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“If you don’t mind,” she mumbled. She tugged the hem of her dress to her knees when his gaze ventured to her legs and lingered. “So there’s nothing I could do for you? In exchange for this…incredible salary?” God. She couldn’t even say the amount it seemed so out of reach.
He laughed, and Virginia didn’t think she’d ever heard him laugh before. The sound resembled the roll of distant thunder.
He set his glass on the nearby bar and signaled to the twin leather couches. “Sit.”
She sat. Her back was stiff and straight as she tracked his lithe moves around the room. How could a big man move with such grace? How could—
“Wine?”
“No.”
He poured two glasses nonetheless. His hands moved skillfully—too skillfully not to notice—and brought one to her.
“Drink.”
She grasped the fluted glass and stared at a faraway bronze sculpture, trying not to breathe for fear of what his scent might do to her. He smelled so amazingly good. Earthy and musky and male. She drew in a shaky breath until he dropped onto the couch across from hers.
When he stretched his arms out behind him, he made the couch appear small, his wide frame overwhelming the bone-colored leather designer piece. Under his jacket, the dress shirt he wore was unbuttoned at the top, gifting her with a view of smooth, bronzed skin and a polished gold cross.
She wanted to touch him. She wondered what that bronze skin would feel like under her fingers, if his cross was cold or warm…
Suddenly sensing his scrutiny, she raised her chin and smiled.
Lifting one black brow, Marcos opened his hand and signaled to her. “You’re not drinking.”
Virginia started, then obediently sipped. “It’s…good. Very…um, rich.”
“Have I ever bitten you?”
She almost choked on the wine, blinked, and then, then she saw the smile. A prime smile. Rare, like everything valuable, higher on one end than the other.
“I can see this is difficult for you,” he said, with a glimmer of warmth in his eyes.
“No. I mean, yes. It is.” He had no clue!
He set his glass aside, crossed his arms over his chest, and snuggled back as if to watch a movie. “You don’t trust me?”
Her heart skipped a nervous beat.
Trust him? She respected him. Admired him. Was in awe of him and, because of his power, even a little afraid of him. And maybe, she realized, she trusted him, too. From what she’d seen, Marcos—quiet, solid, heart-of-gold Marcos—had proved to be nothing but a champion for his people. A lion protecting his cubs. When Lindsay, assistant two, had been weeping for months after her twins were born, Marcos had hired an army of nannies and sent her off to a second honeymoon in Hawaii with her husband.
Lindsay was still talking about Maui.
And when Mrs. Fuller’s husband
passed away, the over-wrought woman had cried more tears reminiscing about all that Marcos had done to support and aid her family than she had cried at the funeral.
No matter how humiliating this was, how awful her situation and having him know it, she knew, like nothing in her life, he was as steady as a mountain.
Holding his gaze, she replied in all honesty. “I trust you more than I trust anyone.”
His face lit in surprise, and he scraped his chin between two blunt fingers. “And yet you don’t tell me what troubles you?”
The thought that he—the man she most honored, esteemed—would know her life was in such shambles squished her heart like a bug. “I would tell you what I need the money for if I thought it mattered, and I would tell you if that is the only way you’ll give it to me.”
With an expression that would befit a lone hunting wolf, Marcos rose and strode over, then pried the glass from her fingers. “Come with me.”
Unnerved that she couldn’t even begin to guess the thoughts in that unique, labyrinthine mind of his, Virginia followed him down the wide, domed hallway of his penthouse, becoming acutely aware of his formidable frame next to her.
