by Lucy Monroe
“So, the deal still stands?”
“I will keep my side of things, yes.”
“Okay, I’ll need to see the press announcement released and some proof the rest of it is happening before I call the news station and cancel the interview. But don’t bother with the apology from Mr. Madison. No way would it be sincere, so really, what’s the point?”
“Oh, there is definitely a point.” Residual anger laced Baz’s voice, and she had to accept that no matter what he’d done to her, Baz was genuinely disgusted by his older brother’s behavior.
But that didn’t mean he was right. “I don’t agree.”
“I will make sure everything you want is done. Immediately.”
“I want to go back five years and not get behind the wheel, but no one can make that happen,” she admitted with more candor than she probably should have.
He made a sound, like her words had hurt him, but that couldn’t be right, could it? He’d have to care to hurt on her behalf.
“I wish I could make that happen for you,” he said, his voice rich with sincerity she could not trust. “But Jamie is fine now and your life will not implode again. I give you my word.”
“For whatever that is worth.” She sighed, not wanting to keep sniping. “Hopefully, for both my sake and that of your family, you’ll follow through.”
“I will.” It sounded like a vow.
Randi had a hard time not instinctively trusting that tone. “Okay. I guess we’ll see.”
He was silent for a few seconds and then he made a sound like he’d made a decision. “There is one stipulation.”
No. No way. “Carl Madison doesn’t get to insist on anything.”
“It is not so onerous, for either of us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I will stay by your side until the day of the interview has passed.”
“To make sure I don’t go back on my word?” she asked, offended. The fact her heart had leaped at the suggestion wasn’t something she wanted to think about. “That’s not necessary and you know it.”
“Mi cariña, admit it—you do not hate my company. And I find yours very enjoyable.”
“I’m not your darling.”
“Are you so sure about that?”
“You can’t want to do this. You have a multibillion-dollar company to run. In Spain!”
“We may both have to make concessions to spend the next days together, but I assure you, I do not find the idea of those weeks in your company onerous in the least.”
“Maybe because I didn’t spend the last one lying to you.”
* * *
“He wants to do what?”
Miranda pulled the phone away from her ear at Kayla’s loud shriek. “You heard me. He wants to spend the next two weeks following me around like a private eye or something.”
“Or a puppy dog.” Kayla’s laughter came across the line.
“Yeah, no. Basilio Perez is no lost puppy.”
“You can say that after the way he followed you on the MAX?” Kayla kept teasing.
“So he’s a control freak and I wasn’t doing what he wanted.”
“Or you know, he was having an Andreas in New York moment.”
Kayla had told Randi about how she and Andreas got together, but this was not like that and she told her sister so.
“So, are you going along with it?”
“I want the stuff he promised. I want my life back. I think his plan has a better chance than the interview of defusing the situation long-term.”
“As much as I want the world to know the truth about you, because you’re my sister and I think everyone should think you’re as great as I do, I agree. Darn it.”
Randi smiled. “You’re a good sister, but I think this is the right thing to do.”
And that was why she found herself packing a bag to join Baz at his executive condo that day after work. He’d offered to stay in her apartment, but she didn’t want any more memories she had to forget haunting her in her own home.
Besides, his condo had two bedrooms. Her apartment only had one.
CHAPTER NINE
RANDI LIFTED HER hand to knock on the door of Baz’s penthouse, but somehow she couldn’t make the final connection between her knuckle and the wood.
Was she really going to do this?
Could she spend two weeks in the company of a man who had used sex to convince her to do what he wanted? More important, a man who had managed to break down the protective walls she’d built around her heart only to decimate it.
Her internal debate was interrupted by the door swinging open.
Baz stood there, his expression hard to read. “You made it.”
“Yes.”
He stepped back and waved her inside, grabbing her bag as she went by. “I’ll just put this in the bedroom.”
“You’d better mean my bedroom.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgment as he walked away.
Rather than follow him down the hall to the bedrooms, she went into the main living area, but stopped short at what she found there. The table had been set with linens, crystal and candlesticks. Soft jazz played over the condo’s built-in sound system, a fire was lit in the gas fireplace and the lights set to a soft glow.
Baz came up beside her. “Are you hungry? The food is from that steak house you told me about.”
Her mouth watered, but she gazed at him stonily. “It looks awfully romantic for a dinner between two adversaries.”
“We are not adversaries.”
“Just because you say something doesn’t make it true.”
He didn’t reply, but took her arm gently and led her to the table. Once he’d helped her into her seat, Baz lit the candles.
“That’s really not necessary.”
“I think it is.”
“We aren’t on a date.” She shook out her napkin with brisk movements before sliding it over her lap. “I’m here because I have to be.”
“I am aware, mi hermosa.”
“Stop with the Spanish endearments.”
“You prefer English ones?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“I know that our steaks will be cold before we eat them at this rate.”
The meat was delicious, as were the garlic mashed potatoes and lightly sauced sautéed vegetables that came with it. The good food, soft music and warm ambience helped Randi to relax, when she thought there was no way she could ever be at peace in Baz’s company again.
Baz kept the conversation light and away from topics that might blow up between them, which wasn’t to say he didn’t talk about anything personal. He seemed intent on her getting to know him and his history. The Spaniard regaled her with stories of his various stepmothers and their attempts to tame or bring out the refined in Armand Perez by turns.
“Madre, she always wanted Papá to play the big businessman about town, but her successor was more interested in starting yet another family. Papá, not so much.”
Randi made a noncommittal sound.
Baz showed no frustration with her lack of response, just as he had chosen to ignore her desultory forays into conversation throughout the meal. “No, Armand Perez had three children, and that was enough for him. But she would not give up, hosting dinners en famille, dropping baby name books around the house, redecorating the nursery.”
“En famille is French, not Spanish.”
“I may not have gone to university, but I am not ignorant.” He flashed her his all-too-sexy smile. “I am fluent in five languages. French is one of them.”
“Ignorance isn’t always about formal education.”
“So I believe.”
“For instance, having a bevy of degrees wouldn’t have stopped you from being anything but ignor
ant when it comes to the feelings of others.” Needing to get away from him, she stood up and carried her dishes into the kitchen.
The man had used her own body’s response against her, and if he’d realized it, her heart. But he thought that somehow the whys of them going to bed together the first time didn’t matter. Because why? Because the sex was great? Great sex wasn’t going to stop her heart from being broken.
They’d had it. More than once and her heart was a shattered organ in her chest.
“You can leave them. A maid comes in the morning and again in the afternoon.”
“Then she can deal with what is in the sink. I’m not leaving a dirty table overnight.”
“Naturally not.” He placed his dishes and cutlery with hers. “I wasn’t trying to ignore your feelings, Miranda.”
“I don’t know how you can say that.” All the relaxation that dinner had managed drained out of her, leaving Randi’s body tense and her heart beating just a little fast. She stepped away from the sink, and Baz, before she turned to look up at him.
“Five years ago, when everything happened, I was only nineteen. Despite my past, I was still a very naive nineteen-year-old. I believed the best of people. When Davy came along, I thought he was really interested in me. My heart was bruised from my almost fiancé’s desertion and I soaked up his attention like a sponge. Do you want to know what I discovered on the one and only night we had sex?”
“What? What did you find out?” Baz asked, his voice husky, his accent just that little bit thicker.
“That he was only dating me, that he’d had sex with me, to get the dirt on the girl who had hit Carl and Tiffany Madison’s son with her car.”
“That bastard. What is this Davy’s last name?”
“Seriously? If he’s a bastard, what are you?”
Baz winced, but he caught her gaze with his deep brown one, sending some kind of message she could not interpret. “I wasn’t looking for dirt.”
“No, you were just looking for malleability. I don’t know how you can claim to have had no intention of hurting me. You’d have to be an emotionless monster not to know that doing the same thing to me as Davy, the enterprising reporter, would more than hurt. It would devastate.”
“I didn’t know about him.”
“But you did know that you engineered our meeting with the express purpose of convincing me not to do the interview. Then you...” Randi had to take several deep breaths before she could collect her thoughts and emotions. “You decided to use sex as a weapon against me just like he did.”
“Not like him. I wasn’t trying to get a juicy story.”
“No, just manipulate me with my body’s reaction to you.” With her heart, not that she believed he would understand how deep it had gone for her so quickly.
She wasn’t even sure Baz believed in romantic love. The way he talked about his father’s marriages indicated a real cynicism toward the concept.
“I did plan to use sex to get you to trust me,” he admitted, like it pained him to do so. “I needed you to listen with an open mind when I told you why doing the interview would be a mistake.”
“Don’t pretend you had a single concern about me and how the interview would impact me when you settled on your plan to seduce me.”
He frowned, his dark brows drawing together. “But how it would impact you matters to me now, very much.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
“I would like it very much if you did.”
“I don’t know if I can.” She wasn’t being stubborn. Her heart hurt, every second of every day since she’d discovered his deceit. “When I realized who and what Davy was, I was humiliated. And hurt. But nothing in even the same universe to what I felt the moment I realized you were Carl Madison’s brother, that everything between us had been part of an agenda.”
“I cannot change why we met, but I will prove to you that we are too good together to walk away from each other over it. That your feelings do indeed matter to me.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Leave that to me. I am an excellent problem-solver.”
“I’m a problem you have to solve?”
“The situation between us is the problem. You are the most passionate, engaging, beautiful woman I have ever met.”
“Now I know you are lying. I am no supermodel.”
“Good. I would not be nearly as attracted to you if you were, no matter how charming your personality.”
Oh, goodness. She was going to fall right back into this man’s bed if she didn’t watch herself. “Do you have any romantic comedies for that expensive media system in the living room?”
“That expensive media system has access to several movie-streaming services. I am sure you can find whatever movie you would prefer.”
“Okay, then.”
“Bien, I am glad to please.”
He surprised her by sitting with her to watch French Kiss.
“I can’t believe you’ve never seen this one. It’s a classic.”
“I admit I watch movies rarely and never romantic ones.”
“I love them. I want to believe in happy beginnings.”
“I thought the term was happy ending?”
“An ending implies that’s all there is, but the couple getting together is only the beginning of the adventure.”
“Perhaps if my father understood that, he would not have married so many times.”
“Some people think relationships shouldn’t take any work.”
“You do not agree?”
“Of course not. Every relationship requires effort, whether it’s with a friend, a sister, a parent, a coworker. Why would maintaining emotional connection with your partner be any different?”
* * *
Basilio cut his connection to the conference call. He needed to get back to Spain. The big question was, could he convince Miranda to accompany him?
For a woman whose only committed relationship had crashed and burned five years earlier, she had insights that put his father’s attitudes to shame. Basilio respected and loved his father, but Miranda’s words had resonated with him. He knew that when things got tough or even mildly challenging in his marriages, his father started looking elsewhere.
The idea that the wedding was just the beginning of the journey, not the end, was the antithesis of how Basilio had grown up. But he liked it.
If he was to marry, it would be to a woman who felt as Miranda did.
For that to even be a possibility, he had to convince her that he would not hurt her again.
And to do that, he needed to take her to Spain, to introduce her to his world and show her that she fit in it.
* * *
“I can’t leave right now. You know we’re in the middle of opening a second Kayla’s for Kids facility.” Randi had returned to Baz’s condo again that evening to a similar setting to the night before.
The table was once again set beautifully, this time a gorgeous oversize bouquet of richly colored fall blooms in the center of the table.
Who had he asked to discover that while Randi did not have a favorite flower, she preferred those of the season?
“My executive assistant has found someone eminently qualified to fill in for you.”
“What? You can’t just bring in a temp to do something like this.”
“She is not a temp. She is, in fact, a woman with a great deal of experience with facilities of this kind. She will work on not only bringing in new funding, but also getting the second facility up and running.”
“You’re trying to make me obsolete with my sister’s charity?”
“No.” He looked genuinely offended. “What kind of man do you think I am? No, do not answer that, cariña. I want you with me in Spain.”
“You make it sound like we’re in a relationsh
ip and you’re trying to keep me with you.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“We are not in a relationship.” They weren’t. Whatever they had ended when she found out he was just using her.
The memory of him saying they could make a baby when she told him she wasn’t pregnant assailed her. With another guy, that would have been a throwaway comment. Or sarcasm at the very least.
Not Basilio Perez, though.
But then what did she know about him? She’d thought he was a random billionaire she’d run into on the sidewalk, that there was no way he could have an agenda. That he was a safe lover, if temporary.
None of that had turned out to be true.
“Will you come to Spain?”
“Do I really have a choice?”
“We always have a choice.”
“This whole staying together for the next two weeks is ridiculous.”
“But you agreed to it.”
“I’m not going anywhere unless Kayla agrees to this replacement you found for me. And I’m not going to spend my time there on vacation. You’ll need to make sure I can stay available via phone, video calls and my email.”
“Despite what you clearly think of me, I am not a man of the Dark Ages. We have all the modern technologies in our home.”
“We? Our?”
“My father lives in my hacienda when he is in Madrid.”
“Is he there now?” she asked suspiciously.
“No, in fact. He is visiting his latest fiancée’s family in Monaco.”
“She’s not Spanish?”
“Why should this surprise you? Certainly you’ve worked out by now that Carlos and Gracia’s mother is American.”
“And your mother?”
“From Catalonia.”
“That makes sense. You are very Spanish.”
“What does that mean?”
“No one would mistake you for an Englishman, despite that being the accent you speak with using this language.”
“I would imagine not.”
She shook her head. She wasn’t even sure what she meant. It was just a feeling, but it wasn’t like she had a lot of experience with the nuances between European cultures.
* * *
Surprisingly, Kayla had no trouble with Randi taking off for Spain in the middle of the new facility setup. “This woman Baz’s executive assistant found for us has experience neither one of us has. She’ll be a great resource.”