Page 20 of A Billion-Dollar Heir For Christmas
“Maybe it’s jitters,” she told herself as she sipped at her tea.
Jitters were normal. They had to be, or there wouldn’t be a name for them, would there? Though she’d never felt anything quite like them before. And she needed to talk herself out of them, or slap herself into shape, because she had no intention of appearing anything but calm and in control today.
Lillie was just starting the process with a sound internal lecture, when the door swung open and Tiago walked in.
“I’m sure I’ve heard that it’s bad luck to see a bride before the wedding ceremony,” she said, hoping it sounded as unwelcoming and self-contained as she wanted it to.
But even if it did, it was a wasted effort, because all Tiago did was help himself to one of the seats in the room. He settled into the comfortable couch across from her that he made seem entirely too small, and then fixed her with that mesmerizing gaze of his.
“There are a few things we must go over,” he told her, as coldly as if they had never kissed. Much less spent a night naked and sweating, with him so deep inside of her she could still feel him now.
The flutters in her belly increased.
“Wonderful,” she said, spearing a piece of sliced ham with more force than was perhaps warranted. Or perhaps not, she thought when she saw that he’d brought a whole sheaf of papers with him. “It’s the romance for me.”
He ignored that, but in a manner that suggested she wasgauchefor even mentioningromance. “In the coming months, we will pay far more attention to the intricacies of your role, but this is what I must impress upon you now. The Villelas do not and will not divorce. But that does not mean that there will be the sort of scandals that inevitably spill out into the pages of tawdry newspapers. You and I must never become fodder for tabloids, Lillie.”
“No worries,” she said blandly. “I’ve managed to avoid appearing in all the tabloids so far.”
She got another cold look from Tiago, that was all. “My expectation is that this will function like any other business arrangement. We will both state our needs. We will negotiate until we reach an agreement. And we will abide by the conclusions we reach together. Do you understand?”
“You seem to be under the impression that I work for you,” Lillie said, pleasantly enough. Conversationally, even. “I’m the woman you knocked up, Tiago. I don’t actually owe you anything. The only reason I haven’t run screaming from this house is because of the baby. The only thing that interests me is what might be good for this child. If that means the front page of every tabloid in the universe, I’ll sign right up. Doyouunderstand?”
And for a dizzying moment, she saw the Tiago she knew. The man with all that passion and wonder in his gaze, even if, this morning, it was less wonder and more indignation. Whatever it was, it wasn’tcold.
She knew, then, that there was something in her that would do anything to bring them back here. Anything at all. No matter what it took.
Though in the next moment, she dismissed that. It was childish. It didn’t matter what was going onin his eyes, for God’s sake. What mattered was what she’d just told him mattered.
The baby, beginning and end.
“A Villela marriage is a business arrangement,” he told her. Very much as if she hadn’t said a word. “They are run to work in the mutual best interests of both parties, as agreed from the start.”
“How charming.”
“Things are different when there’s so much money involved, Lillie.” His tone was repressive then, but Lillie did not wish to be repressed. “I do not expect you to understand that, of course, but if your true interest is in the child, then it must be clear to you that making certain he or she is capable of assuming my position one day with as little scandal as possible can only be a good thing.”
“I’m not signing anything,” she told him.
She didn’t know she was going to say that, but when she did, it felt a lot like shaking up a bottle of bubbly, popping the cork, and letting it spray all around. A mad sort of joy, in other words. So when he frowned at her, she lifted her chin and shrugged nonchalantly, as if this had been her plan all along.
“I must insist,” Tiago said.
“It’s not in my best interest,” she replied, with a wave of her hand. The one holding the fork, so it looked like nothing so much as a scepter. “Whatever those papers are, they’re not for me, are they? They’re for you. So I’ll have to decline. If you feel that we need to get married to protect this baby, that’s fine. I’ll do it. And not because I agree with the way you framed the whole thing. But because, obviously, having this baby born as your legitimate heir can only be good. For the baby.”
“And, of course, for you.”
“Are there benefits to being the wife of one of the richest men in the world?” she asked facetiously. “I guess we’ll see. But if you were so worried about me getting my hands on all your wealth and consequence, you shouldn’t have offered in the first place.”
He sighed. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“The only misunderstanding is how you managed to act as if you were fully human while we were in Spain,” she retorted, with enough heat that she surprised herself. “And now it turns out that you’re nothing of the kind. You’re not a man, you’re...acorporation.”
That gaze of his went glacial. “I beg your pardon?”
And for some reason that she couldn’t have put into words, Lillie found that she was suddenly enjoying herself. “I mean, think about it from my perspective. I have a blisteringly hot night with a mysterious man on a Spanish holiday. And then, months later, accidentally see his face on the nightly news. As I happen to be pregnant with his child, I make an appointment to see him. Partly it was to see that he knew about the baby, as is only right. But the other part, naturally, was to see if that night was real. If I’d made it all up in my head. And behold. It appears I did.”
“Lillie.”