An Heir for the World's Richest Man, page 9
It was a neat segue for Joao. ‘We’ll be honoured to join you. And I too must insist you let me treat you to a special dinner to mark the occasion.’
For a hardened businesswoman, Lavinia proved no woman was above Joao Oliviera’s charms when she blushed. ‘I’d like that.’
‘Sim. We will leave you to enjoy your gift.’
He caught Saffron’s arm and they headed outside to the waiting limo.
Beside her, he lounged but she wasn’t deceived by his casual stance. Restlessness prowled his frame, and, in direct effect, escalated her own nerves.
To counteract that, she slid open her tablet. ‘I’ll organise entertainment for Lavinia while she’s in Shanghai and I’ll get started on something to mark the blooming—’
‘I don’t wish to talk about Lavinia. There is such a thing as over-preparation. There comes a time when you need to leave things to play out naturally. Don’t you think?’
Saffie frowned. She’d never known Joao not to fine-tune a deal or meeting despite knowing his stuff inside out. But her emotions were still dangerously close to the surface. She risked letting herself down if she didn’t borrow a leaf from his book and go with the flow.
She cleared her throat. ‘Okay, what would you like to discuss?’
He angled his body towards her, dousing her with that unique scent that made her head spin. When his gaze lingered on the bold red lipstick the stylist had insisted was the only colour to wear with the dress, her blood rushed faster through her veins.
‘Your mid-year review is coming up.’
She opened her mouth but he stopped her with a slash of his hand.
‘Regardless of whether you intend to leave in three months or not, a review is necessary.’
Apprehension skittered over her. Everything suddenly felt wrong. ‘You want to do that now? In the fifteen minutes before we return to the hotel?’
He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘You doubt my ability to be efficient?’
‘I question your need to do it now, without a member of HR present, as per the company’s guidelines.’
He shrugged. ‘Call this an informal one, then.’
Before she could object, he carried on. ‘One of your tasks is to take inventory and assess the efficiency of my homes around the world, sim?’
‘Of course. Did I miss something in my report?’ He had twenty-seven residences, all in tip-top shape with a full complement of staff should he be struck with a sudden urge to take a rare vacation.
‘According to the latest report, I haven’t used my Amalfi Coast property in two years. I’ve instructed for it to be transferred into your name.’
She went cold, her jaw sagging for several mind-numbing seconds. ‘My mid-year bonus is a nine-million-euro mansion?’
He scowled at her screechy response. ‘No need for hysteria. A simple thank you will suffice. And considering your trying behaviour this week, you can add further thanks for my magnanimity.’
‘There’s been nothing wrong with my behaviour. I know you said you don’t care about appearances but I’d thank you not to scream what happened in Morocco from the rooftops.’
His gaze grew cool. ‘I wasn’t aware I was doing any such thing.’
‘A twenty-bedroom mansion doesn’t scream discreet, Joao. It screams pay-off for services rendered,’ she hissed under her breath, aware of the driver’s presence.
Joao hit the partition button, ensuring she was even more alone with him than her excitable senses suggested was wise. ‘Don’t make it a bigger deal than it is, Saffie. I’m simply rewarding you for your hard work. You will do well to remember that and be grateful.’
‘This isn’t ingratitude, Joao. This is...way over the top. And if this is in reaction to Will, it’s not necessary.’
His tension spiked and she berated herself for mentioning Will. It was clear the other man irritated Joao. Had she done it deliberately, to get a rise out of him?
To what end? To see if he felt something?
‘Nevertheless, it is done. My lawyers are in the process of drawing up the papers.’
He said the words with a finality that sent a heavy dose of apprehension skittering over her nerves. ‘Joao—’
He wrapped his hands on her upper arms, a dark intimacy trapping them as he brought her flush against his body. ‘You’re right, it vexes me that Ashby keeps attempting to steal what’s mine. But he’s not worthy of my attention and you won’t go to him because he’ll never challenge you the way I do. Now, I’m completely weary of this new argumentative side to you, Saffie. So do me a favour, and stop, hmm?’
Affronted, she opened her mouth to do the opposite. He countered with a simple, devastating act of sealing her mouth with his, stealing her protest and every thought in her head as blazing sensation flared wild and wide through her body.
He made a gruff noise and she realised she’d parted her lips to let him in, her ready invitation crackling the flames higher, straining her body closer to absorb more of the heady sensation.
Where was her circumspection? Her willpower?
Non-existent when it came to him, she was quickly realising.
She needed to get herself under control...and fast.
Because existing in this wild and unfettered state of sensual addiction was dangerous to every single goal she held dear.
CHAPTER FIVE
HE HAD TAKEN clean leave of his senses, allowing that burr of imbalance and dissatisfaction that had taken hold of him recently to inform his actions in a way he hadn’t acted since his favela days when rash decisions had regularly landed him in trouble.
But this was trouble of the most delicious kind. Trouble he wanted to dive headlong into and feast on, regardless of the consequences.
Sim...the kind that could alter his short-and long-term plans, pave way for his father to get the better of their battle of wills, if he wasn’t careful.
He shuddered as Saffie’s fingers spiked into his hair, gripping it with a silent demand and breathless enthusiasm that fired his blood and dragged a groan from his throat.
The sound froze them both, their tongues halting that control-shredding dance he yearned to continue. But knew he couldn’t.
He needed a little clarity.
Jeopardising this final defining battle with his father was out of the question.
Already he was on edge over his inability to stop thinking about bedding Saffie. That little incident in his study and her calling a halt to it had grated, but uninhibited fumbling in the back of his limo only attested to how badly she affected his control.
With superhuman effort, he eased her away.
Her lips were swollen, beautifully bruised, slick and ripe for another tasting. He hardened painfully, his manhood demanding satisfaction of the most carnal kind with an insistence he hadn’t experienced in a long while.
He wanted to have her, to give and receive pleasure, to hear her cry out in that husky voice that set his body aflame.
And the fever of it bewildered him in the extreme.
At his continued perusal, a blush suffused her face. The force with which he wanted to trace that heightened colour with his tongue had him setting her back in her seat.
Meu Deus. Where was the care he’d vowed to take? Where was the reminder that this kind of dangerous blind lust was how he himself had come into being? That, like his father, one time hadn’t been enough. That Pueblo had given into his baser urges repeatedly until Joao had been created? And then and only then had the man who sired him selfishly slithered away from his responsibilities?
Não, he wouldn’t slip down the same path.
For the rest of the journey, he directed his gaze out of the window, stared blindly at the water taxis and boats sailing the Huangpu River as he fought to bring his body back under control.
He exhaled in relief when the driver pulled up to the hotel entrance a few minutes later. He alighted, helped her out and strode quickly for the private lift that serviced his suite.
She didn’t speak on their way up.
And he, Joao Oliviera, the man who’d talked himself out of more tricky situations in his precarious youth than he could count, was inarticulate in the grip of unrelenting lust.
He laughed grimly to himself, then even that amusement evaporated when he found he couldn’t take his gaze off the racing pulse at her throat. Or her very delectable backside and swaying hips as she exited the lift, the train of her dress caught up in one hand.
Pelo amor de Deus...
He dismissed the hovering butler when they entered the suite, and turned to her, but Saffie got there first.
‘This needs to stop,’ she announced, her chin raised. ‘We have to find a way to be civil without this...thing between us.’
He clenched his jaw. ‘I agree.’
‘You do?’
He should’ve been pleased at her quickly disguised disappointment. But the need to reverse his own statement almost as soon as he’d uttered it pulled him up short.
He’d fought for her to stay his right hand so he could show Pueblo once and for all that he was more than worthy of the name he’d wished to deprive him off. That he was miles better than any Oliviera. That if he chose to change his name tomorrow, the world would bow to whoever he reinvented himself as.
That if he ever had a child of his own he would—
The alien thought, springing from nowhere, froze him in place.
Doce paraíso!
Why? And why now when even abstract thoughts of children had been dismissed with chilling rejection in the past?
Was it Saffie? Had the thought of his assistant flouncing off to create a family at some point in the future crept insidiously into his own subconscious, pushing him to question his own mortality and legacy?
Impossível.
‘Joao? Are you all right?’
He throttled back his scowl. ‘I don’t want any distractions to jeopardise the Archer deal. Lavinia might have been bowled over by the event tonight but we need to capitalise on the advantage, especially in Brazil.’
She dropped the train of her dress, eyes that were more green than blue tonight assessing. ‘Because your father will be there?’ she probed.
‘Because he’ll know by morning that I’ve stepped up the pressure and he will be doing likewise.’
‘And you want to win, at all costs?’
The question was soft, curious, unlike any tone she’d used on him before. Absurdly that eroded some of his anger. Not enough, of course, to make him forget that she was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. ‘That is none of your business.’
Her chin went up, a taunting little act that made him want to breach the space between them, taste her defiance for himself, then make her yield with soft moans.
‘Isn’t it? Didn’t you all but beg me to stay just so you could achieve this...whatever vendetta you have against your father?’
‘Watch it, Saffie.’
A shadow crossed her eyes and he felt the sting of regret briefly before he stemmed it.
‘It may be none of my business but I think you know I care enough about yours to know I won’t betray your confidence. Or use anything you tell me in any way other than to help you achieve your goals.’
‘Even if you won’t approve of them?’
‘Would it matter to you?’
Sim, it would. The grim realisation disconcerted him, enough for him to jam his hands into his pockets. Beyond the window, Shanghai’s spectacular night-time view was a feast for the senses. His gaze skittered over the Bund, Pudong’s distinct skyline and the beautifully illuminated outline of City God Temple.
But he wanted a different feast entirely, one that started and ended with gorging on Saffron’s body, slaking this hunger overtaking his body and threatening to take over his mind.
His manhood throbbed behind his fly, eagerly offering its consent on the very subject he was fighting. In the window’s reflection, he saw her hand rise to her chignon, stroke it nervously. It was a mannerism he realised he’d spotted before but not clocked. What else hadn’t he clocked about his assistant?
And why this need to appease her by way of personal divulgences? He had nothing to prove to her.
Conversely, he had nothing to lose by giving her a little insight into his motivations. After all, if it helped her better serve him, where was the harm?
‘My father informed me when I was ten that I would amount to nothing.’ The words rubbed his throat raw but he smothered the pain. Just as he’d ignored the burrs scraping the wounds of his past. It was baggage he’d had to leave behind lest it dragged him down.
Behind him, Saffie gasped. ‘Why would he do that?’
He laughed, a grating sound etched in bitterness he couldn’t stem. ‘Most likely because of who else helped to sire me? Or perhaps it was because my conception wasn’t part of the dirty little tryst he had going on with my mother, if you could even call it that. Except I came along and ruined his perfect life and he decided he’d never fail to remind me where I came from.’
He turned around in time to see her tongue sweep across her lower lip, a distracting action as she grappled with what he’d divulged. ‘So he and your mother...had an affair?’
He laughed again. ‘An affair? That’s a little too civilised a term. My mother was a prostitute, Saffie. They met on a seedy street corner, where she traded her wares near the favela where I was born, purely to fuel her drug habit.’
Understanding dawned on her face. ‘And your father didn’t want to know?’
Bitter tunnelled deeper. ‘Of course not. I was the physical manifestation of his recurring weakness. The no-hoper whose geographic circumstances meant I had two choices. Become a drug addict or become a drug dealer.’
‘You chose neither option, obviously.’
He started to laugh again but the scar in his palm tingled with a force he hadn’t felt since his teenage days. He pulled out his hand and stared down at the jagged white line. The mark that had changed his life. ‘No. But it was a very close call.’
‘How did you get out of it?’
She’d ventured closer, enough for him to inhale that stimulating scent that seemed programmed to attack his defences.
Voce parece sublime...
She was beyond sublime and he didn’t want to further stain her with his past, especially not with secrets he’d guarded with fervent zeal so far. Secrets he would prefer to take to his grave.
‘Through the magnanimity of a stranger. That’s all you need to know.’
He read the hurt in her eyes and steeled himself against it.
‘But your father...what he said...’
He shrugged. ‘I decided to prove him wrong. He didn’t take the lesson very well. I intend to repeat it until he accepts—’
‘You? That’s what you want, isn’t it? For him to accept you?’ she asked softly.
Something fierce tightened in his midriff. Try as he might, Joao couldn’t dismiss it.
‘Pueblo Oliviera would find that as difficult as swallowing the moon, so no. That’s not my aim. But I want him to accept that he will lose every time he pits himself against me. That by the time I’m done we will both know who is the victor.’
A sort of bewildered understanding widened in her eyes, tinged with sadness. Again, he dismissed it.
He didn’t need her understanding. Or whatever misplaced sympathy she wanted to bestow on him.
He repeated those words to himself as he approached her. At her nervous glance, he nodded at her necklace. ‘Turn around, let me help you with that. Unless you intend to sleep with this on?’ Immediately images flashed in his mind of her wearing nothing but the necklace that highlighted her beauty.
When she complied and presented her back to him, it took every control-gathering technique he could summon not to bend his head and trail his lips over her delicate nape. Not to bury his nose in the curve of her neck and inhale deeply, infuse her in his senses.
He completed his task, handed the necklace over and stepped back.
She faced him again, and seemed as if she would push the conversation.
But her eyes widened suddenly, her hand going to her mouth.
He frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
Her hand dropped and she shook her head abruptly. ‘Nothing. I think something I ate disagreed with me.’
He watched her take a breath, then two. He started to reach for her but she danced out of his way. His jaw clenched. ‘Would you like me to summon the doctor?’
‘No. I’m fine. It’ll pass, I’m sure.’ With an abrupt goodnight, she left him standing in the middle of the living room.
Alone, Joao willed his turbulent senses and heightened libido to settle. But ten minutes of pacing later, he was nowhere near calm.
Work.
That always produced welcome challenges. He could look into Ashby’s business, for instance. Embroil the other man in a tussle that would teach him a lesson not to sniff around what didn’t belong to him.
He grimaced when not even that spiked an ounce of interest. Everything pressing had been taken care of by Saffie leaving him with a rare freedom he should take advantage of.
But whatever peace he’d hoped for by retreating to his suite, he was woefully denied as night tumbled into dawn.
As he found himself outside Saffie’s door, knocking softly before cracking the door open to find her sleeping peacefully.
As he returned to his suite, unable to shake the grim truth from his mind.
Saffie Everhart was well and truly under his skin.
* * *
The nausea that had threatened last night in the living room propelled Saffie out of bed moments after she’d opened her eyes. It was strong, immediate and shocking enough to leave her weak and clinging to the porcelain by the time she was done retching.
