title: Blackmailing the Billionaire
author: Kelly, Marie
description: Joy Reid had a plan, a simple plan to help save the life of her beloved nephew Ricco.  To get close to the only man who could save the small boy’s life she will blackmail the billionaire Carig Calle.  However, simple plans have a tendency of falling apart, and there was nothing simple about Carig Calle.  Gorgeous, charismatic and a playboy, Joy soon discovers that the simplest of plans can sometimes create the most complex of problems.
  Extract
  Joy sat, legs crossed primly, body stiff and tense, her stomach churning as nausea clutched at her.  Across the desk, the powerful 32-year-old CEO of the Calle Corporation stared in disbelief.  For what seemed an eternity, the silence stretched out before the man blinked, his mouth setting in an angry line.  “Are you out of your mind Miss Reid?”, the words bitten out contemptuously, his dark eyes raking her with disdain.  She swallowed, only managing to cling to her calm exterior by her very fingertips, her knees hidden under the table shaking violently.  If he could see the way she quaked inside she thought, he would not look so stunned, praying for Ricco’s sake she could hold strong.  The thought of him was the shot of courage she needed, Joy raising her small chin, eyes meeting the man across from her and nodding.  “That is my offer Mr Calle... Take it or leave it”
  The man leant forward, his fingers steepled together on the large, ornate and obviously expensive walnut desk, the thought that it no doubt cost more than she could earn in a year flitting through her mind, not sure why such a thing should register at a time like that.
  His deep voice, the slightest hint of an accent making it strangely sexy, interrupted her musings, “So... Let me get this right.  For the past six months you have been holding out selling your land... While I have been upping my offer…”  Joy nodded in affirmation as he continued, “But now... You are prepared to sell at the ORIGINAL price... If I agree to be your boyfriend for some unknown period of time?”
  When the offer was laid out like that even Joy could see how crazy it sounded, her insides knotting together even tighter, her voice almost a squeak, “Yes”  Before her, Carig Calle shook his head, his eyes hard as slate and just as dark.  “You are out of your mind Miss Reid.  I will get your land by legal means if necessary.  You are blocking a major development... One badly needed around here and I will win in the end... Even if the sale has to be court-ordered”
  Joy gripped her bag tighter, staring back at the arrogant Spaniard, her tone harder now, her own eyes flashing back, the usually warm brown of them darkening.  “Don’t threaten me Mr Calle.  You might manage that eventually but we both know that you need to start this project in the next three months”, her head rising as she locked stares with the CEO, not aware how glorious she looked, Carig Calle frowning at the change in the little mouse who had walked in with her ridiculous demand only moments before.  “I might not win... But I will cost you so much money in delayed building that even YOU will feel it Mr Calle”