CHAPTER ONE : 7 YEARS

She'd never known fear like it.

Breathing so rapidly that she felt light-headed, Kimiko stood in the imposing glass-walled boardroom on the executive floor of Pedrosa Investments, staring down at the throbing, vibrant streets of Rio de Janeiro.

The waiting was torture.

Everything rested on the outcome of this visit....everything....and the knowledge made her legs weaken and her insides knot with vicious tension.

It was ironic, she thought helplessly, that the only person who could help her now was the one man she'd sworn never to see again.

Forcing herself to breath steadily, she closed her eyes for a moment and tried to modify her expectations. He'd probably refuse to see her.

People didn't just arrive unannounced and gain access to a man like Raimundo Pedrosa.

She was only sitting here now because his personal assistant had taken pity on her. Stammering out her request to see him, Kimiko had been so pale and anxious that the older woman had become quite concerned and had insisted that she should sit and wait in the privacy of the air-conditioned boardroom. Having brought her a large glass of water, the assistant had given her a smile and assured her that Mr Pedrosa really wasn't as dangerous as his reputation suggested.

But Kimiko knew differently. Raimundo Pedrosa wasn't just dangerous, he was lethal and she knew that it was going to take more than water to make her face the man on the other side of that door.

What was she going to say?

How was she going to tell him?

Where was she going to start?

She couldn't appeal to his sense of decency or his conscieence because he possessed neither. Helping others wasn't high on his agenda. He used people and, more especially, he used women. She knew that better than anyone. Pain ripped through her as she remembered just how badly he'd treated her. He was a ruthless, self-sekking billionaire with only one focus in his life. The pursuit of pleasure.

And for a short, blissful time, she'd been his pleasure.

Her heart felt like a heavy weight in her chest. Looking back on it now, she couldn't believe how naive she'd been. How Trusting. As an idealistic, romantic eighteen-year-old, she'd been willing and eager to share every single part of herself with him. She'd held nothing back because she'd seen no reason to hold anything back. He'd been the one. Her everything. And she was his nothing.

She curled her fingers into her palms and reminded herself that the objective of today was not to rehash the past. She was going to have to put aside the memory of the pain, the panic and the bone-deep humiliation she'd suffered as a result of his cruel and careless rejection.

None of that mattered now.

There was only one thing that mattered to her, only one person, and for the sake of that person she was going to bite her tounge, smile, beg or do whatever it took to ingratiate herself with Raimundo Pedrosa, because there was no way she was leaving Brazil without the money she needed.

It was a matter of life and death.

She paced the length of the room, trying to formulate some sort of plan in her mind, trying to work out a reasonable way to ask for five million dollars from a man who had absolutely no feelings for her.

How was she going to tackle the subject?

How was she going to tell him she was in serious trouble?

And how could she make him care?

She felt a shaft of pure panic and then the door opened and he strolled in the room unannounced, the sun glinting on his dark brown hair, his face hard, handsome and unsmiling.

And Kimiko realised that she was in even more trouble than she'd previously thought.

She looked like baby deer caught in an ambush.

Without revealing any of his thoughts, Raimundo surveyed the slender, impossibly beautiful raven-head who stood shivering and pale on the far side of his boardroom.

She looked so frightened that he almost found it possible to feel sorry for her. Except that he knew to much about her.

And if he were in her position, he'd be shaking, too.

She had one hell of a nerve, coming here!

Seven Years.