“I like it.” She strode inside, the knowledge that this was his private, personal space making her blood bubble. Her fingers itched with the overwhelming urge to organize the stacks of papers on his desk.
“I know about your father, Miss Hollis.”
Dread sunk like a bowling ball in her stomach. “You do?”
She spun around, and when he stepped into the room, Marcos achieved the impossible: he made it shrink in size.
“You do not exist in the world I do without being cautious about everyone who comes into your inner circle. I have a dossier on everyone who works in close proximity with me, and I know every detail of their lives. Yes, I know about his problem.”
“Oh.”
What else did he know?
He passed her as he crossed the room, and she stifled a tremor as if he’d been a cool hurricane wind. “Why didn’t you come to me before?” he asked, matter of fact.
“I’m here now,” she whispered.
Halting behind his desk, he shoved the leather chair aside and leaned over the surface. His shirt stretched taut over his bunched shoulders and his eyebrows pulled low. “How bad is it?”
“It… The gambling comes and goes.” Flushing at his scrutiny, she turned to busy herself with the books on the shelves, and then said, as if he’d expertly unlatched a closed door which had been near bursting with secrets, “He’s out of control. He keeps betting more than what he has and more than I could possibly earn.”
“Is that the only reason you’re here?”
His voice grew so textured, a jolt of feminine heat rippled through her. She spun around—shocked by the question. Shocked by the answering flutter in her womb.
Her breath stopped.
His gaze. It was open. Raw. Revealed a galvanizing wildness, a primitive hunger lurking—lurking there—in the depths of his eyes, like a prowling beast.
Pent-up desire rushed through her bloodstream as he continued to stare. Stare at her in a way no man, ever, should look at a woman and expect her to survive. “Is that the only reason you’re here tonight? Virginia?”
As if in a trance, she moved forward on shaky legs, closer to his desk. “Y-yes.”
“You want nothing else? Just the money?”
How to talk? How to think? Breathe? Her heart felt ready to pop from the pressure of answering. “N-nothing.”
In the back of her mind, she vaguely realized how simple and unassuming her needs sounded as she voiced them. When they were not. They were tangled. They had grown fierce with his proximity. Out of reason, out of context, out of control.
“Will you help me,” she murmured as she reached the desk, and somehow the plea sounded as intimate as if she’d asked for a kiss.
“I will.” Deep and rough, the determination in his answer flooded her with relief.
He was going to help her.
In her soaring mind, Marcos was mounted on a white charger holding up a flag that read “Virginia.”
And she…well, hers might be a banner. A neon sign. A brand on every inch of her body and possibly her heart. Marcos Allende. God, she was a fool.
“I don’t expect something for nothing,” she said. Her voice throbbed even as a tide of relief flooded her.
It was as if some unnatural force drew her to him, pulled her to get closer and closer. Did the force come from him? From her? If it weren’t for the desk—always the desk between them—where would she be?
No. The obstacle wasn’t a desk. It was everything. Everything. Nothing she could ever arrange or fix or clean.
Marcos raked one hand through his hair, then seized a runaway pen and thrust it into an empty leather holder. “I’ll give you the money. But I have a few requests of my own.”
“Anything,” she said.
His gaze was positively lethal. His hands—they made fists. “There’s something I want. Something that belongs to me. Something I must have or I’ll lose my mind with wanting it.”
A shiver ran hot and cold down her spine.
He wasn’t speaking of her—of course he wasn’t—but nonetheless, she felt something grip inside her as though he were. What would it feel like for Marcos to want her so fiercely? “I…understand.”
“Do you?”
He smiled bleakly at her, then continued around his desk.
He swept up a gemstone globe from the edge and spun it around, a lapis lazuli ocean going round and round. “Here.” His finger stopped the motion, marking a country encrusted in granite for her eyes. “What I want is here.” He tapped.
Tap tap tap.
She stepped closer, longingly lifting a fingertip to stroke the length of the country he signaled. Travel had seemed so far down the line of her priorities she hardly gave any thought to it now.
“Mexico,” she whispered.
His finger slid. It touched hers. He watched. And she watched. And neither of them moved. His finger was blunt and tan, hers slim and milky. Both over Mexico. It wasn’t even a touch, not even half a touch. And she felt the contact in every fiber of her lonely, quivering being.
He turned his head, their faces so close that his pupils looked enormously black to her. A swirling vortex. He whispered, as though confessing his every hidden desire and sin, “I’m after Allende.”
She connected the name immediately. “Your father’s business?”
“The business he lost.”
He set down the globe, and again, his finger. This time the back of it stroked down her cheek. Marcos touching her, Marcos looking so strangely at her, oh, God. He smelled so good she felt lightheaded.
“And you believe I can help?” she asked, one step away from him, then two. Away from his magnificent, compelling force, away from what he made her want.
He scraped a restless hand down his face. “The owner has managed it poorly and contacted me for help.” A tiny muscle ticked at the back of his jaw. “I’m usually a sucker for the ailing, I admit, but things are different in this case.” Disgusted, he shook his head. “I do not intend to help her, you understand?”
“Yes.” She didn’t understand, exactly, but rumors around the office were that no one mentioned Allende to Marcos unless they wanted their head bitten off.
He paced. “I’m taking it hostilely if I have to.”
“I see.”
“I could use an escort.”
Escort.
“I need someone I can count on. Most of all—” he crossed his arms and his enigmatic black gaze bored into hers “—I need someone willing to pretend to be my lover.”
Lover.
Her hands went damp and she discreetly wiped them at her sides. “Lover.” When his long steps brought him over to her, she instinctively backed away until her calves hit a small ottoman.
Unperturbed, Marcos headed over to the bookshelf, his strides sure and unhurried. “Would you be interested in doing this for me?”
Her head whizzed with unwelcome, naughty thoughts. Thoughts of Mexico and Marcos. Martinis and Marcos. Mariachis and Marcos. “Yes, definitely.” But what exactly did he mean by pretend? “So what would you expect of me, for how long?” An unprecedented thrill was trickling along her veins.
He rummaged through the books, moving tome after tome. “A week as my escort in Monterrey, and perhaps some work after hours until I’m able to close. I’ll be sure to handle your…little problem.”
“That’s all?”
He shot her a look of incredulity. “That’s not enough?”
She just smiled. And waited.
And watched.
The muscles under his shirt flexed as he reached the top shelf and pulled out a huge leather volume.
“Maybe your company at the Fintech dinner?” he continued, winged eyebrows flying up. “Would you mind? Going with me?”
She fiddled with her pearls, unable to stop fidgeting. “You… I can always arrange a date for you.”
His lips curved upward as he waved the heavy book in her line of vision as easily as if it were a mere piece of pape
r. “I don’t want a date, Miss Hollis. Here. You can take this—a bit about Monterrey, if you’d like.” He set it on the ottoman. He had a lovely, lazy kind of smile, and she felt it curl her toes.
“I feel like I’m robbing you blind,” she said, lifting the shiny book.
He paused in the middle of the room and stared at her with his deep gypsy eyes. “If I allowed it, it wouldn’t be robbery, would it.”
She saw his cool, brief smile and flattened the book tight against her breasts when they pricked. Traitors. But he’d smiled three times tonight. Three. Or more? Three or more just had to be a record.
“You’re an asset to my company,” he continued in an unnaturally husky voice, stalking back around the desk. “A week of your time is valuable to me. You’re hard-working, smart. Loyal. You’ve gained my trust, Virginia, and my admiration—both difficult feats.”
A feathery sensation coursed along her skin. She was certain he used that same self-assured tone in his meetings, but she wondered if it had the same thrilling effect on the members of his board.
When she couldn’t seem to find anything useful to do other than ogle stupidly, she automatically did what she always did to cure herself. She set the book aside and began arranging the papers at the edge of his desk—from a messy pile to a neat pile. “T-thank you for the compliments. I enjoy working at Fintech very much. And for you…of course. Which is why I don’t want to jeopardize my position.”
She continued arranging, aware that he was doing nothing—nothing—but towering a few feet away and watching her. Like he did in the office sometimes. He would stop what he was doing and watch with those black, exciting eyes.
“What will we say at the office?” she rambled.
Gossip could be ruthless at Fintech. To think Lindsay or Mrs. Fuller might believe she’d done something un-professional to land a business trip with Marcos gripped her with unease.
When Marcos didn’t reply, she looked up and caught the wicked sparkle in his eyes. She had the strangest sensation that he’d been staring at her bottom. “We will say that I ordered you to accompany me, of course. You are my assistant, after all.”
His brows drew together and he peered at her hard, as though daring her to argue with him.
But a pang struck her right where it hurt; she knew she could never be more than an assistant to him. He was Marcos Allende. He could be Zeus himself, he was so unattainable.
Virginia was dreaming if she wanted more than a seat outside his office. Dreaming if she thought the desire in his eyes was for her. Dreaming to think that, even if it were, he’d do something about it and she’d dare let him.
No. She could not, would not allow herself to continue harboring those foolish nightly fantasies about him. The daily ones had to go, too. It was hopeless, and it was hurtful, and it was stupid. He was offering her an assignment.
When the pile couldn’t be a more perfect tower, she straightened it with as much dignity as she could muster. “I’d be happy to be your escort.”
He nodded slowly. “Good. Great. Excellent.” His voice was strangely terse, so utterly rich it seemed to sink into her body until it pulsed inside of her. “I knew we’d come to an agreement, then.”
Dealing with a tumult of emotions without betraying herself proved difficult. Excitement warred with worry, gratitude with desire.
One week with him in Mexico. Playing his escort, his lover—a role Virginia had slipped into plenty of times in her mind. But this would be real, a real pretense, where she—inexperienced and naive in the ways of men—would pretend to be lover to a hunk, god and legend. Where she could even seize the moment, do something reckless she would no doubt come to regret and plant a kiss on the lips of the man who was unknowingly responsible for Virginia not wanting others. Did she dare? Did she fly? Did she have magic powers?
Was there even the possibility of being a good pretend lover to him after he’d dated actresses, duchesses, centerfolds?
Growing more and more unsettled at her new assignment, she picked up the book, Monterrey: Tras el Tiempo, and headed for the door, stealing one last glimpse of him. “Thank you, Marcos. For…everything. Good night.”
“Virginia.” When she was halfway down the hall, he caught up and seized her wrist, urging her around. His clasp sent a shiver skidding up her arm. “It’s a five-hour flight. I mean to leave tomorrow afternoon. Can you be ready by then?”
Ready, she thought wildly.
She could be a virgin Mayan princess prepared her whole life for this ultimate sacrifice, be an Anne Boleyn laughingly led to her beheading, and she would still not be ready for Marcos Allende.
But she smiled. Her nod came out jerky.
He seized her chin and raised it slightly. She sucked in a breath at the contact, and the tips of her breasts brushed against his chest. “Will you be ready, Virginia?” he persisted.
Her legs quivered. All kinds of things moved inside her body. His breath was hot and fragrant on her face, and his lush, mobile mouth was so close, a moan rose to her throat, trapped there. Like the wanting of a year, trapped there.
How would he feel against her? His mouth? His hands?
He was so hard all over, so unlike any other man she’d known. He made her feel safe and protected and special, but he also made her burn, frightened her with the way she needed something from him more than she could possibly bear or understand.
She suppressed a shiver. “I’ll be ready,” she assured, a nervous excitement flourishing in her breast as she took a healthy step back. “Thank you. I know…I know you could ask someone else to do this for you. And I doubt you’d have to pay for her company.”
His eyes smoldered, and his face went taut with some unnameable emotion. “Yes, but I want you.”
I want you.
A ribbon of hope unfurled inside her. It feathered from the top of her head down to the soles of her feet. She didn’t trust it. Marcos didn’t mean the words the way they had sounded to her ears. Ears starved for anything he ever said to her.
She told herself, firmly, until it was embedded in her brain, that Marcos wanted someone trustworthy, someone biddable, and his lionlike instinct surely prodded him to help her.
And, oh, how she had wanted to be different. To him. Not charity. Not like his stepbrother, a reckless playboy Marcos had to rescue time after time—not like all the strangers and friends who called him every day, seeking his counsel, his power, his help.
Everyone wanted something of Marcos Allende, for underneath the hard exterior lay a man with a strong, solid heart of gold. His faith in people was inspiring, his ruthlessness rivaled only by his mercy. Marcos…took care of you. And those early mornings when Virginia had stepped into his office to find his broad shoulders bent over the desk, his shirt rolled up to his elbows, his silky black hair falling over his forehead, his voice husky and his eyes tired from lack of sleep, her heart had ached with wanting to take care of that big, proud warrior. Who gives you back what you give, Marcos Allende?
Is there anyone out there who takes care of you for a change?
Now she determined that whatever he wanted, she would give. “You won’t regret it, Marcos,” she softly promised. “Helping me, I mean.”
His lips twitched. That amused smile did things to her stomach, but it didn’t seem to reach his eyes. Those remained hooded, unreadable. He ran the back of one finger down her cheek, the touch sparking fire. “It is I who hopes you never regret this visit.”
Two
“Your new lover?”
Silent, Marcos stood at the living room window and broodingly watched the car pull away with Virginia inside it. From the penthouse, the Lincoln looked like a sleek black beetle, slipping into the intermittent traffic before the apartment building.
The pressure in his chest mounted with the distance.
His blood still pumped hot inside his veins and his head swam with a thousand thoughts, all of them X-rated.
“Or a mistress maybe?”
Twisting ar
ound, he faced his newest guest, the inquisitive Jack Williams—ex-corporate spy and now self-made millionaire. He was helping himself to a bag of nuts he’d obtained from the bar.
“My assistant,” Marcos said tonelessly, swirling his newly poured Scotch in his hand. The cubes clinked in the glass.
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…