He came into the bedroom as she was leaving the master bath. He wore a dark polo shirt and khakis, and his hair was mussed. He’d been raking his hands through his hair again, no doubt the result of his phone call. Perversely, she wanted to smooth it back into place.
“It meets with your approval?” he asked, nodding toward the bathroom.
“It’s nice.”
“Merely nice?” He seemed a little irritated.
“No, it’s very nice.”
His face darkened. “It is spectacular, far better than many of your own hotels. Which I will rectify, I assure you.”
She stamped down on the hot anger rising to the surface. He was baiting her. He’d had bad or frustrating news and he was taking it out on her. Amazingly, the realization only made her calmer. “Of course, Alejandro.”
He stalked closer. “You are making fun of me?”
She shook her head. “No.”
He trailed tanned fingers down the vee of her blouse, toyed with the top button. “Take this off.”
Her breath shortened. The anger she’d stamped down deep was beginning to bubble again. “I’d rather not.”
“And I say you have no choice.”
She drew herself up and leveled him with her best glare. “There is always a choice, Alejandro. I choose not to be ordered around like a pay-by-the hour hooker. If you need to sell a hotel or two, or dismantle Layton International and scatter it to the wind to punish me, then indulge yourself. You can’t control every single minute of my life with your threats. Save them for the big stuff.”
His face was dark, unreadable. And then one corner of his mouth lifted in a grin. It was like sunshine breaking through after a violent storm—and completely not what she’d expected. “You amuse me at the oddest moments, bella.”
He caught her around the waist, tugged her against his body. “My meeting has been moved to tomorrow morning and I find I have many long, empty hours to fill.” He dipped his head, touched his lips to her nose, her cheeks. “Help me fill them, yes? I want to taste you again, Rebecca. I want to spend the afternoon in bed with you, fucking like the world could end before nightfall.”
She shivered at the vision of what that meant. His mouth between her legs, driving her into a frenzy. The thrusting of his hips as he drove into her. The shattering orgasms. She wanted it all, and yet she was mad too. Her blood hummed, but not entirely with anger.
“I’m not an employee when we’re alone like this. You can’t order me around in the bedroom like it’s a boardroom.”
He kissed her hard, let her go when she melted against him. Always dominating, this man.
“You would not obey me in the boardroom either,” he whispered. “Not without a fight.”
“If you would ask instead of order.” She gasped as his fingers slipped inside her shirt and then into her bra. He softly pinched her nipple into an aching point. “You get more flies with honey, Alejandro.”
The gleam in his eyes was predatory. “Please, Rebecca, let me taste you.”
As if she’d planned to refuse. “Yes,” she said, her body quivering with anticipation.
A moment later he was on his knees, hands skimming beneath her dress to yank her panties off. Then he disappeared beneath her skirt, pushed her thighs apart, and licked into the heart of her.
Rebecca was lost.
21
Rebecca didn’t see Alejandro very often over the next couple of days. He was up at daybreak, meeting with government officials, touring the construction site, and trying to get to the bottom of the permit situation. But when she did see him….
It took her breath away to think about it. The man was insatiable and he worshiped her body with a thoroughness bordering on obsession. She found it impossible to say no. As if she wanted to.
Rebecca sighed and stretched her naked—and very satisfied—body. She was still sprawled on top of the covers where he’d left her when he went into the shower. He’d tried to get her to join him, but she couldn’t move. She’d been surprised to see him back so early, but he’d burst into the suite and announced he’d had a breakthrough. A few phone calls later, half of them conducted in English, she partially understood what was going on. Alejandro had a corporate spy who’d been working with another company to hold up the construction process.
He’d been almost gleeful to get to the bottom of the problem. She liked seeing him happy. He used to be happy all the time when she’d known him before. Marriage and tragedy had changed that.
“What are you thinking about so intently, amor?”
Rebecca looked up to find him watching her. He stood beside the bed, the towel slung low on his hips, every delicious inch of his rock-hard chest displayed for her delight. Her heart jumped the way it always did when he was near. She hadn’t heard him come back.
“Will you tell me what happened to Anya?” She wasn’t sure where the question came from, but she realized she’d been thinking about his little girl a lot lately. About how such a tragic loss had changed him from the man she’d once known. There were still glimpses of that man, but he was buried under the weight of tragedy, under the hardened husk of what he’d become. She wanted to understand.
His eyes closed, snapped open again. She thought he would walk away. His jaw hardened.
“She was born with a congenital heart defect. It should not have been fatal, had it been diagnosed when she was an infant. But she was one of the rare ones.”
Rebecca sat up and reached for him. He’d been in a good mood and she’d managed to destroy it. He moved away before she could touch him. She clasped her arms around her knees. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“I’m so very sorry. For both you and your wife.”
The pain in his features was evident—the drawn mouth, the tight jaw, the flared nostrils. “Three-year olds should not have heart attacks.”
“No.” Her throat
