A Vengeful Affair

by Carmen Falcone

  Javier pocketed the phone. No doubt he’d try to track down the owner of the number later, but she doubted he would succeed. Roger only gave her untraceable prepaid phone numbers.

  “Who were you talking to?” Javier asked.

  “None of your business.”

  “This is exactly my business,” he said under his breath.

  “Maybe I have someone I left behind, Mr. Rivera. Weren’t you raving about my exquisite beauty a few minutes ago?”

  “You are doing this for a man.” Javier snorted, a disgusted sound. “And you are involved with him.”

  “You’re twisting my words, Mr. Rivera.”

  “If you were a man, I’d be twisting your neck.” He stepped closer and touched her jaw with the tip of his finger. Her body went completely still, but inside, she seethed with anger. Javier traced his finger down her neck, a hint of satisfaction twisting his curved lips when he found her pulse.

  He was so close… His head slightly bowed toward her, and she had to raise her eyes to meet his. The intensity she found there warned her that he could kill her. Or kiss her.

  The words played in her head, a perverse symphony. Kill her. Or kiss her. Which possibility did she fear more?

  Vivian pressed her lips together, looking around for the cleaning woman. Vanished. She glanced at his fingers, which hovered over her neck, almost as if he wanted to touch her but couldn’t decide if it was a good idea.

  It wasn’t.

  His fingers trembled. Rage or lust? She couldn’t tell. But she wasn’t frightened, and that fact scared her more than the look in his eyes.

  Vivian swallowed hard and forced herself to move.

  “I’m glad I’m not a man, then,” she said as she stepped away from him, smoothing her suit jacket to give her shaking fingers something to do.

  “Come back to the table,” he ordered.

  And so she did.

  When they’d returned to their seats, Javier asked, “Vivian, why are you doing this? This man is using you to get to me, and I want to know why. What’s his name?” He ran his fingers through his cropped hair—a style that exposed his hardened features.

  “So you can harass him the same way you’ve done me? I don’t go around asking the names of your lovers, Mr. Rivera.”

  “My lovers aren’t relevant to you.” He frowned. “Who’s behind this? Rogers? Traveaux?” He hesitated. “Finn?”

  “Who are these people?” A man like Javier would have no shortage of enemies in the business world.

  Thankfully, the sommelier interrupted and suggested the right wine to accompany dinner. There was even a bread cart, with a different type of bread for each course of their meal.

  “Thank you,” Javier said to the sommelier.

  The waiter brought the appetizer, a delicious caviar cream, and she was able to focus on her meal.

  “Did you know Molly Richardson?” Javier asked her after several minutes had passed. “She worked for the Rivera Group.”

  Vivian sipped her wine to buy a few seconds before answering.

  If only she were better at lying… But she had been honest her whole life. She’d even told her parents the truth when they asked if she’d skipped class once to go to the mall with friends. When a female friend asked if an outfit was too tight or made her butt look bigger, Vivian always told the truth.

  She knew that if she admitted she’d known Molly, she put herself in danger. Javier could simply try to make her disappear the same way he’d gotten rid of her friend. Would he?

  “Vivian,” he said. When her eyes found his again, her stomach clenched. He was so determined. “You know her.”

  Her fingers tightened around her wineglass. Hold on to the lie, open up, or a little bit of both?

  She gathered all her strength and anger together. “I know you killed her.”

  Javier cocked his head in silence for a moment. He frowned. It was the reaction of a man who’d run into someone whose name he couldn’t remember.

  Then he chuckled. “I killed her?” The mockery in his voice made her want to splash her remaining wine in his face.

  “Yes,” she continued, pretending to be unaffected.

  “Molly Richardson committed suicide.”

  “It was smart of you to make it seem that way. But I listened to the voice mail you left her.” It was paramount for her not to back down. He knew that she knew about Molly. The only leverage she had over him was the scant scrap of evidence she’d managed to gather in the days after Molly’s death.

  His voice mail.

  She could almost hear his angry voice playing over in her mind, again and again, just as fresh as when she had first listened to it. You’ll pay for this, Molly. I’m done with you, he had said. Knowing Molly’s voice mail password had finally served a purpose for Vivian—although the police hadn’t cared much. A powerful man like Javier had been smart enough to find an alibi. His money bought everything, didn’t it? Well, that was about to change.

  The mockery washed from his face, and a hint of sour smile touched his lips. “Is that why you were in my office? If I had killed her, did you think you’d find evidence there?”

  “One never knows. People slip up sometimes.”

  She was counting on Javier to slip. It was a long shot, but one worth taking. After all, the whole evening had escaped her control. Her desire to bring him down was the last secret she could keep.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Who did you call?”

  “Someone who knows where I am in case something happens to me.”

  “What is your connection to Molly?” He leaned over the table, his body betraying his interest in her reply.

  “We were best friends,” she said with pride. “She was like a sister to me.”

  He nodded. “My condolences. But I didn’t have anything to do with it.” He straightened his shoulders, and the look on his face told her the subject was closed.

  Vivian forced laughter. “You didn’t? You slept with her.”

  He shrugged. “That’s hardly a crime.”

  “No. I suppose sleeping with you was just a bad judgment call on her part.” Vivian cleared her throat. “What about having her watched and followed?”

  “I paid a private investigator to find out who she was selling information to,” he said coolly. “In case you don’t know, your beloved friend was involved in industrial espionage. She tried to steal insider information and was probably planning to sell it to the highest bidder.”

  Investigated. Stalked. Threatened. It’s just a matter of semantics for him, isn’t it? A man like Javier Rivera doesn’t simply confess to a crime.

  “Is that why you hired those two men to follow her everywhere? Is that why one of them physically threatened her?”

  “What men? I didn’t hire anyone to scare her,” he said firmly.

  “Are you telling me your private investigator acted on his own without your knowledge because you didn’t care to know the details?”

  His eyes were hard now, flashing with annoyance. Perhaps he’d started to realize that backing down wasn’t an option for her. She didn’t know if that was good or bad, safe or dangerous.

  Their orders arrived—lobster in the shell with avocado sauce for her and a tender fillet braised in red sauce for him. She couldn’t eat with the tight knot forming in her stomach. She had to keep going.

  The waiter left, and Vivian pressed Javier. “The day she died, she called me. We were supposed to meet the next day. You said on your voice mail that she would pay.”

  He let out a long, deep sigh. His eyes left hers for a moment as he thought about his answer. Or plotted a way to change her mind. “I meant professionally. She was done working for me or any other reputable company if I had any say in it. And I had every right to be mad at her.”

  Vivian shook her head, unsatisfied with his answer. “I’m determined, Mr. Rivera. You won’t get rid of me easily.”

  “I don’t want to.” Javier traced long fingers on the rim of the wineglass. �
��Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, isn’t that how it goes?” His voice had turned husky, his eyes sweeping over her face.

  “What do you mean?”

  He cut into the meat. “After what you just told me, I won’t let you go around telling these lies about me. I could sue you for defamation, but I’d rather keep you close until I can convince you that you’re wrong about me.”

  “An enticing prospect, but I can’t give you my entire life.”

  “The weekend. If you aren’t convinced I didn’t kill Molly by Monday, I will let you go.”

  No doubt Monday was the day he would sign his merger deal. It made sense. They were in Paris. He wanted to avoid any scandal until his merger went through.

  She’d considered making a scandal of her own, once. But after much consideration, Vivian had changed her mind. Going to the media against a big shot like Javier wouldn’t do her any good. She had tried the police, but they couldn’t help her because Javier had an alibi for the time when Molly had supposedly killed herself. If Vivian had tried to get the media’s attention, Javier would have used the resources at his disposal to make her look bad.

  She knew he would do it, too. In a heartbeat.

  “What if I don’t want to stay?”

  “I will give my solicitor and the police that call I should have made a few hours ago.”

  “And if I’m not convinced by the end of the weekend?”

  He smiled. “That won’t be the case.” Javier drew his eyes from hers as he pulled out his mobile and read from the screen. “Vivian May Foster. Twenty-six years old, no siblings, has a college degree in arts. Born in upstate New York, moved to England at age seven.”

  She raised the fork to her mouth and began to eat. How long would it take him to link her to Roger? Javier had power, resources, and an investigator who was obviously already on her tail.

  “Why did you apply for a receptionist job? Couldn’t you put your degree to better use?” Before she could answer, he added, “You didn’t need this job.”

  Her heart raced. Careful, Vivian. She had to watch every word. His offer to spend the weekend with her had restored her hope of using his nearness to her advantage. If she succeeded in getting information to Roger, he would act quickly, and Javier would lose the billion-pound merger he’d worked hard for. Money was all that mattered to a man like Javier, which meant it was all they could take away from him. He had to lose, one way or another.

  “I took the job to see if I could find out more about you.” Telling him that much didn’t compromise her.

  “Amuse me, Vivian. What have you learned?”

  “You’re usually at work by eight. You entertain business associates at the new steakhouse a couple of blocks from the office. You also travel internationally every couple days or so, which drives your live-in concierge nuts because she never knows if you’ll be able to make it for dinner.”

  “You’ve talked to Mrs. Hough?” He chuckled.

  “I only transferred calls. But I gathered as much.”

  He kept looking at her, assessing her from top to bottom. “You are quite the stalker, Vivian.”

  She shifted in her seat. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Who was the person you called?”

  “Are you planning on causing me some harm, Mr. Rivera? Is that why you want to know the identity of the person who can testify against you?” She was pleased with how confident she sounded.

  “Looking at you, Vivian, I can think of a couple of things I could do to you, but they aren’t illegal by Parisian standards.” Javier’s gaze slid from her face to her neck and then to her breasts. “Or British standards.”

  She inhaled sharply, forcing herself to ignore his teasing. He wanted to make her feel awkward, didn’t he? Vulnerable. Out of place.

  “This lobster is magnificent,” she said.

  They finished their meal in silence, and she managed to avoid looking at Javier all the way from the restaurant to their room. In the limousine on the drive back to the hotel, she sat as far away from him as possible.

  But the dead silence had its own weight, and Vivian decided she preferred his Spanish-Inquisition-like questions. He followed her every move with his eyes as he walked through the hotel alongside her. Vivian usually didn’t walk quickly, but she wanted to get back to her elegant prison. She wanted to get away from Javier.

  “We’ll continue our conversation tomorrow,” he said as they reached her bedroom.

  Vivian nodded and locked the door behind her.

  She took a shower, the powerful jets spraying her with steamy water. Vivian washed the soap off her skin for several minutes and wished the shower would give her body a clean slate. She wanted nothing more than to forget Javier’s unwanted touch, the heat of his stare.

  She would never have believed it if someone had told her she’d end her day in a luxury hotel in Paris, being closely watched by none other than Javier Rivera.

  But now she had to get used to it…and start thinking about how she would take advantage of the situation. At least she’d been able to tell Roger where she was.

  Roger. It wasn’t his name, of course. She knew almost nothing about him, and she preferred it that way.

  She’d met Roger only once, after Molly’s death, when he’d approached her and asked her to take Molly’s place and assist him in taking the merger away from Javier.

  Vivian didn’t know what Javier had done to Roger. Certainly, the older Scottish gentleman was no saint himself. He wanted information about the merger—wanted to take Javier Rivera out of the running—and he had no scruples about using two women who craved revenge to get what he wanted.

  As long as Roger helped her, Vivian didn’t care.

  With his help, she’d been hired at the Rivera office. She had studied the security system, the positioning of the cameras, and Javier’s routine. And when the rumor about the merger became water-cooler gossip, both Vivian and Roger had agreed it was time to start looking for concrete information. Contracts, notes, dates. Anything would help.

  Vivian stepped out of the shower and grabbed a fluffy, monogrammed hotel robe.

  By the time her hair was dry, the rest of the suite had fallen silent.

  She opened her door far enough to check the hallway and living room lights. They were all off.

  Vivian tiptoed out of her room. The open drapes framed the seductive full moon outside, its light shining into the otherwise dark common area of the suite.

  Perhaps Javier is a heavy sleeper. She didn’t waste time imagining his frankly male body sprawled on a large bed. Sleeping or awake, it didn’t matter to her. She needed to get in touch with Roger again.

  Making calls from her room wasn’t an option, because the number would show on the bill. She would have to use a guest phone in the lobby. Roger would know exactly what to do and how to move her plan forward.

  The door at the end of the hall was closed. She stretched out her hand to open it.

  Suddenly, a cold metal bracelet clutched her wrist, and she heard a clicking noise.

  Vivian screamed. She turned to face her assailant, a dreadful chill racing up her spine.

  “Going somewhere?” Javier stood bare-chested by her side. She raised her eyes to his.

  “You frightened me.” Vivian let her breath out slowly. When she moved her hand to touch her chest, her wrist caught.

  She looked down. She was handcuffed to Javier.

  “What are you doing?” She shook her hand, bouncing the short chain between their wrists. “Take these off,” she shouted, shaking her hand again.

  This can’t be happening…

  “I’ve known you for a few hours, and this is the third time I’ve seen you do something you don’t care to explain,” Javier said, his eyes accusing her.

  “I wanted to get some fresh air. What kind of man would ambush a virtual stranger in the middle of the night to handcuff her?”

  What else does he have planned?

  “Consider it a
security measure to make sure you don’t go anywhere,” Javier said casually. “Tomorrow there will be a bodyguard here to watch you while I take care of an important matter.”

  “I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “He will make sure you are looked after.”

  “Yes, my well-being is high on your priority list, isn’t it?” Vivian pulled the chain.

  “Of course, mi querida.” Javier flashed a crooked grin.

  “Then take this off. It’s making my skin itch.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Javier said, moving toward her bedroom.

  Vivian balked. She didn’t want to get used to the handcuffs, or to share a bed with Javier. “Is that an expert’s advice?” She wished she could wipe the cynical smile right off his face. “Actually, I don’t want to know.”

  “Come to bed, Vivian,” he demanded.

  “No.” She raised her voice.

  “There’s no option. A quick call, and my lawyers will be on you. Even the cleaning lady can be a witness to your reckless behavior.” His voice was emotionless.

  Vivian stopped short, recognizing the truth of what he said. Determined to see Javier get what he deserved, she refused to let the chance to teach him a lesson slip through her fingers. If spending a night by his side was part of the package, she would deal with it. Somehow.

  “Can’t you at least wear a shirt?” She stumbled along beside him into her bedroom.

  She’d avoided looking at him before. Now, with the bedside lamp on, it was hard to ignore the well-muscled arms, the strong, broad shoulders framing his chiseled chest. Her gaze slid downward, catching a tantalizing glimpse of dark hair disappearing into dark blue, silky pajama pants.

  “You should be glad I had these on. I usually sleep in the nude,” he said nonchalantly.

  Vivian knotted her robe as tightly as she could. “This is outrageous.”

  Javier gently pulled her to the bed and turned down the covers. Goose bumps rose on her arms as awareness of what was about to happen sunk in. It had been a while since she’d been intimate with a man. Her last lover had been an art merchant she dated for a while. But that had been a relationship…and this was pure torture. This large, commanding Spaniard made the worst jerk she’d ever dated seem as sweet as a basket of puppies by comparison.