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How extraordinary.
“The hour is growing late,” he told her then, instead of continuing to discuss her thoughts on the humanity of the corporate world he doubted she had ever experienced. “We are rapidly approaching the point of no return. And I regret to inform you,mi querida esposa, that if you force me into a position where I must flex my muscles here... I will.”
And Lionel was something a little more than simply fascinated by how wholly unimpressed she looked at that statement. Because he could feel it. Everywhere.
“Here’s the situation as I see it,” Geraldine told him in that forthright way of hers. “For whatever reason, likely that you’re entirely too rich for your own good, you have a lot of strange ideas. That would be your business, but you’ve made it mine. Luckily, my aims are simple. I’ve already told you why I am here, what I want, and what I intend to make sure I get out of this. You should also know that I’m not a complete moron.”
“I do not recall suggesting otherwise.”
“Haven’t you? Still, you should know that my mother is aware of exactly what I was doing and where I was headed today. If I don’t make it back to our hotel room, she will sound the alarm. And loudly.”
If she expected a reaction, she was to be disappointed. “A pity, then, that when that alarm sounds you will be in Spain.”
It took him a moment to place the sort of look she gave him then. He realized he had never seen such an expression on anyone’s face, save one. His grandmother’s.
For this woman he had married today was looking at him as if her patience was sorely tried.Herpatience. Withhim. “That you still feel compelled to threaten me to take part in this ruined wedding of yours speaks volumes,” she said, and even shook her head. “It seems to me that a person who could not hold on to his first bride might treat the second a bit more carefully. Imagine the conversation we could be having right now if you had laid out your objectives, allowed me to do the same, and we’d found a way to meet in the middle.”
Her temerity was unmatched.
“This from the woman who was under the impression that I preyed upon an unwell teenager, then cast her aside when I was done with her.” Lionel tried his best to keep his temper locked away, where it belonged. “Where, precisely, do you imagine the middle to be between that position and mine?”
“Does your grandmother have her hands on the purse strings? Is that why you feel the need to go to such theatrical lengths for her?”
“My grandmother is none of your concern.”
Geraldine laughed. It sounded faintly triumphant. “Then I can’t imagine why you’d want me to play this elaborate game of pretend to deceive her.”
That was the moment that Lionel realized a great many things.
First, and most surprising, was that they had somehow...gotten close. He wanted to think it was her doing, but he was quite certain that she was in the exact same position, standing there with her arms crossed over the front of that floral monstrosity, glaring up at him. That meant that he must have been the one to move closer, so that he stood there above her, looking down, entirely too close—
As if, at any moment, he might reach out his hands and wrap them around her upper arms, and then—
And then...what?he asked himself.
That was when the second thing occurred to him. Namely, that they were standing out here in public. He had only seen his own men here, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be others nearby. Because while it was true that he did not spend a lot of his time in the headlines, there were always paparazzi lurking about, hoping to sneak in a shot that might change things.
He could not recall a single time in his entire life that he had ever lost sight of that.
That he had ever forgot, for even one moment, who he was and what he represented to those who might use him for their own ends. Or even just his name.
Next thing you know, you will be cavorting about on appalling yachts in the Mediterranean, awash in C-list actresses and models past their prime, he told himself scathingly. Is that what you want? To become the parody of your useless grandfather that your father was? To remind the entire world how and why the Asensio name became associated with everything tawdry for far too long before you?
Lionel wanted no such thing. Not when his entire life had been an attempt to emulate the kind of quiet command of the family name and assets that his grandmother had always embodied so well.
He had no intention of letting that change now. No matter the strange pull this woman seemed to exert on him.
He signaled his men, then looked back at Geraldine. “If you are planning to make a choice that does not involve me throwing you over my shoulder and carrying you on board the plane myself, now is the moment.”
“I will pass on Neanderthal displays, thank you,” Geraldine said. Stiffly, he thought. She sniffed, then unfolded her arms at last—but only so she could shove her glasses back up her nose.
A gesture he told himself he found deeply irritating. That was surely the reason he couldn’t seem to look away while she did it.
“Wonderful,” he said smoothly, as if he had heard nothing insulting at all. “As I mentioned earlier, there are certain scripts that we will need to follow—”
“Listen to me,” Geraldine said then, cutting him off. Another moment so outside his experience that he could only stare back at her, too astonished to otherwise react. “Jules is what matters to me. Not your grandmother. Not even really you, though I think you should have to pay for what you did. There is the issue of responsibility, but there’s also another issue, of restitution. That’s why I’m here. And the only reason I’m even considering playing ridiculous games with you is because that sounds a great deal like the fastest way to get Jules what she deserves. Do you understand me?”
Lionel gazed down at her for what felt to him like a long, long while. “Do I seem to you to be...deficient in understanding?”
