‘As soon as I see her,’ Red came back at him with what was clearly a pointed reminder that she wanted him to leave. And it was because she so obviously wanted him gone that, perversely, he found himself lingering.
She felt it too, this disturbing hot flood of memories and awareness. It was there in her face, in the wide darkness of her eyes, the pupils distended until they almost obliterated the mossy softness of her irises. Her breathing was tight and unnatural and he could see the faint blue tinge under the pale skin at the base of her neck where a pulse beat, rapid and uneven. A kick of reaction hit him in the gut, keeping him where he was instead of leaving as she clearly intended he should.
‘Is she always this unprofessional?’ he asked icily, watching as her mouth quivered, then tightened again.
How was it possible that after all this time he could remember how that soft mouth had tasted, the warm yielding of those pink lips against his own?
‘She...has so many demands on her time. More than she can cope with sometimes.’
‘She’s so busy she can risk losing an important commission?’
Rose flinched inside at the sharp stab of the challenge. Just moments ago she had thought of the Moreno commission as the chance of a lifetime, a rescue package that had landed on her desk wrapped in beautiful paper and tied with golden ribbon. But now it was as if she had opened that magical parcel only to find it filled with black, stinking ashes, with a deadly poisonous snake lurking at the bottom just waiting to strike.
She had to get out of this contract somehow, but for now she would settle for having Jett—or Nairo as it seemed she must call him—out of the shop, out of her space, to give her time to think about the way she could possibly deal with this without ruining her professional reputation once and for all.
‘I can’t tell you about that.’ The fact that it was actually the most honest thing she had said gave a new strength to her voice. ‘So, if you don’t mind...I’d like you to leave now.’
His smile was dark, devilish enough to send shivers down her spine.
‘But we’ve only just found each other again.’ The mockery that lifted his tone had the sting of poison.
‘Well, you obviously haven’t missed me in the past ten years.’
No, that sounded too much as if she regretted it. The last thing she wanted was for him to think that she had missed him, even if it was true. But all her courage had seeped away, leaving her feeling weak and empty, genuinely afraid of what she might spark off if she challenged him too strongly.
‘I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure to see you again, but I’m afraid that just wouldn’t be true. And I really must ask you to leave now. We have this event—a bridal fashion show—tonight. I have to get ready for that.’
That she wanted him to go wriggled under his skin and stayed there, irritating him furiously. She’d got under his skin in a very different way in the past. He had let her do things to his heart that he had never allowed any other woman—any other human being except perhaps Esmeralda—to do to him before or since. But now that they had met up again, all that she wanted was to be rid of him as soon as possible.
The temptation to dig his heels in and refuse to move at all almost overwhelmed him. But a moment’s thought left him realising that he didn’t have to tackle this right now. Not yet. He knew where Red was; she wasn’t going anywhere. He could afford the time to wait and discover rather more about her, and then he would act in the way that would give him the best satisfaction possible.
Shaking her life right to the roots just as she had done to his when she’d walked out on him, leaving behind a mess it had taken years to sort out.
A curt nod was his only response to her pointed remark. It amused him to see the way her shoulders dropped slightly in relief, the easing of the tension about her mouth as she believed that she had got rid of him.
‘You’ll tell Ms Cavalliero that I kept our appointment? And I expect to meet up with her at her earliest convenience.’
Left to himself he’d dispense with the designer and her frills and fancies and go straight to the result he most wanted—the settling of the score he had with the woman he’d only ever known as Red. But he’d promised Esmeralda and he wasn’t prepared to take any risks with his sister’s health that not keeping that promise might result in.
So he’d see to this damn dress—the dress of his sister’s dreams—first. And then he’d deal with Red. He’d waited nearly ten long years already. He reckoned he could wait a little while longer.
The burn of his memories suddenly flamed up again, hot and hard, as he saw the way that she stood at the door, stiff-shouldered, taut-backed, her chin lifted in a sign of defiance. There was a flare of awareness in those mossy-golden eyes that pushed him just too close to the edge of the restraint he was holding so tight.
His feet came to a sudden halt, not letting him move forward. He caught her swiftly indrawn breath, noted the extra tension in every muscle that held her slim frame tight, drew in her stomach and lifted the swell of her pert breasts above the embroidered belt that circled her waist.
‘Red...’
If only he knew how much she hated that once affectionate nickname! That focussed stare held her transfixed, unable to look away in spite of the fact that she felt as if his gaze were searing through her skin, burning her eyes to dust. Slowly he lifted a hand, touched her face, the blunt tips of his long fingers resting so lightly on the cheekbone under her right eye.
‘I never thought I’d see you again,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s been...interesting...meeting up like this.’
‘Interesting—that isn’t the word I’d use to describe it.’
Devastating, earth-shaking, came closer. So many times in the past she’d dreamed of just this meeting happening—and dreaded it in the same moment.
‘But I need to tell you. I am not the man that I was.’
‘I can see that. That is, if Moreno is really your name,’ she challenged.
‘Jett was only ever a nickname. Moreno is my family name, though I didn’t use it then—before.’
Abruptly his mood changed, his eyes becoming darker.
‘They let me go, you know,’ he said. ‘There was no evidence against me.’
The conversational tone of his voice was at odds with what she read in the taut muscles of his face. Just how had Jett become this Nairo Moreno?
The man who stood before her was light years away from the wild, rough-haired youth she had once known. The one who had stolen her heart only to break it just a few weeks later, crushing it brutally under his booted foot. Was he the member of a Spanish aristocratic family he claimed to be or—that nasty slimy feeling slithered down her spine again, making her shiver—had his obvious wealth and position been bought with the proceeds of other activities in the years since they had known each other? There might have been no evidence of the crime she’d suspected him of, but he had clearly come a long way in ten years and that spoke of a ruthlessness and focus that few men possessed.
Something she didn’t want to dig into too deeply. And a very good reason to get out of the contract to design a dress for anyone in his family if she possibly could.
‘You will not tell anyone about the time we knew each other.’
It was a cold-blooded command, laced through with a powerful seam of threat, a warning as to what would happen if she was fool enough to reveal anything he wanted kept hidden.
‘Not even Ms Cavalliero.’
‘I doubt if she’d need to know.’ Not when she already knew