At the Ruthless Billionaire's Command

Gregorio bit back his reply, aware that Amelia Fairbanks’s aggression came from the intensity of her understandable grief at the recent loss of her father—a man Gregorio had respected and liked, although he doubted Jacob’s daughter would believe that.

The newspapers had featured several photographs of Amelia since the start of the worldwide media frenzy after her father had died so suddenly two weeks ago, but having already met her—desired her—Gregorio knew none of the images had done her justice.

Her shoulder-length hair wasn’t simply red, but shot through with highlights of gold and cinnamon. Her eyes weren’t pale and indistinct, but a deep intense grey, with a ring of black about the iris. She was understandably pale, but that pallor didn’t detract from the striking effect of her high cheekbones or the smooth magnolia of her skin. Long dark lashes framed those mesmerising grey eyes. Her nose was small and pert, and the fullness of her lips was a perfect bow above a pointed and determined chin.

She was small of stature, her figure slender, and the black dress she was wearing seemed to hang a little too loosely—as if she had recently lost weight. Which he could see she had.

Nevertheless, Amelia Fairbanks was an extremely beautiful woman.

And the sharp stab of desire he felt merely from looking at her and breathing in the heady spice of her perfume was totally inappropriate, considering the occasion.

‘We will talk again, Miss Fairbanks.’ His tone brooked no argument this time.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, scorning his certainty.

Oh, they would meet again. Gregorio would ensure that they did.

His gaze was guarded as he gave her a formal bow before turning on his heel to walk across the grass and get into the back of the black limousine waiting for him just outside the graveyard.

‘Señor de la Cruz?’

Gregorio looked up blankly at Silvio, one of his two bodyguards, to see the other man holding out a handkerchief towards him.

‘You have blood on your cheek. Hers, not your own,’ Silvio explained economically as Gregorio gave him a questioning glance.

He took the handkerchief and rubbed it across his cheek before looking down at the blood that now stained the pristine white cotton.

Amelia Fairbanks’s blood.

Gregorio distractedly put the bloodied handkerchief into the breast pocket of his jacket as he glanced across to where she stood beside a tall blonde woman at her father’s graveside. Amelia looked very small and vulnerable, but her expression was nonetheless composed as she stepped forward to place a single red rose on top of the coffin.

Whether she wished it or not, he and Amelia Fairbanks would most definitely be meeting again.

Gregorio had wanted her for the past two months—he could wait a little longer before claiming her.

CHAPTER ONE

Two months later

‘I NEVER REALISED I’d accumulated so much stuff.’

Lia groaned as she carried yet another huge cardboard box into her new apartment and placed it with the other dozen boxes stacked to one side of the tiny sitting room. The other half was full of furniture.

‘I’m sure I don’t need most of it. I definitely have no idea where I’m going to put it all.’ She looked around the London apartment with its pocket-size sitting room/kitchen combined, one bedroom and one bathroom. It was a huge downsize from the three-storey Regency-style townhouse she had shared with her father.

Beggars couldn’t be choosers. Not that Lia was exactly a beggar—she had a little money of her own, left to her by the mother—but the comfortable lifestyle she’d known for all of her twenty-five years no longer existed.

Every one of her father’s assets had been frozen until the extent of his debts had been decided and paid by his executors—which would take months, if not years. Considering the dire financial situation her father had been in before his death, Lia doubted there would be anything left.

Their family home had been one of those assets, and although Lia could have continued to live there until everything was settled she hadn’t wanted to. Not without her father. The business sharks were also circling, ready to snap up the assets of Fairbanks Industries as soon as the executors had decided when and how they were going to be sold off to pay the debts.

Lia had used her own money to pay her father’s funeral expenses and the deposit on this apartment, plus the few bits of furniture she had deemed necessary to fill the tiny space. She hadn’t been allowed to remove anything from the house except personal items.

She had resigned from all the charitable work that had taken up much of her time—with her father dead and his estate in limbo those charities no longer considered the name Fairbanks as being a boon to their cause!—and she’d looked for, and found, a job that paid actual wages. She needed to be able to earn enough at least to feed herself and continue paying the rent on this apartment.

She had taken charge of her own life, and it felt strangely good to have been able do so.

Cathy shrugged. ‘You must have thought you needed it when you did the packing.’