Page 51 of Marriage Bargain With Her Brazilian Boss (Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales)

But all he’d felt was...this gnawing, aching sense of loss. This emptiness, as if revenge had scoured him and left him with nothing.

Only the thought of returning to Nush had energized him.

He needed to see Nush, needed to touch her and hold her. He needed to make sure she was still there, to reassure himself that she was the only certainty left in his life.

He heard the laughter long before he saw them, as he walked around the house. They were sitting at a table next to the pool, heads bent together, and laughing. The woman was Anushka, Caio knew that. He would know that laughter anywhere.

Finally, he could see them.

She was dressed in a pink top that dangled off her shoulder, and black shorts with her legs kicked out. The man...his profile seemed familiar. Even as Caio frowned, the man pointed to something, Nush laughed and swatted him on the shoulder.

Another step, another hard breath and Caio knew.

He knew who the man was.

As if punched by an invisible first in his gut, every inch of him stilled. It was a wonder he hadn’t put up his fists to defend himself. That was how painfully real that hit felt.

Thoughts and questions swirled through him, like lines in a complex algorithm that flashed across the screen when the program he and Nush built together ran. He couldn’t pin anything down. He even made a half turning motion, some primitive instinct part of him urging him to flee.

It felt like betrayal—her sitting with him. Her talking with him. Her laughter with his brother. Her going behind his back.

“Caio? You’re back.”

Caio hadn’t seen Javier since he had arrived in Brazil. If he was completely honest with himself, he’d been avoiding Javier.

Even though Javi had called his assistant several times, requesting a meeting. He’d even showed up once outside of Caio’s temporary HQ but he’d pretended to have not seen the younger man. Just like he hadn’t set foot in the headquarters of his father’s company.

It wasn’t Carlos or Enzo or his other brother Jorge that he had wanted to avoid. But this young man in front of him, who reminded Caio the most of their mother.

Caio watched him now with the greediness, all the limits and restrictions placed on himself blown to smithereens by his conniving little wife. It was another punch to his gut—how much Javier looked like Caio himself.

He counted to some arbitrary number before he let his gaze touch Anushka.

As if aware of this microaggression, she raised her brows and glared at him, instead of looking even remotely guilty.

He let her see his fury.

She sighed, her large eyes drinking him in greedily. “If you have something to say, Caio, please feel free to do it.”

“We will deal with our...issues in privacy,minha esposa,” he said, enunciating the endearment. He was blazingly angry and yet the anger seemed to wash away resentment and the sense of betrayal that he wanted to hold on to. Because anything he felt around the blasted woman was far too real and welcome. Even his body seemed to know that but not his rational mind. “After I deal with the unwanted guest.”

“Caio, I apologize—” his brother began.

Hand on his shoulder, Nush defended Javi as if he were her cub. “No, Javi. Don’t apologize,” she said, standing up. “This is not just his house. It’s mine too. My home. And as such, I’m allowed to have guests. If Caio doesn’t like that, then he can go inside and take his black mood with him.”

Caio couldn’t remember another occasion—not even as a boy—when someone had so outrageously provoked his temper. Not only had she gone behind his back and invited his brother here, but now she dared to defend Javi, to throw herself in front of him as if Caio would eat him alive...

“What the hell are you smiling at, Javier?” The question burst out of him before he had consciously decided that he would speak to his brother. A part of him wanted to dismiss him, have him thrown out of this house, this new life he was building for himself. A part of him wanted not even the shadow of his brother to touch Anushka. But clearly, it was too late for that.

The diplomat he always was, Javi just shrugged. “Congratulations on your wedding, Caio. Your wife is...” His mouth twitching, he cast Nush a sideways glance, and even in just the flash of a second, Caio could see how smitten Javier was with her, and he had to swallow down an irrational spurt of jealousy. “She is delightful,” Javier finished. “I’m glad to see you settled and happy, finally.” There was such genuine emotion in Javi’s words that Caio’s own anger ebbed as fast as it had come. And he wasn’t ready for that.

“I’ve been happy for a long time, Javi,” he added, like a petulant schoolboy. Even though he knew his words were false.

“Can you really say that?” Javier demanded in a soft voice. “Because if you’ve been so happy, why have you been hiding from me? Why carry out your elaborate charade of stripping everything from Carlos but avoid me and Jorge?”

“Get out,” Caio said finally in a soft whisper.

“No,” Nush said, defiance shining in her gaze. “Not until you listen to what he has to say. Please, Caio... I went to a lot of trouble to get him here.”

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