CATHY WILLIAMS - Ruthless Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning you don’t give your brother enough credit.’ Well, that was certainly true enough. She had worked with Freddy from every angle when it came to the jazz club, had heard him explain his ideas lucidly and persuasively to accountants, had seen his fledgling plans slowly come to fruition without hitches…

‘I know Fernando better than you think.’ Did he, though? Would Fernando be attracted to a fiery, opinionated, mutinous, downright exasperating woman like this one? A woman who said whatever was on her mind and hang the consequences? Fernando, Cesar thought, would never be able to handle a woman like her! She had said that there was no romantic involvement between them. Was there? It annoyed him that his usual unerring accuracy at reading women seemed to be letting him down now.

‘Even though you never see him?’ Jude asked sweetly. She began washing the dishes.

‘I don’t see my brother because I literally don’t get the time.’ Cesar walked towards the kitchen door, thought better of leaving and turned back to look at her with a disgruntled, exasperated expression. ‘Yes, I work damn long hours. When I took over the company, it was in the throes of internal warfare. I stabilised it and hauled it into the twenty-first century, selling off what I had to and sinking money into speculative investments that paid off. None of that gets done sipping cocktails on a beach in the Caribbean or hitting the slopes in Aspen!’ He raked his fingers through his hair and glowered at her as she continued to pile the dishes haphazardly on the dish rack. ‘I’ve never known my brother to rise to the challenge of anything,’ Cesar heard himself saying. ‘And that includes his choice of women.’

‘And you do?’ Jude turned to look at him. He was leaning against the door frame and the strength of his personality seemed to fill the kitchen, unseen but powerful and suffocating.

His lack of an immediate answer supplied the information she wanted.

‘My choice of women is not the issue here.’

‘You should give Freddy a chance. He feels…’

‘Feels what…? I’m all ears.’

‘ Inadequate compared to you. He feels that you’ll shoot him down in flames because he hasn’t followed in your footsteps. At the snap of your fingers, his trust fund will go up in smoke and I don’t suppose that’s the nicest feeling in the world.’

‘He’s told you all this, has he? Or are these loose interpretations based on a one-year relationship?’

‘He’s told me.’

‘Have you had sex with him?’

‘ What? ’

‘You heard me. You are clearly sleeping with Fernando, because your conversations seem pretty meaningful.’

‘Our conversations are normal .’ Jude was bright red, her hands clenched at her sides. ‘ Normal people discuss how they feel about things, what their hopes and dreams are…’ And these had been with Imogen present, just random, casual conversations over spaghetti bolognese at his flat, with some music playing in the background and the three of them all having one too many glasses of wine and putting the world to rights. Cesar might invest something meaningful into her last statement but Jude wasn’t going to supply him with a blow-by-blow description of who said what and where and how and when.

‘You’ve vaguely answered part two of my question but what about part one?’

‘No, I haven’t slept with your brother, not that it’s any of your business.’

Cesar looked at her carefully. ‘Tell me something… If you’re so close to Fernando and you spend hours spilling your hearts out to each other and bonding, why is he so desperate to get his hands on his trust fund at this precise moment in time? He’s been more than happy to lead a carefree lifestyle on the allowance he gets for doing no work whatsoever, yet the last time I spoke to him he sounded desperate… Bit of a puzzle, that…’

‘His project,’ Jude stammered uneasily. And the fact that, while he did indeed get an allowance, he had always funded his lifestyle by sending his bills to Cesar to be paid. Cesar had, through devious means, known pretty much where his money went and could practically track the progress of his relationships by the gifts he had bought for whatever girlfriend he’d happened to be seeing at the time. In short, he had always been accountable. Silk dresses and diamonds, weekend breaks in exotic countries, hotel bills for two—his personal life vetted to a large extent by Cesar, who would step in if he deemed it necessary. Cesar, he had confided in Jude, was very hot on protecting the family fortune from unsuitable women but that had never bothered Freddy because he had never had any intention of getting too wrapped up with anyone. If bills for nursery equipment and baby gear began appearing on the statements, then Cesar would descend with frightening speed and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what his reaction would be when he saw Imogen. The trust fund would give him independence.

‘If I approve whatever scheme he has in mind, then I would be more than happy to invest in it and set aside the headache of putting Fernando in charge of staggering wealth when he has yet to prove that he would know what to do with it. So did he mention why the hurry?’

Jude tried to look as though she might be searching her memory bank for any helpful information on that front, then she shook her head and shrugged. ‘I guess he just wants to take control of his life. I mean, he is nearly twenty-five…’

‘Ancient.’

‘ You were younger than that when you took charge of your empire, or whatever you want to call it.’

‘I was responsible.’

‘Of course. Silly me. Crazy to think that you might have had a trace of recklessness in your body.’

‘If by reckless you mean a healthy, active sex life with an interesting variety of women, then, I assure you, you couldn’t be further from the truth. If, on the other hand, you mean an ability to squander money on passing pleasures without any thought to the future, then you’re spot on. I’ll willingly confess to being ridiculously cautious…’

Jude blinked as her active mind hived off on the same unwelcome tangent that had kept her tossing and turning the night before.

Her breasts felt heavy and tender and the brush of her lacy bra over her nipples was almost painful.

‘I think…we should think about what we’re going to do with the day,’ she said hastily, folding her arms squarely in front of her. ‘I agree it would be silly for you to try and dig that car of yours out of the snow when there’s more falling, but there’s no point getting under each other’s feet.’

‘You should give lessons on how to be the perfect hostess.’

‘I’ve got some work I can be getting on with. In my office. Well, I have a little room off the sitting room that I use as an office, anyway. You can…’

‘Make myself scarce?’ He pushed himself away from the door frame, his sharp mind tallying their conversation and replaying it. She had been sincere in her denial that there was anything sexual between herself and Fernando but, that being the case, why her unease the minute his questions became too probing? Why did she behave like a cat on a hot tin roof in his presence?

He looked narrowly at her and the heightened colour in her cheeks, then his eyes drifted to those arms tightly folded over her chest. A very protective gesture, he thought. He knew that he could be intimidating. He liked that. It often helped to keep people at a distance, especially for a man like him, someone at the very pinnacle of his field, which was a situation that encouraged on the one hand sycophants, on the other predatory sharks who wouldn’t hesitate to cosy up to him while clutching knives behind their backs. It also helped as a silent reminder to any woman that, however physically close they got, he was not up for grabs.