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Therefore, she was suitable for purpose. Especially tonight, when the first charm offensive to win over Lavinia Archer needed to go off without a hitch.
She stepped away from the mirror.
There was no hiding from this.
Accepting that she couldn’t go back on the promise she’d made to stay had been easy. What had caused her to toss and turn on the sumptuous king-size bed on Joao’s jet was how quickly the composure she’d been sure would hold for the next three months seemed to careen out of control.
It was reassuring that whatever was ailing her emotions hadn’t affected her professional performance.
The fact that her spirits remained flat despite that small comfort she chose to put down to jet lag. She was repeating that to herself when a hard rap shattered the silence in her suite.
The walk across the vast floor of the Sky Suite of the Shanghai Reign Hotel, the top half of the seven-star skyscraper hotel exclusively reserved for individuals with billionaire status, gave her time to take a few composure-restoring breaths.
Which proved pathetically useless when she opened the double doors and caught a glimpse of Joao.
She’d seen him in a tuxedo countless times.
But there was an indefinable, utterly mesmerising layer of magnificence that reached into her chest and squeezed the oxygen from her lungs. She couldn’t fight the sly little voice that suggested it was that intimacy she feared that was creating havoc with her senses.
His hair gleamed under the soft lights of the private marble-floored foyer, his razor-sharp cheekbones shadowed as he leaned forward slightly and perused her from head to toe.
She held her breath, unsure whether she wanted him to comment on her appearance or remain aloofly impersonal. What she received was a slow stiffening of his body, a tightness to his jaw that sent a shiver down her spine.
‘Something wrong?’ she asked with a tremor in her voice that drew an inward grimace.
He didn’t answer, merely conducted a return journey, slower this time until his glinting, blistering gaze clashed with hers.
‘Voce parece sublime.’ The words were growled out, as if they annoyed him.
‘I only caught the last word.’ And unless she was mistaken, it’d been a compliment, albeit a curt one. Her heart flipped, then began an insistent banging against her ribs.
‘Then perhaps you should learn Portuguese, Saffie. With your brilliant abilities I’m surprised you haven’t done so already.’
She was leaving in a few short months. What would be the point? The sharp prickle in her chest robbed her of her next breath but she powered through it. ‘Since you speak impeccable English, I didn’t see the need to prioritise it. Are you going to translate what you just said?’
Burnished gold eyes clashed with hers. ‘That can be your first translation lesson.’ Tension eased out of him, his powerful body assuming another, equally skin-tingling stance. The kind that heightened her awareness of his sheer animal masculinity. The kind that made her breath shorten even further and flung the sharpest arrows of lust to her sex.
‘Did you...did you want something, Joao?’ Why did his name have to leave her lips with such throaty emphasis?
His gaze dropped to her neck. ‘I thought you might appreciate help with your necklace.’
The diamond and ruby necklace he’d given her on Monday. The day she’d announced she was going to leave him. The day he’d told her he needed her...
Had that been four short days ago?
‘Oh. I was saving it for another occasion.’ Like a summons to Buckingham Palace, which might hopefully never come.
His gaze lingered at her throat, then dropped down to her dress. ‘Did you not pick this dress with the necklace in mind?’
He caught her slight grimace. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘I still think it’s a little too much.’
‘I don’t care what people think. You shouldn’t either, Saffie. Either wear it or don’t. Your choice.’
His lips firmed before he glanced pointedly at the one-of-a-kind Richard Mille watch on his wrist. The timepiece came with a staggering price of two million dollars, and had been a gift, an astute move that had seen the iconic Swiss watchmaker’s profits soar after Joao had been seen wearing it. ‘Either way, we’re stretching the limits of being fashionably late.’
Now he was leaving the decision to her, she admitted reluctantly, the gown was the perfect foil for the breathtaking necklace.
