Strangers had accosted her on the street, alternatively pitying and shaming her for being a Trevelli.
Escaping to college at the opposite end of the country had been a blessing. But even then she hadn’t been able to avoid her roots.
It’d quickly become apparent that she had no other talent than cooking.
The realisation that the Trevelli gene was truly stamped into her DNA was a deep fear she secretly harboured. It was the reason she’d cut Simon out of her life without a backward glance. It was also the reason she’d vowed never to let her parents influence her life.
Which was why she needed a ten-minute conversation with Narciso Valentino. A tingle of awareness shot through her as she replayed the scene outside Riga.
With a spiky foreboding, she recalled the dark, dangerously sensual waves vibrating off him; those bronzed, sure fingers drifting over the blonde’s bottom, causing unwelcome heat to drag through Ruby’s belly.
God, what was she doing lying in bed thinking of some stranger’s hand on his girlfriend’s ass?
She punched her pillow into shape and flipped off her bedside lamp. She couldn’t control the future but she could control the choice between mooning over elegant hands that looked as if they could bring a woman great pleasure or getting a good night’s sleep.
She was almost asleep when her phone pinged an incoming message.
Exhaling in frustration, she grabbed the phone.
The brightness in the dark room hurt her eyes, but, even half blinded, Ruby could see the words clearly. Her CV had impressed the powers that be.
She’d been granted an interview to become a Petit Q.
CHAPTER TWO
Macau, China, One Week Later
THE RED FLOOR-LENGTH gown sat a little too snugly against Ruby’s skin, and the off-the-shoulder design exposed more cleavage and general flesh than she was comfortable with. But after two gruelling interviews, one of which she’d almost blown by turning up late due to another delayed train, the last thing she could complain about was the expensive designer outfit that spelt her out as a Petit Q.
She was careful now to avoid it getting snagged on her heels as she walked across the marble floor of her hotel towards the meeting place, from where they’d be chauffeured to their final destination. In her small case were two carefully folded, equally expensive outfits the management had provided.
An examination had shown that they, too, like the dress she wore, would be tight...everywhere. It was clear that someone, somewhere in the management food chain had got her measurements very wrong.
She’d already attracted the attention of an aging rock star in the lift on the way to the ground floor of her Macau hotel. It didn’t matter that he’d seemed half blind when he’d leered at her; attracting any attention at all made her stomach knot with acid anxiety.
She’d let her guard down with Simon, had believed his interest to be pure and genuine, only to discover he wanted nothing more than a bit on the side. The idea that he’d assumed because she was a Trevelli she would condone his indecent proposal, just as her mother continued to accept her father’s, had shredded the self-esteem she’d fought so hard to attain when she’d removed herself from her parents’ sphere.
She wasn’t a coward, but the fear that she might never be able to judge another man’s true character sent a cold shiver through her.
Pushing the thought away, she straightened her shoulders, but another troubling thought immediately took its place.
What if she’d made a huge mistake in coming here?
What if Narciso didn’t show? What if he showed and she missed him again?
No, she had to find him. Especially in light of the phone call she’d received the morning after she’d signed on to be a Petit Q.
The voice had been calm but menacing. Simon had sold his twenty-five-per-cent share of her business to a third party. ‘We will be in touch shortly about interest and payment terms,’ the accented voice had warned.
‘I won’t be able to discuss any payment terms until the business is up and running,’ she’d replied, her hands growing clammy as anxiety dredged her stomach.
‘Then it is in your interest to make that happen sooner rather than later, Miss Trevelli.’
The line had gone dead before she could say anything more. For a moment, she’d believed she’d dreamt the whole thing, but she’d lived in New York long enough to know loan sharks were a real and credible threat. And Simon had sold his share in her business to one of them.
Panicked and angry with Simon, she’d been halfway across the Indian Ocean before she’d read her Petit Q guidelines and experienced a bolt of shock.
No doubt to protect its ultra-urban-legend status, the Q Virtus Macau caucus was to be a masked event at a secret location in Macau.
Masked, as in incognito. Where the chances of picking out Narciso Valentino would be hugely diminished.
The memory of broad shoulders and elegant fingers flashed across her mind. Yeah, sure, as if she were an expert in male shoulders enough to distinguish one from the other.
Her fingers clenched around her tiny red clutch. She’d come all this way. She refused to admit defeat.
The redhead from Riga turned towards her and Ruby fought not to grit her teeth as the other woman dismissed her instantly.
As the door to the Humvee limo slid shut behind them another jagged stab of warning pierced her. Every cell in her body screamed at her to abandon this line of pursuit and hightail it back home.
She could use the app to find out when Narciso returned to New York. She could confront him on home turf where she was more at ease, not here in this sultry, exotic part of the world where the very air held a touch of opulent magic.
But what if this was her last chance? A man who would fly thousands of miles for a highly secretive event could disappear just as easily given half a chance. She’d been lucky to be in the right place to find out where he’d be at this point in time.
Fate had handed her the opportunity. She wasn’t going to blow it.
The limo hit a bump, bringing her back to reality.
Despite the glitzy lights and Vegas-style atmosphere, the tiny island of Macau held a charisma and steeped-in-history feel that had spilled over from mainland China. She held her breath as they crossed over the Lotus Bridge into Cotai, their final destination.
Bicycles raced alongside sports cars and nineteen-fifties buses in a spectacular blend of ancient and modern.
Less than ten minutes later, they rolled to a stop. Exiting, she looked around and her trepidation escalated. The underground car park was well lit enough to showcase top-of-the-line luxury sports cars and blinged-out four-by-fours next to stretch limos. The net worth in the car park alone was enough to fund the annual gross domestic product of a small country.
The buzz of excitement in her group fractured her thoughts and she hurried forward into waiting lifts. Like her, the other nineteen hostesses were dressed in red gowns for the first evening, and the ten male hosts dressed in red jackets.
Six bodyguards accompanied them into the lifts and Ruby stemmed the urge to bolt as the doors started to close. Five seconds later it was too late.
The doors opened to gleaming parquet floors with red and gold welcoming carpet running through the middle of the vast, suspended foyer.
On the walls, exquisite tapestries of dragons flirting with maidens were embellished with multihued glass beads. Red and gold Chinese-silk cloth hung in swathes from the tapered ceiling to the floor, discreetly blacking out the outside world.
Two