lost custody of you to your father, with no option for visitation, when you were six. Your parents divorced and your mother spent a couple of years in a psychiatric facility.”
“Pretending to be crazy.” Miranda looked back at him, her gray eyes haunted. “So she wouldn’t go to jail for trying to drown me in my bath.”
All the air left Basilio’s lungs. Miranda’s mother had tried to kill her? No. His mind could not accept that; he could not accept the risk that she might have died before they’d ever met. “Pretending?” Didn’t the woman have to be insane to have tried to kill her daughter? Wasn’t that the very definition of an imbalance?
“She was high on her drug of choice at the time and furious with my father for refusing to give her money to buy more. So she decided to take away something he loved more than her. At least that’s how she saw it.”
“By trying to drown you?”
“My dad caught her.”
“Gracias a Dios! What if he had not been there?”
Miranda’s vulnerable gaze said she’d considered that possibility, many times, maybe even had nightmares about it. “He kept a close eye on me with her, but he couldn’t always be there. He was that time, though, and it saved my life.”
“And instead of going to prison, she went into a mental facility?”
“You get it.” There was a lessening of the haunting in Miranda’s stormy gray eyes. “You really do. So many people, they kept telling me I needed to forgive her, have a relationship with her, but she just hurts people. She uses them. Only my dad and then Kayla got that, but she’d hurt them, too.”
Something about his acceptance gave Miranda peace, and Basilio could feel nothing but gratitude for that. She deserved a lessening of her burden, and if he could give it to her, he would. “Not everyone who looks sympathetic on paper really is.”
“Exactly.” Miranda managed a small smile. “She’s always been good at playing the crazy card when she’s caught out. But since she has always refused any kind of therapy or medical treatment outside of her time in the hospital, I’ve never really bought into the sincerity of it. I’ve worked with many people truly challenged by mental illness in my job. Some who wanted to learn ways to better cope, some who didn’t, but none who could turn it on and off like a tap the way my mother has always done.”
“She tormented your life, didn’t she?”
“Very much until I was six, more than my dad realized. Not so much after, but because of my grandparents, she’s remained in the periphery of my life.”
“They believe she’s not responsible for her actions,” he guessed.
Miranda’s grimace told him he’d guessed right. “They’re wonderful people who always see the best in anyone.”
“I do not like thinking of that woman having access to
you, even a step removed.” He wanted to pull Miranda into his arms.
She wrapped her arms around herself, making him want to comfort her even more. “Honestly? I don’t, either. I’ve managed to avoid seeing her since I was fifteen, and that only happened because Grandma got the time of a visit wrong and my mother was still at her house when Dad and I showed up.”
His mouth twisted with cynicism. “Some mistake.”
She laughed, the sound dry and harsh, but humor all the same. “Right? My dad arranged all future visits at our house so it couldn’t happen again. I think I’ll always fear her because she has no conscience. If she thinks hurting me, or them, or anyone else, will get her what she wants in the moment, she’ll do it. No compunction, no regret.”
“I am very sorry.” A plethora of stepmothers seemed like a very normal childhood in comparison. “Is that why you don’t like boats?”
“I know it doesn’t make any sense, but yes. I mean, seas and rivers aren’t the same at all. Only in my head, water is water.”
Basilio flipped up the two armrests between their seats and then put his arm around her, laying his other hand over hers fisted together in her lap. “Your head is the only one that counts in this matter.”
“Talking about her with you, I realize I’ve made her into a bogeyman, but I don’t need to.”
“You love your grandparents, so you worry for them.”
She nodded. “Family, yeah? But still, you’ve helped me let go of a sense of doom that has been shadowing my life for too long, even after I moved away from everyone in my family. I have to thank you for that.”
“No thanks necessary.” She deserved full-on happiness.
She looked away for a second, but then met his gaze again, hers open in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again. “Until I met you, I hadn’t had a bath to relax or for the sake of enjoyment in almost two decades,” she admitted as her body melted into his.
“If I had known—”
“No, that was a good thing, the way I felt safe in water with you.” She sat up, pulling away from him, gently pushing his hand away, too. “Whatever came after, you helped me to overcome a lifelong fear.”
