‘You will come back to me,’ he said, taking a step closer.
‘Not a chance.’
‘You will be my lover again.’
‘Don’t tell me what I will do! This is my city, my world. Here, I decide.’
‘And I tell you now, you will decide to come back to me.’
She crossed to the door on knees that threatened to buckle beneath her, opened it and let the noise of the outside world in. It was a welcome intrusion, loud and full of the pulse of the city, a reminder that the world didn’t begin and end with Alejandro, whatever he thought. ‘I think it’s time you were leaving.’
His passage to the door took much less time than hers but he didn’t exit as she’d hoped. Instead he stood in the doorway, regarding her solemnly. ‘I will go,’ he said, with such an air of finality that part of her wanted to weep. With relief, she tried to tell herself. But her nerves were too jangling and raw, and the thought that Alejandro might blow out of her life just as quickly as he’d blown in was somehow too much to come to terms with.
‘My car will pick you up at six o’clock. Don’t keep the driver waiting.’
So close to achieving her goal, his words were like a punch to the gut, sending her already scattered emotions further into disarray. ‘I don’t believe you. Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve been saying?’
‘I heard, but it makes no difference to me.’
‘This isn’t about you!’
‘No? Perhaps on that point we can agree. What if it was about your brother?’
She reeled back. ‘What do you know of Jordan?’
His eyes gleamed like a fisherman who’d just landed the first catch of the day. ‘We will discuss it tonight.’ He turned and made a move to comply with her request to leave. Except now she couldn’t let him.
She reached a hand out and latched on to his lean forearm, his muscled power evident even through the fine merino cloth of his coat. ‘Alejandro!’
He turned, his eyes sweeping enquiringly up from her hand to her face.
‘Please,’ she said, dropping her hand, knowing that it would be madness to meet him tonight, knowing the more time she spent with him, the more he would whittle down her shaky defences. ‘Tell me now.’
‘We will discuss it over dinner. I will take you somewhere to eat.’ His eyes flicked mercilessly over her. ‘You need filling out.’
‘Tell me now, or I won’t come.’
‘Oh, I think you will.’
And of course he was right. There was no way he was going to tell her until she complied with what he wanted. It was the way Alejandro worked, she knew. Never giving the opposition a chance. It was the reason he was so successful in business. It was the reason he was so successful in everything. Why should he treat her any differently? But a meeting was one thing. Going out for dinner with Alejandro was something else entirely.
She glanced down at herself, taking in her well-worn shoes, her denim skirt and casual shirt. Alejandro was not the type to eat at fast food chains, and that was all she was dressed for. ‘I can’t go out like this. I’ll go home first, get changed.’ Into what, she had no idea. She’d left the glitz and glamour of her mistress lifestyle in her dressing room at his villa.
‘You will not go home. You will come as you are. Just be ready when my car arrives.’
‘But—’
‘Six o’clock,’ he said.
‘Look, just so we understand each other. I’ll have dinner with you. I’ll hear what you have to say about Jordan. But I’m not changing my mind. I won’t come back to you.’
He looked down at her knowingly. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, and then he was gone.
She closed the door behind him and leaned against it, watching him slice his way through the crowded sidewalk, beautiful and black and oblivious to the stares and head-turns his passing generated. She watched him until he was absorbed into the city.
She sighed and rested her forehead against the cool glass. Jordan was up to his eyeballs in debt, just days away from the deadline to repay the money he’d borrowed—days away from who knew what disaster if he didn’t? And the last person she wanted to see, the man she’d broken ties with to save herself, Alejandro, was here, insisting she come back and press-ganging her into seeing him again.
Could things possibly get any worse?
* * *
He burned for her. His car banished, his stride ate up the Sydney streets. The wind whipped around him, but it couldn’t banish his heat; it couldn’t consume his need. Nothing could. He wanted her, and after seeing her he wanted her more than ever.
And he could have had her.
If she hadn’t pulled away, telling him she didn’t want him—lying to him—he would have had her there and then. Once more he would have felt her sweet tightness embrace him as no other woman could. Because she wanted him, he knew. He had known it from the first moment he had walked into her store, had read her own hunger in her eyes.
She needed him, no matter how much she pretended otherwise. He looked around for a street sign, getting his bearings. A woman caught his eye, smiled up at him. He scowled back and veered right.
But he had been right to come. Mentally he applauded the board’s decision to expand its casino operations into Australia. Tomorrow he was due in Queensland. And tonight he would get Leah back in his bed.
Soon her resistance would fall away. Soon she would have every reason to comply with his demands. And victory would be all the sweeter for the wait.
But right now he burned.
And he would not wait long!
Leah had never travelled to or from work in such style. She felt ridiculous, being ushered into the black limousine on a bow from the uniformed driver as if she were someone special instead of just another no-name, struggling for existence and survival in the big city. If it weren’t for the fact she needed to find out what Alejandro knew about Jordan, she would have refused point-blank to get in the car.
Especially for a six o’clock dinner. Not once in all the time she’d been with him had they eaten so early. What was the rush?
Fifteen minutes later the car pulled up at one of Sydney’s top hotels, making her feel even shabbier. She poked some stray tendrils that had escaped from her ponytail behind her ears as the driver came round to open her door, and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to quell the butterflies that had taken possession of her stomach at the prospect of seeing Alejandro again.
A smiling woman in a white fitted uniform met her as she alighted, holding out her hand. ‘Ms Mitchell? I’m Belinda from the beauty spa. Would you like to come with me?’
Leah looked to the driver, but he merely tipped his hat at her before curling himself into the driver’s seat. ‘I thought I was meeting Mr Rodriguez.’
Belinda smiled. ‘We have orders to deliver you to his suite no later than eight p.m.—which means we’d better get started. He’s ordered you the works.’
‘Has he?’ Leah bristled as she fell into step behind the woman. So, not only did he consider her scrawny and needing feeding up, now she needed a makeover before he’d be prepared to be seen in public with her. How very flattering.
Then again, anything that put off her meeting with Alejandro couldn’t be a bad thing. And a session in the beauty spa need not only be for Alejandro’s benefit. Anything that improved her self-esteem and made her feel at less of a disadvantage could only help her own cause.
She handed over her clothes