At The Ruthless Billionaire's Command

He was Gregorio de la Cruz, for goodness’ sake. The man who’d had a hand in driving her father to his death.

When did I stop holding him completely responsible?

She hadn’t. Had she...? No, of course she hadn’t.

Gregorio was hard, ruthless, and scary as hell. He was also at least ten years older than she was, with the added experience that came with those extra years.

Dear God, she must be more desperate for human warmth than she’d realised if she’d been physically aroused by a man she should hate!

* * *

‘Good?’

Lia’s only response was a throaty ‘mmm’ as she dipped another piece of asparagus into melted butter before eating it with obvious enjoyment.

Gregorio had removed his suit jacket and tie, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to just beneath his elbows by the time Lia had returned fully dressed from her bedroom. Her hair was loose about her shoulders, in the style he preferred—but if Lia had known that he was sure she would have scraped it back into a severe bun! She was wearing tight black jeans with a deep grey sweater that perfectly matched the colour of her eyes.

He had placed their food in the oven to keep warm, cleared the breakfast bar, found cutlery and laid two places so they were ready to eat as soon as Lia returned.

After stating that she wasn’t hungry she had devoured succulent prawns and avocado with obvious relish, and steak, asparagus and dauphinoise potatoes were now being enjoyed with the same enthusiasm. The fact that she had drunk two glasses of the red wine Gregorio had ordered to be delivered with the meal—he’d had the foresight not to order one of the vintages from the de la Cruz vineyard—would seem to indicate she approved of that too.

Gregorio had found the food to be as delicious as always, but most of his enjoyment had come from watching Lia as she placed the food delicately in her mouth before eating with relish.

More colour returned to her cheeks the more she ate, and there was now a sparkle to her eyes. Evidence that she really had been starving herself the past two months? Not deliberately, but because food had simply become unimportant to her with her life in such turmoil.

Gregorio intended to ensure that didn’t happen again.

Lia was enjoying the food so much, and Gregorio seemed to be enjoying watching her, that there had been very little conversation between the two of them as they ate together.

Which was perhaps as well. Lia felt the need to argue with this man every time they engaged in conversation.

She finally placed her knife and fork down on her empty plate. ‘I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed the food at Mancini’s.’

Past tense, Gregorio recognised with a tightening of his mouth. Because Lia’s world had been turned upside down and she could no longer afford to eat in such exclusive restaurants.

Which was his cue to resume their conversation about her father’s death. A subject guaranteed to bring back the contention between the two of them, but also one that stood between them as an invisible barrier.

Gregorio would accept no barriers between himself and Lia—invisible or otherwise. He intended knowing everything there was to know about this woman. Inside as well as out. Intimately. And he intended her to know him in the same way.

‘That was delicious. Thank you,’ she added awkwardly. ‘But it’s been a long day, and now I think what I really need is to get some sleep.’

She did look tired, Gregorio acknowledged. Well-fed, but tired. And what did a delay of one more day or so matter when he had already waited this long for her?

He glanced at the disorder about them. ‘Would you like me to come back tomorrow and help you with the rest of your unpacking?’

‘Why are you being so nice to me?’ Lia frowned her puzzlement, more confused than ever now that she had satisfied a need for food she hadn’t realised was there until she’d begun eating.

Her stomach and her appetite had perked up at the very first taste of the food from Mancini’s—a restaurant she had enjoyed going to several times in the past, alone and with David or her father.

‘You are a person it is easy to be nice to,’ Gregorio dismissed with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

Shoulders that looked even wider and more muscular now that he was no longer wearing his jacket. In fact the whole casual thing he had going on—losing the jacket, taking off his tie, unfastening the top button of his shirt and rolling back the sleeves—had succeeded in making him more approachable and even more lethally attractive.

Which was perhaps his intention?

Lull the poor befuddled woman into a state of uncertainty and then pounce?

Cathy was never going to believe her when the two of them spoke on the phone tomorrow as they usually did, and Lia told her friend about Gregorio’s visit and the fact the two of them had eaten dinner together.

Lia wasn’t sure she believed it herself.

It was becoming more and more difficult to continue thinking of this man as the monster who had helped to destroy her father when he was being nothing but attentive and kind to her. No matter how rude she was, he continued to treat her with respect and kindness.

It’s just his way of worming his way into my good graces before he goes for what he really wants!

Which Lia had now realised appeared to be her.

He was obviously a man who enjoyed a challenge if he thought he was going to win that battle.

‘No, I’ll be fine, thanks.’ She stood up as indication that he should leave.

A hint he ignored as he remained seated at the breakfast bar. ‘We have not eaten dessert yet.’

‘Take it with you,’ she dismissed. ‘I couldn’t eat another thing.’

‘I could not deprive you of Mancini’s celebrated chocolate cake.’

Lia gave a soft gasp. ‘He really sent you some of his famous chocolate cake?’ The dessert was Mancini’s secret recipe, and it had always been Lia’s choice when she had dined at the restaurant. It was rich and decadent, and the taste of the cake was orgasmic.

‘He sent us some of his chocolate cake,’ Gregorio corrected.

‘He didn’t know I would be dining with you.’

‘Oh, but he did. I spoke to Mancini personally and requested he send all your favourite foods.’

She widened her eyes. ‘You told him we were having dinner together?’

Gregorio studied her from beneath hooded lids. ‘Is there a problem with that?’

‘Not for me, no.’

‘Or for me.’

He certainly didn’t look concerned at having announced to a third party that he was having dinner with the daughter of Jacob Fairbanks. Considering the speed with which some of her so-called friends and her fiancé had disappeared in a cloud of smoke, she found Gregorio’s behaviour odd to say the least.

‘You’re a very strange man,’ she said slowly.

‘In a bad way or a good way?’ he prompted as he stood up.

‘I haven’t decided yet.’

The grin he gave softened the harshness of his features. ‘When you do, let me know, hmm?’

‘You’re different than I imagined.’

‘In what way?’

‘That night at the restaurant when you—when you kissed me, I thought you were just another arrogant jerk who doesn’t like to hear the word no.’

‘One out of the two, certainly,’ he mused.

Lia didn’t need him to tell her it was the word no he didn’t like to hear. There was no doubting he was arrogant too, but there was something else. Something she couldn’t quite equate with the ruthless bastard she’d labelled him. Perhaps it was the fact that, whatever his reasons, he was actually attempting to take care of her.

‘You said you weren’t always rich?’

‘No.’ He settled more comfortably on the bar stool. ‘When I graduated from university with a business degree and returned to Spain it was to find that my father had allowed the family vineyard to decline. Several years of bad harvest...diseased vines.’ He shrugged. ‘There were still my two brothers to go to university. I put my own life on hold and set about ensuring that happened.’

‘By founding the de la Cruz business empire?’

‘Yes.’

‘And is your life still on hold?’

He looked at her admiringly. ‘Obviously not.’

Lia gave a shake of her head. ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea for the two of us to meet again.’

He looked displeased. ‘Why not?’

Lia avoided meeting his gaze. ‘Besides the obvious, I don’t belong in that world any more.’

‘The obvious...?’

‘I hold you partly responsible for my father’s death.’ There—she’d stated it clearly, so there could be no lingering doubts as to her reason for staying away from this man.

Was she protesting too much?

Because of her earlier reaction to him?

Maybe. But that didn’t change the fact that she really didn’t want to see or be alone with Gregorio again. He...unsettled her. Disturbed her. In a deep and visceral way Lia could never remember being aware of with any other man. Including the man she had once been engaged to and had intended to marry.

‘I am sorry you feel that way,’ he answered evenly. ‘And you can belong in whatever world you choose to be in,’ he announced arrogantly.

‘You really can’t be that naïve! My father is dead. My engagement is over. Most of my friends have deserted me. I’ve lost my home. My father’s business is under investigation. None of the charities I worked for want the name Fairbanks associated with them. I now live in this tiny apartment, and I start a new job on Monday.’

‘None of those things changes who you are fundamentally.’

‘I no longer know who I am!’ If there had been enough room to pace then Lia would have done so, as she was suddenly filled with restless energy. ‘I try to tell myself none of those other things matter. That this is my life now...’

‘But...?’

‘But I’m mainly lying to myself.’ She inwardly cursed herself as her voice broke emotionally. Gregorio was the last man she wanted to reveal any weakness to. ‘And you’re lying to yourself if you think that being nice to me, buying me dinner, will ever make me forget your part in what happened,’ she added accusingly.

‘No barrier is insurmountable if the two people involved do not wish it to be there.’

‘But I do wish it to be there.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

When had Gregorio moved to stand so close to her? She felt overwhelmed by both his size and the force of his personality—a lethal combination that caused her heart to start pounding loudly again.

‘You have to go,’ she told him.

‘Do I?’

‘Yes!’

Despite the food she’d eaten, Lia had no reserves of energy left to resist the pull of those dark and compelling eyes. No defences to fight the lure of that hard and muscular body. Even the reminder that he was Gregorio de la Cruz wasn’t working. She was caught like a deer in the headlights of a car as his head slowly began to lower towards hers.

Gregorio was going to kiss her...

No matter how exhausted and defenceless Lia felt, she couldn’t allow that to happen.

‘No!’ She raised enough energy to put a restraining hand against his chest, and that brief contact was enough to make her aware of the tensed heat of Gregorio’s body and the rapid beat of his heart. ‘You really do have to leave. Please.’

His lips remained only centimetres away from her own, his breath a warm caress against her cheek.

His nostrils flared as he breathed long and deeply before slowly straightening and then finally stepping away. ‘Because you asked so nicely...’

Lia gave a choked laugh, able to breathe again now that he was no longer standing quite so close to her. ‘As opposed to threatening to call the police and having them kick you out?’

‘Exactly.’ He rolled down the sleeves of his shirt and fastened them before shrugging back into his jacket. ‘Think of me tomorrow when you eat all that chocolate cake,’ he added huskily, and then the door closed softly behind him as he let himself out of the apartment.

Lia breathed easily at last once he had gone. What the hell had happened just now? She had almost let Gregorio kiss her, for goodness’ sake. She—

Lia froze as she saw the business card sitting on top of the breakfast bar.

The same business card she had refused to take from him earlier, with his personal mobile number embossed on it in gold.

CHAPTER THREE

‘GOOD MORNING, LIA.’

Lia felt all the colour drain from her cheeks as she stared up at the man standing on the other side of the reception desk at the London Exemplar Hotel.

She had always thought that a person feeling the colour leeching from their face was a ridiculous concept: people couldn’t actually feel the colour leaving their cheeks.

Except Lia just had. In fact the blood seemed to have drained from her head completely, settling somewhere in the region of her toes and leaving her feeling slightly light-headed as she continued to gape across the reception desk at Gregorio de la Cruz.

He tilted his head, a mocking smile playing about those sculpted lips as he saw her reaction to his being here. ‘I did warn you that in future you should anticipate seeing me where and when you least expected to do so.’

Yes, he had—but it hadn’t occurred to Lia that Gregorio might turn up at her new place of employment.

Deliberately so?

Or was it purely coincidence that Gregorio had come to the Exemplar Hotel on the morning she began working there?

Lia very much doubted that. With a man as powerful and well-connected as Gregorio there was no such thing as coincidence.

Which meant he had known she would be here. How he knew was probably by the same means he had acquired the address of her new apartment.

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you having me followed, Mr de la Cruz?’

‘Followed? No,’ he dismissed. ‘Am I ensuring your safety? Yes,’ he admitted without apology.

Lia’s brows rose. ‘Why on earth does my safety need ensuring?’

‘You are now alone in the world.’

‘We both know why that is!’

‘Lia—’

‘Is there a problem here—? Mr de la Cruz!’ Michael, the hotel manager, quickly hid his surprise as he greeted the other man warmly.

‘Good morning, Michael,’ Gregorio returned smoothly as the two men shook hands. ‘And, no, there is no problem. I just came down to say hello to Miss... Faulkner,’ he finished, with a knowing glance at the badge Lia had pinned on the left lapel of her jacket.

It was a surname Gregorio knew didn’t belong to her.

And he also apparently knew the manager of this hotel by his first name’

An uneasy feeling began to churn in Lia’s stomach, growing stronger by the second and making her feel slightly nauseous.

There was no such thing as coincidence where Gregorio de la Cruz was concerned.

Which meant he had known exactly where she would be starting her new job this morning.

He really was having her followed—might he even have had some influence in her attaining this job too?

For what reason?

The churning in Lia’s stomach became a full-blown tsunami as she searched for the reason Gregorio was doing these things.

That guilty conscience she had accused him of having?

No, he had denied feeling any guilt in regard to her father’s death.

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