Blush(111)
She was absolute perfection. Her skin creamy and fine-grained, the three freckles on her collarbone beauty marks he adored. “I can see why,” he teased. “Want to go into the bedroom and draw the drapes and hide under the covers?”
She punched him not so lightly in his rib cage, and he took her smaller hand, going palm to palm as he threaded his fingers through hers. Then stared for a moment at their clasped hands. “It amazes me how capable this small hand is.”
“It’s not my hand that’s capable, Barcelona, it’s my brain.”
“Now, see? That does exceptionally well in direct sunlight.” With an adorable scowl, she thumped his chest with her fist. In direct sunlight her eyes were sapphire blue, as translucent as the waters off Fernando de Noronha. “We can’t lie here all day, much as I’d like to. We have things to do and places to go. Give me the recap, short and sweet.”
“First: What things? What places?”
“We have to make love again—several times. And I heard mention of a press conference later? I presume you’ll want to shower and change and mess with your hair and makeup?”
“I’m the CEO of a billion-dollar cosmetics company and you think I’m ‘messing’ with my hair and makeup? I’m marketing my brand.” She smiled.
“And you do it damn well. But you know you’re just gilding the lily, don’t you?”
“I’m in the business of gilding.”
“Times a-wasting, woman,” he told her sternly. She shifted her legs and her hips so that his hard dick was centered against the wet, swollen, pink folds of her pussy. His dick was extremely happy, and did a little dance against her. He gave her a warning frown. “That doesn’t help speed things up, you know.” Mia gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look, spreading her legs a little wider, her knees digging into the sofa cushions on either side of his hips. “Don’t taunt me. We’re not doing a thing until you finish your story. Keeping in mind it should be as brief— Damn it, Mia!” She wasn’t allowing his eagerly reaching dick entry, but she rubbed her wetness against him, making his brain turn to oatmeal, and his intentions float like a balloon filled with helium. “Brief as possible. Just. Hit—holy crap—the high points.”
“First, I spoke to Daisy yesterday.” Mia dropped a kiss on his nipple, absently running light fingers through the hair on his chest, which made his cock harder and his balls tighten in anticipation. “She’s still in a lot of pain, but promised she’s doing much better. When I offered her my house on Lake Como, she told me when she’s well enough, you’re sending her to the South of France?”
“I have an old farmhouse in Montauban. Took Charlie to see her last night,” he told her, cupping the flexing mounds of her ass to keep her still. “She was worrying about—life. I gave her options.”
He captured Mia’s roaming fingers. Not because he didn’t enjoy being petted by her, but because the sooner she gave him the recap, the sooner he could get back to what he’d come here for. “Now give me the abbreviated version of current events so we can get back to what’s important without interruption.”
“I have a press conference at five.”
He glanced at his watch. “Three hours. All the more reason to keep things short. Give me the high points.”
“My security guy and my father’s third wife conspired to take over Blush before they even heard about my secret buyout. Even with the shares of some of the willing board members, they didn’t have enough. They needed sixty percent of shareholders to agree to take over the company. Less than eighteen percent bought into the changeover. So they couldn’t do it that way. They had money, but not the stock. So they got together and formed the black pool. The investment company didn’t care who bought whom out, just that they’d get their slice of the pie.”
“Who was in the pool?” Just as she’d vowed to do back in Bayou Cheniere, he’d make damn sure that every one of them was caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
“Basson, Candice, and several board members. They wanted me out when outside auditors started looking into their business and personal expenses when I started the LBO. They found discrepancies, which were red-flagged all over the place. Personal travel, private jets, real estate—they were bleeding Blush dry. And yet they nickel-and-dimed every expenditure I wanted to make for my foundation. Hypocritical bastards.
“Even with Candice’s and Miles’s shares, they realized that no matter what they did, I’d outbid them and wouldn’t go away. They formed the secret black pool and hired hit men to take me out before I could sign the papers in the event they didn’t win Blush via that route. They thought they had all the bases covered. They, too, are being prosecuted for conspiracy on various counts.”