Reckless Night in Rio (3 page)

‘I’m…I’m not for sale,’ she whispered. ‘You think just because you are rich and handsome you can have whatever you want, that you can pay me to fall into your bed—and go away the next morning with a check?’

‘A charming idea.’ A humorless smile traced his sensual mouth. ‘But I don’t wish to pay you for sex.’

‘Oh.’ Her cheeks went hot. ‘Then what?’

‘I want you—’ he moved closer, his hard-edged face impossibly handsome ‘—to pretend to love me.’

She swallowed. Then she tilted her head, blinking up at him in the fading light. ‘But thousands of girls could do that,’ she said. ‘Why come all the way up here, when you could have twenty girls at your penthouse in Rio in four minutes? Are you insane?’

He raked his dark hair back with his hand.

‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘I am going slowly insane. Every moment my father’s company is in the hands of another man, every moment I know I lost my family’s legacy through my own stupidity, I feel I am losing my mind. I’ve endured it for almost twenty years. And I’m close now, so close to getting it back.’

She should have known it had something to do with regaining Açoazul. ‘But how can I possibly help you?’

He looked down at her, his jaw clenched. ‘Play the part of my devoted mistress for twenty-four hours. Until I close the deal.’

‘How on earth would that help you close the deal?’ she asked, bewildered.

He set his jaw. ‘I’ve hit a snag in the negotiations. A six-foot-tall, bikini-wearing snag.’

‘What?’

Gabriel ground his teeth. ‘Felipe Oliveira found out I used to date his fiancée.’

‘You did?’ Laura said in surprise, then gave a bitter laugh. ‘Of course you did.’

‘Now he doesn’t want me within a thousand miles of Rio. He thinks if he doesn’t sell me the company after all, I’ll go back to New York.’ Gabriel looked at her. ‘I need to make him understand I’m not interested in his woman.’

‘That doesn’t explain why you’d need
me
. Thousands of women would be happy to pretend to be in love with you. For free.’ She took a deep breath, clenching her hands at her sides. ‘Some of them wouldn’t even have to pretend!’

He set his jaw. ‘They won’t work.’

She exhaled with a flare of her nostrils. ‘Why?’

‘Oliveira’s fiancée…is Adriana da Costa.’

‘Adriana da…’ Laura’s voice trailed off, her eyes wide.

Adriana da Costa.

Laura could still see those cold, reptilian eyes, that skinny, lanky body. Gabriel had dated the Brazilian supermodel briefly in New York several years ago, while Laura was his live-in personal assistant. She could still hear Adriana’s pouting voice.
Why do you keep calling here? Stop calling.

Find the whiskey, you stupid cow. Gabriel always gets thirsty after sex.

Laura cleared her throat. ‘Adriana da Costa, the bikini model.’

‘Yes.’

‘The one
Celebrity Star
magazine just called the sexiest woman alive.’

‘She’s a selfish narcissist,’ he said sharply. ‘And for the short time we were together, she was always insecure. Only one woman has ever made her feel so threatened. You.’

‘Me?’ Laura gasped. ‘You’re out of your mind! She would never feel threatened by me!’

Gabriel’s dark eyes gleamed. ‘She complained to me constantly. Why did I always take your calls, but not hers? Why did I always have time for you, day or night? Why would I leave her bed at 2:00
A
.
M
.
in order to go home to you? And most of all, why did I allow you to live in my apartment, only you and no one else?’

Laura’s mouth fell open.

‘She never understood our relationship,’ Gabriel said. ‘How we could be so close without being lovers. Which we weren’t.’ He paused. ‘Not until…Rio.’

The huskiness of his deep voice whipped through Laura, causing a sizzle to spread down her body.

‘Adriana has made it clear she wants me back,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She’d leave Felipe Oliveira in an instant for me, and he knows it. Only one thing will convince them both I am not interested in her.’

Laura stared at him.

‘Me?’ she whispered.

He looked right at her. ‘You are the only woman that Adriana would believe I could love.’

A roar of shared memories left unspoken between them washed over Laura like a wave, and her heart twisted in her chest. She’d been only twenty-one when, on her second day in New York City, the employment office had sent her to Santos Enterprises to interview in the accounting office. Instead, she’d been sent up to the top floor to meet with the CEO himself.

‘Perfeito,’
the fearsome, sleek Brazilian tycoon had said, looking at her résumé. Then he’d looked at her. ‘Young enough so you will not be planning to immediately quit to have a baby. At least ten or twenty years before you’ll think of that.
Perfeito
.’

Now, Gabriel looked at her with dark eyes. She felt a cold winter wind sweep in from the north and shivered.

‘Be my pretend mistress in Rio,’ he said. ‘And I will pay you a hundred thousand dollars for that one night.’

Her lips parted as she breathed, ‘A hundred thousand!’

She almost said yes on the spot. Then she remembered her baby, and her heart rose to her throat. She shook her head. ‘Sorry,’ she choked out. ‘Get someone else.’

His brow furrowed in disbelief. ‘Why? You clearly need the money.’

She licked her lips. ‘That’s none of your business.’

‘I deserve an answer.’

She set her jaw. He didn’t know what kind of trouble he’d made for her by coming here.
Didn’t know and didn’t care.
He couldn’t see how Laura had changed through the anguish of the past year. Who would be the first neighbor to gossip that her ex-boss bore an uncanny resemblance to her son?

She exhaled, clenching her hands. He still thought all he had to do was tell her to jump, and she’d ask how high. But she wasn’t his obedient little secretary anymore.

With a deep breath, she closed her eyes. It was time to let it all go.

Let go the sound of Gabriel’s warm, deep voice for the last five years as his executive assistant.
Miss Parker, there’s no one as capable as you.

Let go the brightness of his delight when he came home at 6:00
A
.
M
.
to find her silently waiting with freshly made coffee and a pressed suit for his early meeting.
Miss Parker, what would I do without you?

Let go the memory of their time in bed, when his dark eyes, so vulnerable and warm, had caressed her face with unspoken words of love. Let go the memory of his lips hot against her skin. Let go the feel of him inside her.
Laura, I need you.

She opened her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘You don’t deserve an explanation. My answer is just no.’

Around them, the dusting of snow reflected light into the white-gray lowering clouds, in a breathless hush of muffled silence. He blinked, looking bewildered.

‘Did it end so badly, Laura?’ he said softly. ‘Between us?’

She pressed her fingernails into her palms to keep from crying. Robby. She had to think of Robby. ‘You shouldn’t have come here.’ Her cheeks felt inflamed in the winter air, her body burning up and yet cold as ice. ‘I want you to leave. Now.’

He took a step closer, looking down at her. A sliver of moonlight pierced through the clouds to illuminate his face. She noticed the dark shadow on his hard jawline, saw the hollows beneath his eyes. She wondered when he’d last slept.

Her heart twisted in her chest. No. She couldn’t let herself care. She couldn’t! Choking back tears, she edged away. ‘If you won’t leave, I will.’

He grabbed her wrist. He looked down at her, and his eyes glittered. ‘I can’t let you go.’

For a moment, she heard only the panting of their breath. Then a door banged open, and she heard a baby’s whine. A chill went down her spine and she whirled around with a gasp.

Too late!

‘Where have you been, Laura?’ her mother called irritably, holding a squirming Robby in her arms. ‘It took me ages to find you. What on earth are you doing out here in the cold?’

Ripping her arm from Gabriel’s grasp, Laura gave her mother a hard, desperate stare. ‘I’m sorry, Mom. Just go back inside. Go back. I’ll be right there!’

But her mother wasn’t looking at her. ‘Is that—is that Mr. Santos?’ she said tremulously.

‘Hello, Mrs. Parker,’ Gabriel said, smiling as he stepped towards her and held out his hand. ‘Congratulations on Becky’s wedding. You must be very proud of your daughter.’

‘I’m proud of all my daughters.’ She came closer to shake his hand. ‘It’s nice to see you again.’

Laura stared at them, her heart in her throat. Her mother had always liked Gabriel, ever since he’d paid for the family to take a vacation to Florida four years ago, one they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford. The Parkers had traveled in his private jet and stayed at a villa on the beach. It had been a lavish second honeymoon for Laura’s parents, a big change from their first at a cheap motel in Niagara Falls. Pictures of that Florida vacation still lined the walls, images of their family smiling beneath palm trees, building sand castles on the beach, splashing in the surf together. With that one gift, Gabriel had won her mother’s loyalty forever.

‘I’m glad someone had the sense to invite you to Becky’s wedding,’ Ruth said, smiling.

He smiled back with gentle courtesy. ‘I’ve always asked you to call me Gabriel.’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘Not with you being Laura’s employer and all. It just wouldn’t be right.’

‘But I’m not her employer anymore.’ He flashed Laura a dark look before leaning toward her mother to confidentially whisper, ‘And I wasn’t invited to the wedding. I crashed. I came to offer her a job.’

‘Oh!’ Ruth practically cried tears of joy. ‘A job! You have no idea how happy that makes me. Things have been so tight lately and you should see some of the ridiculous jobs she’s applied for, as far away as Exeter—’

‘Mom,’ Laura cried. ‘Please take Robby inside!’

‘So she’s looking for a job, is she?’ he purred.

‘Oh, yes. She’s totally broke,’ Ruth confided, then her cheeks turned red. ‘But then, we all are. Ever since…since…’ She turned away.

Gabriel put his hands into his pockets. ‘I was sorry to hear about your husband. He was a good man.’

‘Thank you,’ Ruth whispered. Amid the lightly falling snow, silence fell. Gabriel suddenly looked at Robby.

‘What a charming baby,’ he murmured, changing the subject. ‘Is he related to you, Mrs. Parker?’

Her mother looked at him as if he was stupid. ‘He’s my grandson.’

Gabriel looked surprised. ‘Is one of your other daughters married, as well?’

‘Mom,’ Laura breathed with tears in her eyes, terrified, ‘just go! Right now!’

But it was too late. ‘This is Robby,’ her mother said, holding him up proudly. ‘Laura’s baby.’

CHAPTER THREE

A
S
her mother turned to place Robby into her arms, Laura’s heart fell to the snowy, frozen ground. The six-month-old’s whine faded, turning to hiccups as he clung to Laura. Ruth leaned forward to hug her.

‘Take the job,’ her mother whispered in her ear, then turned to Gabriel and said brightly, ‘I hope to see you again soon, Mr. Santos!’

Laura heard the dull thunk of the door as her mother went back inside. Then she was alone with Gabriel; their baby in her arms.

Gabriel’s dark eyes went to the child, then back to her. The sound of his tightly coiled voice reverberated in the cold air. ‘This is your son?’

She held her baby close, loving the solid, chubby feel of him in her arms. Tears stung her eyes as she looked down at Robby. ‘Yes.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Six months,’ she said in a small voice.

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. ‘So tell me.’ His voice was deadly and still as a winter’s night. ‘Who is the father of your baby?’

She’d wished so many times to be able to tell Gabriel the truth, dreamed of giving her son his father. With their baby squirming in her arms between them, the truth rose unbidden to her lips. ‘The father of my baby is…’

You. You’re Robby’s father. Robby is your son.
But the words stuck in her throat. Gabriel didn’t want to be tied down with a child. If she told him her secret, nothing good would come of it. He might feel he had no choice but to sue for custody out of duty, resenting Robby, resenting her for forcing him into it. He might try to take their child to Brazil, away from her, to be given into the arms of some young, sexy nanny.

Laura would gain nothing by telling him. And risk everything.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

She flashed her eyes at him. ‘The identity of my baby’s father is none of your business.’

His own eyes narrowed. ‘You must have gotten pregnant immediately after you left Rio.’

‘Yes,’ she said unwillingly. She shivered, looking from father to son. Would he notice the resemblance?

But Gabriel turned on her, his dark eyes full of accusation. ‘You were a virgin when I seduced you. You said you wanted a home and family of your own. How could you be so careless, to forget protection, to let yourself get pregnant by a one-night stand?’

Gabriel had used protection, but somehow she’d gotten pregnant anyway. She said over the lump in her throat, ‘Accidents happen.’

‘Accidents
don’t
happen,’ he corrected. ‘Only mistakes.’

She set her jaw. ‘My baby is not a
mistake
.’

‘You mean it was planned?’ He lifted a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Who is the father? Some good-looking farmer? Some boy you knew back in high school?’ He glanced around. ‘Where is this paragon? Why hasn’t he proposed? Why aren’t you his wife?’

Robby was starting to snuffle. Even in his long-sleeved shirt, he was getting cold, and so was she. Holding him close to her warmth, she shifted his weight on her hip. ‘I told you, it’s none of your business.’

‘Is he here?’

‘No!’

‘So he deserted you.’