An education in return for serving her time. In six short weeks she would be free to pursue her dreams. Free of her father’s influence, of the sleazy, horrifying rumours that had been part of her childhood and what had driven her mother to quiet despair when she thought she wasn’t being observed.
She needed to focus, not moon over how coarse this arrogant stranger’s faintly stubbled jaw would feel against her skin.
‘Make nice? After you rudely interrupted my conversation and sent my guest for the evening running without so much as a goodbye?’
‘Think about that for a minute. Do you really want a man who would abandon you so easily on the strength of a few whispered words?’
Genuine anger replaced the momentary sensory aberration. ‘That you needed to whisper those words instead of state them in my hearing makes me wonder just how confident you are of your manhood.’
Inez was used to being the butt of male jokes. Pietro and her father had mocked and dismissed her career ambitions until the day she’d picked up her suitcase and threatened to leave home for good.
But she was still shocked when the man in front of her threw back his head and laughed. Even more so when the sight of his strong white teeth and the genuine twinkling merriment in his eyes sent her pulse racing. An alien tingling started in her belly and spread outward like fractured lightning.
‘Did I say something funny?’
Light hazel eyes speared hers. ‘I’ve been challenged on a lot of things, querida, but never over my manhood.’
The political career her father so desperately craved produced men who could fake confidence with the best of them. She’d seen political candidates on a clear losing streak fake bravado until they were on the verge of looking totally ridiculous.
This man oozed confidence and power so very effortlessly it was like a second skin. Couple those two elements with the dangerous magnetism she could feel and Theo Pantelides was positively lethal.
Over her thundering heartbeat, she heard the master of ceremonies announce that the fund-raiser she’d so carefully orchestrated—the platform that would see her achieve her freedom—was about to begin.
Beyond one broad shoulder of the man who seemed to have sucked the air from the large ballroom, she saw her father and Pietro heading towards her.
Her father would want to know what had happened to Alfonso. The Brazilian businessman had promised to host a polo match on his large ranch where he bred the finest thoroughbreds. Securing a time and a date and a campaign donation had been her job tonight.
A much needed win this man had cost her.
Frustrated anger flared anew.
‘This can be resolved very easily, Inez,’ Theo Pantelides murmured in her ear. His voice was deep. Alluring. To hear him use her given name, the version her half-American mother had so lovingly bestowed on her, made her momentarily lose her bearings. A state that worsened when his hot breath washed over her neck.
Barely managing to suppress a shiver, she snapped herself back into focus. ‘Don’t say my name. In fact, don’t speak to me. Just…just go away!’
Inez knew she was on the verge of displaying childish behaviour but she needed to regroup quickly, find a solution to a situation that had been so cut and dried fifteen minutes ago.
She watched her father and brother approach and the dart of pain that resided beneath her breastbone twisted. For a long time she’d yearned for a connection with them, especially after Mãe had been so cruelly ripped from their lives following a fall from a racehorse a week before Inez’s eighteenth birthday. But she’d soon realised that she was alone in the pain and loneliness brought on by the loss of the mother who’d been her everything. Pietro had been given no time to grieve before their father had stepped up his grooming campaign. As for Benedicto himself, he’d barely finished burying his wife before resuming his relentless pursuit of political power.
The only other male she’d foolishly thought was honourable had turned out to be just as ruthlessly power-hungry as the men in her family.
Constantine Blanco—one lesson well and truly learned.
‘I see the rumours were false after all,’ the man who loomed, large and imposing, in front of her drawled in that deep voice of his, capturing her attention so effortlessly.