For One Night Only: Reckless Night in Rio / To Love, Honour and Betray / A Night of Living Dangerously

CHAPTER FOUR

AS they descended through the clouds toward Rio de Janeiro, Laura stared out the porthole window at the city shining like a jewel on the sea. She folded her arms with a huff of breath, still furious.

You belong to me.

Her hands gripped her seat belt. Looking past Robby’s baby seat, where he was thankfully sleeping again after a fairly rough night, Laura glanced at Gabriel on the opposite side of the jet. She allowed herself a grim smile.

Poor Robby had been crying half the flight. Gabriel must have been gnashing his teeth to be trapped in his private jet with a baby. Karma, she thought with a degree of satisfaction. Folding her arms, she turned back to the window to see the beautiful, exotic city as they descended through the clouds.

It had been difficult for her to leave her mother and sisters in the middle of Becky’s reception. But instead of being angry, her mother and sisters had seemed pleased. They’d hugged her goodbye for the quick weekend trip. “You were so happy working for him once,” her mother had whispered. “This will be a new start for you and Robby. I can feel it. It’s fate.”

Fate.

Laura had barely gotten on this jet before he’d insulted her. Now, he glared at her as if she were a stranger. No, worse than a stranger. He stared at her as if she were scum beneath his feet.

As the jet finally landed at the private airport, her hands gripped the leather armrest. She would never again feel guilty about keeping their baby a secret from Gabriel. After this, she would never let herself feel anything for him. She would do her job, pretend to be his adoring mistress—ha!—then collect the check and forget his existence. She would.

As the door of the private jet opened, Robby woke up with one of his adorable baby smiles. His toothless grin and happy cooing were worth any amount of sleepless nights, she thought.

“We’re just here for one night, Robby,” she told her baby, kissing his forehead as she unbuckled his seat. “Just a quick night here and we’ll go straight back home.”

“Did he sleep well?” Gabriel said sardonically behind her.

She gave him a pleasant answering smile. “Did you?”

As they stepped out of the jet, Rio’s sultry heat hit her at once. She went down the steps, blinking in the blinding sunlight and breathing in the scents of tropical flowers, exotic spice and tangy salt from the sea. Lush, white-hot Brazil was the other side of the world from the frigid February weather she’d left behind her.

Looking across the tarmac, Laura saw a waiting white limousine and snorted. The other side of the world? This was a different world entirely!

“Bom dia, Miss Parker,” the driver said, tipping his hat as he opened the door. “I am glad to see you again. And what’s this?” He tickled beneath Robby’s chin. “We have a new passenger!”

“Obrigada, Carlos,” Laura said, smiling. “This is my son, Robby.”

“Is the penthouse ready?” Gabriel growled behind them.

The driver nodded. “Sim, senhor. Maria, she has organized everything.”

“Good.”

Laura climbed into the backseat and tucked Robby into the waiting baby seat, ignoring Gabriel climbing in beside him. Carlos started the engine and pulled the limo off the tarmac, going south.

As they traveled through the city, now crowded with tourists for the celebration of Carnaval, Laura stared out bleakly at the festive decorations. Gabriel didn’t speak and neither did she. The silence seemed like agony as the car inched through the traffic. As they finally approached the back of Gabriel’s building, Laura heard loud thumping music, drums, people singing and cheering.

“This is as close as I can get, senhor,” Carlos said apologetically. “The avenida is closed to cars today.”

“Está bom”. Setting his jaw, Gabriel opened the door himself and got out of the limo.

Laura looked out her window in awe. Ahead of them, she saw the street blocked and people gathering on Ipanema Beach for one of the largest, wildest street festivals in Rio. She looked up at Gabriel’s tall building above them. He had bought it two years ago, as a foothold in Rio while he wrestled his father’s company back from Felipe Oliveira. The ground floors held restaurants and retail space. The middle floors held the South American offices of Santos Enterprises, still officially headquartered in New York. The top two floors of the building were apartments for his bodyguards, household staff and Maria. The penthouse was, of course, for Gabriel—and, the last time she’d been here, for Laura. She swallowed. She’d never thought she’d be back here.

Especially not with a secret. A baby. The car door wrenched open. She looked up, expecting Carlos, but it was Gabriel. To her shock, the expression on his handsome face was suddenly tender and adoring. His eyes shone with passion and desire.

“At last you are home, querida,” Gabriel murmured. He held out his hand. “Home where you belong. It nearly killed me when you left. I never stopped loving you, Laura.”

She gasped.

Suddenly she could no longer feel the hot sun blazing overhead or the fresh breeze off the sea. Loud music, horns and drumming and singing from Ipanema Beach all faded into the background. Her heart thrummed wildly in her throat.

Gabriel’s black eyes sizzled as he looked down at her, catching up her soul, collecting her like a butterfly in a net.

Then he dropped his hand with a sardonic laugh. “Just practicing.”

Setting her jaw, she glared at him. “A million dollars is almost not enough to deal with this,” she muttered. His lip twisted. “Too late to renegotiate.”

“Go to hell.”

“Is that any way to speak in front of your baby?”

Turning back into the car, Laura unbuckled Robby. Her son cooed happily, reaching up his chubby arms for her embrace, and she was happy she had one person in Brazil who actually loved her. Leaving the baby carrier in the limo, she scooped him out of his seat. He giggled, clinging to her wrinkled satin bridesmaid’s dress.

Laura felt tired, grungy, dirty. After her poor night’s sleep on the jet, after traveling halfway around the world, and most of all, after the constant friction of having Gabriel near her, Laura’s emotions were too close to the surface. The flash of his dark eyes, the slightest touch of his hand, the merest word of kindness from his sensual lips, still made her tremble and melt.

He was poison for her, she thought grimly. Poison wrapped in honeyed words and hot desire.

She held her baby close and walked around Gabriel with as much dignity as she possessed, her shoulders straight. Her pink high heels—picked out from a thrift shop by Becky for five dollars—clattered against the marble floor as Laura walked through the back entrance and past the security guards toward the private elevator.

Gabriel followed her without a word. The elevator doors closed behind them, and she breathed in his scent. She felt his warmth beside her. She didn’t look at him. His tall, powerful body was so close and she felt every inch.

The last time they’d been together in this elevator, they’d been on the way to the penthouse, after they’d just made love downstairs on the desk in his office. It had been her first time. He’d been shocked she was a virgin, even apologetic. He’d kissed her so tenderly in this very elevator, taking her back up to the penthouse with whispered promises that this time would be different, that he’d make it good for her, that he’d make her weep with joy. And he had.

The elevator dinged at the same instant Robby struggled in her arms with a plaintive whine. Looking down, Laura saw he was peeking behind her at Gabriel, reaching out his plump arms. Gabriel didn’t move to take the baby, or even smile. Of course he wouldn’t. Why would he take the slightest interest in his own child? She knew she was being unreasonable, but she still felt angry. Exhaling, Laura walked into the penthouse.

His modern, masculine, clutter-free apartment had two bedrooms, a study, a dining room and main room off the kitchen. The whole place had clean lines, white walls and high ceilings, and a stark decor. A wall of windows two stories high showcased the breathtaking view of the pool and terrace, with Ipanema Beach and the Atlantic visible beyond.

“I’m so glad to see you again, Senhora Laura.” Maria Silva, Gabriel’s housekeeper and former nanny, was waiting for them. Her gaze moved to Robby. “This must be your sweet baby.”

“Senhora?” Laura repeated, confused at how she’d just gotten promoted to a married woman.

The plump-cheeked, white-haired woman blushed. “You’re a mother. You deserve respect,” she said, then held out her hands to the baby. Robby gave a gleeful cackle, and Maria took him happily in her arms.

Frowning, Laura slowly looked around her. The penthouse seemed the same, but it had changed somehow. She saw to her surprise that all the electric plugs and sharp edges had been covered. Peeking into the dining room, she saw it was entirely filled with toys.

Laura turned to Gabriel in wonder. “All this?” she said. “For one night?”

He shrugged. “Don’t thank me. Maria did it.”

Laura’s heart, which had been rising, fell back to her shoes.

“We’ll have a wonderful time this afternoon, won’t we?” Maria said to Robby, whirling the baby around to make him giggle. “If you need us, Mrs. Laura, we’ll be making lunch.”

Laura turned to follow them into the kitchen, but Gabriel stopped her. “They’ll be fine. Go freshen up.”

She scowled at him. “Stop barking orders at me. You weren’t this bad when I worked for you.”

“Do you want a shower or not?”

From the kitchen, Laura dimly heard Maria getting out pots and pans as she sang a song to the baby in Portuguese. Robby started banging the pans with a wooden spoon, keeping the beat. They seemed fine. Laura set her jaw, then grudgingly admitted, “I do want a shower.”

“You have ten minutes.” When she didn’t move, he lifted a sardonic eyebrow. “Need help?”

She saw his lips curve as he turned away, walking down the hallway. Pulling off his shirt, he dropped it to the floor as he stopped in the doorway of his bedroom. He looked back at her with heavy-lidded eyes. “Go. Right now. Or I will assist you.”

“I’m going!” With a gulp, Laura ran for the safety of her old bedroom.

Her room had changed, as well. All the old furniture she’d had as his live-in secretary was gone, of course. The space had been turned into a bland guest room. Except.

She saw the brand-new elliptical wooden crib beside the bed, the changing table with diapers and baby clothes and everything else Robby might need. She exclaimed with delight as she touched the smooth wood. In the closet, she saw new clothes for her, as well. Gabriel had truly thought of everything. Going to the closet, she touched a black dress with a soft, satisfied sigh.

Then she saw the size on the tag.

Well, she thought with dismay, he hadn’t thought of everything.

CHAPTER FIVE

TEN MINUTES LATER, Gabriel paced beneath the hot sun across his rooftop terrace. He stopped, staring down at Ipanema Beach across the Avenida Vieira Souto. He could hear the loud music from the crowds celebrating below. Lifting his eyes, he looked past the throngs of people, past the yellow umbrellas and food vendors to the shining waves of the surf, trying to calm his pounding heart.

Now Laura was here, everything would soon be sorted out. Oliveira and Adriana would both believe that they were in love. They had to believe. Otherwise….

No, he wouldn’t let himself think about failure, not even for an instant. He couldn’t lose his father’s company, not now that it was finally within his grasp. He gripped the railing, glaring at the bright horizon of blue ocean. All along the coastline, tall buildings vied with the sharp green mountains for domination of the sky.

He’d changed into khaki shorts and an open, button-down shirt over a tank top, with flip-flops on his feet, Carioca-style. He paced his private rooftop. Bright sunlight reflected prisms from the water of his swimming pool. Turning back, he stared down blindly at the scantily clad women on Ipanema Beach, to Leblon to the west, ending in the stark, sharp green mountain of Dois Irmãos.

Gabriel had been only nineteen when he’d lost everything. His parents. His brother. His home. His hands tightened on the rail. When he’d had the chance to sell his family’s business the day after the funeral, Gabriel had taken it. He’d fled to New York, leaving his grief behind.

Except grief had followed him. Consumed him. Even as he created an international company far larger than his father’s had ever been, the guilt of what he’d done—causing the accident, but being the only survivor; inheriting his father’s company, only to carelessly sell it—never left him. Never.

“Well, I did it,” Laura gasped suddenly behind him. “Ten minutes.”

“Very efficient,” he said, turning to face her. “You should know that—”

His words froze in his throat.

Gabriel’s eyes traced over her in shock as he watched her towel off her long wet hair. He took in the erotic vision of her obscenely full breasts overflowing the neckline of her black dress. He couldn’t look away from the fabric outlining her full buttocks and hips.

“Where,” he choked out, “did you get that dress?”

She stopped toweling her hair to look at him, tilting her head with a frown. “It was in the closet. Wasn’t it for me?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t stop his gaze from devouring her curvaceous body. He became instantly hard, filled with the memory of how it felt to have her in his arms, for the most explosive sexual night of his life. He wanted her. Here in Rio, beneath the Brazilian sunshine, suddenly he could think of nothing but taking her, right here and now. He licked his lips and said hoarsely, “But I didn’t expect it to look like that.”

An embarrassed blush rose to her cheeks as she pushed up her black-framed glasses in a self-conscious gesture. “I gained a little weight with my pregnancy,” she mumbled. “I’m not so thin as I used to be.”

“No.” Gabriel stared at her, feeling his body tighten with lust. “No, you’re not.”

Willing himself to stay in control, he pulled out a chair at the table next to the pool. “Maria made breakfast. Come and eat.”

Laura scowled. “Is that an order?”

“Sim.”

Carefully folding her towel and setting it on a nearby table—instead of just dropping it to the floor, as he would have done—she sat down.

“I probably shouldn’t eat anything. Not if I’m supposed to wear a bikini,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve tried to diet, but…”

“Never diet again,” he said tersely. “You are perfect.”

He pushed her chair back under the table. He paused, allowing his hands to remain on the back of the chair, next to her shoulders. He could almost feel the warmth of her soft skin.

She looked up at him over her shoulder with a scowl. “You’re just being nice.”

He stared down at her. “When have you ever known me to be nice?”

Her full pink lips suddenly curved into a smile as her blue eyes twinkled. “Good point.” She tilted her head, considering. “So you really think I look…all right?”

“Hmm.” His eyes lingered on her spectacular figure. She’d been beautiful before, but now, it was almost like torture to see her perfect female shape. Those hips. Her curvaceous bottom. Those breasts—!

She was almost too attractive, he thought. He wanted to convince Oliveira and Adriana he was in love with Laura, not have every other man on the Avenida Vieira Souta enjoy the luscious spectacle of her body. “You’re fine,” he said, irritated. “But that dress is unacceptable. We’ll buy you something else when we go shopping today.”

“Shopping. Right.” Pouring milk and sugar into her cup, she stirred her coffee with a silver spoon. “I can hardly wait.”

He sat down across the table. “You have nothing to worry about.” He pushed the bread basket toward her. “It’ll be fine.”

She took a roll and sipped her coffee, and as they ate, Gabriel couldn’t stop staring at her. Once, their relationship had been easy. A friendship. A trust. Now, he couldn’t quite read her.

Strange.

For five years, Laura Parker had been the perfect employee. She’d had no life or interests of her own. She’d always been ready and waiting to offer her competent assistance for his latest emergency, whether it was a billion-dollar drop on a foreign stock exchange or a broken thread on his tuxedo.

Now…there was something different about her. Something had changed in her over the last year. He felt as if he didn’t know her.

“How is your meal?” he said gruffly.

“Delicious.”

“Try this.” He handed her a bowl of pastries. Their fingers brushed and she jerked away as if he’d burned her.

He scowled at her. “We’re attending Oliveira’s party in three hours. No one will believe we are a couple if you jump every time I touch you.”

Putting down her fork with a clang, she looked at him. “You’re right.”

He held out his hand across the table, palm up.

With an intake of breath, she placed her hand in his. He felt her tremble. Felt the warmth of her skin. A rush of desire went through him as his fingers tightened over hers. Coming to her side of the table, he pulled her to her feet.

For a moment, they stood facing each other beneath the warm, bright sun. A soft sea breeze ruffled her damp hair. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her gaze seemed fixated on his mouth.

She licked her lips, and he nearly groaned.

“I passed your test,” she whispered. “I’m touching you without flinching.”

“Holding my hand is not enough.”

She visibly swallowed, looking up. “What—what else?”

He put his arms around her, pulling her close. He felt the softness of her body, felt her curves pressed against him as he rested his hands on her hips. Her tight black dress squeezed her breasts still higher in the force of his embrace, plump and firm and begging for his touch. He stroked her cheek, tilting back her head. “Now I need you to look at me,” he said in a low voice, “as if you love me.”

Beneath her glasses, her wide-set blue eyes glimmered in the sunlight, shining like the sea.

“And I,” he continued roughly, “am utterly, completely and insanely in love with you.”

She trembled. Then she fiercely shook her head.

“This isn’t going to work. No one will believe you’d choose me over her.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “Adriana is beautiful, yes. But that’s all she is. While you…”

Laura stiffened in his arms, lifting her chin.

He cupped her head with his hands. “You are more than just a pretty face.” He stroked her bare neck. “More than just a luscious body.” He rubbed his thumb against her full, sensitive lower lip. “You are smart. And too kindhearted for your own good. You sacrifice yourself to take care of others, even when you shouldn’t.” He pressed a finger against her lips to stop her protest. “And you have something else Adriana does not.”

“What?”

He looked down at her. “You have me,” he whispered.

Gabriel felt her hands tighten around him.

“Can you do it?” he asked in a low voice. “Can you pretend you’re in love with me? Can you make everyone believe that all you’ve ever wanted is for me to hold you like this?”

Her face was pale as she looked at him, trembling like a flower in his arms. When she spoke, her voice was almost too quiet for him to hear above the noise of the music and street party below. “Yes.”

“Then prove it.” He felt her soft curves pressing against his body, felt how delicate and petite she was in his arms. Laura was so beautiful in every way. He felt the press of her full breasts against his chest. Felt the tendrils of her long damp hair brush against his hands as he gripped her back. He breathed in the scent of her, lavender and soap, wholesome and clean.

He was hard for her. Rock hard. And yet she seemed to think she was inferior to Adriana da Costa, who aside from her beauty was nothing but a shallow, spoiled brat.

Suddenly Gabriel knew he had to tell Laura the truth.

“I want you, Laura,” he said in a low voice. “More than any woman. I’ve always wanted you.”

She gasped, her eyes wide. “You…”

Then her expression grew dull as the light in her eyes abruptly faded. “You’re practicing again.”

“No.” He cupped her face roughly. “This has nothing to do with our business deal. I want you. I’ve spent the last year wanting you. And now you’re in my arms, I intend to have you.”

He saw her eyes widen beneath her glasses, heard her harsh intake of breath.

“But for now,” he murmured, “I will start with a kiss.”

Then he lowered his head to hers.

He felt her soft, warm lips tremble against his own. For a single instant, her body stiffened in his arms. He felt her hands against his chest as she tried to push him away. He just wrapped his arms around her waist more firmly and held her tight, refusing to let go.

Kissing her was even better than Gabriel had imagined.

It was heaven.

It was hell.

With a shudder and a sigh she suddenly melted against him. He ruthlessly pushed her lips apart, teasing her with his tongue, plundering the warm heat of her mouth.

His kiss became harder, more demanding, their embrace tighter beneath the white heat of the sun. Slowly, she responded. Her hands stopped pushing against his chest, and moved up to his neck, pulling him down to her. When she finally kissed him back, with a hunger that matched his own, a low growl rose in the back of his throat.

He forgot their affair wasn’t real. He forgot the deal entirely. He felt only his masculine, animal need to have her, the need he’d denied himself for too long. Lust swarmed in his blood, pounding through his brain, demanding he take total possession of Laura in his bed.