Page 15 of Marriage Bargain With Her Brazilian Boss (Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales)

She stared at him, aghast. “My honor’s not tied to my having sex. With you or anyone.”

“I wholeheartedly agree,querida. But mine is tied to not taking advantage of the generosity and trust Rao gave me. In not taking advantage of your...affection for me.”

“You really think I can’t separate lust and affection? Grief and loss from want? Is that what you’re afraid of? That if we have sex, I’ll somehow confuse my poor unsuspecting mind and cling to you and make all sorts of demands on you? And for Thaata’s sake and your poor honor’s sake, you’ll have to agree and be tied down to me for the rest of our lives?”

That the idea of being tied down to Nush for the rest of their lives didn’t alarm him much alarmed him. He was really due for some mindless entertainment if his mind was making outrageous leaps like that out of thin air.

“What if we do have sex? Then what, Anushka? Do we greet each other as friends when it’s over? Do we continue working and collaborating as if we don’t know each other intimately? What happens when I have my fun with you, discard you and move on to the next woman that catches my fancy? Do you expect me to hold you together? Do you know if you can bear it when I lose interest in you and dump you?” He forced himself to be as crude as possible. “Because you know very well, that’s what I do. Are you telling me you’d be okay with fracturing everything good between us...all for what? For a few minutes of mindless sex?”

“Yes, I want it as long as both of us want it. I want it because...” Some sort of self-preservation seemed to have caught her there. Swallowing, she looked down at her hands, and then back up at him. “Don’t use Thaata or our relationship or your bloody integrity as excuses, Caio, because that’s all they all are. If you don’t want to pursue this, just say that. I’m mature enough to accept that.”

So be it then. “Kissing you back was the biggest mistake of my life. I have plans for it that don’t involve messing up what you and I might have in pursuit of questionable pleasure. I’m not some errant knight that will hold you together when an affair ruins things between us, Princesa. Your little experience with men doesn’t mean you’re ready for me. The fact that you hold one kiss so high in your estimation is proof enough of how naive and unworldly you are.”

Even in the meager light of the table lamp, Caio could see how she paled. How that final barb had landed hard. Now that he was so in tune with her very breath, he could see the soft gasp that escaped her lush mouth.

Fat tears pooled in her eyes, magnified by the thick glasses. She blinked and one rolled down the very cheek he wanted to touch and clasp and hold. He’d always been the one who’d offered her a shoulder when she cried, who stood by her until she found that strength again. Never the one who made her cry and it left the foulest taste in his mouth.

“I have no use for you as a lover, Nush.”

“No. Only for my brain in your campaign for world supremacy,” she said with a scornful laugh.

It cut through him easily, her self-deprecation, her hot anger, her bitterness, like a knife through butter. And that he’d let her get so close to wound him shocked him in itself. “Princesa—”

“Stop.” Finally, she blinked, pulled in a shuddering breath, straightened her shoulders and faced him. Always fighting, even in defeat, full of that steely strength that he’d always admired. “Get out, Caio.”

He regarded the picture she made for several seconds, desperate to kiss away the hurt from her mouth. Cristo, he was screwed up in every way when it came to Nush.

He walked out, closing the door behind him. He’d spent a lot of time in the last fifteen years disliking who he’d become, but he’d never actively hated himself as much as he did then.

And while he knew he’d acted for the best, for both of them, Caio had a feeling he’d destroyed whatever they’d had and whatever they might have had. But the second was only possible if he’d been a better man.

CHAPTER FOUR

THEKISSSTAYEDwith Caio for hours, days, taunting him, haunting him, mocking his so-called steely will, now lying in shredded ribbons at Nush’s feet. Or was it at that luscious mouth and eager response that it was snagged on...

His week had been busy with media interviews, board meetings, figuring out which board members still respected Rao’s vision for the companyandsupported Caio’s position as CEO, versus which men were ready to jump ship.

He shouldn’t have had a moment’s quiet to dwell on the kiss.Or her.And yet it came to him, at the most unsuspecting of times, halting his thoughts, making him sprawl back and live it all over again.

Her bold declaration that she’d not let him call it something else, the perfect fit of her lithe body against his, the way she’d responded to his caresses, her moans, her fierce demands—he was never going to forget how she’d melted into him. Every time he saw her, he’d see her as she’d been in that darkness.

Eyes big and wide behind those glasses, mouth trembling, nipples grazing his chest in pleasurable torment, the lush flare of her hips in his hands, the toned length of her thighs molding against his...

He pushed a hand through his hair. God, he was obsessing over a kiss.

Cursing his fractured discipline, Caio forced himself to think of the upcoming reading of Rao’s will tomorrow. Once that was out of the way and Caio had the majority he needed, he needn’t look back. Putting the purchase of his stepfather’s company through to his CFO would be his first order.

And it wasn’t just that he needed OneTech.

OneTech needed him too. Especially if he wanted to stop Peter Sr. from turning it into a cash cow with no principles or integrity.

Caio had lost not just a mentor and an investor and a professional colleague he respected, but a man who’d given Caio a purpose when he’d been sorely lacking one.

Being a part of Rao’s family had given him a balance, a hope that he could build something after he achieved his goal. That he wasn’t completely lost.

I’ve wanted this...for months, Caio.

Anushka’s whispered declaration tugged at him. A vague shape of a wish teased at the edge of his consciousness and he batted it away.

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