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‘Sure.’ He picked up her suitcase. ‘Come with me,’ he said, observing her instinctively shrinking away as he came close.
Leading her down the wide and spacious corridor towards the two bedrooms, Alejandro wondered when she had become so uptight. He remembered her astride a horse, with the wind in her hair—someone who bore no resemblance to the sensible creature she’d become in her plain clothes. Maybe that was what happened to women when they lost their innocence. Perhaps they lost their softness, too. She was the only virgin he’d ever had so he had nobody to compare her with. Cynically, his mouth twisted. There weren’t too many virgins to be found in the world he inhabited.
Flinging open a bedroom door where creamy drapes framed a blue sky, he wished he could just tumble her down on that big white bed and take her without ceremony. Because wouldn’t some perfunctory sex rid his mind and body of his damned hunger for her?
‘This is it.’
‘Wow,’ she said softly, glancing at the modern artwork which adorned the walls and appearing to look at everything in the room, except for the bed. She walked over to the window. ‘That’s some view.’
‘Best in the city. Come and find me when you’ve finished. And don’t be long. There’s a party on Marcus Hedlund’s yacht in the harbour.’
‘The Swedish industrialist?’
‘The very same. I hope you’ve come suitably prepared.’ His gaze swept over the wilting fabric of her dress. ‘These affairs tend to be quite dressy.’
‘I know that. I’ve done my research. Don’t worry, Alejandro. I’ll try not to let you down.’
The quick tilt of her chin suddenly reminded Alejandro of the daredevil teenager he’d once taught to ride and something unknown and dark twisted deep inside him as he remembered how close they’d once been. Until he reminded himself that the teenager had grown up and become a snobbish replica of her grasping mother. ‘I look forward to seeing what miracles you can perform,’ he said curtly, before turning away.
Returning to the drawing room, he tried to concentrate on the pile of paperwork awaiting him, but for once he found it impossible to lose himself in his workload. He should have been overjoyed at the fact that he was about to float his highly successful drinks company on the stock market for an eye-watering sum of money. Whoever would have thought that every teenager on the planet would have considered it the height of cool to quaff a cleverly marketed drink which was packed with herbs from his homeland and based on Argentina’s favourite drink of yerba maté? Or that every business gamble he’d ever taken would confound even his own expectations and lead him to unimaginable riches?
And all this had happened to someone who’d been born in a villa miseria—a miserable shack crammed beside hundreds of others in a dirty settlement outside Buenos Aires, with unpaved roads and no sanitation. Even after his mother had managed to shed her past for long enough to get herself a job as a rich Englishman’s housekeeper, Alej’s education had been almost non-existent. His passion and talent for riding had allowed him to put learning on the back burner and nobody had really cared that he’d skipped school most days. Able to read and write but without a single exam to his name, it had been a matter of pride and perseverance which had later made him devour books and newspapers and educate himself that way.
But his subsequent successes had never managed to fill the void deep inside him, or to lighten the darkness which seemed a fundamental part of his nature. He had been betrayed, first by Emily and then by his mother, and had sometimes wondered if those two key events had scarred him irrevocably, making him the man he had become—someone who functioned efficiently on every level but who never really felt anything. He would never know and he didn’t really care. His mother was dead now, taking her sordid past to the grave with her, and he had tried with varying degrees of success not to be judgemental about the things she had done.
But Emily was alive, wasn’t she? Delicious and luscious and alive. Some people said that moving into the future was only possible if you were properly reconciled with your past, and that was something which had so far eluded him. Until now. His mouth tightened. Because that was what he intended to do. To claim her. To enjoy her in a way which had not been possible before. To tie up all the loose ends so there was no chance they could ever become unravelled again.
The sound of soft footsteps broke into his thoughts and he looked up, his groin hardening when he saw Emily standing in the doorway.
He swallowed. A quick glance at his watch showed him that in a little over half an hour she had managed to achieve a remarkable transformation. Her newly washed hair had been piled into a messy updo which gave her a tantalising just-got-out-of-bed look. Escaping strands had already begun to dry dark gold and shiny as they tumbled around her long neck and framed a face which had been delicately touched with make-up.
But it was her outfit which made the most startling difference. Gone was the functional cotton shift and in its place a flirty dress of red silk, a colour he’d never seen her wear before. His throat tightened. Had she deliberately bought it a little on the small side, or was the delicate material supposed to cling to her generous breasts like that, so that he could barely tear his gaze away from them? Bright and bold, it had tiny buttons all the way down the front and fell to just above each shapely knee. Hugging her narrow waist, it flared slightly over her hips and the hot-faced, crumpled creature who had greeted him at the racetrack suddenly became a distant memory.
Alejandro couldn’t fault the way she looked and yet something raw and primitive began to throb through his veins as he wondered how many times she had performed this Cinderella scenario in the past. Had she dressed up like this for other men? he thought, with a sharp surge of jealousy. Had they too been busy thinking about how much they’d like to slide their fingers beneath that scarlet hemline to caress her cool thighs, before travelling further upwards to find her melting wetness? A pulse throbbed at his temple. Of course they had. Why wouldn’t they, when she’d been the hottest woman he had ever known and had told him that she planned to take as many lovers as possible? That declaration had filled him with an impotent rage for a long time after she’d left and he’d sometimes found himsel
f punching at his pillow in the middle of the night, until he had completely flattened it.
But he doubted any man had pleasured Emily Green as thoroughly as he was about to do. He wanted to rip the dress from her body and for her panties to follow, but he forced himself to put his desire on ice and to adopt the indifferent mask which both intrigued and infuriated his many lovers.
‘Did somebody wave a magic wand?’ he questioned carelessly. ‘Does it turn back into a sensible cotton dress at midnight?’
She gave a shrug which didn’t quite come off. ‘If you’re referring to my outfit, I borrowed it from my friend, since she goes to a lot more fancy functions than I do.’
Which might explain why the dress was straining so tantalisingly across her breasts that he could see the faint outline of her nipples. He swallowed. ‘I see.’
‘But we aren’t here to discuss my wardrobe choices,’ she said, primly nodding her head like a schoolteacher who was about to start a lesson. ‘I suggest we get down to work.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Though you could probably use a drink first?’
‘Nothing alcoholic!’ she responded swiftly.
He gave a low laugh. ‘Don’t worry, Emily. I wasn’t planning on plying you with fine wine. I was offering you water.’
‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘Well, thanks. Water would be great.’
Emily watched as he got up from the desk, unable to tear her eyes away from him. She’d told him that she wanted to work, but the sight of Alejandro moving across the room made it difficult to concentrate on anything other than his dark beauty and physical grace, as he walked over to a sleek bar of polished black wood. He added ice to two drinks—yet when he handed her a glass it wasn’t coldness she felt but a sizzle of fire as his skin brushed against hers.
She wondered what was the matter with her. She didn’t usually have showers which turned into something disturbingly erotic, but that was what had just happened as she’d washed herself in the luxury bathroom. The warm water had failed to remove the prickle of goosebumps as she’d started imagining Alejandro’s fingers sliding over her flesh and the corresponding throb of her nipples had made her feel restless as she had towelled herself dry. Yet this was nothing like the person she usually was. The prim and efficient woman she’d become. She prided herself on the professionalism which was so important to her and on her ability to think coolly and impartially. So stop focussing on sex and start concentrating on what you’re being paid for, she reminded herself.
