Illegitimate Tycoon Read Free

edge of
technology. This was his baby. The wireless device of the future that was
featured in the movie Bastion 9 ,
which would premiere here tonight.
                 But
while the phones he’d donated for the elite festival gift bags were silver on
black, like the ones that would go on sale tomorrow around the world, this
device had a one-of-a-kind liquid magenta shell enhanced with thin black
swirls.
                 Her
color.
                 His
mobile was the companion to hers, a reverse of the colors. His and hers phones.
A design he’d created as the logo for her own personal line that she’d yet to
launch.
                 “I
found it,” she said, holding her old mobile up and squinting at the screen.
                 He
held his palm out for it. “It’ll take me a moment to exchange the chip into the
new one.”
                 Excitement
lit her eyes as she crossed to him. “Is that the new device that’s all the buzz?”
                 He
nodded.
                 “I
didn’t know they came in color.”
                 “They
don’t, or at least not for a year and even then never with this design.”
                 She
reached out and laid her hand on his, stilling him. “Is this design your
creation as well?”
                 “It
is,” he said, his body surging to life once more by her touch, by the wonder
glowing in her eyes.
                 Her
brow furrowed the slightest bit as she studied the intricate swirls. He knew
the exact moment she understood the design was much more than lines and
curlicues, when she realized this was cursive writing in Portuguese.
                 “‘My
only love,’” she read, then pressed two fingers to her lips. “It’s perfect.”
                 He’d
thought so too. Had believed she was the only woman he’d ever love from the
first moment he’d met Leila five years ago.
                 Leila
had been well into making a stunning comeback in the modeling world, but she’d
still been a painfully thin waif with soulful eyes.
                 And
it had been obvious she was very much under her dominating mother’s control. He’d
clashed with the “stage mother” immediately, for at the time he was just a
developer in a huge software company in London. A nobody, save the unwanted
notoriety of being William Wolfe’s bastard, a fact he desperately tried to hide
for the shame that it brought on his mother.
                 Leila
Santiago had been the star, hired as the hot model to tout the cutting-edge
personal music player he’d developed that recorded and held hundreds of songs.
                 He’d
stood in the shadows of the set watching her, just as he’d watched his siblings
play together from afar all those years ago. The longer he’d observed Leila,
the more he realized she was dancing to the whims of her domineering mother.
                 Then
as now, Leila’s gorgeous eyes had met his. For a moment he’d seen the pain and
uncertainty choking her. Seen the loneliness in her that mirrored his own.
                 That
one look had called to something buried deep inside him. Bare Souls .
                 She,
the lost waif in need of a hero, and he, the unwanted boy desperately needing
to find the one person who’d make him feel whole. Make him feel worthy.
                 Everyone
on the set had planned to hit the pubs after the shoot and Rafael had looked
forward to getting to know Leila better, but her mother had made it clear that
Leila needed to work out instead.
                 Though
Leila seemed at her wit’s end, she didn’t object to her mother’s dictates, as
if she were used to acquiescing to the woman.
                 That
had been all the incentive he’d needed to approach the alluring model. That and
a good dose