Lush Money (Filthy Rich) Read online

  But nothing she’d tried, not sex or competitive kickboxing or setting her sights on a South American expansion, had filled the void that began as a pinprick and seemed to widen by the day. She refused to call it loneliness. Nothing until, from the tinted window of a town car, she’d seen a woman holding a toddler’s hands as the tiny girl figured her way up some steps.

  That, she’d thought instantly. Just as she made every other decision in her life. I want that.

  She didn’t want a husband or a relationship and all of their attached complications. And she didn’t want a test-tube baby—she’d turned the lack of a father in her own life into an advantage, concocting a delicious modern fairy tale that hid the ugly reality. But her baby girl wouldn’t have to do that. Wouldn’t have to make up who she was or where she came from. Wouldn’t have to dream of some hero-on-horseback father saving her from her life. Wouldn’t have to fend off the jeers and hair-pulling because of who her mother was. If her money couldn’t create a perfect life for her baby girl, then what value did it have?

  Now all Roxanne had to do was hang on to her prince.

  She had misstepped with him; with a month of distance, she could acknowledge that. Her first critical mistake was believing that he’d come to her office ready to sign. She’d assumed that—as an intellectual, a busy scientist with so much on the line—he’d see the merits of the arrangement and wouldn’t worry about the moral dilemmas. But, as she’d observed him on the security camera hidden in the waiting room, she’d been surprised by his muddy boots and the size of his biceps. She’d been shocked by the angry, passionate “no” in his eyes.

  Her second critical mistake was abandoning the finesse she’d learned convincing wary female business owners that she was a partner who wouldn’t screw them. Instead, when he’d challenged her with his eyes and temper and staggering good looks in the hotel room, she’d reacted like she’d learned on the playground: push him down, kick him in the balls, and run away.

  That last night, the prince pushed back.

  The note card fell from her lips to drag absently across her shoulder as she thought about that night, about the warmth of the greenhouse, about how he towered over her when he pushed her against the table. And then bent her over it. For all of his insults, he’d worked like a yeoman to blow her mind. As the drag of the card against her shoulder made a scritching sound, Roxanne realized what she was doing: it was where he’d held her as he pounded into her, as the other hand had pleasured her with the touch of a hummingbird wing. Roxanne felt a flush of heat over the pale skin that she so strategically kept out of the sun.

  She hastily opened her pink leather clutch and shoved the card inside.

  She would institute some kind of détente tonight. Maintain the upper hand while allowing him to feel a measure of control. It was why she’d sent him the apology after their last meeting; the man did have his pride and she had mauled it, if she took a step back and looked at it objectively. She would point out the benefits of the arrangement to the both of them and appeal to his reasoning instead of shoving him around, as he’d accused her of.

  And he’d better listen to reason. Because even if she had to chain him to a bed and store him away for her personal use three nights a month, she was going to have her prince. With her money and his blue blood, there would be nothing denied her child.

  No humiliation, ever, that her daughter would have to overcome.

  The elevator bell dinged. The doors slid open to reveal the lobby, dripping in red leather and crystal chandeliers, and the darkly lit bar across the way.

  Her shell-pink heels clicked against the black-and-white-checkered marble. As she crossed the threshold into the bar’s darkness, she raised her sunglasses onto her head, pushing back her unbound hair to look around. Yes, the whole sunglasses-at-night thing was a little ridiculous, but as the only female self-made billionaire under thirty, she was known and recognizable. And she didn’t want to be photographed with her prince until she was ready.

  She looked around for a baseball cap. He’d worn a “Real Madrid” cap the first evening. A fraying “Russian River Valley Winegrowers” cap the other two. She looked for a man in jeans in the elegant bar of dark wood and rich leather. She’d dressed down to accommodate him, worn a v-necked, black, silk jumpsuit and a pale pink blazer and loose hair. Casual. Unthreatening. Ignore the four-inch heels.

  If he hadn’t been staring at her, she would have looked right past him. A couple, a lady by herself, a party of four, a gorgeous male, another couple, two girlfriends... Only the gorgeous man’s insistent eyes on her had her going back for another peek.

  Her red sole slipped on the marble when she realized she was married to the gorgeous man. She looked behind her, acted like...something on the floor. Then she plastered an assured smile on her face and walked toward him.

  He was breathtaking. All shoulders and endless height in a beautiful, rich blue Italian suit as he stood at a high, round table. The glowing whiteness of his open-collared shirt set off the golden tone of his skin; a fine, navy-blue scarf hung over his lapels, an accessory only a Spanish man could make look casual and necessary. His light brown hair, streaked with blond, overlong and pushed back, touched his collar. His eyebrows, she noticed for the first time, were dark and thick and heavy. They highlighted the bright eyes, such a bizarre amalgam of caramel and bronze and sunset, that watched her warily. Like she was an approaching bomb. It was the first time she’d seen him, his face, his hair, his skin, those scowling dark brows, without the shadow of his ball cap. The first time she’d seen him in all of his oft-photographed, Golden Prince glory.

  The paparazzi pictures and reports from her investigators had assured her that the Golden Prince was a handsome, kind, and passive man who liked to bury himself in work rather than stand up to his father. He had an outstanding professional reputation, few personal attachments in the U.S., and casual lovers every few months.

  Nothing in those reports had prepared her for this tall, wide-shouldered, hard-handed man with soft, sulky lips. Nothing had readied her for the defiance in his eyes, a defiance that stoked an unwise need to bring him to heel.

  Finesse...she breathed to herself before she took her time slipping her sunglasses off her head, shaking her hair down her back, and putting her clutch and sunglasses on the small table. The prince continued to stand, but Roxanne eased into the tall, leather club chair.

  “Nice wine,” she said, nodding at the ’09 Kosta Browne Pinot Noir.

  “It’s for me.”

  Hell. She bit her lips against a challenging smile. “You needed a whole bottle of wine to face me?”

  Those eyes narrowed and a fine slash of a line appeared between his dark, lickable brows. “I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait.”

  “Oh, I didn’t want to waste a second,” she said, unable to keep from poking the bear.

  Those muscles he built in a field stiffened beneath his suit as a waiter placed another wineglass on the table and poured for Roxanne.

  As Roxanne wrapped her fingers around the goblet, the prince asked, “Should you be drinking that?”

  She looked at him quizzically before she caught the gist. “Ah... No, I’m not pregnant.” She tipped the glass at him and then took a sip.

  “Good,” he said. “Then I want to amend the contract.”

  She choked down the wine with a cough. “That’s adorable.”

  “Fine.” He raised his glass and finished off the wine in two large gulps, the liquid pulsing in his strong, golden neck. He put the glass back down with a crack. “I’ve already paid for the bottle. Hasta nunca.”

  Damn her mouth. He moved fast for a tall guy, quickly instituting his “see you never.” He was already two strides away before Roxanne slipped out of her seat and caught his hand. The feel of it again, its strength, calluses, and heat, was electric. It took two of her hands—hands that had never seemed smal
l—to constrain it.

  “Did you get my letter?” she asked.

  The tension in the hand she gripped, his eyes that watched her, told her that he would have ripped himself away if they weren’t in public. “I got it.”

  “I meant every word,” she said, drawing him in by his outstretched arm. She pulled his hand toward her as she continued to look into his face. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you at the Fairmont.”

  The back of his hand lightly brushed the silk of her jumpsuit.

  “You didn’t deserve that,” she said, up into his face. He shadowed her, cast a hazy shelter of dark and warmth. This close, she could finally smell him again. He carried the smell of bright, sharp things growing and warm earth. She recognized that pheromones were at work here, and she’d selected perfectly. His smell, the way it made her chemicals dance, was why she’d been willing—eager—to put her mouth on this stranger the first night they met.

  “I never should have made you feel...un-princely,” she continued, voice made weak by the dancing chemicals. “And that last night... I never should have convinced that campus security guard to let me in.”

  His dark brows crinkled. “Is that how you did it?”

  She nodded while gently, carefully, brushing her jumper against his knuckles again. “Don’t blame him. He recognized me. When you have as much money as I do, people assume that they can let you into Fort Knox and you won’t steal anything.”

  He shook his head, as if trying to clear the fog from it, without taking his eyes off of her. “Your convenient apology still doesn’t make this arrangement sane.”

  “Maybe. But it is beneficial. To both of us. And there does seem to be some connection, don’t you think?” She took a tiny step closer and let the back of his hand rest against her stomach, let him feel the shiver that touched her. “Some chemistry that has nothing to do with the papers we signed?”

  His hand turned over. Hidden in the shadows of her open blazer and his swaying scarf, his big, hot hand smoothed over the silk, rubbed slowly down her trembling stomach. His eyes drifted down to her lips, which suddenly felt plump and tender and needy.

  “Vale,” he said. And pushed her back a step, away from him and against her seat. “Then let’s talk.”

  He moved back to his side of the table, sat down and poured himself another glass of wine. While Roxanne stood there, ass propped against the seat, still feeling the promise of that dominating hand traveling down her stomach.

  “Talk?” she finally echoed back.

  “Sí. Nos hablamos.” His big hand gestured at her. “That’s the amendment I want. I talk to you and you talk to me. One night of the three, we go on a date. We get to know each other. Like normal people before they get married.” He leaned back in his seat, scarf dripping down his white shirt. “And no sex that night. I want it stated in the contract.”

  Roxanne put both hands on the table and stared at him, trying to see into his well-shaped skull. Where had this come from? She was used to tears and outbursts and hugs during contract negotiations. But not full left turns. Her skill as a negotiator was always being able to outthink her opponent by seeing his objections, options, and addendums before he did. But the prince had blindsided her with his fully developed, from-out-of-nowhere and completely unnecessary contract amendment.

  She tried to be conciliatory. “Well, I guess we can add a fourth night...”

  The prince was already shaking his head “no.”

  Her stare turned into a glare. “But our nights are already limited to the peak of my ovulation cycle,” she said. He was a genius. He could be reasoned with. “If we take one of the nights away, we’re cutting the chances of getting pregnant by a third.”

  He smirked. “It’s gonna drop lower if I won’t do you at all.” Words from her genius.

  She could feel that dangerous bubbling just under her ribs. Anger. Frustration. And a flutter of panic. She didn’t want to get to know him. That was the whole point of this contract. She just wanted her baby. She pinched her lower lip, realized she was doing it, and then pressed both hands flat against the table. She’d already tried sincerity.

  Now, she’d try a different tactic.

  While keeping her eyes on him, she slid out of her pink jacket, revealing her naked pale shoulders and the curves of her breasts in the deep V of her jumpsuit. She tilted her head and watched his eyes flicker to the black hair that fell over her shoulder. She reached across the table and stroked the back of his bronzed hand with a nail. “I want you, Príncipe,” she said, low and throaty. “As often as I can get you. Isn’t that every man’s fantasy? Three nights a month of no-strings-attached sex with a woman who will do anything to make you come?”

  She was thrilled when his fingers let go of the glass to entwine with hers, to pull her gently and slowly toward him across the table. But the heated eyes coming toward her weren’t filled with passion. They were blazing—flames growing higher with every millimeter that shrank between them—with anger.

  “Before we take another step, you need to erase everything you assumed about me.” His words were gravelly with anger, deep and distinct, tinged with the Spanish accent she rarely heard. “I am not my father. I don’t care about fame. I don’t care about wealth. I don’t care about the mind-numbing squeeze of your cunt.” The word flew at her like a bullet as his eyes burned her. “I care about my people. I care about my vines. And I care about my kid. I need to know more about his mother than her favorite sexual positions. So you’re going to talk to me. You’re going to let me get to know you. And then maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to tolerate giving you the baby you want and getting the money I need.”

  He let go of her fingers and Roxanne jerked her hand away. She fought to hide the galloping in her chest as she settled back against her seat.

  Everything she wanted Príncipe Mateo to know about billionaire Roxanne Medina was on the internet; all other information was hidden for a reason. And if she wanted to talk to a man, she had plenty to choose from: her attorney, her assistant, her bodyguard, and her priest. She was dripping in men to talk to and certainly didn’t need to add a prince to her speed dial. His “amendment” directly contradicted everything she was trying to achieve with her contract—a born-in-wedlock baby with a reliable father without all the emotional mess and fuss.

  As he stared at her stonily from across the table, Roxanne finally accepted that this prince wasn’t going to be as passive as she’d hoped.

  Fine, she decided, willing herself to adapt as quickly as she adapted to other antagonists across the bargaining table. She would talk to the prince. She would tell him exactly what she wanted. She would manage their one-day-a-month “talks” with the same precision that she managed everything else in her life. In the end, she would still have her fairy-tale baby. And the príncipe would return to his lab or his kingdom or wherever the hell he wanted with the same perfectly crafted image of Roxanne Medina that she’d crafted for the rest of the world.

  “Okay,” she conceded, raising her chin. “We’ll talk.”

  Those golden eyes took her in, assessed her. Slowly, he nodded. Then he stood up, buttoning the single button of his coat as if getting ready to leave.

  Frustrated, she said, “But I thought we were going to talk.”

  His eyes narrowed with a smirk as he walked around the table toward her. He tipped up her chin with a hot fingertip and searched her eyes. “You really think I’m going to trust your word, Princesa?” She could feel the warm puffs of his words against her lips. “Send the amended contract to my attorney. Tomorrow we’ll talk.” He nodded. “And since I’m feeling generous and you’ve already used up one night of your three, we’ll also do...whatever else you want to do. After we talk.”

  His quick kiss was a surprise, barely a brush of skin and wine-spiced breath. Still it made her lips tingle. Still it made her gasp a quick intake of breath. He heard he
r and rewarded her with his first real smile as he straightened.

  His smile was glorious, a slow reveal of blinding white teeth and a dimple in his right cheek and laugh lines that pointed to eyes that seemed to glow just for her. His smile made her not care that he was laughing at her, that he’d palmed some of the power for himself and that he was gloating. His smile was beautiful, transforming her sullen, angry prince into a man who obviously felt joy enough to get laugh lines, a man who probably spent a lot of time smiling when she wasn’t around.

  He turned his back on her and Roxanne watched his broad, tall silhouette leave, hands in his pockets, head probably already back in his greenhouse.

  His smile—and the man himself, Roxanne was starting to realize—was very, very, very dangerous.

  February: Night Two

  Part One

  The next evening, Roxanne stood on a North Beach sidewalk busy with San Franciscans heading home and stared at a large, neon-orange finger pointing at the “restaurant” where she was supposed to meet the prince. The Golden Boy Pizza sign flashed against the dark. Roxanne checked the address on her phone. He’d conveniently forgotten to include the name of the restaurant in his email, but, yep, she was at the right address.

  Goddamn him.

  The dive bar was about half the width of her office. The window displayed slabs of pizza, and a mix of punk rock and happy-hour shouting vibrated out of the place. When two dudes with thick beards and lip rings opened the door, the smell of pepperoni, pot, and grease wafted out.

  Roxanne grimaced at the thought of her clothing choice. Her dress beneath her coat was a light black wool that hugged her breasts and hips, that ended in an asymmetrical peak over one knee while revealing the other, that displayed her cleavage but lifted in a stiff collar around her neck. Her lips, the tiny belt at her waist, and her towering heels were all a blood-rich red.