Page 17 of Marriage Bargain With Her Brazilian Boss (Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales)

With Nush though, it would be hot and real and...raw.

He had the sudden, overwhelming urge to pull her into his lap and lick at that lower lip. To inhale the sweet taste of her mouth into him until he never forgot. To unravel her all over again.

“Caio?”

“Of course you’re not disturbing me,” he said, wondering if this was the hell his mother had warned him about ending up at when he’d get into nasty fights with his stepbrother Enzo The ones Enzo had always started, provoked Caio into, by spewing obscenities about Papa. “I’m never unavailable to you, Princesa.”

She arched her brows and he realized he’d suggested something he hadn’t meant to. Another bite of the toast followed before she said, “Did you need me to sign anything else? I asked your PA to check with you.”

Irritation enveloped him instantly, a dark cloud. “You’re still determined to leave?”

“Yes.”

That’s it. No qualification. No explanation.

Anger burned through Caio in fierce rivulets. But it was different from the bitterness he’d nursed for so many years. This was...pure, even selfish, a challenging burn he welcomed. “On that ridiculous yacht party with Peter Jr. and his deadbeat friends?”

“Do you want me to run my itinerary by you?” she said with exaggerated sweetness.

The minx was baiting him. Fine, if she wanted to play games, he would.

“You won’t even stay for the reading of the will?”

She shrugged. “There’s no real need for me to be there, right? Thaata’s stock in OneTech would go to you. Mira, Yana and I will inherit various other assets. Just as he and you planned.”

“You know, the more you hang out with that crowd, the more you’re beginning to sound like a trust fund brat. Full of privilege and disregard for anything that doesn’t touch you directly.”

“That’s unfair.”

Some devil in him wanted to goad her, wanted to punish her for making him want something he couldn’t have. “Is it? You know OneTech is in the middle of a hostile takeover that Peter Sr. has been planning from the moment he heard Rao’s sick. Do you give a damn about Rao’s vision? About the hundreds of employees whose fate hangs in the balance? About all the programs that Rao and I implemented that will eat dust if Peter wins the takeover and kicks me out?”

“I’m sure you have a plan to stop him from all of it. Important, life-altering plans,” she bit out, throwing his words back at him. “I wasn’t begging for reassurance when I said you never needed me. As to me being privileged...if that’s how you truly see me, then screw you. I’ve never taken anything Thaata gave us for granted. I’ve even fought with him over who pays Mama’s astronomical clinic bills and won. I’ve worked, just as hard as you have, over the last decade. In fact, that’s all I have done.” The metal legs of her chair scraped along the floor as her eyes flashed fury at him. “You know, I’m beginning to see you were right. Youarea heartless bastard when things don’t go your way. Maybe I’ve had a narrow escape from—”

He grabbed her wrist when she pushed off from her chair. The idea of her going off with a man he loathed was twisting him up inside out. But it was no reason to take it out on her. “I’m sorry, Nush. I have no excuse.”

She stared down at him, her chest rising and falling, her usually mobile mouth pinched. Slowly, she nodded.

He should’ve let go of her then. Instead, he ran his fingers over her wrist, loving the wild thrum of her pulse underneath. He wanted her, he admitted to himself then, for himself. He wanted to act on it. He wanted to finish what she’d started that night and all the different filthy ways he wanted to finish it...if he told her, would she blush? Or would she, with her usual enthusiasm, tell him to get on with it?

Every muscle in him jumped at the acknowledgment. But he could find no way to rationalize acting on it. No way he couldn’t hurt her in doing so. No way he could let her become such a big distraction—and that was what she would be—when he was so close to achieving his goal.

She pulled her hand away from his and stared down at her plate. “If not for the fact that Mira asked Yana and me to stay back for a few days to be with her—the first time she’s asked anything for me and Yana ever,” she added, “I’d have left three nights ago.”

Shock pummeled him, punching his breath out of his chest. “Without even saying goodbye?”

Another shrug.

Caio decided to stop playing nice. To stop wondering the whys and whats of the inner workings of his twisted mind. Right now, all he knew was that he couldn’t let Nush go off on some months-long holiday. Not until he could figure out a way to smooth this thing between them. No way was he simply giving her up just yet. “You and I signed a contract to deliver a model worth ten billion dollars in eight months. You also know that Rao’s sudden death has set us back by weeks.”

He paused, gathering every ounce of steely resolve he could muster. “If you leave now, I’ll have the lawyers sue you.”

Head jerking up, Nush glared at him. “You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t—”

“Try me, Princesa.”

Frustration made her bang the glass against the table, spilling the orange juice all over. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you so determined to run away with a bunch of no-good jerks you couldn’t stand to be around even as an impressionable teenager? You can’t convince me that it’s truly what you want.”

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