Page 4 of Marriage Bargain With Her Brazilian Boss (Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales)

It felt like a sign. More than a sign—a wakeup call.

Had Thaata known how frustrated and unhappy she’d been of late? How stuck she felt? How she was so full of longing and resentment against one man who took up all her waking thoughts?

Her grandfather had taken a turn for the worse in the month since they’d lost their grandmother. It was a shock Nush wasn’t sure she or her sisters would recover from soon. A fresh wave of grief made the back of her eyes prickle. Thaata seemed to have known all three of them needed a little more from him. More than the love and acceptance and affection he’d always given them.

Standing against the far wall, she studied the crowd that had gathered in the high-ceilinged living room of their grandparents’ colonial-style house to pay their final respects to a man who’d touched so many lives through the tech giant OneTech he’d started two decades ago and that had flourished into a multibillion-dollar company with Caio at the helm in the last decade.

Among the guests were Yana’s mother and her stepfather and her stepbrothers. And her older sister Mira’s husband, Aristos, even though he and Mira had been separated for the last nine months. Only Mama was absent.

Nush had tried to tell her mother on her last visit to the nursing home that Thaata had taken a turn for the worse, but in the tail end of one of her bad episodes, Mama had only stared back with a glassy look.

Mira had flown in from Greece at a second’s notice to look after her grandmother after her heart attack eight months ago and never returned. Not a year ago, her steady, sensible sister had shocked them all by marrying Greek business tycoon Aristos in Las Vegas. They’d never seen Mira so happy. And yet when Yana and Nush had probed Mira about not returning to Aristos, their older sister had burst into tears.

Unsurprisingly now, it was Mira and Caio who effortlessly slipped into the role of playing hosts.

Caio was the true heir to her grandfather’s legacy and his vision. Her grandparents had brought up Mira since she’d been a toddler. Ever since her mother had walked out and their father had continued on with his womanizing.

Nush frowned at how good they looked together. Her brother-in-law Aristos’s gaze mirrored the same irritation. Which was ridiculous because neither of her sisters were aware that her harmless crush had matured into something else even as Caio dated and discarded more women than Yana did designer handbags.

As if she’d called out his name, Caio flicked a gaze across the room.

Dressed in relentless black, he was like a dark sun among a sea of overly bright stars, all orbiting him constantly for attention. Still searching, he bent from his considerable height to kiss her sister’s cheek and walked into the room.

He was looking for her. Nush knew it as surely as her heart fluttered like the mad hare racing off to the finish line. They hadn’t talked since their nightlong vigil at Thaata’s bedside two nights ago.

Her eyes tracked him across the large living room, caressing his features as eagerly as the sunlight slanting through the high windows did. The high forehead, the deep-set light brown eyes with their golden flecks, the arrogant nose and the thin slash of his mouth were as familiar to her as her own face.

If he’d been stunning when he’d been twenty-seven, almost a decade later now, there was a compelling quality to him that sang to her. A confidence that made clowns of twentysomething men that employed mind games and power plays in the name of dating.

Was it the mantle of responsibility that he wore so well? The well-honed instinct for success? Or the deep-seated streaks of honor and integrity that he suppressed in the boardroom as if they were a weakness but still colored his actions anyway?

It didn’t matter that she’d spent the decade working for and with Caio. That they’d been business partners since her eighteenth birthday. With her grandfather’s encouragement, she’d entered a partnership with Caio to build a sub-company based on the software model she’d developed. His knowledge of the market, his risk-taking meant she’d made millions before she’d turned twenty-one.

It didn’t matter that her acne had cleared up, that she had filled out enough to have a semblance of curves to go with her arms and legs, or that, in the last year, she’d dated men ranging from models to CEOs to even a congressman in a desperate bid to rid herself of this strange fascination.

It didn’t matter how she much she’d changed or who she became. When it came to Caio, she was still that awed fourteen-year-old who couldn’t help but stare. He was still the tall, dark Brazilian god that made her skin flush, her heart flutter, her breath do wonky things with one simple look. Somehow the blasted man had imprinted on her sexuality and she needed to do something about it if she didn’t want to be sixty and still salivating over him from a distance. The only saving grace was that she’d never betrayed herself or the extent of her...desire for him.

Friends and business partners and shareholders stopped Caio to offer respects, to keep themselves in his good graces. A couple of well-dressed women laid manicured fingers on his forearm. Wordlessly offering to soothe his grief, she thought bitchily.

A wave of relief flooded through her when Caio didn’t even flick a look in their direction. Followed by the prickly heat of shame. At least those women had the guts to show him their interest, to make a play for him.

Not like her. Spinning fantasies around him while standing still for years.

Caio’s roving gaze stopped when it found her standing under the shadow of a raised beam. The gaunt tightness of his features loosened. Even across the distance, she could see the gentling of the ruthless curve of his mouth. The warmth that deepened the golden flecks of his eyes.

TheI’m herelook that she knew, without doubt, she was the sole recipient of in the entire world. The look that had always made her feel as if there was a special bond between them. Only she got to see this softer, less ruthless version of Caio. The real man that he was under the brilliant, ruthless entrepreneur he showed the world.

But for the first time in nine years, Nush hated it. Hated how she’d boxed herself into this place with him. Hated how it had become a prison that she couldn’t break out of.

“If you’re going to make a move, do it soon.”

Nush jerked her gaze away from Caio to find her sister Yana watching her. While Nush looked like a crow in an unrelenting, sleeveless black T-shirt and black leggings, Yana looked just as inappropriate in neon-pink pants with matching spaghetti top and an oversized jacket with bright white sequins all over it.

Neither of them had wanted to be here. Had protested about putting on a show of their grief for a loss they wouldn’t be over for a long time. But Mira, ever the responsible one, had reminded them that their grandparents would want them there. Would want them to give people who’d loved them just as much a chance to show their respect.

Heat prickled her cheeks as Nush pushed her glasses up her nose. “What...do you mean?”

“It’s a wonder he hasn’t caught on with how you look at him, Nushie... I mean Caio’s not stupid when it comes to women.” Yana frowned, her voice pitched thankfully low. “But I guess you both do spend hours attached at the hip and he knows what an introvert you are and that you don’t have any real-life friends so maybe he thinks it’s normal for you to be fascinated by him.”

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