She went back inside. A bank of windows ran along the front of the suite. Automatic blinds closed with the press of a button, though they were open now, to allow the afternoon light inside. A plush living area contained a couch and chairs, a bar and an entertainment system with a flat-screen television. There was a dining area near one window. The bedroom had a giant king-size bed piled high with pillows, but it was the sunken tub in the bathroom that caught her eye. The floors were marble, and marble columns surrounded the tub on four sides, making it look like a Roman bath. A peek inside told her there were jets. Heavenly. Maybe she could have a nice long bath while Alejandro went to meet with government officials.
He came into the bedroom as she was leaving the master bathroom. He wore a dark polo shirt and khakis, and his hair was mussed. He’d been raking his hands through his hair again—no doubt the result of his phone call. Perversely, she wanted to smooth it back into place.
“It meets with your approval?” he asked, nodding toward the bathroom.
“It’s nice.”
“Merely nice?” He seemed a little irritated.
“No, it’s very nice.”
His face darkened. “It is spectacular—far better than many of your own hotels. Which I will rectify, I assure you.”
She stamped down on the hot anger rising to the surface. He was baiting her. He’d had bad or frustrating news and he was taking it out on her. Amazingly, the realization only made her calmer. “Of course, Alejandro.”
He stalked closer. “You are making fun of me?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He reached out, trailed tanned fingers down the vee of her blouse, toyed with the top button. “Take this off.”
Her breath shortened. The anger she’d stamped down deep was beginning to bubble again. “I’d rather not,” she forced out.
“And I say you have no choice.”
She drew herself up and leveled him with her best glare. “There is always a choice, Alejandro. I choose not to be ordered around like a paid-by-the-hour hooker. If you need to sell a hotel or two, or dismantle Layton International and scatter it to the wind to punish me, then indulge yourself. You can’t control every single minute of my life with your threats. Save them for the big stuff.”
His face was dark, unreadable. And then one corner of his mouth lifted in a grin. It was like sunshine breaking through after a violent storm—and completely not what she’d expected. “You amuse me at the oddest moments, bella.”
He caught her around the waist, tugged her against his body. “My meeting has been moved to tomorrow morning, and I find I have many long, empty hours to fill.” He dipped his head, touched his lips to her nose, her cheeks. “Help me fill them, yes? I want to spend the afternoon in bed with you …”
“I’m not your employee when we’re alone like this,” she insisted, still angry—though her blood was humming for an altogether different reason now. “You can’t order me around in the bedroom like it’s a boardroom.”
He kissed her hard, broke away. “You would not obey me in the boardroom either,” he whispered. “Not without a fight.”
“If you would ask instead of order,” she said, gasping as his fingers slipped inside her shirt, her bra. He softly pinched her nipple into an aching point. “You get more flies with honey, Alejandro …”
“Please, Rebecca,” he said with a predatory gleam. “Let me taste you.”
Rebecca didn’t see Alejandro very often over the next couple of days. He was up at daybreak, meeting with government officials, touring the construction site, trying to get to the bottom of the permit situation. But when she did see him—
Oh, my—it took her breath away to think about it. The man was insatiable, and he worshipped her body with a thoroughness bordering on obsession. She found it impossible to say no.
Rebecca sighed and stretched her naked—and very satisfied—body. She was still sprawled on top of the covers, where he’d left her when he went into the shower. He’d tried to get her to join him, but she couldn’t move. She’d been surprised to see him back so early, but he’d burst into the suite and announced he’d had a breakthrough. A few phone calls later—half of them conducted in English—she partially understood what was going on. Alejandro had a corporate spy, who’d been working with another company to hold up the construction process.
He’d been almost gleeful. She liked seeing him happy. He used to be happy all the time when she’d known him before. Marriage and tragedy had changed that.
“What are you thinking about so intently, amor?”
Rebecca looked up to find him watching her. He stood beside the bed, the towel slung low on his hips, every delicious inch of his rock-hard chest displayed for her delight. Her heart jumped, the way it always did when he was near. She hadn’t heard him come back.
“Will you tell me what happened to Anya?” She wasn’t sure where the question came from, but she realized she’d been thinking of his little girl a lot lately. About how such a tragic loss had changed him from the man she’d once known. There were still glimpses of that man, but he was buried under the weight of tragedy, under the hardened husk of what he’d become.
She wanted to know, wanted to understand.
His eyes closed, snapped open again. She thought he would walk away. His jaw hardened.
“She was born with a congenital heart defect,” he said. “It should not have been fatal, had it been diagnosed when she was an infant. But she was one of the rare ones.”
Rebecca sat up, reached for him. He’d been in a good mood, and she’d managed to destroy it. He moved away before she could touch him. She clasped her arms around her knees. “I’m so very sorry. For both you and your wife.”
The pain in his features was evident—the drawn mouth, the tight jaw, the flared nostrils. “Three-year-olds should not have heart attacks.”
“No.” Her throat ached. She wanted to get up and wrap her arms around him, press his head to her breast and hold him.
Alejandro’s skin had paled beneath his tan. She’d have never believed it had she not been staring right at him.
“I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”
“No, she is gone now, and people always ask. I must become accustomed to it.”
How did you ever get accustomed to such a thing? A vile, sorrowful, evil thing that was the death of a child?
She didn’t know what else to say. She simply wanted to hold him.
But he started to shrug into his clothes, his back to her. “I have work to do. If you wish to go shopping or sightseeing, please inform Ali. He will arrange for anything you need.”
Without a backward glance, he was gone.
Alejandro was restless, keyed-up, jumpy as a caged bull before a fight. He drummed his fingers against the center armrest in the limo, thought about the woman he’d left in his bed. Why had he told her about Anya? She’d surprised him with the question, but he’d surprised himself even more by answering it.
He did not want to share such things with her. Anya was none of her business. He should have choked on the words before spilling his guts to a woman like her.
A woman like what?
A woman who melted beneath him, who made him crazy with her little sighs and moans, who fought him when he pushed and who insisted on being treated with respect and dignity in spite of his plans for her?
He was going soft. Just because his body craved hers, just because he showed no signs of tiring of her—indeed, each time he made love to her he seemed to only want her more—it was no reason to lose sight of what he meant to do. He had to ruin her. He’d planned it for so long, lived for it through the darkest days. He couldn’t cease now.
It was time to start knocking the foundation out from beneath her, if only to prove he could do it. He would start tonight.
CHAPTER NINE
A TEAM of waiters arrived to serve dinner in their suite. Rebecca had been surprised when Alejandro returned in time for the meal. Usually she ate alone,
working on her computer since it was still only mid-afternoon in the States. She accomplished a lot in the hours Alejandro was away, even if part of her anticipated his return with growing excitement as the day waned.
She’d worked through the afternoon, but she’d been preoccupied with their conversation earlier. She couldn’t imagine losing a child so cruelly. It was senseless, surreal. The grief he must have experienced was unimaginable.
And yet he’d endured it. He’d changed because of it, but she understood why now. Looking at him across the table, her heart filled to bursting with everything she was feeling toward him, she knew without a doubt that she was falling for him again.
Or perhaps she had already fallen, but she wasn’t quite prepared to admit it to herself just yet. No, far better to look at him in his cream silk shirt, with his dark hair and skin such a startlingly beautiful contrast, and imagine that she had time to prevent the disaster she was hurtling herself into. He’d barely spoken since returning. She wondered what dinner would be like—how she could draw him out if he didn’t speak.
Maybe she should apologize for asking him about his daughter. But she wasn’t sorry he’d told her. It helped her understand. Helped her forgive him just a tiny bit for how he’d treated her since he’d ordered her to Madrid.
The sommelier uncorked a bottle of wine and poured a taste for Alejandro’s approval. After the wine was decanted and the food served, all but one of the waiters left. The man stationed himself near the buffet where they’d set the dishes, and prepared to serve as needed.
“I have decided to move Layton International’s offices to Madrid,” Alejandro announced.
Rebecca nearly dropped her fork. The spicy rice and eggplant dish she’d just taken a bite of turned to paste in her mouth.
“You seem surprised,” he said, his dark gaze giving nothing away.
She reached for her wineglass, took a fortifying sip. Her heart was beginning to flutter at breakneck speed. “I am. You haven’t told me your plans for my company, and now this. What about my employees? There are over one hundred people in the New York office.”
He shrugged. “Upper management will be offered jobs in Madrid. Others will be given generous severance packages and assistance in finding new employment.”
“Is this because I asked you about Anya?”
His eyes flashed. “No. It’s business.”
She set her fork down and leaned back against her chair, no longer hungry. “Oh, really? Somehow I don’t think so. I know you’re angry with me, but it’s unfair to take it out on my people.”
He tapped long fingers on the tablecloth as he studied her. She would not think about what those fingers did to her each night. She kept her gaze firmly on his face.
“I do what’s best for Ramirez Enterprises. It has nothing to do with you. They are my people now, not yours.”
She didn’t believe he did this for the good of Ramirez. Clearly he was punishing her—especially when he pointed out that she wasn’t responsible for her employees any longer.
“I owe them, Alejandro. My family owes them. I can’t sit by and do nothing.”
“You do not have a choice. When you chose to pledge your stock as collateral for those loans, you took the risk that someone else would gain control of your company. You no longer have a say in what happens at Layton International.”
That was the bitter truth, wasn’t it? No matter how much it hurt, how much she disagreed, she had no legal ground to stand on.
“What about me?” she asked. “Am I fired now?”
He took a sip of wine, watched her over the top of his glass. Several seconds went by before he spoke. “Not yet.”
Her relief was palpable. And yet it was suddenly too much. Everything—the way he’d manipulated her into doing what he wanted, his threats, the juxtaposition of cold businessman with white-hot lover—she couldn’t take it a moment longer.
“I’m not sure I can continue this way,” she said softly. Her appetite was gone, so she set her napkin over the plate.
Alejandro glanced at the waiter. A signal must have passed between them, because the man bowed and disappeared.
“Continue how, Rebecca?”
“I want to know what your plans are for me. I’m tired of wondering.”
The sudden heat in his eyes wasn’t what she expected. “My plans involve the bed, the shower, and maybe even this table.”
A current of awareness snapped between them. But she couldn’t simply fold like a house of cards. “I was talking about business, Alejandro.”
“So was I. This is the business of being my mistress.”
He looked amused rather than annoyed. It irritated her. Did she have the strength to walk away from his seduction? From him? She pushed her chair back and stood. Alejandro’s gaze sharpened. He looked like a great cat scenting prey.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
“To the front desk to ask for my own room.” She went to retrieve her purse and briefcase, her pulse tripping along in her ears like a racing piston.
“Yes, run away, Rebecca. It is what you do when things are difficult, sí? Better to run than face the problem.”
She whirled around and marched back to the table. Her entire body shook as she stared him down. “You aren’t a god, Alejandro. You can sit in your ivory tower and order people around, you can destroy companies and lives, but nothing will bring back your child. Nothing.”
It was so obvious, and yet he was blind to it. He was consumed by rage and grief, and reacting every day to those forces in his life because he hadn’t yet learned how to deal with them.
He shot to his feet. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. She tumbled on. “You accuse me of running away? What in the hell do you think you’re doing? You’ve been running since the minute she died and you don’t even know it!”
“Get out,” he growled.
Rebecca refused to cry. “Yes, that’s exactly what I thought you’d say. Far better to order me away than to face what you’re feeling. But you won’t always be able to run, Alejandro. One of these days it’s going to catch up with you.”
“You need to leave,” he said gravely. “Now, before I—”
“Before you what? Make me regret the day I was born?” She drew herself up, laughed. But inside she was dying. “For once you’re too late.”
The trip back to Madrid was accomplished in silence. Alejandro watched Rebecca from beneath lowered eyelids. She concentrated on her laptop screen, never looking at him. She’d spent last night in her own room, several floors away from his. He hadn’t gone after her, much as he’d wanted to.
Madre de Dios, the things she’d said to him. He’d spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, thinking about it. Was she right? Was he running from Anya’s death?
He shoved the thought aside angrily. What did she know? She’d never experienced such a loss, never sat in a waiting room alone and waited for news, never spent hours trying to locate a woman who was attending fashion week in Milan and couldn’t be bothered to turn on her cell phone.
She had no idea what she was talking about!
He needed to end this. He didn’t need her chipping away at him like she could break the ice surrounding his heart. It was painful, uncomfortable. She made him feel like he was on the brink of losing control, like the balls he kept spinning in the air could crash down on his head any minute.
When they landed in Madrid, he needed to tell her she was done. Tell her in the airport so she could catch a flight out. Say goodbye forever.
He leaned back against the headrest, closed his eyes. No, he had to be more deliberate about it. He’d planned it for so long. He couldn’t tell her in a public place like an airport.
And he couldn’t tell her now because he didn’t want to deal with the dramatics for the rest of the flight. He would tell her tonight. Sí, this was best.
He would seduce her one final time, use her luscious body for his pleasure. And then he would ruin he
r life the way she’d ruined his.
After they landed, Alejandro sent Rebecca back to the villa while he went into the office. He had things to do, and he needed time to think. He’d waited so long for this day. He wanted to do it right—wanted to enjoy the full measure of her despair.
Except he looked on it with dread more than anticipation. Why? Perhaps it was the prospect of drama, of her tears and pleading. He’d once thought that would be gratifying, but now he realized he just wanted the whole mess over cleanly and quickly.
But maybe he was wrong to move so fast. It had only been a couple of weeks since he’d taken over Layton International. He needed to enjoy the full measure of his triumph, needed to watch her squirm for a while in his employ. She would think she had a chance of regaining her company and he would know it wasn’t possible. In the meantime, he would enjoy her in his bed.
Yes, a much better plan. In fact, he would take her to the opera at the Teatro Real tonight. He would make nice and be solicitous. She would fall into his arms willingly when they returned home.
Señora Flores was in the entry when he came through the door a couple of hours later. She frowned at him, spun on her heel and marched away. Rebecca’s suitcases were stacked off to one side.
“You’re back.”
His head snapped up, his gaze landing on Rebecca. She stood in the door to the office. She was dressed in a tailored gray pantsuit and carried her briefcase.
“You are going somewhere?” He’d warned her what he would do if she left. Did she think to manipulate him by threatening to walk out?
“Yes.” Her chin tilted up as he moved toward her. She looked as if she wanted to flee, but she stood her ground. He took in her defiant stare, her red eyes, the puffiness—
Hot Nights with a Spaniard (Mills & Boon M&B) (Mills & Boon Special Releases) Page 44