A Game of Vows (5 page)

She took another sip of her wine. “There are some things about you that are still the same,” she said.

“What things?” he asked, desperate to know.

For a moment, she felt like the lifeline he’d built her up to be. No one else seemed to see anything in him from before. They saw him as either diminished in some way, or frightening. His mother and sister, loving as ever, seemed to pity him. He felt smothered in it.

“You’re still incredibly amused by what you perceive to be your own brilliance.”

Unbidden, a laugh escaped his lips. “If a man can’t find amusement with himself, life could become boring.”

“A double entendre?” She arched her brow.

“No, I’m afraid not. Further evidence of the changes in me, I suppose.” And yet with Hannah, sometimes he felt normal. Something akin to what and who he had been. It felt good to exchange banter, to have her face him, an almost-friendly adversary. For the moment.

“You’re also still a stubborn, arrogant autocrat.” She seemed almost determined to prove to herself that he was the same.

“As ever.”

“And your father’s business? Vega Communications? Is it all still a joke to you?”

“Is that what you thought? That it was a joke to me?”

She looked down. “You taking me as a wife was certainly a joke. A joke you used to convince him to pass Vega into your hands then.”

“Evidence that nothing about Vega Communications was ever a joke to me.”

“Because providing mobile phone service to an ever-increasing number of countries is your passion?”

“Because it’s my birthright. It’s part of my family legacy.” And because if he failed at that, he had nothing to strive for. “Like you, I did very well at university. I earned a degree … I earned my position. Yes, I had connections, but you managed to get into Vega as an intern. You’ve managed to make your own connections. Why be disdainful simply because my course was more set than yours?”

She looked thoughtful as she took a mussel on the half shell between her thumb and forefinger. “I was disdainful because I never thought you cared about it. Or even wanted it. Not really.”

“I expected it. I suppose, given that it seemed a certainty, I lacked the blatant desperation you possessed.”

She put the mussel between her lips and sucked out the flesh. It wasn’t a sexy action. Not really. And yet, when she did it, it was oddly compelling. It was because her lips managed to look sensual, inviting and soft, all while her eyes told him she’d happily bite his tongue if he dared follow the impulse that originated south of his belt.

“Desperation?” she asked, taking the white linen napkin from her lap and dabbing the side of her mouth. “Drive, maybe.”

“If it makes you feel better.”

“It does. Humor me.”

He inclined his head. “If you wish. Anyway, I may sympathize with you a bit more now. I have to fix this. Vega is my family. My life.”

The glee she’d seemed to take from her initial thought of his being desperate had diminished. “You used to like other things better.”

“I did.”

“Parties. Loose women.”

“I was faithful to you during our marriage.” A statement
more true than she realized. But the fallout from the head injury had been extensive. He’d lost his passion for everything. Had lost friends. He’d had a hunger for life once. For fun and pleasure, for laughter.

He had nothing more than a white-knuckled grip on existence now. A human, biological need to keep breathing. And with that, came the need to save Vega.

It gave him a reason to go on, anyway, and that was, at this point in his life, more valuable than passion.

“Prince Charming in the flesh,” she said lightly.

The waiter returned and set a fish course before them, Spanish rice and spiced greens on the side. Hannah wasted no time in helping herself. She had always liked eating. He’d been fascinated by it. When they would go to his family’s house for dinner, she’d always eaten as much as he did, if not more. Still, she’d always looked thin. Hungry. But he’d suspected, even then, that her hunger wasn’t for food.

She’d been hungry for money. Status. Success.

She still was. It was why she was here with him. Why he’d been able to demand she return to Spain.

“Not entirely,” he said, his tone heavier than he intended it to be.

“So tell me then,” she said, blue eyes glittering with mischief. “Will you be faithful to me during our reconciliation?” Her lips closed around her fork and his gut tightened.

“That all depends, Hannah,” he said, words forming before thought, his body leading the proceedings.

“On?”

“On whether or not you intend to share my bed this time.”

Hannah nearly choked on her rice. “What?”

Eduardo leaned back in his chair, a dark glint in his eye, a lean, hungry look to his features. “You heard me,
querida.
Will I need to seek my amusement elsewhere? Or will you share my bed?”

“I am not sleeping with you,” she said, the very idea of the
invasion, the intimacy, the loss of utter and complete control, making her feel shivery and panicky. Hot.

“Then I suppose the answer to the question is not your concern.”

“No,” she bit out.

She didn’t truly care who he slept with. She’d been trying to goad him, nothing else. They did that. They always had. Verbal sparring had been the only level they’d ever truly connected on.

They shared a love of arguing, which, in some ways, made them the perfect married couple for the public. For all she knew of married couples.

“At least we’re on the same page,” he said, returning his focus to his dinner.

What did that mean? That he didn’t want her? That made her … mad. And it shouldn’t. She shouldn’t care. Men, attraction, sex, none of it fit into her life. She’d been about to make room for Zack, and of course she’d intended to sleep with him eventually. But she’d been in control of it, no question. She’d been able to wait, and so had he. She and Zack were both all about control, about keeping things in order, in their neat little boxes.

Eduardo would never fit into a box. She would never be able to shove him to one side of her life and ignore him unless she wanted to open him up and indulge. Nope. That wasn’t possible. He was too much. Too … present. He was impossible to simply ignore.

She didn’t want to sleep with him anyway. She’d denied her sex drive, rightly, necessarily, for the past nine years. Sure, she’d been about to end the dry spell with marriage. But it hadn’t been the attractor to marrying Zack. It had never been that important. It wasn’t all-consuming.

It wouldn’t be with Eduardo, either. She could keep on ignoring it, no question. And Eduardo wouldn’t change that.

So his lack of desire for her shouldn’t matter. Her ego was just feeling bruised.

“Good thing. So,” she said, “what’s your plan for tomorrow? Just waltzing into the office and announcing we’re reconciling?”

A smile curved his lips. An unsettling, dark smile that made her stomach tighten and her heart pound. “Why don’t we just see what happens?”

W
HY
don’t we just see what happens?

Even getting out of the car the next morning, business armor in the form of a sleek-fitting pair of slacks and a dark blue button-up shirt, she heard his words playing through her head. They’d sounded like a double entendre. Like he’d disregarded the previous portion of the conversation where she’d said she wouldn’t sleep with him.

Smug-ass Spaniard.

She tightened her hold on her laptop bag and chanced a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. He was looking sexier than he ever had, at least to her, in a navy suit, his dark hair left slightly disheveled, as if theirs was a reconciliation made in the bedroom.

He paused in front of the heavy glass door of the tall, modern building and held it open for her, his dark eyes never leaving hers.

She made eye contact as she walked in. She wasn’t about to let him intimidate her. Nope. Not going to happen.

Her gaze was steely. She was sure of it. And his was … amused. It was the first time she’d seen him amused, really amused, in a way that reminded her of the old Eduardo, since he’d hijacked a limo and disrupted her wedding.

A leaden weight dropped into her stomach. A sudden reminder of why he’d changed.

She tossed her hair and continued into the building. She
knew it well. She’d interned there for months and then she’d become the boss’s daughter-in-law. She’d learned about the way a big business ran here, had faced down Eduardo for the first time.

Another strange wave of homecoming melancholy washed over her. She tried to clear her tightened throat.

“
Buenos días,
Paola.” Eduardo greeted the woman sitting behind the reception desk.

“Buenos días, Señor Vega.”
She looked up for the first time, her eyes rounding when she saw Hannah. “Hannah,” she said.

Hannah’s heart beat against her breastbone. She remembered her? She’d never wondered much if people remembered her. She’d never been back to a place to find out.

“Hi, Paola.” She’d always like Paola. The other woman had always been nice to her, not laughing at her mangled Spanish, always offering her a smile when she’d come in for work after classes.

She wondered what Paola had thought when she’d suddenly “abandoned” Eduardo and their six-month union.

“You’re … back?” she asked, her focus darting from Eduardo and back to Hannah.

“Yes,” Eduardo said, turning to her, his expression soft, the hard glint in his eye telling her the expression was a lie. “She is.” He lifted his hand and brushed his finger lightly over her cheek.

A shiver wound through her, tightening her stomach, her lungs, her nipples. She’d tried to forget this part of being near him. Had tried, and failed, so many times to forget what it had felt like on their wedding day when his lips had touched hers.

To forget that he brought out a beast in her. One that was normally asleep, or at least dormant, kept mollified by the occasional fantasy and gratuitous amounts of cop shows with men in tight uniforms.

This was different than those contained, allowed moments
of desire. This was different even than the attraction she’d felt for him back when they’d first married. This wasn’t something she had a grasp on; it was nothing she could control or shut off.

The wedding kiss, and feelings it had created in her, had lingered. But she’d been able to keep it where it belonged. Stored for her convenient use late at night, never invading her body or thoughts during the day. Never when it wasn’t appropriate.

It was invading now.

She swallowed hard and worked at composing her face. She wasn’t going to break; she wasn’t going to show nerves. Or arousal. “That’s right,” she said. “I am.”

Then, just to prove to him that he wasn’t the only one who could play the game, she leaned in, pausing for a moment as his scent hit her. Sandalwood and skin. She couldn’t remember ever noticing the way he smelled before. It was foreign. Sexy. Piquing her curiosity, her need to draw closer.

So she did, because that had been her intent. Not for any other reason. Her eyes met his as her lips connected with his cheek. Smooth still, clean, a hint of aftershave lingering. She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and let the feel of him beneath her lips fully wash over.

Then she pulled back, quickly, her head swimming, her heart pounding.

“Yes, I’m back,” she said, blowing out a breath and smiling at Paola, trying to ignore the intense quivering in her stomach.

“Good,” she said. “Very good. We’re glad to have you.”

“As am I,” Eduardo said, his eyes never leaving Hannah. “Come,
querida,
I want to show you some of the changes I’ve made.”

She offered Paola another smile and a stilted nod before following Eduardo into the first elevator on the right. She let out a breath when the platinum doors closed.

“Very convincing,” Eduardo said, a strange smile curving his lips. It was almost predatory.

“I know, right?” she snapped. “I’m a great actress, remember?”

“Why didn’t you just head to Hollywood instead of pursuing a career in finance? You wouldn’t have had to fake school transcripts.”

She cleared her throat and tightened her hold on her bag. “Too much chance involved. I don’t do chance. I do certainty. Control. Something I could work hard enough to achieve. Luck has never really been on my side—” she swept a hand up and down in Eduardo’s direction “—obviously. So I didn’t figure I should make a plan that included lucking into anything.”

“Are you saying our association has been unlucky for you?”

She gritted her teeth, thinking of the letter of recommendation that had happened to find the firm she’d wanted so badly to get a job at in New York. A letter from the HR department at Vega. “Not entirely, but you have to admit, getting kidnapped on your wedding day isn’t good luck.”

He chuckled as the elevator stopped. “Now, that depends.”

The doors slid open and he stepped out; she followed. “On what?”

“On how you feel about the person you’re marrying.”

The floor was quiet, essentially vacant. The highest offices in the building were reserved for the big dogs of the company, and at this point, Eduardo was the biggest dog.

He opened the door to what had been his father’s office, and Hannah’s throat constricted. More emotion. She wasn’t used to it. She didn’t like it, either.

“You don’t have to open doors for me, you know,” she said, sweeping into the room. “I know you aren’t a gentleman.”

He arched a brow and closed the door behind them. “I’m hardly trying to convince you otherwise.”

“Obviously.”

“All right, Hannah,” he said, moving to his desk, his demeanor
changing. He sat down and hit a few keys on his keyboard, waking up the flat-screen monitor. “This is what we’re looking at.”

“What’s this?”

“Financial records for the past few years.”

“I need to sit,” she said.

He stood from the computer chair and she slid past him, trying to ignore the little jolt of pleasure she felt when she brushed against him. “So, what exactly do you think is going on?”

He blew out a breath. “Certain things in particular are problematic for me. Remembering numbers and dates are among them. But it wouldn’t be as big of an issue had I not hired someone to handle it that didn’t do his job.”

“On purpose or … criminally?” she asked, opening the report for the previous years’ finances.

“I’m not entirely certain.”

“Well, incompetence should be criminal,” she said, skimming the numbers. “And please hold all comments on how I should be an expert on the matter. I am in here saving your butt, after all.”

“You are so very charming, Hannah.”

She gritted her teeth and leaned in closer to the computer screen, trying to close him out of her range of focus. “Yeah, well, had I gone to charm school I probably would have failed there just as spectacularly as I flunked out of high school.”

“Why did you fail high school? Because we both know you’re capable of doing the work.”

Her stomach dipped and she tried to will away the guttearing pain that always came with this set of memories. Tried to put herself firmly in the present, as Hannah Weston. Not as the Hannah she had been. “I didn’t try.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, either.”

“Yeah, well, making stupid financial decisions doesn’t sound like you, and yet here we are.”

She chanced a look at his face. His expression was hard, his lips set into a grim line. She’d gone too far again. She knew that. But she wasn’t opening the door on her past. She just wasn’t. She couldn’t.

He gripped the arms of the chair and turned her so that she was facing him. “Stupid? Stupid decisions? Is that what you call them?”

“I was making a point.” She slid the chair back and stood. The idea was to bring her up to his level. But since her eyes only met his chest, the only point it served to make was that, even in three-inch heels, she was a whole lot smaller than he was.

“Then you won’t mind if I make one of my own.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her against him, her breasts coming into contact with his chest. He raised his hand, brushing his shaking thumb over her lip, the gesture shockingly gentle given the heat and anger visible in his eyes.

The rage in him was palpable, satisfying in a way. She’d brought him to the brink with her words. His muscles trembled as he held her. She waited. For his lips to crash down on hers. Rough and painful. The way it often was with men when they lacked control or were just too turned on to think straight. The way it most certainly would be with him so angry.

But there was no crash.

He dipped his head, his lips a breath from hers. The breath fled her body, all her focus diverting to him. He was so close. So tempting. She found her face tilting so that her mouth could meet his, found herself giving in. Giving up.

His lips were hot, firm. And suddenly, he wasn’t holding her to him anymore. She’d melted against him. His tongue slid against the seam of her mouth and she opened, heat flooding her, making her core tighten, her breasts feel heavy. He wrapped his other arm around her and she lifted her hands, pressing them on his hard chest.

He angled his head, deepening the kiss, tightening his hold on her. She whimpered and freed her hands, sighing when her breasts met his chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck, threading her fingers through his hair, holding him to her.

He devoured her, and she returned the favor. Never, not in their six months of marriage, had they kissed like this. Nothing more than proprietary pecks for public displays. A slightly more intimate kiss on their wedding day, since they’d had an audience.

But this was just them. Alone. And there was no control. No thought. She hadn’t even tried to maintain her hold on either, she’d simply released them, and drowned in his kiss.

Then, just as suddenly as he’d embraced her, he released her, his eyes dark black pits that seemed to draw her in and repel her at the same time. And she realized she didn’t have half the hold over him as he did over her.

“The point I was making,” he bit out, his tone rough, strained, “is that you might not like me, and you might want to think that I’m somehow stupid, but we both know that I have the power here.”

She took in a shaking breath. “You … bastard.”

“Don’t forget it. I’m not a boy you can manipulate. I’m not the foolish idiot I once was who might have been distracted by a pretty face.” He turned away from her, heading out the door. “Let me know what you find.”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. As soon as he exited the office she pounded her fist on the desk, letting the sting alleviate the burn of humiliation that had taken over.

She wouldn’t let him make a fool of her like that. Never again.

Eduardo drew a shaking hand over his face. He had not meant to do that. He had not meant to touch her, or kiss her. He hadn’t meant to lose control.

Rage had been a feral beast inside of him, pushing him,
driving him. Rage, and then, the hot surge of lust that had tipped him over the edge.

His body burned. He’d been so close to pushing her on the surface of the desk and …

He laughed into the empty room and gave thanks for the mostly private floor.

He hadn’t touched a woman in five years. Five years of celibacy that he hadn’t minded in the least. Now it seemed to be crushing him, five years all added together and suddenly very, very apparent.

It was more than that, though. It was this thing in him that he didn’t know. This strain of unpredictability that he couldn’t control or anticipate.

He didn’t understand the man he’d been. He didn’t know, or like, the man he was.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. She wasn’t supposed to appeal to the new, darker side of him. She was supposed to remind him of that light, easy time. Was supposed to bring those feelings back.

Beyond that, he did need her to help straighten out the company’s finances, and he could not afford to be distracted. He had to see this through, and he could not afford a distraction. He couldn’t afford to divert his focus any more than it already was. He had no control over the effects of his injury. No control over the forgetfulness or the migraines. But he would damn well control his body’s reaction to her.

He gritted his teeth and walked back into the office. Hannah jumped and turned.

“Knock for heaven’s sake,” she growled, turning back to the screen.

“It’s my office.”

“Well … you left.”

“And now I am back.”

“Yes, you are,” she said, her shoulders rolled forward, her expression intense, focused on the screen. She let out a short
breath. “It’s not that bad.” She turned the chair so that she was facing him, a guarded expression on her face.

“You don’t think?”

“No. The fees you incurred for late taxes … I can’t help you with that. That was the work of a very sucky employee and I’m glad he’s been fired. The rest is manageable. I could recommend some investment and savings strategies and, actually, you’re missing a few tax breaks you could take advantage of while making sure your employees get better benefits.”