The Executive's Valentine Seduction / Valente Must Marry: The Executive's Valentine Seduction. Merline Lovelace

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СКАЧАТЬ Caro picked up snatches of German, Swedish, French and Russian as she set off along the tiled walk first laid by the Romans.

      An elderly Spaniard in a sweater vest and black beret hunched on the seawall, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He stared out to sea with eyes narrowed in his weathered face and displayed no interest in the topless bather stretched out on the beach below. Her generously siliconed breasts had certainly attracted the interest of others, though. Caro had to skirt a small crowd of tourists, all male and all avidly clicking away with their cameras.

      Caroline found a sheltered spot at the base of the hill leading up to the castle ruins. Perching on the seawall, she pulled out her cell phone. Luckily, both of her partners were currently in Europe so she didn’t have to juggle time zones. Devon McShay had arrived in London just this morning with Cal Logan. The CEO of Logan Aerospace now had her handling all his European connections.

      Sabrina Russo was in Rome, busy setting up a satellite office and sorting through an avalanche of potential jobs steered her way by the handsome neurosurgeon she’d fallen for—literally and figuratively!—last month.

      Caro speed-dialed Sabrina first and felt her heart lift at just the sound of her friend’s cheerful greeting.

      “Hey, girl. Wazzup?”

      “Hang on a sec. I want to get Dev on the line for a three-way.”

      She hit the button for a conference call and caught Devon in a limo with Cal Logan, on their way to a meeting with British Aerospace.

      “Hi, Caro.”

      “Hi, Dev. Sabrina’s on the line, too.”

      “Great. I need to update you both on my itinerary. But first…Did you get our new client all meeted and greeted?”

      “Yes.”

      Caro kept her voice even, or thought she did, but the other two women had known her too long. Both picked up on the clipped response.

      “Uh-oh. Is there a problem?”

      “You could say that.”

      She couldn’t think of any way to break the news except to blurt it out.

      “Rory Burke, Global Security’s chief exec, is the father of the baby I lost when I was in high school.”

      Simultaneous exclamations burst through the phone.

      “What!”

      “No way!”

      “Trust me, you’re not half as flabbergasted as I was. Still am, for that matter. I’m—I’m not sure how to handle this.”

      “You don’t have to handle it,” Sabrina shot back. “You pack up, girlfriend. Right now. Catch the next flight home. I’ll zip over from Rome and deliver a hard, swift kick to the bastard’s balls before orchestrating the rest of his friggin’ conference.”

      “That’ll bring us a lot of future business,” Caro said on a shaky laugh.

      “We don’t need Burke’s business,” Devon added with equal fervor. “I’m with ’Rina. Tell the jerk to take a long walk off a short pier, and get out of there.”

      Caro had to put in reluctant protest. “He’s not a total jerk. He didn’t know I was pregnant. I never told him.”

      “Because you couldn’t find him!”

      Their fierce, unquestioned loyalty eased some of the tightness in Caroline’s chest. Devon and Sabrina were her best friends as well as business partners. The only friends she’d ever opened up to about her past.

      She’d met them for the first time at the University of Salzburg, where they’d shared rooms while participating in a Junior Year Abroad Program. Still carrying the emotional scars from high school, Caro had been distant and reserved at first.

      The combination of a minuscule apartment, Sabrina’s bubbling personality and Devon’s passionate love of all things historical had gradually penetrated her shield. Looking back, Caro would always zero in on that year in Salzburg as the point where she came fully alive again.

      Now the three of them were in business together. Partners in a fledgling company called European Business Services, Inc.—EBS for short. Since EBS launched last year they’d kept busy providing travel, translation and support services for executives doing business in Europe. Caro had thoroughly enjoyed the clients she’d worked with so far.

      This one, though, was in a class by himself.

      “Thanks for the moral support,” she told her friends with heartfelt sincerity.

      “Moral support, hell!” Sabrina grumbled. “I still want to kick some gonads.”

      “Hold on to that thought,” Caro said with a faint smile. Talking through her shock and confusion like this had provided just the shot in the arm she needed. “I appreciate your offer to do the dirty for me but…”

      Her gaze shifted to the waves rolling in to the beach. They were endless. Relentless. Like time. Like her past. The only way to deal with it, the only way Caro knew to deal with any problem, was to face it head-on.

      “If there’s any gonad-kicking to be done,” she told her partners, “I’ll do it myself.”

      “You sure you don’t want one of us to fly in?” Devon asked, sounding worried and unconvinced.

      “I’m sure. I just needed to talk to you guys and let you know there might be a problem with this contract.”

      She managed to inject more confidence into the calm reply than she was feeling. Much more.

      “Whatever you decide,” Sabrina reminded her unnecessarily, “Dev and I are behind you two thousand percent. Stay in Spain, don’t stay. Deck the bastard, don’t deck him. Just keep us posted, okay?”

      “I will.”

      Caro flipped the cell phone shut, feeling a hundred pounds lighter and a hundred years younger. She couldn’t erase the memories of that awful time. She would live with them forever. But she didn’t have to let them cloud her future.

      She was in control of her life, she reminded herself sternly. What’s more, she was part owner in a firm with a very lucrative contract on the line.

      She would use the hours until dinner to shake off the residual effects of coming face-to-face with her past and figure out a way to smooth over this awkward situation. When she met Rory Burke this evening, she vowed she would be cool, calm and completely professional.

      Cool and calm went up in smoke two seconds after Caro spotted her client in the resort’s trendy bar.

      He had a drink in front of him—scotch she presumed, since that’s what his administrative assistant had told her to stock his suite with—and was crunching down on an appetizer from the assortment arrayed on the cocktail table.

      He must have showered before coming down. Dampness still glistened in his dark blond hair. He was also, Caro saw with a jolt that went through her entire system, СКАЧАТЬ