Page 3 of Pregnant and Stolen by the Tycoon

‘Don’t be ready to throw in the towel just yet, Miss Merchant.’

Genie swivelled around at the sound of the voice.

The deep rumbling volcano of a voice.

Not hyperbole.

The man striding with supreme confidence into her office had the voice that could rival the soundtrack of that volcano that had erupted in Hawaii recently. And it was accented. Not thick but blended with something else. Enough to make it distinctive.

South America. Spanish. But not quite Chile. Not quite Argentina. Off the coast. Smoke. Fire.Samba.

‘Cardosia,’ she murmured.

He paused, his eyes narrowing a fraction, then gleaming, before he inclined his head. ‘Indeed. Not many can tell.’

Genie shrugged. ‘I can parse thirty-seven languages and dialects.’ She wasn’t entirely certain why she felt the need to share that information and on some level she knew she would be disappointed when she arrived at the reason why. Because it strongly suggested she was intimidated by this stranger.

This towering force moving through her personal space.

She tilted her head and examined him clinically.

He was hands down the finest male specimen she’d ever seen. Considering she rarely left her building, she might be sorely lacking in source material with which to compare him, but if she placed him in the category assigned by her favourite TV characters, he was a ‘banging ten-ten studly stud’.

Had he taken a wrong turn to a photoshoot for those far too large billboards that dominated the skyline and seemed to slap her in the face whenever she ventured out? Because he really was too much to behold.

She looked past him to her assistant. ‘Lily.’ The older woman had worked for Merchant Labs long enough to decode the question held within her name.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Merchant, I don’t have Mr...um...’

‘Severino Valente,’ the stranger supplied, the intensity of his voice deepening further.

Lily’s eyes widened, then her face flushed. Genie categorised the reaction and deduced that her assistant had registered the ‘studly-studness’ of her unwanted visitor.

‘I don’t have Mr Valente on the schedule, but he said you’d be interested in taking this meeting with him, and since Mr Graham left early...’

Genie kept her gaze on Lily, faintly registering that perhaps she was staring too long, perhaps even displaying her displeasure with this uncharacteristic action by her assistant. Was that...fair or unfair? ‘Did he?’

Diverting her attention from Lily, she met a pair of unwavering slate-grey eyes, her question, also meant to ridicule his assumption, bouncing off his wide shoulders.

He moved towards her, and the most peculiar thing happened.

Her skin began to tighten. Not in flight-or-fight mode. She knew those two well enough. Had experienced both in the past six months and beyond that in the not so distant past, when she’d questioned her true value to the people who should’ve cared about her. When she’d believed she might be better off on her own.

No, this was different.

It felt almost like...anticipation.Stimulation.Although why she should...oh.

Oh. Goodness.

Her body was straining towards him of its own volition. And her hand was extending towards his in answer to the large one he held out to her.

As if he had some sort of...powerover her.

Alpha-male posturing.

She’d read that somewhere. The logical thing to do to negate stimulus was to separate the stimulant from the object. She started to drop her hand, even contemplated stepping back but that would be a red flag he wouldn’t miss.

‘My assistant is correct that my last meeting was cut short. But I’m afraid I don’t have time for another, especially with someone who walked in off the street.’

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