He made her feel like that now. It was dangerous and stupid.
“I suppose it’s not.”
She looked at his profile. Strong. Masculine. Angry. She’d said something wrong again and she had no idea what.
“Is there any way you can take time away from the office?” he asked, effectively changing the subject.
“For how long?”
“A week. I’ve been doing some consulting work with a corporation in Argentina and I have to make a physical appearance this week.”
“And why do you want to take me?” she asked.
“What better way to celebrate our engagement?”
“I’m not just going to jump into bed with you. We already established that,” she said, sounding prim even to herself.
“I remember. Vividly. Although you certainly do a good impression of a woman who wants to do some jumping when I kiss you.”
“Kissing isn’t sex,” she said coldly. “You’ve always seemed to get the two confused.”
“I assure you, Vanessa, I’m not confused about any part of sex. And a kiss is not sex, I’m well aware. Not even close.”
“So don’t equate one kiss with me being ready to sleep with you.” He’d certainly made that assumption the first time she’d kissed him. “I’m not ready. I don’t sleep with men I don’t know. And if that’s the point of the trip …”
“It will look nice if I take my fiancée on a celebratory vacation. If you’re going to be a harpy you can stay here.”
She thought of the two options for her week. Staring at the four walls of her office again, or escaping to Argentina for seven days. Even if it was with Lazaro, option two was the winner. She wanted to escape. Just go for a while. Leave reality behind.
“I’ll go.”
“Bien. You and I can … get to know each other.”
Buenos Aires was electric. There was energy in everything, motion and lights and heat. Vanessa had never seen anything like it. She’d traveled quite a bit before she’d graduated from high school, but they’d been trips with her father, trips that had begun at airports in air-conditioned limousines and ended up at cloistered resort properties.
She’d never truly gotten to enjoy the culture of the country she’d been visiting. And she’d never realized how sad that was until now. Had never realized what she’d been missing.
She wished she could capture it forever. The curves of the buildings, the brick on the street, the sun-washed blue sky.
“You grew up here?” She turned to Lazaro, who was sitting next to her in the back seat of the limo, engrossed in something on his smartphone.
“We left when I was thirteen,” he said, not bothering to spare her a glance.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Sure. If you don’t go down to where I used to live. But every city has its slums.”
Vanessa’s stomach tightened. “And that’s where you’re from?”
“Does that bother you, princesa?”
“No. Yes. Only in the sense that I don’t like to think of you … of anyone, living like that.”
“It’s reality,” he said, his voice rough.
“I know.” She did. But it was sort of a hollow, half-realized knowledge.
“It’s where I’m from. I hope it doesn’t cause you too much despair to have a husband who comes from nothing. As your father is so fond of saying, class can’t be bought.”
“I’ve never cared, Lazaro. Never.”
“That isn’t how I remember it.”
“How do you remember it? Because I remember risking my father’s wrath to speak to you whenever I got the chance, and I don’t think I ever treated you like a second-class citizen. In fact, I pretty much remember my entire sixteen-year-old world revolving around you.”
The limo pulled up the curb in front of a stretch of tall, white, connected buildings. “My penthouse is here,” Lazaro said.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I like it,” she said, opening her own door and getting out without waiting for Lazaro.
She liked it, and she was glad to be done with the conversation. She didn’t want to talk about what an idiot she’d been for him back in her angsty teenage days. And she really didn’t want him guessing just how close she was to being an idiot for him now.
Lazaro Marino was as hard as concrete and just as loving. The last thing she wanted was to cultivate feelings for him. She’d had her heart broken by him before. Granted, at sixteen, everything felt fatal, and she was sure that whatever it was she’d felt for him was more infatuation than anything else. But still, she had no desire to relive it.
This time, she did have Lazaro in her future. And a lifetime of living with him and loving him while he saw her as nothing more than a possession would be worse than a relationship with no emotions at all.
So she was aiming for cool and distant. She could do that. She had plenty of practice being treated with cool distance; she ought to be able to dish a little bit out.
Lazaro got out of the limo and opened the trunk, retrieving their bags without waiting for the driver or for aid from one of the apartment building’s employees.
She couldn’t help but admire the grace in his movements, the easy strength. Even angry—and he was angry with her, that much was obvious—he was the single most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Deep bronze skin, square jaw—which he was clenching tightly. He always did that when he was annoyed with her.
“You’re going to get TMJ,” she blurted, following him into the building.
“Que?”
“TMJ. You can get it from grinding your teeth. There was a girl at school who had to wear a mouth guard to stop her from doing it.”
A smile curved his lips and a ridiculous, happy, fluttering sensation assaulted her. “Perhaps you should just endeavor to be less of a cause of stress.”
She huffed out a laugh. “I stress you out, Lazaro? Really?”
He stopped walking and turned to face her, the look on his face intense. And for a second, she forgot that breathing was important. Because nothing seemed more important, more compelling, than what was happening between herself and Lazaro.
“Maybe stress is the wrong word.”
Vanessa leaned back slightly and her shoulders connected with the wall. “It is?”
“But I am having trouble sleeping.”
“Why is that?”
“Because every night since you came to me at the museum I have stayed awake. Wanting you. In my arms. In my bed.”
The need to kiss him again was unbearable. It was hard to remember why she was fighting her attraction for him, especially when sleeping with him was inevitable.
A thrill shot through her system when she realized that fully, for the first time. It was a matter of when, not if, and having it suddenly seem real made the distance between Lazaro and herself seem that much smaller.
He released his hold on one of the bags and let it drop to the carpeted floor of the lobby area. He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, an action that was becoming familiar to her. Maybe familiar was the wrong word, because each time he touched her like that it made her knees weaken.
She flicked the tip of her tongue to his finger, curiosity and desire mixing together to create a potent temptation she couldn’t resist. His body shuddered, the movement running through every strong inch of him. She leaned her head back against the wall, pulling away from him. But he was still close. So close it wouldn’t take a very big action for him to close the distance between them and take her in his arms. To kiss her again as he’d done in her office. As he’d done in the guesthouse.
“Oh, yes, Vanessa, I very much look forward to getting to know you better this week.” He picked up the suitcase again and turned away from her, the spell that had descended over her breaking.
He was playing with her. Teasing her. Proving that at any moment he could call up that desire in her that was so strong, so close to the surface.
If he kept behaving like that
, it wouldn’t be hard to keep her emotional distance from him. Not hard at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“WHAT’S this?”
Lazaro flicked her an uninterested look from his position at the sleek penthouse bar. “I had some things sent ahead for you.”
A lot of things. Dresses, a swimsuit … the large armoire had been stocked with items, as had the freestanding vanity in the massive bathroom that was just off her expansive bedroom. But that wasn’t what caught her eye. “This,” she said again, picking up a black camera bag that was positioned in the middle of the sumptuous four-poster bed, almost afraid to open it.
She peered through the open door of her bedroom and out into the spacious living area.
Lazaro waved his hand in a dismissive manner. “You mentioned you liked taking pictures.”
Her heart thundered hard in her head, and she felt dizzy. Overwhelmed. She ran her fingers along the edge of the bag. It was very high-quality heavy canvas sewn with thick nylon thread.
She grasped the zipper and pulled it open. Her hands shook as she pulled the camera out. It wasn’t just a camera. It was lenses and filters and just about every other accessory she could think of. Much more than she would ever need to take pictures as a hobby.
She walked out of her room and into the living room, stepping up the marble steps into the bar area.
She felt short of breath as she turned the camera over in her hands, her fingers sliding over the slick black casing. Her body felt strange, hollow.
“Lazaro, why … why did you do this for me?”
He moved around to the other side of the bar, drink in hand. “Why not? You said you liked to take pictures. You were doing it with your phone and I thought you might want a real camera. Especially as I knew you would want pictures of Buenos Aires.”
“I do … I was … I was so wishing I could capture it all forever while we were driving from the airport and … you knew.”
He shrugged. “It isn’t a big deal. Money is nothing to me.”
“This is more than money.”
“It’s not,” he said, his focus on the city skyline beyond the large window that extended the length of the living area.
“But I just don’t understand why you went to the trouble to …”
“You’re going to be my wife, Vanessa,” he said, cutting her off. “I don’t want you to be miserable. Do you think I mean to keep you as my captive and make you pay penance for the rest of your life? I have no interest in that.”
“I hadn’t really given it a lot of thought.”
That he intended to make her happy was an entirely foreign concept. It wasn’t that she’d imagined he wanted her to be miserable, it was just that she didn’t think he’d cared one way or the other.
“Really?” he asked, his tone dry.
“I’ve just been trying to get through the day-to-day stuff. Not only since you decided to play a little game of Russian roulette with my life, before that too. I’ve just been trying to get by.”
“I have a lot of experience in just trying to get by,” he said slowly.
“It’s not fun.”
“No, it’s not.” He looked at her, his dark eyes veiling his emotions, but she felt that his eyes were able to see into her, to read her thoughts. “It begs the question, why do you choose to do it?”
“I don’t. Not really.”
“You do.”
“Fine, maybe. I choose to do it because as I said before, it isn’t just me. It’s my family. It’s the inheritance for all my—our children.”
“You could take an inactive role.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No, it would save you all that money you spend on antacids,” he said, his voice flat.
“It doesn’t come naturally to me, I’ll admit that. I took all the classes, I got really good grades, in fact, but a classroom isn’t the real world. I don’t have that extra thing that takes someone from good to great.”
He took a long sip of his drink and walked back to the bar, putting both of his hands flat on the marble surface. “You might not have it for business, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have it.”
That was a revelation—but one she couldn’t accept. One she’d been trained not to accept. “It doesn’t really matter if I can’t do the one thing that would matter.”
“Is it all that matters?”
“You can ask me that? Does your success matter, Lazaro? And is it enough? Or are you still after more?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“Exactly. You aren’t happy because there’s still that one thing. This is my thing, this is what I have to do. What I have to get right.”
He nodded once. “Good for you. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have this kind of determination.”
That stung a little bit. “Because you knew me for a few weeks when I was sixteen?”
“It made an impression,” he said dryly.
“Yay, me,” she said, turning the camera over in her hands, suddenly fighting back a hot flood of tears. She cleared her throat. “Thank you for this. Really.”
“You can bring it when we go out tonight.”
“We’re going out?”
“I thought you might want to see some of the city.”
She nodded. “I do. I very much do.”
“Great. I have to stop by Paolo Cruz’s office and give him a rundown of what we’re discussing at the board meeting tomorrow, but when I get back, we’ll go and have dinner.”
Dinner with Lazaro in Buenos Aires and a gift. A personal gift. Proof that he’d listened to her. That he wanted her to be happy.
The emotion thing kept getting trickier. Lucky her.
Vanessa on a normal day was enough to light his blood on fire and make his libido kick into high gear. Vanessa dressed to kill in a tight black dress with a low V-neckline and a slit in the skirt that revealed one toned, gorgeous thigh when she walked was almost too much.
Already, the past few days in Buenos Aires had tested him, his body now so hot that an ice-cold shower at night did nothing to cool the fire that raged beneath his skin. A fire only Vanessa could dampen.
But he had not gone to her. He would not let her see that she had that power over him. It was a power she had always had. He’d been bewitched by her body, her spirit, from the moment he’d met her. It galled him that she still had him under her spell.
After three days, no, more like twelve years of resisting, right now he ached to pull her into his arms, the need so strong he thought he couldn’t resist it without the pain becoming crippling. His body throbbed with the need to have her. To feel those slim, perfect legs wrapped around his waist as he drowned himself in the pleasure only she could offer.
Tonight, she’d left her hair down, rich brown waves cascading over her shoulders, partially concealing the round swell of her breasts that the daring neckline of her dress did not.
She brought something out in him, something he didn’t recognize. A need, a desire, a totally primal lust that defied anything he’d ever experienced before.
They’d shared a kiss. A simple kiss. Yet she’d burrowed her way inside him as no woman, not a long-term girlfriend or one-night lover, ever had. He wished this need was tied to vengeance. That he could explain. But it was separate from the issues with her father. Even if all of the events of the past sometimes tangled in his memory, the parts with Vanessa, the memories of her lips touching his, burned bright in his mind, washed everything else away. When he thought of her mouth, of her hands on his body, there was nothing else.
It was desire. That was all. Even if it was desire such as he’d never known. And he would have a lifetime to indulge that desire. To take the edge off it so that it no longer dominated his thoughts.
Her wicked red lips curved into a smile and all of his blood rushed south of his belt. “I didn’t overdress, did I?”
She was absolutely overdressed. Anything covering those luscious curves was a crime as far as he w
as concerned. “Not at all,” he said “Are you ready then?”
“Si.” Images of them together, limbs entwined, moans of pleasure issuing from those plump red lips had him hard and shaking. He didn’t want dinner. He wanted her, wanted her body pressed against his. He felt a smile curve his lips. “I think that, in honor of your dress, we need to go somewhere different than I originally had in mind.”
Even at night the streets of Buenos Aires were alive. People were still walking around, laughing, talking, eating. Heat and moisture clung to the air, to Vanessa’s skin, as they walked down the crowded sidewalk.
Lazaro was completely at ease in his surroundings. Passersby stopped and looked at him, and Vanessa couldn’t blame them. In his black suit and open-collared shirt, he was absolute masculine perfection. He demanded to be stared at.
He didn’t seem to notice, or care, that he drew attention from every woman they passed. He didn’t return any of the hungry, open stares. His eyes were on her. And it was making her blood feel hot.
“Where are we going?” she asked. It was a long shot, but talking might break up some of the tension that was building inside her.
“Right here.” He took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together, and led her into a small, narrow doorway. The outside of the building had seemed the same as every building they’d passed—white brick with rounded edges showing its age. But the interior didn’t match the old-world feel of the streets outside.
Inside was open and clean, with pared-down, square furniture and a large bar area surrounded by plush seating. Pendant lighting hung low at different lengths, made to look like floating candles suspended in space.
There was plenty of room to move, but everything was arranged so that it felt close, intimate. There was a band playing, and couples were on the dance floors, wrapped around each other, dancing in a rhythm so sensual that it made Vanessa feel as though she was intruding on something by witnessing it.
“Would you like a drink?” Lazaro gestured to the bar.
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 240