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Jack had arrived promptly at eleven as promised—the tall, blond Texan was never late, and, like a golden retriever listening to a particularly silent whistle, he had cocked his head when he spotted Virginia almost in Marcos’s arms. As she whispered goodbye, Marcos’s own instincts had flared to life and whispered that she wanted to stay.
But when “Williams the Bastard”—as the press had dubbed him—said he’d deliver, he delivered. And unfortunately what Marcos expected couldn’t wait.
Still, he couldn’t allow his friend to get the wrong impression of her, so he lifted his glass in a mocking toast. “She makes good coffee.”
Jack popped an almond into his mouth and munched. “Aha. In bed?”
Marcos crossed the living room and headed back into the office, Jack trailing behind him.
Cranky, frustrated and exhausted, he set the glass atop a stack of papers on his desk and sank into the high-backed leather seat. “I’m not that man, Jack. Never mix business with pleasure, remember?”
But Virginia’s sweet, fragrant scent lingered in the air. A torment to his straining body. A mockery to his words.
He respected his employees, took pride in being regarded as a man with moral fiber. And yet when it came to Virginia Hollis, it seemed he was reduced to the instincts of a caveman.
His friend’s smooth, easy chuckle coming from the threshold somehow cranked up his frustration. “I remember. But the question is: do you? Should I have fetched a spoon, buddy? You looked ready to eat her.”
Marcos would have scoffed. He certainly didn’t welcome the canny twinkle in Jack’s eye. But then he remembered the desperate urge he’d had to kiss Virginia…the exquisite scent of her skin, so close to his…the surprisingly fine feel of her in his arms, stirring and enticing beyond belief…
His chest cramped with emotion as he dragged a hand down his hot face. “Perhaps the old adage is true, and some rules are meant to be broken—especially if you’re the moron living by them.”
“Don’t go there, Marcos.” Jack pushed away from the door, dead serious. “I’ve been there. Not fun, man. Not fun for you, definitely not fun for her. Office affairs always end badly—no matter how well you plan them when you begin.”
Marcos pondered the massive, crowded bookcase on the wall across from him. A near bursting sensation was lodged in the pit of his gut. He didn’t want to hurt her. Hell, he hadn’t wanted to want her.
Diablos, but he’d been sexually frustrated since the day he’d hired her. She was demure, desperate and determined, and Marcos had feared she’d be a distraction. But he hadn’t counted on the fact that his primitive response to her would reach such a fever pitch.
“I’ve never gotten involved with an employee in my life—but she’s different, Jack. And yes, I am aware of how that sounds.”
Reclining in his seat with a grimace, he opened his cuff buttons and rolled up his sleeves.
He was actually considering, perhaps he was even past considering and had already made up his mind, giving them both what they’d wanted for months.
He was a man, flesh and blood like all the others. There was only so much he could stand. And Virginia…no matter how energetically she tried to conceal her reactions to him, she responded. Viscerally, primitively—a woman underneath the tidy assistant after all. A sweet, lovely woman who knew instinctively when a man wanted her. No, not wanted—Marcos burned for her.
And now he’d asked—practically demanded—she spend a week with him. Pretending to be his lover. At a time when all his energies, all his attention, needed to be on the one prize he’d sought to gain for so long.
Allende.
He hadn’t been certain whether to ask her as escort. She was too much a temptation to play lovers with, and in order to successfully achieve his goals, focus was key.
But tonight the lovely Virginia—alone and financially abandoned by her family, something Marcos could identify with—had turned to him for help.
Tonight, as he’d gazed into her bright, fierce eyes, he couldn’t deny himself any longer.
He wanted her.
He’d offered her a position for a week, true, but that was merely a guise for what he really wanted to do.
Her powerful effect would linger with him long after he left his office at night. He thought of her continually, every hour. He relived their encounters in his mind sometimes, enjoyed hearing her laugh at Lindsay’s antics when his office doors were parted. He could not push her image away at night and loathed to see her in trouble when she seemed to seek so little of it for herself.
He’d made a mental list long ago with plenty of valid reasons to leave her alone.
She was an innocent, he was not. She was vulnerable, he could hurt her. She was his employee, he was her boss. There were dozens of reasons to stay the hell away from Virginia.
The ways she’d looked at him tonight pulverized them all.
“Here. I have just the thing to cheer you up.” Jack stepped outside and returned rummaging through his leather briefcase. He yanked out a manila folder and held it out. “There you go, big man. Your wish is my command.”
