The Argentine's Price Read online

  “I won’t say he’s been perfect, but he’s an old man, he … Pickett means the world to him.” And he—they—had lost too much already: Thomas, Vanessa’s mother. They couldn’t lose any more. It was up to her to make sure that they didn’t.

  Lazaro looked at Vanessa, her dark brown eyes cool and unreadable, her full lips settled into a slight frown, a berry gloss adding shine to her sexy mouth. She looked every bit what she was. Rich and upper-class, her silver gown hugging her curves without being over the top, the neckline high, the only skin on display the elegant line of her back. Restraint, dignity. That was how the Picketts were. In public at least.

  He’d seen a different side to Vanessa Pickett twelve years ago. A side of her that was branded into him, under his skin.

  He redirected his thoughts. “What’s more important, Vanessa? The bottom line or tradition?”

  To Michael Pickett, it was probably tradition. The blood in his veins was as blue as it came. He’d married old money and his daughter was the perfect aristocratic specimen, designed to keep the family name in a position of honor, to keep the family legacy going strong. Likely meant to marry a man of equal stock. That was what mattered to men like him. Not hard work, certainly not any sort of integrity. Just the preservation of an image and a way of life that was as outdated as his business practices.

  When the opportunity to buy the shares had come up, Lazaro hadn’t been able to turn it down. He hadn’t been seeking any kind of poetic justice, but passing the chance up had been impossible when it had landed in his lap.

  “I … Of course profit is the most important thing but we—my family—is Pickett Industries. We’re the soul of the company, the reason it’s lasted as long as it has. Without us, it wouldn’t be the same.”

  “Of course it wouldn’t be the same. It would be new, modern. Which your father is most definitely not. And you are running things based on systems put into place by him some thirty years ago. It’s outdated in the extreme.”

  Her throat convulsed and a muscle ticked in her cheek. Her delicate hands clung tightly to her purse, the tendons standing out, the effort it took to maintain composure evident. “I don’t know what else to do,” she said, her voice flat.

  He could see the admission cost her. He wasn’t surprised by it, though. Vanessa had never seemed the CEO type. At sixteen she’d been sweet—at least he had seen her that way at first. She’d liked to swim in the pool in her family home’s massive backyard. The image of her lying in a lounge chair in her electric-pink bikini was burned into his brain, a watermark that colored his view of things more often than he cared to admit.

  She’d been intrigued by him from the start, the kid who mowed her daddy’s lawn. He’d sensed her attraction right away, her hungry looks open, obvious. He imagined it had been some form of rebellion for her. To be attracted to not just a poor boy, but an immigrant, one who was so far removed from the long, storied lineage of the Pickett family it was nearly laughable.

  The fact that she’d managed to burrow beneath his skin, that the thought of her had made his heart race faster, that he’d looked forward to weeding the flower beds so that he could catch sight of the princess in her tower was even more laughable.

  He’d been a fool. That air of sweetness and light had been the perfect way to capture his attention, the kindness she’d shown to him so rare he’d lapped it up like a man dying of thirst. But she’d only been toying with him. And she’d made that clear the evening she rejected him. Later that same night, as a bonus prize to go with the rejection, he’d woken up facedown in an alley, his nose broken along with any of his naive notions of a romance between him and Vanessa, as one of Pickett’s hired henchmen warned him to keep away from the precious heiress.

  It had been the beginning of rock bottom, both for him and his mother. He at least had crawled his way to the top. His mother had never had the chance. He curled his hands into fists, fought against the blinding rage that always came when he thought of his mother. Of how needlessly she’d suffered.

  He chose instead to focus on how far he’d come, how much power he held. Of course, even now, with all of his billions in the bank, he wouldn’t be considered good enough for the hallowed Vanessa Pickett. He could have any woman he desired, and had spent many years doing exactly that with women whose names and faces he could no longer remember. But Vanessa was burned into his consciousness. A face he couldn’t forget. Kisses he could still remember in explicit detail when far more recent, far more erotic events had faded from his memory.

  All the events surrounding her were forever in his mind, etched so deeply, they would never fade. It had shown him that as long as he stayed where he was in life he could be made a victim—a victim of those with money and power, who could hire a group of men to beat up an eighteen-year-old boy, who could get a single mother evicted from her small apartment, get her thrown out onto the streets with no job and no hope of getting a job. He’d vowed never to be a victim again. Never allow anyone to have power over him.

  The money he had earned—more than he had ever imagined when he’d started out. But the power, the absolute power that came with admittance into the highest echelons of society—that eluded him. He could not purchase it. It wasn’t that simple.

  To most on the outside, it would seem he had reached the top, but that was an illusion. What escaped him still was what Vanessa had, what her father had and what they would continue to have even if Pickett Industries went completely bankrupt. A blue bloodline. Family connections that could be traced back to America’s first settlers. Not a lineage that began in a hovel in Argentina with an unwed mother and a father whose true identity was a mystery.

  He clenched his teeth, fighting against the onslaught of memories brought on by Vanessa’s appearance. “Pickett is fixable. And I know exactly what to do to fix it.”

  Her brown eyes narrowed into slits. “You do?”

  “Of course I do. I’ve made my fortune by turning dying corporations around, you know that, I’m sure.”

  “Given the constant profiles Forbes does on you I’d have to be blind to miss it.”

  “I can fix the mess,” he said, a new idea turning over in his head now, one that made his adrenaline spike and his pulse race.

  “By appointing someone new.”

  “Or not.”

  “Feeling charitable all of the sudden? I don’t buy that, not when you were just dangling the mythical sword over my head.”

  His heart rate quickened. Right in front of him was the key, dressed in a deceptively sexy silver gown, her dark brown hair swept up into a respectable bun. She was the final step, the way for him to make his entrance into the last part of society that remained locked to him. The way for him to grasp the ultimate power that continued to elude him.

  Money was power, but connections combined with money would make his status absolute. It ate at him that there was still a place in society he was barred from. That there were still things outside his control. This was his chance to rise above all that.

  And as an added bonus, he would get to see the look on Michael Pickett’s face when he took possession of everything the man had always tried so hard to keep in his control. Pickett Industries and his only daughter. This was a way to exact revenge on the man who had made Lazaro and his mother unemployable within the circles they’d always worked, the man responsible for their nights on the street in the unforgiving Boston winter. The man responsible for his mother growing weaker and weaker until the strongest woman he had ever known had faded away.

  He had watched his mother die in a homeless shelter, without possessions, without dignity.

  He bit down hard, his teeth grinding together, the pressure satisfying, helping him keep control over the anger and adrenaline building inside him. He hadn’t got where he was by letting opportunities pass him by. He took chances. He made snap decisions with a cool head. It was the secret to his success.

  And Vanessa would be the key to his ultimate achievement.

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sp; A high-society bride would give him admittance into American aristocracy. He had considered it before, had already considered the advantage of marrying an old-money name to add weight to his own fortune, to improve his status. But every time he thought of marriage, every time he thought of finding a society princess, he couldn’t stop himself from picturing Vanessa in her pink bikini. Couldn’t erase the memory of stolen kisses in a guesthouse late at night.

  Because of that, he’d never entertained the idea of marriage for very long at a time. But now … the idea of Vanessa as his high-society bride seemed too golden to let pass by. It was a chance to have all his needs fulfilled: his need to reach the top, his need for her.

  Vanessa, soft and bare beneath him, over him. Touching him, kissing him. Satisfying him.

  Desire, hot and destructive, rushed through him at the thought of the chance to have her, to be able finally to satisfy the lust he’d carried with him through every affair, that had plagued him every sleepless night. In that instant, the flood of lust drove out every other thought. Everything was reduced to its most basic principle.

  See. Want. Have.

  He wanted Vanessa. He had spent the past twelve years with a gnawing sense of unfulfilled desire for justice and for the woman who haunted his dreams.

  And he would have her now.

  “I’ll help you, Vanessa,” he said, keeping his eyes locked on hers, “on one condition.”

  She tilted her chin up, revealing the long, elegant line of her neck. Tender skin he could easily imagine kissing, tasting. “Name your price.”

  He took a step toward her, cupped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and was shocked by the bolt of electricity that arced between them. She still had power over his body. But judging by the faint color in her cheeks, the tremble in her lips, he had power too.

  “Marriage.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “ARE you insane?” she hissed, looking over her shoulder, checking to see if they were drawing stares. If her father ever heard about her meeting tonight with Lazaro Marino he would very likely explode, just before taking back control of the company, tearing the contract to shreds and dismissing her as a complete and utter failure, both as CEO and his daughter.

  “Not in the least,” Lazaro said.

  Vanessa took a step away from him, her heart thundering in her ears. “I’m serious, Lazaro. Did you by any chance suffer a head injury in the past twelve years? Because while you were never the most sophisticated man I’ve ever met, you seemed lucid then, at least.”

  “I’m perfectly lucid,” he said dryly. “Don’t pretend that you’re a stranger to the concept of a marriage of convenience.”

  Of course she wasn’t. There was a reason that every boyfriend she’d ever had had been introduced to her by her father. That there was usually a folder with the man’s name stamped on it somewhere in her father’s office. The man she ended up with had to be from the right family, with the right reputation. The right credentials.

  But she’d never wanted that. A part of her, a part that she kept guarded, locked away so that no one else would ever see, was still that romantic sixteen-year-old girl who believed in love. Who wanted to be loved for who she was, not for her bank balance or for the shape of her body.

  Of course, as far as her father was concerned, none of that mattered. Craig Freeman loomed in her future, the man her father had found worthy, the man with the right connections. That part of her life had been selected for her, as her job had been. As so many things in her life were.

  Craig had been pinpointed as proper husband material before she’d been old enough to drive.

  She’d managed to avoid marriage thanks to college and the demands of running Pickett. Before that, she had worked in most of the positions at Pickett so she could learn the ins and outs of everything, so she hadn’t had time to get married. Or even to have a date.

  Recently she hadn’t had much time to do anything short of commuting to and from her office while taking antacids in hopes of easing the constant burn of stress in her chest.

  “Of course I’m familiar with the concept, but that doesn’t mean I have a desire to take part in one,” she said crisply. That much was true. Marriage of any sort had never seemed like a real problem; it had always been safe in the gauzy future, not something she’d directly addressed. “And I really don’t want to marry you.” That part she added for good measure, and then wished she hadn’t.

  “Since when is any of this about want? Do you think I want to get married? To tie myself to one woman forever? Necessity. I’ve known for a long time that I needed to make a good marriage in order to move freely in all social circles. I hadn’t considered you before, but now I see that you’ll be perfect. Consider yourself a walking, talking invitation into high society.”

  Vanessa bit her tongue. “You’re sure you didn’t sustain a head injury, Lazaro?”

  “Quite.”

  “Because I don’t remember you being this much of a bastard either.”

  “Time changes people, Vanessa. As I’m sure you know. You aren’t who you used to be either, are you?”

  “No,” she said.

  Except maybe she was. Being so near Lazaro now made her feel things she’d thought she’d left behind long ago, things she only let herself dwell on when she was alone, in the privacy of her room, in a painfully large and empty bed. Then she let herself dream—about a man who could share not just her bed, but her life. Her love.

  But as soon as dawn broke through the curtains, reality returned, and it only hit harder the minute she walked into her office each morning to confront a failing company and her family’s heritage slipping through her fingertips because she couldn’t figure out how to fix the mess Pickett Industries was in.

  And then there was the marriage her father already had planned for her. A marriage to a man she hardly knew, a man she hadn’t bothered to get to know, because she’d never been able to face the idea.

  When she’d seen Lazaro for the first time, at sixteen, she’d discovered how badly she wanted love, and she’d let herself dream. A mistake. She’d fallen for him on sight, had thought he was special. Unique. But she knew the truth now. Lazaro wasn’t unique. He wanted everything he could get. Money. Power. And if he had to use her to get it, he would.

  His dark eyes were intent on hers, eyes that used to have a glimmer of humor in them. It was easy to imagine it there. Easy to imagine the boy he’d been. The inky black sky and the outline of the city faded and she was back there, in the summer, twelve years earlier.

  “You aren’t really supposed to talk to me.” Vanessa looked over her shoulder to make sure her father wasn’t watching. Just an instinctive check, because he was at the office, where he always was.

  Lazaro smiled, teeth bright white against his bronze skin. Her heart started to beat faster. “Why is that?”

  “Because I … Aren’t you on the clock or something?”

  He looked around the immaculate yard, then back at her, dark eyes locked on hers. It made her stomach tighten. Having him so close … she felt jittery, nervous. But she’d been watching him all summer, had been nurturing her crush on him until it had grown into something more. She lived for him to glance her way, for him to watch her while she lounged by the pool. She longed to see the interest in those beautiful eyes of his.

  “I don’t get paid hourly,” he said, flashing her a grin that made her stomach do somersaults. “I’m done anyway.”

  “Oh …” she trailed off, all the words in her head jumbled.

  “I’ll stay until my mother’s ready to leave for the day.”

  Vanessa suddenly felt too exposed in her bikini. She’d picked it partly to draw his attention, but now, with him standing so close, she felt acutely aware of how much skin was on display. She’d never really tried to draw attention to herself using her body, because she hadn’t been ready for a man to take her up on the offer.

  But Lazaro was different. He made her feel different.

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bsp; They talked for the rest of the afternoon. About school, how different his inner-city public school was compared to her private all-girls school. But it turned out they liked the same foods, the same music, even though she had to hide hers from her father. She loved hearing how he talked about his mother, how proud he was of her. Vanessa told him how much she missed her mother.

  They talked every day that week, sneaking around the property, evading watchful eyes, and by the end of it, Vanessa was certain she was in love. She also knew that if her father ever found out, Lazaro and his mother wouldn’t have jobs anymore and she would be grounded for the rest of her life.

  Because while most of the world had modernized, Michael Pickett had not. He very much believed in a class system and in socializing only with those who shared your designated position. She wasn’t naive enough to think that her father’s heart would soften if she explained that she was really, truly in love with Lazaro.

  She was already giving up so much in order to take on the responsibilities of Pickett Industries, already sacrificing so many dreams to major in business when she went to college and spend her life behind a desk, just as her father had done.

  Surely that should count for something.

  Yes, she and Lazaro had a gulf between them as far as money went. As far as prominence in society went, the gulf was even wider, impossible to bridge. But Vanessa didn’t care. She couldn’t care. When he looked at her, designer fashions, upscale parties and any feeling of being part of the elite faded completely. The world was reduced to her and Lazaro. There was nothing more.

  And that was why risking serious consequences to see him was more than worth it.

  It made her wonder what it would be like if it were only the two of them. If she had to leave it all behind for him … she would.

  “Meet me tonight. Where no one can see,” Lazaro said.

  They were hidden in an alcove behind the guesthouse and it was doubtful that they could be seen, but there was always a risk. A bigger risk for him than for her, she knew.