‘Then how about I remind you, Princesa?’
It was a long time since he’d called her that but this time the nickname was underpinned with a harshness which had never been there before, which in any other circumstance might have made Emily think twice about what was about to happen. But it was already too late. He was licking her breasts and her blood was pulsing warm and thick as she felt the experienced flick of his fingers against her clitoris. She heard him murmur his approval and then her thighs were spreading open as if no power in the world could stop them and he was entering her. He was pushing deep inside the slickness which awaited him and filling her completely. Emily moaned and instantly he stilled, his eyes narrowed in question.
‘It’s good?’
Wordlessly, she nodded. Of course it was. It was better than good. Better than anything she’d ever experienced—but it was a shock, too. Alejandro had always been big—not that she had anyone to compare him to, of course—but their first time together had been so loaded with emotion that she hadn’t had time to appreciate it properly in the way she could now. But she couldn’t tell him that. She didn’t want to stir up bad feelings about the past and neither did she want to confess to another possibility—that her body had become unaccommodating and tight in all the intervening years, because it had been so starved of pleasure.
So she put her hands on his shoulders and sucked in a deep breath. ‘Is it good for you, too?’
‘Oh, Emily. You have no idea,’ he groaned in response. ‘Especially when you play the part of breathless little innocent so effectively. Aren’t you a little old to be cast in the role of disingenuous virgin?’
For a moment she scented more danger. He thought she was playing games, or acting a part? That this was just a cynical approach she was adopting to inject a little excitement into their lovemaking? She wanted to tell him the truth—that this was so beautiful that deep down she did feel as innocent as the first time she’d lain with him. But she guessed he would dismiss such an idealistic sentiment and, anyway, her thoughts were blotted out by his next potent thrust.
At first his movements were slow—as if he was determined to emphasise how utterly he filled her—and Emily was taken aback by how intimate it felt. One flesh, she found herself thinking. Was that why those stupid tears began to prick at the backs of her eyes, forcing her to blink them away before he saw them? Why she turned her face to search for his kiss, only to realise that he was far more intent on bending his dark head to lick at her nipple? But then his movements grew more rapid as he shafted up deep inside her and all her doubts were put on the back burner because suddenly Emily was rediscovering sex—big time. His body was hard and powerful. His skin felt like satin against her fingers and she was like a woman possessed as she writhed beneath him, moaning things like, ‘Please...’ and, ‘Oh, yes...’ and, ‘Yes, that... That.’
‘You mean like that?’ he clarified, withdrawing almost completely before driving up deep inside her again.
‘Yes...yes...’ she breathed. ‘Exactly like that.’
And then it happened, almost without her expecting it—that heady rush of promise which morphed into perfect bliss as her world exploded into countless dazzling stars. Emily clung to him, crying out helplessly as her body spasmed around him before she heard his own shuddered moan and felt his driving jerks as he spilled his seed inside her. Spent, he collapsed on top of her and those next few moments were the closest thing to sanctuary she’d felt in a long time. For a while she just lay there, cocooned in his strong arms, feeling as if she were floating on some warm and rippling sea until Alejandro’s words shot into her thoughts and scattered them like a spray gun.
‘I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be quite so easy,’ he remarked.
‘Easy?’ she echoed, wondering if she might have misheard him.
‘Mmm...’ He turned onto his side and stared at her, his green gaze smoky and assessing. ‘But I’d forgotten how hot you were. Hotter than any other woman I’ve ever had.’
Emily didn’t answer straight away. You don’t have to answer, she told herself. You’re not on some game show with the clock ticking away. You can take as much time as you want. All the time you need to get your head around the fact that you have just slept with your boss.
Unwrapping his arm from where it was coiled so comfortably around her waist, Emily rolled away from him. It would be tempting to jump up from the bed. To grab her clothes and rush from the room—maybe even slamming the door behind her so that it echoed through the vast penthouse suite. But that wouldn’t be the behaviour of someone who was mature and responsible, would it? It was difficult to come back from something as dramatic as that, and didn’t they need to move on—or not—from what had just happened? He thought she was easy—and could she really blame him? So why not go along with that? Let him think she was sexually rapacious, just as he was. Especially since the alternative was to wail and wonder why she’d done such a stupid thing, which ran the risk of making her look both reckless and indiscriminate.
So she fanned her face exaggeratedly with her hand. ‘Thanks.’
He looked momentarily perplexed. ‘Thanks?’
‘Mmm... It’s always nice to be described as hot,’ she remarked blandly, seeing his face inexplicably darken in response. ‘Quite literally in this case. Boiling hot, actually—despite the air conditioning. Any chance you could rustle us up a glass of water, Alej?’
He looked outraged—there was no other word for it—but Emily told herself she didn’t care. What good would it do her if she fell back into his arms and told him that she was only ever hot with him? Such an admission would show weakness and she’d already made herself weak enough in his eyes.
But despite his obvious disapproval of her question, he nonetheless accommodated her wishes, sauntering out of the bedroom in all his glorious nakedness and giving her time to snap the light on and scramble back into her clothes. He seemed unsurprised to find her fully dressed when he returned minutes later with the requested water and—rather disturbingly—the notebook she’d been scribbling in earlier, just before her jet-lagged state had caused her to pass out on the sofa. He yawned and positioned himself back on the bed, waiting until she had gulped down half a glass of water before holding the notebook aloft.
‘What’s this?’ he questioned, his finger jabbing at the grid diagrams she had drawn earlier.
She shrugged. ‘It’s life-coach stuff I use when I’m working with new clients. You know. All about reality and perception and fixed ideas. I’m guessing you probably don’t want a complete breakdown of the meanings?’
‘You’re right. I don’t.’
‘Mainly it’s about what it is possible to change in your life,’ she elaborated, as still he continued to look at her enquiringly.
‘And the M?’
There was a pause as Emily felt her cheeks growing warm. ‘You’re contemplating a massive change and you probably need to simplify your life. Stop jet-setting quite so much and make more of a base in Argentina, especially as that’s going to be your home when you go into politics.’
‘I asked about the M,’ he emphasised silkily. ‘Which you have circled and underlined several times.’
The hotness in her cheeks increased. ‘Part of your “problem”—which plenty of men wouldn’t actually define as a problem—’
‘Get to the point, Emily.’
She drew in a deep breath and watched his gaze flicker to the wobble of her breasts. ‘Is the woman thing.’
‘The woman thing?’
She nodded. ‘That’s what lets you down every time. Not just the book Colette wrote, which was probably motivated by bitterness that you didn’t marry her. But also the way you seem to attract women like a magnet. Like Marcus said earlier—you can’t seem to help it. The online edition of one of the Australian tabloids is even carrying a photo of you taken with Kate Palmer tonight—there must have
been a long-lens photographer at the harbour. And the author who took a surreptitious selfie at the same party has already put it up on her social-media page—and she’s got over thirty-one thousand followers.’
‘None of this is new,’ he pointed out.
‘No, but it only fuels your reputation as a commitment-phobe who plays the field like mad—and those are not the kind of qualities which ordinary people want from the person who is representing them.’ Somehow she met his bright green gaze without flinching. ‘The M stands for marriage. You need a wife, Alej. And before you look at me that way, why not? Would-be politicians have been making judicious marriages since the beginning of time. It would be an instant badge of commitment and respectability which would only help your career.’
‘But I don’t want to get married,’ he observed caustically. ‘I never did. Not with Colette. Not with anyone.’
She shrugged. ‘And that’s your dilemma.’
Yes.
His dilemma.
Or maybe not.
From his vantage point on top of the rumpled bedclothes, Alej studied the woman with whom he’d just had the best sex he could remember, and yet here she was calmly discussing his marriage to someone else. A wave of something like bitterness ran through him. Was she really such a hard-hearted bitch that she could coolly advocate he go and find himself a wife and not really care? Did he mean so little to her? Of course he did. Nothing new there, either. Yet the irony of the situation didn’t escape him because deep down he knew that if she’d displayed sadness and resentment at the thought of him marrying someone else, she wouldn’t have seen him for dust.
But maybe Emily was exactly what he needed. For now, at least. He’d thought she’d cared for him all those years ago but he’d been wrong, just as he’d been wrong about so many things. But back then she had been barely eighteen with the world at her feet. She must have believed anything was possible and had since discovered that it was not. Because surely it hadn’t been her life’s ambition to end up running some crummy little business and living in a tiny London apartment. Didn’t she miss the riches she had grown up with while she lived in Argentina and the kind of lifestyle which came as part of the whole package?
Even more pertinently, wouldn’t she have learnt by now that no other man came close to him when it came to giving her physical pleasure? Her gushing and instant response whenever he touched her would seem to indicate so. Wouldn’t marriage add a deliciously dark element to the revenge he was determined to extract from her? Wouldn’t it ensure she would never really forget him, because what woman ever forgot the man who slid a golden ring onto her finger?
‘I think you could be right, Emily,’ he said, easing himself up on the bank of squashed pillows and slanting her a slow smile. ‘I need a temporary bride—and you are the obvious candidate.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
THERE WAS A moment of stillness, when time seemed to be suspended as Emily stared at Alej in astonishment. Her nails dug into the bed sheet. He had just asked her to marry him! The hunky Argentinian billionaire had just asked her to be his bride! And wasn’t it weird how easily the mind could distort reality and allow fantasy to take over for a few disbelieving seconds? Why else would a rush of joy have flooded through her body at the thought of being joined with the man she had once loved so fiercely? The man who could still make her feel more alive than anyone else. Who, even now, could take her into his arms and make her dissolve with longing.
Until she reminded herself that this was no romantic moonlit proposal, inspired by his certainty that they were meant for each other and he couldn’t live without her. This was a cold and calculated public-relations exercise. A marriage made not in heaven, but within the scribbled pages of a moleskin notebook—by her!
She prayed that she’d managed to hide her initial delight because if Alej had any idea how much the idea had thrilled her, it would put her in a poor bargaining position. But she didn’t have to bargain with him, she reminded herself. She was a free agent. An employee. And yes, she’d just had sex with him, but so what? She certainly didn’t have to marry him.
‘Is that a joke?’ she questioned as coolly as she could, though her heart was still crashing against her ribcage and she found herself wondering if he’d be able to notice its thundering movement beneath her vest.
‘You know it isn’t.’
She stared up at him—sprawled there unashamedly, his naked olive body outlined against the white covers. His eyes were bright, his jaw much darker than usual, and he exuded the air of a man who was physically satisfied. He looked utterly delectable and completely sexy—but she wasn’t going to think about that. She couldn’t afford to. ‘You must realise that I can’t possibly marry you, Alej.’
‘Why not?’ he said.
‘Because...because it’s a crazy idea.’ She shook her head, trying to inject some conviction into her voice as she found herself fantasising about a big white dress and a bunch of scented flowers the size of a rugby ball. What was the matter with her? She got up off the bed, mainly to protect herself from the allure of his proximity. ‘Crazy,’ she repeated.
Outside, the moon was gleaming silver over the Melbourne skyscrapers and the sense that she was living in some strange kind of parallel universe descended on her again. As if she would ever take part in a marriage of convenience to a man she’d once been in love with! Wouldn’t that be like playing a kind of high-stakes emotional Russian roulette, with her the guaranteed loser?
She drank some more water and then walked over to the window, still trying to get her head around what had happened. The sex had been amazing, but something had been missing during that erotic encounter which had definitely been there before. Something in him. It had taken a while for her to work out what it was, and the answer had arrived in a heart-sinking moment of understanding. Because he hadn’t been like the loving and tender Alej of old. He had been like a machine, not a man. A warm, breathing machine who could bestow inordinate amounts of pleasure—but a machine nonetheless.
And she was most definitely not a machine. She had never felt so vibrantly and deliciously alive and the reason for that was because Alej had awoken something in her. Something which thrilled her because she’d thought she’d lost it for ever—the ability to feel emotional intensity and physical pleasure. But her reaction scared her, too. Because wasn’t it dangerous to feel those things, when the man involved had a heart of ice?
‘Before you give me all the reasons why you shouldn’t,’ he said, ‘let me list some of the reasons why you should.’
She sank down into a cross-legged position on a white leather window seat and stared at him. ‘Go ahead.’
‘I will pay you a lot of money to be my wife,’ he said tonelessly. ‘For a limited period, of course.’
‘Of course you will, Alej. You’re a very rich man.’
She could see in his green eyes a flicker of scorn, and his lips twisted as he spoke.
‘Don’t tell me the thought of a seven-figure sum doesn’t turn you on, Emily?’
It was a vulgar statement, which made her wonder what kind of circles he’d been mixing in. The same kind as her mother, probably, she reflected painfully. The ones where women made no secret of adoring diamonds and fast cars and luxury yachts anchored in city harbours. Did he think she was cut from the same cloth as the woman who had birthed her? ‘Money often creates more problems than it solves,’ she suggested.
‘An admirable sentiment. Though one I find difficult to believe and only ever expressed by people who don’t have any.’ He paused, his green eyes glinting. ‘If the money offends you, then give it to charity—nobody is stopping you from being altruistic. Think about it, Emily,’ he urged silkily.
So she did. She thought about being able to help Great-Aunt Jane. To really help the woman who had sacrificed so much for Emily’s mother and been given barely a word of thanks in return. The last time her m
other had entered rehab to try to conquer her tranquilliser addiction, it had been Emily’s great-aunt who had somehow managed to scrabble together enough money to pick up the bill. At the time it had been doable—just—because Jane had been working as a legal secretary, but now she was existing on a tiny pension and getting frailer by the day. Wouldn’t it be great to free her from the worry of future medical bills incurred by the inevitability of aging? To not just present her with a one-off cheque, but enough money to look after her for the rest of her days.
Emily bit her lip as she thought about being able to take a proper holiday herself—her first in years, because she’d been ploughing all her time and any spare money into the business. She could wear a floppy hat and sarong and finally get to read the stack of books stashed away by her bed back home. There would probably even be enough to pay off some of her mortgage. Wouldn’t it be good to cut herself a bit of slack for once?
But none of these considerations addressed the way she felt about Alej, because she recognised that marriage would be a velvet-lined trap, which would pose all kinds of hidden dangers. She’d just had sex with him and she couldn’t seem to control her reaction whenever he laid a finger on her. So what if her feelings for him intensified? What if she found herself falling in love with him all over again? She couldn’t do it. For sanity’s sake, she must refuse.
‘No, Alej.’
He gave a slow smile. ‘Before you give me your final answer, perhaps it is time for me to be blunt—as you English sometimes say.’
‘That remark is usually the forerunner to some kind of insult.’
‘Or a home truth, perhaps?’ He ran a lazy finger reflectively along the sensual outline of his lips. ‘You are—how old, now?’
She wanted to tell him that he knew exactly how old she was, but maybe he didn’t. Maybe she was crediting herself with more importance in his memory than she really had and he’d simply forgotten. ‘Twenty-six.’ His eyes were boring into her. Was it that which made her elaborate, like a child trying to make themselves seem more mature? ‘Nearly twenty-seven, actually.’
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