Bound by the Millionaire's Ring(9)

She exerted supreme effort and kept her inner turmoil from her face,  feeling brittle as she said, "Good meeting." She made to step past him.

His heavy hand landed on her hip, urging her to stay and face him. Her  stomach trembled in reaction. The intimate tone of his voice picked at  her composure, threatening to unravel it.

"We should celebrate."

It's for show, she reminded herself, holding very still, trying to  ignore the gaping canyon of yearning that opened inside her. His light  touch sent licks of fire up her side and down her thigh. She told  herself it was okay if her cheeks revealed the heat radiating from her  core, that she was supposed to be dazzled by him. She gave in to his  power for one moment and let her adulation of this particular god shine  through her expression.

A startled spark flashed in his gaze, exciting and terrifying at once.  His other hand came to her other hip and his fingers tightened. His  attention slid to her mouth.

Her lips tingled as though he'd grazed them with his own. The memory of  their kiss was right there, making her heart begin a rapid drumbeat.

You weren't invited to.

She had folded like a cheap tent for him the first time, but a jagged catch of humiliation kept her from doing it again.

She didn't care if they had an audience to amuse. The people filing  toward the door were sending them curious smirks, but sick horror took  hold in her, tensing her with resistance. She would not allow herself to  become a laughingstock.

"Let's keep the PDA to a minimum in the office, hermoso. No need to  embarrass anyone." She set her hand firmly on his chest, face averted.  "I'll go make a reservation for dinner."

His strength was such that he didn't have to exert himself one iota to keep her exactly where she was. "I'll arrange it."

"You mean you'll ask Monique to do it?" She batted her lashes as she mentioned his PA. Engagement banter. So cute.

"I said I would." His voice was laconic, his expression arrogant. Yet watchful enough to make the moment feel bizarrely lethal.

She was in the cage with the tiger. His tail was twitching, but he wasn't hungry. Not for her. She was safe. For now.         

     



 

"Seven o'clock?" he asked.

"Can't wait." She tried again to pull away and this time he allowed it.

And she knew she was deranged on some level because disappointment clawed in her chest.



Isidora did her own makeup and hair, then put on a dress her mother had  bought for her when they were shopping on her last birthday. She had  only tried it on because her mother had insisted.

"You have such a beautiful figure, mi angel. Why don't you show it off?"

Isidora had bit back observing that her mother did enough showing off for both of them. "It's not exactly office attire, Mama."

It was a strapless cocktail dress that hugged her curves in what looked  like ribbons of liquid gold. The tails came together in a bow between  her breasts, leaving a peekaboo cut out over her diaphragm.

"You work too hard. Dance!" Her mother had bought her a pair of gold  heels to go with it. "Enjoy your youth. Live your life with entusiasmo!"

Francisca was an heiress who had grown up with everything except love  and discipline. The expense of a designer outfit for her daughter was  nothing compared to what her mother spent on herself each month. Isidora  had accepted the gift, fully expecting it would collect dust in her  closet.

She never wore skirts this short. Given her mother's lack of modesty,  she compensated with conservative styles and even more conservative  behavior. Ramon's sisters could easily get away with showing this much  skin and still look respectable, but Isidora felt positively loose and  looked...ah, hell. She looked like her mother. Not so much physically,  but in the come-hither display of her wares.

She never dressed like this, especially for a man. Ramon's constant  rejections during her adolescent years had killed that in her.

She might have panicked and changed, but as she took note of the text  that Ramon was on his way, she noticed things were heating up online.  Ugh. She checked the rest of her notifications with dismay. She would  have to discuss that with him.

In danger of running late now, she closed the door of her flat and  descended the two flights of stairs to the lobby, realizing as she  arrived on the bottom step that the noise she had dimly assumed was a  neighbor's television was actually a crowd gathered outside the glass  doors of her building.

Aside from a handful of photographers, her arrival home from work hadn't  drawn much notice, but in the hour she'd been dressing, a hundred  people had gathered. Maybe more.

She instinctively hung back until a black car pulled up to the curb.

An excited murmur grew. Ramon's guard stepped from the passenger seat,  took a reading on the crowd and directed people to part, waiting until  there was a clear path to the building's door before he opened the rear  door of the car.

Ramon rose with his easy grace. The crowd roared with approval.

He paused to give them a nod, utterly breathtaking in close-cut pants  and a light blue pullover beneath a linen blazer. He really was too  beautiful.

Isidora snapped out of her admiration and quickly moved through the  lobby and out the doors, intent on keeping the spectacle to a minimum  and allowing them to hurry away.

As she appeared, another roar went up.

She paused reflexively, not expecting the reaction. She was no one. Fake, fake, fake.

They didn't know that, of course. They went wild.

She found her party smile and waved a greeting.

Was this what it was like for them? Pretending to be happy about the  attention? Pretending she enjoyed the claps and calls of her name?

Wait. Was that a curse? A boo?

She faltered, glancing to the right where someone said something she didn't catch, but his tone was aggressive.

The mood of the crowd shifted. The excited babble grew bothered as  people jostled. She heard someone say something about her destroying the  sport.

It was unnerving and she took a few more steps forward, but there were  no ropes or other obstacles to hold people back. The crowd on either  side had pressed into the space, narrowing her path, and a woman  stumbled into her way, crying out a protest at being shoved. The milling  bodies grew more unruly and an unseen hand reached for Isidora, hard  fingertips skimming her arm.

Startled, she jerked from the touch, staggered in her heels and wound up bumping into someone on the other side.

Like walls closing in, strangers pushed into the space between her and  Ramon, blocking her from both him and a safe retreat into her building  as they started to surround her.

She grew scared. Truly scared. She looked for him, but another touch on her arm had her jerking her head around.

She was given a hard yank and lost her footing. She stumbled toward the sidewalk, hands outstretched.



Ramon was unsurprised that a crowd had gathered outside Isidora's  building. It was routine when he started dating a woman that fans and  paparazzi tried to catch a photo of him with his new woman. It was the  reason women threw themselves at him-for the notoriety.         

     



 

He had expected to go into the building and escort Isidora out. That was  also routine. He was a gentleman who offered door-to-door service, but  she stepped out as he arrived, then paused in surprise as the crowd  reacted.

He, too, reacted. His breath left him as he took in the vision she made  of polished gold against the weathered stone of her building. She was an  award statuette come to life, loose auburn curls gently shifting around  her bare shoulders, her legs pale, delectable stems that begged for  kisses upon every inch.

His gut tightened exactly as it had when he had stood in his boardroom,  keeping her standing before him, feeling her hold him off even as she  turned her sunny expression up to him.

He had basked in the glow of her smile like a cave dweller in  springtime, startled by how good it felt. He had missed that light. That  warmth. For a few seconds, an unidentified tightness in him had eased.  He had wanted to kiss her again. Hard and deep. The kind of kiss that  didn't stop until they were both replete.

He wanted to make love to her. He could lie to her and pretend he  didn't, but he couldn't lie to himself. What man, looking at her now,  would not want to carry her to the nearest bed? She was breathtaking.

Desire like he had never known crystalized in him, far more potent than  the generic sexual hunger that pulsed in his loins for any woman who  gave him a signal. His body suddenly demanded this woman. He needed her  capitulation. Her writhing body beneath his.

Pure lust blinded him as surely as their kiss had-which became a near fatal mistake as the crowd turned on her.

It was not something he had ever experienced. Female fans might say  jealous things about his dates online, but no woman he'd ever been with  had ever been assaulted.

Nevertheless, in seconds, the avid excitement in the crowd became  stained with hostility. Outright aggression. Isidora was shoved and  started to fall.

He reacted with the reflexes he had honed on the track and hardened with  physical training, which included military-style fighting. He shoved  aside whomever stood between them, swept her up and growled, "Get back  or I'll kill you."