A wave of shock rolled over her, making her ears buzz, her throat tight. “I … No,” she said, scrambling to sit up. She’d just had her first kiss, anything more was impossible to fathom. “No.”
She was torn then, torn because in so many ways she wanted him. Wanted to take advantage of being alone with him, of having all of his intensity focused on her. Part of her wanted to make love with him. To take every step possible to make him hers.
But she wasn’t ready. She wanted love before there were condoms involved. She needed the words. She just did.
And if anyone found out she’d had her first kiss and her first time on the same night, in her father’s guesthouse? She cringed at the thought.
“What would people think?” The words tumbled out before she had a chance to turn them over.
His eyes darkened, his mouth pressing into a tight line. A muscle jumped in his cheek. “I don’t know, querida.” The Spanish endearment sounded like a curse. “They might not think anything of it. I assumed you had arrangements with all of the gardeners.”
His words were like gunfire, shocking and devastating. Harsh in the small, quiet space. “I …”
“You certainly aren’t the only one of my clients’ daughters I’ve gotten into bed.”
Insults, angry words, curses she’d never spoken out loud before, all swirled in her head, but her throat was too tight for her to speak. And in his eyes, she could see her pain mirrored, raw and achingly sad.
He just looked at her for a moment, and she wished she had the courage to say something. But she just wanted to curl in on herself and hold the hurt to her heart.
“I think we’re done here then.” He turned and walked out, and she just sat and watched him go.
She wanted to go after him. To explain what she’d meant, because she was certain her words had hurt him in some way. To scream at him for making her hurt.
You’ll see him again tomorrow. You can fix it then.
Except she’d been wrong about that. He’d walked out and he’d never come back. All he’d wanted from her was sex. That had been her introduction to relationships. Not exactly sterling. It was a memory, an experience she couldn’t free herself from.
And more often than not her mind chose to focus not on the fight, but on the way his mouth had felt moving over hers. The slide of his tongue, his hands on her skin.
Worse than that were the times when she thought about what she’d been willing to do for him. She’d been ready to leave everything behind—her father, Pickett Industries—for him. That had been a moment in time when her future had seemed fluid rather than set in stone, and sometimes she dreamed of what it would be like to have options. To have the unknown stretching before her in a good way, and not in a failing-company, heartburn-causing kind of way.
Her mind was wicked. And treacherous.
Tonight was the first time she’d seen Lazaro in person since he’d left her sitting on the bed in her father’s guesthouse, although she’d revisited that night a thousand times every time she saw a picture of him, heard him discussed at cocktail parties. The bad boy made good. She’d never been able to truly escape him. Though she’d tried.
She’d only tracked him down now because the ghost of make-out sessions past was trying to stage a hostile takeover of her business—her life. Otherwise, she never would have sought him out again. Ever.
“The way I see it, Vanessa, you have very little choice in the matter if you want Pickett to survive.”
“No,” she said, “I don’t see marriage as a formal business transaction.”
“Now, I find that hard to believe.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Are you saying your father has nothing to do with the man you’ll marry?” He watched as the light in her dark eyes dimmed. “Are you saying you get to choose?”
She shook her head. “Not … It’s complicated.”
“Not really.”
“I can’t,” Vanessa said, keeping her voice hard, commanding. The voice she used during board meetings and to men who assumed she couldn’t handle being in charge.
“You’re already promised to someone, aren’t you? Someone with the appropriate bloodlines?” His lip curled into a sneer. “Waiting for one of those golden boys to bail you out?”
“You know my father, he doesn’t leave loose ends. Of course there’s someone in his plans.” The admittance was strange because no one, herself included, had ever voiced it. But no one had ever had to say anything. It was understood. It was as ingrained in her as which fork to use for the salad.
“Do you love him?”
“No.” She didn’t love Craig Freeman, or even know him, by her own design. She’d taken pains to avoid him, in fact. That hadn’t been too hard since he’d been across the country for the majority of their tentative arrangement. He seemed about as interested in the whole thing as she was.
And that was another reason she’d never broached the subject with her father.
“Then why do you have an issue with a business-oriented marriage where I’m concerned?”
Because Craig Freeman could be put off. He was unchallenging. He was a nonentity. In some ways, it had been easier knowing that he was in the not-too-distant future. It took the pressure off her finding Mr. Right when she hardly had enough time to put on lipstick in the morning. Craig didn’t make her heart race or her body burn. Lazaro Marino did. And he would not be put off by anyone.
Vanessa sucked in a sharp breath. “Before this goes any further, I need to know what this is about.”
“Why is it that I can’t get business deals with your father’s cronies? Why is it that their businesses languish, and yet they sit in their clubs sipping brandy and smoking cigars, ignoring the downfall, rather than pursuing help?”
“Because they’re a bunch of stubborn old men who are set in their ways,” she said. “Their business models are outdated, just as you’ve accused Pickett’s of being.”
“Perhaps. And also because I am not worthy in their eyes. They would rather watch their companies crumble than ask someone like me, with my dirty blood, for help.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said, even though she knew it was true. Those men would never stoop to taking a consultation from someone so far beneath them in station. That exclusivity was the source of their power, and they weren’t about to let it go, no matter how modernized the rest of the world had become.
“It’s not. We both know that.”
“And you think marrying me will fix that for you?”
He chuckled. “I’m sure the son-in-law of Michael Pickett would be due some respect.”
“If
