The Guardian's Virgin Ward

“I’m not bohemian.” She laughed as if he’d told her a joke. “At all.”

“On that we agree. It was one thing to hide behind a false name while you were in school. This is not school any longer, Liliana. How long did you really think it would take for someone to discover who you are and use it against you? And let us be clear. When I say against you, what I mean is against the company, which is the same thing as against me.”

She shook her head at him as if he was being ridiculous. As if he, Izar Agustin, renowned the world over for his business acumen and corporate vision, was capable of being any such thing.

“I moved in here five months ago and, so far, the only undesirable person to discover me is you.”

“That is where you are wrong.” He tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but he saw her stiffen. He tried and failed to regret the fact he clearly got to her, too. “Why do you think I am here?”

“Because you live to stamp on dreams and ruin lives, I assume. Mine in particular. You know, the usual.”

“Of course.” It was amazing how hard it was to hold on to his temper tonight, truly astonishing. “And because I was approached by a piece of tabloid journalist scum who told me he intended to run a vile little article on how I took over the company and consigned the much-adored if seldom-seen Brooks heiress to a life of poverty and toil. Right here in this grimy little hellhole.” Izar did nothing to soften his scowl. He didn’t even try. “I assured him that was not possible, as no one would describe your parents’ perfectly good brownstone in Greenwich Village as grimy, much less a hole of any kind. Imagine my surprise to discover that you did not live there, as you had assured me you did following your graduation. In writing. I was forced to track you down. To this place. Which is so much worse than a mere grimy hole it defies description.”

He didn’t know what he expected. But it wasn’t for Liliana to do nothing for a moment. Then, after another long moment, blow out a breath and roll her eyes as if what he’d said was...annoying. Nothing more than annoying.

He felt his entire body go taut in disbelief.

“The Brooks heiress can go to hell,” she announced, and Izar noticed she swayed ever so slightly on her feet as she made this proclamation. He’d thought she’d looked a bit flushed before, hadn’t he? “And so can you.”

“Liliana.” Her name was a grim thing in his mouth. “Are you drunk?”

“Certainly not.” She moved across the room and placed the mostly empty wineglass she’d been clutching in one fist on her desktop. With rather more theatric care than was strictly necessary. “I may have had a glass of wine. Like any grown-ass woman over the age of twenty-one in this country, not that it’s any of your concern.”

“I think you’ll find it is, in fact, my concern. As is everything else you do. This is unacceptable, all of this. I trusted you.”

“You did not trust me.” Her back was an unfortunately fascinating line, graceful and supple and—stop this. Now. “You delivered a set of instructions you expected me to obey because I always have before. Your failure to notice that I’m not actually as spineless and obedient as you’d like me to be is your issue, not mine. But that’s what happens when you abandon someone for a decade.”

“Again, it appears I must correct you. My issues are your issues when and if I say they are.”

She turned back to face him then, her gaze dark. “Enjoy yourself while you can, Izar. The clock is ticking. You only have two years left to bully me. What happens when your time runs out?”

He had the urge to put his hands on her and show her exactly what could happen—

But no. Of course he did no such thing. He was her guardian, not an animal. And he hadn’t let passion rule him so completely since he was a small boy kicking footballs against crumbling, graffiti-covered walls in his run-down neighborhood, imagining that might transport him out of his dreary life as the unwanted charity case in his resentful uncle’s overcrowded home.

He wasn’t about to backslide now. Not even for the surprisingly intriguing woman his ward had gone and become without his permission.

“This conversation is over,” he informed her, with the expectation of instant obedience. “I’m taking you out of this place at once. I’d suggest you pack a bag now, while I’m feeling generous.”

She didn’t move. She didn’t react at all, in fact, which was far more intriguing than it ought to have been. An alarm went off inside him, deep and low.

“I’m not a grieving twelve-year-old any longer, Izar,” she said mildly enough, though her blue eyes flashed. “I’m not going to meekly bow my head and let you toss me away into some mausoleum on a mountaintop because you find my existence troublesome. Not again.”

“Will you not?” he asked with soft menace. “Are you quite sure?”

He thought she shivered slightly at that, but if she did she covered it in an instant.

“You control the company. My birthright.” Did he imagine the edge in her voice on that last word? He knew he did not imagine the way her eyes flashed at him. “But you no longer control me.”

Izar could think of any number of ways to control her—but none of them were the least bit appropriate. He gritted his teeth.

“Careful, Liliana. It is up to me, after all, to determine whether or not your claim to your shares should be honored when you turn twenty-five. If I think you’re not up to the challenge of it, I can keep you at arm’s length for another five years. Or did you not bother to read the fine print of the birthright you are suddenly so interested in?”

“Is that a threat?” she threw right back at him. “Somehow, I’m not surprised. It doesn’t matter. Threaten me all you want. I’m not letting you lock me away in another prison. It’s not going to happen.”

“Then throw a fit,” he invited her. “Like the stroppy child you are so determined to pretend you are not. It will not affect the outcome in any way.”

He shrugged as if he didn’t care what she did. Because he never had before and he shouldn’t now, damn it. He slid his phone out of his pocket and dialed his driver, then lifted the phone to his ear.

Only to watch in sheer astonishment as Liliana closed the distance between them as if she wasn’t at all intimidated by him, lifted her slender hand and then swatted his mobile out of his grip.

The phone hurtled through the air, making an arc across the quiet bedroom. It seemed to take a lifetime, or perhaps that was simply his disbelief. But then it hit the hardwood floor with a clattering sound and skidded out of sight beneath the bed.

For a moment they both stood there and stared. Her chest rose and fell, threatening the neckline that was already too low for Izar’s peace of mind. The color was high on her cheeks and there was something hectic in her gaze, making her eyes entirely too blue. She looked wild, untamed. Golden and gorgeous.

She looked like something straight out of his favorite fantasies.

He was losing his grip.

“That,” Izar said distinctly, and through his teeth, “was unwise.”

“I want to live here,” Liliana told him fiercely, too much passion in her voice, her eyes. And she was much too close to him, besides. “In two years I’ll have to take my place at the company the way my parents intended, but until then, I want to be normal. I don’t want to live in a fishbowl. I don’t want the world commenting on every move I make and every piece of clothing I put on as if it’s their business.”

She threw up her hands in emphasis or maybe to illustrate how strongly she felt these things. God help him, but Izar did not want to feel. He did not want to be near anyone who did. Feelings were no good. They led nowhere he wanted to go. He indulged the passions of the flesh because they were easily sated by his ever-revolving selection of mistresses and because he was, after all, a man. But he didn’t feel. He had sex, then moved on. Passion like this was lethal. He’d excised it a long time ago.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so close to someone who fairly oozed it.

And she was still speaking. “I want to be a regular person. I want to complain about my job all week, then stand in loud, tacky bars or binge watch television all weekend with my friends. I want the whole experience. Where’s the harm in that?”

Some distant voice inside him told him to step back. To remove himself from the temptation of such a ferociously earnest expression on such a beautiful face. The way she tilted her head back so she could stand that close to him and still look him in the eye, as if it was necessary she confront him this way. Her faint scent, maddeningly vague, that was somehow a part of the heat of her skin and its softness at the same time, tangling inside of him and making him long for things that were impossible. More than impossible.

He didn’t understand how any of this had happened. But he couldn’t make this situation any worse than it already was tonight. He couldn’t.

“I sympathize.” He did not touch her. He did not bend his head to taste that full mouth and he did not test the smoothness of her bared arms with his palms. But he also did not back away. “But that is not a choice you have.”

“It should be my choice.”

“Perhaps. But, instead, it is mine.”

“I don’t—”

“Do you really think this is wise, Liliana?” he bit out, cutting her off before he stopped remembering why he should. “Do you really think pushing me is going to get you what you want?”

“What will?” she demanded.

And later he might very well rip this moment apart. He might dig through his every motivation and question what the hell he’d been thinking—but here, now, he wasn’t sure he thought at all. It was as if she was a cliff when he’d expected a long, flat, familiar meadow, and he’d plummeted straight over the side without any warning. And there was nothing to be done for it now. He should have shut this down and bundled her off into his waiting car the moment she’d walked into the room and confirmed every last thing that smirking cockroach had told him. He shouldn’t have engaged with her. He shouldn’t have listened to a word she said, because how could it matter? And who cared if the woman who was still his duty had gone and transformed herself into the physical manifestation of his deepest desires? That he noticed at all was appalling. He’d have to add that to his laundry list of reasons to loathe himself. Later.

But in that moment, Izar did more than notice. He let his eyes drift down to her lips and linger there. Almost as if he was powerless to help himself—or stop.