Page 1 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
Enemy’s Game of Revenge
Maya Blake
Jittery excitement licked through Willow’s veins as she watched Jario stride to the edge of the swim deck. Like her, he’d changed into swimming gear.
She tried not to openly stare at the chiseled body on display, especially those powerful thighs that flexed and gleamed bronze in the sunlight.
She sternly reminded herself why she was doing this.
He’d finally given her the smallest green light, to get the answers she wanted. Yes, she’d jumped through hoops to get here, but so what?
“Ready?”
Her head jerked up to the speaking glance that said he’d seen her ogling him. Face flaming, she shifted her gaze to his muscled shoulder and nodded briskly. “Bring it.”
A lip twitch compelled her eyes to his well-defined mouth, and her stomach clenched as lust unfurled low in her belly. God, what was wrong with her? How could she find him—yet another man bent on playing mind andliteralgames with her, and the one attempting to destroy what was left of her family—so compellingly attractive?
CHAPTER ONE
WILLOWCHATTERTONREACHEDfor her coffee cup, projecting calm she didn’t feel and composure that was fast dwindling. Any second now she expected the staid woman sitting opposite her to look up from her tablet, spear her with suspicious eyes and call her out for the less than straightforward means she’d used to land herself this interview.
This exercise had been a Hail Mary at best, one last-ditch effort to get the answers she needed before, if necessary, she took the final undesired but decisive step of cutting her losses with her father.
The squeeze in her chest returned stronger, but she pushed it aside.
Maybe it didn’t have to come to that. Maybe there was something worth salvaging. But with the strain between them now at a breaking point with deepening indifference, and he having lost all interest in providing the vital information needed to save his own company and the many people who depended on them, she’d had no choice but to take this route.
Deep down, though, she hadn’t imagined she’d need to push things this far. That her ultimatums to dig out the truth for herself would pierce through his inertia.
It hadn’t. So here she was.
Asking her hacker buddy to get her on a shortlist of a job agency catering to billionaires had been tricky at best. Actually landing an interview had been an unbelievable probability until she got the call that had made her drive through the night across the border from California into Mexico.
She couldn’t blow this.
Not when it directly affected the other important decision she needed to make about her future. Whether it was worth setting aside her seemingly unattainable desire for family and connection with the secret dream she’d kept close. The dream that had seen her through the previous fractured relationships—
No, she wasn’t going to dwell on her mother. Or her ex, David. Her emotional bandwidth could only accommodate what remained of her relationship with her father. And if that ran out...
She held her breath as Rebecca Devlin, chief purser on the biggest yacht in the Los Cabos marina, looked up.
‘It all looks great, and it helps that you know your way around boats.’ The smallest smile cracked her no-nonsense demeanour, entirely unaware of the shocked relief pouring through Willow. ‘Not that this particular one is your run-of-the-mill vessel.’
Compelled, Willow’s gaze swung to the super-yacht, her ultimate destination.
La Venganza.
Its name was as spine tingling and ominous as the vessel was eerily beautiful.
Easily the most eye-catching with its unique matte grey-and-black hull, it was so large it had been given a special berth within the Marina Puerto Los Cabos.
A born-and-raised Southern Californian, she was used to ostentation on a decadent, eye-watering level that beggared belief sometimes. But theLa Venganzawas on a whole new stratosphere.
There were seven decks—that she could count. A sleek, top-of-the-line helicopter in the same matte grey-and-black theme sat on one of the higher decks. Since her arrival, she’d seen batches of the crew dressed in sharp, pristinely tailored uniforms, transporting deliveries from vendors that made her eyes goggle—Ossetra caviar, Norwegian salmon, boxes upon boxes of vintage champagne, lobster by the crate load. Hell, she’d overheard that there were ten barrels of water transported from a special mountain lake in the Himalayas.
That was before the steady stream of beautiful people—mostly women—arriving in sports cars, limos and luxury SUVs, tittering with barely suppressed excitement, were escorted by sleek tenders to the yacht.
The volume of activity and number of deliveries pointed to an extended trip. She couldn’t let the yacht sail away without achieving her goal.