Sexy Billionaires

by Carol Marinelli

  Struggling to see the funny side himself, Luiz flashed a sideways glance at her profile—any excuse. Her pensive profile, chin pressed into her white knuckles, smooth brow furrowed, was turned to the window. She looked tense enough to snap like an overstrung guitar. Luiz could almost see visible waves of tension and impatience rolling off her rigid body.

  His reply regarding the weather was irritatingly vague but his confident manner did ease her anxiety slightly.

  ‘Just why are you here?’

  Nell cast him an irritated look. ‘I’ve already explained.’

  ‘Yes, I know you have to save your niece from the clutches of my cousin.’ The idea of Felipe as some sort of serial seducer of innocence brought a wry smile to Luiz’s lips. ‘This,’ he conceded drily, ‘I know.’

  Nell saw the smile and felt her anger surge.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ he continued, ‘is why you?’

  Nell shook her head in impatient bafflement. ‘What do you mean, why me?’

  ‘Well, does this niece of yours not have parents? Your brother or sister?’

  Nell, who could see where he was going with this, gave a shrug. ‘Lucy is my sister Clare’s eldest.’ Clare also had a new baby.

  ‘So why does the task fall on your shoulders?’

  ‘It was me that Lucy contacted. She wanted me to tell her parents.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  Her lips tightened at the implied criticism she read in his comment. ‘If I get to Lucy in time there won’t be any need to worry them.’

  ‘They are parents—worry is included in the job description.’

  ‘And I’m only the aunt, you mean. It just so happens that Lucy and I are very close.’ Nell heard the defensive note in her voice and frowned. Why was she explaining herself to him?

  Maybe because she thought he might be right? Wasn’t her reaction to the e-mail a bit over the top? Was this a rescue mission or was she running away?

  Nell closed down the line of internal dialogue and gave a scornful sniff.

  ‘I suppose you think I should just let her sink or swim?’ The ice-queen expression was beginning to make her face ache.

  ‘That was certainly an option. We learn by our mistakes.’

  Nell regarded him with disgust. ‘Are you saying you did—that at some point you have made a mistake? Imagine my shock—I thought you achieved infallibility in the cradle.’ The only effect of her acid jibe was one of his trademark lopsided smiles.

  The man had the hide of a rhino and he had probably been perfecting that smile to its full drop-dead gorgeous potency for the last ten years in a mirror.

  ‘We’re not all as tough as you are, Mr Santoro. Or as smug,’ she added under her breath.

  ‘I think you’d better make it Luiz while that ring is on your finger.’

  Nell’s eyes slid automatically to her finger where the rock that belonged in a bank vault or a museum sparkled. Without responding to his comment beyond a fulminating look of dislike directed at his hatefully perfect patrician profile, she began struggling to wrench it off her finger. There was after all no reason for the trappings of this now, with no one here to see it.

  ‘The damn thing’s stuck!’ she panted. ‘It won’t budge an inch,’ she wailed, still wrestling with the heavy ring.

  His brows lifted. ‘Don’t worry, there’s always amputation. There was also the option to tell the girl’s parents, but you didn’t.’

  The change of subject caused Nell to stop struggling with the ring.

  ‘This was their problem, not yours.’

  ‘I’ve already explained they couldn’t have done anything.’ She had done the right thing, hadn’t she…? Although a note to Clare might have been a good idea—my God, they might even be searching for me!

  His brows lifted. ‘But you can?’

  Nell, her jaw tight, viewed him through the veil of her lashes. ‘In case you’ve not noticed, I am doing something, always supposing you’re right and they are in this cottage and I’m not too late.’ She sucked in a startled breath and braced her arms to steady herself when without warning Luiz swerved to avoid a fallen branch that lay across the road.

  Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelash did he act as though anything untoward had happened even though they had come perilously close to the edge—and there was a very deep drop.

  ‘Would it be so very bad if they were married?’

  Nell tore her eyes from the very deep drop, leaned back in her seat and, holding back her hair from her face with one forearm, looked across at him incredulously.

  ‘Bad!’ she echoed. ‘Bad! Are you mad? Lucy is nineteen, she has her entire life in front of her…a place at university…a career. This is the time in her life when she should be having adventures, discovering who she is, play house if she wants to, but she can’t marry some…some…some…’ Nell subsided into her seat shaking her head as words and breath failed her at the same moment.

  He arched a brow and looked mildly amused by her vehemence. ‘Spaniard?’

  ‘I don’t care what nationality he is, though the fact he’s from the same gene pool as you is no recommendation.’

  His grin broadened. ‘Felipe does not resemble me.’ His young cousin was considered, at least by his overprotective parents, the sensitive soul of the family.

  Nell snorted and tossed her head before pressing her nose to the window. She watched the window fog with her breath. After the events of the day—was it really only a day?

  She traced her finger across the misted glass before expelling a sigh and leaning back in her seat. She willed her eyes to stay open and tried to fight her way out of the brain-numbing lethargy that was stealing over her. It wasn’t the first time—it came in waves.

  It wasn’t hard to see why sleep deprivation was such an effective interrogation technique.

  ‘Not exactly a big ask.’ She struggled to inject a suitable degree of venom into her time-delayed snarling response and was rewarded for her efforts by a laconic grin from Luiz.

  ‘Are we nearly there…?’ It wasn’t just her anxiety to find Lucy that injected the note of weary desperation into Nell’s voice. The longer she remained in this enclosed space with this man, the stronger the urge to escape became.

  ‘If you’re a good girl I’ll buy you an ice cream when we get there.’

  Nell fought off a grin as her eyes drifted to his hands on the steering wheel. He had nice hands—strong, capable hands.

  ‘Perhaps a career and an education are not important to your niece?’

  Nell’s admiration of his long, shapely fingers came to an abrupt stop. Her wide, indignant eyes flew to his face. ‘Lucy is a straight-A student and she has always wanted a career.’

  ‘My cousin is what some people might call a good catch,’ he observed mildly.

  Nell’s hands balled into fists as she glared at him with stormy eyes. ‘If you’re trying to insinuate that my niece is a gold-digger…’ she began in a dangerous voice.

  Luiz flashed her a look that was almost pitying. ‘I’m trying to suggest your niece might be in love.’

  ‘In love?’ she echoed, suspecting him of mockery.

  ‘It happens, so I’ve heard,’ he said sardonically.

  His dark eyes brushed her face; they were hard and dark. Her lips curled into a derisive smile. He was insulting her intelligence if he thought she was going to buy into the idea of him being a romantic. ‘They’ve only known one another for a few weeks.’

  ‘I take it you’re not a believer in love at first sight, Nell?’

  Nell rubbed her upper arms briskly—without fail, every time he said her name she broke out in goosebumps. It had to be the sexy foreign accent, she told herself.

  She threw back her head and loosed a scornful laugh.

  Luiz’s attention strayed her way again, his eyes drifting from her wide dove-grey eyes to her soft quivering mouth. Despite her best efforts to come across as hard-boiled and cynical, Nell Frost just didn’t have t
he equipment.

  ‘I’ll take that as a no, shall I, Nell?’

  She rolled her eyes and tried to hide the unease she felt at the direction of this conversation. ‘I do not. Lust at first sight, possibly.’

  ‘Is this personal experience speaking?’

  The sideways flicker of his eyes sent Nell’s stomach into a lurching dive. She gave a frozen smile. ‘That would be none of your business.’

  Imagining he was thinking about he way she had kissed him earlier put an extra layer of defensive ice and scorn in Nell’s voice as she added, ‘I suppose you believe in love at first sight.’

  ‘I have no personal experience of it, but I am not as cynical as you. I would not dismiss it out of hand.’

  ‘The last of the great romantics,’ she mocked folding her arms in an unconsciously protective gesture across her chest as she bent her head forward, allowing her hair to fall in a silky concealing curtain around her face. ‘So I suppose you think getting married at nineteen is a good idea too?’

  ‘Well, I would be a hypocrite if I rebuked Felipe for something I did myself.’

  Nell’s jaw dropped as she spun back to face him. ‘You got married at nineteen!’ she yelped.

  ‘Twenty actually.’

  She shook her head. ‘Do I look that gullible?’

  His heavy-lidded eyes flashed her way. She looked back at him, her eyes big and wide like a trapped bird. ‘Actually, yes, you do.’

  ‘Well, looks can be deceiving,’ she retorted.

  ‘Why is it so difficult for you to believe I was married at twenty?’

  She looked at him blankly. ‘You’re serious?’

  It was irrational. Why shouldn’t he have been married young? But no matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t picture him as some starry-eyed, ardent, idealistic youth so in love that he had married his first love despite family opposition—having glimpsed the privileged background he came from, Nell felt the family opposition was a reasonable assumption.

  His future had probably been mapped out for him at birth. Unless…the question leapt ready formed to her lips.

  ‘Was she pregnant?’ Her groan of horror tacked itself seamlessly onto the sentence. She caught her full lower lip between her teeth and slid a wary look in his direction. ‘Sorry, that’s none of my business.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed flatly, ‘it isn’t. But for the record shotguns were not required.’

  Her brow furrowed as she mused, ‘I’d have thought…’ She stopped as it occurred to her that she was displaying an unhealthy interest in his personal life.

  Besides, with his spooky ability to turn everything around so that she was in the wrong, the fewer words she exchanged with the wretched man, and the least opportunity she gave him to say her name, the better!

  She wasn’t here to find out what made Luiz Santoro tick—even had she had the inclination, that would in any case take about a zillion years. The man’s character had more twists, turns and dead ends than a maze. She was here to find Lucy and extricate her from this situation. The details of how she was going to extricate her were a little hazy. But during the drive it had begun to dawn on Nell that something more than logic and reasoned argument might be required.

  Just what that something might constitute she didn’t yet know.

  ‘Thought what?’

  She sketched a dismissive smile. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Isn’t it a little late to be cautious about sharing your opinion?’

  ‘All right, well, you’re not actually the best advertisement for marrying young, are you? I’d have thought considering your marriage flopped, your natural instinct would be to stop your cousin making the same mistake.’

  There was a pause while Luiz struggled against his natural instinct to stop the car and kiss her into silence.

  An image of a youthful Luiz, all romantic ideals and raging hormones, flashed into her head. She felt a swell of sympathy for the girl he had swept off her feet—and just a tinge of envy?

  Nell dismissed the ridiculous thought before it was fully formed and wondered if his ex-wife was devastated when it ended, or relieved. Had she been able to rebuild her life or had she compared every man that came after with Luiz Santoro?

  ‘Did I say my marriage was a mistake?’

  ‘Under the circumstances I took that as read.’ Some men could not admit to failure of any sort and he was clearly one of them.

  He clicked his tongue. ‘You can get into all sorts of trouble that way.’

  ‘Is that some sort of threat?’ Nell was appalled to hear a quiver in her voice, so she added with a laugh, ‘Am I meant to be scared?’ She would have felt a lot happier if it had been fear that was causing her heart to slam against her ribcage.

  ‘If your marriage was such a roaring, screaming success story, how come you got divorced?’

  The disdain in her voice caused his nostrils to flare, but there was only mild mockery to read in his voice as he said, ‘We did not divorce.’

  Brow furrowed, Nell gave a bewildered shake of her head. ‘But…?’

  There was no discernible expression in Luiz’s deep voice as he elaborated. ‘We had been married eighteen months when Rosa died.’

  Nell, who hadn’t thought she could feel more awkward and at a disadvantage in his company, discovered she could. Her hand went to her mouth.

  ‘That’s terrible.’ Nice understatement, Nell.

  He slid her a sideways look; their eyes momentarily connected. ‘It was a long time ago.’ And all he had left was a memory and it seemed to him sometimes that that too was slipping away from him.

  He had stopped grieving for Rosa a long time ago, but he did grieve for the loss of her memory and he felt intense guilt on the days when he closed his eyes and could not see her face, hear her voice or her laughter. They were all slipping away from him. She was slipping away from him.

  He turned away from the sympathy in Nell’s wide clear eyes. It reminded him of the way people had looked at him in those weeks and months after Rosa had died. Though the sympathy had faded when he had not obliged and fallen apart. His lack of tears and emotion had been viewed with suspicion in many quarters and then when, after what was considered an appropriate period of time, he had not found a suitable replacement for Rosa they had been equally disgruntled.

  There could be no replacement for Rosa; a man only loved once.

  ‘Go on, ask me.’ He could feel her eyes on his face.

  ‘Ask you?’

  At one level Luiz knew that she could not be held accountable for the way her features had imprinted themselves in his mind. On another, more irrational level it felt as though she was usurping Rosa’s place in his thoughts.

  Nell winced, but did not comment as Luiz crunched the gears. His face in profile looked impassive; she could see a muscle in his lean cheek clench spasmodically.

  ‘You are clearly dying of curiosity.’

  ‘You overrate my interest in your personal life.’ She almost immediately contradicted her claim by adding, ‘Rosa is a beautiful name—was she?’

  ‘Yes, very beautiful,’ he cut across her in a harsh voice.

  Of course she was. Nell experienced a spasm of sympathy for the woman he eventually did marry. It would be tough for that woman to know she was being compared to the memory of his tragic lost love.

  How could you compete with a ghost?

  ‘Any other things I should know?’ She stopped abruptly, her wide eyes flying to his face. ‘Do you have any children?’ As she spoke an image flashed into Nell’s head of Luiz, his dark hair attractively mussed, playing rough-and-tumble games with a dark-eyed boy. Or maybe he had a little girl who reminded him of her mother?

  Luiz’s jaw tightened as she stared bleakly ahead. When Rosa had wanted children he had refused, saying there would be plenty of time, only there hadn’t been. And now there never would be children. How could he have with another woman what he had denied the only woman he had ever loved?

  ‘No child
ren.’

  An awkward pause followed his flat rebuttal.

  ‘But do you have a serious relationship…I’m not being nosy—’

  ‘No?’

  His sardonic tone made her flush. ‘No, I’m not. I’d just like fair warning if there’s a jealous girlfriend somewhere who’s likely to appear wanting to scratch my eyes out.’ ‘I do not encourage jealousy.’ He was no monk, he had physical appetites, but separating out emotion from sex eased his guilt.

  She gave a dry little laugh. For a sophisticated man that was an incredibly naïve comment. ‘Looking like you do, you don’t need to encourage it.’ Nell closed her eyes and bit her imprudent tongue; the censor area of her brain appeared to have shut down.

  ‘Thank you, Nell.’

  ‘No need to thank me. It wasn’t a compliment, just a statement of fact, and it can’t be news. You must know you’re drop-dead—good-looking.’ Her hasty amendment drew an amused rumble of laughter from him. ‘Though,’ she added, gritting her teeth, ‘just for the record, my personal taste doesn’t run to mean, moody and macho.’

  ‘I must take exception. I am considered by some to have a very even, sunny temperament,’ he said straight-faced.

  Nell fought off a smile and grunted. ‘At least you have a sense of humour. That’s something.’

  ‘You can relax. There is no one likely to appear with a prior claim—I’m all yours.’

  Nell’s treacherous stomach flipped. ‘Aren’t I the lucky one?’

  As she absently touched the ring on her finger and thought about the woman who might one day wear it for real she experienced a confusing rush of tangled emotions.

  ‘Your wife—she must have had very slim fingers.’

  His jaw tautened. People never mentioned her name in his presence and now she was the main topic of conversation. ‘Rosa never wore that ring.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Nell muttered, feeling stupid. Obviously he would never taint the memory of his lost love by allowing another woman to wear it.