slammed it shut. ‘I fail to see how that’s relevant.’
‘It’s relevant to me. I was supposed to be here temporarily, while my old boss, Mr Harcourt, was on holiday. You’d just fired your own assistant, remember?’
‘Barely. I’m still not seeing how this is material—’
‘My point is, I was supposed to be here for two weeks. I’ve been here for four years. And by the way, is it true you offered Mr Harcourt early retirement so you could keep me here?’
Again, he didn’t so much as blink. ‘Sim. I knew by the end of your first week that you were far more suited to me. Your talents were wasted creating company retreat spreadsheets so I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse,’ he said with zero remorse.
‘Well... I’m glad that’s out of the way.’
His jaw gritted but a wary gleam entered his eyes. A gleam that said he was realising that this wasn’t a tantrum or a stunt. That she might actually mean it. ‘Now that we’ve wandered uselessly down memory lane, can we get back on track? What would it take for you to end this? Name your price and I’ll make it happen.’
Name your price.
If only she could.
If only she didn’t know the futility of naming her actual price.
She stared at him, her heart hammering as it had every time she’d contemplated taking this final step.
Granted, the thought that she would one day soon wake up and not be in his presence left her bereft. But then she forced herself to think of what else she would be replacing that experience with. The fulfilment her heart and soul yearned for. A true connection. A life-affirming purpose. ‘My price is my freedom, Joao. I gave you two weeks, then I added four years to that. Now I want out.’
Leisurely he leaned forward, his bronzed forearms rippling as he resettled his weight on his hands, brought that red-hot sensuality dangerously closer, and glared at her across the desk. ‘You have one last chance to give me a clear, concise reason for this absurdity, Saffie.’
The urge to tussle with him sizzled bright and urgently within her. What did she have to lose? In a few short weeks, she’d be out of his life. He planned to conquer the world, while she planned to retreat from his orbit, hopefully to embark on a lifelong project her soul had screamed for since she was a child. Since she’d tasted loneliness and vowed to make her life more meaningful.
Once she was done with Joao, she highly doubted their paths would ever cross again.
Ignoring the twinge in her chest, she boldly stepped forward, placing both feet on the battle ground. ‘Very well. You want the unvarnished truth? You’re a brilliant businessman, Joao. But you’re also a ruthless vampire. You take and you take, and you think throwing diamonds and flowers and unimaginable perks grants you automatic authority over my life. Well, it doesn’t. I mapped out a path for myself when I joined your company. I put my plans on hold and now I’m making them a priority again. I’m resigning because I want more. More from life. I want freedom from being consumed by you. Freedom to dream of other things besides the acquisition of your next Fortune 500 company. Freedom to dream of a family. A baby. Of turning that dream into a reality.’ She paused, her insides shaking at the thought of taking that last, intensely ravaging but necessary step. ‘I want freedom from you.’
SILENCE PULSED IN the aftermath of his executive assistant’s terse monologue. Joao, stunned into uncharacteristic silence, coldly ticked off the myriad sensations zipping through him.
Shock. Banked fury.
Hardened disappointment.
Perplexity.
It was to that last one that he returned. That feeling of being caught off guard when he’d believed them to be perfectly in sync.
He stared at her, wondering whether this was her idea of a joke. But then his level-headed, capable assistant didn’t joke. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. Theirs was a well-oiled symbiosis that ran on a perfect synergy of efficiency, a mutual appreciation of hard work and the heady rewards and satisfaction of success.
At least it had.
Until that night when, drunk on success, their basest instincts had got the better of them. But they’d put that behind them. Saffie’s work hadn’t suffered. On the contrary, things had been better than ever. Granted, the first week after the Morocco incident he’d lived on tenterhooks, wondering if she would attempt to capitalise in some way on his error of judgement. Because giving in to uncontrolled hunger had been an error of judgement. Other men might approach lust with a cavalier attitude, but Joao Oliviera was singularly ruthless when it came to his bed partners. They were chosen strictly on a mutually agreed short-term basis from which he never strayed.
They weren’t chosen based on an unexpected but breathtaking desert mirage come to life, a punch of unstoppable lust that had nearly felled him and deep, dark craving that had blinded him to common sense until it was too late.
The fact that it’d happened, that for the space of one night he’d been no better than the man he despised the most in his life, still had the power to sour his day.
Sure, he hadn’t gone looking for it, and Saffron wasn’t a hooker on a street corner, but the acute absence of control still left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.
Fortunately, like him, she’d been only too happy to bury the incident in the past. And while the realisation had initially grated, he’d eventually welcomed that discretion.
So what if the experience had the unsavoury ability to replay in his memory when he least expected it? What if those memories left him aroused and aching at the most inappropriate times?
It had rightly stayed in the past where it belonged, never to be repeated.
Except for some reason, while he’d believed his world was back on an even keel, Saffie had been making other plans.
Plans that threatened to wreak havoc on the most crucial undertaking of his life.
Suppressing his fury, he searched her face. Read the fierce determination on it and realised she actually meant it.
She meant to leave him. To free herself so she could chase so-called dreams.
For a family.
A baby.
She inhaled sharply and he realised he’d spoken the words out loud. Spat out, like one of the few foreign languages he wasn’t fluent in. Two terse words tossed out like the vile, bewildered curse he believed them to be because they had no place in his working day.
In his life.
Not since the day he’d wiped the word family from his soul.
Certainly not now when his goal was so close. When the chance to shatter his enemy once and for all was a mere handful of weeks away.
That off-kilter sensation deepened, that feeling of being flung unexpectedly into a turbulent ocean without a life jacket causing his gut to clench.
He had countless life jackets. Endless contingencies to ensure not a single thing in his life was irreplaceable. Yachts and planes and CEOs and leaders of the free world, all at his beck and call.
Except Saffron Everhart had carved out a unique place in his life, set herself up on a pedestal marked exactly that. Irreplaceable.
And now that he needed her most...
He whirled away from his desk, strode to the wide floor-to-ceiling windows where he usually took one of his many espressos as he juggled the demands of his empire. He breathed through the tension riding his frame,