him. His hand whipped out and captured her wrist. Heat blazed from the contact, raining sharp tingles and making her gasp, this time for a completely different reason.
At the very top of her list—and underscored in indelible ink—of ways to avoid her tightly reined composure slipping around Joao was to never come into direct physical contact with him.
She’d learned that lesson in one sizzling, unforgettable way.
The Montcrief Pipeline deal.
The months’ long negotiations for the Brazilian-Canadian deal had left her with little sleep and living on the very edge of her nerves alongside Joao.
Her usually unflappable boss had been like a man possessed, his focus on securing the multibillion-dollar contract razor-sharp.
It was the first time the name Pueblo Oliviera had truly registered. The first time she’d witnessed something other than the fervent need to bag the best deal. It’d been clear Montcrief was personal for Joao.
It hadn’t taken a genius to connect the dots and conclude that he wanted to win against Pueblo Oliviera.
His father.
Joao had not only bagged the Montcrief deal, he’d signed another multibillion-dollar deal that had granted him ownership of his third premier soccer team in Brazil.
The double-barrelled success against his father had triggered a euphoric celebration, Joao’s breathtaking exclusive Marrakesh villa and its grounds the scene of one of the most sophisticated parties Saffie and the entire executive staff had ever attended.
It had been there, surrounded by flame throwers, jugglers and exotic belly dancers, that she’d given in to illicit temptation, one that she couldn’t recall without her stomach flipping and her skin burning with remembered excitement.
She wished she could blame it on one too many glasses of the Krug Clos d’Ambonnay, two thousand dollars per bottle, which had been flowing at the party.
Or the singular thrill of attempting her first belly dance, dressed in the midriff-baring costume and exotic jewellery that had made her feel feminine and sexy.
No.
It had been the expression on Joao’s face when she’d looked up and found him leaning against a stone pillar, staring at her, the euphoric glaze of success glinting in his eyes.
It had been the unfettered excitement at seeing the heat in his eyes flame brighter as she’d swayed towards him.
And it had been the absolute rapture at the thickly muttered Portuguese words and searing brand of his touch when he’d jerked her close, stared down at her for a charged minute before kissing her with a sizzling intensity she’d never experienced before.
The kiss, the fever it’d sparked in her bloodstream, and the urge to taste danger, just once, had been too heady to deny. So when he’d swept her off her feet, she’d willingly twined her arms around his neck. When he’d walked away from the party, marched them up to his master suite and kicked the door shut, she’d almost wept with anticipation.
And when she’d finally known what it felt like to be the lust-drunk focus of Joao’s attention, what it felt like to be completely possessed by him, she’d feared her life would never be the same.
She’d been right.
‘You are not other people. You don’t bore me, Saffie. Quite the contrary.’ His growled words slammed her to the present.
To the reminder that the morning after that night in Morocco, Joao had greeted her with stinging indifference. As if what had happened was of little consequence to him.
Then and now.
Her pulse hammered against the fingers curled around her flesh. And she died a little knowing he could feel it, too. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
His gaze shifted to where he held her, to where his thumb was moving slowly, seductively across her skin. ‘You are my right hand,’ he said, his accent thickening ever so slightly. ‘One of the most important cogs in my business wheel. I would be a fool to let such an asset walk away. But if you need to hear the words, I value you for your intellect. Which is far from boring.’
Cog. Business. Asset.
Cold labels that spelled out all she would ever be to Joao. From the beginning she’d known that. Somewhere along the line she’d finally accepted it. So why did the words douse her with such icy, isolating coldness?
Joao Oliviera was the biggest shark in an immense ocean. And as with all sharks there would come a day when she would become his prey. When he would chew her up and spit her out without so much as a blink of his whisky-gold eyes before moving on. She had enough sense to rescue herself before that happened. Especially when she had a goal much closer to her heart.
‘You’re really determined to do this? To walk out on your career?’ he pressed.
She found the strength to reconnect with his gaze. ‘To leave you, yes.’
He stared at her for a long, unblinking minute before eyes that were far too shrewd leisurely travelled over her body. They lingered at the frantic pulse beating at her throat, the agitated rise and fall of her chest she couldn’t quite control, the dark purple silk of her blouse, right down to her legs and shoes before travelling back up again. This time they lingered on her hips, then her breasts, causing her flesh to tingle.
Reprieve came in the form of the phone on his desk ringing. Her inbuilt work ethic kicked in and she automatically glanced at it.
‘Leave it,’ he instructed gruffly. ‘One of your assistants can get it.’
Very early on, she’d realised the sheer volume of work Joao produced meant she had to delegate less-sensitive work to others and she’d hired two assistants who answered to her.
He leaned closer, wrapped her tighter in his intoxicating scent. ‘And nothing I can say can change your mind?’ His tone had turned deadly silky, the kind that could weave spells around her.
She shook her head. Nowhere on their trajectory did their interests collide. It was why it’d taken her years to summon up the strength to walk away.
The breakneck lifestyle Joao led was no place to make long-term plans. Certainly not one that included her yearning for a family of her own. A baby.
How many times had she booked a ski trip to Aspen only for him to ski one black run and decide he would much prefer the slopes in Switzerland, preferably that same day?
Hadn’t he woken her up in the middle of the night only a month ago and ordered her to arrange a tour of the Chilean vineyard he’d just purchased on the spur of the moment for forty million dollars? She had still been rubbing the sleep from her eyes when his private jet had taken off from his Greek island fifty minutes later.
And this relentless, sizzling awareness of him surely couldn’t be good for her health?
No, she couldn’t put this off any longer.
‘No. There’s nothing you can say to make me change my—’
‘I
