by: Tara Pammi
Series: Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales
Genre: Contemporary Multicultural Billionaire Romance
Release Date: January 24, 2023
Publisher: Harlequin Presents
She’ll wear the CEO’s ring, but can she ever hope to have more? Find out in this gripping marriage of convenience romance by Tara Pammi!
Promoted from his protégé…
To his convenient wife!
After admitting her forbidden feelings for her boss, Caio Oliveira, coding genius Anushka Reddy is mortified! The only sensible idea is to get a one-way ticket out of town! But then he comes to her with a proposal…
This is no romantic gesture. It’s a simple deal to secure the business they’ve both poured everything into. Yet on Caio’s Brazilian island, the sparks between them become uncontainable! How does Anushka tell Caio that his ring, his jet-set world, even his scorching touch, will never be enough…if his heart is off-limits?
From Harlequin Presents: Escape to exotic locations where passion knows no bounds.
By the time Caio reached her, Nush was trembling with the need for action. Marveling at how death and grief could fill one with a raw, painful urgency to live life. To move on.
Yana was right. She couldn’t spend another minute much less a decade mooning over him. Couldn’t stand still and be a spectator as he lived his life. Even now, she couldn’t turn away as he finished his conversation with Laura and made his way to her.
As his tall form drew near, Nush noted the dark shadows under his eyes. He’d forgone a shave this morning. There was a tension to his shoulders that she recognized. Her heart ached as she remembered he’d been a part of her grandparents’ life longer than she’d been.
She wanted to hold him through this aching emptiness Thaata had left in both their lives. She wanted to lean into him and help him through the grief she saw in his eyes.
But he wouldn’t lean on her. Because he was the one who was supposed to be the protector. The one who looked after every legal headache that she and her sisters would have to handle. The one who’d arranged every single detail with the funeral. The one who’d made sure their alcoholic father had showed up to the funeral in respectable clothes and mostly sober.
Because Caio Oliveira didn’t need anyone in any way. Least of all her. Even as he’d entrenched himself into the very fabric of her life. And it was time to rip him out of it.
He handed her a glass of water wordlessly and leaned against the wall beside her, their shoulders just touching. Resentment built in her chest even as she took the glass from him. How did he know there was a boulder-sized lump in her throat?
She didn’t have to look at him to know he’d have pulled one foot up against the wall, that the other hand would be tucked into his pocket. That his gaze would sweep over the room, assessing the situation, wondering if there was a fire he’d have to put out.
His intense physicality, his indefatigable energy had always awed her. But now it felt exhausting to be so in tune with his every word, gesture and nuance, his very breath. More than disenchanting to admit that he’d never know her or want her on that level.
Holding that feeling close, Nush drank the water. As hard as it was to bear, it was the thing that would help her move on.
His shoulder nudged hers, his profile sharp and stark. “You’re upset, Princesa.”
Are you and Laura Huntington dating?
Have you had sex with her?
What do I do to make you see me like that?
Do you feel this too or is it just me?
Nush looked at the empty glass in her hand, following the trails of condensation, willing her body to ignore the warmth emanating from his. To not draw the scent of him into her lungs. To not chase this shaky desire she felt at his nearness like an addict. “Is there a reason you’re stating the obvious?”
If he noted her bitchy tone, he ignored it. “What did Yana say to upset you?”
“Just bringing me up to speed on some politics at OneTech.”
He tapped at her knuckles. “Don’t worry about it, Nush. I’ll handle it.”
“Is Ms. Huntington joining the executive team?” The question escaped her before she’d decided to ask it.
He sent her a long, leisurely sideways look and Nush tried to not fidget. His surprise wasn’t unwarranted. Usually, she stayed miles away from the politics of OneTech, happy to be in her lab. Thaata had tried numerous times to get her involved in the running of the company but she’d hidden. Usually behind Caio’s broad shoulders. Had used him as a shield again and again.
“Probably. Laura, unlike her useless brother, would be a great addition to the team. For a Huntington, I like her immensely,” he said with a grin.
He liked Laura. Immensely.
She couldn’t remember a time when he’d actually said he liked a woman or a man. Outside of her sisters and her and their grandparents, he had no close friends. Not in any context. The long hours he worked made him just as much a loner as she was. And his family, she’d learned long ago, was a forbidden topic for all of them.
Her chest ached as if someone was pushing a tremendous weight down on her. Even with her eyes closed, she sensed him turn fully toward her. Felt his gaze sweep over her features. His fingers were firm as he lifted her fisted hand from her side. “What did your grandfather’s note say?”
She jerked her hand away, giving him her shoulder. “It’s private.”
“Even to share with me?”
“Despite what you think, I have a life that doesn’t revolve around you, Caio. Beyond being your good little worker droid, making you millions, I mean.”
She sensed his shock in his sudden stillness. “Worker droid?” Cool, smooth tone still. “Jesus, you’re more than upset if you think that’s what I think of you. What’s going on with you, Nush?”
“Leave me alone. Don’t manage me. Don’t—”
“Leaving you alone during this time is the last thing your grandfather would expect of me. Whatever’s...bothering you, we can find a solution.”
Was that all he saw her as? As a duty he owed to the man who’d loved him? As an obligation? “Did you make the same offer to Yana and Mira?”
“Look at me, Anushka.”
She hated it when he said her name in that tone. As if she needed to be reprimanded. “Answer my question, Caio.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?” she asked, genuinely curious. What was the difference in how he saw her and her sisters? Where did that stem from?
More silence greeted her question.
“Because they’re strong enough that they don’t need your condescending advice and protection? Because they don’t need you to look after them?”
“Cristo, Nush...”
Nush rubbed her hand over her face. God, she was just making a fool of herself. “I’m not myself...”
She felt his fingers on her shoulder, pressing gently. “You’re not alone, Anushka. Not today, not in the future.”
He didn’t say more but she sensed his confusion. She never threw tantrums, or insisted on having things her way all the time like Yana did. Neither did she retreat behind a calm, indestructible facade like Mira so that no one could reach her behind it.
Maybe it was the fact that living with her volatile mother had taught her not makes waves, to be content with whatever life dealt, to curl herself into the smallest corner and be still. Maybe it was the fact that she’d learned to be self-sufficient, to find her happiness in books and computers from a young age. Most importantly, she never fought with anyone. Least of all Caio.
And yet now, it felt as if she’d been sleeping like one of those princesses in the fairy tales. Hiding behind computer fandoms. Letting life pass her by.
“Princesa...look at me.”
She looked up, every cell in her immediately responding to his tone. The impact of those thickly lashed deep-set eyes hit her hard. A sharp nose, rugged mouth...there was a sensuousness to him that drew her like no other man could.
Could he see he was the reason she was miserable? Could he hear the thundering of her heart when he stood so close? Could he feel the prickle of heat across her skin when he focused all that energy on her?
Standing this close to him, she could see the imperfections in his face too. She catalogued them, as if they’d help puncture her awareness of him.
The three-inch-long scar that cut across his upper lip that he’d told her he’d acquired in a fight with his older brother as unruly teenagers. The crooked tilt of his lips to one side when he smiled. The small nick under his jaw, which told her he must have cut himself recently.
“I think you should stop calling me that,” she said, swallowing away the longing that rose through her.
His chin drew down, his expression taking on that hard quality that he used in the boardrooms. “That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me.”
A steeliness had crept into his voice that made a knot tighten in her chest. He was a master of his emotions but she heard the crack in his temper. Well, that’s what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? For him to treat her like he did everyone else.
“You don’t think I should have a choice in what you call me?”
His eyes swept over her, as if she was someone new. As if, if he looked hard enough, he should be able to see through her sudden resentment. “Why is what I call you a problem when it was never before?” His tone gentled immediately. “Is it because Rao called you that?”
“No. Because it’s condescending and infantilizing and—”
“I have never condescended to you.” There was anger in his tone now, and that it excited her was a sorry truth of her life. “And the second word...” he thrust a hand through his hair, “I don’t think I even know what it means.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t matter what you call me anyway because... I’m quitting.”
He stilled and Nush could no more stop taking him in than she could stop breathing. It was like when she watched one of his old soccer games and then pressed play when he was midleap. The economy, the pure animal grace of his movements, the sudden explosion from a deceiving stillness...it had always captivated her. And it happened now, live.
All of that simmering physical energy focused on her like a laser beam. Digging. Probing. Searching. “Quitting what, Princesa?” The silky smoothness of his voice only served to betray his cold fury.
Nush swallowed but forced the words out. “The job. The company. The city even.” You. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Yana was right. She had to quit him like an addiction—cold turkey. Now. Before it was too late. Nothing else had worked.
He was fully turned toward her now, shielding her from the room and curious eyes. Even now, even when she was fighting with him for no good reason as far as he knew, he sought to make sure she wasn’t exposed. One hand on his hip, he rubbed at his forehead with another, a vertical ridge between his brows. “You’re not making sense.”
Nush’s gaze drifted to his mouth set in an uncompromising flat line, to his chin with the perfect little dimple, to the corded column of his neck. To the tattoo peeking out from under the undone collar of his shirt. The tattoo she wanted to see and touch and...lick.
“I don’t have to make sense to you, Caio, or do anything in my life with your permission... I don’t owe you an explanation.”
His fingers wrapped around her wrist as Nush attempted to move past him and she stumbled into his body. She gasped at the contact but when she looked into his eyes, pure frost looked down at her. His grip on her bare arm was firm but not tight. “That’s where you’re wrong, querida. You can rant and rave at me, you can use me as a punching bag to vent your grief if you wish, you can hide from your sisters and the entire world but at the end of day, at the end of the year...at the end of all this, you and I are in it together, Nush. You and I will make or break OneTech. That’s what Rao meant for this to be even when he’s gone—a partnership for the ages.”
“A partnership for the ages—that sounds like a curse to me. A punishment.”
His chin reared down, his mouth flattening. Nush regretted the words instantly.
Yana was right. She couldn’t spend another minute much less a decade mooning over him. Couldn’t stand still and be a spectator as he lived his life. Even now, she couldn’t turn away as he finished his conversation with Laura and made his way to her.
As his tall form drew near, Nush noted the dark shadows under his eyes. He’d forgone a shave this morning. There was a tension to his shoulders that she recognized. Her heart ached as she remembered he’d been a part of her grandparents’ life longer than she’d been.
She wanted to hold him through this aching emptiness Thaata had left in both their lives. She wanted to lean into him and help him through the grief she saw in his eyes.
But he wouldn’t lean on her. Because he was the one who was supposed to be the protector. The one who looked after every legal headache that she and her sisters would have to handle. The one who’d arranged every single detail with the funeral. The one who’d made sure their alcoholic father had showed up to the funeral in respectable clothes and mostly sober.
Because Caio Oliveira didn’t need anyone in any way. Least of all her. Even as he’d entrenched himself into the very fabric of her life. And it was time to rip him out of it.
He handed her a glass of water wordlessly and leaned against the wall beside her, their shoulders just touching. Resentment built in her chest even as she took the glass from him. How did he know there was a boulder-sized lump in her throat?
She didn’t have to look at him to know he’d have pulled one foot up against the wall, that the other hand would be tucked into his pocket. That his gaze would sweep over the room, assessing the situation, wondering if there was a fire he’d have to put out.
His intense physicality, his indefatigable energy had always awed her. But now it felt exhausting to be so in tune with his every word, gesture and nuance, his very breath. More than disenchanting to admit that he’d never know her or want her on that level.
Holding that feeling close, Nush drank the water. As hard as it was to bear, it was the thing that would help her move on.
His shoulder nudged hers, his profile sharp and stark. “You’re upset, Princesa.”
Are you and Laura Huntington dating?
Have you had sex with her?
What do I do to make you see me like that?
Do you feel this too or is it just me?
Nush looked at the empty glass in her hand, following the trails of condensation, willing her body to ignore the warmth emanating from his. To not draw the scent of him into her lungs. To not chase this shaky desire she felt at his nearness like an addict. “Is there a reason you’re stating the obvious?”
If he noted her bitchy tone, he ignored it. “What did Yana say to upset you?”
“Just bringing me up to speed on some politics at OneTech.”
He tapped at her knuckles. “Don’t worry about it, Nush. I’ll handle it.”
“Is Ms. Huntington joining the executive team?” The question escaped her before she’d decided to ask it.
He sent her a long, leisurely sideways look and Nush tried to not fidget. His surprise wasn’t unwarranted. Usually, she stayed miles away from the politics of OneTech, happy to be in her lab. Thaata had tried numerous times to get her involved in the running of the company but she’d hidden. Usually behind Caio’s broad shoulders. Had used him as a shield again and again.
“Probably. Laura, unlike her useless brother, would be a great addition to the team. For a Huntington, I like her immensely,” he said with a grin.
He liked Laura. Immensely.
She couldn’t remember a time when he’d actually said he liked a woman or a man. Outside of her sisters and her and their grandparents, he had no close friends. Not in any context. The long hours he worked made him just as much a loner as she was. And his family, she’d learned long ago, was a forbidden topic for all of them.
Her chest ached as if someone was pushing a tremendous weight down on her. Even with her eyes closed, she sensed him turn fully toward her. Felt his gaze sweep over her features. His fingers were firm as he lifted her fisted hand from her side. “What did your grandfather’s note say?”
She jerked her hand away, giving him her shoulder. “It’s private.”
“Even to share with me?”
“Despite what you think, I have a life that doesn’t revolve around you, Caio. Beyond being your good little worker droid, making you millions, I mean.”
She sensed his shock in his sudden stillness. “Worker droid?” Cool, smooth tone still. “Jesus, you’re more than upset if you think that’s what I think of you. What’s going on with you, Nush?”
“Leave me alone. Don’t manage me. Don’t—”
“Leaving you alone during this time is the last thing your grandfather would expect of me. Whatever’s...bothering you, we can find a solution.”
Was that all he saw her as? As a duty he owed to the man who’d loved him? As an obligation? “Did you make the same offer to Yana and Mira?”
“Look at me, Anushka.”
She hated it when he said her name in that tone. As if she needed to be reprimanded. “Answer my question, Caio.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?” she asked, genuinely curious. What was the difference in how he saw her and her sisters? Where did that stem from?
More silence greeted her question.
“Because they’re strong enough that they don’t need your condescending advice and protection? Because they don’t need you to look after them?”
“Cristo, Nush...”
Nush rubbed her hand over her face. God, she was just making a fool of herself. “I’m not myself...”
She felt his fingers on her shoulder, pressing gently. “You’re not alone, Anushka. Not today, not in the future.”
He didn’t say more but she sensed his confusion. She never threw tantrums, or insisted on having things her way all the time like Yana did. Neither did she retreat behind a calm, indestructible facade like Mira so that no one could reach her behind it.
Maybe it was the fact that living with her volatile mother had taught her not makes waves, to be content with whatever life dealt, to curl herself into the smallest corner and be still. Maybe it was the fact that she’d learned to be self-sufficient, to find her happiness in books and computers from a young age. Most importantly, she never fought with anyone. Least of all Caio.
And yet now, it felt as if she’d been sleeping like one of those princesses in the fairy tales. Hiding behind computer fandoms. Letting life pass her by.
“Princesa...look at me.”
She looked up, every cell in her immediately responding to his tone. The impact of those thickly lashed deep-set eyes hit her hard. A sharp nose, rugged mouth...there was a sensuousness to him that drew her like no other man could.
Could he see he was the reason she was miserable? Could he hear the thundering of her heart when he stood so close? Could he feel the prickle of heat across her skin when he focused all that energy on her?
Standing this close to him, she could see the imperfections in his face too. She catalogued them, as if they’d help puncture her awareness of him.
The three-inch-long scar that cut across his upper lip that he’d told her he’d acquired in a fight with his older brother as unruly teenagers. The crooked tilt of his lips to one side when he smiled. The small nick under his jaw, which told her he must have cut himself recently.
“I think you should stop calling me that,” she said, swallowing away the longing that rose through her.
His chin drew down, his expression taking on that hard quality that he used in the boardrooms. “That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me.”
A steeliness had crept into his voice that made a knot tighten in her chest. He was a master of his emotions but she heard the crack in his temper. Well, that’s what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? For him to treat her like he did everyone else.
“You don’t think I should have a choice in what you call me?”
His eyes swept over her, as if she was someone new. As if, if he looked hard enough, he should be able to see through her sudden resentment. “Why is what I call you a problem when it was never before?” His tone gentled immediately. “Is it because Rao called you that?”
“No. Because it’s condescending and infantilizing and—”
“I have never condescended to you.” There was anger in his tone now, and that it excited her was a sorry truth of her life. “And the second word...” he thrust a hand through his hair, “I don’t think I even know what it means.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t matter what you call me anyway because... I’m quitting.”
He stilled and Nush could no more stop taking him in than she could stop breathing. It was like when she watched one of his old soccer games and then pressed play when he was midleap. The economy, the pure animal grace of his movements, the sudden explosion from a deceiving stillness...it had always captivated her. And it happened now, live.
All of that simmering physical energy focused on her like a laser beam. Digging. Probing. Searching. “Quitting what, Princesa?” The silky smoothness of his voice only served to betray his cold fury.
Nush swallowed but forced the words out. “The job. The company. The city even.” You. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Yana was right. She had to quit him like an addiction—cold turkey. Now. Before it was too late. Nothing else had worked.
He was fully turned toward her now, shielding her from the room and curious eyes. Even now, even when she was fighting with him for no good reason as far as he knew, he sought to make sure she wasn’t exposed. One hand on his hip, he rubbed at his forehead with another, a vertical ridge between his brows. “You’re not making sense.”
Nush’s gaze drifted to his mouth set in an uncompromising flat line, to his chin with the perfect little dimple, to the corded column of his neck. To the tattoo peeking out from under the undone collar of his shirt. The tattoo she wanted to see and touch and...lick.
“I don’t have to make sense to you, Caio, or do anything in my life with your permission... I don’t owe you an explanation.”
His fingers wrapped around her wrist as Nush attempted to move past him and she stumbled into his body. She gasped at the contact but when she looked into his eyes, pure frost looked down at her. His grip on her bare arm was firm but not tight. “That’s where you’re wrong, querida. You can rant and rave at me, you can use me as a punching bag to vent your grief if you wish, you can hide from your sisters and the entire world but at the end of day, at the end of the year...at the end of all this, you and I are in it together, Nush. You and I will make or break OneTech. That’s what Rao meant for this to be even when he’s gone—a partnership for the ages.”
“A partnership for the ages—that sounds like a curse to me. A punishment.”
His chin reared down, his mouth flattening. Nush regretted the words instantly.
Excerpted from Marriage Bargain with Her Brazilian Boss by Tara Pammi. Copyright © 2023 by Tara Pammi. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
Purchase Marriage Bargain with Her Brazilian Boss from:
(Affiliated Links used)
The Billion-Dollar Fairy Tales Series:
The Reason for His Wife’s Return releases June 27, 2023
Tara lives in Washington with her very own Hero and two Heroines-in-making.
When she isn’t writing or reading, Tara can be found failing in the kitchen, binge-reading or binge-watching, or making resolutions in her pretty planner to exercise more, or even a little.
Places to find Tara Pammi:
enjoyed the excerpt!
ReplyDelete