A Taste of the Forbidden

‘There I go what?’ he prompted irritably. Outspokenness was one thing, incomprehension was something else entirely.

Grace eyed him impatiently, more than a little overwhelmed by this man’s close proximity. As she was also aware of how his sheer presence seemed to have once again sucked all the air out of the room. ‘There are all the reasons you’re going to dismiss me!’

‘The reasons I am going to enjoy personally dismissing you was, I believe, the phrase you used?’

‘Does it matter?’ Grace gave a heavy sigh at his tenacity. ‘The bottom line is that you’re sacking me. The level of enjoyment you’re going to feel from doing so irrelevant—’

‘To you, perhaps,’ he bit out coldly. ‘I happen to take exception to being accused of enjoying depriving anyone of their employment.’

And that exception was clearly visible in the dark glitter of his eyes, thinned and disapproving mouth, and the nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw!

‘Okay, I’m sorry if—I was obviously mistaken. I spoke hastily. You may not enjoy doing it, but you’re going to do it, anyway,’ she substituted lightly.

If that was Grace Blake’s idea of an apology then Cesar believed she needed to work on her people skills—because she had just succeeded in insulting him for a second time in as many minutes!

‘Better yet,’ she brightened. ‘Why don’t we just take it as said, I’ll go back to the cottage and pack my things, and then be on my way? You and Raphael would probably appreciate not having a third party under your feet all the time, anyway.’

Cesar had the feeling that he had somehow lost control of this conversation some minutes ago. Not a normal occurrence for him: usually when he spoke people listened; they certainly did not attempt to speak for him!

He raised a frustrated hand to his chin as he eyed Grace Blake impatiently. ‘Myself and Raphael …?’

‘Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.’ She reached out to place a reassuring hand on his sleeve-covered arm before quickly withdrawing it, a blush once again darkening her cheeks. ‘Kevin had me sign some sort of privacy contract at the end of our second interview, anyway, no doubt so that you could sue me if I breathe a word to anyone about your private life.’ She gave him another one of those bright smiles.

‘Myself and Raphael,’ Cesar repeated softly. Very softly. The sort of lethally laced softness that family and foes alike knew to beware of.

And which Grace Blake should be very wary of if her comments just now meant what Cesar thought they did!

CHAPTER THREE

ONE GLANCE AT THE COLDNESS in Cesar Navarro’s glittering black eyes, and the harshness to his swarthy and chiselled features, and Grace knew that she had said something to annoy him.

Again.

He had that same stillness and coldness of expression that her father had always had when she or Beth had done something wrong; Clive Blake had been a wonderful and loving father to them both, one that never, ever raised his voice to his two daughters—because he hadn’t needed to, just that cold stillness enough to tell them he was displeased or disappointed.

As Cesar Navarro’s cold stillness now told her he was the former, at the very least!

Grace’s feet seemed to be weighted down on the carpeted floor, and her mind had gone blank, making it impossible for her to either flee or remember what they had been talking about immediately before he became the iceman.

Ah, yes, she remembered now; she had been reassuring him as to her complete discretion in regard to his relationship with Raphael—

Oh.

Grace looked up at Cesar searchingly before slowly giving a pained wince. ‘You and Raphael aren’t a couple?’

One dark brow arched over those glittering black eyes. ‘Perhaps you would care to explain to me why it is you ever thought that we were?’

Even his tone of voice was the same as their dad’s, Grace acknowledged with another inward wince: soft and reasoning, pleasantly so—before he verbally remonstrated with them for whatever misdemeanour they were guilty of. Except, if her assumption concerning a relationship between Cesar and Raphael had been an incorrect one—and the chilling expression on his face clearly said that it was!—then this was so much worse than a misdemeanour.

If he hadn’t been going to fire her before, then he certainly wasn’t going to hesitate about doing so now.

Quite irrationally Grace found herself wondering who exactly was in that single framed photograph facing away from her on Cesar’s desk. Obviously someone who mattered in his life; he wasn’t the sort of man, was far too unemotional, too self-contained, to display a photograph on a whim.

None of which was helping her to find a suitable answer to his question. ‘It seemed the likeliest explanation for why a young, mega-wealthy and gorgeously handsome man in his prime hasn’t been photographed in the newspapers with the hordes of beautiful women he takes to his silk-sheeted bed every night—’ Grace broke off with a gasp as she realised she had just made the situation worse, not better. ‘I can’t believe I said any of that out loud!’

‘I assure you that you did.’ Again, Cesar was unsure of how he felt about the directness of this woman’s remarks, had no idea whether he should put an end to this now and simply ask her to leave—that decadent chocolate mousse aside!—laugh, or simply put her over his knee and give her curvaceous little bottom the smacking it deserved! ‘And did it not occur to you that no such photographs exist because I happen to own, or have influence over, much of the media?’

‘Ah.’ She gave a grimace. ‘Never thought of that. Does that mean that there are hordes of—’?

‘Might I suggest that now might be a good time for you to exercise some caution over the things you say out loud?’ Cesar eyed her warningly.

The directness of her gaze shifted away from his. ‘Sorry.’

He nodded at her grudging apology. ‘So, you consider me to be a “gorgeously handsome man in my prime”, do you, Miss Blake?’

Her cheeks flushed so red now that Cesar thought she might internally combust. ‘Well, reasonably so,’ she finally conceded awkwardly.

Cesar settled himself more comfortably against the front of the desk, arms crossed over his chest as he realised he was enjoying her obvious discomfort. ‘I had not realised there were degrees to being “gorgeously handsome” or “in your prime”?’

‘Will you stop repeating that as if—as if—?’ She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘Is Rodney anywhere about?’

‘So that he might take you out into the woods and “dispatch” you?’

‘Exactly!’

There was no longer any choice about it; Cesar couldn’t hold back the impulse he had to laugh at this outrageously outspoken young woman.

Grace’s eyes widened as she heard the husky softness of his laugh, a rich and throaty sound that stirred something to life deep inside her, not a slow or tentative stirring but a roaring, ripping, breaking free of an emotion she had never experienced in her life before.

Desire.

Grace gave a soft gasp as wave after wave of heat swept over her from her head to her toes, lingering and remaining in the swelling of her breasts, the tips becoming aching and engorged with that searing heat, a fiery liquid gushing between the apex of her thighs, dampening her swollen folds.

It was at one and the same time the most pleasurable and yet the most uncomfortable feeling Grace had ever known in her life!

Pleasurable because of that aching and swelling in the most intimate parts of her body, but uncomfortable because it was the enigmatic and reclusive Cesar Navarro, of all men, a man so totally beyond her reach or understanding, who had incited that desire.

Achingly.

Heatedly.

Unbelievably!

Even worse than the utter futility of that desire was the fact that Grace knew, by the way his laughter slowly began to fade, and those glittering and coal black eyes now narrowed on her in speculation, that he was as aware of her unbidden feelings of desire as she was!

She drew herself up tautly. ‘Look, for everyone’s sake, can we just take it that you’ve dismissed me and let Rodney escort me off the premises—before I have chance to say anything else to embarrass myself?’

Cesar felt somewhat bemused. Not only was his employee forthright to the point of embarrassing herself, but all of that honesty came from between perfectly bowed and moistly parted lips. Extremely kissable lips, which, the longer he looked them, caused his shaft to harden and swell in burgeoning desire. Lips Cesar now found himself looking at intently as he became curious to know whether or not they tasted as delicious as the chocolate mousse he had unexpectedly devoured the night before—