An Heir For The World's Richest Man

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This man was so dangerously intoxicating every atom in her body shrieked at her that anything other than walking away would be a mistake.

The Archer deal would be done in three months, sooner if Joao’s single-minded determination bore fruit.

But at what ultimate cost to her?

Her breath shuddered out.

Too high. The penalty would be too high.

He nudged her chin up with one finger, compelling her to meet his eyes once more. The dual thrill of touch and stare dragged her deeper into the cauldron of temptation.

‘Three months, Saffie. That is all I ask. Stay. Finish the deal with me. Then leave if you insist,’ he urged with a mesmerising drawl.

Three months. Not an eternity in the grand scheme of things, but, if she was having a hard time walking away now, how would it be in three months, knowing she’d once again put off pursuing the one thing that was so precious and close to her heart?

She couldn’t.

She sucked in a breath, the action bringing her far too close to his solid heat and the earthy, evocative scent she knew didn’t come from the grooming products his French parfumier specially designed for him and him alone. She knew it because one of her many, endless tasks was to pack for him and she’d given into a weak moment very early on and taken a long inhale of his aftershave. And then spent far too long after that attempting to decipher where that scent ended and his unique musk began.

She would probably never know.

Before the alarming weakness could totally take over her body, she turned blindly towards the door.

‘Saffie.’ Her name was a low growl. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Out for air. Or back to my desk. Either way my answer is still no.’

Her hand latched on the door but the heaviness of his silence stopped her from opening it. She fought a fierce battle against the need to turn, see his reaction to her response. But she was too scared. Silence meant that algorithm that passed for his brain was recalibrating, recalculating a way to get what he wanted.

Still, she wasn’t prepared for the words that came next.

‘I need you.’

Her lips parted in a stunned gasp. In four long years she’d never heard him utter those words. To her. To anyone. Joao wasn’t a man who needed.

He wanted. He desired. He took.

She spun around, her stunned senses seeking an explanation on his enigmatic face. ‘Are you manipulating me, Joao?’

Feet planted apart, hands on lean hips, his stare undaunted and unwavering, ‘I want you to stay,’ he stated with that brutal honesty that often disarmed and weakened an opponent before he went in for the kill. ‘I’ll do anything to achieve that. It also helps that you know me better than anyone else will in this lifetime.’

Swiftly she added that vital little extra needed to put the right spin on his words.

When it comes to business.

When it came to anticipating his needs and ensuring he had every last detail of a deal at his fingertips, she was second to none.

She was even exceptional at reading between the lines of his latest private liaisons and, more often than not, guessing when it was time to put together the staggeringly expensive it’s-been-fun-but-now-it’s-over package that soothed the most desolate of broken hearts.

But until recently she’d painstakingly safeguarded herself against the pitfalls of deeper emotional curiosity, had deliberately stopped herself from digging into the personal details that had seen Joao Oliviera dig himself out of a favela in Brazil to become one of the most powerful men in the world. Sure, the media had endless reports on his past and his page on the company website featured a three-paragraph bio, but besides a mother who’d reportedly died at a young age of thirty-five, there was very little else.

She had no idea what his favourite colour was, what had caused the deep, three-inch scar across his left palm, or where he went when he bade her a curt goodnight on Christmas Eve and disappeared for twenty-four hours. The holiday was the only day in the year when her phone didn’t ring with endless demands from him.

All she knew was that Joao was driven by a rabid intensity that bordered on the obsessive. Self-preservation dictated that she take herself out of his orbit.

‘I don’t know you, Joao. Not really. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to take a different path to achieve my goals.’

A muscle rippled in his jaw. ‘You thrive on the challenges I grant you, Saffie. You’ll be bored rigid in the slow lane.’

She couldn’t lie. In the past four years he’d shown her a lifestyle that most people tried to conjure in their wildest dreams and fell far short of. She’d seen the world many times over, had watched as he’d conquered it over and over again. Not to mention earning enough money and benefits to not need to work again for the rest of her life if she lived a quiet, uneventful existence.

She dismissed the dreary sensation that thought triggered, reminding herself that life would be far from dull with a baby in it.

‘My mind is made up, Joao. I’ll stretch out my four weeks’ notice period to six if—’

The imperious slash of his hand chopped off her response. ‘I don’t want you here with one foot out the door. I need you here, fully committed to the Archer deal. To me.’

‘What if this deal drags out longer than three months?’

‘It won’t. But be warned, Saffie. This is the last time I will ask.’

That final gauntlet snatched her breath from her lungs.

Saffie couldn’t deny that the thought of waking up without the adrenaline buzz of plugging herself into Oliviera Enterprises and Joao’s world had left her curiously empty, her horizon a grey landscape with only the glowing mirage of a baby to sustain her.

Granted, that glow had grown, the craving for a family she’d ignored for years suddenly rearing its head on her twenty-eighth birthday, reminding her that time was slipping through her fingers.

Her emotional well had been left depleted for the better part of half her life. She’d needed to put her emotions aside to nurse her foster mother through the long months of ill health and her eventual death. After that she’d shut herself off, unwilling to delve into her grief for fear she’d never find her way back out of the dark tunnel.

Ironically, it had been a terrifying incident on Joao’s private jet and the emergency landing in Canada in the first year of her working for him that had forced her to confront her grief. Joao had given her a rare day off, believing it was the incident that had left her shaken and withdrawn.

She’d spent it mourning the foster parent who’d come into her life late and exited far too early. It’d also shone a very harsh, self-reflecting light on the emptiness in her life. One she hadn’t wanted to face after that first, soul-destroying glimpse.

Luckily, having fallen in love with her new job, she’d been able to bury the emptiness. It hadn’t stayed buried. And with each passing year, the light had burned brighter until she couldn’t ignore the ache any more.

But while she’d experienced a soul-shaking satisfaction to be finally moving forward with her dream, hadn’t a part of her also felt a little shame that the dream she’d held onto for so long no longer felt enough? That a different yearning burned just as bright and it was all her fault for nurturing it?

She stared at Joao, caught the ferocious swell of determination in his eyes. They could part on acrimonious terms with a possibility of an employment tribunal in her future—depending on how difficult he chose to be. Or she could have twelve unforgettable, stimulating weeks with the most charismatic man she was likely to encounter in her whole lifetime, while guarding the deeper yearning in her heart.

‘I want to hear it, Saffie,’ Joao pressed again, spotting her weakening and going for the kill. ‘Three months of your undivided attention on the Archer deal with no talk of leaving.’

She swallowed, attempted to think through the euphoric haze shrouding her common sense. ‘Fine. I’ll stay until the Archer deal is done.’

Joao didn’t gloat.

What he did was stand to his full, imposing height, his gaze raking her frame, lingering on her hips, her breasts, before reconnecting with hers. Something shifted in his eyes, a calculating gleam that sent a spark of apprehension down her spine.

‘And, Joao?’

‘Sim?’ he prompted, intent eyes fixed on her as a muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘What is it?’

‘I want your word that you won’t stand in my way when the time comes.’

CHAPTER THREE (#u080e3cbe-189c-54ba-b19a-6cfd79ef7494)

HE HAD WHAT he wanted.

She was staying. He’d bought himself the time to formulate a plan to rid himself of this issue of her leaving.

His agreement was all that was required.

And yet the yes that should’ve fallen from his lips stuck in Joao’s throat, his satisfaction at heading off disaster laced with something he couldn’t quite decipher.

Uncertainty, he finally decoded.

She had pulled the proverbial rug from beneath his feet and now he was uncertain where he stood.

Perhaps he was better off setting her free so she could go and play happy families with some faceless stranger...

The harsh rejection of that idea stopped him cold.

Absurd. The whole discussion from start to finish was absurd.

He shouldn’t be aggravated this much by the whole thing. Not when, as Saffie had pointed out, he had zero interest in most of the reasons she’d stated for her desire to leave.

While he didn’t want a child or, heaven forbid, a family, since he’d permanently erased that idea out of his life’s mission very shortly after his tenth birthday and not once spent a second reconsidering it, he’d accommodated others’ desire for it, if barely. The right gift baskets and monetary bonus found their way to each employee on the announcement of a child’s birth.

So why did the thought of his executive assistant taking a similar path grate so much? Why did the thought that one day in his future Saffie might exercise her right to walk away permanently trigger nothing but cold dread?

The answer blazed through him a second later.

Because he wasn’t ready to let her go.

Her value had multiplied over the years. And what was he if not a man who capitalised on the value of his assets?

He’d simply been caught off guard. He’d spent far too long putting out this fire when he should’ve been behind his desk, formulating better plans to add the Archer Group to his portfolio.

Just as he’d spent far too many years moulding Saffron Everhart into the perfect right hand to release her prematurely from her role.

Right or wrong, and while he knew that, ultimately, he couldn’t stop her, she belonged to him—

‘Do you agree?’

Her husky voice cut through his thoughts, retraining his focus on her.

The heat that lanced his groin was shockingly brazen and had grown in intensity ever since thatnight. The one he’d spent long weeks afterwards fighting to forget without success.

He’d ruthlessly disguised that hunger, enough to even take pride in his ability to watch her walk into his office without showing that he was losing his mind to that immediate groin-stirring arousal. And yes, it’d infuriated him to know his success in wrestling down his carnal demon had been fed by Saffie’s own easy dismissal of the incident.

‘Joao?’

He gritted his teeth, wishing he hadn’t insisted she address him by his first name shortly after she’d started working for him. Of course, he hadn’t divulged the fact that he detested his surname but had hung onto it purely to show Pueblo Oliviera that he wouldn’t be dismissed as easily as it’d taken him to instruct his security to throw him out of his Sao Paolo mansion that fateful day two decades ago. Never mind that he’d hated his mother for saddling him with the name of a man who’d had zero interest in assuming the role of fatherhood.

‘Are we going to discuss this or are you going to keep staring at me like I’ve grown an extra set of eyes?’ Saffie questioned briskly.

He shook off the sticky vines of his past and focused on her eyes. Alternately blue or grey depending on her clothing or mood, the wide, almond shapes were clear and direct. Intelligent. Alluring. As arresting as her full Cupid’s-bow lips currently pressed into a prim line beneath her pert nose. They hadn’t been so prim when he’d tasted them. They’d been soft, supple, mind-alteringly delicious when she’d parted them beneath his, gasped her pleasure, screamed her climax—

He flicked that torrid recollection away before it wreaked havoc on his groin. ‘You seem so certain of the future, Saffie. What makes you think you won’t be begging me to let you stay in three months’ time?’

Her breath caught, alerting him to the fact that his tone had been harsher than he’d intended.

At his continued stare, she bit her lip just as she had minutes ago, exhibiting an agitation unlike her.

Joao’s attention was once again drawn to her perfect curve of slightly reddening mouth, to the small teeth dragging over her flesh. He clenched one fist over the other as more blood rushed south.

‘I know what I want,’ she insisted, once again triggering that unnerving sensation that had arrived when he’d read that damn resignation letter and felt the searing vacuum of her loss.

His teeth gritted but he saw no way to deny her. ‘Bom. Then you have my word. Now can we get back on track?’

Despite the telltale sign of her less than cool state, her eyes boldly met his as she nodded and quickly regrouped. It made him wonder how often his seemingly unflappable assistant had stumbled and corrected course without him noticing.

‘I’ll draw up the list you requested.’

‘Good. Did you like the necklace I commissioned for you?’ he asked as she opened her door.

Wary blue eyes met his. ‘Yes, it’s stunning—’

‘Now that you’re staying, I’d very much like for you to wear it when we attend the auction of the Shanzi orchid in Shanghai with Lavinia Archer. Unless you’re going to argue with me over that, too?’

She exhaled calmly, not rising to his bait. He should’ve been glad his EA was back to her unflappable self. But he wasn’t. Not completely.

‘We’ve reached an agreement, Joao. Things will run as normal for the duration. I’ll ensure your plate is clear and Lavinia is free to be in Shanghai so you can present her with the orchid, which will bloom, for the first time in eight years, two weeks from now. Was there anything else?’

Her question contained more than a spark left over from their encounter and Joao was almost tempted to stoke it.

But enough.

Now he’d put out this little fire of her intended desertion he needed to refocus on his father. Specifically ensuring Pueblo didn’t come out the victor in their battle to win Lavinia Archer’s business.

Dark anticipation twisted with bitterness in Joao’s gut. These days the man who’d fathered him might still call himself a billionaire but Joao’s was the Oliviera name people uttered in deference and awe. It was he world leaders turned to for business and geo-political counsel.

Joao knew it stuck in Pueblo’s craw that the bastard son he’d cursed to damnation, the product of a drunken indulgence with a prostitute one wholly forgettable night, had become a man of untold power and means. It was a status his father was desperate to overturn.