The Secretary's Bossman Bargain

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?