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Self-preservation rattled its warning again. She glanced at his set features and knew it was time to exercise discretion. To curb that growing need to dig beneath the wildly successful mogul to the man who...what?

Held the world in the palm of his hands with wizard-like ease that secretly fascinated her more and more with each passing day?

What good would come of knowing him?

They would never be in the same league.

For the next three months she would live on the edge with him. But after that—

She stepped away from the bleak picture stretching in her mind’s eye. She’d been up for...goodness, she couldn’t even remember. She needed to finish this task and head to bed. But before she could continue, he spoke.

‘Do you think less of me, Saffie?’ he asked abruptly.

‘What?’

‘Given the choice, would you not pay your own mother back for abandoning you? For leaving you to be cared for by strangers?’

Her breath shrivelled in her lungs. ‘You know that I grew up in a care home?’

‘Sim. You know enough about my life. Seems fair I knew about yours.’

She took a minute to absorb the news, to will calm into her racing heart. ‘I have questions, of course I do. But until I hear her side of the story, I don’t know what I would’ve done.’

‘But you must have imagined a scenario of some sort?’ he pressed, making her wonder if he’d done the same and been met with disappointment. Was that what had turned him bitter?

She shrugged. ‘I’ve been through every emotion you can think of. But when it comes down to it, I simply don’t know why she did what she did. And...somehow I’ve learned to live with it. To be thankful for the time I had with my foster mother.’

His lips pursed and his eyes probed as if he was attempting to see beneath her words.

Unwilling to unmask the depth of her loneliness, she shifted her attention back to business. ‘Would you like me to read the report?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘Let’s hear it.’

She clicked on the document, perused the list of Pueblo’s activities in the past month. ‘His business dealings in Qatar are up for renegotiation next month. There’s a bid for six wineries in South Africa. An Italian cargo haulage firm has approached him about merging.’

‘I want the names of the parties in the Qatar deal. The rest he can keep. What else?’

She swallowed, a tad apprehensive about mentioning the final item. ‘Lavinia Archer has an appointment with him next Monday in San Francisco.’

His smile was chilling. ‘She won’t be taking that meeting.’

The sheer arrogance of that statement was thrilling and frightening. ‘May I ask why you’re so confident?’

He sauntered around the table, sure and agile, self-assured and, oh, so sexy. ‘Because we will be making plans to take Lavinia to Brazil.’

‘But...Brazil wasn’t on the agenda.’

Joao tugged the tablet out of her nerveless hands, tossed it on the table before drawing her chair firmly back from the conference table. ‘It wasn’t five minutes ago. Now it is.’

With a neat little flick of his hand, he swivelled her to face him. The solid column of his body threatened to trip her senses. ‘I... Okay. Would you like me to—?’

‘I think I’ve slave-driven you enough for one day. I’m not inclined to give you another excuse for a repeat of Monday’s performance.’

His fingers tightened over the leather and Saffie couldn’t look away from his hands. It was almost as if he held her. Heat floode

d through her system, concentrating between her legs with a vivid insistence that made her stomach clench. ‘In that case, I think we should head to bed.’

His gaze grew hot and hooded, his hands sliding down the side of the chair, drawing inexorably closer to where her arms rested on the cushion. ‘Or...at least, I should,’ she clarified hastily.