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  Gregorio took a tight grasp of her arm as he opened the passenger door of the car. ‘Get in,’ he bit out between gritted teeth.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Get in the damned car, Lia, before I pick you up and put you there.’ His voice was low and controlled. As if he might start shouting if he allowed himself to speak any louder.

  It made Lia even more reluctant to put herself in the vulnerable position of being alone in his car with him. At least out here in the street she had somewhere to run.

  She raised her chin challengingly. ‘I believe you are stepping way over my line now.’ She reminded him of their conversation on Saturday.

  Those black eyes glittered dangerously. ‘You just made an outrageous accusation. One I do not intend to dignify with an answer when we are standing out here in the street, where anyone might overhear our conversation.’

  Her cheeks warmed. ‘You made the purpose of your interest in me obvious on Saturday evening. Or am I wrong in thinking you want me in your bed?’

  A nerve pulsed in his clenched jaw. ‘No, you are not wrong.’

  She nodded. ‘Which is why, after discovering you’re now my employer, I have come to the conclusion I have.’

  Gregorio never lost control. Never. He considered it a weakness to do so. And weakness could be exploited...manipulated.

  Nevertheless, he knew he was seriously in danger of losing control at this moment. No one had ever accused him of the things Lia just had. No one would ever dare. No matter what she believed, he had no reason to manipulate her into an intimate relationship with him.

  Not when he knew she felt the same desire for him that he felt for her...

  Even if it was a desire she obviously didn’t want to feel.

  Gregorio’s only motive in protecting and helping her was the fact that she no longer had anyone else in her life who would do so. The wealth she had grown up with and no doubt taken for granted was no longer there as a buffer either.

  So, yes, Gregorio might have put in a word with Michael Harrington regarding employing Lia at the hotel, but his only reason for doing so had been an effort to give her back some of what she had lost.

  For Lia to have reached the conclusion she had, that he was blackmailing her into a relationship with him as a result of his actions, was unacceptable. An insult of a kind Gregorio had never faced before.

  The nerve in his jaw throbbed. ‘We are having dinner together.’

  ‘Did you not hear what I just said?’

  ‘Of course I heard you,’ Gregorio snapped. ‘How could I do otherwise? But, as I said, I will not answer any of your accusations on a public street.’

  His bodyguards had parked their SUV behind his sports car and the two men were now standing on the pavement a short distance away, watchful and alert to any and all danger.

  ‘I have no intention of being alone with you. Anywhere,’ Lia added with finality.

  Gregorio stilled to regard her through narrowed lids. That last remark had been made so vehemently...

  Lia’s eyes were glittering brightly, her cheeks flushed and her lips full and pink. The evening was warm, and she had removed the jacket of her business suit as soon as she’d left the hotel. The cream blouse beneath was so sheer Gregorio could see the outline of her light-coloured bra. Her breasts were quickly rising and falling as she breathed deeply, the plumpness of her engorged nipples showed as a darker pink through the lace of her bra.

  Gregorio slowly moved his gaze back up to her face. ‘You want me too,’ he stated.

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Lia recoiled as if Gregorio had struck her, pulling her arm from his grasp as she did so. ‘How could I possibly want you?’ Her breathing became even more erratic. ‘When you’re the callous man who helped hound my father to his death?’

  Lia heard herself say the words, saw Gregorio’s reaction to them—his expression hardened and his eyes were once again those fathomless black pits—and all the time knew Gregorio was right. That she’d spoken so vehemently because she did want him. And she shouldn’t. For all the reasons she had just stated.

  Except her traitorous body was refusing to listen to her. Her breasts felt fuller and more sensitive and she felt the ache of arousal between her thighs.

  ‘You are lying to yourself, Lia,’ Gregorio dismissed scornfully. ‘We both know that.’

  ‘Your arrogance is only exceeded by your conceit!’

  He gave a hard smile. ‘When you are ready to hear the truth about your father I suggest you give me a call. Until then...’ He turned to nod at the two bodyguards, indicating his intention of leaving.

  ‘The truth about my father?’ This time Lia was the one to place a restraining hand on Gregorio’s arm, able to feel his tension through the soft material of his jacket. ‘What are you talking about?’

  He looked at her between narrowed lids. ‘As I said, call me when you are ready to listen.’

  ‘And my job...?’

  He drew himself up to his full height, a couple of inches over six feet. ‘Your continued employment is not conditional upon you agreeing to see me or listen to me. Or anything else.’ His mouth was a thin line.

  Lia’s hand slowly dropped back to her side. ‘I don’t understand you...’

  ‘Perhaps that is because—as you admitted the other evening—having now spoken with me, you find I do not fit with the preconceived prejudice you felt towards me?’ he taunted.

  There was some truth in that. No, there was a lot of truth in that, Lia conceded heavily. Gregorio was arrogant, and used to having—taking—whatever he wanted. But equally there had been no doubting his anger when Lia had made her accusations about his manipulating and trying to force her into a relationship with him.

  He had also been considerate and unthreatening at her apartment on Saturday evening. If he really was as ruthless as Lia had thought him to be, then surely he would have forced the issue of wanting her then? He wouldn’t have taken no for an answer when there had been a convenient bedroom just down the hallway.

  After all, she might not have been aware of it at the time, but Gregorio had already known he held all the power.

  And now he had implied that he knew something about her father that she didn’t.

  Lia gave a slight nod as she came to a decision. ‘I’ll have dinner with you in exchange for you telling me what it is you think you know about my father that I don’t.’

  She held her breath as she waited for Gregorio’s response.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘I THOUGHT WE would be having dinner in a restaurant.’ Lia looked dazedly around the interior of the luxurious de la Cruz jet she and Gregorio were now seated on, being flown off to goodness knew where after boarding the jet at a private airfield fifteen minutes ago. ‘I don’t have my passport with me.’

  ‘We are not going to land anywhere,’ Gregorio assured her. ‘And we do not need to go to a restaurant when I have persuaded Mancini to join us on board for the evening.’

  If Lia had needed any convincing that Gregorio was super-rich—up there in the stratosphere wealthy—then the private jet and exclusive services of the chef were proof enough.

  Except she hadn’t needed any further proof of this man’s wealth and power.

  ‘We’re just going to fly around while we eat our meal?’

  ‘Why not?’ He shrugged. ‘It ensures our privacy.’

  Privacy was the last thing Lia wanted with this particular man. A man she knew was starting to get to her, in spite of herself.

  Gregorio knew the information he had about Lia’s father was her only reason for allowing him to take her to dinner. Unfortunately his self-control was currently balanced on a very fine edge where Lia was concerned.

  She hurled her insults at him as barbs meant to wound. They had succeeded in doing that, but her open defiance of him had also deepened the desire Gregorio felt to make love with her. To be consumed by the fire that burned between them whenever they were alone together. He wanted to strip every item of clothing f
rom her body and gorge himself on her succulent flesh before burning in those flames.

  ‘Now will you tell me what you think you know about my father that I don’t?’

  His gaze became guarded. ‘Our agreement was that we would have dinner first.’

  She gave a frustrated sigh. ‘In that case we might as well eat.’

  ‘So gracious,’ Gregorio drawled as he stood up to remove his jacket.

  A delicate blush coloured her cheeks. ‘Why don’t you just open and pour the wine?’ she instructed him abruptly.

  ‘Do you like to take charge in bed too?’

  ‘Gregorio!’ She gasped.

  He raised speculative brows as he opened the white wine cooling in the galley, revealing none of the pleasure he felt at hearing her use his given name for the first time. ‘I wasn’t complaining. I merely wish to be pre-warned if that is the case.’

  She looked more flustered than ever. ‘I didn’t accept your invitation—I’m only here because you promised to give me information about my father,’ she reminded him flatly.

  ‘All the while knowing how much I want you.’

  ‘I was only—I didn’t—Why do you always have to turn everything back to—?’

  ‘My wanting you?’ Gregorio finished softly. ‘Perhaps because possessing you has obsessed my mind for some time now.’

  She snorted. ‘I find that very hard to believe!’

  He poured the wine into two glasses before pushing one towards her, an indication that she should drink some of it. ‘That I want you? Or that I have thought of you constantly since I first saw you?’

  ‘I was engaged to another man!’

  Gregorio gave a brief glance at her bare left hand. ‘An engagement is not a marriage.’

  ‘Obviously not,’ she acknowledged heavily. ‘But I find it difficult to believe you felt an instant attraction to a woman you had only just met.’

  ‘Possibly because you prefer to continue believing me a man capable of hounding people to their deaths.’

  She winced at this reminder of her earlier accusations. ‘Talking of possessing someone—me—isn’t exactly normal behaviour,’ she defended.

  ‘You would prefer that I flatter and seduce you with words before I attempt to make love to you?’

  ‘That’s the way it’s usually done, yes.’

  He gave a dismissive shake of his head. ‘I have no time for such games.’

  ‘And, personally, I would prefer it if you never referred to the subject again.’

  ‘Then you are lying to yourself.’

  ‘You—’

  ‘Would you like me to show you how much you are lying?’

  ‘No!’ Lia could see the raw passion burning in his dark gaze.

  He drew in a deep breath as he continued to study her for several long seconds. ‘Drink some of your wine,’ he finally encouraged huskily.

  ‘And you call me bossy!’ She eyed him impatiently.

  He studied her over the rim of his glass as he took a sip of what proved to be a very good glass of white wine. He waited until Mancini had served their first course before speaking again. ‘You believe me to be a male chauvinist?’

  She grimaced. ‘Maybe it’s just a cultural difference?’

  ‘You do not believe that any more than I do,’ he observed dryly. ‘And you should have met my father—compared to him I am a fully enlightened man who believes in equal opportunity for all three sexes.’

  ‘He’s...no longer with you?’

  ‘Neither of my parents is still alive.’ Gregorio inwardly berated himself for unthinkingly introducing the painful subject of the death of a parent. ‘My father believed it was my mother’s role to be a wife to him and to bring up their three sons.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  Lia took her glass of wine. Their conversation was far too personal for her liking. Combining that with how casually dressed Gregorio was this evening, this situation—the private jet, the personal chef—was all too disturbing for her peace of mind.

  ‘My mother ensured my two brothers and I have a more modern attitude.’ Gregorio shrugged. ‘For instance, she insisted all of us learn how to cook.’

  ‘How did your father react to that?’

  ‘As a man who had never had to learn how to so much as boil an egg, he was horrified,’ Gregorio recalled with one of those smiles that changed his face from austerely attractive to devastatingly handsome. ‘My mother loved my father enough to allow him to believe he was the patriarch of the family, when in actual fact she was the one who decided what, when, where and how.’

  ‘She sounds amazing.’

  Gregorio heard the wistful note in her voice—a reminder that Lia had grown up without a mother. It seemed as if every subject they touched upon had the potential to blow up in his face.

  ‘She was,’ he dismissed briskly.

  ‘But you’ve never married?’

  ‘There has been no time for a woman in my life.’

  ‘That isn’t what the newspapers say!’

  ‘I was referring to a woman I might wish to marry.’

  ‘Rather than go to bed with?’

  His jaw tightened. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What happened to the woman you were having dinner with that night at the restaurant?’

  ‘Happened to her...?’

  Lia nodded. ‘She looked nice.’

  Gregorio’s company had been in negotiations to buy Fairbanks Industries for some weeks before he had recognised Jacob Fairbanks in the restaurant that evening. Both of them had been dining with other people. David Richardson was known to him as Fairbanks’s lawyer. But he’d never before met the woman seated between the two men.

  She had been exquisite.

  Gregorio had seen his dining companion seated before immediately going over to Fairbanks’s table to seek an introduction to the beautiful redhead. Amelia Fairbanks—Jacob’s daughter. And the lawyer was her fiancé.

  When Amelia had stood up to go to the powder room half an hour later, Gregorio hadn’t been able to resist following her. Or kissing her. Only to receive an angry slap to his cheek as soon as the kiss had ended.

  The evening hadn’t gone at all as Gregorio had originally intended it should. Not only had he mainly ignored his dining companion for the rest of the evening, in favour of staring at Amelia Fairbanks, but he had also put the other woman in a taxi as soon as they’d left the restaurant, rather than accepting her invitation to go back to her apartment for the night.

  He straightened. ‘I never saw her again after that evening.’ Nor had he dated any other women in the past few months.

  ‘Why not?’

  He gave her a pointed glance. ‘Because I saw you that night and I wanted you.’

  Lia turned away from the intensity of that dark gaze. ‘I can’t imagine you allowing anyone—least of all me—to disrupt a single part of your life.’

  ‘Can’t you?’

  She was so aware of everything about this man she was finding it hard to maintain the distance necessary if she was going to continue resisting him. Even more so after those revelations about his parents and his childhood. She didn’t want to know things about Gregorio’s life, to think of him as having been a child with loving parents and two younger brothers he had no doubt argued and fought with but would likely defend to the death if one of them was in danger. Knowing those things made him more a flesh-and-blood man and less the ruthless monster, Gregorio de la Cruz. Which had no doubt been his intention all along.

  She must never forget who or what he was. Nor that he had revealed himself as someone who was not averse to using manipulation and machination to get what he wanted. And there could be no doubt now that he wanted her.

  She glared at him. ‘I’m not interested.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ she snapped, seeing his knowing expression. But she knew he was right; she could never remember being this aware of a man before. Ever.

  She had known David for over a year before he’d as
ked her out and she’d accepted. They had dated for another year before he proposed and she had accepted. They had been engaged for just over a month before David had invited her back to spend the night at his apartment, and again she had accepted.

  Up until the night David had ended their engagement he had been every inch the gentleman throughout the whole of their courtship.

  Gregorio wasn’t a gentlemen, and nor did he ever ask for anything he wanted. He just assumed it was his right and took it.

  But wasn’t it better that way?

  To be simply swept off one’s feet and not have to think about whether or not it was sensible, or consider the possible repercussions—?

  No, of course it wasn’t! Now that Lia was completely on her own it was even more important for her to be on her guard. Most especially so with Gregorio de la Cruz.

  * * *

  ‘You cheated,’ Lia complained two hours later as she let the two of them into her apartment.

  ‘I merely suggested we bring dessert back here.’ Gregorio followed her inside.

  ‘And so delayed answering my questions for even longer. Well, don’t make yourself too comfortable,’ she warned as Gregorio sat down at the breakfast bar. ‘Because you aren’t staying.’

  ‘You are bossy in bed,’ he said knowingly.

  ‘You’ll never know,’ she assured him tersely.

  Gregorio made no reply. Why bother contradicting her when it would only lead to another disagreement? When he was fully aware that Lia, in spite of herself, wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  Besides, he could afford to concede a single battle when he had no intention of losing the war.

  ‘Do you want any dessert?’

  ‘I couldn’t eat another thing after that delicious meal.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ She put the dessert in the fridge before straightening. ‘I’ve had dinner with you, fulfilled my part of the agreement, now it’s time for you to start talking.’