The Billionaire's Second-Chance Bride (The Romero Brothers, #1) (3 page)

He pulled his gaze from her and left her cold for a moment. How odd. He glared her as if undressing her with his eyes but then he stopped himself and regained his composure.

“I did,” he admitted curtly. “I asked him to halt this foolishness and come to his senses but your agency had already convinced him that this was the best decision he was making. You need to undo this! You have until the end of next week to call this thing off. This is not a request. It is an order.” He spoke so calmly and quietly and so deadly cool that Lucy’s knees weakened and almost buckled.

What the hell was that about?

Antonio Romero, III, the hot and sexy grandson of her client uttered some sort of ultimatum and stormed out of her office as quickly as he’d blown in.

The end of next week?

What would this man do to her then?

CHAPTER TWO

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M
oments later, Antonio headed to his BMW parked outside the headquarters of Dream Weddings Inc. What just happened? His intention was to really put Ms. Shillerton in her place for taking his vulnerable grandfather’s money and planning some high-risk, embarrassing wedding that would probably aggravate his grandfather’s heart condition but he just couldn’t.

That was so unlike Antonio.

Antonio was always a man in control. And he’d seen plenty of beautiful women in his lifetime and dated the most eligible high-society bachelorettes, but Lucy Shillerton? Damn! She was stunning!

She had almost thrown him off balance. Good thing Antonio caught himself and got back on track with his demands. Antonio slid into the driver’s seat of his car with his jaw clenched. No way in hell was he about to be that easily distracted by a pretty face. A beautiful face.

He thought back to her smooth-looking, tanned skin and her large, brown, beautiful eyes framed by long lashes, her high cheekbones and well-defined, full lips that looked so damned kissable. Her long, dark hair looked so silky he was almost tempted to reach over the desk and run his fingers through it.

When she rose to greet him, Antonio noticed she was nicely filled out. She had optimal proportions. Lucy didn’t look like some of those malnourished and boney models he’d seen. She had the hour-glass shape. Small waist, shapely hips and a full bosom. He was an expert at detecting boob jobs. She, thankfully, had no sign of plastic surgery that he could discern. Lucy was the real deal. But it wasn’t just her physical assets, it was her aura. Yes, that’s what it was. Her aura.

Antonio could tell there was something sweet and humble about Lucy. The way she extended her hand so sincerely, and despite his coarse introduction, she retreated humbly and recomposed herself. She didn’t seem to hint at all at having an attitude or being hostile. Antonio could not be sure, of course, but he was often right in his assessments of people he’d meet.

“Start car,” Antonio commanded in a deep, forceful voice using his sophisticated voice-control engine-start system. The engine of his luxury vehicle promptly revved. He then navigated his way through the streets of downtown Toronto towards his high-rise condominium near the waterfront.

Still, his mind was on pretty Ms. Lucy Shillerton. He’d caught the fact that her ring finger was completely bare and had no sign of a ring ever being on it.

So there was a strong possibility that she was
available
.

Just then a tone rung from the speakers of his vehicle.

“You have a call from...Lucas,” the disembodied female voice stated through his speaker.

“Answer,” Antonio directed. He was still deep in thought, but he could take a call from his cousin and business associate.

“Hey, man. You okay?” Lucas Romero’s voice pierced the speakerphone.

“Just a little distracted right now. I’m on the road.”

“I see,” Lucas hesitated at first. “Listen, I just wanted to check on the latest with our granddad. Any news? He’s still not going through with the crazy wedding, is he?”

“Not if I can help it,” Antonio answered coldly.

“Did you speak to the people at the agency to get them to stop it?”

“Not quite. I got...a bit distracted. But I gave her an ultimatum.”

“
Her
?” Lucas sounded surprised. “
Ultimatum
?”

“Yes, it’s a young woman who has apparently taken over from her late aunt who owned this agency. They grant wishes to couples to put on interesting wedding ceremonies.”

“But you told them they can’t go through with it, right?”

“I gave her till next Friday to break it to him gently ... or else.”

“Or else what?” Lucas paused. “What a minute. Is she cute?”

“Lucas.” Antonio’s tone was sharper than he had intended but he was so not going there. Usually, he would entertain his playboy cousin’s juvenile sense of humor but he wasn’t in the mood for it now.

So why had his crotch jumped when Lucas pried as to whether Lucy was cute? Just thinking about Lucy made Antonio hard like a cucumber in its prime. Because she was hot as hell. He’d never seen anyone so stunning, so naturally beautiful. And then there was that sweet perfume she was wearing. What was it called? Angel? Yes, she certainly
was
an angel. How fitting.

Damn! Why did Lucy have to be so good looking in every way? That would only serve to complicate matters. Antonio was a man who usually focused on a mission and got it done. Period. But Lucy Shillerton was proving to be a distraction already and he hadn’t even known her long.

Still, he had to shift his focus back on track to his grandfather. The old man meant the world to him and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let some broad in her forties take his grandfather to the cleaners and leave him cold.

Antonio has had his own share of gold diggers in the past. Every society woman he’d ever met wanted to date him or would take “selfies” on their smartphones if they were with him. Subsequently, they would post to their Instagram accounts or Facebook pages with captions of “me and my boo” or something childish like that. Or “out with my baby on a date.” Those women would often give the impression that something serious was going on between them when he was only there at a party or event and even though they may know each other, there was nothing going on between them. The only way he’d found out was through his cousin Lucas who happened to be a social networking fanatic and would happily flirt with women online, exchanging hot poses of themselves.

Mind you, Lucas happened to go into one of the women’s online albums and saw a picture of Antonio there and promptly alerted him. That was another reason why Antonio wasn’t a huge fan of some social media sites. In fact, he tried to stay off the Internet most times unless he truly had to be "connected." Business was crazy enough with him. He’d left all that online work to his associates or the assistants who worked in his organization.

“Now that I have you on the phone,” Antonio continued, “how is that deal going with the community center?”

“Oh, that?” Lucas changed his tone. “Well, we still have a ways to go before we can get the green light. Something about zoning issues in the area. Everything is on schedule otherwise, so we'll make the deadline.”

“Right. Keep me abreast if anything changes.”

“Will do, cuz, but I am sure we are fine.”

“And did you get any more information on this Shelly character?”

“Oh, right. The lovely lady who will be our forty-six-year-old step-grandmother.”

Antonio was thirty-three years old so he cringed at the thought of having a grandmother thirteen years older than he was. “Lucas. Enough of that!”

“Sorry, cuz. Yeah, she’s coming up all clean so far.”

“Well, no information doesn’t mean she’s in the clear yet. I want to know what forty-six-year-old would want to marry a seventy-six-year-old man. End of story.”

“Gotcha.”

“Besides, Granddad’s not doing so well and this would be his fourth marriage. We know how the others ended after Grandmother passed away.”

“I know. They took him to the cleaners every time. It’s amazing he still has any assets left. Don’t worry, cuz. We’ll protect our grandfather from any more heartbreak.”

“The thing what bothers me the most is that I don’t think he realizes what he’s getting himself into. He only just met this woman three months ago.”

“Well, she
is
his nurse, cuz.”

“Yes, I know. But she is also aware that he has that heart condition. Any unnecessary excitement and that would be it for him.”

“I know,” Lucas agreed.

“Keep your men on it, Lucas. I want to find out everything about this woman and how she got to know Lucy Shillerton and this Dream Weddings company. I want to find out if there is a connection. Something is not adding up and I don’t like loose ends.”

“I hear ya, man!”

After Antonio finished his phone conversation he pulled up at one of his glass condominium high-rise buildings. He had already inherited his share of the Romero Realty from his own father but had merged it with his own investment firm and created his own corporation. It wasn’t like him to pull himself away from his work, but after hearing that his grandfather was going to tie the knot with a woman old enough, or young enough, to be his granddaughter, Antonio gave his right-hand person and chief administrative officer, Mariam, the go-ahead to take charge of his affairs for a while as he tended to “personal business.”

He was going to focus his energies on making sure no harm came to his grandfather. None what so ever. The doorman nodded to Antonio as he entered the marble lobby of his building. “Good afternoon, sir.”

Antonio absentmindedly nodded back while taking out his smartphone. He couldn’t wait until he got upstairs to his suite. There was something he had to Google and fast. As he entered the private area where his own personal elevator would bring him to his penthouse waited, he moved his fingers fast across the screen in the search box and typed in “Lucy Shillerton, Toronto, CEO.”

And sure enough, hundreds of sites popped up. He tried to see if she was on Facebook or LinkedIn. He went to her Facebook page to see if she had left it open for anyone to see who was on the system. Since he’d already logged in he should have no trouble if it was not private. Sure enough, there she was. She posted a beautiful photo for her profile picture yet it was not recent. The photo looked as if it was a few years old. Maybe from her college days. There was that reaction again. The cloth covering his groin area grew snug. Why on earth did that girl have that kind of effect on him? This was all too crazy. He wasn’t looking her up to stalk her. He was trying to see if he could see her Friends list to see if she knew Shelly, his grandfather’s new fiancée. Lucy had 127 friends and most of them were women. He scanned her page to see if she was one of those women who took selfies of themselves posing in sexy photos. None. Good. She wasn't a complete tart.

Why was he even going there? This was about business. This was about keeping his grandfather safe from scammers after his fortune. After all, his grandfather had made some Top 100 Wealthiest billionaire list some time this year, so it was only natural he would be concerned about gold diggers popping out from under rocks to be with him.

His grandfather’s last wife used him while she had her own boyfriend on the side. It was no wonder Antonio did not trust the not-so-fair feminine gender. All his life he’d seen them claw after his family’s money, fame and fortune. The sprawling estate north of Toronto hosted some of the finest parties—his father bequeathed him that home. But his parents had a bitter divorce and Antonio himself was hurt one too many time by opportunists. That was why he swore he would never marry. He would let his girlfriends know up front that it could never be anything more than physical and that was that. Sex but no love suited his lifestyle just fine, thank you very much.

Antonio entered his suite before long and continued to glance at the screen of his phone looking at any evidence or useful information he could find on Lucy. Who was she? What were her interests? He quickly scanned her likes, her friends list again, the type of quotes she posted on her wall and the type of stuff she in fact posted. The more he wanted to find something about her to dislike the harder it was. How on earth could he hate this woman?

One of her shared quotes caught his eye: "It’s not about who is real to your face...It’s about who stays real behind your back!”

Antonio’s gut clenched. He didn’t know why he reacted to that post but he did. He’d known all too long how much he could trust very few people. And that post really grabbed him. He was utterly amazed at the fact that Ms. Lucy Shillerton loved that quote enough to post it on her page.

Again, he was always assessing people. What you choose to like and post says a lot about you as a person. He thought Lucy was going to have only pinups of hot looking men or crazy, self-serving tenets but no, Lucy seemed different. She was a woman who thought deep. Antonio couldn’t argue with that. But it meant he would have to tighten up his game plan. She seemed like a woman who wouldn’t change her mind that easily with what he had to say. Still, he was going to do what he had to do. Whether or not he liked her. Business was business and his grandfather was his business and she’d better not go through with her plan to give him a heart-attack-inducing wedding to the gold-digging girlfriend he’d found ... or else.

Antonio powered down his phone and attached it to his charger in the kitchen before grabbing a drink from the fridge and heading to the solarium. He sat down on his patio chair and scanned the gorgeous Toronto skyline with all the skyscrapers and the lake nearby. The sun was setting and the sky was a reddish hue now mixed with blue.  He leaned back and took a swig of his lager. He should be out with his cousin Lucas winding down at one of the exclusive clubs in the city for guys like them. But then that would be a distraction he didn’t want right now. His mind was on one subject. And it killed him inside to think about it.

Lucy Shillerton.

He wondered what she was doing now—on a Friday night?

CHAPTER THREE

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L
ucy did not have a good weekend.