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“It was a misunderstanding. Or, I should say, another attempt to keep me from taking over the business. It was soon cleared up.”
“What kind of business?” She cocked her head.
“At that time, a marine service operation for small and midrange vessels. There was always potential for more, but my father was never able to maximize it. There was a cartel who kept him in his place. When he died, they thought they wanted the company more than I did. They were wrong.”
Her eyes widened. “What did you do?”
Whatever he had to. He deliberately sidestepped that question, trotting out the patter he gave any reporter who asked a similar question.
“Thankfully, like any adolescent, I was into gaming. When I wasn’t working at the shop under my father, or going to school, I made videos. I’d become an influencer of sorts. I was making decent money, enough to help with my parents’ mortgage. My father didn’t know that. My mother handled all the books at the business and at home. She also knew that if these enforcers realized we were getting ahead, they’d put more pressure on us so she kept it under her hat. My father didn’t live to see it, but having the house paid for gave me something to leverage when I took over the business. I was able to hire security and modernize. That set us up for growth.”
He didn’t mention the particularly ugly knife fight that had served as a warning that he was not the pushover his father had been.
“Recently, we expanded into larger ships and shipping beyond the Med. Zamos International? Heard of it?”
She wrinkled her nose in apology. “I have now.”
“I’m still seen as an upstart,” he admitted. “I’ve ceased to be a minnow that can easily be swallowed, but that makes me a genuine rival to the bigger players. I crashed your stepfather’s party looking for American connections into the Eastern Seaboard, to shore up my position.”
“Oh, dear. I have to be honest, Rafael. Stealing me away like this?” She drew a circle to indicate their love palace. “It has screwed your chances with everyone in that room. Pun intended. Humbolt can’t disown me for misbehaving, but he can punish my friends by blacklisting them.”
“I knew what I was risking when I approached you.” Did he, though? He wasn’t angry at her, per se, but he was angry he had allowed his libido to rule him. The longer he stayed here with her, the more opportunities he was allowing to slip away.
“Let me make it up to you,” she purred and sprawled across him while she began kissing her way south.
Carnal hunger dug its claws into him, dimming his ability to think.
Last time, he promised himself, and crooked his legs open so she could kneel between his thighs.
“For you,” Rafael said while she was dozing off their morning lovemaking.
Sasha thought he had risen to let in their breakfast, but he set a gorgeous bouquet of orchids and bird-of-paradise onto the night table.
She sat up, stomach lurching sickly, but hid her humiliation behind a bland smile. “I’ve overstayed my welcome. You should have said.”
“Not at all. They’re not from me.” When his flinty gaze met hers, her heart stalled. Was he jealous? Suspicious?
He plucked the card with two fingers and offered it to her.
Her nerveless fingers didn’t want to work. She wound up tearing the tiny envelope to withdraw the card that read, Call your mother.
“Mother.” She flicked the card off the bed. “Took her long enough to find me. You weren’t on the guest list, though. Were you?” She dragged the sheet across her breasts and bunched the pillows behind her so she could slouch into them with a sigh and a wry smile. “That must have annoyed her, having to ask around to find out who you were. Now everyone knows you were an interloper. She’ll use that against you. Sorry.” She wrinkled her nose at him.
He made a noise of acknowledgment that also rang with discontent. “Coffee?”
“There you go seducing me again.” She was trying to return to their easy banter, but seriously, everything about him seduced her. The belt of his robe was negligently tied at his waist, leaving the lapels gaping to reveal his tanned chest.
He countered with, “I can’t seem to help myself,” but his tone wasn’t as light as it had been. Reality was permeating the air like the perfume of the orchids.
She watched him amble from the room and even his silhouette of wide shoulders and the laconic slap of his bare feet made her ache with longing. She knew she ought to leave, but couldn’t seem to make herself.
“It’s hot,” he said when he returned and set the two cups of coffee beside the bouquet.
Sasha wanted to knock the flowers to the floor, but they were only a symbol of the thing she really didn’t want—to speak to her mother. She didn’t want to leave this bubble of intimacy and pleasure. To leave him.
He didn’t walk around and climb into the bed beside her, the way he’d done most other times he returned to this bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress facing her.
“Exactly how will your mother try to make me uncomfortable?” he asked.
