Ruthless Revenge: Passionate Possession: A Virgin for Vasquez / A Marriage Fit for a Sinner / Mistress of His Revenge

Sophie laughed shortly. If only he knew...

‘There’s no man around to distract me,’ she said in a low voice. ‘And, yes, as a matter of fact the house is falling down, and Oliver won’t be there because he’s been dispatched to France to see what’s happening to the company over there...’

‘Your house is falling down?’

‘Not literally,’ Sophie admitted. ‘But there’s a lot wrong with it and I’m always conscious of the fact that if it springs a leak and I’m not there to sort it out, well...’

‘Since when has your house been falling down?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She sighed and began to run her fingers through her hair, only to realise that she had pinned it up, and let her hand drop to her side. She looked around her but was very much aware of his eyes still on her, and even more aware that somehow they were now standing way too close for comfort.

‘You’ve done marvellous things with the space.’ She just wanted to get away from the threat of personal quizzing. She took a few steps away from him and now took time really to notice just how much had been done. It was not just a paint job; everything seemed very different from what she remembered.

It seemed much, much larger and that, she realised, was because the space within the first-floor office block had been maximised. Partitions had been cleverly put in where before there had been none. The dank carpeting had been replaced with wooden floors. The desks and furniture were all spanking new. She listened and nodded as he explained the dynamics of the place being manned and who should be working the London office. The client list would have to be updated. The sales team would need to be far more assertive. He had identified useful gaps in the market that could be exploited.

Everything was perfect. There were two private offices and she would be occupying one. Again she nodded because, like it or not, she was going to be here, in London.

‘But,’ she said when the tour had been concluded and they were in the pristine, updated kitchen, sitting at the high-tech beaten metallic table with cups of steaming coffee in front of them, ‘I still don’t feel comfortable leaving the house and I don’t want to live in one of your apartments.’ He would have a key... He would be able to walk in unannounced at any given time... She could be in the shower and he could just stroll in...

Her nipples tightened, pushing against her lacy bra and sending tingles up and down, in and out and through her from her toes to her scalp. She licked her lips and reminded herself that if he felt anything towards her at all it would be loathing because of what had happened between them in the past. Although, in reality, he couldn’t even be bothered to feel such a strong emotion. What he felt was...indifference.

So if he were to let himself in, which he most certainly wouldn’t, the shower would be the last place he would seek her out. Her responses were all over the place and it wouldn’t be long before he started to realise that she wasn’t as immune to him as she was desperately trying to be.

‘I’ll bring your brother back over.’

‘No! Don’t...’

‘Why not?’ Javier raised his eyebrows expressively, although he knew the reason well enough. Oliver didn’t want to be stuck in Yorkshire and he didn’t see his future with the family business. He resented the penury into which they had been thrust and, although he recognised the importance of rebuilding what had fallen into disrepair, he really thought no further than what that personally meant for him. Given half a chance, he would have cashed in his shares and headed for the hills. In due course he would, which would be interesting should Javier decide he wanted more than he had. That was unlikely, because once he was done with getting what he wanted, he would be more than happy to disappear and leave the running of the business to an underling of his choice.

‘He’s enjoying being in Paris.’

‘And that’s how it’s always been, isn’t it?’ Javier asked softly and Sophie raised translucent violet eyes to look at him with a frown.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I remember how you used to talk about your twin.’ He had resolved not to go down any maudlin, reminiscing roads but now found that he couldn’t help himself. ‘The party animal. Off to California while you stayed behind to do your A levels. Praised for being sporty and indulged at a time when most kids that age would have had their head in textbooks to make sure they passed exams. When he came down to see you, he barely stayed put. He managed to make friends in five seconds and then off he went to see what nightclubs there were. He had his fun, enjoyed Mummy and Daddy’s money and never had to face up to any grim realities because by then he was in California on his sports scholarship...

‘I bet no one ever filled him in about the reality of the company losses, not even you...not even when they were glaringly obvious. I’ll bet he only found out the extent of the trouble when you couldn’t hide it from him any longer. Did your beloved ex-husband likewise conspire to keep your immature brother in the dark?’

‘I told you.’ Sophie stiffened at the mention of her ex-husband. ‘I don’t want to talk about Roger.’

Javier’s lips tightened. The more she shied away from all mention of her ex, the more his curiosity was piqued. He was bitterly reminded of his pointless wondering when she had dumped him, when she had told him that she was destined to marry someone else... When she had married a guy whom he had found himself researching on the Internet even though it had been an exercise in masochism.

He had learned strength from a very young age. It had taken a great deal of willpower to avoid the pitfalls of so many of his friends when he had been growing up in poverty in Spain. The easy way out had always been littered with drugs and violence, and that easy way had been the popular route for many of the kids he had known. He had had to become an island to turn his back on all of that, just as he had had to develop a great deal of inner strength when he had finally made it to England to begin his university career. He had had to set his sights on distant goals and allow himself to be guided only by them.

Sophie had taken his eye off the ball, and here she was, doing it again.

The sooner he got her out of his system, the better.

‘So your brother stays in Paris,’ he said, with the sort of insistence that made her think of steamrollers slowly and inexorably flattening vast swathes of land. ‘I could get someone to house-sit and daily look for walls falling down...’

‘You might think it’s funny, Javier, but it’s not. You might live in your mansion now, and you might be able to get whatever you want at the snap of a finger, but it’s just not funny when you have to watch every step you take because there might just be a minefield waiting to explode if you put your foot somewhere wrong. And I’m surprised you have no sympathy at all, considering you...you were...’

‘I was broke? Penniless? A poor immigrant still trying to get a grip on the first rung of that all-important ladder? I feel it’s fair to say that our circumstances were slightly different.’

‘And, in a way, you probably have no idea how much worse it makes it for me.’ She swung her head away. Her prissy, formal clothes felt like a straitjacket and her tidy bun nestled at the nape of her neck was sticky and restricting.

Without thinking, she released it and sifted restless fingers through the length of her tumbling hair.

And Javier watched. His mouth went dry. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her back, a vibrant wash of colour that took his breath away. He had to look away but he knew that he was breathing fast, imagining her naked, projecting how her body would feel were he to run his hands along its shapely contours.

‘You’re right. Oliver has always been protected,’ she told him bluntly. He might very well be the first person she was telling this to. It was a truth she had always kept to herself because to have voiced it would have felt like a little betrayal. ‘He only found out about...everything when Dad’s illness was finally revealed, and even then we didn’t tell him that the company was on its last legs. In fact, he returned to California and only came back after the...the accident when... Well, he came back for Dad’s funeral, and of course Roger’s, and by then he had to be told.

‘But his heart isn’t in getting the company up and running. His heart isn’t in the house either. Mum’s now living in Cornwall and, as far as Ollie is concerned, he would sell the family home to the highest bidder if there was anyone around who was in the slightest bit interested. He doesn’t give a hoot if it all falls down in a pile of rubble just so long as we got some money for the rubble. So, no, he wouldn’t be at all happy to leave Paris to house-sit.’

She took a deep, shaky breath. ‘The house hasn’t been maintained for years. It always looked good on the outside, not that I ever really looked, but it turned out that there were problems with the roof and subsidence that had never been sorted. There’s no money left in the pot to sort that stuff out, so I keep my eyes peeled for anything that might need urgent attention. The worse the house is, the less money we’ll get, if we ever manage to sell at all. I can’t afford for a leak to spring in the cellar and start mounting the stairs to the hallway.’ She sighed and rubbed her eyes.

‘Why did you let him get away with it?’ It was more of a flat, semi-incredulous statement than a question and Sophie knew exactly who he was talking about even though no name had been mentioned.

‘I don’t want to talk about that. It’s in the past and there’s no point stressing about the stuff you can’t change. I just have to deal with the here and now...’

‘Oliver,’ Javier ploughed on, ‘might be indifferent and clueless when it comes to business, but you clearly have the capacity to get involved, so why didn’t you? You knew what was happening.’

‘Mum wasn’t in good health. Hadn’t been for ages. And then Dad’s behaviour started getting weird...erratic... Suddenly everything seemed to be happening at the same time. We found out just how ill he was and then, hard on the heels of that, the full repercussions of...of Roger’s gambling and all the bad investments began coming to light. There was no one at the helm. All the good people were leaving. Lots had already left, although I didn’t know that at the time, because I’d never been involved in the family business. It was...chaos.’

Even in the midst of this tale of abject woe, Javier couldn’t help but notice that there was no condemnation of her scoundrel husband. Loyalties, he thought with a sour taste, were not divided.

‘So I’ll get a house-sitter,’ he repeated and she shook her head. He had already infiltrated her life enough. She wasn’t sure she could cope with more.

‘I’ll come here,’ she conceded, ‘and go home at the weekends.’ She breathed in deeply. ‘And thank you for the use of an apartment. You have to let me know... I don’t have a great deal of disposable income, as you can imagine, but please let me know how much rent I will owe you.’

Javier sat back and looked at her from under sinfully long lashes, a lazy, speculative look that felt like a caress.

‘Don’t even think of paying me rent,’ he told her silkily. ‘It’s on the house...for old times’ sake. Trust me, Sophie, I want you...’ he paused fractionally ‘...there at the helm while changes are taking place, and what I want, I usually get...whatever the cost.’

CHAPTER FIVE (#ue0f63552-a459-5336-b914-208c50f2e4bb)

SOPHIE LOOKED AROUND her and realised guiltily that, after two weeks’ living in the apartment Javier had kindly loaned her, refusing to countenance a penny in payment, she was strangely happy.

The apartment was to die for. She still found herself admiring the décor, as she was doing right now, having just returned from the office and kicked off her stupid pumps so that she could walk barefoot on the cool, wooden floor.

She had expected minimalist with lots of off-putting glossy white surfaces, like the inside of a high-tech lab. Images of aggressive black leather and chrome everywhere had sprung to mind when she had been handed the key to the apartment by his personal assistant, who had accompanied her so that the workings of the various gadgets could be explained.

She had assumed that she would be overwhelmed by an ostentatious show of wealth, would be obliged to gasp appropriately at furnishings she didn’t really like and would feel like an intruder in a foreign land.

The Javier of today was not the teasing, warm, sexy, funny guy she had once known. The today Javier was tough, rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams, ruthless and cutting edge in his hand-tailored suits and Italian shoes. And that would be reflected in any apartment he owned.

She’d been surprised—shocked, even—when she was shown the apartment.