Chapter Two
CAIO OLIVEIRA WAS a man who was rarely ever shocked by life.
Because he arranged for it to be exactly how he liked it.
From the people he surrounded himself with—there were maybe four people in the world he allowed to speak their minds with him, one whose loss was eating through him—to how many more moves he needed to make to achieve his goal, to what kind of distractions he allowed in his life in the name of fun and play: everything was thought out, everything was calculated.
For more than a decade, he’d worked hundreds of hours a week to turn OneTech into the tech giant it was today. He’d taken risk upon risk, alienated most of the board members, fought and won countless battles with Rao to achieve the level of success he had. He’d never lost sight of his why though.
He could have stopped at any moment in the last few years. He’d never have to work in his life again if he stopped tomorrow and could still live a life of unprecedented luxury. But luxury and yachts and penthouses or acquisition of any other kind of material wealth had never driven him.
Only the need to prove himself after he’d been robbed of everything that had mattered to him, the need to exact revenge on the man who’d cast him out of his own home and his father’s company, who’d destroyed his relationship with his mother.
And now, after years, he had what he’d wanted all these years within grasp. Almost. Another week and he’d have been able to acquire the software giant his stepfather operated out of Brazil.
Only Rao had passed away unexpectedly—before he could sell his stock to Caio—and while Caio had enough independent wealth to not need OneTech, he did need the clout he’d have as CEO of OneTech to acquire such a big company.
To force his stepfather to sell it without knowing that Caio was pulling the strings meant using one of the subsidiaries that he and Rao had set up in Nush’s name.
Right now, he needed to focus all his energies on retaining the CEO position on the board of OneTech.
He needed to see Peter Huntingon Sr.’s cunning strategies and counteract them.
And for that, if he needed to tie himself to the man’s daughter—whom he’d been dangling in front of Caio—then so be it.
He would let himself be chained to a woman even if he’d never had any intentions of marrying. At least he could tolerate Laura.
Except...for the bomb Anushka had dropped in his lap earlier. For now, he could go ahead with his plans without her standing by his side, absolutely. But...he wanted Nush on his side. By his side for this next leg of OneTech’s journey.
And the fact that he did jarred him on levels he didn’t want to examine right then.
The only thing that existed outside of this driving need to send his stepfather and his stepbrother to their knees was his relationship with Nush.
The only person he’d allowed close—which was delusional in itself because it had happened without his knowledge or permission—the only person he could be someone else with other than a man driven by the need for revenge was Anushka.
Years ago, he’d stopped trying to control how their relationship evolved. Had admitted that somehow Nush had lodged herself under his skin, never to be pulled out.
From the moment he’d picked her up on that flight years ago to this evening when she’d suddenly turned on him...she’d been the one thing Caio had never been able to box into a grid in his life. Not even Rao had stitched himself up into the fabric of his life as Nush had.
A creature of habit, he was used to having her as a part of his life. Part of his inner circle—a circle of two, as Rao once had joked, when he’d found Nush and Caio laughing at something in the early hours of dawn at their respective workstations in her lab.
How dare she now change the rules on him?
He wanted to write off her sudden anger at him as her grief and loss taking over, but he hadn’t been able to let it go.
Hours had passed and it stung and poked like a rusted nail scratching under his skin.
It infuriated him that she had such a hold on him and yet he hadn’t been able to stop himself from seeking her out.
From wanting to provide some kind of reassurance—like a codependent friend or worse a spurned lover—and demand it return that things between them would go back to as they’d been.
For months now, he’d sat back and watched as she’d distanced herself from him little by little.
Had watched with more than a mild irritation and at times confused and misdirected fury, as she’d forced herself into a social life he knew she didn’t want, as she’d dated and partied and entertained men like Peter Huntington Jr. Even though he knew she despised the kind of crowd that trust fund brat represented.
Had suppressed the urge to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing with her life.
Had reassured himself that the burn he felt in his gut when he saw her with a man was nothing but his overtly possessive, protective nature rearing its head.
When he’d brought up her sudden party animal behavior with her grandfather, Rao had smiled an infuriatingly cryptic smile and said his little Princess was testing her wings, whatever the hell that meant.
Caio remembered being baffled as to why sensible, smart Nush would indulge in things that didn’t appeal to her in the first place. And the worst part, he’d felt a sense of disappointment in her, a strange, stinging sense of betrayal at how she’d started pulling away from him.
But enough was enough. To think of her new interests and distractions in life as a phase was one thing. But learning that she was unhappy to the point that she felt she had to walk away, that she’d even begun to hate him...that was intolerable. On some level, it felt like a personal failure.
He stilled outside Rao’s study, hand raised for a knock, a new realization twisting through him with a crystal-clear clarity.
Anushka was his Achilles’ heel.
The one person that made him act out of character. The one person with whom his relationship defied any sort of definition. And that should have sent him away, should have been warning enough.
But he didn’t heed it.
Past midnight, Nush found herself walking through her grandfather’s study like some night wraith. She’d been unable to sleep, the thought of leaving sending her mind in a thousand directions.
One hand wrapped around a warm mug of milk, she inhaled the scent of Thaata’s hand-rolled cigars and something else.
It took her two breaths to figure it out.
Caio’s scent. Of course, he’d been working out of here for a few months now. Jesus, wherever she went in this house, he was present to tease and taunt her.
His anger earlier in the evening had shocked her. Maybe because she’d never seen that cold will targeted at her. Maybe because she’d never really gone toe-to-toe with him. For a second, she’d even wondered if he could sense her frustration. If he could feel...
No.
God, she was just going in circles again and again. Driving herself out of her mind imagining things that weren’t real.
Putting the mug away, she pulled her feet up and settled into the leather chair. The soft, worn leather enveloped her like an embrace she desperately needed. Closing her eyes, it was easy to imagine it was Caio’s arms around her. With a choked cry, she bent her cheek to the desk.
And that was how Caio found her—rubbing her face against the rough grain of the dark oak desk he’d built with his own hands three years ago. Imagining it was those calloused fingers that stroked her.
The study door closed with a thud that made her heart follow with its own beat.
Heat and awareness charged each other across her skin as she felt his gaze take in the picture she made. Of her spaghetti top and skimpy shorts she hadn’t covered up in her urgent need to escape her bed.
Arms hugging the cool wood, she stayed like that—trying to calm the ache in her breasts, the fire simmering in her belly, wondering if he’d leave. But he had every right to linger here, to mourn her grandfather and she wasn’t going to push her company on him.
Straightening away from the desk, Nush got to her feet and walked around the desk on the opposite side.
“Don’t leave on my account,” he said, his tone smooth. His control firmly back in place. “Are you having trouble sleeping again?”
Her eyes got acclimated to the darkness as she searched for him. Moonlight outlined his broad shoulders and tapered waist. “Yes. But I’ll go back now.”
When his hands moved to the light switch, she said, “No, don’t. I’m not...dressed properly.”
His surprise was a taut thread in the room, reaching for her, pulling at her.
Nush closed her eyes, wishing she hadn’t said anything at all. It revealed too much of the thrumming awareness that touched her when he was near. Telling him it was hard to be around him right now was the grown-up thing to do. Instead, she was doing everything but. Playing a stupid game.
“Nush...”
“Please, Caio. I don’t want to fight.”
“As you wish, Princesa.”
“Why are you so easygoing with me?” she asked, breaking her own rule. “I was the one who behaved illogically earlier. The one who came at you out of nowhere.”
She could see that vertical ridge between his brows again. “What?”
“You are different with everyone else. Even with Thaata, I think. You never give an inch, Caio. You’re arrogant, demanding, ruthless even.
Yana, I know, is definitely a little scared of you.
But with me...a different side of you comes out.
You’re gentle, understanding, far too accommodating. Even when I’m behaving like a brat.”
He laughed and she let it envelop her like a lover’s embrace. His embrace. “My father would have enjoyed to hear me being called accommodating.”