by Bella Grant
“What are you talking about?” She took a step back from him.
“You’re prince continues to get in the way of my business. You will do whatever you can to keep him out of my way.”
“Whatever Raphael does for his country is his business. I won’t get involved.” She shook her head. They hadn’t really talked much about politics. She knew Raphael was involved with helping his people flourish as well as bringing aid to smaller countries which could not provide all that they needed for themselves. If he was getting in the way of Bernardo’s business, it was most likely because Bernardo was doing something he shouldn’t be.
“Oh, I think you will. You see, your little business is suffering. The phone hasn’t rung since I’ve been here. Your assistants aren’t working. There are no clients in the waiting room. You are quickly going out of business.” He tilted his head to the right, eyeing her. “I bet the prince likes to spank your tits. I would if I were him, and I bet they bounce so nicely against his hand.”
She swallowed hard and retreated further. “Bernardo, I think you should leave.”
“Keep him out of my business, Victoria, and I will be sure yours begins to flourish again.” He advanced on her again, backing her up against the wall of her office. His hands planted on either side of her body, trapping her in front of him. She could smell the coffee he’d had with his breakfast and could see the little tick in his cheek when she continued to defy him.
“My business will be fine,” she said tightly. Her heart beat faster in her chest, and she looked over at the door. Where the hell was James?
“I don’t think so. More and more stories have come to light recently. A few more men have come out to say you tried to steal them away from their loving fiancées.”
Her eyes flew to his face. “You started those rumors?”
He laughed. “No, I didn’t start them. However, when I see an opportunity, I rarely pass it up.”
She took a deep breath. “I haven’t agreed to marry Raphael. I could say no and stay here in New York. I couldn’t help you then.” The sinking sensation in her stomach at saying those words hurt. Saying no to Raphael? Never seeing him again? Could she really do that?
“That’s true. If you were to break it off with him, you’d be of no use to me,” he acknowledged. “But your company would still be ruined. Help me, and I’ll fix this problem you have.” His breath was hot against her face as he spoke.
“I want you to leave.” She looked at the door again.
“If you are looking for James, you’re wasting your time. He got a phone call that took him down to the lobby. He’s busy.”
She didn’t like his tone when he delivered that bit of information. “Bernardo, I won’t help you.” She clenched her teeth to keep from vomiting. Horrible images ran through her head about what might be happening to James at that moment. All because of her.
“You are a stubborn woman,” he growled. “But I admire it!” He leaned in and planted a solid kiss on her lips. She pushed against his shoulders, trying to get him away from her, but his punishing kiss continued. When she dragged her nails down his face, he pulled back with a loud laugh. “Feisty too!”
“Who started these rumors? Who’s trying to destroy my company?” she asked with heaving breaths.
He laughed louder and pushed away from the wall. With narrowed eyes he looked at her. “You keep that man of yours out of my hair, and I’ll tell you, but otherwise, I don’t mind helping destroy you.”
“Boss.” A deep voice called from the door. “He’s on his way up.” Bernardo nodded that he heard him but didn’t take his eyes off of Victoria.
“You have my number. I’ll give you until the morning.” He wiped the back of his hand across his lips, removing her lipstick that had smeared across them when he kissed her.
“Boss.”
“Let’s go.” Without another word or look, he and his hired goon trekked out of his office and disappeared.
Once there was silence, she walked tentatively to her desk and sank into her seat. James rushed in a few moments later to find her resting her head on her desk. “Ms. Thompson, are you all right?” James leaned over her desk to get a better look at her.
She waved a hand in the air but didn’t speak or look up.
“Victoria.” Raphael’s voice came from the doorway, and she looked up then. A fierce scowl settled on his face. “James, what happened?”
“I got a call from the lobby. A package arrived. When I went down to look into it, there was no package but Bernardo’s men were down there.” Victoria sat up, noticing the bruise starting to form over his right eye.
“Victoria, was he here?” Raphael demanded.
“Yes. He was here.” She nodded, touching her fingers to her lips.
“I shouldn’t have left my post, Your Highness.”
“James, if you don’t stop being so damn formal with me, I’m going to put you to work in one of the ghettos.” Raphael cuffed the man. “Daniel is out there. Go tell him what’s happened.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the waiting area. Raphael scooped Victoria out of her chair and hugged her to him. “Tell me what happened.” She relayed the situation in its entirety. Even the kiss. She felt his chest muscles tighten as she spoke, but he didn’t interrupt her. “I’ll fucking kill him,” she heard him mutter.
“You can’t do that.” Victoria inhaled a deep breath. “I’m fine. He’s just a bully. I told him I won’t do it. I won’t get involved with your politics.”
“But you will. As my wife, you’ll be my counsel as well. Of course I would listen to your opinions and ideas.”
“I would never sway you based on some goon’s threats.” She spoke with defiance in her voice.
He smiled down at her, his eyes bright. “Of course you won’t. That’s why I love you so much. I will deal with Bernardo the same way I always have. Don’t worry about him. But now that we know he’s stoked the fire of the rumors, it might be a bit easier to get them under control.”
“Have you figured out who started them?” She walked back over to her desk and picked up her phone. Noticing no new messages, she sighed.
“Yes, but you aren’t going to like it or believe it.” He stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. “We’ve learned that Jessie has been moonlighting with Dreams Incorporated.”
“Dreams? I’ve known Susan Blechard for the past five years. We’ve never been fierce competitors.”
“Jessie apparently was offered a position with their company where she would be assigned her own accounts. This offer came after the rumors began to spread about the two of us. Shortly after you arrived at my home.”
“The first few accounts cancelled while I was away.” She sank into her seat. “Jessie’s nowhere near ready to take on her own accounts.”
“Not everyone wants to work their way up to the top. It looks like she used you as her stepping stone.” Raphael took the seat across from her desk and watched her. “Victoria.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just… I would never have thought it was her.” Her phone chirped, and she picked it up to look at the message. “I suppose once I deal with her things might get better?” She swiped her phone, opening her Facebook app.
“I’m afraid Bernardo was right. He has persuaded several of your clients to speak up. I know they are lies, and I’ll have them recanted quickly, but the damage, I’m afraid, may be done. At least in the high society circle you do most of your work with.”
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she put her phone down. “I think you’re right.” She breathed deeply. Her Facebook pages were littered with negative comments and reviews. Grooms lying about her sexual advances filled the pages. Even if Raphael managed to get them all to recant, to publicly apologize, it wouldn’t matter. Her name was tarnished. “I need to be alone, Raphael. I need a little while.” She picked up her purse and dashed from the room. She heard him call her name and his chair scrape as he stood up, but he didn’t follow her.
She
skipped the elevator and took the stairs. The exercise would do her good.
RAPHAEL
She wasn’t in the hotel suite. When he let her run out of her office, he assumed she’d go back to the suite. He gave her a few hours before trying to see her, to help soothe her. Victoria was an independent woman, and although he knew she needed his strength at that moment, she didn’t, and pushing her would result in shoving her further away.
After searching the suite, he glared at his security team. “What do you mean, she didn’t take the car?”
“She didn’t take the car.” James shrugged. “She said she needed to take a walk. I tried to follow her, but after half a block, she dove into a cab and was gone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me immediately?” For the first time in his life, he wanted to put his fist through James’s face.
“When I got back upstairs you were gone. Daniel said she went back to the hotel and you were headed to a meeting.”
Raphael shook his head. “Well, she obviously didn’t come back here did she?”
“She probably just needed some space,” James chimed in. He stepped back when Raphael turned his glare back on him. “I apologize. I should have followed the cab.”
Raphael let out a sigh. “No, she would have found another way to slip away.” He dragged his hand through his hair for the tenth time since arriving at the hotel to find the suite empty. “Any word on Jessie?”
“Yes. She’s been questioned and is back at her apartment. Two men are standing guard at her door waiting for your instructions.”
“What the hell am I to do with a young girl who is as stupid as she is greedy?”
“Javier spoke with Susan Blechard, the owner of the company. Although she had a hard time believing the stories Jessie spun for her, she allowed her advertising department to spread the story.”
“So we have a dishonest twenty-year-old and a foolish older woman on our hands.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to involve the American police? I’m sure there are laws against slander like this.”
“I was going to ask Victoria about that this evening, except she isn’t here!” He let his voice rise but took a calming breath when he saw James take a half-step back.
“Javier did mention he wouldn’t mind taking the young girl off your hands.” James smiled, trying to lighten the situation, Raphael guessed.
“He’s taken with the little liar, is he?”
“You know Javier. He likes the naughty ones.” James laughed but coughed quickly to cover it.
“Fine. He can have her. He is not to take her against her will, though. If she doesn’t want to go with him, we will involve the police or do whatever Americans do to people like her.” Raphael knew Javier. He was a tough man who did indeed like taming girls. Why he would want to take this particular girl home with him made little sense to him. It did, however, solve one problem.
The other two problems remained. Where the hell his little runaway was and what to do now that Bernardo had seen to it that she would never recover her business reputation.
“I appreciate it.” Raphael stood outside Victoria’s apartment building, assuring Lilly that Victoria was perfectly fine, that she just needed some alone time.
“She wouldn’t let me in, and she wouldn’t answer my phone call. I called Jessie, but some man with as thick an accent as you answered. He told me she couldn’t talk, and when I threatened to call the police, he told me to call you.”
“Jessie started the rumors. She’s been working for Dreams Incorporated.” He didn’t see any reason to sugarcoat the issue, and besides, now that he knew where Victoria was, he needed to get up to see her.
“What? That was her? Why the hell would she do something like that?”
“Some people don’t rise on their own feet but by stepping on the shoulders of others,” he explained.
“Then the man who answered her phone?”
“Most likely Javier. He’s one of my men. He’s staying with her for the time being.”
“He won’t hurt her, will he?” She looked concerned, but her eyes narrowed. “Because I want to do that myself.”
Raphael had to laugh at the five-foot-two woman’s bravado. If she only knew how adorable she looked with her face all scrunched up and her fists at her sides. But he didn’t explain his levity. “No, he won’t hurt her. Neither will you. She’s being taken care of. Now, back to Victoria. She wouldn’t let you in?”
“No, she wouldn’t even let the doorman let me up the elevator. Said she needed to think. But that’s not like her. She told the old coot to tell me to ‘shove off.’ She never says things like that!” She wrung her hands together.
A cold shiver ran down his spine. “Lilly, stay down here with Joseph. Daniel and I will go up to see her.”
“But the doorman—”
“Don’t worry about him,” Raphael assured her and waved over one of his men. “Stay with her. Do not leave her alone. I have a feeling we’ll be flushing out a few assholes from upstairs, and I don’t want her on her own if they come running out.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Joseph nodded. He took Lilly by the arm and led her toward the car. He then turned to James and relayed to him and Daniel what Lilly had told him.
“Why would Bernardo come to her apartment? He just saw her this afternoon.”
“Yes, and since then, we’ve found out who the traitor is. He has fewer options now,” Daniel explained. “We’ll go up.”
The three men walked through the lobby, and Raphael’s glare toward the doorman kept him in his seat. Some security! When the elevator doors slid open on Victoria’s floor, Raphael heard a high-pitched scream—one filled with agony and fear. He ran down the hall to her door, prepared to burst through if needed. That fucker would not live to see the dawn if he harmed one little hair on Victoria.
VICTORIA
Bernardo wouldn’t let it go. After taking a long, hot shower, she found him lounging in her living room. He seemed disappointed when she didn’t scream from fear, only groaned at the annoyance.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded. Her hair dripped down the back of her t-shirt as she stood barefoot in yoga pants and her oversized shirt. She had left her hair dryer at the hotel, so she had to deal with the wet hair.
His smile never faltered as he lounged on the couch, his hands draped over the back, his feet crossed on the coffee table. He looked like he owned the place, or at least wanted to own it.
“I’ve come to see you.” He lifted one hand. She took in the room. No one else seemed to be with him, but she also had no one else with her, either. She had slipped past James and had been ignoring Raphael’s texts.
“We have nothing else to talk about. You told me what you wanted, and I said no.” She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to look as fierce as he did.
“Yes, but things have since changed.” His smile dimmed a bit. “I think what will be easier is if you come home with me. Come back to the island. You will live like a queen. As long as I have you, Raphael will leave me alone, I think. I can barter you back.”
“I would live like a queen or you would sell me back to Raphael? Which is it, Bernardo?” she shot at him. His smile faded altogether with her outburst. Dropping his feet to the floor, he pushed himself up and stood tall, glaring at her.
“I’ll give you back to Raphael after he agrees to stay the fuck out of my way. Once he has reopened my routes, he will have his fucking princess. Not until then.”
She noticed the gun nestled at his side and felt her heart skip a few beats. The buzzer on her door sounded, and she looked at it. Raphael must have figured out where she went. Thank God.
“Ignore it.”
“The doorman knows I’m home.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s him calling.”
“Fine. Tell whoever it is to buzz off.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her to the intercom.
“Yes, Jerry.” She clicked the button, trying to wiggle her arm free. His fin
gers dug painfully into her skin.
“Lilly is here for you.” The doorman sounded bored and quite put out that he had to announce a visitor.
“Thank you. Can you please tell her I’m busy and I’ll call her later?” Victoria eyed the gun again.
“She says it’s urgent.”
“I’ll call her later.”
“Get out of the way… Hey—just go sit down. Victoria, it’s me.” Lilly’s voice boomed from the intercom.
Victoria looked to Bernardo with curious eyes. What was she supposed to do when her friend was so insistent?
“Tell her to buzz off.” He gave her a shake.
Victoria pressed the little white button and grinned into the intercom. “Lilly, shove off, would you?” She could only imagine the look on Lilly’s face.
Lilly started to argue, but Jerry obviously had had enough of dealing with her and told her to leave.
“Shit, you American women and your stubbornness. My women don’t behave this way. They know their place, they obey—”
“Oh, shut it!” Victoria tried to pull away, but Bernardo gripped her arm harder and dragged her to the couch. Shoving her down, he paced in front of her.
“When my men messages that we are set to go, we’ll leave straight for the airport. You may pack a few things, if you’d like. One bag, and only clothes. And don’t think I won’t check the bag, so don’t get any smart ideas.” He jerked a thumb toward her bedroom. “And put some damn makeup on. I like my women done up real nice. But leave those pants on. Your ass looks tight in those.”
She wanted to launch herself at him but managed to calm herself. She needed time. Lilly wouldn’t just walk away. Victoria hoped she’d call in reinforcements. Maybe she’d called Raphael.
“I have your phone.” Bernardo called out to her when she checked her bedroom for it.
She walked around her room, looking for a weapon of some sort. Anything she could use to knock him out or at least injure him enough that she could get out of the apartment. If he had men stationed outside her apartment door, she would have a harder time getting past them, especially if she had just injured their boss. She needed to get rid of them somehow.
