Mr. Vila,” she replied in that crisp way of hers, “at least pay me the compliment of making them credible. You are many things, but you are not a thug. As such.”
For the first time in longer than he could remember—since, perhaps, he had been the fatherless child whose mother, all the village had known too well, had been so disgraced that she had taken to the convent after his birth rather than face the wages of her sin in its ever-growing flesh—Cayo was at a loss. It might have amused him that it was his personal assistant who had wrought this level of incapacity in him, his glorified secretary for God’s sake, when nothing else had managed it. Not another multimillion-pound deal, not one more scandalous affair reported breathlessly and inaccurately in the tabloids, not one of his new and—dare he say it—visionary business enterprises. Nothing got beneath his skin. Nothing threw him off balance.
Only this woman. As she had once before.
It was funny. It was. He was certain he would laugh about it at some point, and at great length, but first? He needed her. Back in line where she belonged, back securely in the role he preferred her to play, and he ignored the small whisper inside him that suggested that there would be no repairing this. That she would never again be as comfortably invisible as she’d been before, that it was too late, that he’d been operating on borrowed time since the incident in Cadiz three years ago and this was only the delayed fallout—
“I am leaving,” she told him, meeting his gaze as if he were a naughty child in the midst of a tiresome strop, and enunciating each word as if she suspected he was too busy tantruming to hear her otherwise. “You will have to come to terms with that and if you feel it necessary to file suit against me, have at it. I booked a ticket to Bora Bora this morning. I’m sorted.”
And then, finally, his brain started working again. It was one thing for her to take herself off to wherever she lived in London, or even off on a week’s holiday to, say, Ibiza, as he’d suggested. But French Polynesia, a world away? Unacceptable.
Because he could not let her go. He refused. And he wanted to examine that as little as he had the last time he’d discovered that she wanted to leave him. Three years ago, only a week after that night in Cadiz he’d seen—and still saw—no point in dredging forth.
It wasn’t personal, of course, then or now; she was an asset. In many ways, the most valuable asset he had. She knew too much about him. Everything, in fact, from his inseam to his favorite breakfast to his preferred concierge service in all the major cities around the globe, to say nothing of the ins and outs of the way he handled his business affairs. He couldn’t imagine how long it would take to train up her replacement, and he had no intention of finding out. He would do as he always did—whatever was necessary to protect his assets. Whatever it took.
“I apologize for my behavior,” he said then, almost formally. He shifted his stance and thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers, rocking back on his heels in a manner he knew was the very opposite of aggressive. “You took me by surprise.” Her gray eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he wished that he had taken the time to learn how to read her as thoroughly as he knew she could read him. It put him at a disadvantage, another unfamiliar sensation.
“Of course I will not sue you,” he continued, forcing himself to keep an even, civil tone, and the rest of himself in check. “I was simply reacting badly, as anyone would. You are the best personal assistant I’ve ever had. Perhaps the best in all of London. I am quite sure you know this.”
“Well,” she said, dropping her gaze, which he found unaccountably fascinating. She said something almost under her breath then, something that sounded very much like that’s nothing to be proud of, is it?
Cayo wanted to pursue that, but didn’t. He had every intention of cracking her wide open and figuring out every last one of her mysteries until he was sure that none remained, that she could never take him by surprise again, but not now. Not here. Not until he’d dealt with this situation the only way he knew how.
Which was to dominate it and contain it and make it his, by whatever means necessary.
“As you must be aware, however,” he continued, “there will be a great number of papers to sign before you can leave the company. Confidentiality agreements being the least of it.” He checked the watch on his wrist with a quick snap of his arm. “It’s still early. We can leave immediately.”
“Leave?” she echoed, openly frowning now, which was when it occurred to him that he’d never seen her do that before—she was always so very serene, with only the odd flash in her eyes to hint at what went on in her head. He’d never wanted to know. But this was a full frown, brows drawn and that mouth of hers tight, and he was riveted. Why could he not tear his attention away from her mouth? The lines he’d never seen before, making the smooth expanse of her forehead more interesting somehow? It made him much too close to uncomfortable. As if she was a real person instead of merely his most prized possession, exhibiting brand-new traits. Worse, as if she was a woman.
But he didn’t want to think about that. He certainly didn’t want to remember the only other time he’d seen her as anything more than his assistant. He didn’t want this woman in his bed. Of course he didn’t. She was too clever, too good at what she did. He wanted her at his beck and call, at his side, where she belonged.
“My entire legal team is in Zurich,” he reminded her gently. “Surely you have not forgotten that already in your haste to leave?”
He watched her stiffen, and thought she would balk at the idea of a quick trip to Switzerland, but instead, she swallowed. Visibly. And then squared her shoulders as if a not-quite-two-hour trip on the private jet was akin to a trial by fire. One that she was reluctantly willing to suffer through, if it would rid her of him.
“Fine,” she said, with an impatient sort of sigh that he did not care for in the least. “If you want me to sign something, anything, I’ll sign it. Even in bloody Zurich, if you insist. I want this over with.”
And Cayo smiled, because he had her.
CHAPTER TWO
BY the time the helicopter touched down on the helipad on the foredeck of the gently moving luxury yacht, Dru had worked herself into what she could only call a state.
She climbed out of the sleek little machine only when she realized she had no other choice, that the pilot was shutting it down and preparing to stay on board the great yacht himself—and Dru did not fancy spending who knew how long sitting in a helicopter simply to prove a point. She was quite certain that Cayo would leave her there.
On some level, she was bitterly aware she really should have expected he’d pull a stunt like this. Unabashed abduction. Simply because he could.
So, in spite of the fact that she wanted to put whole worlds between them, she found herself following Cayo’s determined, athletic stride across the deck, too upset to really take in the sparkling blue sea on all sides and what she was afraid was the Croatian mainland in the distance. The sea air teased tendrils of her hair out of the twist that had been carefully calibrated to withstand the London drizzle, and she actually had a familiar moment of panic, out of habit, as if it should still matter to her what she looked like. As if she should still be concerned that he might find her professional appearance wanting in some way. It appalled her how deep it went in her, this knee-jerk need to please him. It was going to take her a whole lot longer to quit the Cayo Vila habit than she’d like.
And the fact that he had spirited her away to the wrong country didn’t help.
“You do
