“What in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing?”
Alejandro reached the wall, did a flip turn, and propelled himself back toward the voice that had called out to him.
“Swimming.” The water came up to his abdomen as he stood and looked at the angry woman standing by the pool.
“Not that,” she said. “This.”
Rebecca thrust a handful of papers at him. He ignored it and let his gaze wander over her sleek form. A red headband held her curls back from her face and matched the muted Hawaiian-print dress she wore. Slim legs tapered down to bare feet, but it was the circle of tiny white shells around one ankle that caught his attention. They caressed her ankle with every tap of her foot, kissed her bare skin like a lover.
Like he’d once done.
His gaze snapped to her face. “Those would be the plans to sell off a few of Layton’s less lucrative holdings.”
She took a step toward the pool. “The New York location? New York? Are you crazy?”
“Not at all. That hotel is small, outdated. It costs more in upkeep each year.”
The papers crinkled in her fist. “Why do you hate me so much?” she asked in a smaller voice than he would have expected.
She seemed almost bewildered. But it was a ploy. She would use anything to distract him, including sex. How well he knew that about her.
Her poor little me act angered him. “You know why. You used me to get information. You slept with me, then stole what you learned about the London deal to grab it for yourself. That move nearly destroyed Ramirez Enterprises.”
Ramirez Enterprises was little more than bravado and a dream then. But losing the Cahill Group’s financing had destroyed far more precious things than his fledgling enterprise. He wasn’t about to tell her what she’d really cost him, what she’d forced him into to save everything.
She tilted her head to one side. “I didn’t…”
“Didn’t what?” he said when she stopped speaking and stood there gazing off into space.
“You’re lying.” She crossed her arms and glared down at him. “You couldn’t possibly be wiped out by one deal gone bad.”
Of course she didn’t realize how he’d struggled. She’d never struggled for anything a day in her life. From her first moments, everything was handed to her on a silver platter. He very much enjoyed being the one to take it all away.
Alejandro pressed his hands on the pool deck and levered himself out of the water. She took a step backward as he suddenly towered over her. He wanted to grab her, wanted to yank her into his arms and plunder her sweet mouth again. He turned away before his body betrayed his reaction to her. “Things were less certain then.”
“So you bought controlling interest in my company and now you plan to sell off my hotels one by one.”
Grabbing a towel from the lounge chair, he wiped his face dry. Then he gave her a nasty smile. “Only the unprofitable ones, querida.”
“La Belle Amelie was the first hotel my father opened after he married,” she said. “He named it for my mother.”
Alejandro finished drying off and tossed the towel aside. She looked at him like he’d kicked her puppy. He hated it, hated the way she made him feel. But she was oh so good at manipulating him, wasn’t she?
Never again.
“It goes.”
Her laugh was bitter. “To think I once believed—” She shook her head, inched her chin higher. Met his gaze firmly. “I’ll buy it from you. Give me a couple of weeks to put together the financing and I’ll—”
“You once believed what?”
“—make you a good offer.”
“Believed what, Rebecca?”
“Did you hear what I said? I want to buy La Belle Amelie. What I believed is of no consequence.”
“Did you think I would marry you after a month together? Is that why you left?”
“God no!”
She took another step back and he realized he’d been stalking her. He moved casually toward the edge of the pool, gave her space. The restless energy in him still demanded release, pounded through his body in waves. The hum was almost sexual, primal. Not much different from the way he’d felt whenever he faced a bull in the ring. He wanted to conquer, subdue, triumph.
“I left because you were engaged, Alejandro.” Her chin fell as she studied the tiles at her feet. “I thought you were an honorable man. That’s what I once believed.”
If he’d been gored by a bull, he’d have felt less pain. Less anger.
The unbelievable nerve of this woman.
“You dare to question my honor when it was you who left, you who went to London and talked the Cahill Group into backing you instead of me? I spent months putting that deal together and you yanked the rug from under me. No, I will never sell La Belle Amelie to you!”
Alejandro dragged in a breath, willed calm to replace the seething fury roiling inside him. But the emotions of the past were too chaotic to control. “I’ll have it demolished first, Rebecca. You can pick through the rubble and see what you can salvage then.”
She remained unnaturally silent, her slender form shaking. He expected fury. Tears maybe. Pleading if she thought it would work. Sex as a last resort.
But the last thing he ever expected was for her to tackle him.
4
Everything went wrong the instant Rebecca lunged. Fury ate at her gut like battery acid. She’d planned to shove his arrogant ass into the pool and go back to her room. And then she was going to call financier Roger Cahill, who was an old friend of her father’s.
What Alejandro accused her of couldn’t possibly be true. She had not stolen his financing back then, didn’t know a damned thing about it—and she was going to find out why he thought she did.
But the momentum required to throw Alejandro off balance tipped her too far forward. Her arms wind-milled like crazy before she lost the fight and splashed into the water, landing on fifteen stone worth of angry Spanish male.
Something collided hard with the top of her head, and then she was sinking beneath the surface. She sucked in a breath, gulped chlorine. She needed to fight her way back up, needed to kick hard and breach the liquid barrier above her, but she couldn’t seem to do it. Her limbs wouldn’t cooperate.
How ironic to die in Alejandro’s pool. The last thought rattling through her brain was that if there were any justice in the world, he’d get blamed for her death.
A second later, air burst into her lungs. She coughed sharply, spitting up water. Her head lolled against something hard and warm.
Alejandro.
“Querida, speak to me,” he urged in a harsh voice.
Her back pressed down on a hard surface and she realized he’d laid her on the tile beside the pool. A moment later, he hovered over her, his hands bracketing her head, water dripping from his skin onto hers.
She coughed again, her throat raw and burning. A sob welled up from somewhere inside, but she refused to give in to it. She gulped it back and stuffed it down deep. The last thing she should ever do was show weakness in front of this man.
“Rebecca, amor, say something. Call me a name, if it pleases you.”
“Arrogant idiot,” she sputtered, though it came out as little more than a whisper. “Foolish Spaniard.”