Page 11 of Marriage Bargain With Her Brazilian Boss (Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales)

The clear affection in his tone was a pleasant surprise. Nush hugged the piece of information to herself, hoarding pieces of the puzzle she’d long wanted to solve. “Exactly,” she said, a glimmer of her smile coating her words. “So why?”

“You resent me for treating you differently.” He stated it baldly, as if he’d only now arrived at that irrevocable conclusion. “Here I thought you were the most uncomplicated woman I’ve ever known, Nush.”

“At least you think me a woman,” she mumbled to herself and then prayed to the laws of physics that he hadn’t heard her. Clearly, her filter was completely off today.

His head cocked to the side and all Nush wanted to do was to run her fingers over the corded column of his throat. “Do you remember the first time I came to pick you up?”

Nush nodded. That summer had been one of the best of her life. Not only had she spent every minute with Mira and Yana but she’d also started working with Caio. Her grandparents had spent hours with her. Even their dad had dropped in for a few visits. For the first time in her life, Nush had found total acceptance, even when she was at her weirdest.

“You were terrified of leaving your mom behind. You were desperate to see Yana and Mira and your grandparents. You said you couldn’t wait to spend every day making memories to take back with you for when you needed them. You...tried to be strong and brave even when you didn’t have control of anything around you. You...reminded me of myself. Of who I’d been before I lost all semblance of innocence and good. Of who I’d been a long, long time ago. Sometimes, I wonder if...”

Nush didn’t say anything, so afraid that if she interrupted him, he might stop talking. He might stop sharing. He might stop giving her this little glimpse into his head.

“There’s an untouched innocence to you that none of us have been able to hold on to. I know Rao and Mira, and even Yana, feel as if they could do anything to keep that part of you safe. It’s the same thing that makes me feel protective of you. Maybe because no one looked out for me. I lost so much...that I can never get back. Even if I wanted it back.”

A dark thread of anger vibrated in the last sentence. As if he hadn’t quite let go of it, even as he acknowledged that it had changed him for the worse.

Nush wrapped her arms around her knees on the chair and studied him with her chin tucked into them. It was the most he had ever shared about his background. “I’m sorry that you were alone when you needed someone. I know how terrifying that feels.”

“I know you do, Princesa.” He sighed then, and it rattled in the quiet between them. “Just because I feel protective of you doesn’t mean I think any less of you, Anushka.”

A sudden, strange warmth came over her, leaving her trembling in its wake. Their eyes met in the darkness and Nush nodded, not trusting her voice. The silence that followed had an unusual thrumming quality to it for two people who were used to spending hours together in companionable silence. Like there were things being said without either of them saying it. And she wondered if it was her betraying herself. Wondered if the truth of her desire for him could be worse than this...strange game she was playing.

She watched as he moved around the room, touching Thaata’s things just as she’d done before he’d arrived. Only now, when that shamefully needy part of her had been assuaged with his words, did she note how on edge his movements were. How unsettled the energy around him felt when he usually didn’t let anything fracture his determination toward his end goal.

When he reached the other side of the desk and picked up the framed picture of her and Caio standing on either side of her grandfather—one that had been taken last year—she let out a shuddering breath. His fingers moved over her grandfather’s face in the picture, his gaze far away.

“Tell me how you came to know Thaata,” she said, wanting to give him something for once, wanting to take away the far-off look in his eyes.

A sudden smile simmered into existence, a pocket of light in the darkness around them. “It was Rao who came to my rescue when I didn’t have anything or anyone. When I hated the world and wanted to burn it down. And I didn’t make it easy for him either.”

“He never told me that. Don’t tell me you and Thaata used to fight?”

“All the time, especially when he brought me here in the beginning. I was like an out-of-control, festering wound. I didn’t want to trust him. It was only after I’d spent several days with Yana and Mira that I believed that he meant well. That he did care about me.”

“Why did he come to your...rescue?” She searched his face, desperate to see every nuance in those eyes. “I can’t imagine you needing rescue in any way.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. Exhaustion she’d never seen before was etched into the gesture. “I can’t imagine how bad my life could’ve gotten if he hadn’t.”

Her heart ached to see him like that. “You mean you weren’t born arrogant and confident and ruthlessly perfect?”

“Perfect,querida? Far from it.” She heard his laughter and his shock in his response. “Rao and my dad worked together as entry-level engineers a long time ago when they’d both been trying to make it here. They even started their companies at the same time, Papa back in Brazil and Rao here. They kept in touch until Papa passed away when I was nine. Rao checked on me and Mama regularly. He never forgot about us.” Caio sounded faraway and tense, as if the memories weren’t good ones. “When I had nowhere to go, Rao invited me to come work for him. All based on a relationship with a man who was long gone.”

Nush smiled. “I hope you know he wasn’t being altruistic. Thaata must have known what a fantastic investment you’d turn out to be. He once told me that he hadn’t imagined a tenth of the success you’ve made of OneTech.”

Fingers tracing the edge of the desk, Caio walked around until he was leaning against it, within her reach. “Oh, I’ve no doubt of that. Rao was a long-term strategist. His trust in me... I can’t tell you what it meant to me. But Rao believed in second chances and that’s what landed us in this mess with Peter Sr. too.”

“Is that why no amount of success is enough, Caio? Because you have to pay it back in spades? Why you’ll go to any lengths to keep your control of OneTech intact?”

“Now you even sound like your grandfather,” he said, easily sidestepping her question. Shock swept through her as she realized that each word of his was measured, everything he’d shared had been calculated to get something back. “I find it amazing how much of him there is in you. He was a pioneer and didn’t let anything bother him when he was in that lab and was unrelentingly stubborn when he got a notion into his head.”

And just like that, he reminded Nush of what she had to do. For her own sake. “Then you also know that I don’t make decisions easily, Caio. I have to leave. Though...” she stared at her fingers bathed in moonlight, careful with her own words now, “I’m sorry for how I spoke to you earlier. It was unfair. You made a convenient target for something that wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re sorry for the how, but not for what you said,” he observed drily, almost in a matter-of-fact voice. As if he was sifting and separating her intent from her words. “You meant it when you said you’d begin to hate me if you stayed. Or do you hate me already, Princesa?”

And suddenly, Nush realized that he’d come in search of her—not just found her—that their conversation—one she’d foolishly instigated—was far from over. That he wouldn’t rest until he knew all about her secret fascination with him.

This was the Caio she knew—a man who never left a stone unturned if it caught his interest. Except it was all directed at her now.

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