Page 1 of Their One-Night Rio Reunion
PROLOGUE
A year ago, Cristo Redentor Church, Rio de Janeiro
ANADIAZWASlate to her own wedding. Which was entirely to be expected for a normal wedding. But this wasn’t a normal wedding. This was an arranged marriage between two of Brazil’s elite families.
She was the pawn in a deal between her media mogul father, Rodolfo Diaz, and billionaire tech entrepreneur Caio Salazar. His full name was Caio Salazar de Barros, but he had turned his back on his family fortune and dynasty some years before and struck out on his own, building his own empire.
However, his association and name, even without ‘de Barros’, was still very potent currency. Hence the marriage match. Her father needed Caio Salazar for a business deal and Salazar needed a wife, because apparently he was under pressure to project a more settled and conservative image in order to expand his business into Europe and globally.
Ana could understand why—he had cultivated quite the reputation as a playboy. Always staying within the bounds of respectability—just—but leaving no one in any doubt that he was—according to breathless accounts in the gossip columns—a masterful lover of beautiful women, while also enjoying all the trappings that came with unimaginable wealth and success.
Ana could appreciate that that kind of reputation would only take one so far on a global stage. Two things had persuaded her to agree to the marriage. One, she’d manage to secure her beloved younger brother’s future, and two, the marriage was to last only for one year.
Clearly that was all the time Salazar could bear to indulge in putting forward a less hedonistic persona.
The prenuptial agreement had stated that she would be required to attend social events with her husband, helping to promote his desired re-branding as a reformed married man. Ana was to do everything to make their union believable by appearing devoted. Connected.In public.
Behind closed doors, however, she would not be expected to keep up the act. She’d been assured of her own private rooms and space. Days off when not required for public duties.
The only ambiguity had been the omission of anything specific about marital relationsin the bedroom. Her heart palpitated at that thought and a cold sweat broke out over her skin. Not because she feared the prospect or didn’t find her fiancé attractive. Quite the opposite.
From the moment she’d laid eyes on Caio Salazar in her father’s house, when he’d first come to discuss business some weeks ago, he’d branded himself onto her consciousness in a way that was seriously disturbing.
Tall and dark, with a leanly muscular build, he was undeniably handsome. His thick dark hair was kept short, but long enough to frame a hard-boned face. Dark brows lay over deep-set eyes and an aquiline nose that more than hinted at his impeccable lineage, all the way back to the Portugueseconquistadoresof Brazil. His mouth was sculpted and firm. Sensual. His jaw was hard and more often stubbled than not. His eyes were dark. He oozed an arrogant potent sexuality that made his playboy reputation only too easy to believe.
She’d watched him covertly when he’d come to meet with her father in a series of secret meetings, arriving on each occasion without an entourage—unheard of in the company her father usually kept. Uncoiling his tall, lean body from a low-slung sports car, wearing faded jeans and short-sleeved polo shirts, he’d clearly felt no obligation to adhere to formality, which had intrigued and thrilled Ana in equal measure. It was very seldom she saw anyone exhibit such loucheness around her father.
She’d been surprised to find herself reacting to him so forcefully. She’d never imagined she’d find such an obviously handsome playboy type attractive—especially when he was a product of the same very privileged and cynical world as all of the men she’d grown up with: her father and older brothers.
Her younger brother, Francisco, was different. Vastly different. Which was why she loved him so much. Enough to enter into an arranged marriage.
But something about Caio Salazar had called to her before she could deny it or stop it. On a very deep, base level, where she hid all her insecurities around her inexperience with men. Or, more accurately, herzeroexperience.
Growing up in a house surrounded by men had led to Ana hiding herself away, disguising her femininity, fading into the background. Without a mother and sisters, she’d always felt like an outsider among her peers in school—left out of some essential feminine mystery she should understand but didn’t. Together with her natural introversion, it was the reason why she was still untouched at the age of twenty-two, on the verge of walking down the aisle to meet her husband, who might or might not expect to demand his conjugal rights.
She knew that if Caio Salazar did demand his conjugal rights it would be purely because it was a formality, maybe even a legal necessity, so she couldn’t back out of the marriage prematurely.Notbecause he would want to. Because she wasn’t remotely his type. He favoured tall, leggy models who resembled racehorses, not women of average height, with unfashionable curves and a severe lack of sense of style.
As if hearing her thoughts, her father, who had been on his cell-phone all this time, finally finished his conversation and joined her in the vestibule of the church.
His cold dark gaze, even today, when he was giving her away, raked her up and down. ‘You look like an old maid in that dress. Do you want Salazar to decide he’s making a huge mistake?’
Ana fought down the anger and the heat of self-consciousness. She’d deliberately chosen this dress because it effectively covered her from neck to toe and shoulder to wrist. She’d wanted to send out a strong signal that she was not to be considered a sexual pawn as well as a marriage pawn. Because right now the thing she feared most was the humiliation of her husband-to-be’s realisation that she was as predictably and helplessly in his thrall as every other woman on the planet. That she wanted him with a burning desire that shocked her as much as it dismayed her.
The one meaningful interaction she’d had with Salazar up to now—a mere four weeks ago—flashed into her head. Her father had hauled her in front of the man and presented her like a brood mare to be inspected. Salazar hadn’t even looked at her father when he’d said curtly, ‘Leave us.’
If it had been another situation Ana might have appreciated the comical sight of Rodolfo Diaz being ordered out of his own reception room. But her father was nothing if not cunning and smart, and he’d known that Salazar agreeing to take his troublesome only daughter off his hands was too good a prospect to mess up, so he’d swallowed his outrage and left them.
Ana had been incandescent with rage at the thought that she was going to be passed from father to husband like a medieval chattel. But Caio Salazar had just looked at her for a long, unnerving moment before saying, ‘Do you want to see the world, Ana? Because that is what I’m offering you. I’m taking my company global. All I need is a wife who will stand by my side, unobtrusive and complementary, for one year.’
A little stunned at his candour, and at the fact that he wasn’t trying to flirt to persuade her, Ana had taken a moment to gather her wits and push down the residual anger—and, surprisingly, the dart of hurt that she didn’t merit even the most rudimentary charm offensive from a renowned playboy.
She’d been terrified he’d notice how being in such close proximity to him was affecting her, and she’d responded tartly, ‘Blow-up dolls are very sophisticated these days. You might save yourself a lot of time and money by procuring one for your convenient marriage.’
His dark eyes had flashed at that. The evidence that she’d managed to surprise him had been a small comfort.
He’d drawled, ‘Ah, but a blow-up doll hasn’t been brought up to navigate the upper echelons of society the way you have, Ana. Everyone wants something...so what is it that you want, or need, that would make this arrangement more...palatable?’
And that was why she was doing this.
