A Game Of Vows

She was mercenary. If being mercenary meant she did what she had to to ensure her own success. Her own survival. She’d needed to be. To move up from the life she’d been born into. To overcome the devastating consequences of her youthful actions. And she’d never lost a wink of sleep over it. But for some reason, the fact that it was so obvious to Eduardo was a little bit unsettling.

“Is it mercenary to try and improve the quality of your life?” she asked.

“It depends on the route you take.”

“And the resources available to you are a major factor in deciding which route to take,” she said.

“I’m not judging you, Hannah, believe it or not.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “No, you’re just using me.”

“As you said, you do what you must to improve the quality of your life.” His expression was strange, tense. Dark.

She looked away. “I have to do something.”

“What is that?”

She looked down at her left hand, at the massive, sparkly engagement ring Zack had given her a few months earlier. She tugged it off her finger, a strange sensation moving through her like a strong wind. Sadness. Regret. Relief.

“I have to send this to Zack.” She held it up and realized her hands were shaking. She couldn’t keep it. Not for another second. Because mercenary she might be. But she wasn’t a thief. She wouldn’t take from Zack. Wouldn’t do any more damage than she’d already done.

“I can have someone do that for you. Do you know where he is?”

“Thailand,” she said, without missing a beat. “We were supposed to honeymoon there.”

“And you think he went?” he asked, dark eyebrows raised.

She smiled. “Zack had business in Thailand, so yes, I think he went. No, I know he went. He’s not the kind of man to let a little thing like an interrupted marriage keep him from accomplishing his goals.”

Eduardo studied her, dark eyes intense. “Perhaps he was perfect for you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m trying not to dwell on that.” She held the ring out and Eduardo opened his hand. She dropped it into his palm. “I have the address of the place we were meant to stay at.”

“Bien. I’ll call a courier and have it rushed.” He closed his hand around the ring, the glittering gem disappearing. All she could think of was that he held her future in his hand. The future that might have been. The one that was not eclipsed by Eduardo.

She looked up, their eyes clashing. Her throat tightened, halting her breath.

“Good,” she said, barely able to force out the words. She turned to the desk and saw a pad and pen slotted into the wooden slats built into it for organization. It was where she’d kept them when she’d lived here. She bent and scribbled the address for the house she should be in now, with Zack.

Her fingers felt stiff and cold around the pen. She straightened and handed him the note. “There. That should do it.”

“I’m surprised you don’t want to keep the ring.”

“Why? I didn’t keep the one you gave me, either.”

“We had a prior agreement. I get the feeling you didn’t have an agreement like that with him.”

“Separate beds, separate lives, unless a public appearance is needed? No. We were meant to be married for real.” She swallowed hard. “And all things considered, I don’t feel right keeping his ring. I was the one who wronged him.”

“Careful, Hannah, I might start thinking you grew a conscience in our time apart.”

“I’ve always had one,” she said. “It’s been inconvenient sometimes.”

“Not too inconvenient.”

“Oh, what would you know about a conscience, Eduardo?”

“Very little. Only that it occasionally takes the form of a cricket.”

A reluctant laugh escaped her lips. “That sounds about right. So … if you could mail my ring to him, that would be great.”

“I’ll call now.” He turned and walked out of the room, leaving her alone.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her emotions a blank. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel. Why she suddenly felt more relieved than upset about leaving Zack behind. Marriage to him would have been good.

And yet, when she thought of the honeymoon, when she thought of sharing his bed … she couldn’t make the man in her vision Zack.

The man she saw was darker, more intense. The man she saw was Eduardo. His hands on her skin, his lips on her throat …

She flopped backward and covered her face with her hands. “Stop it,” she admonished herself. She rolled onto her side and grabbed a pillow, hugging it tightly to her chest. She hadn’t done that since high school. Comforting then, even when the world was crumbling around her, and just as comforting now.

Eduardo had always been handsome. He’d always appealed to her. That was nothing new. But she’d never once been tempted to act on any kind of attraction while they’d lived together. It hadn’t been part of her plan. And she didn’t deviate from her plans. Plans, control, being the one in charge of her life, that was everything. The most important thing.

Not Eduardo’s handsome face and sexy physique.

“Feeling all right?” Eduardo asked from the doorway.

She snapped back into a sitting position, pillow still locked tightly against her breasts. “Fine.”

Eduardo couldn’t hold back the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. Hannah Weston, flopped on her bed like a teenage girl. A show of softness, a show of humanity, he hadn’t expected from an ice queen like her. Like her reaction when he mentioned her fiancé. Like when she’d given back the other man’s ring.

It suited him to think of Hannah as being above human emotion. It always had. He needed her. He didn’t know all the reasons why, but he did. And that meant it was easier to believe that she would simply go with the option that benefited her most and feel no regret over leaving the inferior choice behind.

But that wasn’t how she was behaving. And it gave him a strange twinge in his chest that seemed completely foreign.

Hannah stood up from the bed and put the pillow gingerly back in its place. She cleared her throat and straightened. She looked … soft for a moment. Different than he’d ever seen her before. She was beautiful, no question, more so now than she’d been as a too-thin college student.

She was still thin, but her angles had softened into curves, her cheekbones less sharp, her breasts small but round.

Instantly, an image of him pushing her on the bed, tugging her shirt up, filled his mind. He could take those breasts into his hands … suck her nipple between his lips, his teeth …

A rush of blood roared through his body, south of his belt. How long had it been since that had happened? Since he’d been aroused by an actual woman. In solitude, with a fantasy, he could certainly find release. But with a woman? One he had to somehow seduce and charm when he had no more seduction and charm left in him? That had been beyond him for quite some time.

“I can see that. You epitomize ‘fine.’”

“I’m ready to find out what your game plan is, Vega,” she said, crossing her arms beneath those small, gorgeous breasts.

“My game plan?”

“Yes. I don’t like not knowing the score. I want to know exactly what you have planned and why.”

“Tomorrow, I plan to take you to the office, to let you look at things and get a feel for the state of the company.”

“All right. What else?”

He felt the need to goad her. To shake her icy composure. As she was shaking his. He took a step forward, extended his hand and brushed his knuckles over her cheek. Her skin was like a rose petal, soft and delicate. “Well, tonight, my darling bride, we dine out.” Her eyes darkened, blush-pink lips parting. She was not unaffected by him. His body celebrated the victory even as his mind reminded him that this had no place in their arrangement. “I intend to show all of Barcelona that Señora Vega has returned to her husband.”

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