Filthy Rich Revenge: A Filthy Rich Billionaires Book Read online

  They left the hotel by the front entrance. The paparazzi snapped photos and called out to him, but he ignored them. Soon enough they were in the car, moving down the drive and out into the paseo. The silence crushed down on her until she had to speak.

  “The hotel is even better than I remembered.”

  “Gracias.”

  “The service is impeccable.”

  “Sí.”

  Rebecca sighed. There was only one thing she could say to him.

  “I’m sorry, Alejandro.”

  15

  He turned his head. She was looking out the window, her arms folded beneath her breasts, the material of her dress softly shimmering in the light leaking into the car. The fabric skimmed her curves like a lover, clung to all the peaks and hollows he wanted to explore.

  “What are you sorry for, Rebecca?”

  Her eyes met his, huge blue pools in her beautiful face. Her throat moved as she swallowed. “What happened. Your parents.”

  He was too weary to try and put a positive spin on it. “They do what they do. It has always been so.”

  “Is it true? About the actress, I mean.”

  “It was,” he replied. “But no longer.”

  “That was her you were talking to, wasn’t it?”

  He sighed. “Sí. But she will not get what she wants. I will ruin her first.” He’d warned Isabella Ayala what he would do if he ever heard of her with his father again. Juan would find another mistress—he always did—and Carmen would accept it readily enough. But Isabella was angling for a ring, for wealth and position. He’d set her straight. Without him, his parents had no money of their own. And he would not hesitate to cut his father off without a Euro should Isabella succeed in her quest.

  “Do you ever get tired, Alejandro?”

  “¿Que?” He came back to himself with a start, focusing on the woman across from him.

  She leaned across the seat and put her hands on his knees. The warmth of her palms through the fabric of his trousers stunned him. The drumbeat of desire flared to life in his blood.

  Dios, he couldn’t even remember the question she’d asked. If she were to run those palms up his thighs and over his cock, he’d be a very happy man.

  Her soft voice brought him back to the moment. “It must be very tiring seeing the world in black and white, ruining people right and left. It’s okay to see shades of gray, you know, to not always need to control everything around you. The world will still go around. You don’t have to make it move.”

  Something knifed into his heart. She pushed away from him, breaking that electric contact, and he found himself staring at her. Since he was a boy, he’d always needed to be in control. He’d needed to order his world as best he could. Control was his security blanket.

  “You know nothing of it,” he snapped. “I have always had to be responsible, to take care of myself and my family. Control is everything.”

  She looked sad. “It’s not the only thing.”

  He sliced a hand through the air, dismissing her. “Sí, it is everything. My parents have never understood the need for control either. Did you not notice this tonight?”

  She bowed her head. “I understand you might have been embarrassed, but—”

  “Embarrassed?” He laughed harshly. “Dios, if only it were that simple. No, those two have always subjected me—and Roberto and Valencia—to their tantrums, their rages, their personal dramas. If I hadn’t found the control they lacked within myself, I would not be who I am today.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Roberto died because he had no strength. He was just like my parents in his own way, and he paid the price. Valencia married her Parisian and rarely returns to Spain.”

  “I didn’t know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  She watched him with those sympathetic eyes and he found himself teetering on the edge. How had she seen so deeply into him? Or was it simply a coincidence?

  A sudden need to lash out at her, to inflict pain, overtook him.

  He spoke with scorn. “We cannot all have a privileged life like yours, Rebecca. Some of us have to work very hard to succeed.”

  She choked out a laugh. “Oh God, you think you know everything, don’t you?” Her blue gaze flashed. “Well you don’t. So don’t presume to tell me how I’ve lived my life.”

  “I know that you had a fortune handed to you on a silver platter. And that you and your father mismanaged everything so badly you leveraged your company to the hilt. If you hadn’t been quite so greedy, we would not be sitting here now.”

  She glared at him. “You’re a fine one to talk of greed. With all you have at your fingertips, you still couldn’t resist taking my company away, could you? Don’t be hypocritical with me, Alejandro.”

  Finally, this was territory he understood. He almost laughed in relief. How easy it was to shift the conversation onto things he knew, things that didn’t strip him bare and threaten to expose his soul to her gaze. “It’s business, Rebecca.”

  “And it’s personal,” she shot back. “You came after us and didn’t stop until you found a weakness.”

  For a moment he thought she was talking about what he’d done to put Layton International into jeopardy, but he realized she didn’t know. If she did, she’d probably launch herself at him the way his mother had tried to attack his father tonight.

  He almost told her. Almost explained how he owned the bank that made the loans when no one else would, how he’d dangled the Thailand properties in front of their noses and waited for them to take the leap into debt in the first place. But something stopped him. Now wasn’t the time. He wanted to savor his revenge first, wanted to take her down even farther than he already had.

  Wanted her to need him, to beg for his touch the way she once had. She might have been lying about her love for him, but some of that physical need was real. He knew it now, knew it the second he’d turned and seen her on that couch. She’d remembered, same as he had. Her jaw had gone slack, her eyes glazing, and he knew what she saw because he saw it too. It was why he’d had to get out of there.

  “It was business first,” he said coolly. “Layton International was no longer relevant. You need me to keep you viable in today’s marketplace.”

  “You?” She shifted forward on the seat, her eyes glittering with sudden anger. “What do you know about relevancy, Alejandro? Until a few years ago, you were no one in this industry! What you know about this business could fill a thimble compared to what my father knew, what he taught me—”

  “Oh yes,” he ground out, “your precious father, who sent you to do his dirty work instead of facing me like a man. Spare me your analysis, Rebecca. I’m still the one in control of Layton International.”

  He thought she would say something else, would let her true colors show now that she’d pointed out his inferior past, but she drew in a shaky breath and fixed her gaze on a point outside the window. The car had been crawling forward for some time. Now it drew to a halt in the Puerta del Sol. Alejandro swore. Women with placards marched and shouted, blocking the square that was the heart of Old Madrid. Protests were common there and they could do nothing but wait as the policiá directed cars down the side streets.

  “I have a life. I’d like to get back to it,” Rebecca said after they’d sat in silence for nearly ten minutes. “If you plan to fire me, why don’t you just get it over with and put us both out of our misery.”

  “Layton International is your life.”

  She bristled. “I have an apartment. Friends. I can’t stay here forever wondering what your plans are.”

  He was in no mood to be delicate with her. “You don’t even have a pet fish, Rebecca. You have nothing in your life but work and one or two friendships you maintain.”

  Her mouth dropped open as she looked at him. She snapped it shut. “How do you know I don’t have a cat or a dog? Or a boyfriend?”

  “I know that you eat Chinese takeout with a friend from a restaurant called Tai Pan on
Friday nights when you’re in town, that you buy flowers from a shop called Robertson’s, and that you have a grocery store across the street from your apartment but rarely visit it.”

  His investigators were very thorough, though they couldn’t tell him everything. Like when she’d last spent the night with a man. He’d wanted to know, but he’d steadfastly refused to ask for that kind of information. It would show a level of interest in her life he no longer had. All he’d really needed to know was that she had no long-term entanglements. Other than a couple of friendships with other women, there was no one in her life.

  He watched as shock and hurt chased each other across her face. Now why did the hurt pierce his conscience?

  “You had me watched?”

  He shrugged. “I am very thorough when taking over a company.”

  It was several moments before she spoke. “Oh God, I can’t believe…” She clasped her arms around her waist, her chest rising and falling faster than before. “You… spied… on me. You—”

  She bent double, air whistling in and out of her body as she took deep breaths.

  Alarm snaked across his nerve endings, prickled the hair on his arms and neck. Of all the things he’d expected her to say or do, this hadn’t crossed his mind as a possibility. “Querida, what is wrong?”

  She didn’t answer, just kept breathing hard. She was on the verge of hyperventilating and they were stuck in the Puerta del Sol.

  Dios, he felt so helpless, like the night Anya—

  No. He had to do something. Now.

  “Rebecca, hold on,” he said, reaching for the door. “Just hold on.” He had to get help, had to get one of the policiá to radio for an ambulance. He could call, but the police would be faster.

  “I have to get out of here,” she wheezed. “Have to… go.”

  Before he could stop her, she reached for the opposite door and slipped out into the churning crowd.

  16

  Already, she could breathe again. Rebecca hugged herself tighter and forged through the crowd. She’d forgotten her wrap, but she wasn’t going back. He’d had her watched. Investigated. Her privacy invaded. What else did he know? That she hadn’t had sex in a year and a half? That she’d kept on taking birth control pills in the pitiful belief she might someday find a man she could love the way she’d once loved Alejandro?

  It was pathetic. She was pathetic. She swiped at her cheeks, ignored the catcalls and whistles of the men she passed. She was vaguely familiar with the Puerta del Sol, but not enough to understand where it was in relation to anything. She knew there was a department store on one side, El Corta Inglés, but that was in the direction of the protestors, who congregated around the statue of a Spanish king on a horse. To one end of the square was the red neon Tio Pepe sign. Ahead, there was nothing but a steady trail of people who seemed uninvolved in the protest. That was the direction she’d first headed and the one she kept going in.

  She didn’t know where she was going or what she would do when she got there, but she couldn’t sit in that car with him and know he’d spied on her. Like she was a monkey in a cage! An image of Parker Gaines—his smooth lies, the voice recorders he’d used to capture their conversations, the humiliating meeting with her father when it all came to light—flashed into her mind. She thrust it out again with a growl.

  The cobblestone walk sloped upward, toward an archway in the medieval buildings. She kept walking, hoping it was similar to the place Alejandro had taken her years ago. If so, there were cafes, restaurants, places she could disappear and sit for a while until she felt like returning to Alejandro’s villa.

  And she would have to return, wouldn’t she? All her things were there. Even her purse with her driver’s license and credit cards. Oh for the love of God. She ground to a stop while the foot traffic flowed around her. She had no money. She didn’t even have her phone. She couldn’t text her friend Charlotte to complain about Alejandro. She couldn’t even call for an Uber. How would she get back to Alejandro’s villa?

  A hand settled on her shoulder and she whirled around, a little scream bursting from her as she stumbled backwards.

  Alejandro caught her to his big warm body and kept her from falling on her ass on the cobbles. It was shocking to be pressed against him when she was so angry with him, and yet it was exhilarating too. Damn him, why did he have to affect her so much?

  He seemed oblivious as he squeezed her arms before setting her carefully away. He loomed over her, so handsome and imposing in his tuxedo. His scent stole to her—warm, masculine, spicy. She looked up at him, meeting his gaze. Was that concern on his face, or was she imagining it? A moment later, his face was a hard mask. There was no concern in that expression. Only anger.

  “Madre de Dios,” he swore, shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket and placing it around her shoulders. “What were you thinking running away like that? I thought you were ill!”

  “I’m not. Or I won’t be if you leave me alone.”

  The jacket was still warm from his body. His scent surrounded her. She wanted to shrug the garment off, but she realized she was shivering. From adrenaline or cold she wasn’t certain, but she clasped the jacket around her and held it tight like a shield.

  “We will return to the car,” he said.

  Rebecca shook her head like a recalcitrant child. And she just damn well didn’t care. “No, I’m not getting back in that car with you. Not yet. You spied on me, Alejandro. I hate you for that.”

  One eyebrow quirked. “More than you hate me for taking Layton International away?”

  She ground her teeth together and turned her head. Damn him. “No. It’s different.”

  “Tell me why.”

  Rebecca pulled in a deep breath, tilted her head up to look at him. His expression didn’t mock her like she expected. He looked truly curious, as if he didn’t understand why she would be so upset about him prying into her life. Why would he? Why would anyone?

  “It’s not the first time it’s happened,” she said, unwilling to share more than that. “I don’t like it. It makes me feel… violated.”

  “It was an investigation, not a robbery. This is common enough in business, yes?”

  Too common in her life. He couldn’t understand. No one could. “It doesn’t make it right.”

  “It was business.”

  “Everything with you is business. But I don’t believe it, Alejandro. You brought me here because you wanted to hurt me, pay me back for what you think I did to you. Well, you’ve succeeded. Are you happy now? Can I go back to New York and forget I ever met you?”

  “You would give up so easily? Leave Layton International?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Why was she pushing him? This wasn’t part of her plan. She needed to stay, needed to keep Layton International viable until she could somehow get it back. She had to be involved in the day-to-day operations or she would lose the insider track to all that happened with her company.

  “Perhaps you do,” he said softly.

  She sucked in a shaky breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Come back to the car. We will go home.”

  Home? How could one word invoke so many feelings? But it was his home, not hers. She had no home. Her apartment was a place to sleep and store clothes. The family home had been sold when her father died. Her mother moved back to Paris. The only place that felt like home was La Belle Amelie, and that was because of her connection to the place, the fact she’d been born there when her mother’s water broke a month early.

  Where was home now? She honestly didn’t know.

  “I’m not getting back into that car. If you try to force me, I’ll scream.”

  Alejandro’s expression went from sober to amused. “Did you not see the protest, amor? The policiá are very busy at the moment. I could drag you back by your hair like a good caveman should and no one would notice.”

  She turned her head toward the archway, ignoring him. Why was it when he gave her that little half smile, she
melted into a puddle? Though she was angry with him, his humor threatened her heart in a way nothing else could. She had to focus on something else, something other than the man in front of her. She pointed at the arch and the buildings beyond. “Is that like the place you took me?”

  “Sí. It is the same, the Plaza Mayor. There are several entryways.”

  She loved the way his voice caressed the sound: Plaza MAY-orrr. She remembered a beautiful square similar to Venice’s Piazza San Marco, though much more colorful and uniquely Spanish. There were restaurants, tapas bars, and shops beneath the portico that ran around the perimeter.

  It was also the place where Alejandro had first kissed her. Sitting at a sidewalk café, sipping sherry, he’d leaned over and kissed her sweetly on the lips that first time. They’d had dinner in his suite the night before, and while he’d told her it was his goal to get her into his bed, he’d been nothing but a gentleman. When he’d asked her to let him show her the city the next day, this was where he’d brought her. It’d been everything she could do to accept the chaste kiss, to not curl her hand around his neck and demand more of him. He’d set her on fire with one touch of his lips.

  In truth, she should want to run screaming from a memory such as that. But the prospect of getting back into the car with him right now was even more frightening. “I want to go see it.”

  He studied her for a long moment. Was he remembering the kiss too? Or, more likely, he was wondering if she planned to bolt again. “Explain to me what happened in the car.”

  She fiddled with the edge of his jacket. “It was a panic attack, Alejandro. Nothing more. I’m not sick. But if I get back in the car right now, I might be. I just need space.”

  Space without him in it, without him invading her senses and making her question everything she thought and said.