“There’s something I wished I’d done before you left my room that night,” he said with a hard set to his jaw.
“What’s that?” she asked, lifting her gaze with surprise.
“I should have said goodbye properly.” His hand arrived at her waist and the other cradled the side of her neck, dragging her close.
Time turned to gelatin, making each movement slow and deliberate and profound. Her hands slid upward of their own accord, arriving at his shoulders to twine around his neck. She rose on tiptoe, offering her mouth without speaking another word, and dove her hand into the hair at the back of his head, urging him down.
Because she had longed for this, too. She had needed to know if it had been as good as she imagined.
It was.
As his lips sealed over hers, a sob left her, one of pain because the electric sensation of kissing him was too intense. It rang like a bell through her arms and across her chest, urging her grip to tighten around his neck. To cling. Because they couldn’tdothis.
For a long minute they did, though. They held fast to each other while they saidhelloandI rememberandgoodbyein the same long, poignant kiss. The thickness of his erection nudged against her aching mound and he could have easily taken her to her bed. She was ready to drag him there herself.
But he drew back abruptly, as though being wrenched from her by an invisible force.
It stung like a tear. Her heart pounded loud enough to deafen her ears. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to face the inevitable. Not wanting him to see how utterly he owned her when he was, once again, the one pulling away.
She heard him take one shaken breath and the door closed behind him.
“See you tomorrow,” she whispered.
Chapter Six
Joaquin couldn’t afforda single misstep. Lorenzo had retreated to his town house after the board overthrew him, but he was back at the office in the morning with a phalanx of lawyers, trying to retake his mantle.
Joaquin was no longer the teenaged boy with a black eye and nothing in his pockets, though. He had his own resources. He met his father inside the revolving door to the street with his own lawyers, a half dozen security guards and a “go quietly and this is yours” settlement offer.
After taking the envelope from Oladele, he held it out.
Lorenzo knocked it from his hand, berating him loudly for all the staff to hear as they hurried in from the street and headed to the elevator.
“You’re making a fool of yourself.” Joaquin cut through his tirade. “Take that offer. It includes a profit share in the estate in La Rioja and expires at midnight.”
His father’s hair nearly came off his head. “You can’t take that from me! I gave it to your brother. It comes back to me.”
“It will be secured in trust for your grandchildren.” The sprawling vineyard was highly profitable and was another reason Lorenzo had pressured Zurina to marry him. “If you want a benefit from it, take that offer.” Joaquin nodded at the floor, refusing to pick up the envelope.
“You think you’re getting the better of me, don’t you?” Lorenzo stepped forward to poke his chest.
“I’ve never seen anything but the worst of you.” Joaquin curled his lip. “Touch me again and you’ll see the worst ofme.”
As he stared down his father, his inner antennae prickled. Siobhan walked by in his periphery.
Joaquin didn’t look, but he caught tall boots kicking a tweed skirt as she circled their group. Their kiss last night had tasted like champagne and hunger. Like the things they’d done when they had wrecked a hotel bed. Like the things he wanted to do with her again.
Leaving her last night had nearly pulled his soul from his body. He’d definitely left a piece of himself there with her.
But even though he felt her gaze on him, he didn’tallowhimself to look at her. It would betray his interest to Lorenzo.
Lorenzo looked at her, though. Among his thousands of faults, he was a lecher for young women, which was objectionable any day of the week. Today his attention on Siobhan was beyond galling. It was revolting.
“Leave now,” Joaquin said in gritty warning.
Lorenzo swung his gaze back to Joaquin’s, teeth bared in a sneer. He was trying to work out whether Joaquin’s hostility was purely due to his presence here or if it had gone up a notch upon Siobhan’s arrival.
Oladele picked up the envelope and handed it to one of Lorenzo’s lawyers.
