The Secretary's Bossman Bargain

Marcos plucked the file from his hand and immediately honed in on the name printed across the tab. Marissa Galvez.

He smiled darkly. “Ah, my rainmaker. Everything here, I assume?”

“Everything on Marissa and her sleazy little deals. She’s quite a busy little bee. You’ll find it to be riveting reading. Took me a while, as you can see—but I did give you my word to have it ready by tonight.”

Marcos skimmed through the pages, not surprised that the file was as thick as the woman was scheming.

Marissa Galvez. A shaft of anger sliced through him. The lady had hopes of a reconciliation before discussing numbers?

Of course she did. She read Forbes. Was smart enough to realize the son was worth more than the father she’d left him for, not thousands or millions, but billions. She knew the company, which should have rightfully been his, was prime for takeover and it wouldn’t take much but a few savvy connections to learn it had been Marcos who’d been buying the outstanding stock.

Unfortunately, insulting Marissa’s renewed interest in him wouldn’t do to accomplish his goals. But a beautiful, smiling lover would slowly and surely take care of her dreams of reconciliation—and let them get down to the real business at hand.

Allende. My company.

“Mind telling me how you’re going to convince the delectable woman to sell? Without succumbing to her request for some personal attention before discussing numbers?” Jack queried.

Marcos lunged to his feet, waving the evidence in the Texan’s face. “With this. It’s my game now, my rules.” He met his friend’s sharp, blue-eyed stare and his lips flattened to a grim, strained line. “Allende is in a vulnerable position. Sooner or later, she’ll have to sell.”

“Not to you, she doesn’t.”

Marcos shrugged disinterestedly. “She knows she’s game for a hostile takeover. And she knows I’m the shark after her. She wouldn’t have called if she didn’t want to get on my good side.”

And I’ve got my pretty, green-eyed “lover.”

“Will she?”

And her pretty little mouth. “What?”

“Get on your good side?”

“When you start wearing a tutu, Jack. Of course not.”

Distaste filled him as he recalled her phone call. Dangling Allende up to him like bait, proposing they discuss it in her bed. She’d played with him as a naive, noble, seventeen-year-old boy, but it would be an ice age in hell before she played with the man.

“She called because she wants you back,” Jack pointed out.

“Fortunately, I have an escort,” he said and headed to the window, a part of him somehow expecting to see the Lincoln. “Being I will be conveniently taken, we’ll have to forego the personal and get down to the numbers.”

“I see now. So the lovely lady is key.”

Those eyes. Big, bright, clear green, and so expressive he thought she’d pummeled his gut when she’d looked at him so adoringly. She made him feel…noble. Decent. Desperate to save her ten times over in exchange for another worshipful gaze.

When she’d called to request a moment of his time only hours ago, he’d allowed himself a brief flight of fantasy. He fantasized she’d been ready to succumb to him, ready to admit what already threatened to become inevitable. Even as he allowed himself the luxury of the fantasy, he knew she was too cautious and respectable for that.

It was up to him now. What was he going to do?

He shot Jack a sidelong look. “Marissa will get what’s coming to her.” And Virginia…

Jack swept up his briefcase with flair. “The devil on a Falcon jet, yes.” He saluted from the threshold and flashed his signature I’m-Jack-the-Ripper grin. “I’ll let you pack, my friend.”

“My gratitude to you, Williams. And send the bill to Mrs. Fuller this week, she’ll take care of it.”

When Jack said an easy “will do” and disappeared, Marcos swallowed the last of his Scotch, his eyebrows furrowing together as he thought of the demure strand of pearls around Virginia’s neck tonight. His woman wouldn’t wear such little pearls. She’d wear diamonds. Tahitians. Emeralds.

With a swell of possessiveness, he brought to mind the lean, toned form of her body, watched countless times across his office desk, countless times when it had been by sheer determination that he’d forced his scrutiny back to his work.

A size six, he predicted, and promptly pulled his contact list from the top drawer and flipped through the pages.