One week with him in Mexico. Playing his escort, his lover—a role Virginia had slipped into plenty of times in her mind. But this would be real, a real pretense, where she—inexperienced and naive in the ways of men—would pretend to be lover to a hunk, god and legend. Where she could even seize the moment, do something reckless she would no doubt come to regret and plant a kiss on the lips of the man who was unknowingly responsible for Virginia not wanting others. Did she dare? Did she fly? Did she have magic powers?
Was there even the possibility of being a good pretend lover to him after he’d dated actresses, duchesses, centerfolds?
Growing more and more unsettled at her new assignment, she picked up the book, Monterrey: Tras el Tiempo, and headed for the door, stealing one last glimpse of him. “Thank you, Marcos. For…everything. Good night.”
“Virginia.” When she was halfway down the hall, he caught up and seized her wrist, urging her around. His clasp sent a shiver skidding up her arm. “It’s a five-hour flight. I mean to leave tomorrow afternoon. Can you be ready by then?”
Ready, she thought wildly.
She could be a virgin Mayan princess prepared her whole life for this ultimate sacrifice, be an Anne Boleyn laughingly led to her beheading, and she would still not be ready for Marcos Allende.
But she smiled. Her nod came out jerky.
He seized her chin and raised it slightly. She sucked in a breath at the contact, and the tips of her breasts brushed against his chest. “Will you be ready, Virginia?” he persisted.
Her legs quivered. All kinds of things moved inside her body. His breath was hot and fragrant on her face, and his lush, mobile mouth was so close, a moan rose to her throat, trapped there. Like the wanting of a year, trapped there.
How would he feel against her? His mouth? His hands?
He was so hard all over, so unlike any other man she’d known. He made her feel safe and protected and special, but he also made her burn, frightened her with the way she needed something from him more than she could possibly bear or understand.
She suppressed a shiver. “I’ll be ready,” she assured, a nervous excitement flourishing in her breast as she took a healthy step back. “Thank you. I know…I know you could ask someone else to do this for you. And I doubt you’d have to pay for her company.”
His eyes smoldered, and his face went taut with some unnameable emotion. “Yes, but I want you.”
I want you.
A ribbon of hope unfurled inside her. It feathered from the top of her head down to the soles of her feet. She didn’t trust it. Marcos didn’t mean the words the way they had sounded to her ears. Ears starved for anything he ever said to her.
She told herself, firmly, until it was embedded in her brain, that Marcos wanted someone trustworthy, someone biddable, and his lionlike instinct surely prodded him to help her.
And, oh, how she had wanted to be different. To him. Not charity. Not like his stepbrother, a reckless playboy Marcos had to rescue time after time—not like all the strangers and friends who called him every day, seeking his counsel, his power, his help.
Everyone wanted something of Marcos Allende, for underneath the hard exterior lay a man with a strong, solid heart of gold. His faith in people was inspiring, his ruthlessness rivaled only by his mercy. Marcos…took care of you. And those early mornings when Virginia had stepped into his office to find his broad shoulders bent over the desk, his shirt rolled up to his elbows, his silky black hair falling over his forehead, his voice husky and his eyes tired from lack of sleep, her heart had ached with wanting to take care of that big, proud warrior. Who gives you back what you give, Marcos Allende?
Is there anyone out there who takes care of you for a change?
Now she determined that whatever he wanted, she would give. “You won’t regret it, Marcos,” she softly promised. “Helping me, I mean.”
His lips twitched. That amused smile did things to her stomach, but it didn’t seem to reach his eyes. Those remained hooded, unreadable. He ran the back of one finger down her cheek, the touch sparking fire. “It is I who hopes you never regret this visit.”
Two
“Your new lover?”
Silent, Marcos stood at the living room window and broodingly watched the car pull away with Virginia inside it. From the penthouse, the Lincoln looked like a sleek black beetle, slipping into the intermittent traffic before the apartment building.
The pressure in his chest mounted with the distance.
His blood still pumped hot inside his veins and his head swam with a thousand thoughts, all of them X-rated.
“Or a mistress maybe?”
Twisting ar
ound, he faced his newest guest, the inquisitive Jack Williams—ex-corporate spy and now self-made millionaire. He was helping himself to a bag of nuts he’d obtained from the bar.
“My assistant,” Marcos said tonelessly, swirling his newly poured Scotch in his hand. The cubes clinked in the glass.