TANK_Forsaken Riders MC Romance

by Samantha Leal

  Her wandering attention honed in as she caught the last few words of whatever Claire was saying, “ the bid by Beautiful Designs.”

  “Huh? Say that again.”

  “I said I got a call this morning from our guy at Alistairs Plc; he says he thinks Lead Inc may be positioning themselves to either change their bid to a figure below ours, or to convince us to bow out.”

  A cold fist of fear clenched around Alexandra’s heart, “Someone wants us out of the running for Alistairs and you’re just telling me now? You know how much we have riding on that.”

  Silence.

  Alistairs Plc was a company with at least two branches in each state; not to mention some foreign holdings. They had recently decided to rebrand their offices across the states and had invited bids from interior design companies. Beautiful Designs needed the kind of exposure just such a contract would give them if her dream of becoming a household name was to be a reality. Beautiful Designs had sunk months of manpower, research and effort into this bid, not to mention the series of expensive high-powered meetings they had conducted to convince the Board of Alistairs Plc that they were the right people for the job.

  If she lost this deal, it would mean Beautiful Designs had sunk a lot of money down the drain which it really could not afford to lose right now. They had come too far; made it to a point where it was just down to them and some other company. They needed this deal. Besides Beautiful Designs was in debt and if it didn’t get a huge cash infusion soon, they would have to start laying off some people and that was the last thing she wanted.

  “Claire?”

  “I’m here?”

  “Who the hell are the Lead Inc people?”

  Silence reigned at the other end and then quietly, Claire asked, “Have you checked your email recently?”

  “Okay I haven’t. Who’s trying to shove us out the door and why?”

  “They really just want contract as an additional feather in an already heavily-decorated cap. These guys are the big league; I even heard they officially decorate the White House. Last two weeks, someone contacted me and wanted to know if we would drop out of the running but I told them we’re in it to win it. I was going to tell you that day but that was the same day you found out about Andrew and you were so torn up about it. The man was all cocky like his boss is the most persuasive man this side of the planet and when you factor in the fact that he’s the Alarico, you can understand why they have such faith in his abilities.”

  Alexandra fought off a sudden wave of nausea as she digested this latest bit of information. The Alarico? “What is his name?”

  “He’s a Spaniard…Leandro Alarico. He’s a big deal apparently.”

  “Claire, do they know where this Alarico person is at the moment?”

  “Um, I actually demanded to see him and tell the man off myself and the pissy rep assured me that he was out of reach. Something about him needing a working holiday or some such thing.”

  Alexandra felt a great chill chase up her arms and straight into her bones. Her eyes swung to the briefcase lying open on the bed across the room. Wordlessly, she replaced the receiver and turned to stare around Leandro’s suite with new eyes. Who was this man?

  Muffled singing from the bathroom told her he was still in the shower and she hurriedly rushed to peep into the documents lying in his open briefcase. Her heart stopped; it was a copy of a bid by Lead Inc for the same contract. The envelope beside it also revealed some pictures of her as well as some reports detailing her life and her personal habits. Tears blurred her vision. Was this why he had sought her out in Hawaii? Obviously their meeting had not been an accident at all. Everything that had happened  the lovemaking, the laughter, the companionship  it had all been nothing but a master-seducer at work!

  Her sense of betrayal was absolute and complete as she stared at the document. With a flip of her hand, she flung it back into his briefcase and with quick jerky movements, picked up her clothes and fled to the sanctity of her room.

  ***

  Leandro whistled to himself as he emerged from the bathroom. The world suddenly seemed brighter. He felt more cheerful and happier than he could remember. He was interested in finding out more about Alexandra, he wanted to know everything! That was a first for him, most women he dated, he barely knew more than their first names. There was just something unique about her. As much as he was captivated, it also that scared the hell out of him. At some level though, he thought, maybe that’s what I have needed – someone who can really see me.

  He loved her, he realized. He waited to feel choked or trapped but all he felt was exhilarated.

  He would tell her the truth today, he decided.

  “Alexandra?” he called as he dried his hair with a towel, looking around the room. It was empty. Where had she gone? He strode into the adjourning bedroom, but she was not there either.

  A niggle of unease trickled down his spine and he immediately swung about the room, searching wildly for something. He didn’t know what it was but he couldn’t shake the sudden feeling in his guts that there was something he should look out for. His eyes fell on the open briefcase and with a sense of dread, he walked closer. Instantly he knew what had happened. Dammit, he thought to himself. She had found the pictures and the bid. What a mess. He had not gone through the papers yet, but he knew, essentially what he had asked his people investigate for him. He picked up the first document and his jaw tightened as he read what was written on it; the idiot had even detailed where she shopped for lingerie!

  Had she seen these? Of course she had.

  Hurriedly he shoved his legs into his pants and dragged a tee-shirt over his head. He barely remembered to shove his foot into his loafers before he was barreling towards the elevator. He reached her room and shoved open the door; it was just as he had feared! All her belongings were gone.

  Cursing in rapid Spanish,”Mierda, mierda, mierda” Leandro rushed downstairs, his heart in his throat as he looked over the crowd for any glimpse of her.

  “Where is she?” he demanded of the receptionist.

  The young woman took one look at him. All of the staff knew exactly who he was. She responded without asking who he meant, “She left Sir. She checked out.”

  “When?” he bit out so furiously, that the startled receptionist drew back.

  “A few minutes ago Sir. She was in quite a hurry.”

  “Did you see which way she went?”

  “No. But I’ll take a wild stab and say she was heading for the airport.”

  Leandro didn’t wait to hear more; he left at a run, searching even as he headed for the door. But she was already gone. Weakly, he sank onto the pavement in front of the hotel. Whatever brightness had illuminated his day a scant twenty minutes ago had gone out completely.

  Chapter Six

  Alexandra Jordan was a mess. It had been seven weeks since she’d left Hawaii and while Lead Inc had not contacted them at all, she had been unable to get its conniving CEO out of her mind.

  She had also been a nightmare to be around at work because she was so sensitive these days that the least thing set her off. In a single day, she had berated her CFO, fired a janitor and sent two new interns crying from her office after an intense scolding.

  Three weeks after she had returned, the tension around her had been so palpable that Claire had pulled her aside and reminded her she was supposed to have gone on the break to relax and not to return an ogre. She had the temperament of a bear with a sore paw and she knew it.

  When she had noticed that her normally stoic secretary now blanched every single time she so much as looked at the woman, and that even Claire was giving her a wide berth, she had gone home and had a good crying session just to get it all out of her system. These days she was more withdrawn and quiet which was a decided improvement from her earlier raging-bitch persona.

  The past week, she had forced smiles until her cheeks hurt. She had smiled for real though when she learned that Beautiful Designs had somehow clin
ched the Alistairs Plc contract. Things were looking up, she had thought as she joined her colleagues for a toast in celebration.

  But just when she had started to convince herself that Leandro was not worth her tears, her doctor had delivered what might have been amazing news under other circumstances, but felt pretty grim as things stood now; she was pregnant!

  She had lost some weight, rather than gain some as one might expect, and the bags under her eyes were so prominent they threatened to dwarf her nose. She hadn’t been sleeping much either, she admitted but all that had to change now that she had a baby to think of. She looked around at the park; it was midday and she was pretty much alone. A few kids played in a nearby swing set while adults sat on some benches similar to hers, watching over them.

  Alexandra’s hand rested both pensively as well as protectively on her stomach as she leaned back against the park bench and shut her eyes. She wasn’t showing yet but she already loved the tiny human being inside of her with all her heart. It wasn’t its fault that its father was a two-faced rat! But still, this was not how it was supposed to be!

  “May I sit?” an achingly familiar voice said from right in front of her.

  Alexandra’s eyes flew open disbelievingly. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The two-faced rat was standing right in front of her looking so unbearably handsome that she unconsciously started to grind her teeth. He was wearing a pair of well-washed jeans and a tee-shirt with simple sneakers and yet somehow he managed to look utterly respectable, male and delicious. He was also slimmer than she remembered; he actually looked a little gaunt.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered, her throat almost closing up. She had been torturing herself with images of his handsome, lying face since Hawaii but seeing him in the flesh was even more painful than her fevered anticipation had imagined.

  “I need to talk to you Alexandra. You left the Island in a hurry and I had no chance to ”

  “To seduce me further just so you could get me to reveal secrets about my business? Well you failed; we got the contract!” she cut in acidly.

  “Cara mia, I’ve hurt you but you will let me make amends yes?” he said, his Spanish accent thicker as he dropped his long frame onto the bench beside her.

  Alexandra felt as though the entire air around them reverberated with the very force of his presence and vitality. She edged away from him a little on the bench.

  “Alexandra? Come on, don’t avoid me, Cara mia,” he pleaded, his hand grabbing hers to still her nervous movements.

  “You have a lot of nerve showing your face here,” Alexandra spat jerking her arm from his light grasp. “So all you wanted was a contract and you had to sleep with me too? The humiliation couldn’t just end at me warming up to you? You could have simply asked me to withdraw as a friend and I would have considered it. You didn’t have to pretend to like me and actually fucking take me to your bed!”

  Pun was really not her strong suit, she thought distractedly.

  “It looks bad I know, but I swear it was nothing like that,” he said gruffly, taking her hand in his.

  She sprung to her feet, flinging off his hand, her heart racing as she said frigidly, “Leave me the hell alone.”

  Something glinted fleetingly in his dark eyes but was gone before she could ascertain what it was and he said, “I can’t. I have tried a thousand times to let you go but I can’t. I tried to forget you. I can’t undo what is done.”

  “You’re damn right you can’t! I hate you and I curse the day I met you,” she lied.

  Leandro looked weary and deflated all of a sudden and Alexandra felt her heart constrict in her chest as she looked at him. In this moment he didn’t look the part of some corporate raider as she had painted him; he looked almost like a little boy whose heart was breaking.

  “I never set out to seduce you. I came to Hawaii to persuade you to withdraw Beautiful Designs from the bid. Lead Inc has been trying to take over some companies, mostly subsidiaries of Alistairs Plc and this contract would have been like a leg in the door for us. Before I met you, it was just business, but once I saw you, I had to have you. I wanted to be with you, I should say. Seducing you was never my agenda. I swear it. I tried everything I could to stay away but I just could not forget you. Now that I know you exist, nothing is the same. All that I have accomplished means nothing without you. I was going to tell you everything that last day but you found out on your own before I had the chance.”

  “Yeah you should have done a better job of hiding the papers I said,” she said bitingly.

  He sighed, “That was the worst day of my life.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  “Alexandra, I pulled Lead Inc out of the bid. That was the first thing I did when I returned. You can verify from them, I swear. I didn’t want to take it away from you; not if it meant I would lose you.”

  Her heart thudded in her chest. He had pulled out of the contract when it meant so much to his company?

  Alexandra took a quick step back as Leandro rose to his feet and took her hand in his once more. “I’m sorry Alexandra. Please forgive me? I feel like I know you as much as I know my own self. Can’t you see? You are a part of me and I am a part of you. Our meeting was a gift. Can’t you see that?”

  “You only know so much about me because you read it up in some report!”

  “I never read the report. In fact I had only just printed them out that same morning. I never read them I swear. Our connection surprised me too. You are the funniest, kindest, sweetest, most beautiful woman I know.”

  His dark eyes stared into hers, open and searching and she read the blazing sincerity and remorse in his gaze. She believed him, she realized.

  Her resistance melted away and she nodded, “Okay fine. No harm done.”

  “There’s something else.”

  “Huh?”

  Before her surprised eyes, he went down on one knee and pulled a little black box from his pocket, his dark eyes gleaming as he looked up at her. Alexandra’s throat closed up as she stared at him, her hands flying to her mouth when the box opened to reveal the biggest and most amazingly cut diamond she had ever seen in her life.

  “I love you Alexandra. I know I absolutely do not deserve you but will you make me the happiest man on earth and say you’ll marry me?”

  “I I’m pregnant,” she blurted instead.

  His eyes widened in surprise even as his gaze automatically dropped to her flat stomach before flicking up to her face.

  “You’re” he began hesitantly.

  Alexandra nodded, happy tears springing into her eyes as she grinned down at him. He rose to his feet immediately and gathered her into his arms, his hands encircling her waist as he crushed her to him.

  “You’re perfect. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted,” he breathed against her lips. His kiss was tender and gentle. His tongue stroked hers sweetly sending waves of a calm and soothing peace shooting through her nerve endings as she clung to him. An almost indescribable feeling of happiness washed over her.

  “You never answered my question,” he reminded her, lifting his head and looking into her eyes with all the love in the world shining from his.

  “Yes Leandro, I’ll marry you. I love you too,” she told him.

  As she kissed him, all the walls around her heart melted away completely leaving her free to embrace this wonderful love that was hers to savor forever.

  THE END

  Another New Holiday Billionaire

  Pamela Avery

  Copyright ©2016 by Pamela Avery. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Caitríona Michaels snapped her pencil in two  actually snapped it in two equal halves as she glared across the large expanse of her office at the two
junior executives shuffling their feet and staring, in obvious dismay, at the floor in front of her large desk. They reminded her of her little nieces, but she didn’t find them half as endearing.

  Flyaway tendrils of her fiery red hair fell into her large grey eyes and she impatiently blew it away as she barked, “Tell me again why you were at a presentation, unprepared, before none other than the Tyson Waller.”

  “MMs. Michaels, we’re terribly sor”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” Caitríona snapped, interrupting Gareth Davies as he tried to stammer out an apology. “I want an explanation for why you bungled a meeting it took me four months and two weeks to negotiate! I got our feet in the door, why did you fail to prepare properly for a simple meeting?”

  “We thought” Tracey Whitman, the second junior executive began.

  “No, I’m going to take a wild stab and say you didn’t think at all! You just hustled on over there with empty brains and a sense of entitlement. He doesn’t owe us anything; he’s as rich as freaking Croesus, so no, he doesn’t need our business, we need his; I made that abundantly clear. Your role was to support the senior executive with you, and instead, Waller catches Gareth flirting with his personal assistant, whom, by the way, is his favorite niece and catches little Goldilocks, here, fast asleep at the table in the middle of a presentation!” she finished with a glare at Tracey’s blond locks.

  Tracey flushed to the roots of her hair and, for the first time, Caitríona felt a spurt of sympathy for the girl. Deliberately, she mentally back-tracked, taking a much-needed gulp of air as she strove for control. Her famous Irish temper would be the death of her one of these days if she didn’t learn to control it.

  She had heard it was now something of a legend around CaiCia Corporations Inc.; when other senior executives wanted a junior chewed out, they sent the person and his or her mistake to the CEO, meaning her. She didn’t know if anyone had noticed, but lately, she was getting more antsy than usual. CaiCia was her baby; hers and her sisters’ and named for both of them, but she had originated the idea and run it until it became the global giant it was today; Ciara, her baby sister had gotten married four years ago and seemed content to be a housewife these days, leaving her to run the company.