Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge

“How do you feel about the takeover, Miss Layton?”

Alejandro’s smile didn’t waver, but he shot her a warning glance. To hell with him.

Rebecca stepped forward. “I’m not happy about it, you may be assured. Layton International has been in the luxury hotel business for over a half century. We had hoped to continue, and were pursuing projects guaranteed to bring the Layton brand of luxury to new markets. This takeover is not the outcome we’d hoped for.”

The reporters buzzed. One question rose above the others. “Do you suspect any impropriety in the acquisition process?”

Rebecca clasped her hands together in front of her. She knew it made her look innocent and somewhat vulnerable. “No—that’s not possible, is it? The laws of our nations are very specific in regards to company stock and corporate mergers. Though Señor Ramirez might have wished to act immorally, I’m sure he did not do so.”

The questions rose to a fever-pitch. Rebecca strained to hear a single one over the din, but Alejandro appeared at her side, his hand on her elbow.

“That’s all for now,” he said, ushering her toward the sleek glass doors of the building.

She resisted the urge to smile when the doors closed behind them, leaving them in the quiet of a polished lobby. A pretty receptionist greeted them warmly. Alejandro nodded his head to the young woman and propelled Rebecca toward an elevator. Her shoes clicked across black marble inlaid with shiny gold squares. She briefly wondered if they were real gold—if Alejandro would dare to display his wealth so garishly. A uniformed man greeted them as they passed inside a private elevator, then pressed a button and exited, leaving them alone as the gleaming doors slid closed.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Rebecca leaned back against the brass rail and tried not to look like the cat that ate the canary. “What do you mean? I told them you did everything legally.” Legally, but not morally. She had no doubt he’d understood what she’d said out there.

His gray eyes flashed. “You know very well you are jeopardizing our stock value with comments such as those.”

“I’m sure you’ll recover from the dip.”

“Yes, but will I need to shed a few assets to keep earnings on projection?”

Her heart thumped at the threat, but she remained coolly unaffected on the outside. “Did you pay bribes in Dubai?”

“Do you think I would admit it to you if I had?”

She spoke before she could talk herself out of it. “You’ve grown fast over the years. I’ve wondered how you did it, but perhaps the secret to your success has little to do with business acumen and everything to do with your willingness to play dirty.”

His gaze sharpened. “You’d like to think so, no doubt. But I assure you everything I’ve gained has been earned through hard work. Unlike yourself, no?”

His reaction was not as harsh as she’d expected, but it sliced deep. It was a charge that stung, but not one she could deny. At least not in any way he would understand. She’d had to work hard to prove herself to her father, to prove that a daughter would be every bit as good as a son when it came to captaining the family business. Harder than anyone would ever know.

She would not, however, share those struggles with Alejandro—or indeed with anyone. The memories of what she’d endured were too painful.

His look was telling. “How it must anger you to know your fate is in my hands. Perhaps you should be nicer to me? Encourage me to be gracious? How is it you say in America? That you must use honey to get the flies, not vinegar?”

She stiffened. “Don’t you dare insult me by pretending I have a chance. You’ve already made up your mind, so why not just tell me what you want and be done with it? It’s clear you have a plan, regardless of what I say or do. Save us both the hassle.”

His gray gaze bored into hers. “What makes you think this is a—what was the word?—hassle for me?”

She speared her hair away from her face, having left the clip on the breakfast table. “I mean that since you already know what you want from me, let’s just get right to it and skip this other stuff.”

She sounded brave, though she was anything but. He could fire her here and now, put her on a plane and send her back to New York with nothing more than a bad case of jet lag and a rapidly dwindling bank account. She probably shouldn’t have baited him with her statement to the reporters, but she was tired of being at his mercy. She wanted this nightmare over, wanted her company back and her life free of this man.

“Get right to it?” he said softly. “Skip the foreplay? Sometimes this is a good idea.”

Rebecca’s breath caught at the sensual undertone of his voice. Was she imagining the heat in his gaze? The elevator seemed suddenly too small to contain the two of them.

“But not always,” he said, his voice caressing the words. “You may plead your case in front of my board.”

“They will vote as you want. What’s the point?” she said, her voice far huskier than she would have liked.

“Maybe.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out his PDA, frowning at the screen. The sexual tension emanating from him died as if he’d flipped a switch. He clicked the wheel, scrolling through the information there, shutting her out.

Rebecca gripped the railing, stunned both at the immediacy of her reaction and at his ability to turn off his own response. Because he had wanted her. She’d seen it. Hadn’t she? Or was this simply another part of his game?

Unbidden, images of him flashed into her head. The jagged scar of a bull’s horn slicing across his rib cage, the taut ripple and glide of muscle when he moved, the impressive jut of his erection. The ecstasy on his face when she straddled him and drove them both out of their minds with her slow thrusts.

He’d accused her of enduring his touch for the sake of her family business, of seeing him as nothing more than a bullfighter dirty from the ring. If only he believed that she’d truly loved him, how sexy she’d found him in spite of the barbarity of his former profession.

Standing in this elevator in his custom-fit suit, he was as far from the glittering garb of a matador as any man could be—and yet she still saw the bullfighter beneath the polish. The raw, hungry, intense man who could stand in a ring with one ton of angry bull barreling toward him and never, not even once, flinch. This was a man who could stare death in the face and not blink.

After their affair had ended, she’d actually gone through a torturous phase of tracking down and watching his recorded fights. Holding her breath while the bull charged, while the cape swept down, then whirled away as Alejandro went up high on his toes and plunged his sword home. She’d thought it barbaric, and yet Alejandro had once explained, when she’d been tracing his scar in the aftermath of their lovemaking, how honorable the fight was for both man and bull. It wasn’t her kind of thing—and yet there was a beauty in it.

A beauty in him.

She closed her eyes, remembered the heat of him, of the two of them twined together in his sheets. It had all gone so wrong, so horribly wrong. And she wasn’t the same person she’d been back then—the same starry-eyed girl with dreams of love and a life with the most magnetic man she’d ever met. The world had certainly taught her the folly of those beliefs, hadn’t it?

The elevator glided to a halt, the doors whispering open to let them into a spacious private office. Overstuffed chairs and a sleek sofa sat beneath a wall of books. A chrome and glass desk was positioned in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that ran the length of one wall. Alejandro went behind the desk and sat down without looking at her.

In the distance, the twin glass and steel structures of the Puerta de Europa leaned toward each other across the busy Paseo de Castellana. Much closer, the giant Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, where Madrilenians flocked to watch their soccer team, squatted against a bright blue sky.

“The board meeting will be in an hour. I suggest you prepare.” He picked up the phone and spoke to someone. A second later, a pretty woman opened the door.

“Please escort Señorita Layton to a desk, Maria.”

Rebecca followed the woman without another word, smiling and giving her thanks when Maria deposited her in a small, windowless office. Though she needed to prepare for the meeting, she first placed a call to the Cahill Group’s offices in London. Roger was out of town until tomorrow, so she hung up and clicked open her briefcase. A glance at the clock told her she had fifty minutes left.

She didn’t know what she’d encounter in that boardroom, but she wasn’t going down without a fight.

When she was finally called to the meeting, more than an hour after she’d been told she would be, she was ready. She’d spent the last two hours completing her projections, dragging her finance people out of bed to give her numbers, and making sure her arguments were sound. Layton International would be out of the red in six months if she were allowed to continue on the path she’d chosen.

And though it burned her up to have to humble herself to these people, to explain her plans and defend her actions, she had no choice. She had to keep her company intact until she could somehow manage to get it back.

But the board meeting went exactly as she’d predicted. What Alejandro wanted, the board would do. If he decided to dissect her company limb from limb, he was within his rights to do so.

Rebecca shoved papers into her briefcase as the board filed out. She was on dangerous ground here. She was only technically still CEO until Alejandro decided otherwise.

A wave of apprehension rolled through her. And he would decide otherwise. She had no doubt. He was simply dragging this out to torture her.

How could she be the one who lost the company started by her grandfather? No matter that her father had taken out astronomical loans and pledged every last share of stock as collateral, she was still the one in control when the axe fell. She should have stopped it.

How? a little voice asked.

It didn’t matter how. She should have simply known what to do. Her father would have.