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Purchased by the Billionaire
Helen Bianchin

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU did…what?’

Kayla’s features paled as consternation meshed with disbelief, then magnified into a sense of dread.

‘You think it was easy for me to go to Duardo Alvarez and beg?’ Defensive anger rose to the surface, and something else…rage.

Jacob’s words fell with hammer-like pain, and for a few brief seconds she hovered between retaliatory anger and despair.

Duardo Alvarez.

The mention of his name was enough to send ice slithering down the length of her spine.

Bad boy made good, now billionaire entrepreneur with homes in several major cities around the world.

Her ex-husband…and the last person on earth likely to help her, or her brother.

‘Why in hell would you do that?’

‘I had no choice!’ Jacob’s expression revealed a torment that twisted her stomach muscles into a painful ball.

Oh, dear God.

The last time she’d seen her ex-husband had been at her father’s funeral. A deeply sorrowful occasion with few genuine mourners, several curiosity-seekers…and she’d been too stunned with shocked grief to do anything other than act on autopilot.

She hadn’t had contact with Duardo since. Didn’t want any.

‘Dammit, Jacob! How could you?’

He didn’t answer. But then he had no need.

And right now there was no time for further argument or castigation. In nine minutes she had to catch a train into the city. Or be late.

Kayla caught up her jacket, slung the strap of her bag over one shoulder and turned towards him. ‘We’ll continue this discussion later.’

Jacob offered a slip of paper. ‘Duardo’s number. Call him by midday.’

Hell would freeze over first.

‘Please.’ Jacob’s eyes were dark, desperate, and she pocketed the number.

‘You ask too much.’ Way too much. More than she could give.

Without a further word she left the small two-bedroom walk-up for the hard inner-city pavement in one of the city’s less salubrious suburbs. Old terraced houses lined the street, each in various stages of decay and neglect.

A far cry from her former life.

Five years ago the Enright-Smythe family had numbered high among Sydney’s rich and famous. Kayla, at twenty-two, held a degree in business management and had took out a handsome salary for a token position in the ‘firm’.

A member of the ‘young social-set’, she attended every party in town, spent an outrageous sum on clothes, travelled, and was seen on the arm of a different man every week.

Until Duardo Alvarez entered the field.

In his mid-thirties and cloaked in sophistication, on the rise within the city’s financial sector, his youthful past hinted at association with the shady underbelly of NewYork.

He was everything Kayla’s parents didn’t want for their only daughter.

All the more reason, in her year of tilting at windmills, coupled with boredom, for deliberately setting Duardo in her sights.

He excited her. So, too, did a sense of the forbidden. Winning him over became a game. Holding him off took enormous self-restraint. She succeeded, and in a moment of sheer madness she accepted his proposal to fly to Hawaii and marry him.

Seventy-two hours later the marriage was over.

Courtesy of Benjamin Enright-Smythe’s ultimatum and her mother’s death…a heart attack which put Blanche Enright-Smythe into Intensive Care and took her life.

A tragic loss for which Benjamin attributed the blame to his daughter, referring privately and publicly to the marriage as Kayla’s folly.

Her father’s denunciation speared a stake through Kayla’s heart and left her racked with guilt at the thought that her whirlwind marriage might have contributed to Blanche’s death. Confidante and friend, Blanche had always been there for her, frequently acting as a calming buffer between two clashing personalities…Benjamin’s arrogance and Kayla’s defiance.

In the devastating numbness that followed Blanche’s funeral, she stood at her father’s side, comforted Jacob and somehow managed to get through each day. Wanting, needing the comfort of the one man who could help ease her grief…her husband.

Medical results indicated Blanche had been dealing with heart disease for some time, evidence Benjamin refused to accept in his demented quest to wreak revenge on the man he blamed for Blanche’s death.

It proved a heart-wrenching time, with divided loyalties whittling away at Kayla’s emotional heart. She was painfully aware of Benjamin’s fragile mental state and Jacob’s need for comfort and stability.

How could she give her personal life priority at such a time?

Yet how long could she expect Duardo to be patient? Benjamin’s ultimatum—Leave this house, and you’ll never be welcome inside it again—almost tore her in two.

Family. Something her mother had considered to be sacrosanct.

Except Benjamin was hell-bent on denigration, dredging up written proof that acquisition of the Enright-Smythe empire was part of Duardo’s agenda. And that Kayla had merely been a pawn in his game plan.

That day something within her withered and died.

She refused Duardo’s calls, acceded to her father’s demands that Duardo be forbidden entry to the family home.

Then Duardo issued an ultimatum of his own.

Choose. Your husband or your family.

She didn’t utter so much as a word beneath Benjamin’s torrent of anger. Instead, she slid off her wedding band and handed it to the man whose name she’d taken as her own. And watched him turn and walk away.

Then she witnessed, in the ensuing months, Duardo Alvarez’s acquisition of the Enright-Smythe business empire, with Duardo now firmly labeled a predator with one goal in mind.

Absent was the desire to party, and Kayla’s friends gradually gave up issuing invitations as she refused each and every one of them. The association with frivolity and flirtatious fun seemed firmly embedded in pain. The kind of pain she never wanted to suffer again in her lifetime.

The only social occasions she attended were those instigated by her father: dull, boring business dinners where she was forced to watch Benjamin’s decline among his peers.

Within a year, the firm of Enright-Smythe held a list of unfulfilled contracts, union problems, and was the subject of a takeover bid by none other than Duardo Alvarez.

By then everything had been auctioned off…the family home, staff, the Bentley, her mother’s jewellery, works of art.

The media made much of it at the time.

Benjamin proceeded to gamble his way into bankruptcy, only to compound his fall from grace by committing suicide. This tragic act devastated Kayla and sent Jacob into a downward spiral of despair.

For the past three years she’d worked her day job, waitressing in a local restaurant five hours each night and on weekends in an effort to keep a roof over their heads and help pay off a mountain of debt.

Jacob put in similar hours, quitting university at nineteen and abandoning all hope of entering medical school.

Yet it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. And the money-lenders were closing in. No thanks to her brother, who in an act of desperation had played the casino, and lost.

Forget the banks, she had no collateral. Everything she’d owned of any worth had been sold. And her working hours were at a maximum.

The entrance to the subway loomed, and she rode the escalator, saw the train and watched with a sense of fatalism as it pulled away from the station.

A hollow laugh rose and died in her throat.

How much worse could the day get?

It was unwise to tempt Fate, even in humour. Add cynicism, and it could turn round and bite you, Kayla reflected as she dealt with irate phone calls, negotiated a peaceful solution between two aggressive staff members and soothed a client who threatened to take his business elsewhere unless his demands were met.

Yoghurt and fruit eaten at her desk sufficed as lunch, and the afternoon involved a series of meetings, both in-house and via conference calls.

It was after five when she shut down the laptop, relieved this part of the day was over.

Not the night, Kayla reflected wearily as she collected her bag and slung the strap over one shoulder.

A forty-five-minute time-frame was all she had in which to catch a train and report for work at an Italian restaurant in her local shopping centre. Working there offered the bonus of supplying her with a meal, usually eaten on the run between serving customers, and it was within walking distance of home.

The phone on her desk rang, and she hesitated over answering it. Whoever it was, she decided as she picked up the handset, she’d give them two minutes, tops, then she was out the door.

‘Thank God I caught you,’ a familiar male voice breathed in relief.

‘Jacob?’ Something was wrong. She could sense it, almost feel it.

‘I won’t be home tonight.’ His voice was jerky. ‘Hospital. Smashed kneecap.’

‘Which hospital?’ She stifled an inaudible groan as he cited one on the other side of the city. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘Call Duardo, Kayla. I don’t need to spell out why.’

Ice ran through her veins as he cut the connection.

A smashed kneecap as a warning? What next, broken ribs, damaged kidneys, wrecked spleen? How long would the thugs wait before they meted out another lesson? A few days? A week?

Her financial situation wasn’t going to change. Heaven knew how long it would take for Jacob to return to work. Without his wages to complement her own, together with a swathe of medical bills…it was hopeless.

Kayla closed her eyes, then opened them again.

The slip of paper Jacob had handed her this morning was in her jacket pocket. She retrieved it, punched in the series of digits and waited for Duardo to answer.

What if he knew where she worked, and recognized the number on caller ID? Worse, what if he chose not to pick up?

‘Alvarez.’

The sound of his voice curled round her nerve-ends, tugged a little and almost robbed her of the ability to speak.

‘It’s Kayla.’ Oh, dear heaven, how could she go through with this?

His silence seemed to reverberate down the line.

‘I need your help.’

Would he agree, or sever communication?

‘My office.’ He gave precise directions. ‘Ten minutes.’ And he ended the call.

She reconnected, only to have the call go to voicemail.

He was pulling her strings. It irked unbearably that he could. Dammit. She had the irresistible urge to throw something, preferably at him.

Given it was impossible for her to be in three different places at once, she rang the restaurant, relayed the reason why she’d be late, promised to be there as soon as she could and listened to a heated response.

It was all she needed right now to be in the firing line of rapidly spoken Italian ire, soothed only in conclusion by expressed sympathy for her brother’s accident.

Kayla emerged onto the pavement and cast an eye at the leaden sky. Rain, why don’t you? Make my day!

Almost in direct response, the first raindrops fell. Great big fat ones, increasing with a speed and intensity that showed no intention of abating any time soon.

Great. So now she’d face her ex-husband looking very much like a drowned rat.

The price of an evening newspaper helped ward off the worst of the downpour, and some ten minutes later she entered the impressive marble lobby of one of the city’s glass and steel architecturally designed office buildings, ditched the sodden paper and rode the lift to the top floor.

Alvarez Holdings occupied an executive suite, which at first sight appeared to cover the entire floor, Kayla perceived as she took in the thick tinted glass, luxurious fittings, furnishings and the latest technology.

A perfectly groomed young woman manned Reception. Moonlighting as a model for Vogue?

Stop with the cynicism.

Image, she reminded herself, was everything, and Duardo Alvarez could afford whatever image he chose to project on planet Earth.

‘Kayla Smythe.’ She’d left off the preceding hyphenated Enright some time ago. ‘I have an appointment with—’ she hesitated fractionally. This was business, not personal—‘Mr Alvarez.’

The answering smile held polite warmth…practised, and tuned up or down according to client importance. In this instance, down a notch.

‘Mr Alvarez is unavoidably detained in conference.’ She indicated the bay of comfortable chairs. ‘If you’d care to take a seat?’

Kayla felt her stomach tighten with nervous tension. Now that she was here, she wanted it over and done with.

Each passing minute seemed like ten, and she had to make a conscious effort not to constantly check her watch. She idly flipped the pages of a complimentary magazine, with no recollection of absorbing script or pictures.

How long would she have to wait?

Was Duardo Alvarez stretching out the time to deliberately unnerve her?

If she could walk out of here, she thought darkly…Yet doing so would achieve nothing. And this wasn’t about her, she reminded herself.

‘Kayla.’

She glanced up at the sound of her name and saw the receptionist move out from the console.

‘Mr Alvarez will see you now.’

Stand tall and project a semblance of aloof confidence. The latter was almost impossible, given the state of her nerves.

She’d seen his image on the television screen, in newspapers and photographs in glossy magazines. But it was years since she had come face-to-face with him.

Would he look the same?

The silent query arose in a moment of sheer hysteria, and she beat it down as she followed the receptionist along a wide passageway to a set of imposing double doors.

Calm. She had to remain calm and in control.

Who was she kidding? She was as nervous as a kitten about to walk on hot coals, and at that moment she hated him, herself…most of all she hated the situation which had brought her here.

The receptionist placed a discreet knock on one of the doors, turned the knob and pushed the door open, announced Kayla’s presence with smooth efficiency, then retreated.

She stood frozen, limbless, as she focused on the dark-suited figure standing silhouetted against the wide floor-to-ceiling plate glass.

From this distance, with the late-afternoon light behind him, it was difficult to define his expression.

Then he turned towards her, and the breath caught in her throat.

Tall, with an admirable breadth of shoulder, he projected an enviable aura of power most men coveted, but few possessed.

Well-defined facial bone structure, harshly chiselled, portrayed an elemental ruthlessness that visibly warned he was a force to be reckoned with in any arena.

‘Come in and shut the door.’ His drawl held a hint of cynicism, his appraisal ruthlessly unequivocal as he took in her petite stature, the blonde hair swept high and damp from the rain.

What happened to hello? But what did she expect…polite civility?

‘You must know I don’t want to be here.’

‘Point taken.’ He indicated a button-backed leather chair. ‘Sit down.’

And have him tower over her? ‘I’d prefer to stand.’

His expression didn’t change, yet she gained the fleeting impression something deep within him uncoiled in readiness to strike.

‘I don’t have much time.’ Oh, hell, she didn’t want to sound defensive. Yet everything about him screamed out for her to turn and run as far and as fast as she could.

He crossed the room to stand within touching distance, and this close she saw the tiny lines fanning from each corner of those dark, almost black eyes. The grooves slashing each cheek seemed to etch a little deeper than she remembered, and that mouth…

Dear heaven, don’t even go there.

One dark eyebrow rose in silent query, and she found herself almost stumbling in speech. ‘Jacob is in hospital.’ Pride kept her chin high. ‘I’m sure you have no difficulty imagining why?’

Each passing second seemed to stretch until the silence became a palpable entity. ‘Your brother isn’t going anywhere in a hurry.’ He waited a beat. ‘Neither are you.’

Sapphire eyes flashed with brilliant blue fire. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Down, but not cowed, Duardo perceived. She didn’t disappoint.

‘Let’s dispense with the pretense, shall we?’ When it came to game-playing, he was a lifetime ahead of her. ‘You have a mountain of debt you can’t hope to clear in a lifetime. Thugs have served the first of a few painful lessons for late payment. And you have no one else but me to turn to.’

Her eyes hardened. ‘Does it give you pleasure to know that?’

‘You can choose to walk out that door now,’ he intoned with deceptive quiet.

‘And if I do?’

‘You’ll never walk through it again.’

His words held a frightening finality, leaving her in no doubt he meant every one of them.

She had a mental picture of Jacob lying in an open coffin, instead of a hospital bed, and she was unable to control the shiver of fear slithering down her spine.

‘Perhaps we can start over?’

Benjamin had done a number on her. His own daughter. At the time Duardo had wanted to haul her over his shoulder and take her away. Vilify her father, and sue for defamation of character. Instead, he’d worked behind the scenes, and achieved what Benjamin had falsely accused him of at the time.

Because he could.

Now he moved to lean one hip against the edge of his desk, and watched her struggle for composure.

‘Jacob told me you’re aware of our…situation.’

He wasn’t going to make it easy. But then, why should he?

What they’d shared…what once had been…was now long gone. Destroyed by complex circumstances.

‘You want my help,’ Duardo prompted with silky smoothness, and caught the glitter of helpless anger in those brilliant blue eyes. It gave him no pleasure to see it there.

‘Yes.’

Would he make her beg? Could she?

For Jacob. Survival. Because she had no choice.

‘We need money.’ Oh, hell, this was hard. ‘To pay some debts.’

‘Debts which will soon accumulate and escalate to a repeat of this situation within a very short space of time.’

He knew. He had to know. Jacob would have told him, and it wouldn’t take much to access the true state of their miserably dire state of affairs.

She wanted to weep, but strong women don’t succumb to emotional distress.

‘Please.’ Desperation fractured her voice.

‘There are conditions.’

She expected no less. ‘What do you propose?’ Inside she was a mess of jangling nerves.

‘I clear all debts, and fund Jacob through medical school.’

Millions of dollars.

Her brother’s discarded dream fulfilled.

A substantial financial package, for which payment in one form or another would have to be made.

She needed for him to spell it out. ‘In return for…what?’

‘I want what I once had.’ He watched the realization sink in, then hammered it home. ‘You. As my wife.’

Colour leeched from her face, and for a few seconds it seemed as if the room took a slight sideways tilt.

Wife?

She had a sudden need to sit down, yet to do so would betray her vulnerability. And she refused to give him the satisfaction.

Yet there was nothing she could do about the way her heart raced to an accelerated beat at the thought of that hard, muscular body entwined with her own in intimate possession, enticing, sharing…gifting the ultimate tactile pleasure, with his mouth, his hands.

As it had been during those brief few days of their marriage, when he’d introduced her to the sensual delights of the flesh, and she’d believed herself to be in love and loved.

Even now she experienced dreams so exquisitely sensual she woke bathed in sweat…and wanting.

Kayla could only look at him, aware to a frightening degree of his strength of will and the power he wielded.

‘Revenge, Duardo?’

He took his time in answering. ‘Everything has a price.’ Eyes as dark as sin seared her own. ‘My terms,’ he enforced with dangerous silkiness. ‘Accept or reject them.’

Commit herself to him, accept him into her body, play at being wife…

‘For how long?’ The query fell from her lips.

‘As long as it takes.’

Until he tired of her? Live on a knife-edge, waiting for the figurative axe to fall?

She couldn’t do it.

Yet what choice did she have?

None. Zilch. Nada.

A pulse hammered at the edge of her throat as she fought the temptation to turn and walk out the door, out of his office…his life.

It didn’t help that he knew. Or that he was intent on playing a deliberate game, pushing her buttons…simply because he could.

‘I hate you.’ Her voice was a vengeful whisper dredged up from the depths of her soul.

‘For reclaiming you as my wife?’

‘For using me as human collateral.’

‘Careful, querida.’ His warning held a dangerous silkiness that mocked the endearment.

She almost told him to go to hell.

Almost.

Only the vivid image of Jacob lying injured in a hospital bed, and the very real implication of what would inevitably follow without a large injection of cash stopped her wayward tongue.

There was only one way out of this mess. Only one man who could help.

‘You want me to write it in blood?’

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. ‘Your acceptance?’

Her eyes flashed with brilliant blue fire. ‘Yes, damn you!’

Duardo pushed himself away from the edge of his desk in a single fluid movement and closed the space between them. ‘Your gratitude is underwhelming.’

‘What did you expect? For me to fall on my knees at your feet?’

‘Now, there’s an evocative thought.’ His drawl held a degree of cynical humour, and brought a rush of colour to her cheeks.

Dignity. She reined it in and with her head held high she moved back a pace. ‘Are you done? I need to go see Jacob, then get to work.’

She walked towards the door, pausing halfway to look back over her shoulder. ‘I imagine you’ll be in touch when the legalities are in place?’

He hadn’t moved, yet she had the impression his hard-muscled body was coiled, ready to spring.

‘There’s just one thing,’ Duardo declared with hateful ease. ‘The deal is effective immediately.’

‘Excuse me?’

He extracted his cellphone and extended it towards her. ‘Call the restaurant and terminate your employment.’

His eyes hardened as she opened her mouth to protest. ‘Do it, Kayla. Or I will.’

When she refused to take the cellphone, he flipped it open and made two consecutive calls which effectively left her jobless.

The fact he knew where she worked and who to call made her want to hit him. ‘Bastard,’ she bit out in husky condemnation, watching as he pocketed the cellphone and moved towards her.

She was totally unprepared for the slide of his fingers through her hair as he held fast her nape and used the flat of his hand at the back of her waist to draw her in close.

Then his mouth was on hers, taking advantage of her shocked surprise to gain entry and begin wreaking havoc with her senses in a kiss that captured and staked a shameless claim.

For a few brief, heart-stopping moments she forgot who she was, or where…There was only the man, his sensual power, remembered desire and an instinctive need to meet it.

Recognition, in its most primal form.

Except a part of her brain, her heart, provided an intrusive force. That was then…not now.

Oh, dear God.

Realisation caused her to wrench free…an action that was all the more galling because he made no attempt to stop her.

Anger, unuttered rage, showed in the glittering depths of her eyes, the tinge of colour heating her cheeks and her heaving chest as she sought to regain a degree of control.

‘Now you have something to curse me for.’

She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged, and she closed it again. Wanting, needing to rail against him…physically, emotionally.

To what end?

Duardo took in her expressive features, defined each fleeting emotion and resisted the temptation to take that fine temper and tame it a little.

It helped to know that he could.

Kayla just looked at him. He wasn’t even breathing deeply. How could he appear so calm, when she was a total mess?

‘Shall we leave?’

Jacob, hospital…For a few seconds she felt stricken that both had temporarily fled her mind, and she stepped quickly into the passageway, aware Duardo easily matched her footsteps to Reception, where he bade the Vogue model lookalike ‘goodnight’, and summoned the lift.

There were words she wanted to fling at him, an inner rage threatening to eclipse rational thought. So much so, her body almost shook with it as she rode the lift down to ground level.

She told herself she should feel relieved the financial nightmare would soon be at an end. Instead, all her nerve-ends frayed into shreds as reality began to impact.

Life as she’d known it for the past few years was about to change dramatically.

The electronic cubicle came to a halt and the doors slid open to reveal the basement car park.

She needed the lobby, and she pressed the appropriate button, only to have Duardo reach forward and countermand her action.

‘You’re coming with me.’

‘The hell I am.’ Kayla’s eyes flashed brilliant blue fire. ‘Tomorrow is soon enough for me to be shackled to you.’

‘The hospital,’ he intoned with chilling softness. ‘After which we transfer everything from your apartment to my home.’

‘Dammit! I—’

‘Walk, or be carried. Choose.’

That he meant every word was evident in those harshly chiselled features, and she almost defied him…just for the sheer hell of it.

Almost.

Instead she walked at his side, slid into the passenger seat of his top-of-the-range Aston Martin, and maintained an icy silence as he drove across town.