Cold labels that spelled out all she would ever be to Joao. From the beginning she’d known that. Somewhere along the line she’d finally accepted it. So why did the words douse her with such icy, isolating coldness?
Joao Oliviera was the biggest shark in an immense ocean. And as with all sharks there would come a day when she would become his prey. When he would chew her up and spit her out without so much as a blink of his whisky-gold eyes before moving on. She had enough sense to rescue herself before that happened. Especially when she had a goal much closer to her heart.
‘You’re really determined to do this? To walk out on your career?’ he pressed.
She found the strength to reconnect with his gaze. ‘To leave you, yes.’
He stared at her for a long, unblinking minute before eyes that were far too shrewd leisurely travelled over her body. They lingered at the frantic pulse beating at her throat, the agitated rise and fall of her chest she couldn’t quite control, the dark purple silk of her blouse, right down to her legs and shoes before travelling back up again. This time they lingered on her hips, then her breasts, causing her flesh to tingle.
Reprieve came in the form of the phone on his desk ringing. Her inbuilt work ethic kicked in and she automatically glanced at it.
‘Leave it,’ he instructed gruffly. ‘One of your assistants can get it.’
Very early on, she’d realised the sheer volume of work Joao produced meant she had to delegate less-sensitive work to others and she’d hired two assistants who answered to her.
He leaned closer, wrapped her tighter in his intoxicating scent. ‘And nothing I can say can change your mind?’ His tone had turned deadly silky, the kind that could weave spells around her.
She shook her head. Nowhere on their trajectory did their interests collide. It was why it’d taken her years to summon up the strength to walk away.
The breakneck lifestyle Joao led was no place to make long-term plans. Certainly not one that included her yearning for a family of her own. A baby.
How many times had she booked a ski trip to Aspen only for him to ski one black run and decide he would much prefer the slopes in Switzerland, preferably that same day?
Hadn’t he woken her up in the middle of the night only a month ago and ordered her to arrange a tour of the Chilean vineyard he’d just purchased on the spur of the moment for forty million dollars? She had still been rubbing the sleep from her eyes when his private jet had taken off from his Greek island fifty minutes later.
And this relentless, sizzling awareness of him surely couldn’t be good for her health?
No, she couldn’t put this off any longer.
‘No. There’s nothing you can say to make me change my—’
‘I know this is about Morocco. Specifically the sex we had in Marrakesh, is it not?’ he enquired with a low, terse rumble that resonated deep inside her.
Saffie sagged against the door, very much aware her mouth was agape. ‘What?’ she murmured with a voice that didn’t sound like her own.
‘You can put it out of your mind, Saffie. It was a mistake that shouldn’t have happened. If you need it to satisfy you so you stay, then have my apologies,’ he continued tersely, his body held in military rigidness that didn’t in any way detract from the mouth-watering package.
‘I... No,’ she strained out.
Latin temper flared in his eyes. ‘You don’t accept my apology? Or is it the veracity of it you doubt?’
She almost laughed.
Joao was a great many things—ruthless, acerbic to the point of cruel sometimes, impossibly arrogant. Too damn good-looking for words. But in all his dealings, he had never spoken a word he didn’t mean. His core of integrity was the reason less powerful men envied him almost as much as they feared him. It was the reason she loved her job even when he slave-drove her to the brink of sanity sometimes. There was a synergy in their dynamic, a thrill that came from working so close to a brilliant mind that she never got bored with.
‘No, it’s not that,’ she stated.
She couldn’t stay.
This man was so dangerously intoxicating every atom in her body shrieked at her that anything other than walking away would be a mistake.
The Archer deal would be done in three months, sooner if Joao’s single-minded determination bore fruit.
But at what ultimate cost to her?
Her breath shuddered out.
Too high. The penalty would be too high.