The Secretary's Bossman Bargain (4 page)

He was fascinated. By the sweet-smelling, sexy package of Virginia Hollis. Five feet four inches of reality. Of pretend lover.

Cursing under his breath, he snatched her suitcase handle and rolled the bag up to his spot by the window. The pilots were storing his luggage, consisting mostly of shopping bags from Neiman Marcus.

He crossed his arms as he waited for their signal. The file the infallible Jack Williams had given him last night provided him with more than enough ammo to persuade Marissa to sell, yet even the knowledge of emerging victorious didn’t make this particular task any easier. You could crush a bug in your fist and it still didn’t mean you would enjoy it. But Allende—a transport company on its last breath, flailing for help—had his name on it.

It was his. To resuscitate or to murder.

Virginia drew up beside him and he went rigid, inhumanly aware of her body close to his. She was a subtle, scented, stirring presence.

Without so much as moving his head, he let his eyes venture to the front of her sweater. The fabric clung to the small, shapely, seductive swells of her breasts. A wealth of tenderness flooded him. Virginia had come dressed as his assistant in the sweater, her typical knee-length gray skirt, the simple closed-toe shoes with no personality. “I’m afraid this won’t do,” he murmured.

A smile danced on her lips as she tipped her face up in bewilderment. She seemed animated today, no more the worried siren begging for his assistance last night. “What won’t do?”

Virginia. With her perfect oval face, creamy, elegant throat and bow-shaped morsel of a mouth that invited him to nibble. It really seemed easier to stop breathing than to continue saying no to those marshmallow-soft lips. “The sweater,” he said quietly, signaling the length of her body with his hand. “The skirt. The sensible shoes. It won’t do, Miss Hollis.”

She set her coffee cup and napkin on a side table, then tucked her hair behind her ear. “I did pack a few dresses.”

“Did you.” His eyebrows furrowed together as he surveyed her pearls. “Designer dresses?”

“Why, no.”

He raised his hand to the pearl necklace. “How attached are you,” he whispered, trailing his finger across the glossy bumps, “to wearing these?”

She watched him for a moment, a telling wariness in her voice. “They were Mother’s.”

“Pretty. Very pretty.” The pent-up desire that blazed inside him textured his voice. “You see, my lover…might wear something else.” He was playing with fire. He didn’t care. “My woman—” he plucked a pearl between two fingers “—would wear Tahitians. Diamonds. Emeralds.”

Her eyes danced. “Are you afraid I won’t look presentable?”

He dropped his hands and shot her a dead-serious look. “I’m afraid you will look too much like my assistant and not my lover.”

But she kept on smiling, kept on enchanting him. “I see.”

He frowned now. “Understand me, Virginia. If I’d wanted to be seen with my assistant, I’d have brought Mrs. Fuller.”

This made her gasp, and the gasp did not make his scowl vanish. He nodded towards the Falcon. “Your new wardrobe is in the plane. There’s a room in the back. Change.”

Of all the highhandedness, of all the arrogance, of all the bosses in the world—she had to be in debt to Marcos. Undoubtedly the most complicated.

While the jet motors hummed in the background, Virginia slipped into the slinky patterned dress inside the windowless little room at the back of the plane. Damn him. She had agreed to his request, but how was she supposed to reply to his autocratic commands? Worse, the clothes were divine. She couldn’t in her right mind stay annoyed at a man with such exquisite taste. Her knight in shining armor.

Enthralled by how slight and satiny the dress felt against her body, she ran three fingers down the length of her hips, wishing there was a mirror to let her visually appreciate the dress’s exquisite, plunging back. And how is this necessary to his plan? she wondered.

Gathering her courage with a steady intake of breath, she forced herself to step outside.

Throughout the tasteful wood and leather interior, the air crackled with the suppressed energy of his presence. His head was bent. His powerful, well-built body overwhelmed a cream-colored, plush leather seat, and his hair—abused by his hands during the flight—gleamed in the sunlight as he read through a massive leather tome. He was clad all in black, and the short-sleeved polo shirt he wore revealed tanned, strong forearms corded with veins. Watching him, big and proud and silent, completely engrossed and unaware of her gaze, she felt like sighing.

With a quick mental shake, she walked down the wide plane aisle, noting the screen embedded in the wood-paneled wall behind Marcos’s seat. The electronic map showed the plane just three red dashes away from the little dot of Monterrey. At least one more hour.

As she eased in between their seats, intent on taking her place across from him, one huge hand shot out and manacled her wrist. She was spun around, and she gasped. Then there was nothing to pry those glimmering eyes away from her, no shield from the scorching possessiveness flickering in their depths.

“No,” he rasped, his voice hoarsened by how little he’d spoken during the flight.

A melting sensation spread down her thighs, his accent too delicious to not enjoy. No, don’t sit yet, she thought he meant, but she couldn’t be sure. No one could ever be too sure of anything with Marcos. Maybe it was no to the dress!

Aware of her chest heaving too close to his face, she tried to pry her wrist free but failed miserably. “I changed. Wasn’t that what you wanted?”

He cocked his head farther back and stared, his grip loosening slightly. “You’re angry at me.”

“I…” She jerked her chin toward the book on his lap, wanting, needing him to remove his hand. “Please. Read.”

For a woman who’d strived to become invisible for years, the last thing she felt now was unseen. The filmy Issa London dress hugged her curves subtly, the wrap-around style tied with a bow at her left hip. The fabric felt so feminine she became utterly conscious of her body—and how he peered at it in interest.

“You approve of the clothes I bought you, amor?” he said huskily.

Amor? A jolt went through her at the endearment. Panicking, she tugged with more force and whispered, halfheartedly, “You can let go of me now.”

His gaze pierced her, his unyielding hand burning her wrist. By the way his touch spread like a wildfire, her boss may as well have been touching her elsewhere. Where her breasts ached, where the back of her knees tingled, where her nerves sparkled and where she felt hot and painfully aware of being empty.

He released her. So abruptly she almost stumbled.

Still reeling, Virginia sank into her seat like a deflated balloon. Her pulse thundered. Her hands shook as she strapped on her seat belt.

His intense regard from across the aisle became a living, breathing thing. “Does a man’s interest offend you?” he asked silkily.

Blushing furiously, she propped her purse on her lap. “Did you know Monterrey has over five million people now?” She shoved the maps she’d printed at the office and lists of Spanish words back in her purse.

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.