PROLOGUE
“I DON’T NEED a damn appointment! I’m his sister, you cretin.” The sharp American accent and strident tone of Gracia’s voice reached Basilio through his partially closed office door.
The heavy door opened forcefully, slamming back against the rich paneling of his wall, but surprisingly, his administrative assistant made it into the office a step ahead of Basilio’s sister. “Sir, I’m sorry.” The distress at not holding her post was clear in his admin’s tone. “She refused to even wait for me to ascertain if you were still on your conference call.”
Gracia came storming around his admin at the same time as his executive assistant came rushing in from her annex office.
“What is going on in here?” Her hair in a severe chignon, her navy business suit immaculate, his fifty-year-old executive assistant could do freezing aristocratic disapproval better than even Basilio’s mother, who was actually the daughter of a count.
His admin immediately began apologizing again as he stood from his desk, giving his sister a look that would have made Basilio’s mother proud. Gracia halted in her approach to his desk, her annoyed expression morphing to one of consternation.
She gave the EA a moderately polite look before looking at Basilio with wariness. “It is a family emergency.”
Basilio merely waited in silence for more information.
His executive assistant wasn’t so patient. “I see, and there was no time for you to call and apprise us of your imminent arrival so we could clear your brother’s schedule on your drive from the airport?” Camila Lopez asked with clear censure.
Gracia looked between Basilio and his EA, her cheeks going pink. “I wasn’t thinking of calling. Only getting here.”
“And if Señor Perez had been away from the office?” Camila pressed with a single raised, perfectly shaped black eyebrow.
“I didn’t think of that.”
As amusing as he found his sister’s interaction with his executive assistant, Basilio did not have time for the entertainment. He did, in fact, have a very busy day.
“Thank you for your assistance and I will need the next thirty minutes for Gracia,” he said to both his admin and Camila. “See that we are not disturbed.”
“Of course, señor,” Camila said to him with just the right amount of deference before offering his sister a look that said clearly, she wasn’t worried about someone else interrupting.
Once the other two women had left his office, both doors through which they’d gone closed firmly behind them, Basilio indicated one of the chairs facing his desk. “Sit down, Gracia, and tell me what has you forcing your way past my admin.”
Gracia sank into the seat with more grace than her behavior had shown so far. “It really is a family emergency, Baz.”
For the family that so rarely remembered he was a member?
“Explain,” he demanded as he settled back into his own chair.
Gracia frowned at his tone. “You remember when that awful teenager hit little Jamie with her car?”
“I am unlikely to forget.” Five years before, his then four-year-old nephew had spent two weeks in a coma after being hit by a car while on an outing with his mother.
“Well, apparently, she changed her name and moved away from Southern California.”
“Unsurprising.” While Basilio had been in Spain at the time, saving his father’s company from bankruptcy, he knew that Miranda Weber had been vilified in the broadcast media and even worse on all the social media outlets.
“Yes, well. Some idiotic reporter found out who she is and is resurrecting the story.”
And this was the family emergency that she needed Basilio’s help with? When usually both Carlos and Gracia were happy to forget they were half siblings most of the time.
Putting aside his own sense of cynicism about their definition of family, Basilio said, “I can see where that would be emotionally difficult for Carlos and Tiffany.”
“Yes. It’s awful! And this time some fly-by-night morning gossip show wants to interview the girl. She’s all set to give them her side of the story.”
“She’s not a girl any longer, surely.”
Miranda had been nineteen five years ago.
“Woman, then,” Gracia said dismissively. “She’ll go on television and lie. About our family!”
“Surely Carlos has PR people who can handle this.” Not to mention lawyers. If the woman lied in a public forum, they could bring a civil suit.
“You know he prefers you call him Carl.”
Yes, because it was less Spanish, letting him forget he ever had a father named Armand Perez. “That is what you want to discuss now?” Basilio asked, his voice dry.
“No, of course not.” Gracia wrung her hands. “It’s just you have to do something!”
“What do you imagine I can do that Carl and Tiffany cannot? They are not exactly without resources.” Carlos’s wife came from an old and wealthy East Coast family.
Basilio’s brother ran his stepfather’s business, one of respectable enough size to have public relations people on retainer. While Perez Holdings was much bigger and more successful now, that had not always been the case.
“She had a restraining order taken out against both Carl and Tiffany. It includes any representative working for, or on retainer from, them.”
“How did she manage that?” Basilio wondered aloud.
“It’s insane, I know.”
That was not what Basilio had meant. For Miranda Weber to obtain such a thing, serious threats had to have been made. Cursed with a deep-seated sense of entitlement, his brother could be a hothead, as well. Carlos had never had to save a company, or put the hours into shoring up his family’s name in the international community as Basilio had done. When their father split with Carlos and Gracia’s mother, she’d remarried quickly and both of Basilio’s older siblings had embraced their new American family wholeheartedly, taking their stepfather’s last name and rejecting their Spanish heritage for their American mother’s way of life.
While Basilio was not sure he could blame Carlos, considering the current circumstances, clearly the older man’s temper and certainty he could do as he pleased had cost him access to Miranda.
When Basilio didn’t say anything right away, Gracia added, “I think it might have been her brother-in-law or something.”
“She has a sister?” He didn’t remember that. He’d thought the woman who put his nephew into a coma was an only child.
“Apparently. Only a half sister, but still...”
“Yes, still.” Basilio knew just how little regard his sister and brother had for the concept of a half sibling.
“Oh, get off it, Baz. I didn’t mean you.”
“As you say.”
Gracia leaned forward. “You need to do something.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Well, Carl’s company doesn’t have quite the sway yours does.”
That was an understatement. Basilio had ruthlessly built Perez Holdings into a powerful multibillion-dollar international entity, while his brother’s realty group was worth mere millions. “The Madison Realty Group is hardly a global concern” was all Basilio said, though.
“Exactly.”
“So?” Basilio prompted.
Gracia’s expression turned crafty. “So, maybe you can convince the brother-in-law to withdraw his support.”
“Who is this in-law?”
“His name is Andreas Kostas. That’s Greek, isn’t it? I don’t remember the name of his company.”
Surprise made Basilio sit up straighter in his chair. “Yes, it is Greek, and I know exactly who he is. My company uses his company’s security software, or what used to be his company. I believe he recently merged with Hawk Enterprises.”
Andreas Kostas was a shark’s shark and he was now in business with one of the biggest sharks swimming in their waters. No wonder Carlos needed help dealing with Miranda’s family.
Gracia waved that information away. “Whatever. He didn’t respond well when Carl contacted him, hoping to convince him to talk Miranda out of doing the interview.”
“If he threatened him, I don’t imagine so.” Kostas wasn’t known for tolerating fools or blowhards. Unfortunately, Carlos had played both on occasion.
“Who said Carl threatened anybody?” Gracia sounded indignant, but her guilty expression didn’t jibe with her words.
Basilio just gave his sister a look until she squirmed in her chair.
“Okay, he may have said some things he didn’t mean, but come on.” Gracia waved her hands in agitation. “He and Tiffany went through enough five years ago.”
“On that we can agree.”
“So, you’ll do something?”
“I will come to the States and look into the situation.” That was all he would promise.
If it came down to it, Basilio wasn’t above using his influence and power to push either Andreas Kostas or his sister-in-law into doing what was best for Basilio’s family because for him family came first, last and always. However, first he would get some real answers about what was going on.
“You have to hurry. She’s slated to do her interview in three weeks. The recent media storm is just starting to die down, and if she does that interview, it’s bound to blow everything up again.”
“Understood. What name does she go by now?”
“She kept her first name, but changed Weber to Smith.”
“Very anonymous.”
Gracia’s lips twisted in distaste. “Yes.”
Well, Weber or Smith, Basilio had every intention of finding the woman who had already cost his family so much. Whatever it took, he would protect the brother and sister-in-law who had suffered enough.
CHAPTER ONE
LATE FOR DINNER with her newfound sister and recently acquired brother-in-law, Randi rushed out of her even more recently acquired office.
She’d been shocked and delighted when Kayla asked Randi if she was interested in taking over managing responsibilities for Kayla’s for Kids, the shelter her sister had founded for at-risk children and youth. The opportunity to do what Randi loved while living near enough to get to know her long-lost sister had been too good to pass up. Besides, she got to use both her degree in business and adjunct degree in social services.
Part of her new job would include launching a second site in the western suburbs of Portland. Apparently, Andreas had donated enough for the expansion as a wedding gift, in addition to designating his new company’s charitable contributions all to Kayla’s for Kids, making fund-raising efforts a lot less stressful for Randi’s team.
It was Randi’s dream job and she adored her sister and brother-in-law for making it possible.
Collision with a hard, muscular wall on the sidewalk abruptly halted Randi’s headlong flight to her car.
She cried out and then immediately started apologizing, even as she felt her balance waver. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you.”
Big, strong hands on her upper arms stopped her bounce backward that would have landed Randi on her backside. “Is that a common occurrence, running into people you didn’t see?” he asked, a foreign accent subtle but unmistakable.
Randi winced. The man could not know the old wound his words bled yet again.
She pulled herself together with a firm mental yank and shrugged. “I’d love to say no, but I have a tendency toward klutziness, especially when I’m in a rush.”
Why she was admitting that particular failing to this gorgeous man, she did not know. Because man, total hottie alert. Easily as tall as her brother-in-law, who stood at six feet four inches, the black-haired man with sexy stubble on his face towered over Randi’s own five feet five inches.
Espresso-brown eyes locked on hers. “I see. Are you in a rush often?”
For whatever reason, she didn’t step back from him. “Not really, just sometimes. Though it’s usually walls I run into, or doorjambs, or you know, furniture. I hardly ever bump into people.”
&nbs
p; Even, white teeth flashed in a smile that didn’t quite reach his dark brown eyes. “I’m special, then.”
“You could take it that way, yes.”
He released her arms. Finally, but he did not step out of her personal space. “I believe I will.”
“Okay.” Heat climbed up her neck and into her cheeks that Randi could do nothing about.
He offered his hand. “Basilio Perez.”
“Oh, um, Randi Smith.” She laid her palm against his.
Instead of shaking hands, he lifted hers to his lips, brushing a barely there kiss on the backs of her knuckles. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Smith.”
Randi finally understood what it meant to be electrified by a man’s touch. His lips against her skin sent frissons of sensation throughout her body and she gasped.
“Ms. Smith? Are you all right?” There was something in his too-knowing gaze that said he was perfectly aware of the effect he was having on her.
She tried to speak, then cleared her throat and tried again. “Randi, please.”
“Randi is short for?”
“Oh, um, no one ever asks. They just ask stuff like if I enjoy having a boy’s name.”
“So?” He hadn’t let go of her hand and he now brushed his thumb over her knuckles, where his lips had been.
She had no thought of not answering. “Miranda.”
“Lovely name.”
“You think so?” She’d always found it old-fashioned.
“I do.”
“Basilio is pretty neat, too. Spanish?” she guessed.
“You got it in one. My friends call me Baz.”
“My friends call me Randi.”
“I prefer Miranda.”
Did that mean he didn’t want to be friends? Only he’d implied she should call him Baz. “Are we going to be friends?”
“I would like that.”
Good. “Me, too. I mean...” But she wasn’t sure what she’d meant to say, the sexual chemistry between them playing havoc with the efficient firing of synapses in her brain.
“I hope you mean just that.”