The Billionaire's Triplets (A Steamy Contemporary Romance Novel) by Mia Caldwell Page B

could have come to Barcelona. I don’t care much for New York, and this is using up valuable time.”
    Willa touched his arm, calming him. “We’ve used the flight time productively. And she couldn’t come to Europe right now. She is being courted by Tom Acker. He sees her value and has proposed they work together. It would set off alarms if she suddenly flew to Spain to see you. She isn’t willing to throw away an offer from him on the chance you might be interested. Besides, I’ve arranged a number of meetings with American firms who want to talk about roles they might play in the project.”
    “And this Peters woman has agreed to meet?”
    “The three of us will have dinner together tonight.”
    “So I don’t have to face this woman alone?”
    She put her hand on his arm. “Julio, I wouldn’t put you in that situation.”
    He laughed. “She must be pretty, because I get the feeling you don’t trust me.”
    Willa gave him a smile. “I don’t trust women around you.” That was close enough to the truth for her to sound sincere. “So just grit your teeth and tolerate New York for a few days. We have the meetings, you’ll make your decisions, and we’ll fly back to Spain. Simple.”
    “Nothing is ever that simple,” he said. “People are far more complicated than I’d like. If they were more like projects, definable, consistent…”
    She snuggled up against him, thinking that he was right about people. Tina was a perfect example of how people could complicate things. Initially the woman had been useful; it had been easy to convince her to work for their mutual benefit. But she’d gotten greedy. Rather than get Lissa safely under contract for the Milan project, she’d gone after it herself—and after Tom Acker himself, if the rumors were true. Even with Acker stalling on signing a contract, it had taken some work to get her to consider the option of working with Julio. It was important that Lissa work for Acker—once it was signed, Julio wouldn’t even consider talking to Lissa—it would squash any lingering ideas Julio might have that he could still manage to get in touch with her and convince her to work with him.
    Despite the rumors, the news of her having his children without letting him know, despite everything, he still thought she was the best at what she did. Unbelievably, she knew he’d be willing to put all of that aside to have her on his team.
    Tina’s leaving, going after Acker’s business for herself. Tina muddied the waters. The only way Willa could see to keep her plan on track now was if she managed to get Julio to hire Tina, even if it weakened his team.
    # # #
     
    “I want to be involved in the Milan project,” Tina told Willa. “It’s huge and would give me the chance to show what I can do.”
    Without letting Julio know, Willa had arranged for them to meet in the bar of the hotel she and Julio were staying in ahead of the dinner. Willa had only met Tina once before, and that was brief. With there being several ways that the evening could go, she wanted this opportunity to size her up.
    “So you’ve gone off on your own. Wouldn’t it have been easier to be involved in the Milan project if you were still working for Lissa Edwards? She’s considered quite an expert.”
    She saw that the comment struck a nerve. “That’s part of the problem with staying on. I need to be out from under the shadow of that bitch. In the years I’ve worked for her, no one has seen that I’m the one that makes things happen. I convince clients, do presentations, run the business, and she gets all the credit just because she spouts all that analytical claptrap.”
    Willa sighed. It seemed laughable that Tina couldn’t see that the “analytical claptrap” she hated was exactly what people like Julio and Tom Acker were looking for. That was the work that formed the basis for putting together their proposals, not visionary handholding. While the work could be farmed out the way Tina