The Spaniard's Pleasurable Vengeance
His plan is merciless revenge
His method is sizzling pleasure!
Ruthless tycoon Basilio Perez, famed for his familial loyalty, has a new target in sight. Miranda Smith is poised to bring the Perez name into disrepute—she must be stopped! But when he meets Miranda, Basilio is captivated by her shy appeal. To uncover Randi’s secrets, his plan for revenge becomes one of lingering, passionate seduction...that tests his iron control to the limit!
A classic tale of passion, revenge and redemption...
USA TODAY bestseller LUCY MONROE lives and writes in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. While she loves her home, she delights in experiencing different cultures and places on her travels, which she happily shares with her readers through her books. A lifelong devotee of the romance genre, Lucy can’t imagine a more fulfilling career than writing the stories in her head for her readers to enjoy.
Also by Lucy Monroe
Heart of a Desert Warrior
Not Just the Greek’s Wife
Million-Dollar Christmas Proposal
Kostas’s Convenient Bride
By His Royal Decree miniseries
One Night Heir
Prince of Secrets
Ruthless Russians miniseries
An Heiress for His Empire
A Virgin for His Prize
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
The Spaniard’s Pleasurable Vengeance
Lucy Monroe
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-474-07262-5
The SPANIARD’S PLEASURABLE VENGEANCE
© 2018 Lucy Monroe
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk
For my readers, because you’ve stuck with me
through the challenges that make writing so hard.
Your letters reminded me that my stories touched real
people’s hearts and that is why I write—so, thank
you! I am so grateful to each of you who picks up a
book and completes the circle of connection to me,
the author, and especially thankful for the readers
who have encouraged me through some of the most
difficult times in my life. I write for all of you.
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
Extract
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
“I DON’T NEED a damn appointment! I’m his sister, you cretin.” The sharp American accent and strident tone of Gracia’s voice reached Basilio through his partially closed office door.
The heavy door opened forcefully, slamming back against the rich paneling of his wall, but surprisingly, his administrative assistant made it into the office a step ahead of Basilio’s sister. “Sir, I’m sorry.” The distress at not holding her post was clear in his admin’s tone. “She refused to even wait for me to ascertain if you were still on your conference call.”
Gracia came storming around his admin at the same time as his executive assistant came rushing in from her annex office.
“What is going on in here?” Her hair in a severe chignon, her navy business suit immaculate, his fifty-year-old executive assistant could do freezing aristocratic disapproval better than even Basilio’s mother, who was actually the daughter of a count.
His admin immediately began apologizing again as he stood from his desk, giving his sister a look that would have made Basilio’s mother proud. Gracia halted in her approach to his desk, her annoyed expression morphing to one of consternation.
She gave the EA a moderately polite look before looking at Basilio with wariness. “It is a family emergency.”
Basilio merely waited in silence for more information.
His executive assistant wasn’t so patient. “I see, and there was no time for you to call and apprise us of your imminent arrival so we could clear your brother’s schedule on your drive from the airport?” Camila Lopez asked with clear censure.
Gracia looked between Basilio and his EA, her cheeks going pink. “I wasn’t thinking of calling. Only getting here.”
“And if Señor Perez had been away from the office?” Camila pressed with a single raised, perfectly shaped black eyebrow.
“I didn’t think of that.”
As amusing as he found his sister’s interaction with his executive assistant, Basilio did not have time for the entertainment. He did, in fact, have a very busy day.
“Thank you for your assistance and I will need the next thirty minutes for Gracia,” he said to both his admin and Camila. “See that we are not disturbed.”
“Of course, señor,” Camila said to him with just the right amount of deference before offering his sister a look that said clearly, she wasn’t worried about someone else interrupting.
Once the other two women had left his office, both doors through which they’d gone closed firmly behind them, Basilio indicated one of the chairs facing his desk. “Sit down, Gracia, and tell me what has you forcing your way past my admin.”
Gracia sank into the seat with more grace than her behavior had shown so far. “It really is a family emergency, Baz.”
For the family that so rarely remembered he was a member?
“Explain,” he demanded as he settled back into his own chair.
Gracia frowned at his tone. “You remember when that awful teenager hit little Jamie with her car?”
“I am unlikely to forget.” Five years before, his then four-year-old nephew had spent two weeks in a coma after being hit by a car while on an outing with his mother.
“Well, apparently, she changed her name and moved away from Southern California.”
“Unsurprising.” While Basilio had been in Spain at the time, saving his father’s company from bankruptcy, he knew that Miranda Weber had been vilified in the broadcast media and even worse on all the social media outlets.
“Yes, well. Some idiotic reporter found out who she is and is resurrecting the story.”
And this was the family emergency that she needed Basilio’s help with? When usually both Carlos and Gracia were happy to forget they were half siblings most of the time.
Putting aside his own sense of cynicism about their definition of family, Basilio said, “I can see where that would be emotionally difficult for Carlos and Tiffany.”
“Yes. It’s awful! And this time some fly-by-night morning gossip show wants to interview the girl. She’s all set to give them her side of the story.”
“She’s not a girl any longer, surely.” Miranda had been nineteen five years ago.
“Woman, then,” Gracia said dismissively. “She’ll go on television and lie. About our family!”
“Surely Carlos has PR people who can handle this.” Not to mention lawyers. If the woman lied in a public forum, they could bring a civil suit.
“You know he prefers you call him Carl.”
Yes, because it was less Spanish, letting him forget he ever had a father named Armand Perez. “That is what you want to discuss now?” Basilio asked, his voice dry.
“No, of course not.” Gracia wrung her hands. “It’s just you have to do something!”
“What do you imagine I can do that Carl and Tiffany cannot? They are not exactly without resources.” Carlos’s wife came from an old and wealthy East Coast family.
Basilio’s brother ran his stepfather’s business, one of respectable enough size to have public relations people on retainer. While Perez Holdings was much bigger and more successful now, that had not always been the case.
“She had a restraining order taken out against both Carl and Tiffany. It includes any representative working for, or on retainer from, them.”
“How did she manage that?” Basilio wondered aloud.
“It’s insane, I know.”
That was not what Basilio had meant. For Miranda Weber to obtain such a thing, serious threats had to have been made. Cursed with a deep-seated sense of entitlement, his brother could be a hothead, as well. Carlos had never had to save a company, or put the hours into shoring up his family’s name in the international community as Basilio had done. When their father split with Carlos and Gracia’s mother, she’d remarried quickly and both of Basilio’s older siblings had embraced their new American family wholeheartedly, taking their stepfather’s last name and rejecting their Spanish heritage for their American mother’s way of life.
While Basilio was not sure he could blame Carlos, considering the current circumstances, clearly the older man’s temper and certainty he could do as he pleased had cost him access to Miranda.
When Basilio didn’t say anything right away, Gracia added, “I think it might have been her brother-in-law or something.”
“She has a sister?” He didn’t remember that. He’d thought the woman who put his nephew into a coma was an only child.
“Apparently. Only a half sister, but still...”
“Yes, still.” Basilio knew just how little regard his sister and brother had for the concept of a half sibling.
“Oh, get off it, Baz. I didn’t mean you.”
“As you say.”
Gracia leaned forward. “You need to do something.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Well, Carl’s company doesn’t have quite the sway yours does.”
That was an understatement. Basilio had ruthlessly built Perez Holdings into a powerful multibillion-dollar international entity, while his brother’s realty group was worth mere millions. “The Madison Realty Group is hardly a global concern” was all Basilio said, though.
“Exactly.”
“So?” Basilio prompted.
Gracia’s expression turned crafty. “So, maybe you can convince the brother-in-law to withdraw his support.”
“Who is this in-law?”
“His name is Andreas Kostas. That’s Greek, isn’t it? I don’t remember the name of his company.”
Surprise made Basilio sit up straighter in his chair. “Yes, it is Greek, and I know exactly who he is. My company uses his company’s security software, or what used to be his company. I believe he recently merged with Hawk Enterprises.”
Andreas Kostas was a shark’s shark and he was now in business with one of the biggest sharks swimming in their waters. No wonder Carlos needed help dealing with Miranda’s family.
Gracia waved that information away. “Whatever. He didn’t respond well when Carl contacted him, hoping to convince him to talk Miranda out of doing the interview.”
“If he threatened him, I don’t imagine so.” Kostas wasn’t known for tolerating fools or blowhards. Unfortunately, Carlos had played both on occasion.
“Who said Carl threatened anybody?” Gracia sounded indignant, but her guilty expression didn’t jibe with her words.
Basilio just gave his sister a look until she squirmed in her chair.
“Okay, he may have said some things he didn’t mean, but come on.” Gracia waved her hands in agitation. “He and Tiffany went through enough five years ago.”
“On that we can agree.”
“So, you’ll do something?”
“I will come to the States and look into the situation.” That was all he would promise.
If it came down to it, Basilio wasn’t above using his influence and power to push either Andreas Kostas or his sister-in-law into doing what was best for Basilio’s family because for him family came first, last and always. However, first he would get some real answers about what was going on.
“You have to hurry. She’s slated to do her interview in three weeks. The recent media storm is just starting to die down, and if she does that interview, it’s bound to blow everything up again.”
“Understood. What name does she go by now?”
“She kept her first name, but changed Weber to Smith.”
“Very anonymous.”
Gracia’s lips twisted in distaste. “Yes.”
Well, Weber or Smith, Basilio had every intention of finding the woman who had already cost his family so much. Whatever it took, he would protect the brother and sister-in-law who had suffered enough.
CHAPTER ONE
LATE FOR DINNER with her newfound sister and recently acquired brother-in-law, Randi rushed out of her even more recently acquired office.
She’d been shocked and delighted when Kayla asked Randi if she was interested in taking over managing responsibilities for Kayla’s for Kids, the shelter her sister had founded for at-risk children and youth. The opportunity to do what Randi loved while living near enough to get to know her long-lost sister had been too good to pass up. Besides, she got to use both her degree in business and adjunct degree in social services.
Part of her new job would include launching a second site in the western suburbs of Portland. Apparently, Andreas had donated enough for the expansion as a wedding gift, in addition to designating his new company’s charitable contributions all to Kayla’s for Kids, making fund-raising efforts a lot less stressful for Randi’s team.
It was Randi’s dream job and she adored her sister and brother-in-law for making it possible.
Collision with a hard, muscular wall on the sidewalk abruptly halted Randi’s headlong flight to her car.
She cried out and then immediately started apologizing, even as she felt her balance waver. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you.”
Big, strong hands on her upper arms stopped her bounce backward that would have landed Randi on her backside. “Is that a common occurrence, running into people you didn’t see?” he asked, a foreign accent subtle but unmistakable.
Randi winced. The man could not know the old wound his words bled yet again.
She pulled herself together with a firm mental yank and shrugged. “I’d love to say no, but I have a tendency toward klutziness, especially when I’m in a rush.”
Why she was admitting that particular failing to this gorgeous man, she did not know. Because man, total hottie alert. Easily as tall as her brother-in-law, who stood at six feet four inches, the black-haired man with sexy stubble on his face towered over Randi’s own five feet five inches.
Espresso-brown eyes locked on hers. “I see. Are you in a rush often?”
For whatever reason, she didn’t step back from him. “Not really, just sometimes. Though it’s usually walls I run into, or doorjambs, or you know, furniture. I hardly ever bump into people.”
Even, white teeth flashed in a smile that didn’t quite reach his dark brown eyes. “I’m special, then.”
“You could take it that way, yes.”
He released her arms. Finally, but he did not step out of her personal space. “I believe I will.”
“Okay.” Heat climbed up her neck and into her cheeks that Randi could do nothing about.
He offered his hand. “Basilio Perez.”
“Oh, um, Randi Smith.” She laid her palm against his.
Instead of shaking hands, he lifted hers to his lips, brushing a barely there kiss on the backs of her knuckles. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Smith.”
Randi finally understood what it meant to be electrified by a man’s touch. His lips against her skin sent frissons of sensation throughout her body and she gasped.
“Ms. Smith? Are you all right?” There was something in his too-knowing gaze that said he was perfectly aware of the effect he was having on her.
She tried to speak, then cleared her throat and tried again. “Randi, please.”
“Randi is short for?”
“Oh, um, no one ever asks. They just ask stuff like if I enjoy having a boy’s name.”
“So?” He hadn’t let go of her hand and he now brushed his thumb over her knuckles, where his lips had been.
She had no thought of not answering. “Miranda.”
“Lovely name.”
“You think so?” She’d always found it old-fashioned.
“I do.”
“Basilio is pretty neat, too. Spanish?” she guessed.
“You got it in one. My friends call me Baz.”
“My friends call me Randi.”
“I prefer Miranda.”
Did that mean he didn’t want to be friends? Only he’d implied she should call him Baz. “Are we going to be friends?”
“I would like that.”
Good. “Me, too. I mean...” But she wasn’t sure what she’d meant to say, the sexual chemistry between them playing havoc with the efficient firing of synapses in her brain.
“I hope you mean just that.”
“Yes, okay.”
“So, dinner tonight?” he asked, still caressing her hand.
“I have plans with my sister and brother-in-law.” And as much as she wanted to spend time with her sister, giving up a date with such a delicious man was hard.
“After-dinner drinks?”
“Really?” Oh, man, why had she asked that? “I mean, that would be great. Fine.”
She was just going to sink into the sidewalk right now.
“When and where?”
She thought about the location of the restaurant she was supposed to meet her family at and a likely spot near it. “How about the piano bar at the Heathman?”
It was quiet, with lots of places to sit in an intimate tête-à-tête.
“Fine. What time?” Basilio asked.
“Eight o’clock?” She was having an early dinner with Kayla and Andreas.
“Perfect. I will get my own dinner and meet you there.”
Taking a risk, Randi asked, “You could join us?”
“You are sure I would not be an unwelcome intrusion?”
She loved the formal cadence of his speech, so different from her own. “Not at all. I’m sure Kayla and Andreas would not mind at all.”
But she’d better call and give a heads-up on her way over.
“Then I would be pleased to accept.”
“Great. Um, you can meet me there?”
“Naturally. I would not expect you to get into a car with a stranger after such short acquaintance.”
And why she wished she could, she wasn’t even going to think about. Ever since the trouble five years before, Randi had become very wary of new people and even making friends, much less dating. But no way was this man a grubby reporter, looking for lascivious details from the years-old tragedy.
Not in his five-thousand-dollar suit and shoes that probably cost more than she made in a week.
They made arrangements to meet at the restaurant in twenty minutes. Then Randi was running for her car, even later than she had been.
* * *
Basilio pulled into the valet parking for the Heathman.
A walk from the restaurant to the piano bar would be further opportunity to draw out Miranda Smith née Weber. Bumping into her on purpose had made two things very clear. One, the picture in the file he’d had compiled on her did not capture the sweet naïveté she wore like a cloak, nor her unconscious sensuality. Two, seduction might well be his best course of action in achieving the goal his family needed.
While intimidation tactics were not yet off the table, he had a feeling using the instant attraction between them would be more easily effective.
Walking into the restaurant a few minutes later, he was once again struck by the clarity of her gray eyes as they met his across the roomful of diners in the upscale steak house. Even in the subdued lighting of the restaurant, the gray orbs glowed. Miranda was sitting with Andreas Kostas and another woman with eyes the exact color and vibrancy of Miranda’s, declaring her the sister.
Basilio allowed the maître d’ to lead him across the restaurant to the linen-clad table for four. Appetizers and bread were already on the table, indicating the Kostases had been there for a while.
Miranda stood up. “You made it.”
Basilio nodded, finding her enthusiasm almost charming. There was such an innocence about this woman, he found it hard to believe she had plans to blow his family’s peace right out of the water. She did not look or behave like someone who would go on a talk show to spite them, particularly after committing such a heinous act as hitting a small child with her car.
But he had it on good authority that Miranda Smith, for all her airs of innocence, was exactly that kind of woman.
He could not afford to forget that fact.
“This is my sister, Kayla Kostas, and her husband, Andreas.” Miranda indicated the other two people with one hand, nearly knocking over a filled water goblet.
Her brother-in-law saved the table from getting doused with a discernible lack of impatience.
Basilio inclined his head to the married couple. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
“Randi said she met you on the street?” Kayla asked as Andreas sat down, clearly wanting more information.
Miranda had dropped back into her chair across the dining table from him. She smiled shyly at him, her cheeks tinged with color. Was she embarrassed she’d allowed him to pick her up?
He winked at her and watched the color darken along her lovely cheekbones, then turned his head to meet Kayla’s eyes. “We bumped into each other.”
“More like I mowed him down in my rush to be on time.”
The twinge he felt that she was taking responsibility for the collision he had orchestrated was odd, and Basilio ignored it. “You were in a rush to get here, I believe.”
“I was late.”
“I guessed.”
She ducked her head. “Yes, well...”