Bound To A Billionaire: Protecting His Defiant Innocent (Bound to a Billionaire) / Claiming His One-Night Baby / Buying His Bride of Convenience

‘You want to spread some of your good luck?’

‘You may mock me but I’m serious. I could have settled down with a husband and babies by now but I want my life to mean something.’

He could only guess how hard she’d had to work to prove herself. He knew how old money worked—he’d protected enough of the people who lived in that world to know it was still male dominated. It couldn’t have been easy for her to go against her family’s expectations and wishes.

‘You could run Pieta’s foundation.’

Her pretty brow rose. ‘Are you mocking me again?’

‘Not at all. You were the consummate professional today. Pieta would have been proud of you.’

Her face flushed with pleasure. ‘You think?’

‘I’m sure of it, and I’m sure Alberto will be back at work soon. He could help and guide you. And keep you out of trouble,’ he couldn’t resist adding.

She half grinned and half scowled then shrugged ruefully. ‘It isn’t for me. I want to get the hospital on Caballeros built for Pieta’s memory but his philanthropy isn’t the route I want to go. That was his and once things have settled we’ll work as a family to make sure the foundation continues, but it won’t be me running it. Maybe Natasha will.’

She fell silent after that, eating her food quietly, her thoughts obviously thousands of miles away with her family.

He watched her carefully. Underneath the front she put on she was grieving. He’d caught snatches of it during their time together, moments when she’d be talking to someone and, just like that, her eyes would lose their focus and her brow crease as if in confusion. And then, just as quickly, she would pull herself together and snap her focus back to the person before her.

She did it now. ‘When was the last time you spoke to your mother?’

He could laugh at her single-mindedness. ‘A couple of months ago.’ At her exaggerated incredulity, he felt compelled to add, ‘We’ve never been close in the way you are with your mother. Her whole life revolved around me and making sure all my needs were met but to get that she had to work fifteen hour days. I hardly knew her.’ He hardly knew her now.

He took a long breath.

He really needed a beer.

Felipe raised his palm before she could ask anything else and said, ‘It was a long time ago. I haven’t lived with her for almost twenty years. We respect each other but she’s not like your mother. She’s not the clinging sort.’

‘My mother doesn’t cling,’ she said defensively, then covered her mouth to hide a snort of laughter. ‘Yes, she does cling. But I don’t mind. I like it.’

‘And I like the relationship my mother and I have. It suits us both.’

She cast him with a look of pure disbelief then shrugged as if to say it was a point she couldn’t bother arguing. ‘Is her life easier now?’

‘Much easier. I’ve bought her a house and a car, I send her regular money. She doesn’t need to work. She has friends and goes on dates. She has a life now, which she never had before.’

That perked her up. ‘You bought her a house?’

He groaned, sensing a new thread of his life for her to delve into. ‘Can we not talk of something else?’

‘Okay, tell me why you joined the army.’

‘Because I was turning into a juvenile delinquent with no parental authority and no hope of getting a decent job because there was no one there to make sure I attended school.’

‘How long were you in the army for?’

‘Eight years in all.’ And they had been the best years of his life. The camaraderie, the companionship...after a childhood spent alone the army had given him the family he’d always craved. In Sergio he’d found the brother he’d always longed for.

How could the woman sitting opposite him understand any of this? Her family was as close as a family could be. She’d never eaten her childhood meals alone with only the television for company. She’d never been alone. She’d never wanted for anything, not materially or emotionally. It had all been handed to her on a plate.

So why was he fighting his own tongue from spilling the rest of it out to her?

It was those eyes, the way they smouldered and hung on to his every answer.

Every time he stared into those honest eyes a pulse would flow through him. He’d scrubbed his hands over and over but could still feel the softness of her skin and the silkiness of her hair on his fingers as if they’d marked him. When she’d been standing with Eva, the charity worker, he’d distinguished Francesca’s scent without even thinking about it.

He knew her scent.

During their conversation, without him realising how, they’d both cleared their plates.

It was time to bring to a close this ordeal he’d enjoyed far too much.

He got to his feet. ‘We can go back to the suite now.’

She stared up at him with such hurt at his brusqueness that he felt much as he would have if he’d kicked a puppy. Like a heel.

Instead of obeying, she folded her arms, the obstinate look he was becoming accustomed to setting on her jaw. But her eyes were knowing as she said, ‘I think I’ll stay for dessert.’

CHAPTER NINE (#u11800846-8f89-5170-a4c6-b3cb934c29db)

‘YOU’RE WELCOME TO share my bed,’ Francesca said brightly as Felipe made a bed on the floor for himself close to the door, using the duvet, spare sheets and pillows from his suite.

He didn’t look at her. He’d returned to ignoring her and speaking in monosyllabic grunts ever since she’d insisted on staying for dessert.

Her insistence on staying had been a deliberate kick-back. Felipe had relaxed over their meal and opened up to her, not by much but enough for her chest to lighten and hope to spring free. A proper conversation between two adults enjoying each other’s company. There were times he’d looked at her as if he wanted to eat her, the desire in his eyes vivid... But then he’d withdrawn as quickly as if he’d pulled the trigger on a gun.

Now he was back to looking at her as if he’d like to chuck her in the sea.

‘Why don’t you stop talking and get ready for bed?’ he growled. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.’

‘I’m not tired.’

‘Read a book.’

She wished she knew what it would take to pull his barriers down long enough for him to forget his reasons for resisting and simply treat her as a woman. That’s all she wanted.

‘I’ll put my nightclothes on in the bathroom, shall I?’

‘Yes!’

‘Okay. I won’t be long. Try not to miss me.’

It didn’t take long for her to change into the over-sized T-shirt she slept in, wash her face and brush her teeth, all the while wondering if she had the courage to go for full-scale seduction.

She could hardly believe she was having these thoughts.