events surrounding her were forever in his mind, etched so deeply, they would never fade. It had shown him that as long as he stayed where he was in life he could be made a victim—a victim of those with money and power, who could hire a group of men to beat up an eighteen-year-old boy, who could get a single mother evicted from her small apartment, get her thrown out onto the streets with no job and no hope of getting a job. He’d vowed never to be a victim again. Never allow anyone to have power over him.
The money he had earned—more than he had ever imagined when he’d started out. But the power, the absolute power that came with admittance into the highest echelons of society—that eluded him. He could not purchase it. It wasn’t that simple.
To most on the outside, it would seem he had reached the top, but that was an illusion. What escaped him still was what Vanessa had, what her father had and what they would continue to have even if Pickett Industries went completely bankrupt. A blue bloodline. Family connections that could be traced back to America’s first settlers. Not a lineage that began in a hovel in Argentina with an unwed mother and a father whose true identity was a mystery.
He clenched his teeth, fighting against the onslaught of memories brought on by Vanessa’s appearance. “Pickett is fixable. And I know exactly what to do to fix it.”
Her brown eyes narrowed into slits. “You do?”
“Of course I do. I’ve made my fortune by turning dying corporations around, you know that, I’m sure.”
“Given the constant profiles Forbes does on you I’d have to be blind to miss it.”
“I can fix the mess,” he said, a new idea turning over in his head now, one that made his adrenaline spike and his pulse race.
“By appointing someone new.”
“Or not.”
“Feeling charitable all of the sudden? I don’t buy that, not when you were just dangling the mythical sword over my head.”
His heart rate quickened. Right in front of him was the key, dressed in a deceptively sexy silver gown, her dark brown hair swept up into a respectable bun. She was the final step, the way for him to make his entrance into the last part of society that remained locked to him. The way for him to grasp the ultimate power that continued to elude him.
Money was power, but connections combined with money would make his status absolute. It ate at him that there was still a place in society he was barred from. That there were still things outside his control. This was his chance to rise above all that.
And as an added bonus, he would get to see the look on Michael Pickett’s face when he took possession of everything the man had always tried so hard to keep in his control. Pickett Industries and his only daughter. This was a way to exact revenge on the man who had made Lazaro and his mother unemployable within the circles they’d always worked, the man responsible for their nights on the street in the unforgiving Boston winter. The man responsible for his mother growing weaker and weaker until the strongest woman he had ever known had faded away.
He had watched his mother die in a homeless shelter, without possessions, without dignity.
He bit down hard, his teeth grinding together, the pressure satisfying, helping him keep control over the anger and adrenaline building inside him. He hadn’t got where he was by letting opportunities pass him by. He took chances. He made snap decisions with a cool head. It was the secret to his success.
And Vanessa would be the key to his ultimate achievement.
A high-society bride would give him admittance into American aristocracy. He had considered it before, had already considered the advantage of marrying an old-money name to add weight to his own fortune, to improve his status. But every time he thought of marriage, every time he thought of finding a society princess, he couldn’t stop himself from picturing Vanessa in her pink bikini. Couldn’t erase the memory of stolen kisses in a guesthouse late at night.
Because of that, he’d never entertained the idea of marriage for very long at a time. But now … the idea of Vanessa as his high-society bride seemed too golden to let pass by. It was a chance to have all his needs fulfilled: his need to reach the top, his need for her.
Vanessa, soft and bare beneath him, over him. Touching him, kissing him. Satisfying him.
Desire, hot and destructive, rushed through him at the thought of the chance to have her, to be able finally to satisfy the lust he’d carried with him through every affair, that had plagued him every sleepless night. In that instant, the flood of lust drove out every other thought. Everything was reduced to its most basic principle.
See. Want. Have.
He wanted Vanessa. He had spent the past twelve years with a gnawing sense of unfulfilled desire for justice and for the woman who haunted his dreams.
And he would have her now.
“I’ll help you, Vanessa,” he said, keeping his eyes locked on hers, “on one condition.”
She tilted her chin up, revealing the long, elegant line of her neck. Tender skin he could easily imagine kissing, tasting. “Name your price.”
He took a step toward her, cupped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and was shocked by the bolt of electricity that arced between them. She still had power over his body. But judging by the faint color in her cheeks, the tremble in her lips, he had power too.
“Marriage.”
CHAPTER TWO
“ARE you insane?” she hissed, looking over her shoulder, checking to see if they were drawing stares. If her father ever heard about her meeting tonight with Lazaro Marino he would very likely explode, just before taking back control of the company, tearing the contract to shreds and dismissing her as a complete and utter failure, both as CEO and his daughter.
“Not in the least,” Lazaro said.
Vanessa took a step away from him, her heart thundering in her ears. “I’m serious, Lazaro. Did you by any chance suffer a head injury in the past twelve years? Because while you were never the most sophisticated man I’ve ever met, you seemed lucid then, at least.”
“I’m perfectly lucid,” he said dryly. “Don’t pretend that you’re a stranger to the concept of a marriage of convenience.”
Of course she wasn’t. There was a reason that every boyfriend she’d ever had had been introduced to her by her father. That there was usually a folder with the man’s name stamped on it somewhere in her father’s office. The man she ended up with had to be from the right family, with the right reputation. The right credentials.
But she’d never wanted that. A part of her, a part that she kept guarded, locked away so that no one else would ever see, was still that romantic sixteen-year-old girl who believed in love. Who wanted to be loved for who she was, not for her bank balance or for the shape of her body.
Of course, as far as her father was concerned, none of that mattered. Craig Freeman loomed in her future, the man her father had found worthy, the man with the right connections. That part of her life had been selected for her, as her job had been. As so many things in her life were.
Craig had been pinpointed as proper husband material before she’d been old enough to drive.
She’d managed to avoid marriage thanks to college and the demands of running Pickett. Before that, she had worked in most of the positions at Pickett so she could learn the ins and outs of everything, so she hadn’t had time to get married. Or even to have a date.
Recently she hadn’t had much time to do anything short of commuting to and from her office while taking antacids in hopes of easing the constant burn of stress in her chest.
“Of course I’m familiar with the concept, but that doesn’t mean I have a desire to take part in one,” she said crisply. That much was true. Marriage of any sort had never seemed like a real problem; it had always been safe in the gauzy future,