was a great many things—ruthless, acerbic to the point of cruel sometimes, impossibly arrogant. Too damn good-looking for words. But in all his dealings, he had never spoken a word he didn’t mean. His core of integrity was the reason less powerful men envied him almost as much as they feared him. It was the reason she loved her job even when he slave-drove her to the brink of sanity sometimes. There was a synergy in their dynamic, a thrill that came from working so close to a brilliant mind that she never got bored with.
‘No, it’s not that,’ she stated.
She couldn’t stay.
This man was so dangerously intoxicating every atom in her body shrieked at her that anything other than walking away would be a mistake.
The Archer deal would be done in three months, sooner if Joao’s single-minded determination bore fruit.
But at what ultimate cost to her?
Her breath shuddered out.
Too high. The penalty would be too high.
He nudged her chin up with one finger, compelling her to meet his eyes once more. The dual thrill of touch and stare dragged her deeper into the cauldron of temptation.
‘Three months, Saffie. That is all I ask. Stay. Finish the deal with me. Then leave if you insist,’ he urged with a mesmerising drawl.
Three months. Not an eternity in the grand scheme of things, but, if she was having a hard time walking away now, how would it be in three months, knowing she’d once again put off pursuing the one thing that was so precious and close to her heart?
She couldn’t.
She sucked in a breath, the action bringing her far too close to his solid heat and the earthy, evocative scent she knew didn’t come from the grooming products his French parfumier specially designed for him and him alone. She knew it because one of her many, endless tasks was to pack for him and she’d given into a weak moment very early on and taken a long inhale of his aftershave. And then spent far too long after that attempting to decipher where that scent ended and his unique musk began.
She would probably never know.
Before the alarming weakness could totally take over her body, she turned blindly towards the door.
‘Saffie.’ Her name was a low growl. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Out for air. Or back to my desk. Either way my answer is still no.’
Her hand latched on the door but the heaviness of his silence stopped her from opening it. She fought a fierce battle against the need to turn, see his reaction to her response. But she was too scared. Silence meant that algorithm that passed for his brain was recalibrating, recalculating a way to get what he wanted.
Still, she wasn’t prepared for the words that came next.
‘I need you.’
Her lips parted in a stunned gasp. In four long years she’d never heard him utter those words. To her. To anyone. Joao wasn’t a man who needed.
He wanted. He desired. He took.
She spun around, her stunned senses seeking an explanation on his enigmatic face. ‘Are you manipulating me, Joao?’
Feet planted apart, hands on lean hips, his stare undaunted and unwavering, ‘I want you to stay,’ he stated with that brutal honesty that often disarmed and weakened an opponent before he went in for the kill. ‘I’ll do anything to achieve that. It also helps that you know me better than anyone else will in this lifetime.’
Swiftly she added that vital little extra needed to put the right spin on his words.
When it comes to business.
When it came to anticipating his needs and ensuring he had every last detail of a deal at his fingertips, she was second to none.
She was even exceptional at reading between the lines of his latest private liaisons and, more often than not, guessing when it was time to put together the staggeringly expensive it’s-been-fun-but-now-it’s-over package that soothed the most desolate of broken hearts.
But until recently she’d painstakingly safeguarded herself against the pitfalls of deeper emotional curiosity, had deliberately stopped herself from digging into the personal details that had seen Joao Oliviera dig himself out of a favela in Brazil to become one of the most powerful men in the world. Sure, the media had endless reports on his past and his page on the company website featured a three-paragraph bio, but besides a mother who’d reportedly died at a young age of thirty-five, there was very little else.
She had no idea what his favourite colour was, what had caused the deep, three-inch scar across his left palm, or where he went when he bade her a curt goodnight on Christmas Eve and disappeared for twenty-four hours. The holiday was the only day in the year when her phone didn’t ring with endless demands from him.
All she knew was that Joao was driven by a rabid intensity that bordered on the obsessive. Self-preservation dictated that she take herself out of his orbit.
‘I don’t know you, Joao. Not really. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to take a different path to achieve my goals.’
A muscle rippled in his jaw. ‘You thrive on the challenges I grant you, Saffie. You’ll be bored rigid in the slow lane.’
She couldn’t lie. In the past four years he’d shown her a lifestyle that most people tried to conjure in their wildest dreams and fell far short of. She’d seen the world many times over, had watched as he’d conquered it over and over again. Not to mention earning enough money and benefits to not need to work again for the rest of her life if she lived a quiet, uneventful existence.
She dismissed the dreary sensation that thought triggered, reminding herself that life would be far from dull with a baby in it.
‘My mind is made up, Joao. I’ll stretch out my four weeks’ notice period to six if—’
The imperious slash of his hand chopped off her response. ‘I don’t want you here with one foot out the door. I need you here, fully committed to the Archer deal. To me.’
‘What if this deal drags out longer than three months?’
‘It won’t. But be warned, Saffie. This is the last time I will ask.’
That final gauntlet snatched her breath from her lungs.
Saffie couldn’t deny that the thought of waking up without the adrenaline buzz of plugging herself into Oliviera Enterprises and Joao’s world had left her curiously empty, her horizon a grey landscape with only the glowing mirage of a baby to sustain her.
Granted, that glow had grown, the craving for a family she’d ignored for years suddenly rearing its head on her twenty-eighth birthday, reminding her that time was slipping through her fingers.
Her emotional well had been left depleted for the better part of half her life. She’d needed to put her emotions aside to nurse her foster mother through the long months of ill health and her eventual death. After that she’d shut herself off, unwilling to delve into her grief for fear she’d never find her way back out of the dark tunnel.
Ironically, it had been a terrifying incident on Joao’s private jet and the emergency landing in Canada in the first year of her working for him that had forced her to confront her grief. Joao had given her a rare day off, believing it was the incident that had left her shaken and withdrawn.
She’d spent it mourning the foster parent who’d come into her life late and exited far too early. It’d also shone a very harsh, self-reflecting light on the emptiness in her life. One she hadn’t wanted to face after that first, soul-destroying glimpse.
Luckily, having fallen in love with her new job, she’d been able to bury the emptiness. It hadn’t stayed buried. And with each passing year, the light had burned brighter until she couldn’t ignore the ache