too tempting not to pursue, long shot or not. Ramon’s clubs were exclusive, sophisticated and world-class but The Royce was in a whole different league—one that only a dozen or so clubs on the planet could lay claim to. An establishment so revered would elevate his portfolio to a whole new level.
Xav sat forward again. ‘I don’t need to tell you how much an acquisition of this nature would impress the board.’
Ramon understood. It would be the win his brother was so desperately seeking. A way to cut Hector’s critical narrative off at the knees, wrestle back control of the board and regain the directors’ confidence.
‘Deal with Royce’s gatekeeper, whoever he is, and get that meeting,’ Xav urged. ‘Soon.’
Ramon didn’t care for his brother’s imperious tone, but he bit his tongue. Xav was under pressure. He’d asked for Ramon’s support. How often did that happen?
Not often.
Besides, Ramon had as much desire as Xav to see Hector at the company’s helm.
He thought of the obstacle in his path.
Not a he, as Xav had assumed, but a she.
A slender, blonde, not unattractive she who had, in recent weeks, proved something of a conundrum for Ramon.
He’d readily admit it was a rare occasion he came across a woman he couldn’t charm into giving him what he wanted.
This woman would not be charmed.
Three times in two weeks she’d rejected him by phone, informing him in her very chilly, very proper, British accent that Mr Royce was too busy to receive unsolicited visitors.
Ramon had been undeterred. Confident he could net a far more desirable result in person, he’d flown to London and turned up at the club’s understated front door on a quiet, dignified street in the heart of fashionable Mayfair.
As expected, security had been discreet but efficient. As soon as he’d been identified as a visitor and not a member, a dark-suited man had ushered him around the outside of the stately brick building to a side entrance. Like the simple, black front door with its decorative brass knocker, the black and white marble vestibule in which he’d been left to wait was further evidence of The Royce’s quiet, restrained brand of elegance.
Ramon had got quite familiar with that vestibule. He’d found himself with enough time on his hands to count the marble squares on the floor fifty times over, plus make a detailed study of the individual mouldings on the ornate Georgian ceiling.
Because she had made him wait. Not for ten minutes. Not for twenty, or even forty. But for an hour.
Only through sheer determination and the freedom to stand up, stretch his legs and pace back and forth across the polished floor now and again had he waited her out.
After a while it felt like a grim little game between them, a challenge to see who’d relent first—him or her.
Ramon won, but his victory was limited to the brief surge of satisfaction that came when she finally appeared.
‘You do not have an appointment, Mr de la Vega.’ Grey eyes, so pale they possessed an extraordinary luminescence, flashed at him from out of a heart-shaped face, while the rest of her expression appeared carefully schooled.
Pretty, he thought upon first impression, but not his type. Too reserved. Too buttoned-up and prim. He preferred his women relaxed. Uninhibited. ‘Because you would not give me one,’ he responded easily.
‘And you think I will now, just because you’re here in person?’
‘I think Mr Royce would benefit from the opportunity to meet with me,’ he said smoothly. ‘An opportunity you seem intent on denying him.’
The smile she bestowed on him then was unlike the smiles he was accustomed to receiving from women. Those smiles ranged from shy to seductive, and everything in between, but always they telegraphed some level of awareness and heat and, in many cases, a brazen invitation. But the tilt of her lips was neither warm nor inviting. It suggested sufferance, along with a hint of condescension.
‘Let me tell you what I think, Mr de la Vega,’ she said, her voice somehow sweet and icy at the same time—like a frozen dessert that gave you a painful case of brain freeze when you bit into it. ‘I think I know Mr Royce better than you do and am therefore infinitely more qualified to determine what he will—and won’t—find of benefit. I also think you underestimate my intelligence. I know who you are and I know there’s only one reason you could want to meet with Mr Royce. So let me make something clear to you right now and save you some time. The Royce is not for sale.’
Colour had bloomed on her pale cheekbones, the streaks of pink an arresting contrast to her glittering grey eyes.
Interesting, he thought. Perhaps there was a bit of fire beneath that cool facade. He held out his business card and took a step towards her but she reared back, alarm flaring in her eyes as if he had crossed some invisible, inviolable boundary. Huh. Even more interesting. ‘Ten minutes of Mr Royce’s time,’ he said. ‘That is all I am asking for.’
‘You’re wasting your time. Mr Royce is not here.’
‘Then perhaps you would call me when he is. I’ll be in London for another forty-eight hours.’
He continued to hold out his card and finally she took it, exercising great care to ensure her fingers didn’t brush against his. Then she gave him that smile again and this time it had the strangest effect, igniting a spark of irritation, followed by a rush of heat in the pit of his stomach. He imagined kissing that haughty little smile right off her pretty face. Backing her up against one of the hard marble pillars, taking her head in his hands and devouring her mouth under his until her lips softened, opened and she granted him entry.
Carefully he neutralised his expression, shocked by the direction of his thoughts. He’d never taken a woman with force. He had no aversion to boisterous sex, and he’d indulged more than one bed partner who demanded it rough and fast, but on the whole Ramon liked his lovers soft. Compliant. Willing.
She took another step back from him, the flush of pink in her cheeks growing more hectic, her eyes widening slightly. As if somehow she’d read his thoughts. ‘Mr Royce will not be available this week,’ she said, her smile replaced now by a thin, narrow-eyed stare. ‘So unless you have extraordinary lung capacity, Mr de la Vega, I suggest you don’t hold your breath.’
And she turned and walked away from him, high heels clicking on the shiny chequered marble as she made for the door across the small foyer from which she’d emerged.
She had a spectacular backside. Somehow Ramon’s brain had registered that fact, his gaze transfixed by the movement of firm, shapely muscle under her navy blue pencil skirt even as a wave of anger and frustration had crashed through him.
The sound of Xav’s desk phone ringing jolted him back to the present. He shifted in his chair.
Xav placed his hand on the receiver and looked at him. ‘Speak with Lucia on your way out,’ he said. ‘I told her to make a dinner reservation for us this evening. Get the details off her and I’ll see you at the restaurant. We’ll talk more then.’
Ah. Lucia. Yes, that was the name of his brother’s secretary. Not Lola or Lorda. Ironic that he couldn’t recall the name of the attractive brunette he’d just met, and had already considered sleeping with, yet he had no trouble summoning the name of the English woman he’d rather throttle than bed.
Her name, it seemed, was indelibly inked on his brain, along with the enticing image of her tight, rounded posterior.
Emily.
EMILY ROYCE SAT behind her desk and took a deep breath that somehow failed to fill her lungs. For a moment she thought she might be sick and the