The Spanish Tycoon's Temptress (3 page)

“Don’t do what?” he lifted his hand and pushed a stray lock
of hair off her cheek gently.  “You’ve lost weight, you’re not eating well.  What else am I going to find out about you?” he asked. 

She cleared her throat and pulled her eyes away, staring at the middle of his massive chest.  “Perhaps that I hate you and there’s no way I’m letting you back into my life.”

His hand stilled and for a moment after she spoke…it just hung there in mid air.  His eyes were sharp as he watched her carefully, barely moving.  And then he sighed and took a step backwards.  “Call me when you change your mind.”  He pulled a card out of the inside pocket of his jacket and placed it noiselessly on the counter. 

The next thing she knew, the door to her apartment was closing and she could hear the silence, the darkness.  With a gush of air, she also realized that she’
d been holding her breath while he was near and she wanted desperately to run out after him, to scream out that she wasn’t affected by him despite all those little signs that she’d given him. 

Instead, she walked to her bedroom on shaking legs, falling into her bed and curling up with the pillow clutched to her stomach while the tears she’d thought had been used up seven years ago came rushing back, spilling over her lashes onto her pillow
.  She cried out for a future she shouldn’t be desperately wanting any longer.  She couldn’t trust Gaston and needed to keep him out of her life.  She’d moved on.  She didn’t need him or those charming smiles ever again! 

She’d find funding some way.  She was smart and she had a good reputation.  She could get through this just like she’d gotten through
all other obstacles in the past seven years.  Through hard work and determination. 

Four days  later, Elana was panicking.  She’d been turned down for all the grants she could think of and the lab manager was already making plans for her space to be occupied by someone else.  Someone who had funding.  On top of that, she had no idea who had sabotaged her work, but there definitely was something wrong with her lab results.   If she hadn’t been thinking along those lines, she never would have looked for the little issues that indicated that someone had been tampering with her slides and the bacteria she’d been using. 

It gave her a paranoid feeling.  She watched everyone.  Anytime someone came near her work space, she would guard her work, hiding her results with her body or papers, tense with the anxiety that anyone could be the culprit who was trying to slow down her efforts.  It was a miserable four days for Elana who normally didn’t pay a great deal of attention to anything other than her experiments. 

Her anxiety levels didn’t slow down her efforts to find alternative funding though.  She su
bmitted grant applications to multiple sources, even some that didn’t necessarily tie to her field of work but by that point, she was desperate and running out of options.  With each rejection letter, she knew her deadline was drawing closer. 

By the time Friday rolled around, she had no alternative.  When she walked into her apartment that afternoon, with all of her slides and materials in a box because she no longer had a place to work, she dumped her
materials in a corner and stared at the expensive looking business card on the counter.  It hadn’t moved since Gaston had left that night.  She’d actually been afraid that the card might set her fingertips on fire if she even touched it so it had rested exactly where he’d placed it and she’d just worked around it whenever she was in the kitchen. 

But now she had no more options.  She had to get a lab where she could rebuild her experiments.  Once that was done, she could evaluate what her other options were.  Perhaps if she just used Gaston’s space, she might find some answers that would allow her to apply for other grants.  It would certainly be nice to be able to shove his charity back at him. 

First things first, she thought with dread.  She picked up the phone and dialed the number, her finger shaking as she pressed the buttons.  It rang twice before his voice mail picked it up and she was so relieved she could barely get a coherent sentence out.  “Gaston, this is Elana,” she took a deep breath.  So far, she was doing okay.  Greetings she could do.  Eating crow, that was a whole other issue.  “I wanted to thank you for the funding offer and to talk to you about the specifics.  At your convenience, of course,” she added, just as s precaution in case he might think she was demanding his time.  “Anyway,” she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.  “If you need more information on my experiments, let me know.  I look forward to hearing from you,” she said and gave him her cell phone number. 

With that done, she pressed the end button and fell onto her worn out sofa, relieved to have gotten the worst over with.  That hadn’t been as painful as she’d anticipated, she thought with relief. 

But just in case, she pulled up her laptop and started searching for additional funding sites.  There had to be some agricultural company out there that might be interested in her work.  The problem was her lack of results over the past six months.  It was crushing her and if she could figure out who, why and how someone had viciously tampered with her work, she would at least be able to speak to that problem and provide a better argument for why she was so close to achieving the results she wanted.  But she only had evidence that someone was sabotaging.  She had no idea how or why.  And the who was driving her just a little bit nuts. 

Not five minutes had passed before her cell phone started ringing.  She lifted her head off of the fuzzy sofa cushion and looked at the number on the small screen.  Just seeing the man’s
number made her stomach muscles clench with….fear?  She wasn’t exactly sure what she was feeling but it was intense and uncomfortable.

Her finger pressed the button, but hesitated
to release it which told her a great deal.  “Hello?” she answered, pretending that she didn’t know exactly who was calling. 

“Good afternoon, Elana.  I suppose
you called because you need laboratory space and funding.  Am I correct?” Gaston’s deep, confident, sexy voice made her stomach muscles tighten even more.

She gritted her teeth, hearing the smug, self-satisfied tone in his voice.  She wanted desperately to reach through the phone and smack him.  But she needed the funding more
than she needed to take him down a notch.  “Yes.  If the grant money is still available.”  She just had a horrible thought.  “It hasn’t been allocated to someone else already, has it?” she asked, a lump forming in her throat at the possibility that the grant was gone.  She had no idea what else to do if it was.  She was basically out of options.

“No.  Rest assured, no other botanist has applied for the grant.  I’ll pick you up at seven tonight to discuss the grant and to review your findings to date.”  Without another word, he disconnected the line and Elana was left sitting on her raggedy couch, glaring at the phone as if it were some sort of serpent. 

And then his words hit her.  Dinner?  Tonight? 

She looked down at the jeans she’d pulled on earlier this morning. 
Since her actual legs were shorter than the legs of her jeans, the hems were frayed from walking on them.  There was almost a hole in one of the knees as well as some sort of stain on the other knee.  She couldn’t even remember what she’d spilled on the jeans, having been unconcerned with her appearance in favor of spending her time worrying about her work.  Besides, her lab coat covered most of the problem so she’d never really thought about her jeans, much less her appearance.  Or her shirt, she thought, glancing at that pathetic piece of her wardrobe.  It had three stick figures at the top, one covering its eyes, one covering its ears and another covering its mouth with the words “Define Evil” underneath the figures.  It had struck her as ironic when she’d found it in a small shop about six years ago, but the material had definitely seen better days. 

She couldn’t let Gaston see her like this.  He would immediate
ly feel disgust, or worse, pity for her pathetic appearance and she wasn’t about to let him see her so bedraggled.  It had nothing to do with wanting to impress him and everything to do with her pride.  He’d left her seven years ago and she’d be damned if he thought she was still upset over his departure!  She wasn’t.  She’d gotten over him a long time ago.  She might have cried initially, but she was through with him! 

She jumped into the shower and
, after fifteen minutes under the warm water and lots of scented soap and shampoo, she felt rejuvenated.  Standing in only her towel, she dug out the hair dryer that hadn’t been used in…well, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken the time to actually dry her hair and attempt to look presentable.  Her lifestyle had become all about getting to the lab or to classes as quickly as possible.  She’d hadn’t been taking the time to care what she looked like.  She only cared about her tests and results.

But standing in front of her tiny
, steamed up bathroom mirror now, she knew that she looked pretty horrible.  With her hair wet against her skin, she realized that her face was too thin.  Actually, her whole body was too thin, she thought as she glanced down at her skinny legs.  Her breasts were still full, but the rest of her looked pale and her bones were obvious in too many places.  Perhaps it was time to take a bit of inventory on her lifestyle and figure out how to be a little healthier. 

After drying her hair and using a round brush to curl the ends under, she felt much better.  She then dug out her makeup, another area that she’d dismissed from her life.  Thankfully the colors she used
years ago weren’t too outdated so it was easy to dab a bit of concealer on the dark circles under her eyes, powder to brighten up and smooth out her overall skin tone.  A touch of mascara…and lipstick she thought to brighten her face.  The lipstick instantly made her look more vibrant and less fatigued.  Staring at her reflection in the mirror with the renewed hope of funding, she wondered why she’d let herself get to the point that she hadn’t even cared what she looked like?  Besides brushing her teeth and washing her face, she’d done very little to care for her appearance.  How had she sunk so low that she hadn’t even bothered with lipstick?  Looking down at her makeup bag, she grimaced at all the colors.  There were reds and pinks, maroons and even some crazy colors that she’d barely used.  But at least she’d tried.

She refused to admit
that Gaston’s disappearance from her life had done this to her.  She didn’t want to give him that much power over her world.  He wasn’t anything to her now except a checkbook who could help further her ambitions.  And that was exactly where he would stay. 

She pulled an old dress out of the back of her closet and slipped the red material over her head.  When the dress fell into place, she cringed at how loose it was around her body.  Even this showed how much weight she’d lost and it
wasn’t flattering.  She actually had to pull that dress off and find another one, but in the end, all of her old dresses were too big for her slight frame now.  She grabbed the third one she’d tried on.  It was a black wrap dress which was probably the closest she could get to something that would fit and didn’t have holes in it.  The neckline plunged a bit too low for her comfort, but when she glanced at the other outfits spread out over her bed, she knew that none of them would work any better. 

With a huff of frustration, she got down on her hands and knees and dug out a pair of black pumps.  They were dusty from being
unused in the back of her closet for so long.  But a clean towel rubbed over the surface and they were as good as new.  When she slipped them on her feet, she had to practice walking in them for a few moments.  Goodness, it had been a long time since she’d worn heels! 

It was just like riding a bike though.  As soon as she pulled them on and practiced a bit in her hallway, she was right back where she used to be.  If a bit wobbly on the corners. 

She slipped on a pair of gold, hoop earrings and her watch, then hurried to her computer to print out materials that would help explain her efforts to Gaston.  She bit her lip as she selected various charts that might explain where she wanted to go with her work even if she couldn’t show him the results.  Yet.  She knew she was very close and would probably be there but she must have been lax in her diligence at protecting her work at some point.  That lack of attention to protecting her work left her experiments open to tampering.  So stupid as to let others mess up her experiments.  She knew better!  Competition in the laboratory was fierce and there were many scientists who were not above hurting someone else’s work to get theirs to the finish line first. 

The knock on her apartment door came much more quickly than she realized.  She looked around at the mess of her apartment, the charts that had spilled down from the printer
, the books scattered and stacked in random places surrounding her furniture, some stacks even acting as tables for abandoned cups of coffee or other drinks.  It was a mess!  She jumped up from her dining room table where her laptop and printer were located, quickly trying to gather things so that it didn’t look so chaotic. 

But when the knock came again, she knew she had to answer it. 
With all the papers in her arms, she hurried to the door and pulled it open, her breath catching in her throat when she took in the magnificent man standing there. 

No, not magni
ficent, she corrected herself.  He was just another handsome, inconsiderate jerk who thought he was above the rest of the world.  A man who didn’t need to follow the rules of common courtesy.  She hated him so no matter how handsome he looked, she was not going to stare.