accused her of enduring his touch for the sake of her family business, of seeing him as nothing more than a bullfighter dirty from the ring. If only he believed that she’d truly loved him, how sexy she’d found him in spite of the barbarity of his former profession.
Standing in this elevator in his custom-fit suit, he was as far from the glittering garb of a matador as any man could be—and yet she still saw the bullfighter beneath the polish. The raw, hungry, intense man who could stand in a ring with one ton of angry bull barreling toward him and never, not even once, flinch. This was a man who could stare death in the face and not blink.
After their affair had ended, she’d actually gone through a torturous phase of tracking down and watching his recorded fights. Holding her breath while the bull charged, while the cape swept down, then whirled away as Alejandro went up high on his toes and plunged his sword home. She’d thought it barbaric, and yet Alejandro had once explained, when she’d been tracing his scar in the aftermath of their lovemaking, how honorable the fight was for both man and bull. It wasn’t her kind of thing—and yet there was a beauty in it.
A beauty in him.
She closed her eyes, remembered the heat of him, of the two of them twined together in his sheets. It had all gone so wrong, so horribly wrong. And she wasn’t the same person she’d been back then—the same starry-eyed girl with dreams of love and a life with the most magnetic man she’d ever met. The world had certainly taught her the folly of those beliefs, hadn’t it?
The elevator glided to a halt, the doors whispering open to let them into a spacious private office. Overstuffed chairs and a sleek sofa sat beneath a wall of books. A chrome and glass desk was positioned in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that ran the length of one wall. Alejandro went behind the desk and sat down without looking at her.
In the distance, the twin glass and steel structures of the Puerta de Europa leaned toward each other across the busy Paseo de Castellana. Much closer, the giant Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, where Madrilenians flocked to watch their soccer team, squatted against a bright blue sky.
“The board meeting will be in an hour. I suggest you prepare.” He picked up the phone and spoke to someone. A second later, a pretty woman opened the door.
“Please escort Señorita Layton to a desk, Maria.”
Rebecca followed the woman without another word, smiling and giving her thanks when Maria deposited her in a small, windowless office. Though she needed to prepare for the meeting, she first placed a call to the Cahill Group’s offices in London. Roger was out of town until tomorrow, so she hung up and clicked open her briefcase. A glance at the clock told her she had fifty minutes left.
She didn’t know what she’d encounter in that boardroom, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.
When she was finally called to the meeting, more than an hour after she’d been told she would be, she was ready. She’d spent the last two hours completing her projections, dragging her finance people out of bed to give her numbers, and making sure her arguments were sound. Layton International would be out of the red in six months if she were allowed to continue on the path she’d chosen.
And though it burned her up to have to humble herself to these people, to explain her plans and defend her actions, she had no choice. She had to keep her company intact until she could somehow manage to get it back.
But the board meeting went exactly as she’d predicted. What Alejandro wanted, the board would do. If he decided to dissect her company limb from limb, he was within his rights to do so.
Rebecca shoved papers into her briefcase as the board filed out. She was on dangerous ground here. She was only technically still CEO until Alejandro decided otherwise.
A wave of apprehension rolled through her. And he would decide otherwise. She had no doubt. He was simply dragging this out to torture her.
How could she be the one who lost the company started by her grandfather? No matter that her father had taken out astronomical loans and pledged every last share of stock as collateral, she was still the one in control when the axe fell. She should have stopped it.
How? a little voice asked.
It didn’t matter how. She should have simply known what to do. Her father would have.
Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose, breathed deeply. No—no one could have gotten them out of this mess. She simply had to deal with the situation as it was. She had to protect Layton International and the people who depended on her for their jobs.
“Why did you make me go through with that?” Rebecca demanded, frustration and anger churning together.
Alejandro shrugged a shoulder, his lazy stare infuriating. “If you do not like your new position, you can always quit.”
Rebecca snapped her briefcase closed, then stood and stared down at him as coolly as she could muster, given the erratic beating of her heart. “I’m returning to New York to do my job.”
“You forget who is in charge here, Señorita Layton.” Alejandro leaned back in his chair, legs sprawled out in front of him as he toyed with a pen on the table. He looked nothing like a billionaire and everything like a mischievous Greek god who’d deigned to dabble with the mortals again. “You work at my pleasure and you leave when I say so.”
“You don’t own me.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“Oh, but I do.”
He meant it. She could see that. And he intended to make her suffer for it.
“What did I ever see in you?” she forced out past the knot in her throat.
For some reason that got his attention. He climbed slowly to his feet, his eyes glittering. The look on his face was pure danger. For reasons she preferred not to explore, a tiny thrill shot through her.
She straightened her spine, refused to back down as he moved closer. “What are you going to do? Kiss me again?” Her voice was huskier than she would have liked. The thought of him kissing her, pressing his body against her, wasn’t nearly as repugnant as she wanted it to be.
Was she crazy? She didn’t want to remember what it was like between them, how much she’d once loved him. To feel anything at all for him, besides hate, was to betray everything her family had ever done for her.
“Would you like that, querida?” he said, moving toward her with lethal grace. “My mouth against yours?”
“No!” She resisted the urge to slink away. Where would she go? Against a wall? No, she’d stand here, take whatever he dished out. Give as good as she got. He might own her company—own her, in fact—but he would not control her. If he kissed her, she would remain cold and unresponsive.
She would.
“Your body says otherwise.” He practically purred as his finger grazed her cheek. She was proud when she didn’t betray herself with even the hint of a shiver. She stood stone-still and endured his touch. His fingers left fire in their wake as they ghosted over her skin.
“You are flushed, Rebecca.” His fingers fell away, his hot gaze dropping to caress her body inch by inch. He no longer touched her, but she felt like his hands were everywhere at once.
