When Da Silva Breaks the Rules
ABBY GREEN
Is gorgeous billionaire Cesar Da Silva finally off the market?Reclusive billionaire Cesar Da Silva has hit the headlines! Not only are his family secrets about to be exposed, but he’s been caught kissing Lexie Anderson on the set of her latest movie, which is being shot at his imposing castillo!Publicity-shy Da Silva has certainly smashed his own rules by romancing the high-profile actress. A reliable source suggests he is helping Miss Anderson over her last heartbreak with a string of dazzling dates. And, if their chemistry so far is anything to go by, this is one match that’s bound to be explosive!Discover more atwww.millsandboon.co.uk/abbygreen
Cesar was losing it. He knew he was losing it. But he couldn’t take his mouth off Lexie’s. He’d never tasted anything so sweet. Or so wicked. The way that lush mouth softened under his, the feel of that body under his hands …
Dios.
Cesar finally pulled back, heart hammering. He did not ravish women in the back of his cars. He was cool, calm, controlled. Right now he felt anything but. He could hardly see straight. His body was on fire.
Lexie was looking at him with huge eyes. She thought he’d done that on purpose. And he had—but not for the reasons she obviously suspected. He wanted to make sure there was no ambiguity about how he felt about her.
He cupped that delicate jaw. Her mouth was pink, swollen. He couldn’t help running his thumb across that pouting lower lip, feeling its fleshy softness.
‘Make no mistake, Lexie, I want you … and not just to distract the crowds. You know the truth of what I said earlier. We will be lovers for real.’
BLOOD BROTHERS
Power and passion run in their veins
Rafaele and Alexio have learned that to feel emotion is to be weak. Calculated ruthlessness brings them immense success in the boardroom and in the bedroom. But a storm is coming with the sudden appearance of a long-lost half-brother, Cesar, and three women who will change their lives for ever …
ReadRafaele Falcone’sstory in:WHEN FALCONE’S WORLD STOPS TURNING February 2014
ReadAlexio Christakos’sstory in:WHEN CHRISTAKOS MEETS HIS MATCH April 2014
And readCesar Da Silva’sstory in:WHEN DA SILVA BREAKS THE RULES June 2014
When Da Silva
Breaks the Rules
Abby Green
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABBY GREEN spent her teens reading Mills & Boon
romances. She then spent many years working in the film and TV industry as an assistant director. One day while standing outside an actor’s trailer in the rain, she thought: There has to be more than this. So she sent off a partial to Mills & Boon
. After many rewrites they accepted her first book and an author was born. She lives in Dublin, Ireland, and you can find out more here: www.abby-green.com (http://www.abby-green.com)
Recent titles by the same author:
WHEN CHRISTAKOS MEETS HIS MATCH
(Blood Brothers) WHEN FALCONE’S WORLD STOPS TURNING (Blood Brothers) FORGIVEN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN? EXQUISITE REVENGE
Did you know these are also available as eBooks?Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
PROLOGUE (#ud769909e-adea-568b-a8b4-b1f704caa860)
CHAPTER ONE (#u49def7e4-3e16-5da3-8784-b9bd8797c7d9)
CHAPTER TWO (#u88e6a457-3b70-560b-a1a7-d8597a0daccd)
CHAPTER THREE (#uf29e3438-33fd-572b-8936-e77480e4e3e0)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
EXTRACT (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
CESAR DA SILVA hated to admit that coming here had had any effect on him, but his gut was heavy and tight as he stood on the path near the grave. He asked himself again why he’d even come and reflexively his fingers closed around the small velvet pouch with its heavy weight in his hand. He’d almost forgotten about it.
He smiled cynically. Who would have thought that at the age of thirty-seven he’d be obeying urges and compulsions? Usually he was the king of logic and reason.
People drifted away from the open grave a short distance across the hilly green space. Ornate mini-mausoleum-style headstones dotted the cemetery in the hills of Athens, its grass no doubt kept generously watered in the Greek heat.
Finally there were only two men left by the grave. Both tall, of similar height, with dark hair. One had slightly darker and shorter hair than the other. They were broad, as Cesar was, with powerful builds.
It was no wonder they were all similar. He was their half-brother. And they had no idea he even existed. He saw one put his hand on the shoulder of the other. They were Rafaele Falcone and Alexio Christakos. They all shared the same mother, but had different fathers.
Cesar waited for icy rage to surge upwards upon seeing this evidence of the family he’d always been denied, but instead he felt a kind of aching emptiness. They came towards him then, talking in quiet voices. Cesar caught his youngest half-brother’s words on the slight breeze—something like, ‘Couldn’t even clean up for the funeral...?’
Falcone replied indistinctly, with a quirk to his mouth, and Christakos riposted, smiling too.
The emptiness receded and anger rose up within Cesar. But it was a different kind of anger. These men were joking, joshing, just feet away from their mother’s grave. And since when did Cesar feel protective of the woman who had taught him from the age of three that he could depend on no one?
Galvanised by that very unwelcome revelation, Cesar moved forward and Falcone looked up, words dying on his lips, smile fading. Falcone’s gaze was enquiring at first and then, as Cesar drilled holes into him with his stare, it became something else. Cold.
With a quick flick of a glance to the younger man by his half-brother’s side, Cesar noted that they’d also all inherited varying shades of their beautiful but treacherous mother’s green eyes.
‘May we help you?’ Falcone asked coolly.
Cesar glanced over them both again and then at the open grave in the distance. He asked, with a derisive curl to his lip, ‘Are there any more of us?’
Falcone looked at Christakos, who was frowning, and said, ‘Us? What are you talking about?’
Cesar pushed down the spreading blackness within him and said with ominous quiet, ‘You don’t remember, do you?’
But he could see from the dawning shock that his half-brother did, and Cesar didn’t like the way something inside him tightened at that recognition. Those light green eyes widened imperceptibly. He paled.
Cesar’s voice was rough in the still, quiet air. ‘She brought you to my home—you must have been nearly three, and I was almost seven. She wanted to take me with her then, but I wouldn’t leave. Not after she’d abandoned me.’
In a slightly hoarse voice Falcone asked, ‘Who are you?’
Cesar smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m your older brother—half-brother. My name is Cesar Da Silva. I came today to pay my respects to the woman who gave me life...not that she deserved it. I was curious to see if any more would crawl out of the woodwork, but it looks like it’s just us.’
Christakos erupted. ‘What the hell—?’
Cesar cast him a cold glance. Somewhere deep down he felt a twinge of conscience for imparting the news like this, on this day. But then he recalled the long, aching years of dark loneliness, knowing that these two men had not been abandoned, and crushed it ruthlessly.
Falcone still looked slightly shell-shocked. He gestured to his half-brother. ‘This is Alexio Christakos...our younger brother.’
Cesar knew exactly who he was—who they both were. He’d always known. Because his grandparents had made sure he’d known every single little thing about them. He bit out, ‘Three brothers by three fathers...and yet she didn’t abandon either of you to the wolves.’
He stepped forward then, and Alexio stepped forward too. The two men stood almost nose to nose, Cesar topping his youngest brother in height only by an inch.
He gritted out, ‘I didn’t come here to fight you, brother. I have no issue with either of you.’ Liar, a small voice chided.
Alexio’s mouth thinned, ‘Only with our dead mother, if what you say is true.’
Cesar smiled, but it was bitter. ‘Oh, it’s true all right—more’s the pity.’ He stepped around Alexio then, before either man could see the rise of an emotion he couldn’t name, and walked to the open grave.
He took the velvet pouch out of his pocket and dropped it down into the dark space, where it fell onto the coffin with a hollow thud. In the pouch was a very old silver medallion featuring the patron saint of bullfighters: San Pedro Regalado.
Even now the bitter memory was vivid. His mother was in a black suit, hair drawn back, Her features as exquisitely beautiful as any he’d ever seen. Eyes raw from crying. She’d taken the medallion from where it hung around her neck on a piece of worn rope and had put it around his neck. She had tucked it under his shirt and said, ‘He will protect you, Cesar. Because I can’t at the moment. Don’t ever take it off. And I promise I will come back for you soon.’
But she hadn’t come back. Not for a long time. And when she finally had it had been too late. Something had withered and died inside him. Hope.
Cesar had taken off the medallion the night he’d let that hope die. He’d been six years old. He’d known then that nothing could protect him except himself. She deserved to have the medallion back now—he’d had no need of it for a long time.
Eventually Cesar turned and walked back to where his half-brothers were still standing, faces inscrutable. He might have smiled, if he’d been able, to recognise this familiar trait. An ache gripped him in the region of his chest where he knew his heart should be. But as he knew well, and as he’d been told numerous times by angry lovers, he had no heart.
After a taut silence Cesar knew he had nothing to say to these men. These strangers. He didn’t even feel envy any more. He felt empty.
He turned and got into the back of his car and curtly instructed his driver to go. It was done. He’d said goodbye to his mother, which was more than she’d ever deserved, and if there was one tiny piece of his soul that hadn’t shrivelled up by now then maybe it could be saved.
CHAPTER ONE
Castillo Da Silva, near Salamanca
CESAR WAS HOT, sweaty, grimy and thoroughly disgruntled. All he wanted was a cold shower and a stiff drink. A punishing ride around his vast estate on his favourite stallion had failed to put a dent in the dark cloud that had clung to him since his return that afternoon from his half-brother Alexio’s wedding in Paris. Those scenes of chirpy happiness still grated on his soul.
It also irritated him intensely that he’d given in to the rogue compulsion to go.
As he neared the stables his black mood increased on seeing the evidence of a serious breach of his privacy. A film was due to start shooting on his estate after the weekend, for the next four weeks. If that wasn’t bad enough, the stars, director and producers were all staying in the castillo.
He wasn’t unaware of his complicated relationship to his home. It was both prison and sanctuary. But one thing was sure: Cesar hated his privacy being invaded like this.
Huge equipment trucks lined his driveway. People were wandering about holding clipboards, speaking into walkie talkies. A massive marquee had been set up, where locals from the nearby town were being decked out as extras in nineteenth-century garb.
All that was missing was a circus tent with flags flying and a clown outside saying, Roll up! Roll up!
One of his biggest stable yards had been cleared out so that they could use it as the unit base. The unit base, as a film assistant had explained earnestly to Cesar, was where the actors got ready every day and where the crew would eat. As if he cared!
But he’d feigned interest for the benefit of his friend Juan Cortez, who was the Lord Mayor of Villaporto, the local town, and the reason why Cesar had given this idea even half a second’s consideration. They’d been friends since the age of ten, when they’d both had to admit defeat during a fist fight or remain fighting till dawn and lose all their teeth. And they would have—both were stubborn enough.
As his friend had pointed out, ‘Nearly everyone has been employed in some capacity—accommodation, catering, locations, the art department. Even my mother is involved in making clothes for the extras and putting up some of the crew. I haven’t seen her so excited in years.’
Cesar couldn’t fail to acknowledge the morale and economic boost the film had already brought to the locale. He was known in the press for his ruthless dealings with people and businesses—one journalist had likened his methods to those of the cold, dead-eyed shark before it ate you whole. But Cesar wasn’t completely heartless—especially if it involved his own local community.
More than one person caught a glimpse of his glowering features and looked away hurriedly, but Cesar was oblivious, already figuring out how he could rearrange his schedule to make sure he was away for as much of the next four weeks as possible.
To his relief, his own private stable yard, which was strictly off-limits to the crew, was empty when he returned. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone—not even a groom. After unsaddling his horse and hosing him down, Cesar led him back to his stall and made sure he was secure, patting his still quivering flesh after their exertion.
It was only when he was turning to leave again that Cesar spotted a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to look.
And stopped breathing, and thinking.
In the other corner of the quiet stable stood a woman. Cesar felt slightly dizzy for a moment and wondered if he was seeing an apparition.
She was wearing a white corset that cinched in her waist to almost impossible proportions while provocatively pushing up the abundant swells of her breasts. Long wavy golden hair was pulled back from an ethereally beautiful face and left to tumble down her back. Very feminine hips curved out from that tiny waist and a long, voluminous skirt almost touched the ground.
She was stunning...exquisite. She was Venus incarnate. She couldn’t be real. Nothing so perfect existed in reality.
Almost without realising that he was moving, Cesar closed the distance between them. She didn’t move. Just stared at him, looking as transfixed as he felt. Imbuing the moment with an even headier other-worldly feeling.
Her eyes were huge and blue...piercing. She was tiny, and it seemed to call to some deep, primal part of him. Evoking an alien urge to protect.
Her face was small and heart-shaped, but with an inherent strength that elevated it out of the merely beautiful to the extraordinary. High cheekbones. Elegant straight nose. A full, lush mouth made for sin and sinners. Skin like alabaster.
There was a beauty spot close to the edge of her upper lip. She exuded an earthy and very feminine sexual allure. She couldn’t be real. Yet every single ounce of his masculinity was humming and throbbing in reaction to her luminosity.
As if to check that he wasn’t losing it completely, Cesar reached out a hand, noting with almost dispassionate surprise that it trembled slightly. He cupped his hand near her cheek and jaw, without actually touching her, almost afraid that she might disappear if he did...
And then he touched her...and she didn’t disappear. She was real. Warm. Skin as soft as silk.
A movement made his eyes drop and he saw her chest moving up and down rapidly with her breaths.
‘Dios,’ he said faintly, almost to himself, ‘you are real.’
Her mouth opened. Cesar saw small, even white teeth. Her tongue-tip pink. She said, ‘I...’ and then stopped.
Just that one tiny word had been uttered in a husky voice, making Cesar’s whole body tighten with a need that was unprecedented.
Sliding his fingers further around her jaw to the back of her neck, silky hair tickling his hand, Cesar tugged her into him and after a minute hesitation she came, stumbling ever so slightly. All he knew, once he felt the barest whisper of a touch of her body to his, was that he couldn’t hold back now even if a thousand men tried to stop him.
He lowered his head and his mouth touched hers, and all that sweet, soft voluptuousness pierced him right to the centre of his being, and threw him into the pit of a fire of lust so strong it obliterated everything he knew, or thought he knew.
Cesar felt her hands clutching at him, grabbing his shirt. Any resistance vanished when her mouth opened under his, and his arms tightened around her as his hungry tongue thrust into that hot, moist cavern.
However sweet that first initial taste had been, it turned to pure sin. Decadent and rich. Her tongue was sharp and smooth, teasing. Stoking his levels of arousal so that every bit of blood seemed to be rushing to the centre of his body, making that shaft of flesh lengthen and stiffen painfully.
Moving his hands to her waist, encircling it, Cesar almost groaned aloud when he felt his fingers meet. That evidence of her intense femininity pushed his body over the edge, made it betray him as if he were an over-sexed teenager.
He could feel her chest, struggling with constricted breath, moving up and down rapidly. Blood surging anew, Cesar lifted a hand and dragged it up between their bodies, itching to touch that smooth pale skin.
When he came into contact with the swell of one breast his body pulsed with a need that shocked him. He broke the contact of their mouths for a moment, resting his forehead against hers, overwhelmed at the strength of his desire.
‘Please...’
Her voice sounded even huskier...needy. The way he felt. He needed this woman now. Needed to free himself and lift up her skirts and plunge right into the centre of that taut, smooth body. To feel her legs wrap around him.
On some very dim and distant level Cesar was aware that he had become animalistic. Reduced to the cravings and needs of a base animal in an effort to achieve a kind of satisfaction he’d never anticipated before.
But that still couldn’t stop him. Not after that husky please had filled the space between them.
Branding her mouth with his again, the kiss was open-mouthed and carnal. Electrifying.
In the act of lifting up her skirts, almost desperate now, Cesar jerked and flinched when a flash of light seemed to illuminate the world for a second. Like the crack of a whip. Shattering the heady moment.
Lifting his head from where their mouths were welded together, Cesar could only see two huge pools of blue, ringed by long black lashes. That plump mouth was pink. He could feel her chest moving against his.
Then there was another flash, and a rapid jarring, clicking sound. He flinched again. Some vague notion of reality and sanity returned from a long distance. He turned his head, but it was the hardest thing to do—to look away from that face. Those eyes.
He saw a man standing at the entrance of the stables holding a camera up to his face. It was the equivalent of having a bucket of cold water thrown over him. Suddenly reality was back.
Cesar straightened up. Instinctively he pushed the woman behind him as he snarled at the man who was backing away, still shooting, ‘Get out of here. Now.’ One of Cesar’s grooms appeared near the door and he rapped out at him, ‘Get Security now—and get that man’s camera.’
But the photographer had disappeared, and even though Cesar’s groom darted away after him Cesar had the sinking feeling it would be too late. He’d reacted too late himself.
Becoming aware of rapid harsh breathing behind him, Cesar turned around.
And almost fell into the pit again when he saw those huge blue eyes staring up at him and that body which made him ache.
But reality had intruded. This woman was no apparition or ghost. She was flesh and blood, and he had just lost his legendary control spectacularly. Dios, had he gone mad?
Accusingly, Cesar asked, ‘Who the hell are you?’
* * *
Lexie Anderson was barely aware of the sharp accusation in the deep, deliciously accented voice. She couldn’t seem to get enough breath into her challenged lungs to speak. All she could ask herself was: what the hell had just happened?
She remembered wandering away from the camera tests while they set up the lights and finding these quiet stables. She loved horses, so she had come in to investigate.
Then the peace had been shattered when this man had appeared in the courtyard on a huge black stallion. He’d swung down off the horse’s back and from that moment on everything had got a little hazy.
Lexie had been mesmerised by his powerful physique and the play of muscles under his close-fitting polo top and jodhpurs as he’d tended to the horse. And that had been before she’d seen his face properly. When he’d heard her and turned around.
He was stunning. Beautiful. But with a masculine edge that made ‘beautiful’ sound too...pretty. He was hard. Edgy. Dark. Messy dark blond hair. A sensually sculpted mouth surrounded by stubble shadowing a very masculine jaw.
But it was his eyes that rendered Lexie a bit stupid and mute even now, as he waited for her reply. They were green—unusual and stark against dark olive skin. Not hazel, or golden, or light green. Something between all three. Unnerving. Mesmerising.
And he smelled of man. Sweat and musk and heat. Along with something tangy. Woodsy.
Lexie shook her head, as if that might make all this disappear. Maybe she was having some bizarre dream. Because she knew that what had just happened was unprecedented. She did not react to complete strangers by letting them kiss her, or by feeling as if she’d die if they didn’t keep kissing her.
She remembered his big hands around her waist, then reaching under her skirts to pull them up, and how she’d burned between her legs for him to touch her there.
Now was most definitely not the time to be assimilating that cataclysmic information.
‘I’m...’ She stopped, her tongue feeling heavy in her mouth. She tried again. ‘I’m Lexie Anderson. I’m with the film.’
Lexie’s face burned when she realised exactly how she was dressed, and how this man’s eyes had widened when he’d seen her. Belatedly self-conscious, she went to cross her arms but realised the corset only made things worse—especially when those green eyes dropped to her heaving flesh again.
Feeling trapped now—literally backed into a corner—and not liking it, Lexie forced her legs to move, wobbly as they were, and stepped cautiously around him.
He turned to face her. Eyes cool, unreadable. Hands clenched into fists by his sides. ‘You’re Lexie Anderson...the lead actress?’
She nodded.
He looked at her, his eyes no longer unreadable now. Angry. ‘And how did you get in here?’
She blinked, not understanding for a moment. ‘I didn’t see any sign or a gate...I just saw the horses—’
‘It’s off-limits here. You should leave—now.’
Anger gripped Lexie. She’d just behaved in a way that was completely out of character. The last thing she needed was to feel the lash of his censure. Stiffly, she replied, ‘I didn’t realise this was off-limits. If you can tell me how to get back to the unit base, I’ll happily leave.’
His voice was harsh, curt. ‘Turn left. It’s at the end of the lane and to your right.’
Seething inwardly now, because she had been overcome by the first rush of physical desire she’d ever felt, and it had been for some anonymous person who worked at the castle and not even someone she knew or who was particularly charming, Lexie stalked off, tense as a board.
Then she heard the man curse and he commanded, ‘Wait. Stop.’
Lexie stopped, breathing hard, and turned reluctantly again, rigid with tension.
He walked towards her, his movements powerfully agile, and she stepped back. His eyes flashed but she just tipped up her chin. What was wrong with her judgement? There wasn’t anything remotely forgiving or alluring about this man. He was all hard edges and brooding energy.
He looked grim. ‘That was a paparazzo. He got our picture.’
She’d forgotten. Her brain was refusing to work properly. Lexie could feel her blood draining south. The man must have feared she was about to faint or something, because he took her arm and none too gently drew her over to a haystack by the entrance, where he all but pushed her down onto it.
She ripped her arm free and glared up at him, hating the betraying quiver in her belly at his touch. ‘There’s no need to manhandle me. I’m perfectly fine.’
As if to confirm her worst suspicions, the young groom came running back, his face red.
‘Well?’ barked the man.
Lexie felt like standing up and telling him to go and take out his aggression on someone his own size, but she was disgusted to feel that her legs might not hold her up.
‘Señor Da Silva...’
The groom spoke quickly after that, in incomprehensible Spanish, but Lexie was now gaping at the tall, angry man who was answering equally gutturally and quickly, making the groom turn puce and rush off again.
Lexie was too shocked to care for the groom’s welfare any more. He turned back to her and she said faintly, ‘You’re Cesar Da Silva...?’
‘Yes.’
He didn’t seem to be too thrilled she’d made the connection. She’d thought he was a worker! Lexie hadn’t recognised him as the owner of this entire estate because he was famously reclusive. Also, she’d never expected the Cesar Da Silva to be so young and gorgeous.
She had to will down her mortification when she thought of how she’d been all but crawling all over him like a hungry little kitten only minutes before. Begging. ‘Please.’
Oh, God.
She stood up. She had to get out of here. This was not her. She’d been invaded by some kind of body-snatcher.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
Lexie looked at him. Anger flashed up again—at him and herself. She put her hands on her hips. ‘You just told me to leave, didn’t you? So I’m leaving.’
She moved around him again, towards the entrance, relieved that her legs were working.
‘Wait.’
Lexie stopped and sighed heavily, turned around. She arched a brow, hiding how damn intimidating she thought he was. ‘What now?’
He couldn’t have looked more stern. ‘That photographer got away. My groom saw him get into a car before any of the security guards could be alerted. I would imagine that right about now he’s emailing pictures of us to any number of agencies around the world.’
Lexie felt sick. She felt even sicker to think that she was potentially going to be splashed across the tabloids again. And with Cesar Da Silva, one of the most reclusive billionaires in the world. It would be a sensation and it was the last thing she needed—more intense media interest.
She bit her lip. ‘This isn’t good.’
‘No,’ Da Silva agreed, ‘it’s not. I have no desire to become the centre of some grubby little tabloid sensation.’
Lexie glared at him, incensed. ‘Well, neither do I.’ She pointed a finger at him. ‘And you kissed me.’
‘You didn’t stop me,’ he shot back. ‘And what were you doing in here anyway?’
Lexie burned. No, she hadn’t stopped him. Anything but. She’d been caught up in a dreamlike state of...hot insanity.
‘I told you.’ Her voice was stiff, with the full ramifications of what had happened sinking in. ‘I saw the stables, I wanted to see the horses... We’re doing camera tests with Make-up and Wardrobe, and while they were setting up the lighting...’
She tensed as realisation hit.
‘The camera tests! I have to go back—they’ll be looking for me.’
Lexie went to rush off, but her arm was caught by a big hand. She turned and gritted her jaw. Those green eyes were like burning gems in his spectacular face. His hand on her arm was hot.
‘This isn’t over—’
Just then a PA rushed into the yard, breathless. ‘Lexie, there you are. We’ve been looking all over for you. They’re ready to shoot again.’
Lexie pulled free of Cesar Da Silva’s grip. She could see his irritation at the interruption but she was glad, needing to get away from his disturbing presence and so she could try to assimilate what had just happened.
Lexie tore her gaze from his and hurried after the officious PA, who was speaking into the walkie-talkie microphone that came out of her sleeve near her wrist. Lexie heard her saying, ‘Found her...coming now...one minute...’
Her head was reeling. She felt as if in the space of just that last...fifteen minutes?...her entire world had been altered in some very fundamental way.
She’d let that man...who had been a complete stranger...walk up to her and kiss her. Without a second’s hesitation. And not just kiss her...devour her. And she’d kissed him back.
She could still feel that dizzying, rushing sweep of desire like a wave through her body. Impossible to ignore or deny. Immediate. All-consuming.
It was crazy, but she’d felt protected by his much larger bulk when he’d put her behind him as soon as he’d seen the paparazzo. Lexie wasn’t used to feeling tiny, or in need of protection, even though she was physically small at five foot two. She’d been standing up for herself for so long now that she wasn’t usually taken unawares in a situation like that. It sent a shiver of unease through her.
The photographer.
She felt sick again. Memories of lurid headlines and pictures rose up. Before she could dwell on it though, they’d entered the yard where the camera tests were taking place and everyone snapped to attention as soon as she appeared.
The cameraman beckoned her over. ‘Right, Lexie, we need you over here on your mark, please.’
* * *
Cesar paced back and forth in his office, behind his desk. If it were at all possible his black mood had just become even blacker. Like a living, seething thing crackling around him. He had a file open on his desk and there were clippings and pictures strewn across it.
It was a file on Lexie Anderson. And it was not pretty.
One of the film assistants had furnished Cesar’s office with files on everyone involved in the film. As much for security purposes as for a little general knowledge about the cast and crew. He hadn’t even looked at them before now, because he hadn’t been interested.
The files generally just held people’s CVs. Except for Lexie’s file. Her file was fat, not only with her CV, covering work which consisted mainly of TV and some indie movies before she’d shot to stardom via some vacuous-looking action movies, but also with numerous clippings from papers and magazines.
There were pictures of her, scantily clad, for a lads’ magazine some years previously. One image showed her posing as some sort of half-dressed cheerleader, in nothing but thigh-high socks, knickers and a cardigan, teasingly open just enough to show off the voluptuous swells of her breasts and the sensual curve of her tiny waist. Her hair was down and tumbling sexily over her shoulders.
It was exactly the kind of image that Cesar found a complete turn-off, but right now he was having to battle with his own body to stop it responding as helplessly as if he were an over-sexed teenager all over again.
Cesar cursed and picked up the picture, throwing it aside. It fluttered to the floor. She was an actress. That was what she did.
But much worse than that were the more recent pictures and headlines: Luscious Lexie—Homewrecker! The tabloids had indulged in a feeding frenzy because she had been involved with a married actor who had subsequently left his heartbroken wife and children. He and Lexie weren’t together now, though. According to the salacious copy, once he’d left his wife, heartless Lexie hadn’t been interested any more.
Cesar knew that he couldn’t have cared less what any lead actress got up to in her spare time, or with whom. But he’d kissed this woman in a moment of extreme madness only a short time before.
The imprint of that petite lush body against his was still branded into his memory. No woman had ever got him so hot that he’d lost control like that. He’d been moments away from backing her into a wall and thrusting up into her slick body if they hadn’t been interrupted by the paparazzo when they had.
Cesar cursed. And then his phone rang. He answered it abruptly.
His solicitor’s voice came down the line, ‘Cesar, I’ve got some news you’re not going to like.’
If his solicitor could have seen Cesar’s expression right then he probably would have put the phone down and run. But he couldn’t, so he went on, oblivious.
‘You were photographed at Alexio Christakos’s wedding this morning in Paris.’
‘So?’ Cesar offered curtly, his mind still full of lurid images of Lexie Anderson and her effect on his body.
His solicitor in Madrid sighed heavily. ‘Well, it would appear that some very industrious reporter decided to do a quick search, to see if there was any connection between you and Christakos. They came up with the fact that the recently deceased Esperanza Christakos was briefly married to one Joaquin Da Silva, years before she became a renowned model.’
For a second Cesar saw only blackness. He sat down. ‘How did they find this?’
‘It’s not a secret who your mother was, Cesar,’ his solicitor pointed out carefully. ‘It’s just never been discovered before...the connection...’
Cesar knew this. His mother had left so long ago that no one had ever seemed to have the inclination to go digging. He came from the Da Silva dynasty and that was all people cared out.
Until now.
Cesar managed to give an instruction to his solicitor to monitor the media attention closely and put his phone down.
The press would have a field day. He was the estranged half-brother of two of the most renowned entrepreneurs in the world. It would be open season on prying into their lives. For speculating on why nobody had ever spotted the connection before now. And so on, and so on.
He was well aware that this was hardly big news—people discovered half-siblings all the time. What he wasn’t prepared for was the prospect of ignominious media intrusion into an area of his life that had always been shut away. Not acknowledged.
The only time the reality of his brothers had been acknowledged, it had been used to taunt him. To drive home the fact that he was not the chosen one. That he could trust no one. Ever. As much as he hated to admit it, the scar was still deep. He only had to think back to earlier that day to remember how it had felt to be so black and bitter next to their happiness and ease with the world. A world that had taught them they could trust. That mothers didn’t leave you behind.
Cesar cursed the maudlin direction of his thinking. Cursed himself again for having gone to Christakos’s wedding.
With this film on his estate his privacy was already being well and truly eroded. Now this.
And then another picture of Lexie caught Cesar’s eye and a headache started to throb behind his right temple. He feared that the reclusive life he’d lived for so long was about to slip out of his grasp unless he could do some serious damage limitation.
CHAPTER TWO
‘MISS ANDERSON? MR Da Silva would like to see you in his office, if you could spare a few minutes?’
Lexie knew it wasn’t really a question. It was an order, and she chafed at the autocracy, already imagining his dark, forbidding expression. He’d been a complete stranger to her less than a couple of hours ago, known only by his reputation and name, yet now his saturnine image was branded like a searing tattoo on her brain. His taste...
Hiding her reaction, Lexie just shrugged her shoulders lightly and smiled. ‘Sure.’
She followed the smartly dressed young woman down a long hallway. She’d just arrived back at the castillo from the camera tests and was dressed in her own clothes again. Worn jeans and sneakers. A dusky pink long-sleeved cashmere top, which suddenly felt way too clingy.
The make-up artist had scrubbed her face clean and she’d left her hair down, so now she had no armour at all. She hated the impulse she had to check her reflection.
Lexie hadn’t had much time yet to look around the castillo as she’d been busy since they’d arrived, doing rehearsals and fittings. It was massive, and very gothic. The overall impression was dark and forbidding. Oppressive. Not unlike its owner. Lexie smiled to herself but it was tight.
A stern housekeeper had shown her to her room when she’d arrived: dressed in black, hair pulled back in a tight, unforgiving bun. She might have stepped straight out of an oil masterpiece depicting the Spanish Inquisition era.
Lexie’s bedroom was part of an opulent suite of rooms complete with an elaborate four-poster bed. Reds and golds. Antique furniture. A chaise longue. While it wasn’t her style, she had to admit that it was helping her get into character for the film. She was playing a courtesan from the nineteenth century, who was torn between leaving her profession for her illegitimate son and a villainous lover who didn’t want to let her go.
It was a dark, tragic tale, and the director was acclaimed. This film was very important to her—and not just for professional and economic reasons. One scene in particular had compelled Lexie to say yes, as she had known it would be her own personal catharsis to act it out. But she didn’t want to think of that now.
After a series of soulless but financially beneficial action movies, this was Lexie’s first chance to remind people that she could actually act. And hopefully move away from that hideous Luscious Lexie image the tabloids had branded her with. Not entirely unjustly, she hated to admit.
The young woman stopped outside a massive door and knocked. Lexie’s mind emptied. Her heart went thump and her throat felt dry.
She heard the deep and curt ‘Sí?’ And then the woman was opening the door. Lexie felt as if she was nine again, being hauled up in front of the head nun at her school for some transgression.
But then Cesar Da Silva was standing in the doorway, filling it. The woman melted away. He’d changed. Washed. Lexie could smell his scent—that distinctive woodsy smell. But without the earthy musk of earlier. It was no less heady, though.
Wearing a white shirt and dark trousers should have made him appear more urbane. It didn’t. The material of his shirt was fine enough to see the darkness of his skin underneath. He stood back and held out an arm, stretching his shirt across his chest. Lexie saw defined hard muscles. Heat flooded between her legs.
‘Come in.’
Lexie straightened her spine and walked past him into a massive office.
She was momentarily distracted by its sheer grandeur as he closed the door behind them. It was shaped like an oval, with a parquet floor, and it had an ante-room that looked like a library, with floor-to-ceiling shelves of books upon books.
Something very private and poignant gripped her inside.
‘Please, take a seat.’
Da Silva had moved behind his desk, hands resting lightly on top, but not disguising his obvious tension. The desk was huge, awe-inspiring. A very serious affair, holding all sorts of computers and machines and phones.
And yet less than two hours ago she and this man had mutually combusted and she had been oblivious to who he was.
Feeling uncharacteristically awkward, she started, ‘Look, Mr Da Silva—’
‘I think we’ve gone beyond that, don’t you?’ His face was mirthless and hard.
Lexie wondered for a crazy moment what he would look like if he smiled. Genuinely smiled.
She burned inwardly at that rogue little thought, and in rejection of his autocratic tone. ‘I...well, yes.’
Her big slouchy handbag was slung over her shoulder. She let it slip down now, and held it in front of her like a shield. Something was telling her this wouldn’t be a quick meeting.
A bright colour caught her eye then, and she glanced down to see a photo of herself on the ground. Frowning, she bent to pick it up. When she registered the image, her insides roiled. She’d been twenty-one. Completely naive. Cringing inside with embarrassment. Not that you’d know it from the picture. She’d been hiding behind a well-developed wall of confidence and nonchalance that hadn’t come easily.
She held the picture between thumb and forefinger and looked at Cesar across the desk. He was totally unrepentant. Something hard settled into her gut. The awareness she had of his sheer masculine physicality made her feel like a fool. And very vulnerable—which she did not welcome. It had been a long time since she’d allowed anyone to make her feel that way.
Then she saw the open file and all the other cuttings and clippings and pictures. She didn’t have to read the lurid headlines to know what the characters said even from here, upside down. Luscious Lexie.
She went icy. Her bag slipped to the floor unnoticed.
‘What is this?’
‘This,’ Cesar da Silva offered tautly, ‘is your life, I believe.’
Lexie looked at Cesar and right at that moment despised him. She’d barely exchanged more than twenty sentences with the man, and he’d displayed not an ounce of charm, yet she’d blithely allowed him to be more intimate with her than any other man had ever been.
Her conscience mocked her. That wasn’t technically true, of course. But the other experience in her life hadn’t been consensually intimate. It had been a horrifically brutal parody of intimacy.
Lexie forced her mind away from that and raged inwardly at the injustice of his evident blind belief in the lies spread before him. She hated that a part of her wanted to curl up and cringe at how all this evidence was laid out so starkly across his desk. Ugly.
She forced her voice to be light, to hide the raging tumult. ‘And do you believe everything you read in the papers, Mr Da Silva?’
He gritted out, ‘Call me Cesar.’
Lexie smiled prettily, hiding her ire, ‘Well, when you ask so nicely...Cesar.’
‘I don’t care enough to give the time to believe or disbelieve. I couldn’t really care less about your tawdry sex life with married men.’
Lexie saw red. She literally saw a flash of red. She forced air into her lungs. Clenching her jaw so tight it hurt, she bit out, ‘Well, then, perhaps you’d be so kind as to let me know what you want to discuss so that I can get on with my tawdry life.’
* * *
Cesar had to force back the urge to smile for a second. She’d surprised him. Standing up to him so fiercely. Like a tiny virago. Or a pocket Venus.
It took an immense physical effort not to let his gaze drop and linger on the swell of her breasts under the clinging soft material of her top. Or to investigate just how snugly those worn jeans fitted her bottom.
When she’d walked in he’d taken in the slim, shapely legs. The very feminine swell of her hips. She was the perfect hourglass, all wrapped up in a petite, intoxicating package. Her hair was loose and wavy over her shoulders. Bright against the dark wood of his office. Against the darkness of the castillo. Something lanced him in a place that was buried, deep and secret. He didn’t welcome it.
He didn’t like that he’d also noticed her beauty spot was gone. The artifice of make-up. It mocked him for believing himself to have been in some sort of a dream earlier. For thinking she was some sort of goddess siren straight out of a Greek myth.
But she was no less alluring now in modern clothes than she had been in a corset and petticoats. In fact, now that Cesar knew the flesh her clothes concealed, it was almost worse.
And he’d just been ruder to this woman than he’d ever been to another in his life.
He could actually be urbane. Charming. But as soon as he’d laid eyes on her again he’d felt animalistic. Feral. Even now his blood thundered, roared. For her. And she wasn’t even remotely his type.
He ran a hand through his hair impatiently. His conscience demanded of him that he say, ‘Look, maybe we can start again. Take a seat.’
Lexie oozed tension and quivering insult. And he couldn’t blame her. Even if her less than pristine life was spread all over his desk.
‘I’m fine standing, thank you. And where, might I ask, did you get your hands on what appears to be a veritable scrapbook of my finest moments?’
Her voice could have cut through steel it was so icy. Cesar almost winced.
‘Someone working on the film compiled information on the cast and crew.’ His eye caught another lurid shot of Lexie pouting over the bonnet of a car. His body tightened. He willed himself to cling on to some control. ‘It would appear that person was a little over-zealous with the back catalogue of your work.’
Lexie flushed, her cheeks filling with dark colour, and Cesar felt his conscience twinge again. As if he was in the wrong. When this woman was standing there with her chin tilted up, defiant in the face of her less than stellar reputation.
She came forward and Cesar’s gaze couldn’t help but drop to where her breasts swayed gently under her top. She stopped at the other side of the desk and put her hands on it and glared at him, her huge blue eyes sending out daggers of ice.
She plucked out the image of her on the car and held it up accusingly. ‘This is not a back catalogue of work. This is a naive young girl, trying to get on in a ruthless cut-throat business—a girl who didn’t have the confidence or economic security to say no to bullying agents and photographers.’
She spat out the words.
‘You might consider that the next time you find it so easy to judge someone you were only too happy to kiss without even knowing who she was.’
Before Cesar could respond to her spiky defence, not liking the rush of a very alien emotion within him, she’d gathered up all the cuttings and pictures, her CV and head-shots, and marched over to a nearby bin, dumping the lot.
She turned around, her hair shimmering as it moved over her shoulder. She crossed her arms. ‘Now, what was it you wanted to discuss?’
* * *
Lexie hated that her body was humming with awareness for this man. Who was blissfully immune to the angry emotions he was arousing.
What a judgmental, supercilious, arrogant, small-minded—
‘I owe you an apology,’ he said tightly.
Lexie blinked. The anger inside her suffered a body-blow. ‘Yes, you do.’
His mouth was a grim line. ‘I had no right to judge you on the basis of those pictures.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Lexie snapped, but then she flushed again when she thought of another similar shoot she’d done relatively recently—albeit for a much more up-market publication and with a world-famous photographer. But still, she couldn’t exactly claim the moral high ground either... ‘It’s fine,’ she dismissed airily, ‘let’s forget about it.’
He sighed heavily then, and opened up the laptop that was on the desk in front of him. ‘You should see this.’
Trepidation skittered over her skin. Warily Lexie walked around the desk until she could see the laptop, acutely conscious of her proximity to him. When she saw the images, though, her belly swooped alarmingly.
It was her, and him, locked in a clinch that looked positively X-rated. Both his hands were under her skirt, pulling it up, baring her legs. Her breasts seemed about to explode from her corset, crushed against his chest. Their mouths were locked together in a passionate kiss, their eyes closed. Lexie’s hands gripped his shirt so tightly that her knuckles were white. And just like that it all came back in a rush: the desperation, the craving, the aching. The need.
Lexie could feel heat from behind her. She swallowed. There could be no mistaking that whatever had happened between them had consumed them both. It was not a comfort.
‘Where is this?’ she asked hoarsely, unable to stop looking away from the image with some kind of sick fascination.
‘It’s on a well-known internet gossip website. It’s only a matter of time before it hits the papers.’
Lexie backed away from the laptop as if it might explode...retreating around the desk, feeling marginally safer once something solid was between them.
Cesar’s eyes were glittering. His disdain was palpable. He might have just apologised, and surprised her by doing so, but there was no mistaking his disapproval of the entire situation.
Stung, Lexie said defensively, ‘There were two of us there.’
He was grim. ‘I’m aware of that, believe me.’
‘So...’ She swallowed painfully, thinking of the inevitable re-igniting of press interest and the weariness and fear of exposure that would provoke. ‘What now?’
Cesar looked at her for a long moment and crossed his arms. ‘We contain it.’
Lexie frowned. ‘What do you mean...contain it?’
‘We don’t give it air to breathe. You’re here in the castillo for the next four weeks. There should be no reason why it won’t die a death if they have nothing to work with.’
Something icy touched Lexie’s spine. ‘What are you talking about exactly?’
A muscle pulsed in Cesar’s jaw. ‘What I’m talking about is that you don’t leave this estate.’
Fire doused the ice. Lexie pointed at herself. ‘I don’t leave the estate? What about you?’
Cesar shrugged minutely, arrogant. ‘Well, of course I will have to leave. I have business to attend to.’
Lexie emitted a laugh that sounded far too close to panic for her liking. ‘After a passionate embrace is plastered all over the world’s press, you appear in public with me nowhere to be seen...do you know how that’ll look?’ She answered herself before he could. ‘It’ll look as if you’re rejecting me and the press will be all over it like a rash.’
Cesar’s jaw pulsed again. Clearly he was not used to having anyone question his motives. ‘You will be protected in here from the press.’
‘Oh, really?’ asked Lexie. ‘That paparazzo managed to get in, and I assume even a reclusive fossil like you has heard of camera phones?’
She was so angry right then at Cesar’s preposterous plan that she barely noticed that he’d moved around the desk, or that his eyes flashed dangerously at her childish insult.
‘What’s to stop some enterprising crew member from snapping pictures of poor jilted Lexie on the set of her new film...?’ Lexie was on a roll now, pacing back and forth. ‘The press will love documenting your exploits while I’m the rejected fool, locked in the castle.’
Lexie stopped and rounded on Cesar, who was at the other side of the desk now and far too close and tall and dark. She took a step back.
She shook her head. ‘No way. I’m not going to be incarcerated in this grim fortress just to make life easier for you. I’d planned to visit Lisbon, Salamanca...Madrid!’ That last came out with more than a little desperation.
Lexie had dark memories of being all but locked up once before, and it wasn’t going to happen again in her lifetime—not even on an estate as palatial as this one.
Cesar looked at Lexie and was momentarily distracted by her sheer vibrancy and beauty. Her cheeks were pink with indignation, her eyes huge and glittering. Her chest was heaving. As she’d paced back and forth energy had crackled around her like electricity.
Her words hit him then: I’m not going to be incarcerated in this grim fortress... He felt like cracking a bleak smile. He knew only too well what that was like. And he could sympathise with her rejection of the idea.
He rested back against his desk and crossed his arms, because right now they itched to reach out and grab her and pull her into him. So close to her like this he could smell her scent, all but feel those provocative curves pressed against him.
His body tightened, blood rushed south. He cursed silently.
‘So...what would be your suggestion, then?’
Lexie blinked. Cesar marvelled that her every thought was mirrored on that expressive face and in those huge eyes. He’d never seen anything like it. He was used to women putting on a front, trying hard to be mysterious.
She bit her lip and that was even worse. He wanted to bite that lip.
She looked at him. ‘We go public.’
Cesar’s eyes snapped up from her mouth to her eyes. His crossed arms dropped. ‘We go what?’
‘We go public,’ she repeated.
‘As in...?’
Her eyes flashed brilliant blue, like fire. ‘As in we are seen together. As in we go out in public. As in we let people think that we are having an affair.’
Cesar tensed for the inevitable rush of rejection at that proposition. He didn’t do high publicity—especially not with women like Lexie, whose second home was among the tabloids. Whose life was laid out in a series of lurid pictures amid salacious headlines.
But it didn’t come. The rejection. What did come was an intense spiking of anticipation in his already hot blood. His brain clicked and whirred at the thought of this audacious plan. The news of his half-brothers would be hitting the newsstands possibly as soon as tomorrow...
‘Well?’
Lexie’s voice cut through the snarl of thoughts in Cesar’s head. Somehow, without analysing it fully right now, he knew that a news story featuring them would inevitably be more colourful and interesting than one about his family connections. That would be diminished in favour of a far more scandalous story: Reclusive billionaire beds homewrecking Luscious Lexie.
‘I think,’ Cesar said slowly, letting his eyes fill with Lexie again, ‘that your idea has some merit.’
Some of the tension left her shoulders even as she crossed her arms, which pushed the swells of her breasts up. Dios, Cesar cursed again silently. Suddenly all rational thoughts of distracting the press via a story about him and Lexie fled, to be replaced with the very real urge to touch the woman in front of him.
‘Good,’ she said now. ‘Because I really do think that’s the best solution. And the fairest.’ Her mouth firmed. ‘I know the press, and sometimes you have to play them at their own game rather than fight them.’
She lifted her chin then, and something about the move was so endearingly spiky that Cesar had to stop himself from reaching out to trail his fingers across her jaw. Out of nowhere came a surge of something that felt almost like protectiveness.
His hands curled around the edge of his desk beside his hips. He forced his mind back to the conversation. ‘I have a charity auction to attend in Salamanca next weekend. We can go to that.’ The devil inside him compelled him to continue. ‘And we’ll have to be convincing, Lexie.’
Those big blue eyes narrowed. ‘Convincing?’
Cesar smiled, the anticipation inside him tightening now. ‘Convincing...as lovers.’
Lexie’s arms tightened, pushing those firm swells up even more. ‘Oh...well, yes. I mean, that’s obvious...but that’ll be easy enough... I mean...I’m an actress after all.’
Suddenly the confident woman of only a few moments ago was not at all sure of herself. Cesar was more intrigued than he liked to admit. He shifted on the desk, crossing one ankle over the other, and noted how Lexie’s eyes dropped to his mid-section for a second before skittering away again.
But then the suggestion that she’d have to act with Cesar hit home and made something hot and dark pierce him inside. He tensed. ‘So what happened earlier, Lexie? Were you just practising your acting skills on the nearest stable hand you could find?’
She looked at him. ‘No. It wasn’t like that.’
Cesar felt more exposed than he liked to. ‘So what was it like?’
For a second he fancied that the turmoil he could see in those blue depths mirrored the part of him that still couldn’t make sense of what had happened. But the very suggestion that it had been in any way within her control and not his made something snap inside him.
He straightened up and did what his hands had been itching to do ever since she’d walked into his study. He reached for her and pulled her into him, and something treacherous in his mind quietened as soon as those soft curves fell against him.
Her hands were pressed against his chest and a soft oof escaped her mouth: a sigh of shock. She looked up. ‘What are you doing?’
Cesar’s body was already hardening against hers. An automatic and helpless reaction to her proximity and touch. He hated this feeling of being out of control—it had been a long day of that very unwelcome sensation. He gritted out, ‘I’m seeing how good you are at improvisation.’
And then he bent his head to hers, and her mouth was as firm and yet as soft as he remembered, and those lush contours sent his brain into a tailspin all over again.
* * *
Lexie was drowning. Her hands looked for purchase anywhere she could find it to try and cling on. Cesar’s mouth was searing and hot. Hard. His arms were welded tight around her. She was off-balance and plastered against him, breasts crushed against rock-hard contours. One of his hands moved up to her head, angling it. Their mouths were open, tongues touching and tasting. Stroking, sucking.
Lexie wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and rub herself up and down his hard length, seeking to assuage the stinging in her nipples and the ache growing inside her. She could feel a hard ridge against her belly and it caused a spasm of damp desire between her legs.
And then the haze lifted ever so slightly, when he took his mouth away for a moment and she remembered his grim look and what he’d said, ‘I’m seeing how good you are at improvisation.’
As if a cold bucket of water had been thrown over her Lexie jerked backwards, almost stumbling in an effort to right herself. She was shaky all over, breathing heavily. Cesar was resting on the edge of the desk, barely a hair out of place, even if his cheeks were flushed and eyes were glittering brightly.
Lexie wasn’t ready for this onslaught of physical sensations and feelings. Barely able to get her head around articulating much, she asked, a little redundantly, ‘What was that in aid of?’
‘Proving that it will be no hardship to act out being lovers. In fact it’s almost inevitable that we will become lovers.’
Lexie rebelled at that arrogant tone even as her body betrayed her spectacularly. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Mr Da Silva.’
He smiled. ‘It’s Cesar, please.’
Lexie felt dizzy at how quickly this man was dismantling the bricks and mortar that had protected her for years. She couldn’t analyse it now, but she knew that he must have connected with her on some very deep level for her to have allowed him to kiss her—not once, but twice. Without even putting up a fight.
Panic galvanised her and she reached down and picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder. She forced herself to look at Cesar but it was hard. The air between them was saturated with electricity and tension and something else far more disturbing and new to Lexie: Desire.
She hated to admit that she was also stung to think that he believed she was the kind of person who would just widen her eyes and say yes to such an autocratic announcement.
She bit out, ‘I am not an easy lay, Cesar. Evidently you believe what you read in the papers, but I can assure you that I am perfectly capable of controlling myself. I am interested in putting forward a united front in order to get the press off our backs...that is all.’
Cesar stared at her for a long moment and then shrugged. He folded his arms across that wide chest, making the muscles of his arms bunch against the silk of his shirt.
‘We’ll see,’ he said carelessly. As if he truly didn’t care if she tumbled into his bed one way or the other. As if he knew that she would be helpless to resist him when the time came.
Curbing the urge to take her bag and swing it at his head, Lexie backed away to the door, her blood boiling—and not just from his words and that arrogance. She turned around and was reaching for the doorknob, relishing the prospect of removing herself from his orbit, when he called her name softly.
With the utmost reluctance Lexie gritted her jaw and turned around, keeping her hand on the door. He was still sitting there, eyes hooded, watching her.
‘Don’t forget...next weekend...Salamanca. That’s if you still want us to proceed with your suggestion.’
For a second Lexie contemplated the alternative and saw herself pacing up and down the dark castillo corridors or in the grounds. Trapped. With the press digging her life up again. Speculating. She went cold at that prospect. There was no choice.
She managed to say icily, ‘I won’t forget.’ And then she pulled the door open and left, with her dignity feeling badly battered.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN LEXIE GOT to her room she paced. Full of pent-up energy. Hot and then cold at the same time when she reconsidered the equally disturbing prospects of appearing in public with Cesar and not. And the ramifications of the press’s interest in her if that was the case.
There was no doubt about it: appearing with Cesar would be the better scenario. It was only in the last few weeks that the tabloids’ interest in ‘Luscious Lexie the homewrecker’ had let up. If she was going to become press fodder again so soon, then she would not be the victim.
Cesar was unmarried. A bachelor. An affair with him would be old news very fast. And, she realised with some cynicism, it couldn’t hurt the film to be linked to this kind of publicity.
What she hadn’t counted on was the attraction she felt for Cesar. She’d just kissed him back again, as passionately as she had earlier, with no qualms. No hesitation! It was as if as soon as he touched her some ever-vigilant switch in her brain turned to off and she became mute. Acquiescent.
She held out her hands and noted that even now they were trembling slightly. Disgusted, she shoved them under her arms and then spied her electronic tablet. She marched over and opened it up.
She hated herself for it, but she found herself searching for Cesar Da Silva Girlfriend. Predictably not much came up except a few photos of him at events with beautiful women. They were all tall, brunette. Sleek. Classy. One was a UN diplomat. The next an attaché to a world leader. Another was a human rights lawyer.
There were also pictures of Cesar with world leaders at economic summits.
Lexie put a hand to her mouth to stem a slight surge of hysteria. She was seriously out of her depth with this man, and she didn’t like her feeling of insecurity when she was faced with the evidence of his previous lovers’ undoubted intellectual accomplishments. The plan for them to appear as lovers mocked her now. Who would ever believe he’d choose her?
Feeling like a stalker, she looked up his background. To her surprise, a new news article popped up. And a picture of him from earlier that very day, taken at a wedding in Paris. Lexie frowned for a second, wondering how he could have come from Paris back to the castillo in such a short space of time—and then she recalled hearing a helicopter earlier. Of course—to a man like Cesar Da Silva travel between European bases was far removed from most people’s more tedious, lengthy experiences.
She focused on the short piece again. It had been the wedding of Alexio Christakos and his very pretty bride—someone called Sidonie. The article seemed to be implying that a familial relationship existed between Alexio Christakos and Cesar Da Silva. And also another man: Rafaele Falcone.
Lexie frowned. She knew Christakos and Falcone were half-brothers. They’d been notoriously eligible bachelors before settling down. So...what? Cesar was related to these men? Lexie kept searching and found a very brief reference to his father. Joaquin Da Silva had been famously disinherited from his family after leaving to train as a bullfighter. He’d achieved some fame early on, before dying tragically in a goring by a bull.
There wasn’t much else apart from Cesar’s current accomplishments, of which there seemed to be many. He was listed as one of the world’s leading philanthropists.
The picture of Cesar at the wedding caught her eye again. She looked more closely. There was a definite resemblance between the two men. And Rafaele Falcone. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if they all shared varying shades of green eyes. Unusual. Too unusual.
A suspicion slid into place inside Lexie. He’d agreed so quickly to appearing in public with her, when all the evidence pointed to a man who would find that kind of exposure anathema. He wants me. Lexie shivered at the thought. Was he prepared to court the press’s attention just to get her into bed? That idea was both intoxicating and terrifying.
But perhaps Cesar had his own reasons for wanting to divert the press? If something was about to break about his family? She didn’t like it, but a feeling of empathy gripped her. And curiosity...
Just then a knock sounded on her door. Lexie’s heart jumped. She put the cover over her tablet’s screen and went to the door, steeling herself. But when she opened it, it was Tom—the producer. An acute dart of disappointment made her want to scowl.
She forced a smile. ‘Tom?’
He held up his own tablet to reveal the same picture of the kiss that Cesar had shown her just a short while before. Her insides tightened again at seeing herself in such an alien and lurid pose.
‘Ah...’ she said.
‘Ah...’ the older man echoed. ‘I didn’t realise you had history with Da Silva. You never mentioned anything...’
‘I don’t really want to discuss it, Tom, if that’s all right.’
‘Look,’ he said quickly, mollifying her, ‘I’m not complaining, Lexie—far from it. This is PR gold dust for the film. If you two are...together.’
Tom was obviously concerned that an affair between her and Cesar Da Silva might jeopardise filming if it wasn’t all that it seemed. He could throw them off his estate at any moment if he so wished.
Lexie’s jaw was tight. She imagined the press furore after they appeared in public next week. ‘Yes...’ she said reluctantly, as if not even wanting to give the words oxygen. ‘We are...together.’
The relief that crossed the producer’s face was almost comical. ‘Okay, that’s good. I mean, like I said, it’s gold dust for the film. We could never have generated this much press just by—’
‘Tom?’ Lexie cut him off, forcing another smile. ‘I’d appreciate an early night. I’ve a lot of prep to do this weekend before we start shooting on Monday.’
He backed away, putting a hand up. ‘Of course. I’ll leave you to it. Night, Lexie.’
When he was gone she sagged back against the door with relief. Out of the past, the words of her counsellor came back to her: ‘Lexie, one day you’ll meet someone and you’ll feel desire. And you’ll feel safe enough to explore it...and heal.’
Lexie stifled a semi-hysterical giggle. She’d felt it today, all right, but she didn’t feel safe right now. She felt in mortal danger. Especially when she thought of those distinctive green eyes and that hard-boned face...and that powerful body. That dark, brooding energy...
She felt anything but safe.
She thought again of Cesar’s nonchalant assertion that they would become lovers. A dart of anger gripped her insides. He was obviously used to women falling at his feet if he could make such a declaration. He had no idea of the scars that scored her insides like tattoos. Not visible to the naked eye, but she felt them every day. Scars she’d fought hard to overcome so she could function and live and work.
She resented Cesar Da Silva right then for inserting himself so solidly and irrevocably into her life. And yet she had no one to blame but herself.
Sighing volubly, Lexie pushed off the door and vowed to do whatever it took to focus on the most important thing in her life right now: the job she had to fulfil for the next four weeks. Her real acting job, as opposed to the acting she’d be doing in a week’s time. Although that filled her with a lot more trepidation because she was afraid that she wouldn’t have to act at all.
* * *
Midway through the following week Lexie was pacing back and forth on the set while they set up the cameras for a new shot. She was listening to the script on her mp3 player and repeating her lines to herself.
They were shooting not far from the castillo, in a walled garden. Inevitably, though, her thoughts deviated yet again to the person who had dominated almost every waking and sleeping moment since she’d met him, in spite of her best efforts.
He’d appeared to watch the filming at various intervals, effortlessly unsettling Lexie in the process. If he was around she became acutely self-conscious. And being dressed in cleavage-revealing nineteenth-century garb didn’t help.
Right then, just as she was sighing with relief that he hadn’t appeared today, he did appear—as if conjured up from her overheated imagination—striding towards her on the narrow path. She had nowhere to go. Trapped. All of the crew were busy working, oblivious to the seismic physical reaction inside Lexie as Cesar bore down on her in a secluded part of the garden.
Her heart sped up. She went hot all over. Pinpricks of sensation moved across her skin. Nipples tightened against her bodice. The corset became even more constrictive. She pulled the long coat she wore to keep warm more closely around her, to try and hide some of her far too buxom cleavage. She took the earphones out of her ears and fought the urge to take several steps back.
Cesar came to a stop in front of her. It didn’t help that he was dressed in much the same way as when she’d seen him for the first time, in a close-fitting polo shirt and jodhpurs. Hair mussed. Jaw stubbled. He’d obviously just been riding.
For a bizarre second Lexie actually couldn’t speak. His eyes were hypnotic. When he spoke, it jarred her out of the daze she was in.
‘I’ve arranged for my assistant to have some clothes delivered to you from a boutique in Salamanca.’
Lexie looked at him blankly. ‘Clothes?’
‘For the weekend...for future events.’
Suddenly Lexie realised what he meant, and immediately chafed at the implication that he had to buy clothes for her because she wasn’t as classy or elegant as his other lovers. And she hated that she’d thought that.
Stiffly she said, ‘You really don’t need to do that.’ Lexie knew she was out of his league; she didn’t need a reminder.
Cesar was obdurate. ‘Well, it’s too late. They’ve been delivered to your suite.’
Lexie opened her mouth again, but Cesar put up a hand.
‘If you don’t want to use them, that’s fine. See what’s there and decide. It’s no big deal.’
No, thought Lexie churlishly, because all it had taken was a mere snap of his fingers. She looked at him suspiciously. ‘How did you know what size I was?’ She immediately regretted asking the question when his gaze swept up and down her body. What he could see of it...
‘I asked the costume designer, just to be safe, but my own estimation wasn’t far off.’
Lexie burned with indignation and something much hotter to imagine Cesar guessing her vital statistics.
Just then a PA came close and hovered. When Lexie looked at her she made a signal that she was required. Lexie looked back at Cesar and said, with evident relief, ‘I have to go. They’re ready to shoot again.’
But he didn’t get out of the way. And Lexie knew she wasn’t supposed to step onto the manicured lawn.
She was about to open her mouth when he moved closer and put a hand around the back of her bare neck, exposed because her hair was up in a complicated chignon. He bent down and pressed a fleeting but hot kiss to her mouth, and then pulled back, letting her go.
Lexie tingled all over. Her head felt fuzzy. ‘What was that for?’
Cesar smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, and Lexie felt something tug inside her, wondering again what he’d look like if he really smiled.
‘As you so memorably pointed out, there are camera phones around. I’m just being vigilant.’
Lexie flushed to recall what she’d said to him. There was nothing remotely fossil-like about this man. He was all bristling, virile energy.
Faintly she said, ‘Celeste will have to retouch my lipstick.’
He smirked. ‘Well, you’d better run along and let Celeste do that.’
For a second Lexie blinked at him. There was a tantalising glimmer of something lighter between them. But then he was turning and striding back the way he’d come, and as Lexie walked over to the main hub of the set she couldn’t be unaware of several appreciative female and male glances that lingered in his direction and then on her with undisguised envy.
* * *
Cesar was waiting for Lexie in the main castillo drawing room three days later. Looking back on the last tumultuous week, he did not relish the twisting and turning of events since he’d taken one look at that woman and his brains had migrated to his pants.
Cesar was renowned for lots of things: his inestimable wealth; philanthropy; scarily incisive business acumen; a zealous desire for privacy; success. And control. Above all control over his emotions. He’d become a master of controlling them from a young age. Too young.
His usual choice of woman was tall and brunette. Elegant. Classic. Not blonde, petite and curvy, with blue eyes big enough to drown in. And with a dubious reputation splashed across the tabloids.
On some level he’d always sought to stay away from prying eyes, as if somehow they might see something in him that he couldn’t articulate himself. A darkness that had clung to him for a long time. The stench of abandonment. The cruelty of neglect and a lack of care. It had been like an invisible stain on his skin.
Yet for someone who had spent his life largely on the periphery of the media glare, largely due to his very non-scandalous social life, the prospect of suddenly being thrust front and centre was not having the effect he might have expected.
Of course he didn’t relish the idea. But at the same time it didn’t fill him with repugnance.
Cesar poured himself a drink and smiled grimly. Right now though, all those concerns were receding and being replaced by something else. Someone else. Lexie Anderson. Cesar had been due to go to North Africa that week, to attend a meeting about aid, but had cancelled it on the flimsy pretext of wanting to make sure that the first week of filming went smoothly.
Cesar would be the first to admit that he had dismissed the film industry as flaky and narcissistic, but just one week had proved him wrong. The crew were tireless and worked twelve-and thirteen-hour days—if not longer. He was also surprised by how quickly and well they worked as a cohesive unit.
The producer had explained that most of them had worked together before, but there were lots of inexperienced locals in the mix and Cesar had witnessed more than one incident of a more experienced crew member patiently showing someone the ropes.
Lexie was one of the most tireless. Standing for long minutes on a mark while the lighting crew and cameraman worked around her. Her co-star would invariably go back to his trailer. Cesar had found out that she could have insisted they use a stand-in but had wanted to be there herself. He had to admit that he hadn’t really expected her work ethic to be that strong.
She was popular. Especially with the male members of the crew. Cesar was more aware of that than he liked to admit. He’d never been jealous because of a woman before and he didn’t welcome jealousy’s appearance.
He heard a sound then, and with something whispering over his skin like a warning Cesar took a breath and turned around.
Bombshell. That was the only word that seemed to compute in his head when he saw the woman standing in the doorway. Her effect on him was like a bomb too—exploding out to every extremity and making his flesh surge as blood pumped south.
He took in details, as if he couldn’t handle the full reality. Glossy blonde hair, trailing over one shoulder in classic screen siren waves. Pale skin. Slim bare arms. A sleeveless gold lamé dress that fell to the floor in a swirl of glamorous luxury.
She was poured into it, and the material highlighted her curves to almost indecent proportions. The deep, plunging vee of the neckline drew his eye to that abundant cleavage.
She was every inch the glittering movie star. And the most provocatively beautiful woman Cesar had ever seen in his life. He knew that if they hadn’t already kissed, if he hadn’t already seen her up close, he might have seen her like this and dismissed her as too garish. But right now he could no more dismiss her than recall his own name.
His hands clenched so tightly that he heard a crack, and he looked down stupidly to see his heavy Waterford crystal glass about to break in his hand.
He put it down on the sideboard with a clatter that jarred his ragged and sensitised nerve-endings.
She moved into the room, and the sinuous sway of her hips nearly undid him. Normally he had finesse. He could utter platitudes to women like You look beautiful. But right now all he could do was say gruffly, ‘My driver is waiting outside—we should go.’
* * *
Lexie fought down a betraying quiver of insecurity as she preceded Cesar out of the room, and cursed herself for wanting his reassurance that she looked okay and not too over the top. Her dresses were normally fine—fairly standard designer fare, given to her after photo shoots or premieres—but when she’d compared them to the finery he’d ordered there had been no competition. She’d had to choose one of his.
She had not been prepared for his impact on her in a classic black tuxedo. It was obviously a bespoke suit, moulded to his powerful body in a way that most men’s weren’t. It should have made him appear civilised. Just like trousers and a shirt should make him look civilised. But the structured clothes only made him seem more raw. Untamed.
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