feel unimportant and unloved.
Ah, but you are unloved. This man does not love you. He never did. Never could and never will.
She concentrated on his cold, handsome features. Not that she wanted him to love her now. No, that desire was in the past. This man was nothing like the Alejandro she’d once loved.
But he’s still there. Inside.
She closed the door firmly on such thoughts. “Very well,” she said as coolly as she could manage given the erratic beating of her heart. “If you will allow me to drop these things in my room?”
His nod was brief. Arrogant and sure. She itched to smack him. Instead, she put her things away and returned to join him beside the limousine waiting out front. He held the door open for her, then followed her inside. A moment later, they were whisked through the darkening streets of Madrid.
“We’re going where?” Rebecca’s heart climbed into her throat, thrumming in panic. His parents’ anniversary party? But why? She closed her eyes and swallowed. Oh God. She’d never met his parents, had in fact no idea what his relationship with them was like. He’d spoken of a brother and sister, she remembered that much. His brother had died tragically only a few months before she’d met Alejandro. He’d never talked of it, and she hadn’t asked because their relationship had been so new.
But would his parents know who she was? That she was the woman he’d been sleeping with while he was engaged to someone else? How could she possibly show up at their special party tonight and hold her head up?
Alejandro glanced up from his phone, his expression showing he hadn’t missed the note of alarm threading through her voice. “The party is a grand affair, Rebecca. No one will notice another guest. Besides, I am the one paying for it.”
It was true she’d envisioned some sort of small, lavish dinner party instead of a grand affair, but the idea of several hundred people at this event did nothing to quell her uneasiness. His parents would still be there and if she were with Alejandro, she’d have to meet them. Perhaps that was his plan. “Mom, Dad, meet Rebecca Layton, the bitch who stole my deal and tried to ruin me five years ago.”
But that wasn’t the source of her deepest anxiety. No, if she were brutally honest with herself, most of her unease was brought on by the proximity of the man sitting across from her. His legs sprawled casually to either side of hers. Long lashes shadowed his eyes as he concentrated on the screen in his hands. His tanned fingers moved quickly as he typed, and she remembered how they’d moved over her body. Slowly, deliberately, with soft strokes that had driven her mad.
He’d talked of tasting her earlier. She’d thought of almost nothing else since. She’d also thought of the day she’d left him. Had it been a mistake to leave without confronting him?
Memories of long ago crashed into her mind with alarming regularity. Of Alejandro’s skin against hers, of his hot tongue slicking a path down her body, finding her wet and hot and ready for him. And then when he licked into the heart of her, how quickly she’d exploded for him—
Rebecca pressed two fingers to her temples, willing the erotic images out of her head. She had to focus, had to prepare herself for whatever she would find at this party. Maybe no one would notice her, or maybe it really was another facet of Alejandro’s plan to humiliate her in front of as many people as possible. Why else had he ordered her to come with him?
He couldn’t know how tormented she was simply looking at him, how part of her wanted to reach out and find the man he used to be beneath the hard exterior. How she ached to touch his smooth skin, to trace her fingers along the seam of his lips, to breathe in the manly scent of him the way she’d once done. To see him actually smile at her with warmth.
Stop. Just stop. He stole Layton International. He hates you.
When the limousine pulled into the circular drive of the Villa de Música, Rebecca wanted to melt into the plush leather seat. A horde of photographers clustered together near the entrance, snapping away as people emerged from the cars that crawled in a steady stream through the driveway.
She wiped clammy palms down her skirt, tried to straighten it out as best as