CHAPTER TWO

      SILENCE PULSED IN the aftermath of his executive assistant’s terse monologue. Joao, stunned into uncharacteristic silence, coldly ticked off the myriad sensations zipping through him.

      Shock. Banked fury.

      Hardened disappointment.

      Perplexity.

      It was to that last one that he returned. That feeling of being caught off guard when he’d believed them to be perfectly in sync.

      He stared at her, wondering whether this was her idea of a joke. But then his level-headed, capable assistant didn’t joke. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. Theirs was a well-oiled symbiosis that ran on a perfect synergy of efficiency, a mutual appreciation of hard work and the heady rewards and satisfaction of success.

       At least it had.

      Until that night when, drunk on success, their basest instincts had got the better of them. But they’d put that behind them. Saffie’s work hadn’t suffered. On the contrary, things had been better than ever. Granted, the first week after the Morocco incident he’d lived on tenterhooks, wondering if she would attempt to capitalise in some way on his error of judgement. Because giving in to uncontrolled hunger had been an error of judgement. Other men might approach lust with a cavalier attitude, but Joao Oliviera was singularly ruthless when it came to his bed partners. They were chosen strictly on a mutually agreed short-term basis from which he never strayed.

      They weren’t chosen based on an unexpected but breathtaking desert mirage come to life, a punch of unstoppable lust that had nearly felled him and deep, dark craving that had blinded him to common sense until it was too late.

      The fact that it’d happened, that for the space of one night he’d been no better than the man he despised the most in his life, still had the power to sour his day.

      Sure, he hadn’t gone looking for it, and Saffron wasn’t a hooker on a street corner, but the acute absence of control still left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.

      Fortunately, like him, she’d been only too happy to bury the incident in the past. And while the realisation had initially grated, he’d eventually welcomed that discretion.

      So what if the experience had the unsavoury ability to replay in his memory when he least expected it? What if those memories left him aroused and aching at the most inappropriate times?

      It had rightly stayed in the past where it belonged, never to be repeated.

      Except for some reason, while he’d believed his world was back on an even keel, Saffie had been making other plans.

      Plans that threatened to wreak havoc on the most crucial undertaking of his life.

      Suppressing his fury, he searched her face. Read the fierce determination on it and realised she actually meant it.

      She meant to leave him. To free herself so she could chase so-called dreams.

      For a family.

       A baby.

      She inhaled sharply and he realised he’d spoken the words out loud. Spat out, like one of the few foreign languages he wasn’t fluent in. Two terse words tossed out like the vile, bewildered curse he believed them to be because they had no place in his working day.

       In his life.

      Not since the day he’d wiped the word family from his soul.

      Certainly not now when his goal was so close. When the chance to shatter his enemy once and for all was a mere handful of weeks away.

      That off-kilter sensation deepened, that feeling of being flung unexpectedly into a turbulent ocean without a life jacket causing his gut to clench.

      He had countless life jackets. Endless contingencies to ensure not a single thing in his life was irreplaceable. Yachts and planes and CEOs and leaders of the free world, all at his beck and call.

      Except Saffron Everhart had carved out a unique place in his life, set herself up on a pedestal marked exactly that. Irreplaceable.

      And now that he needed her most...

      He whirled away from his desk, strode to the wide floor-to-ceiling windows where he usually took one of his many espressos as he juggled the demands of his empire. He breathed through the tension riding his frame, his brain already in counter-strategy mode.

      ‘Let me get this straight. You’re ditching your career, and the countless benefits that come with it, to what? Go on some journey of self-discovery?’ he threw at her.

      She took her time to answer. Time that grated along his nerves, fired up his already smouldering discontent.

      It didn’t help that he usually welcomed her thoughtful consideration when answering his questions. That she wasn’t the type to blurt out the first thought in her head as some people did.

      ‘Yes, Joao. If you want to drill it down to one oversimplified statement. I’m leaving for me but I’m not ditching my career. Far from it. You can pour scorn all you want on it but my mind is made up. I have eight weeks of accrued vacation. I can stay and help train your next assistant or—’

      He whirled to face her, a savage urgency to do something ripping through him. ‘You’re getting ahead of yourself. I haven’t agreed that you can leave,’ he bit out.

      Her chin lifted. ‘Then it’s