Heat punched up her face. ‘Why do I tolerate you? You’re a horrible, horrible human being.’
He laughed and held on tighter when she tried to pull away.
‘You tolerate me because by some cosmic stroke of genius we were born on the same day and even though you face-planted in my lap the first time we met at uni, I’m also the best thing that’s happened to you since... I don’t know...for ever?’ Luis replied, his tone extra dry as he waggled his eyebrows at her.
‘Are you going to ever let me forget that? Or the fact that you saved me from Professor Winton’s roasting the first day of Business Studies because I hadn’t drawn up my pre-class plan yet?’
‘Let’s not forget the numerous times I’ve saved that pretty behind since then. Which is why I still think you should thank me by coming to work for my family firm.’
‘And have you in my ear all day? No, thanks. I enjoy working for Chapman Interiors because I like designing the interior of homes, not five-star hotels.’
He threw out a careless shrug. ‘Six-star, but who’s counting? Whatever, you’ll come round one day.’
‘Your crystal ball telling you tales again?’
‘I don’t need one. Just like I don’t need a magic ball to tell me you would get on so much better with Ramon if you dealt head-on with that crush that’s flattening you—’
‘I don’t have a crush on him, Luis!’ she hissed, darting a frantic look over her shoulder.
Luis sighed dramatically. ‘Sure you don’t. I think I’m going to change your nickname from mouse to ostrich.’
‘Do that and I’ll change yours from friend to ass.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve been called worse.’
Suki watched his gaze move over her shoulder, then return to hers, a resolute look that always made her hackles rise entering his eyes. ‘Whatever crazy ideas you’re thinking of, burn them now,’ she muttered urgently.
He stared at her, a slow smile spreading on his face as his fingers curled tighter around hers. ‘Don’t worry, little mouse, Luis knows best.’
Suki tried to think of some smart comeback, some wicked put-down that would for once put her overconfident friend in his place. But she knew she was fighting a losing battle. Apart from the useless talent of coming up with the perfect retort hours or even days after she needed it, she was also cursed with a shyness gene that chose moments like these to bloom into life and tie her up in knots.
The other reason she couldn’t quite think straight was the man who’d entered the pub two minutes ago.
She could feel him approaching, cutting through the thick Friday night crowd with minimum exertion. She didn’t need to look to know that people would be moving out of his way, creating whatever path he wished with a simple commanding look from brooding sea-green eyes. She could already smell that incredible mix of dark earthy spice and alpha male that exuded from him. In the past she’d only needed a quick inhalation for it to fill her nostrils, her senses, turn her into a mumbling wreck around him.
She was twenty-five years old today, for goodness’ sake, long past the wide-eyed-teenager stage. She needed to act accordingly...emulate a little bit of the sophistication Luis oozed and Ramon commanded from his very fingertips with such effortless ease.
She needed to raise her head. Yes, that was right. Take in the six-foot-four tower of masculine sleekness and suppressed power who’d arrived at their booth. Stop herself from ogling the square, rugged jaw, the sculpted perfection of his face. Meet his gaze—
‘Felíz cumpleaños, mi hermano.’
Dear God, he was too much.
A weird sizzle racing down her back, she lowered her head again, swallowing at the sound of that dark, smoky voice caressing the Cuban Spanish words.
‘Gracias, although I was beginning to think I’d only get belated birthday congrats from you, seeing as the day is almost over,’ Luis replied, a trace of tension twining his sardonic tone.
Ramon’s strong, capable hands slid into his pockets. ‘It’s barely eleven o’clock and I made it, as I said I would,’ he said, an even deeper throb of tension in his voice.
Suki’s gaze darted up in time to catch his narrow-eyed gaze on their joint hands before it shifted to his brother. After a second, Luis gave a slight grimace and released her before he shrugged.
‘In that case, take a seat. I’ll go and fetch the champagne I had the bartender put on ice.’
He slid out of his seat, but despite the slight strain between them, the brothers hugged briefly, Ramon murmuring something to his brother Suki didn’t quite catch. Luis nodded, his features relaxing as he murmured back.
Face-to-face, their striking resemblance was unmistakable, the only differences being their eyes, Luis’s inch shorter height and hair that was a dark chocolate to his brother’s jet black. But where Luis’s face and stature evoked keenly interested second glances, Ramon’s completely captivated, hypnotising every human being who made the mistake of glancing his way.
It was why, several seconds after Luis had left the booth, and despite urging herself otherwise, Suki couldn’t look up. She tightened her hold on the glass holding her wine spritzer, willing her fingers not to shake. But reassuring herself that he was mere flesh and blood seemed utterly useless.
Her breath emerged hard and choppy, when, contrary to her thinking he’d take Luis’s seat, he slid into the booth next to her.
Another minute crawled excruciatingly by. A minute when the power of his fixed gaze burned her averted face, when every nerve screamed at being the object of his scrutiny.
‘Felíz cumpleaños, Suki.’
Unlike the birthday wish he’d delivered to his brother, this one held a little extra...something. Hot and mysterious. Dark and dangerous. Or was it just her stupid, fevered imagination? A shiver went through her. She managed to free one hand from around her glass, long enough to tuck her hair behind her ear before it returned to its death grip around her drink. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
‘It’s the done thing to look a person in the eyes, at least once, when they’re talking to you, is it not?’ he drawled. ‘Or is your drink infinitely more interesting than I am?’
‘It is... I mean...it’s the done thing, yes, not my drink—’
‘Suki.’ Her name was a rigid demand.
One she couldn’t have denied even if she’d wanted to. And absurdly, now she was commanded, she didn’t have any qualms about turning her head, meeting the gleaming, intense green eyes that focused on her.
She’d met Ramon Acosta a handful of times over the last three years. From the first time when Luis had introduced them at their university graduation ceremony and every occasion since, she’d been struck progressively speechless. Because almost impossibly, her best friend’s older brother grew more captivating, the force of his raw magnetism intensifying every time she saw him. Far from Luis’s tireless mocking acting as the impetus she needed to kill her senseless crush, her traitorous emotions heightened and sparked even more explosively with each meeting, the stern talking-to she gave herself before each meeting a useless exercise once in Ramon’s presence.
It was becoming a problem. But not one she wanted to deal with right now. It was her birthday, after all.
Besides, even if Ramon Acosta were anywhere in her league, he would still be out of bounds on account of his very public, very serious engagement to Svetlana Roskova, the drop-dead gorgeous Russian model.
But, having met his gaze, she couldn’t look away. Couldn’t think beyond the affirmation of how completely irresistible he was. From