AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He couldn’t still want her.
“You can’t fight me,” he repeated with deceptive softness. “But you can marry me.”
Chloe’s heart stuttered, and then started pounding again furiously. Her body was acutely aware of the length of his body pinning hers to the soft leather of the limo, but fortunately his words were enough of a distraction.
“Marry you?” she repeated unsteadily, her brows drawing together. Confusion swamped her, mixed with a hope she knew was utterly foolish. If Andrés truly wanted to marry her, it had nothing to do with love. “You hardly seem the type to marry.”
“It certainly wasn’t on my immediate horizon,” he murmured impassively. “But it seems like an optimal solution, don’t you agree?”
“No,” she sputtered and tried to squirm out from beneath him. “No, I absolutely do not agree. I don’t even like you.”
Andrés caught both of her wrists, pinning them above her head with one hand. He swept a possessive gaze down her body “You may not like me much right now, cariño. But you very much like being in my bed. And you will enjoy the title as my wife.” He gave a hard smile. “Just think of all the money you’ll have access to, and all without having to sell my dirty secrets.”
“You’re so quick to assume the worst about people, Andrés. Yes, I was a magazine columnist, but I was never going to write some gossip article about you. I didn’t even know who you were. You took the diary from my backpack—the one thing that is absolutely priceless to me.”
“And your detailed notes about me, cariño? Were they priceless as well?”
How could she explain that she’d thought she was falling in love? That writing about her romance in Spain could’ve only enriched the article about the lovers in the diary? Andrés would never believe the truth. The mocking look of disdain on his face pretty much guaranteed it. Explaining anything to him would just be a waste of her breath. And besides, her pride also stopped her from admitting how deeply she’d fallen for him in those few days.
“My notes that I took on you are apparently no more useful than last week’s garbage,” she finally said.
“Garbage. Exactly how I would describe the magazine you worked for.”
And now he mocked the job she’d held. Maybe it wasn’t National Geographic, but it had been an honest paycheck from a magazine millions of women respected.
“Thank you for the reminder of why I will never marry you. You can just go to hell,” she seethed.
“I’ve been there. Spent my entire childhood in hell.” His expression turned to granite. “Which is why I intend to see that my child does not have to repeat the experience.”
His gaze was glacial, but the demons she saw beneath the chill sent a shiver through her body that stripped away the remaining anger.
What had happened to him growing up? Her throat tightened with sympathy that she didn’t want to acknowledge right now. But whatever he’d gone through had obviously been painful.
“Andrés,” she pleaded and licked her lips, deciding to try to reason with him. “I would never hurt my child. You’ve got the wrong idea about me. I swear I’m not the type of woman you think I am.”
His stare thawed once more; his attention lowered to her mouth. “Hmm. I believe you said something similar that night in the cabana. But then you proved your words false the very next night, did you not? When you came to my suite?”
Chloe cringed, knowing she couldn’t deny his words. She’d slept with him—a man she barely knew—without protection or concerns for the future. But he was twisting a situation that she’d seen as beautiful and spontaneous into something sordid and calculating. “Get off me,” she ground out.
Amazingly, Andrés moved this time. When she sat up she realized the reason why. The limo had stopped.
Thank God she was finally home. Hopefully she could beat him inside her apartment and lock the door. Though she wouldn’t put it past him to try and break it down.
She moved across the limo and reached for the door handle, then flung it open. The sight that greeted her shocked her into stillness—stranded the air in her lungs.
They weren’t outside her apartment building, but on the tarmac of an airfield, where a jet stood waiting in the distance.
“What’s going on?” She turned to look at Andrés. “I thought you were taking me home?”
His body still burning with the need to touch her, Andrés gave a slight lift of his shoulder and gestured for her to step out. “Sí, I will take you home.”
When she didn’t move, Andrés moved around her, stepped out, and then took her arm to pull her from the limo.
“What are you doing?” Her voice sharpened with alarm; she struggled to keep up as he guided her to the plane. “Andrés?”
“Taking you home,” he said flatly, hoping to avoid any confrontation but knowing he was being idealistic.
“On a plane? I live ten minutes from the restaurant.” She tugged at her arm and dug her feet into the ground. “If you think for one moment I’m getting on that plane, you’re obviously nuts.”
Andrés stopped and turned on his heel to face her, gripping both her elbows and putting his face next to hers. “Basta. You will get on that plane, Chloe, if I have to carry you onto it,” he said resolutely. There was no room to be gentle or let her try to talk her way out of this. If he gave even an inch, he had no way of guaranteeing the safety of his child.
She grew so pale he almost hoped she’d faint. Then he could simply scoop her up and carry her onto the plane without incident. But then she shook her head, her eyes sparking with fury. “I don’t care how much money you have. You can’t just do whatever you want.” She tried to jerk free, but he tightened his grip.
“You know that I can, Chloe.”
“I’ll scream.” Panic settled into her eyes now.
“And who do you think will come to your aid? Everyone around you is employed by me,” he reminded her. “Do you really think they would go against my wishes to help you? Besides, they’ve been informed that you are reluctant to come with me but are depressed and at risk of hurting yourself.”
“They’ll never believe that.”
“Won’t they?”
She stared at him for a moment, dismay still bright in her gaze. Her lips began to quiver; her expression shifting into one of helplessness. For a moment he hesitated, but then he reminded himself he was doing this for the wellbeing of his child. It had nothing to do with how he felt about Chloe. He clenched his jaw. There was very little he held for her beyond lust and anger.
But he knew that was a lie by the way his stomach clenched. Shoving aside the possibility of anything more he might feel for her, he muttered, “Make a decision. Will I carry you, or will you walk willingly?”
She pulled from his grasp, her mouth tight. “I’ll walk.”
He allowed her to step past him, her steps almost wooden when she climbed the stairs to enter the fuselage of the plane.
It was only when she was belted into the seat across from him and the plane taxied down the runway did she finally turn to look at him.
“Why are you doing this, Andrés? What do you want from me?”
The tension left his body now that she was safely on his plane and they were airborne. “I have already told you.”
“You can’t be serious about marrying me,” she said with exasperation.
“I’m quite serious.” From the moment he’d seen her again, realized how much he wanted her still, he’d concluded marriage was the most sensible solution.
Twin flames of color flared in her cheek. “Well, I won’t do it.”
“Fine. Then you will be my mistress,” he called her bluff and offered a casual shrug. “Either position will have you lying beneath me in my bed. It of course is your choice, Chloe. I simply thought you would prefer the idea of marital bliss.”
“Well, I choose neither, and if you think I would ever consider sleeping with you again, you’re completely delusional.”
Andrés gave a soft chuckle at the image she made. Her shoulders quaked and her eyes flashed fire, but even truly livid with anger, Chloe was difficult to take seriously. In her restaurant uniform, a just-off-the-farm style dress and braided hair, she was a combination of sexy and adorable.
With the plane having leveled off, he had the urge to pull her onto his lap and kiss away the rigid scowl marring her face. The blood in his body moved south and his amusement vanished, his smile fading. Dammit. What was wrong with him? Would he ever stop wanting her with this mindless ferocity?
It didn’t matter. He would have her regardless. And the sooner she accepted it, the better.
“Let me be clear, Chloe. You will be with me so I can keep an eye on both you and my child.” He unfastened his belt and came to sit in the seat next to her. Reaching up, he cupped her cheek and slid his thumb into the crease of her lips. “And if you think I will be content to spend my nights without you in my bed, then you, cariño, are the one who is delusional.”
