The Secretary's Bossman Bargain

  He slapped the book shut and let it drop with a resounding thump at his feet. “Would my interest offend you, Virginia?”

  She squinted at him, expecting a laugh, a chuckle, a smile at least.

  He was perfectly sober. Excruciatingly handsome and sober.

  Oh, no. No, no, no, he wouldn’t do this. She was prepared to do a job, but she was not prepared to allow herself to become a man’s…plaything.

  No matter how much she fantasized about him in private.

  With a nervous smile, Virginia shook a chastising finger at him, but it trembled. “Mr. Allende, the closer we’ve gotten to Mexico, the stranger you’ve become.”

  Silence.

  For an awful second, her blatant claim—part teasing and part not—hung suspended in the air. Virginia belatedly bit her lip. What had possessed her to say that to her boss? She curled her accusing finger back into her hand, lowering it in shame.

  Sitting in a deceptively relaxed pose, he crossed his arms over his broad chest and regarded her with an unreadable expression. Then he spoke in that hushed, persuasive way of his, “Do you plan to call me Mr. Allende when you’re out there pretending to be my lover?”

  Self-conscious and silently berating herself, Virginia tucked the skirt of her dress under her thighs, her hands burrowing under her knees. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  “I’m not insulted.”

  She racked her brain for what to say. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  He leaned forward with such control that even a glare might have been more welcome by her. “You call me Marcos most of the time. You call me Marcos when you want my favors. Why now, today, do you call me Mr. Allende?”

  She looked away, feeling as if her heart were being wrung. He spoke so quietly, almost pleadingly, that he could be saying something else to her—something that did not smack her with misery.

  Because I’ve never been alone with you for so long, she thought.

  She hauled in a ragged breath and remained silent.

  The plane tilted slightly, eventually coming in for a landing as smoothly as it had flown. Its speed began to ease. If only her hammering heart would follow.

  They taxied down a lane decorated with large open plane hangars, and she fixed her attention on the screen behind him, resolved to smooth out the awkwardness. “Do you believe Allende will be a safe investment for Fintech?” she asked. She knew it was all that remained of his past. His mother had passed away long before his father had.

  “It’s poorly managed.” He extracted his BlackBerry from his trouser pocket and powered it on. “Transport vehicles have been seized by the cartels. Travel is less safe these days in this country. For it to become successful, strict security measures will need to be put in place, new routes, new personnel, and this will mean money. So, no. It isn’t a safe investment.”

  She smiled in admiration as he swiftly skimmed through his text messages. He oozed strength. Strength of mind, of body, of purpose. “You’ll make it gold again,” she said meaningfully, still not believing that, God, she’d called him strange to his face!

  He lifted his head. “I’m tearing it apart, Virginia.”

  The plane lurched to a stop. The engines shut down. The aisle lit up with a string of floor lights.

  Virginia was paralyzed in her seat, stunned. “You plan to destroy your father’s business,” she said in utter horror, a sudden understanding of his morose mood barreling into her.

  His hard, aquiline face unreadable, he thrust his phone into his pocket and silently contemplated her. “It’s not his anymore.” His face was impassive, but his eyes probed into her. “It was meant to be mine when he passed away. I built it with him.”

  This morning, between phone calls, coffee, copies and errands, she’d gotten acquainted with Monterrey from afar. Learned it was a valley surrounded by mountains. Industrial, cosmopolitan, home of the wealthy and, at the very outskirts of the city, home of the poor. Indisputably the most prominent part of northern Mexico. Conveniently situated for Allende Transport, of course, as a means to import, export and travel—but also conveniently situated for those who imported and exported illegal substances. Like the cartels.

  Allende wasn’t a bouquet of roses, she supposed, but she’d never expected Marcos willingly to attempt to destroy it.

  “You look as if I’d confessed to something worse,” he noted, not too pleased himself.

  “No. It’s only that—” She checked herself before continuing this time. “That’s not like you. To give up on something. You’ve never given up on Santos no matter what he does.”

  His intense expression lightened considerably. “My brother is a person—Allende is not.”

  Mightily aware of how out of character this decision was, Virginia ached to remind him he’d dedicated his life to helping companies in crisis, had taken under his wing businesses and even people no one else had faith in but Marcos, but instead she rose to her feet. Unfolding like a long, sleek feline just awakened to the hunt, Marcos followed her up. And up.

  “Virginia, this isn’t Chicago.” He loomed over her by at least a head. His face was impassive, but his eyes probed into her. “If you want to sightsee, you’ll be accompanied by me. Too dangerous to be alone here.”

  Dangerous.

  The word caused gooseflesh on her skin.

  Remembering her research on the city, she peered out a window as two uniformed aduanales and twice as many armed militares marched up to the plane. She’d heard military men customarily accompanied the Mexican customs agents but she was still floored by the intimidating sight. The copilot unlatched the door up front and descended to meet them.

  She couldn’t see much of the city at this late hour, but what she’d read online had mesmerized her. She would have even thought the setting romantic if his careful warning weren’t dawning on her. “Dangerous,” she said. “What must it be like for the people who live here?”

  “Difficult.” He rammed his book into a leather briefcase and zipped it shut. “Kidnapping rate has risen alarmingly during the last couple of years. Mothers are lifted outside the supermarkets, kids out of their schools, members of both government and police are bribed to play blind man to what goes on.”

  A rope of fear stretched taut around her stomach. “That’s so sad.”

  She took one last look out the plane window. Nothing moved but the Mexican flag flapping by the customs building.

  “It looks so calm,” she protested.

  “Under the surface nothing is calm.” As he stood there, over six feet of virile overpowering man, he looked just a tad tired, and human, and so much sexier than behind his massive desk. He looked touchable. Touchable.

  Under the surface nothing is calm. Not even me.

  “Mrs. Fuller said you grew up here,” she remarked as she eyed the fruit assortment on a table near the front of the plane.

  “From when I was eight to eighteen,” he answered. He stared, mildly puzzled, as she grabbed two green apples and slipped them into her purse.

  “In case we get hungry,” she explained sheepishly.

  His eyes glittered with humor. “If you get hungry, you tell me and I’ll make certain you’re fed.”

  “What made you leave the city?” Leave a place that was beautiful and deadly. A place that gave out the message: Don’t trust. You’re not safe. And the one that had built a man like Marcos Allende, with an impenetrable core.

  He braced one arm on the top wood compartment, waiting for the pilots to give them leave to descend. “Nothing here for me. Nothing in España either.”

  She loved the way he pronounced that. España. The way his arm stretched upward, long and sinewy, rippling under his black shirt before he let it drop. Somber, he gazed into her eyes, and the concern she saw in his gave her flutters. “Are you tired?”

  “I’m fine.” You’re here, she thought.

  The look that came to his eyes. The way he appraised her.

  Virginia could’ve sworn there
could be no flaw in her entire body. Nothing in this world more perfect to those dark, melted-chocolate eyes than she was.

  His eyes fell to her lips and lingered there for an electric moment.

  “Virginia.” He closed the space between them. One step. All the difference between breathing or not. All the difference between being in control of your senses and being thrust into a twister.

  He leaned over as he pried her purse from her cramped hands. His fingers brushed the backs of hers and a sizzle shot up her arm.

  “Why are you nervous?” The low, husky whisper in her ear made her stomach tumble. She felt seared by his nearness, branded, as though he were purposely making her aware that his limits extended to breaching hers. She felt utterly…claimed. “You’ve fidgeted all day.”

  So he had been aware of her?

  Like…a predator. Watching from afar. Planning, plotting, savoring the prey.

  Why was this exciting?

  His breath misted across the tender skin behind her ear. “Because of me?”

  Her muscles gelled. Because I want you.

  She took a shaky step back, singed to the marrow of her bones but smiling as though she was not. “I always get a charge after being rescued.”

  “Ahh.” He drew out the sound, infusing it with a wealth of meaning. “So do I. After…rescuing.” He swung his arm back so her purse dangled from one hooked finger behind his shoulder.

  When the pilot announced they were clear, he signaled with an outstretched arm toward the plane steps. “Ladies first.”

  She warily stepped around his broad, muscled figure. “I admit I’m not used to your silences still.”

  His gaze never strayed from hers as she went around. “So talk next time,” he said. “To me.”

  Right. Next time. Like he inspired one to make intimate revelations. And like he’d have another company to take over with the help of a “lover.”

  As both pilots conversed with the customs officials, Virginia stopped a few feet from the gaping doorway. Warmth from outside stole into the air-conditioned cabin, warming her cool skin. But she found she couldn’t descend just yet.

  She’d do anything to get her father out of his mess, yet suddenly felt woefully unprepared to play anyone’s lover. Especially Marcos’s lover. No matter how much she ached for the part and planned to get it right.

  She pivoted on her heels to find him standing shockingly close. She craned her neck to meet his gaze. “Marcos, I’m going to need you to…tell me. What to do.”

  He wore an odd expression on his face, part confusion and part amusement. The smile he slowly delivered made her flesh pebble. “You may step out of the plane, Miss Hollis.”

  Laughing, she gave an emphatic shake of her head. “I mean, regarding my role. I will need to know what you suggest that I do. I’m determined, of course, but I’m hoping to get some pointers. From you.”

  His lids dropped halfway across his eyes. He lifted a loose fist and brushed his knuckles gently down her cheek. The touch reached into the depths of her soul. “Pretend you want me.”

  A tremor rushed down her limbs. Oh, God, he was so sexy. She was torn between latching on to his tempting, unyielding lips and running for her life. “I will, of course I will,” she breathed.

  A cloak of stillness came over her—so that all that moved, all she was aware of, was his hand. As he trailed his thumb down to graze her shoulder and in a ghost of a touch swept a strand of hair back, he swallowed audibly. “Look at me like you always do.”

  “How?”

  “You know how.” There was so much need in his eyes, a thirst she didn’t know how to appease, which called to a growing, throbbing, aching void inside of her. “Like you care for me, like you need me.”

  “I do.” She shook her cluttered head, straightening her thoughts. “I mean, I am. I will.”

  She shut her eyes tight, fearing he would see the truth in them. Fearing Marcos would realize she’d been secretly enamored of him all along. Since the very first morning she’d stepped into his office, she had wanted to die—the man was so out of this world. So male. So dark.

  And now…what humiliation for him to discover that, if he crooked his finger at her, Virginia would go to him.

  He chuckled softly—the sound throaty, arrogant, male. “Good.”

  His large hand gripped her waist and urged her around to face the open plane door a few feet away. She went rigid at the shocking contact. Longing flourished. Longing for more, for that hand, but on her skin and not her clothes, sliding up or down, God, doing anything.

  Dare she dream? Dare she let herself long just a little, without feeling the remorse she always did? Like she could indulge in a healthy fantasy now and then?

  She wiggled free, sure of one thing: dissolving into a puddle of want was not what she should be doing just now.

  “But…what do you want me to do, exactly?” she insisted, carefully backing up one step as she faced him. His eyebrows met in a scowl. He didn’t seem to like her retreating. “This is important to you, right?” she continued.

  “Señor Allende, pueden bajar por favor?”

  Spurred to action by the voices on the platform, Virginia descended the steps. Marcos quickly took his place beside her.

  They followed two uniformed officials toward a rustic, one-story building rivaled in size by Marcos’s jet. A small control tower, which looked abandoned at this hour, stood discreetly to the building’s right. A gust of hot, dry wind picked up around them, bouncing on the concrete and lifting the tips of her hair.

  Virginia grabbed the whirling mass with one hand and pinned it with one fist at her nape. Marcos held the glass doors open for her. “No need to pretend just now, Miss Hollis,” he said. “We can do that later.”

  His eyes glimmered dangerously with something. Something frightening. A promise. A request.

  Her heart flew like the wind inside her, bouncing between her ribs, almost lifting the tips of her feet from the ground. Warily she passed through the bridge of his arm, one word’s haunting echo resounding in her mind. And for the dread that began to take hold, it might have been a death sentence.

  Later.

  Fifteen minutes later, after a brisk “Bienvenidos a Mexico” from the aduanales, they were settled in the back of a silver Mercedes Benz, their luggage safely tucked in the trunk.

  “A Garza Garcia, si?” the uniformed driver asked as he eased behind the wheel.

  “Por favor,” Marcos said.

  His palm tingled. The one he’d touched her with. The one that had reached out to cup the lovely curve of her waist and caused Virginia to back away. From his touch.

  Frowning, he checked his watch—it was ten past midnight. Wanting had never been like this. You wanted a watch, or a house, or money, but wanting this particular woman was no such whim. It was a need, something pent-up for too long, something so valued you were hesitant to have, or break, or tarnish, or hurt.

  The car swerved onto the deserted highway and Virginia tipped her face to the window, lightly tugging at the pearls around her neck.

  “You had a decent trip, Señor Allende?” their driver asked.

  “Yes,” he said, stretching out his legs as far as he could without bumping his knee into the front seat.

  Miles away, the distant core of the city of Monterrey glowed with lights. The sky was clear and veiled with gray, its shadow broken by a steady stream of streetlights rolling by.

  “It’s lovely here.” Virginia transferred her purse to the nook at her feet then tapped a finger to the window. “Look at the mountains.”

  Her skin appeared luminous upon every brisk caress of the streetlights, and in the shadows her eyes glittered uncommonly bright. They sparkled with excitement.

  He felt a tug at his chest. “I’ll show you around tomorrow in daylight,” he said curtly.

  Her eyes slid over to his, grateful, alive eyes. “Thank you.”

  A heroic feeling feathered up his chest, and he pushed it aside.

>   During a lengthy quiet spell, the driver flicked on the radio and soft music filled the interior of the car. Virginia remained way over on the other end of the seat.

  Not near enough…

  He studied her figure, becoming fixated on the rounded breasts swelling under her clingy dress, the curve of her thigh and hip and small waist. Swirly black bits of hair tickled her shoulders. Her long, shapely legs had a satin shine to them, inviting him to wrap them around his body and spill days and weeks and months of wanting inside her.

  He whispered, in a low murmur that excluded the driver, “Are you afraid of me?”

  She stiffened. Pale, jade-green eyes rose to his for a second before her lashes dropped. “No. Why would you ask?”

  Her shyness brought out the hunter in him, and it took effort on his part to keep under control. Go slowly with her…His heart began to pound. He patted his side. “You could come a little closer.”

  Ducking her head to hide a blush, she smoothed her hands along the front of her dress. Then she flicked a tiny knot of fabric from it. “Just haven’t traveled in ages.”

  “You cringe at anyone’s touch, or merely mine?”

  She blinked. “Cringe? I’d never cringe if you…touched me.” The words touched me hovered between them like a dark, unleashed secret, an invitation to sin, and when Marcos at last responded to that, the thick lust in his voice was unmistakable. “You moved away when I urged you out of the plane. And when I helped you into the car.”

  “I was surprised.” Her throat worked as she swallowed. Her eyes held his in the darkness. “I told you to tell me what to do.”

  She was whispering, so he whispered back.

  “And I asked you to come closer just now.”

  A tense moment passed.

  In silence, Marcos once again patted his side, this time more meaningfully.

  After a moment’s debate, Virginia seemed to quickly make up her mind. Thrusting out her chin at a haughty angle, she began to edge toward him. “If you’re thinking I’m not good at this, I’ll have you know I can pretend just fine.”

  Her scent stormed into his lungs. His nostrils twitched. His heart kicked. His temperature spiked.