The Spaniard's Pleasurable Vengeance

“But surely a trip to Spain is.”

“Just because you love your home doesn’t mean everyone will.”

“But you are not just everyone.”

She frowned at him, her gaze filled with wariness. “Whatever that means.”

“I find it better to accept and seek to gain from life’s little vagaries, rather

than get mired in the plan that might have been.”

“You? Mr. Control Freak?”

He would have denied the moniker, but thought now was not the time. “Indeed.”

“I have a hard time seeing it.”

“You think I was anticipating a trip to America a week ago?” He’d had to cancel important meetings and work at inconvenient hours to stay as long as he had.

“I suppose not.” She chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. “I didn’t make you come, though, did I?”

“No, but meeting you was the benefit of doing so.” She looked like she was going to protest that, so he continued. “Business rarely goes exactly as one might expect. I’ve purchased properties I didn’t expect to, let go of ones I thought I would initially keep. And all those things have worked out for the best.”

She sighed, her eyes warm with unexpected compassion. “I suppose all those new stepmoms taught you to roll with the punches early on.”

“Perhaps you are right.” Really, there was no maybe about it.

Basilio had figured out early on that he could rail against the constant changes his father’s love life imposed on him, or he could seek to thrive in each new circumstance. Basilio chose to thrive.

“I think my experiences did the opposite for me.” She looked away to the window in silence for long seconds before turning her head to meet his gaze again. Hers filled with unexpected vulnerability. “I don’t like surprises. They make me nervous. Change is always hard for me.”

“I imagine with a mother as unstable as yours, you learned your own lessons early. Like not all surprises are good ones.”

Her hands fisted in her lap, her gray eyes widening in surprise. “You know about my mom?”

He nodded. “I wanted to wait for you to tell me, but you have probably already figured out that patience is not one of my virtues.”

“Considering how fast you got me into bed, I’d say not.”

And he wanted her there again. “You did not complain.”

“No, but then I was convinced you couldn’t have any agenda but wanting sex. Even if you weren’t offering anything more than a night of pleasure, that felt safe to me.”

“Despite your lack of experience, you accepted the lack of commitment with equanimity.” Not to mention their instant focus on the physical. “It surprised me.” And delighted him by turn.

“Believing there could be no way you were lying about your motives for getting me into bed gave me a false sense of security. I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship. I was looking for honesty.”

“Considering your past, I can now understand why that would have been so important to you.” He hated that Miranda no longer trusted him, or felt safe being physically intimate with him.

He’d been unable to convince her that he no longer had ulterior motives where she was concerned, and he knew that was his own fault.

She fidgeted with the buttons on her jacket, picked up her e-reader and then put it back down again. Finally, she took a deep breath, let it out and asked, “So, you had me investigated?”

“I had done that early on.” Surely she would have realized that by now? “I ordered a deeper look. I got the report last night.”

“I wondered what you were reading while I watched my movies. I thought it was work.”

“It was, for part of the night. Being away from my office has been a challenge.”

“Was looking at a Portland property a lie, too?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

Her irritation should not have been a turn-on, but he found her feistiness exciting. Doing his best to ignore his body’s response to her, he answered, “No. There is an old hotel I was interested in, but ultimately it would require millions in remodeling to bring it up to present codes and update the facility to the standards of other similar Perez Holdings. It’s a beautiful property, though.”

“That’s too bad.”

He hoped that was disappointment he heard in her voice, and that a little of it at least was because without a property he’d have little reason—that she would accept at present anyway—to return to Portland.

Deciding to test that theory, he offered, “My broker found me another potential property.”

Her gaze locked onto his. “He did?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think of it?” she asked with poorly disguised eagerness.

Relief that she still wanted a reason for him to return to Portland, even if she didn’t want to admit it, made him speak with warm enthusiasm. “It has a lot of potential.”

“So you’ll come back to Portland.”

“Sí.” He smiled. “For more than the hotel.” And what she did with that knowledge was up to her.

CHAPTER TEN

THE WARINESS CAME back into Randi’s expression before she turned her head to look out the window again. “Anyway, you know about my mom.”

Surprised by the return to a subject he could tell was difficult for her, he answered honestly. “I know what the investigator was able to find out in a twenty-four-hour window. She lost custody of you to your father, with no option for visitation, when you were six. Your parents divorced and your mother spent a couple of years in a psychiatric facility.”

“Pretending to be crazy.” Miranda looked back at him, her gray eyes haunted. “So she wouldn’t go to jail for trying to drown me in my bath.”

All the air left Basilio’s lungs. Miranda’s mother had tried to kill her? No. His mind could not accept that; he could not accept the risk that she might have died before they’d ever met. “Pretending?” Didn’t the woman have to be insane to have tried to kill her daughter? Wasn’t that the very definition of an imbalance?

“She was high on her drug of choice at the time and furious with my father for refusing to give her money to buy more. So she decided to take away something he loved more than her. At least that’s how she saw it.”

“By trying to drown you?”

“My dad caught her.”

“Gracias a Dios! What if he had not been there?”

Miranda’s vulnerable gaze said she’d considered that possibility, many times, maybe even had nightmares about it. “He kept a close eye on me with her, but he couldn’t always be there. He was that time, though, and it saved my life.”

“And instead of going to prison, she went into a mental facility?”

“You get it.” There was a lessening of the haunting in Miranda’s stormy gray eyes. “You really do. So many people, they kept telling me I needed to forgive her, have a relationship with her, but she just hurts people. She uses them. Only my dad and then Kayla got that, but she’d hurt them, too.”

Something about his acceptance gave Miranda peace, and Basilio could feel nothing but gratitude for that. She deserved a lessening of her burden, and if he could give it to her, he would. “Not everyone who looks sympathetic on paper really is.”

“Exactly.” Miranda managed a small smile. “She’s always been good at playing the crazy card when she’s caught out. But since she has always refused any kind of therapy or medical treatment outside of her time in the hospital, I’ve never really bought into the sincerity of it. I’ve worked with many people truly challenged by mental illness in my job. Some who wanted to learn ways to better cope, some who didn’t, but none who could turn it on and off like a tap the way my mother has always done.”

“She tormented your life, didn’t she?”

“Very much until I was six, more than my dad realized. Not so much after, but because of my grandparents, she’s remained in the periphery of my life.”

“They believe she’s not responsible for her actions,” he guessed.

Miranda’s grimace told him he’d guessed right. “They’re wonderful people who always see the best in anyone.”

“I do not like thinking of that woman having access to

you, even a step removed.” He wanted to pull Miranda into his arms.

She wrapped her arms around herself, making him want to comfort her even more. “Honestly? I don’t, either. I’ve managed to avoid seeing her since I was fifteen, and that only happened because Grandma got the time of a visit wrong and my mother was still at her house when Dad and I showed up.”

His mouth twisted with cynicism. “Some mistake.”

She laughed, the sound dry and harsh, but humor all the same. “Right? My dad arranged all future visits at our house so it couldn’t happen again. I think I’ll always fear her because she has no conscience. If she thinks hurting me, or them, or anyone else, will get her what she wants in the moment, she’ll do it. No compunction, no regret.”

“I am very sorry.” A plethora of stepmothers seemed like a very normal childhood in comparison. “Is that why you don’t like boats?”

“I know it doesn’t make any sense, but yes. I mean, seas and rivers aren’t the same at all. Only in my head, water is water.”

Basilio flipped up the two armrests between their seats and then put his arm around her, laying his other hand over hers fisted together in her lap. “Your head is the only one that counts in this matter.”

“Talking about her with you, I realize I’ve made her into a bogeyman, but I don’t need to.”

“You love your grandparents, so you worry for them.”

She nodded. “Family, yeah? But still, you’ve helped me let go of a sense of doom that has been shadowing my life for too long, even after I moved away from everyone in my family. I have to thank you for that.”

“No thanks necessary.” She deserved full-on happiness.

She looked away for a second, but then met his gaze again, hers open in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again. “Until I met you, I hadn’t had a bath to relax or for the sake of enjoyment in almost two decades,” she admitted as her body melted into his.

“If I had known—”

“No, that was a good thing, the way I felt safe in water with you.” She sat up, pulling away from him, gently pushing his hand away, too. “Whatever came after, you helped me to overcome a lifelong fear.”