‘HAVE I got this right—you’re offering me a job?’
Libby struggled to get her head around it. When she had stormed her way into his office her aims had not gone beyond the desire to experience the extreme satisfaction of telling Rafael Alejandro exactly what she thought of him with the outside possibility she might awake whatever he had that passed for a conscience.
She hadn’t expected a U-turn or for him to lie awake nights filled with remorse, and equally she definitely hadn’t expected this!
A second chance! Or was it?
‘An internship.’
Libby digested this information and resisted the strong temptation to scream yes, please before he changed his mind. There was such a thing as being too eager and, even more importantly, there was such a thing as walking into danger with your eyes closed.
This man, she mused, had danger written all over him. ‘You expect me to work for you for free?’
Rafael gave a smile. Her voice gave away none of her feelings, but her white knuckles did, at least to someone as adept at reading body language as he was.
‘Free?’ He directed a quizzical look at her composed face. ‘Delaying the closure is not worth anything to you?’ He shook his head and evinced amazement. ‘I have to tell you, querida, that internships with me are highly sought after.’ The high-flying graduates who often arrived with a high opinion of themselves had any illusions they had landed a cushy number knocked out of them quickly, and those that didn’t … well, there were always far more eager applicants than there were places.
Rafael firmly believed that everyone should have equal opportunities for advancement in the workplace.
‘I’m sure they are,’ she admitted, losing her cool and flushing with embarrassment. ‘It’s just—’
‘You have no ambition, no—’ his heavy-lidded eyes slid to her lips ‘—hunger …’
‘I have hunger!’ she protested fiercely.
‘I am pleased to hear it.’ And he could not wait to feel it, feel her eager hands on his body and her starving lips on his skin.
He gave an exaggerated shrug and walked with fluid grace across the room towards the window to hide the blatant evidence of his arousal.
A distracted expression slid across Libby’s face as she watched the light catch his hair, burnishing it to a blue- black sheen. Did it feel as silky as it looked?
‘You want to do it?’
Want? She wanted to run in the opposite direction. ‘When you say internship …? You mean?’
‘I mean internship, a learning process, initially shadowing—’
A mental image of following him around all day flashed into Libby’s head. ‘You?’ she interrupted, thinking a few minutes in his company and she was a basket case, twenty-four seven didn’t bear thinking about.
‘You know what they say, keep your friends close.’ A slow predatory smile spread across his lean face, and his eyes remained brooding as his voice dropped to a throaty purr as he added, ‘And your enemies closer, querida,’ reminding Libby of a large sleek cat tormenting a mouse.
She struggled to shake the feeling she was being manipulated. You’re in control, Libby, this is your call— you’re in control.
She believed it right up to the point where she looked at his mouth.
Her stomach muscles gave a traitorous quiver—just how close was he talking about? Was this talk of internships some euphemism?
‘How close?’ she asked bluntly.
Libby scowled at this blatantly bogus show of bewilderment. ‘Are you expecting me to sleep with you to get my dad a second chance?’
‘Some people might consider the question crude, but I find your directness most attractive. However, when discussing sex I find it is always polite to wait until you’re asked, querida.’ His smile deepened as he watched the hot mortified colour rush to her already pink cheeks.
‘I just … I thought—’
Taking pity on her discomfiture, he cut across her mortified mumble. ‘As we are being frank, in answer to your question, yes, I do expect you to sleep with me. You look shocked.’
Libby stared. ‘How do you expect me to look? Do I look to you like someone who would trade sexual favours to get what I want? There’s a name for people who do that.’
A flicker of impatience crossed his lean features. ‘Do not be dramatic—there is no question of trading anything. It has been obvious from the first moment we met that we would end up in bed.’ There was nothing in his manner to suggest he had said anything out of the ordinary as his bold stare settled on Libby’s face.
For a moment the sheer, unadulterated arrogance of the man struck her dumb. When her voice did return it had developed a husky, breathless quality that made her frown.
‘You need therapy!’
No, he needed sex. Three months was too long to go without for a man with a healthy libido, and pressure of work was not a valid excuse. A man did not stop taking in calories because he was busy, not even if the food on offer had a boring sameness.
His sex life had become if not boring certainly unsurprising; he knew that Libby Marchant was not going to bore him. She was not the only one who needed some challenge in her life.
‘I get that you’re the sort of man who feels obliged to prove he’s a man by hitting on anything in a skirt and hate to spoil your little fantasy—’ she began in an icy tone of withering contempt.
A contemplative smile tugged the corners of his sensually sculpted lips upwards. ‘No, not little,’ he protested. ‘It has actually become quite detailed.’
Refusing to acknowledge his throaty interruption, she clenched her teeth and continued to deliver her scornful analysis of his character.
‘But the only thing that is obvious to me is that you think a hell of a lot of yourself.’
Probably with some justification!
Shamed by the liquid rush of excitement low in her belly, Libby took a quivering breath and drew herself to her full height, wishing as she did so that she had more than an adequate but not impressive five five to face up to his towering six feet five of virile Latin machismo.
‘I do not indulge in casual sex.’
‘Me neither, querida. I am always serious about sex.’ His eyes drifted to her mouth and the mockery faded from them. ‘But I see from your expression that you mean you do not indulge in shallow emotionless sex—let me guess. You only sleep with men who you feel respect for.’
The boredom in his drawl brought a sting of angry colour to her cheeks.
‘I will be frank. I only indulge in emotionless sex.’
‘What am I meant to do—applaud?’
He grinned at her interruption. ‘I feel confident we will find some middle ground.’
‘Because you’re so good at compromises. Look, spare me the details of your love life,’ she begged, angling a look of loathing at his lean face, adding, ‘And I use the word loosely.’ Ignoring Rafael’s laugh, she added, ‘Because I have a very strong gag reflex!’
This time his throaty laughter was impossible to ignore, in part due to the fact it made her stomach muscles quiver.
‘You laugh, but the fact is I’m not going to sleep with you. I have never not been going to do anything more!’
His shoulders lifted in a fluid shrug. ‘We will see, but relax, the offer is not conditional on that. Call me old- fashioned—I prefer in general not to mix business with pleasure and, no matter how good you are in bed, it will not make me not finance a recovery if you do not make the grade. And just for the record you will know when I’m asking.’
Libby’s hands clenched at her sides. ‘I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last man on the planet!’ she blurted in a driven voice.
‘Such vehemence!’ he admired. ‘But who are you trying to convince? Is it possible that your reluctance stems from a fear you will not be able to resist me?’
Libby sucked in a furious breath and stuck out her chin. Aware even as she announced firmly, ‘I’ll take the job,’ that she had been shamelessly manipulated. ‘When do I start?’
‘Monday morning, nine a.m. sharp.’