Brazilian's Nine Months' Notice

by Susan Stephens

  He scanned the corridor over her head, as if he had other, more important places to be. ‘Look, Emma...’ His stare returned to fix on her face.

  She was looking. She met his stare unblinkingly as Luc went on, ‘I really don’t have time for this—’

  ‘Then make time.’

  His head slowly lowered until his dark eyes were on a level with hers. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said softly.

  He could put all the menace he wanted into his tone. She hadn’t come halfway around the world to sit twiddling her thumbs. ‘I’m sure you heard me the first time.’ She tried for pleasant. She even added a helpful smile. The familiar beat of arousal was back, but she blanked it, along with the mesmerising tone of his voice and Luc’s dark stare. ‘I was ignored in the meeting. No one explained how I could contribute to any of the projects under discussion, and as I don’t have any files or papers to help me understand I’m relying on you to tell me.’ She managed to keep calm, but inwardly she was fuming. Forget the lust and the compelling attraction. The way Luc was treating her was insulting.

  ‘What’s to understand, Emma? You have a beautiful apartment in the centre of Rio. You have a wardrobe of clothes a princess might envy.’ He cast a disapproving look at the chain-store suit she had chosen to wear. ‘Yet you put this rag on and insult me.’

  ‘I chose this outfit because it belongs to me. I didn’t set out to upset you. Shouldn’t I be the one who is insulted to find a wardrobe of clothes appropriate for a billionaire’s mistress, not only installed on your jet but here in what you term my apartment? I have no intention of becoming your mistress, Luc, so you can take those clothes out of my apartment and send them back.’

  ‘Is this how it’s going to be?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’m afraid it is.’

  ‘You’re not afraid of anything,’ the man she had given herself to so joyfully remarked coldly. ‘Why do you continue to deny yourself like this?’

  ‘Because I can. Because I’m not the woman you seem to think I am. You accepted that I was upset in London because of my parents’ death, and that I was behaving out of character, and yet now you seem to think that I will gladly fall into line because it suits you.’

  ‘I’m trying to make you as happy as I can while you’re here, while you seem to be doing everything in your power to put hurdles in my way.’

  ‘Shall I spell it out to you?’ she suggested. ‘An apartment, however beautiful, together with wardrobes full of expensive clothes is only going to make me feel more awkward, not less. You brought me here under false pretences. You told me that I’d have a job—a proper job. I expected to live in staff quarters and dress like my peers—either in a uniform you provide or in my own suitable clothes. I did not expect you to wheel me out like some sort of pampered moll, and then have to find my place amongst people who work hard for a living. How the hell did you think that was going to work out?’

  ‘Have you quite finished?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Yes.’ She glanced at the door. ‘You can leave me to find my own way around. I can’t think what I could possibly learn by shadowing you.’

  ‘Really?’

  It was Luc’s turn to block her way, and to her amazement there was a smile hovering around his mouth as if her rebellion had pleased, even aroused him. She guessed it made the hunt all the more entertaining for him. Too bad there wasn’t going to be a hunt. ‘Yes, really,’ she stressed, staring steadily into his mocking eyes.

  ‘Are you suggesting I consider myself so far above you in status—in every way possible—that I don’t think your small, feminine brain could possibly accommodate the complexities of my complicated day?’

  Oh, she hated it when he did this. He had turned her anger into the urge to smile back. ‘I don’t know what you think, Lucas, but I do know I’m going to make a success of this job, with or without your help.’

  ‘With would be better, surely?’ he murmured.

  His expression had softened. There was humour in his eyes. Luc was at his most dangerous now. ‘I’m afraid my defence mechanisms have just kicked into place, along with my urge to work,’ she said, glancing at the door. ‘So, if you’ll excuse me?’

  ‘And if I won’t?’

  His voice was a soft caress. Right now she would have preferred the whiplash of command. It was so much easier to counter. ‘If I don’t leave this room now, you will consider it a victory and think that gives you a licence to walk all over me in future. That isn’t going to happen, Luc. This is a very serious situation for me, as it should be for you. But be assured that, whether you’re my boss or not, I will give this job my very best.’

  Now she could only wait.

  It seemed a long few seconds before Luc finally stood aside and opened the door to let her go.

  * * *

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘What the does it look as if I’m doing?’ On her hands and knees, Emma glanced up at the storm cloud that was her boss, Lucas Marcelos, and then she carried on mopping up the spill.

  ‘We have cleaners to do that,’ he rapped. ‘You are no longer a chambermaid, Emma.’

  Her inner imp laughed. Luc’s tone made it sound as if he’d waved the magic wand and she had been instantly transformed into a fairy princess—except that might be boring, stuck away in some stuffy palace. ‘Excuse me?’ Standing up, she straightened her skirt before confronting him. ‘Is there some way this hotel could operate without its expert cleaning staff? Or are you suggesting I’ve somehow been elevated by our association into some new, rarefied sphere, where cleaning isn’t necessary?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ His jaw firmed.

  ‘I don’t think I do. There isn’t a job in this hotel I wouldn’t be prepared to do myself, but you haven’t asked me to do anything. So what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit upstairs in my apartment, reading magazines and painting my nails?’

  ‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘You’re overreacting. All I’m saying is that I don’t expect to find you on your hands and knees, cleaning floors.’

  ‘So there are jobs in this hotel you expect your staff to do that you wouldn’t do yourself?’

  ‘Of course I’m not saying that.’

  ‘Then why can’t I do this? What am I here for? What does everyone else think I’m here for? If it’s to manage people, as you suggested back in Scotland, I have to understand every job, as well as the stresses the people doing that job have to face. And if a waiter has an accident with a tray because he’s rushing from one room to the next, I not only have to help him, I have to understand how we can make the rota work more smoothly for him in the kitchen so he’s not rushing around. Understand this, Luc. I am not going to stand by, watching something going wrong and doing nothing about it. And I’m not going to wait until you give me permission before I move.’

  ‘Is that it?’ he demanded mildly when she paused for breath.

  ‘For now, but there are some very simple things that could be improved here. We need to talk.’

  He huffed a laugh. ‘You are so right about that.’

  Luc’s grip on her arm was non-negotiable. Dropping her used floor cloth on the cleaning trolley as he hurried her past it and on down the corridor, she flashed a reassuring smile at Karina, who was standing with a group of their colleagues in the lobby, watching this mini-drama play out with her mouth wide open.

  Luc didn’t let go of her until they had walked past his shocked secretary and into his office, where he closed the door and paused as if gathering his thoughts.

  How best to deal with a rebellious woman who had no official duty to fulfil was probably uppermost in his mind, she thought, taking the chance to look around. Office was a term she’d use loosely in this instance. The master of this building’s eyr
ie was a fabulous light and bright space with an incredible view over the city to the sea. It was surprisingly optimistic if you had to pin down the mood.

  That would be because of the mega-money business deals conducted here, Emma reasoned. No expense had been spared. She didn’t need to examine the art to know that every picture would be an original, or sweep her hand across the polished surface of Luc’s desk to know that everything he owned was of the best—with the possible exception of Emma Fane, lately chambermaid with pride intact, now person of no account in Luc’s eyes.

  But he didn’t own her. And she wasn’t one of his possessions, Emma thought, spearing a glance at Luc. ‘You’ve given me no proper job to do,’ she said, getting in first when he swung around.

  ‘I’ve told them to let you man the phones tomorrow,’ he flashed back. ‘You can answer a phone, can’t you?’

  ‘I can answer a phone politely, and so can a ten-year-old child. I’ll put myself in the complaints department.’

  ‘We don’t have one.’

  ‘That’s what you think. There’s always someone who can’t get a booking when they want one. Do you even know how popular this hotel is?’

  ‘Of course I know.’

  ‘Then you’ll know we have regular guests who should have their loyalty recognised, and if the hotel happens to be full when they ring—’

  ‘It’s full most of the time,’ he rapped, and with this came an impatient gesture.

  ‘Exactly.’ She faced him down. ‘So either we should have a list of associate hotels to supply to loyal guests we can’t accommodate, or we invest in some more real estate—create a super-haven, perhaps—’

  ‘We? We?’ Luc’s face was a mask of fury. ‘Who do the hell do you think you are?’

  Emma slowly shook her head. ‘I’ve been asking myself that question since I first got here.’ Her jaw firmed as she lifted her chin to confront him. ‘And let me make this clear. I’m not staying unless I can do a proper job. I’m not just filling in time until I have my baby, and to date you haven’t seen me as anything other than an unfortunate encumbrance—the human element connected to the convenient womb for your child.’

  Luc reeled back as if she’d slapped him. The expression on his face sent her thoughts into a tailspin. He had his shadows too, she remembered, and so far she didn’t have a clue what they were. They had gone about things backwards when it came to knowing each other, and maybe she had gone in too hard just now, but she had to wake Luc up to the fact that she wasn’t here to be a rich man’s plaything.

  ‘You’re not just a convenient womb,’ he said at last, his face dark with thoughts she couldn’t read. ‘Just remember that I didn’t even know you were pregnant, so you can’t accuse me of using you as breeding stock, but now you are having a baby that you say is mine, you’re my concern.’

  ‘But not under your control.’

  He looked at her, but didn’t answer. He was taking a lot on trust, she conceded. She had told Luc he was the father of her baby, and he had chosen to believe her. She had no doubt that when the child was born there would be tests, but until then he was giving her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Luc did care—about her and the baby—and caring was new to him. He certainly seemed concerned now, and he was surprised that she was so keen to get to work, but she had never been one to sit on the sidelines, looking on.

  ‘New real estate,’ he murmured, staring out of the window as he thought about her earlier remark.

  If business was the way to touch him, the way to get this complex man to open up, then that was the key she would use for the sake of their child.

  ‘You’ve got some good ideas,’ Luc admitted, narrowing his eyes as he turned to look at her.

  Condescending? Yes. But any step forward was progress in her book. She’d take it and mend his manners later. ‘You’ve got to allow me to be useful to you, Luc.’

  His eyes sparked briefly with inner thoughts, but then he turned cold again. ‘I think I’ve done enough for you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. You haven’t done anything, except bring me here and put me under your nose so you can monitor everything I do.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ he demanded. ‘Why do you have to make things so difficult, Emma?’

  ‘Why won’t I fold and let you have your own way, don’t you mean?’ she countered. ‘I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m just suggesting we try to find some common ground, but so far you haven’t even made time to speak to me.’

  ‘What am I doing now?’ Luc demanded, his arms open wide.

  ‘Occupying the same space isn’t a guarantee of communication between two people, Luc. It’s just an opportunity.’

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’

  ‘You make room for me in your organisation. I’ll do anything, but I must have a proper job.’

  ‘I offered you a proper job. Did you think being my mistress would be easy?’

  She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. ‘You are such a dinosaur. And my answer’s still no.’

  Angling his chin, Luc eased onto one hip as he surveyed her with a lazy stare. ‘So you’re not the same girl I had against a wall in London?’

  For a moment she was too shocked to speak. ‘You were as desperate for it too, I seem to recall.’

  Luc’s surprise at her counter-attack flashed across his face. He was so used to dominating everything and everyone around him that he took it as his right.

  A tense silence resulted. She would not back down. And then a question came into her head. She had a baby to look forward to in her future, and the tragedy of her parents’ wasted lives in her past, as well as hormones bombarding her, but what drove Lucas to behave so unreasonably? Her maternal instinct was in full flood, Emma accepted, hence the caring when otherwise she might have been inclined to walk out on him right now. ‘I’m the mother of your baby,’ she said steadily, ‘and though neither of us can ever forget London, I would ask you to not to cheapen what we had.’

  ‘What we had?’ he said, frowning.

  At least they were talking, she thought.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said at last, nodding his head. ‘We do have to sort this out.’

  She was just breathing a sigh of relief when he added, ‘I won’t stand for you embarrassing me in front of my staff again.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘EMBARRASS YOU?’ Emma fired back as Luc closed the door, enclosing them both in the controlled atmosphere of his elegant boardroom. ‘How do you think I felt when I arrived here? How do you think I felt walking into that meeting, where everyone knew me—or, at least, knew about me—but no one seemed to know what I was supposed to be doing at the meeting?’

  ‘Of course they knew. I spoke to my secretary...’ Luc’s brow crinkled as if for once in his charmed life he had forgotten to mention that Emma would be attending the meeting.

  ‘Either your secretary’s incompetent or you forgot,’ she said bluntly. ‘Everyone was seated when I arrived. They weren’t expecting me, and there was no place for me. You should try that on for embarrassment.’

  ‘I was wrong in that instance,’ Luc admitted tersely. ‘So, what am I supposed to do about it?’

  She firmed her jaw. ‘Embarrassment I can recover from, but going forward I need something more. I need a reason to be here—a reason your staff can understand that doesn’t involve my sharing your bed.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Luc said thoughtfully, taking the wind from her sails. ‘I left you stranded and I apologise for that, but there was a crisis to handle that couldn’t wait. I could have given you clearer guidance.’

  ‘You could have given me some guidance,’ she argued quietly.

  Luc’s black eyes plumbed the depths of hers. ‘Why the fuss, Emma? You’re not as feeble as you make out. You’re not feeble at
all. You can handle embarrassment and any other situation that comes your way, so don’t expect me to mollycoddle you while you’re here.’

  ‘I don’t expect different treatment from the rest of your staff. I just expect the respect you show them. My intention is to do the best job possible for you. I can make my time here count, but you have to make that possible.’ Luc was the gatekeeper. Without his say-so she would be a redundant cog in a very large wheel, with nothing to do other than to wait patiently for the birth of their child.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  His change of tack was so swift she had to pause a moment. Luc’s thoughts were always leaping ten steps ahead. So where were they now? She decided to play along and see where that took them. ‘I’m expecting a baby. I’m always hungry.’

  ‘How about a late breakfast, and then we can chat through things?’ he suggested.

  ‘That will make me late for manning the phones, or whatever other work you decide I should do.’

  ‘Not if we meet in the restaurant,’ Luc argued. ‘You can take a look around, eat, and then you can start work there immediately afterwards. Manning the phones can wait.’

  ‘Work in the kitchens,’ she murmured as she thought about it. ‘Better,’ she agreed, remembering the waiters attending to room service and how they had to run about. Working in the kitchens would give her a proper chance to work out something more manageable for them.

  ‘Have you eaten today?’ Luc demanded.

  Care for the brood mare, she thought, shaking her head with exasperation. ‘I do have money with me, and there are cafés here. I’m not as helpless as you seem to think.’

  ‘You’re not helpless at all.’ Luc’s compelling stare narrowed on her face.

  As always her body rejoiced, while she closed her mind to him. ‘You don’t need to worry. I am looking after myself.’

  He seemed unconvinced as he led the way to their next destination.