‘I’m sorry to tell you this, querida, but you don’t have the luxury of time or choice.’
Something landed on her lap. Cristina stared down at it for several long seconds before reluctantly picking it up. By the time she’d finished scanning the sheets of legal jargon tears were clogging up her throat.
‘When did you acquire these?’ she asked in a stifled whisper.
‘Before I stepped foot in Brazil,’ he replied. ‘As you can see, I own you, Cristina. Not various banks and loan companies. I own the power to decide what happens to your precious Santa Rosa. And if I decide to foreclose on your debts and sell out to the Alagoas Consortium, I can promise you that it will happen—the very next time you attempt to walk out on me.’
It was such a brutal, totally unequivocal statement of intent that she shuddered. Luis owned her. He all but owned Santa Rosa by taking on the never ending length of her debts—the bottom line total of which, when laid out in black and white, actually made her feel ill.
They arrived at his hotel. Anton got out of the car and came around to her door, then took hold of her hand and pulled her out.
She came without protest, and it was crazy but that annoyed the hell out of him. He didn’t want her beaten and subdued. He wanted her out here fighting—because when she was fighting he could fight back.
And he wanted to fight with her. He wanted to build it and build it until it progressed to a different kind of fight. She was in his blood again, like a fever. The sexual fever that was Cristina Marques.
His hand trailed her into the hotel foyer. The concierge saw them enter and attempted to catch Anton’s eye but he pretended not to notice. He did not want to talk to anyone, be pleasant or polite. He made directly for the bank of lifts, cursed silently when they were forced to share it with a pair of young lovers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They laughed and teased and touched and kissed all the way up to the floor below his own. Standing rigid beside him, Cristina stared unblinkingly at the lift console. He stared grimly at the floor.
The moment they reached the privacy of his hotel suite Cristina twisted her hand free and walked away from him. Anton made for the bedroom to deposit her suitcase. When he came back she was standing in the middle of the room, staring at an empty wall.
His chest made that tightening clutch at him. Grimly ignoring it, he crossed to the drinks cabinet.
‘Why?’ she fed unsteadily after him.
He did not attempt to misunderstand the question. ‘Call it payback for six years ago,’ he answered. ‘You owe me for six years. For my inability to believe what any other woman says to me—for not daring to believe what my own senses are telling me about them.’
‘I never meant to do that to you.’
He swung round. ‘Then what did you intend?’
Exactly what she had achieved, Cristina thought bleakly, which had been to make him hate her enough to leave her and never come back.
Only he had come back, and now here he stood—hard, coldly angry, still hating her for which she had done to him. Though now the hate had sexual desire to feed his determination to carry this through to its bitter end.
‘So all of this is for revenge,’ she murmured emptily.
Glass in hand, Anton offered a shrug. ‘And to solve the immediate problem I have that demands I get married and produce a child.’
Those words cut so deep that Cristina actually quivered, dark pain clouding her eyes. ‘Then you have chosen the wrong woman for this—quest you are bent on,’ she told him, and had to pull in a breath to steady herself before she could go on. ‘B-because I cannot give you that child, Luis. I am not able to—’
It was like watching ice explode. The way his face altered as he slammed down the glass and then made a grab for her set her whimpering in surprised shock.
‘Don’t ever utter that lie to me again—understand me?’ he rasped down at her.
Cristina lifted her pale face. ‘It was not a lie—’
‘You lie every time you open that lush red kissable mouth!’ he bit out. ‘You lied six years ago when you told me you loved me, then enjoyed watching me squirm as you put that particular lie to death!’
‘No!’ she cried brokenly. ‘It wasn’t like that! It—’
‘It was exactly like that!’
Meu Dues, Cristina closed her eyes—because he was right, it had been just like that. ‘If you will just listen to me for a moment, I can explain—’
‘You know what?’ He unclipped his fingers from her shoulders. ‘I don’t want you to explain. Your reasons no longer interest me. You owe me. I’m collecting—on my terms.’
He turned back to his drink.
‘Terms I cannot deliver.’