by Mandy Rosko
"Why does it matter that you didn’t know me? You told me to go and fuck myself."
Isla nearly groaned. She had told him that. And she'd done it with such a sweet, innocent smile on her face, right before she'd spun around and walked away. She hadn't given him the time of day after that, and it had clearly pissed him off something severe.
"I told you that after you asked me if I wanted to have sex with you." Isla said.
She hadn’t known who he was, but she’d been aware something had been going on with the business. Her parents had tried to keep her and her brother out of it, but Isla had suspected they were in trouble.
Seeing a man in a suit walking into a boutique could only mean one thing. He was either buying for a girlfriend, or he was a scout. Someone hired to check out the various stores and see if there was something to be picked apart.
Isla’s suspicions either way as to what he was hadn’t mattered when he’d come on to her. If he was a man with a girlfriend, then he was a sleaze. If he was a scout, then he was an asshole, and he deserved to get told off.
“You can’t just walk up to a woman you don’t know and ask her to fuck you.”
“Why not?”
Isla sputtered, “It’s not… it’s not….”
"Appropriate? So what?"
"What do you mean, so what? You can't just do that." Isla never in a million years thought this would happen to her. That she’d have to be apologizing and making excuses to a man who had propositioned her for sex.
"Why not?" He sounded genuinely curious about this. He kicked his legs off his desk and marched over to her. His pants were still loose and hanging around his hips. He didn't bother to straighten them. Maybe he knew the effects his body was having on her and wanted to play with her. The way he moved, so confidant, his shoulders back, giving off an added impression of strength made her knees weak. She couldn’t tell how much of that was from lust, and how much was from her anxiety over the whole situation. She wasn't aware of how she'd dropped her contracts to the floor as he approached. Not until it was too late for her to pick them up.
Stepping on those contracts put him toe to toe with her.
Even with heels on, her eyes came up to his chin, meaning she wouldn't be unpleasantly short even without the shoes. Why was she thinking about that right now? That wasn’t what she should be thinking about.
"I asked you a question." He kept his voice low as he reached up and gently brushed back a stray lock of her black hair. She didn’t move. She couldn’t. "Why can't I ask you to have sex with me?"
Isla shook her head. "It's not right."
"That's the best you can do? ‘It's not right’?"
"It's not," she said, getting flustered.
Arturo leaned in slowly, slowly, slowly, so that she wasn't aware they were damn near nose to nose until suddenly they were. She didn't pull away. She wouldn’t make herself look small and weak by doing that.
"I asked if you wanted to have sex with me; isn't that the way it should work?"
Isla briefly bit her lips together. Her voice had a decidedly more breathy note to it when she spoke again. "That's not how it works."
"But wouldn't it be easier if it did?" he asked. He reached up and touched her wrist. The skin-to-skin touch was intense. Isla’s heart jumped as her body warmed. "I saw the way you were looking at me. Why wouldn't I have asked you to have sex with me? You're a beautiful woman, and you're obviously attracted to me."
"No, I'm not," Isla said, shaking her head and backing up.
He released her hand and straightened. He put his hands in his pockets, which just made his pants hang lower. Any lower and she’d be able to see his pubic hairs.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
“You might as well stop fighting it. I can tell you’re already mine. There’s no mistaking that look on your face.”
"You just fucked that blonde chick in another room, and you honestly believe I'm going to think that's sexy enough to jump on your… uhm…."
Her face became molten lava hot as she reached up and scratched behind her ear.
Yeah, she was a curser when it came down to it, but otherwise, she didn't like to swear out loud.
Arturo was looking at her as if he thought it was cute. "You can say it. You want to jump on my cock."
The tense bunching of her shoulders happened immediately. "That's not what I was going to say!"
He grinned at her. "Sure you weren't."
Her hands trembled as she glared at him. He was looking at her lips like they were something interesting.
Arturo stepped off the contracts she'd dropped. "Do you want me to sign these, or not?"
Isla looked down, noted the way the papers were wrinkled, and a short cry left her mouth as she quickly got to her knees to pick them up. Only then did she realize the position she’d put herself in, and she froze.
Arturo reached down and took her by the chin, forcing her to look up at him.
She did, reluctantly.
"You have no idea how sexy you look right now, in those high heels, on your knees in front of me like this. If we both want to fuck each other, why bother with fighting it?"
Isla glared at him, shaking her head and dislodging his fingers from her chin. "I don't want to fuck you."
She struggled to get to her feet, and Arturo had to pull her up by her elbow. That kind of shocked her. That he would tease her like this and still help her to her feet.
She didn't move, once again seeming to be stuck in the spell he had on her.
He smiled at her, still sexy and confidant with what he said. "Yes, you do."
She snarled at him. A rage she didn’t think she’d ever felt before in her life consumed her, and she did something that shocked even her.
She slapped him.
"Forget it," she snapped, spinning on her heels and moving for the door before she could stop and think about what she’d just done.
"You sure you don't want me to sign those papers?"
She stopped at the door. She didn't turn to face him.
He stepped closer to her. She could hear it in his voice as he got closer.
"When my father sent me to scope out your boutique—"
She spun on him. "That's what you were there for?"
Arturo’s father had used shark tactics on Isla’s family boutique. He sued them until they were forced to sell the business to him. Isla’s grandfather hadn’t done anything wrong, stolen any designs, or broken any contracts. It was impossible since the King family and the Calendri family had never done business before. That wasn’t the point of it. Arturo’s father could afford the lawyer fees and court costs a lot more than Isla’s family could.
The fact that Arturo had been sent there that day to see if there was anything worth taking made her all the more furious.
“Of course that was it,” Arturo said. “What else would I have been there for? I saw you looking at me and thought, ‘That's one gorgeous woman. I'd love to show her a good time.’"
She felt her face heat up. When he stepped back into her personal space, that heat increased. She wouldn’t be shocked it he could feel that heat radiating from her.
The worst part about it was that she was wet, for him. For this complete jerk, she was breathless and aroused.
"I never forgot about it. I was so damned angry with you when you denied me."
Isla swallowed hard over the lump in her throat. "Because poor, little you never got told no in his life?"
He smiled at that. "Still trying to fight back," he murmured. He let his index finger trail down the sensitive underside of her throat. It felt good when he touched her. Goose bumps prickled over her arms and behind her neck. She bit back a groan.
"It really is adorable how you're trying to pretend you don't want this."
She swallowed. "What do you want? You said you'd sign these papers."
"I didn't say I would sign them," Arturo snapped, his words. "I asked if you wanted me to sign them."
&
nbsp; God, how could he be so cruel? Her words came out softly spoken. "Of course I do."
He pushed himself away from her, though he didn't step back. His expression changed slightly, though was still hard. "I'm not trying to scare you."
Her shoulders bunched up. "I'm not scared."
"Sure you're not, but that's all right. I don't need you to do anything now."
Isla was starting to get angry again. She clenched her fists. "What do you want?"
The dancing in his eyes said it all. Now he had her. She’d lost the battle, and he already knew it.
"What I want you to do is go home, take a nice, long bath, and let yourself relax. Think over my offer, and then come back and tell me your decision."
Isla didn't like this. She didn't like this at all.
"What's your offer? I'm assuming it will get these papers signed?"
"It will," Arturo said, nodding.
Why was it that he could still look professional and business-like, even with his shirt unbuttoned?
And why did he have to be one of three guys in the history of her twenty-five years of life that she'd told to go and fuck himself?
Why, why, why?
His dark eyes glittered, and the bastard seemed to know he was about to get what he wanted.
"You are going to be at my complete beck and call for the next four weeks. I won't address you as my girlfriend or even a friend to the public. If anyone wants to snap a picture of us, they can do it and think whatever they want to think."
Arturo Calendri was one of the richest men in the United States. Paparazzi followed him around an awful lot lately after what happened with his mother.
"They're all going to think I'm just with you for sex."
"Good, because that's what I want them to think." He actually bounced from heel to toe, like an excited child about to get something he wanted.
And holy shit, she was thinking about it. She was considering it, and he could probably see it in her eyes.
"My mother might see something like that, so could my daddy, my grandfather."
"Too bad" He shook his head. "Four weeks, or I don't sign."
"I'm not having sex with you."
"Sex is most definitely part of the deal," he said. "At my beck and call, whenever I want it, no exceptions, or else I won't sign those papers and your grandfather loses everything he built and Mommy and Daddy go bankrupt."
Isla sucked in a breath. Her stomach clenched as though invisible hands were kneading dough in there.
"Why are you…? Why are you being so mean? Because I told you to fuck off? That's it? That's your reason for being like this?"
"Do I need more of a reason than that?"
She glared at him. He smiled back at her.
"You have until tomorrow at three pm to decide. If I don't hear anything by then, I'll assume your answer is no."
"Can't you get that blonde girl to hang off you for a month?"
"She never disrespected me, and now you need something from me."
Great.
"Twenty-four hours. Think about it." He smiled sweetly at her, and she knew, she just knew what was coming. “Or you can go and fuck yourself.”
3
Isla left the office immediately, of course, not bothering to look back at Sylvia as she rushed to the elevator and waited for the thing to take her downstairs.
Then she got the hell out of there, hopped on a bus and went home. She was still fuming, more so now that she had some time to process it. She wasn’t shocked anymore; she was pissed.
“How dare he? How fucking dare he?”
Isla stormed around in a circle, unable to hold still while her roommate and best friend, Jane, sat on the leather sofa and ate the ice cream that she should have been eating.
She was an ice cream eater when she was upset. It was maple walnut with real walnuts inside, but apparently she wasn't just upset, she was beyond pissed. So pissed in fact that she was letting Jane eat all of her pick-me-up ice cream while she vented and raged.
"You should go back there and strangle him or something."
"I should. I really should," Isla said. Her fingers clenched and cramped just imagining herself with her hands wrapped around his thick, strong, muscular-looking, tanned throat and choking the life out of him.
She probably didn't have the strength in her fingers to choke even a small apology out of him, and that thought just pissed her off even more.
"You know I'm kidding, right?" Jane asked.
"And I also know you're not being nearly as sympathetic as you should be." She shot her friend a nasty glare.
She wasn't meaning to be a bitch to Jane. Jane just happened to be the only person she could direct her furiously red rage at.
Seriously, she might actually be seeing red.
Her glare, and the anger that came with it, glided right off Jane like water off a duck's ass. She wasn't affected. The girl was too smart and too strangely open and honest about anything and everything to be offended by Isla's snapping.
Of all the friends she had ever had, Jane was the only one who didn't pull any passive-aggressive gamey bullshit to get what she wanted, and she expected the same.
"Are you sure he's going to do what he said? You should probably get this in writing."
She stopped pacing and stared down at Jane. She was pretty sure that, had she been looking into a mirror, her eyes would have been bulging. Her mouth was definitely dropped open.
"You know you can catch flies like that?"
"I'm not going to do what he says!" Isla snapped.
Jane blinked. "Oh, really?"
"No!" Now she was mostly being loud and dramatic because she couldn't believe Jane would assume she would do it. "Why would you think that?"
Jane, for the first time in a long time, looked stumped. She shrugged her shoulders, a look of uncertainty appearing on her face now. "I guess I thought you would do it because you literally told me you were going to do anything you had to do to get the company back."
"I'm not going to whore myself out," Isla muttered.
"You're not a virgin," Jane said, "and there's got to be a better word for it if the thing you're getting in exchange would be millions of dollars back."
"Not helping. So not helping." She groaned the words as though they pained her to speak them. They almost did.
"And I wouldn't be getting a check or anything, just Granddaddy's business back."
He hadn't been doing so well since Arturo's father—sneaking, asshole, bastard that he was—had swooped in and pressured him into making a deal to sell.
Isla knew her grandfather. She knew how proud he was of the business. The man was a self-made millionaire, the kind of man who had insisted that his children work at McDonalds when they were teenagers and save up their own damned money if they wanted cars at sixteen. The sort of man who had refused to fully pay for college and universities, and had once again insisted that his children work part-time to get through their schooling without incurring any debt.
Her mother had told her that her grandfather had even threatened to charge his children rent if they wanted to stay beyond the age of eighteen for more than a month.
Isla had been brought up pretty much the same way.
It had been a contrast between her parents. Her mother had come from money, and yet still understood the value of a dollar and hard work, while Isla's father had also come from money and wanted to shower his little princess with everything.
Looking back, she had very nearly turned into a bratty shithead as a child over it. One of her biggest regrets was listening to her parents fight over money. Even though they were financially well-off, they still fought, and to this day, she felt guilty about that.
Logically knew that, as a little girl, she could not have been responsible for all the fighting and late night yelling, but the memories still bothered her.
She had been something of a princess growing up, but at the same time, her mother made sure she always went out to get a s
ummer job.
One summer working at a fast food restaurant, dealing with grease burns and bitchy mothers and their squad of screaming kids demanding food, was enough for her to know she never wanted to work there again.
So, in the years that followed, she'd worked in one of her grandfather's boutiques.
Every year in the summer, she would work and put away half of her check for school, and after school, she did the same thing just to help out, having gotten a better idea of just how damned impressive it was that her grandfather had started such a lucrative business and thrived.
Also, Isla had to admit, she loved working in an upscale store that sold lacy lingerie, body creams, perfumes, and even some jewelry. The perks were always great.
Then she met Arturo.
She clenched her jaw just thinking about it. She hadn't known who he was, but she'd suspected he was a man there on behalf of Vincenzio Calendri, scouting out the location to determine if the place was profitable.
She had been so angry, so offended by his even being there, pretending to be just some guy who was shopping for his girlfriend or something.
She'd been placing the new panties in their proper positions, from the largest sizes to a small that was so small she would never be able to fit her ass inside of them, as she watched him.
She'd been keeping her eyes on him, sure, but only because she'd been trying to explode his head with her mind or something. She hadn't been constantly checking him out.
Though he had looked pretty good in that suit. His tied-back hair had given him an almost exotic appeal. When he’d spoken to her, she’d been shocked to discover he didn’t have an Italian accent.
Fuck! Why couldn't she have known who he was? She would have still turned down his offer to go out and to have sex, but she would have been nicer about it.
She definitely wouldn't have told him to go and fuck himself. That was a solid mistake.
"You still with me? You're spacing out again," Jane said.
"I'm still here." She tried to put herself back into her present problem and how she could possibly get out of it.
"You're biting your nails, too."
Isla immediately dropped her hand away from her mouth. Shit. She couldn't afford to get her nails done at the salon anymore, and it was such a pain in the ass doing them herself.