‘How do you feel?’ The gravelled question sent her pulse firing anew.
‘Relaxed and satisfied,’ she purred and he laughed, a throaty sound of wry amusement.
‘I’m pleased to hear it. Stay here.’ And he pulled away from her, standing and moving out of her room.
‘What are you doing?’ she called after him, but the words were soft, consumed by a yawn. And, instead of asking again, she collapsed back against the bed, closed her eyes and remembered. Remembered the madness in the kitchen that had brought his lips to hers, or was it the other way around? Remembered the way they’d exploded at that first touch and everything had seemed predestined in some way.
A moment later she had her answer, anyway. The sound of the bath running, then the bathroom cabinets being open and shut. She lay there, a smile on her face, listening, and a little while later he returned.
‘Are you asleep?’
She squinted one eye open and then realised he couldn’t see her. ‘No,’ she said, sitting up. ‘Are you taking a bath?’
He laughed. ‘No. You are.’
He reached for her hand and she wriggled off the bed, standing on legs that had suddenly turned to jelly. He understood and he lifted her once more, so she joked, ‘I could get used to this. Like some kind of Rajah.’
He stepped over the threshold, into the bathroom, and her breath caught in her throat. He must have found every candle in the house and the bathroom was glowing and warm, like something out of a fairy tale.
Don’t! she alerted her subconscious.
Don’t even think like that.
Fairy tales. Don’t. Exist.
How many times had she seen her mother go down the rabbit hole of thinking a man was her Prince Charming and that their ‘happily ever after’ was at the end of the next party or vacation or new home or fresh start? Only to wake up alone, miserable, depressed and looking for consolation in the bottle or vial of whatever drug she was into at the time.
Amelia was not Penny—and that meant knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that fairy tales didn’t exist.
Still, fairy tale or not, the bathroom was beautiful in this lighting. The tub was half-filled and an extravagant layer of bubbles sat on top of the water’s surface. There was an aroma of lavender in the air—so he’d found her bath oils.
He placed her over the edge of the tub, easing her feet into the water, and she smiled as the perfect warmth wrapped around her legs. She sank into it slowly, lying back against the edge and letting the water enfold her.
‘Heaven,’ she said softly and then blinked her eyes open to find him staring at her.
‘Enjoy it.’ His eyes sparked with something like promise and her heart turned over in her chest. ‘I’ll be waiting.’ He retrieved a towel and placed it within easy reach of the bath, then moved to the door. ‘Don’t fall asleep,’ he warned as he left and she smiled.
Fat chance.
She wasn’t going to fall asleep all night. Not when she had Antonio Herrera as her own personal pleasure centre. Having discovered what her body was capable of feeling, she wanted more. She wanted everything.
And she wanted him to show her.
* * *
He collected his scattered clothes from the kitchen floor, and he dressed with true regret. He didn’t want to put barriers up to more pleasure. He wanted to take her to bed and make love to her slowly, to seduce her all night long, like he would any other lover.
But there was danger in that—danger in forgetting why he’d come to her, why he’d spent a year trying to locate her. Why he needed her signature on the documents he’d brought with him, her agreement to sell her shares to him.
He had buried his father a month earlier and there was no way he was going to let his desire for a woman cloud his judgement.
He was so close to achieving his goal, and Amelia diSalvo was the key to that.
Sex with her had been a mistake. A stupid, careless mistake—because it had the power to confuse things between them. Because it muddied the water of what he needed from her.
With a grim expression on his face, he let himself quietly out of the house, walking towards his car with a growing sense of determination. The rain had stopped but the clouds were still overhead, covering the moon and the stars so everything was in pitch darkness.
The documents were on the front seat. He grabbed them out, tucking them under his arm before making his way back to the house. Silence came from upstairs.
He fought a desire to go and check on her, to see if she needed anything. A passionate encounter didn’t a relationship make—there was no need for him to play the part of the solicitous boyfriend. It was better for both of them if he focused on his reason for being in the cottage.
Revenge was close—so close he could feel it. And it would be better than anything he’d ever known—even the pleasure he’d just felt in the bed of his arch-enemy.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I THOUGHT I heard the door.’
She appeared in the lounge and at that moment the lights flickered to life—a stutter at first and then a burst, and her expression showed bemusement.
‘You’re dressed?’ She lifted a brow, padding across the room in only a silk robe. A robe that left little to the imagination, not that he needed to use it. He could remember every single curve and delineation of her body, every indent and hollow. Though he regretted now not making love to her in the brightness of this light, so that he could see her peaches and cream complexion all over, marvel at the contrast of her nipples to her skin.
Damn it—he tightened against his trousers, unwanted desire flooding his system once more.
‘What’s the matter? You’re suddenly struck mute?’ Something like uncertainty fluttered in her expression but she covered it quickly. ‘I mean, I know that was good, but surely not enough to rob you of the ability to speak.’
His smile was tight on his face. Her easy nature was at odds with the direction of his thoughts.
‘I came here tonight to talk to you about something important.’
Confusion clouded her expression. ‘Oh. Right. I’d...forgotten. Something to do with our grandfathers?’ She blinked, her expression still one of trust, and stepped across the room. ‘Surely it can wait?’ she implored, lifting a hand to his chest, her eyes meeting his in both a challenge and an invitation.
God, he wished it could wait. But being caught up in the moment, letting passion override common sense once was one thing. It would be quite another to keep exploiting her sensual need, an appetite he had awakened without realising her innocence.
‘Not really.’ He grimaced. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’
‘I’m fine.’ She shook her head as wariness crept into her expression. A wariness he couldn’t help but resent.
He nodded, a stiff movement, and lifted his hand to rub his neck. He hadn’t thought about what he would say. When he had come to Bumblebee Cottage, he’d expected this to be much like a standard business meeting.
She had something he needed, and he had something he could offer in exchange. Money, in the first instance and, failing that, a promise to bide his time with her brother’s business, not to bring him to his knees in a cataclysmic fashion. Blackmail, yes.
Would he still stoop to that, given what they’d just shared?
He straightened his shoulders, his expression tense. Sex was beside the point. It didn’t change the facts—he wanted what she had and he’d go to any lengths to acquire it.
Too much rested on his success here, and the hatred he felt for the diSalvo family went deeper than anything he’d shared with Amelia this evening.
‘I need you to sign this.’ He pulled the contract from his document wallet and placed it on the table—the coffee table they’d sat at only a couple of hours earlier, tension zipping through the room.
Well, there was tension again no
w, but a different kind altogether.
Her eyes showed confusion and then they skipped away from his. She crossed to the table, close enough that he could breathe in her sweet smell of lavender and vanilla, so close that he could simply reach out and pull her close, forgetting about the damned shares for a moment longer.
She pressed a finger to the contract, drawing it down the title page as she read, then silently flipped it over. She read that and then the next, and finally lifted her eyes back to his face. ‘You want to buy my shares in Prim’Aqua? Why?’
‘Because without your shares I can’t assume a majority ownership.’
She blinked, his clear sentence apparently not making any sense to her. ‘It’s one of my family’s business interests. Why would you want to assume a majority ownership?’
It was like waving a red rag in front of a charging bull.
‘Because it was my family’s company also,’ he said with deceptive calm. ‘And I will not rest until it is back in my hands.’
* * *
The words hung in the air like little daggers, but they made absolutely no sense. None of this made any sense.
He’d come to her house and, true, she hadn’t exactly interrogated him about what he’d wanted but...how could she have known anything like this had brought him to her?
‘I presumed you just wanted to talk about our grandfathers!’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘This can’t be real.’
His eyes narrowed and a burst of adrenalin fired in her gut as she recognised in this man a latent power and determination that had been absent for the rest of the evening. He’d been charming and humorous and now she could see that there was a whole other side to him.
‘I have acquired thirty-five per cent of the company,’ he said, the words soft yet laced with iron-hard determination. ‘Your father and brother will never part with their stake, but that does not matter. Not when your shares will give me the majority. I want them.’
‘Why?’ She pressed her hands to her hips, turning away from the contract, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Because he was wearing a suit and she was dressed in a silk robe and her body hadn’t quite caught up with the fact that he was there for business. That she’d slept with a man, given her virginity to a man, who only wanted her shares in a family company. God knew she didn’t want them—how often had she wished that her father hadn’t gifted such a valuable portfolio on her eighteenth birthday? She’d always felt he was making up for lost time, trying to show her with money how valued and loved she was—but money was the last thing she ever wanted.
The assets she had made her feel even more vulnerable and exposed in that superficial world. With her mother’s looks and a fortune at her fingertips—it had been a fast track to attracting all the wrong people.
It still was, apparently.
‘Our grandfathers were best friends from the time they were boys.’ He spoke slowly, as though she didn’t have a tight grasp on English. That exasperated her further.
‘I don’t need to know the history,’ she snapped. ‘I need to know why these shares matter so much to you that you were willing to come to my home and...and...seduce me, just to get your hands on them.’
At that, he had the decency to look surprised. ‘One thing had nothing to do with the other,’ he said slowly and reached a hand out for her, a hand of comfort and reassurance, but she batted it away angrily.
‘No.’ She took a step back; her hip connected with the table. ‘The part of the evening where you get to touch me is absolutely at an end.’
He compressed his lips in exasperation. ‘I didn’t come here intending to sleep with you. But you were so... It just happened,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘I didn’t plan it.’
‘Oh, yes.’ She rolled her eyes, shaking with pent-up rage and deep-down hurt. ‘It was just convenient that I happened to fall into bed with you, right before you blindsided me by asking me for something worth millions of pounds.’
‘You’ll see on the contracts that I’m prepared to pay double their value,’ he said silkily.
She put her hands on her hips then wished she hadn’t. The gesture drew the robe across her front and his attention dropped to her silk-covered breasts, and nipples that were still tight and heavy with arousal.
‘I don’t need your money,’ she spat. ‘You think any amount would induce me to sell the shares to you?’
‘Our grandfathers had a fight. No, it was more than that. It was war,’ he said, returning to the original point. ‘They’d started Prim’Aqua by joining together two shipping companies they’d inherited from their fathers, and it became the most powerful water-based logistics and transportation company in the world. Both of our families owe their prosperity to Prim’Aqua.’
‘Fine, if you say so,’ she snapped, moving towards the door. ‘But it’s my father’s company now.’
‘Your grandfather fooled my grandfather into signing it over—my grandfather trusted him implicitly and signed the deeds without reading.’
‘More fool him,’ she muttered.
His expression tightened. ‘It was a mistake on his part to trust a diSalvo—and that is a lesson I will never forget.’ His eyes glittered black when they met hers. ‘But I can rectify this, if you will only be reasonable.’
‘You dare ask me to be reasonable when you’ve just insulted my whole family? And me?’
‘You come from a family of thieves and bastards, Amelia.’
She stared at him; it felt as if he’d morphed into some kind of alien. It took her several seconds to be able to find her tongue and push it into service.
‘My God, get the hell out of this house,’ she demanded, the words only slightly shaky. ‘How dare you think I would give you anything? How can you speak of my family with such obvious disgust when you’ve literally come straight from my bed?’
‘Sleeping with you has nothing to do with why I’m here. I did not plan for that to happen, and it is not going to derail me from my course.’ His eyes narrowed warningly. ‘Nothing will, Amelia.’
The light in the house was so bright, and she could see him clearly now. His ruthless determination was a physical force in the room, a dark shape she would never be able to grapple with.
Her skin paled, her heart lurched. ‘You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?’
He angled his head away from her and in profile his face was powerful, as if carved from stone, and a muscle jerked in his jaw, throbbing hard as he reined in his temper.
‘You have no interest in the shares I want.’
‘How do you know that?’ she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
He turned to face her, his eyes pinning her to the wall. Oh, God, just like the wall he’d held her against when he’d thrust inside her. Her heart gave a strange little double-beat as memories threatened to swallow her whole.
‘Since you inherited your stock portfolio, you have attended precisely zero board or shareholder meetings. You do not appear at corporate events...you do not have a bio on the website. You are absent in every way.’
‘So?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Ever heard of a silent partner?’
‘It is not the same thing. You have holed yourself up here, as far as you can get from the seat of power in diSalvo Industries. You do not want to use your shares to control the company—’
‘And is that any wonder? When getting involved in my family’s business would mean running up against vultures like you?’
His nostrils flared as he expelled a rapid breath. ‘You think I am a vulture for wanting to take back what was stolen from me? Prim’Aqua is my birthright...’
‘As much as it is mine and Carlo’s,’ she interrupted firmly, her cheeks flushing pink. ‘You have as large a stake in the company as I do. And larger than my brother’s too. So what’s your problem?’
‘I do not want your family
having any part of it,’ he said with icy simplicity. ‘Your grandfather stole it and I intend to take it back.’ He softened his voice slightly. ‘Only I am not stealing it. This is a business transaction, plain and simple. You have something I want and I’m prepared to pay you for it.’
‘You’re unbelievable. Do you realise that if you’d told me this when you first arrived I might have heard you out? But how can you think, after what just happened between us, you can lay all this at my feet and I won’t be angry?’
‘Because you’re a sensible, mature woman,’ he said. ‘And I believe you capable of seeing that business is separate to the personal.’
‘There is no business here!’ she roared. ‘We just had sex! Not even an hour ago! You took my virginity and it was...just a way to soften me up towards you, so that I’d agree to anything you wanted.’
He swore in Spanish and shook his head. His face was deathly serious, his face harsh with intent. When he spoke, the words were slow and grated from him, indignation heavy in each accented syllable. ‘If you think I would ever stoop to something so low, then you have no idea who you’re dealing with.’
‘No, clearly I don’t,’ she agreed scathingly. ‘Now, please go.’
‘You do not want me to leave without those contracts,’ he said, the words softly menacing.
It took a moment for the penny to drop, to make sense of the words he’d just issued. ‘Are you threatening me?’
Something like sympathy crossed his face. ‘No. I am threatening your brother.’
Now Amelia was frozen still, her breath coming in fits and spurts, her eyes holding his as she tried to make sense of what he meant.
‘Carlo foolishly picked up our families’ rivalry some years ago.’ Antonio spoke calmly, emotions carefully blanked from his voice. ‘In truth, I’m surprised he never spoke to you of it.’
‘He knew I had no interest in that side of things.’ She wrapped her arms around her chest.
Antonio’s expression tightened. ‘He wanted to ruin my father once and for all, to destroy my family’s legacy as the final step in this feud. By the time I took over the company it was a shambles; my father was destroyed, his life’s work ruined.’ His eyes glinted with the harsh recollection, and there was something else there too. A grief that threatened to shake her sympathetic heart to the core. ‘It has taken me a long time to rebuild Herrera Incorporated, but I have done it, querida, and then some.’
Spaniard's Baby of Revenge Page 4