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He’d struck up conversation with his colleagues who were seated in front of them. Their words went over her head. Her eyes drifted back to him.
He really was heavenly to look at. The more she looked, the more she wanted to look.
Coming from a wealthy family of her own, she’d met and mixed with plenty of wealthy, handsome men in her time, but none like him, none who carried strength and danger like a second skin.
As he gave a low rumble of laughter at some wisecrack of James’s—shocking in itself as she hadn’t thought he could laugh—she found herself admiring the size of his biceps beneath the expensive fabric of his suit jacket.
Her gaze drifted lower, to the muscular thighs. They had to be at least twice the size of her own...
As if he could sense her attention on him, Felipe turned to look at her and in that moment, in that look, all the breath left her lungs and her mouth ran dry. Fresh heat flushed through her.
It was like being trapped. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the dark gaze before he gave a sharp blink and turned his focus back to his colleagues.
Francesca let out a slow, ragged breath and pressed her hand to her wildly beating heart.
Never mind being ruggedly handsome, Felipe Lorenzi was the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on.
What a shame he was also the most horrid.
* * *
Felipe had never thought he’d be pleased to land in Caballeros but as the Cessna touched down he sent a silent prayer of thanks.
He’d been busy chatting with James and Seb, the usual repartee, nothing important that couldn’t be said in front of an outsider, when he’d suddenly become intensely aware of the outsider. It had happened so quickly it had taken him unawares, a thickening in his loins, an electricity over his skin, a lazy wonder of how her lips would feel beneath his, of what she would taste like...
Then, just as quickly, he’d pushed the awareness away and focussed his mind as he’d spent almost two decades doing, dispelling anything that wasn’t central to the job at hand. An attraction to Francesca Pellegrini went straight into that category. Not central. Not even on the fringe. It couldn’t be.
It was no big deal. He’d dealt with unwanted attraction before without any problems. It really was a case of just focussing the mind on what was important and the only thing of importance was her safety.
But there had been something in the look she’d returned that made him think the attraction could be a two-way thing. He could handle it.
Francesca Pellegrini was off limits as a matter of course. Never mind his no-sex-with-the-clients stipulation with his employees—and if he were to enforce a rule then fair play meant he had to stick to those rules himself on the occasions he went out in the field—but she was grieving for her brother. He’d seen hardened men lose their minds with grief. He’d almost lost his mind with it once, the pain excruciating enough to know he never wanted to go through anything like it again. And he never would.
He’d spent his childhood effectively alone and where once he had yearned to escape the solitude, now he welcomed it. All his relationships, from the men he employed to the women he dated, were conducted at arm’s length.
‘Ready, boss?’ Seb asked, his hand on the door.
Like much of the island, Caballeros’ main airport had been badly damaged. Pellegrini money and Felipe’s own greasing of the wheels had ensured a safe strip for them to land on. Looking over Francesca’s shoulder to stare out of the window he could see for himself the extent of the damage. The terminal roof had been ripped off, windows shattered, piles of debris as far as the eye could see. Feet away from them lay a Boeing 737 on its side.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked Francesca quietly. She was staring frozenly out of the window, taking in the horror. ‘We can always rearrange the meeting.’
She lifted her shoulders and tilted her neck. ‘I’m not rearranging anything. Let’s go.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u11800846-8f89-5170-a4c6-b3cb934c29db)
THE DRIVER OF the waiting car, another of Felipe’s men, Francesca guessed, drove them carefully over roads thick with mud and so full of potholes she knew the damage had been pre-hurricane. Seb travelled with them, James staying in the Cessna with the pilot.
The Governor’s residence was to the north of the island, far from the city he ran, an area relatively unscathed by the hurricane. To reach it, though, meant travelling through San Pedro, the island’s capital, which along with the rest of the southern cities and towns had taken the brunt of the storm. She shivered to think this was the city she’d planned to stay in during her trip here.
They drove through towns that were only recognisable as such by the stacks of splintered wood and metal that had weeks before been the basis for people’s homes. Tarpaulin and holey blankets were raised for shelter to replace them. People crowded everywhere, old and young, naked children, shoeless pregnant women, people with obvious injuries but only makeshift bandages covering their wounds. Most stared at the passing car with dazed eyes; some had the energy to try to approach it, a few threw things at them.
At the first bottle to hit their car, Francesca ducked into her seat.
‘Don’t worry,’ Felipe said. ‘It’s bulletproof glass. Nothing can damage it.’
‘Where’s all the aid?’ she asked in bewilderment. ‘All the aid agencies that are supposed to be here?’
‘They’re concentrated to the south of the island. We just landed in the main airport and you saw the state of that. The other one is worse. They’re having to bring the aid in by ship. The neighbouring islands have done their best to help but they’re limited with what they can do as the hurricane struck so many of them too and the government isn’t helping as it should. That airport should be cleared. There’s much it should be doing but nothing’s happening. It’s a joke.’
By the time they arrived at the Governor’s compound Francesca was more determined than ever to get the hospital built, not just for her brother’s memory but for the poor people suffering from both the hurricane and its government’s incompetence in clearing up after it. She felt she could burst with determination.
The Governor’s residence was a sprawling white Spanish-style villa that made her hate him before she’d even laid eyes on him. There were armed guards everywhere protecting it, men who should be out on the streets clearing up the devastation.
As if reading her dark thoughts, Felipe stared at her until he had her attention.
His eyes were hard. ‘Keep your personal feelings for the Governor to yourself. You must show him respect or he will kick you out and never admit you again.’
‘How do I show respect to a man I already loathe?’
He shrugged. ‘You’re the one who wants to play the politician’s role. Fake it. You’ve read Alberto’s reports on Pieta’s old projects. Think what your brother would do and do that. You’re playing with the big boys now, Francesca. Or do I take you home?’
‘No,’ she rejected out of hand. ‘I can do this.’
‘You can fake respect?’
‘I will do whatever is needed.’
Breathing deeply, Francesca got out of the car and walked up the long marble steps to the front door with Felipe at her side, leaving Seb and the driver in the car.
‘Is there something wrong with your leg?’ she asked, noticing a slight limp.
‘Nothing serious,’ he dismissed, his attention on their surroundings. She had a feeling nothing escaped his scrutiny.
After being frisked and scanned with metal detectors, they were led into a large white reception room filled with huge vases of white flowers and lined with marble statues, and told to wait.
The sofa in the reception room was so pristinely white that Francesca wiped the back of her skirt before sitting.
When they were alone, she said in an undertone, ‘If this is the Governor’s home I dread to think how pretentious the President’s is.’
‘Be careful.’ Felipe leaned close to speak into her ear. ‘There are cameras everywhere recording everything we do and say.’
She didn’t know what unnerved her the most: knowing they were being spied on or Felipe’s breath warm against her ear. She caught his scent, which was as warm as his breath, an expensive spicy smell that filled her mouth with moisture and had her sitting rigidly beside him to stop herself leaning into him so she could sniff him properly.
Clasping her hands together, she focussed on a painting of a gleaming yacht on the wall opposite.
She could not let her body’s reactions to Felipe distract her from the job in hand. She’d spent her adult life rebuffing male advances. She’d turned down plenty of good-looking undergraduates at university, always with an appeasing smile and zero regret.
She hadn’t wanted the distraction of a romance—not that romance itself played much of a part in a student’s life—when she was determined to graduate with top honours. Sex and romance could wait until she was established in her career.
She sneaked a glance at the hands resting on the muscular lap beside hers. Like the rest of him they were big, the fingers long and calloused, the nails functionally short, nothing like the manicured digits the men at Pieta’s law firm sported. Felipe was all man. You only had to look at him to know a woman’s body was imprinted like a map in his memories.
A tall, lithe woman impeccably dressed in a white designer suit entered the room. The Governor was ready for them.
Pulling herself together, Francesca got to her feet, smoothed her jacket with hands that had suddenly gone clammy and picked up her laptop bag.
Her heart beat frantically, excitement and nerves fighting in her belly.
She could do this. She would do this. She would get the Governor’s agreement for the sale of the land. She would make Pieta proud and, in doing so, obtain his forgiveness.
* * *
Felipe felt undressed without his gun, which he’d left in the car with Seb. He didn’t expect any trouble in the Governor’s own home but could see the bulges in the suits of the guards who lined the walls of the ostentatious dining room they were taken to.
The Governor himself sat at the dining table alone, eating an orange that had been cut into segments for him. The tall woman who’d brought them in arranged herself a foot behind him.
He didn’t rise for his guests but gestured for them to sit.
Felipe hadn’t expected to like the man but neither had he expected the instant dislike that flashed through him.
‘My condolences about your brother,’ the Governor said in Spanish, addressing Francesca’s breasts. ‘I hear he was a great man.’
From the panicked look Francesca shot at him, Felipe guessed she didn’t speak his native tongue. Without missing a beat, he made the translation.
‘Thank you,’ she replied, smiling at the Governor as if having a lecherous sixty-year-old ogle her whilst speaking of her dead brother was perfectly acceptable. ‘Do you speak Italian or English?’
‘No,’ he replied in English, before switching back to Spanish to address Felipe. ‘You are her bodyguard?’
‘I’m here as Miss Pellegrini’s translator and advisor,’ he answered smoothly, avoiding giving a direct lie.
The Governor put a large segment of orange in his mouth. ‘I understand she wants to build a hospital in my city.’
Felipe smothered his distaste at being spoken to by someone chewing food. ‘She does, yes. I believe her brother had already been in contact with your office about the land it could be built on.’
He sensed Francesca’s agitation at being cut out of her own meeting. She had the air of a pet straining at its leash. He shot her a warning look. Calm down.
Another segment went into the wide mouth, the gaze fixing back on Francesca’s breasts as if he were trying to see through the respectable clothing she wore. From the gleam in his beady eyes he was mentally undressing her. From the angry colour staining her face she knew it too but the quick look she threw at him told him to say nothing.
‘Two hundred thousand dollars.’
‘Is that for the land?’
The mouth still full of orange smiled. ‘That is for me. The land itself is another two hundred thousand. All in cash.’
Felipe stared hard at Francesca as he made the translation, sending another warning to her with his eyes. He would have spoken his warnings but was damn sure the Governor spoke perfect English.
To his incredulity she agreed without a second’s thought or consideration.
‘Done.’
‘The hospital is to have my name.’
Here she hesitated. Felipe knew why—she wanted to name it after her brother.
The Governor saw the hesitation. ‘Either it has my name or permission is denied.’
Felipe translated again, adopting a harder edge to his voice in the vain hope she would pick up on it, slow down and negotiate properly.
But she was too keen to get the agreement made to see the danger she was walking into.
‘Tell the Governor we will be honoured to name it after him,’ she said in a tone so grateful Felipe braced himself for the Governor to pick up on it and demand even more from her.
A full mouth of pristine white teeth beamed. ‘Then it is a deal. I am having a party here next Saturday.’ That was a full week away. ‘Bring her to it. I’ll have the documents ready for you. Tell her to bring the cash.’ He snapped his fingers and the tall woman stepped forward. ‘Escort my guests back to their car. They’re leaving.’
As they stood, Francesca, full of smiles, said, ‘Please give my thanks to the Governor for his co-operation.’
She virtually skipped with joy out of the villa.
Only when they were safely in the back of the car and out of the compound did Felipe turn on her.
‘What are you playing at?’ he demanded. ‘Where was the negotiation? And what were you thinking agreeing to pay a bribe?’
The smile on her face fell. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘You’ve agreed to pay a cash bribe. You’ve agreed to bring in four hundred thousand dollars into the Caribbean’s poorest country. Can’t you see what’s wrong with that? Can’t you see the danger?’
‘I’ve done what needed to be done,’ she said defiantly. ‘Thank you for making the translations, but you’re being paid to protect me and advise on my security. If I want your input with anything else, I’ll let you know.’
This was exactly what Daniele and Matteo had warned him about. Francesca was so determined to get the hospital built in Pieta’s memory that she was a danger to herself.
Francesca didn’t understand why Felipe was being so negative. The meeting had gone a hundred times better than she’d expected. She’d expected to be drilled for hours about the hospital itself, its capabilities and the number of people they hoped to be able to treat. She’d made sure to have all the relevant figures and documents ready for him but in the end it had boiled down to one simple thing: money. And Pieta’s philanthropic foundation had plenty of it.
Felipe was taking his job as protector too far.
‘What about your career?’ he ground out. ‘Did you think about that? Do you want it ruined before it’s even started?’
Excited that they were heading straight to the site the hospital would be built on, his words took a moment to sink in. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘If word gets out that you paid a bribe to the Governor of San Pedro your career will be over. Lawyers are supposed to be on the side of the law.’
Dear God, that hadn’t even occurred to her.
She swayed in her seat as hot dizziness poured into her head. For one dreadful moment she really thought she was going to faint.
In her eagerness to get the site signed over to the foundation, it hadn’t crossed her mind that she could be jeopardising her career by paying the Governor’s bribe.
‘Pieta paid bribes,’ she said, more to herself and for her own mitigation.
‘No, your brother was always smart enough not to pay them and not as openly as you’re doing and not verbally with secret cameras recording every word said. He would never have put himself or his foundation in such jeopardy. He acted with discretion and had other people pay any bribe through intermediaries. You should know that.’
