Indebted To Moreno

‘It’s taken me rather a long time—don’t you think? Ten years. So why should I suddenly turn round and want to see you again? You can relax about that, Red—I am not looking for you but for your boss.’

‘My boss?’

‘Sí. Ms Rose Cavalliero. The owner of this business, and the designer of...’

An autocratic wave of his hand indicated the two beautiful dresses displayed on mannequins in the corner of the room. Of course, Rose realised, he was here to discuss the design of his sister’s wedding dress. But the realisation that he still thought she was only the receptionist, that he hadn’t put two and two together to recognise that the ‘Scarlett’ in her business name was in fact her, was in no way eased by the thought of that commission he’d come to discuss.

Oh, no, no! She couldn’t work for him. She wouldn’t do it. OK, so it might mean a real coup for her business. A boost to her reputation that would be of immeasurable value. But would it be worth it?

All the money in the world couldn’t compensate for spending time with Jett—with this Nairo Moreno as he now called himself. Even if he hadn’t come looking for revenge, it was obvious that he could barely bring himself to be polite to her.

But how could she get out of it?

‘So where is she?’

The question came coldly, curtly, and seeing the hard set of his face Rose was swamped by a rush of cold unease.

To see the smoulder of dark anger in his eyes made her feet feel unsafe on the floor, her mouth drying sharply. If only she had known who this Nairo Moreno really was, then she would never have agreed to meet him today.

But of course he didn’t realise exactly who she was. He still believed that she was only the receptionist. For a second the desire to put him in his place by pointing out that she owned the whole establishment and was the designer he had said he so wanted to meet warred with a sense of self-preservation. What she really wanted was to get rid of him before he brought his malign influence back into her present as he had done to her past.

‘She couldn’t be here. Her mother isn’t well.’

Well, that was true enough. And the closer she could get to the truth with this man, the less likely she was to give herself away.

‘She didn’t think to send a message to let me know?’ The anger was there now, in a frigid form. ‘That’s hardly good business practice.’

‘It—it was an emergency. She got called away unexpectedly.’

‘I see.’

His tone said the exact opposite as he pushed back the immaculate white cuff of his shirt and checked the time. On the sort of platinum watch that the man she had once known could never have afforded.

Unless of course... The coldness at her spine turned into a slow, icy creeping sensation that made her remember just why she had had to run out on him, the darkness of the world that she had discovered she had fallen into.

‘I’m sure she’ll be in touch...’

When she had some excuse ready. Some reason why she couldn’t take on his commission. She’d think of something when she wasn’t faced with telling it to him in person. Right now, all she wanted was for him to get out of her life and stay out. For good this time.

‘I’ll be waiting for her message.’

The dark thread of anger that laced the statement turned it into an unspoken threat, making her heart clench painfully so that she had to struggle to draw her next breath.

‘I’ll tell her.’ Embarrassingly it was a revealing squeak.

Unable to meet those coldly assessing eyes, Rose hurried to the door, deliberately moving so as not to risk touching him, or come within reach of one of those long-fingered hands that now rested lightly on the smooth leather belt that encircled his narrow waist. She didn’t want to remember anything about the touch of those hands, and the thought of them coming anywhere near her again set the butterflies fluttering wildly in her stomach all over again.

‘You do that.’

This was not at all how he had expected the day to go, Nairo reflected as he watched this new Red march to the door and yank it open, standing there stiff and taut, rejection in every inch of her slender body. The meeting with some society designer he had anticipated had not happened and instead he had found himself confronted by memories from his past stirring the silt in which he’d believed they were buried.

Forcing him to remember how this one slip of a girl had turned his life upside down, blackening his name just when he was fighting to win back his father’s respect, and then walked out on him.

To remember how soft her skin had felt, the warmth of her body as she had curled up to him on the rough and ready ‘bed’ that had been all the furniture their room had possessed. He could still catch her unique, individual scent even if now it was hidden under some crisp fresh perfume and it awoke a hunger he had thought he’d forgotten. A hunger that he had spent the last ten years trying to obliterate. He’d indulged his masculine needs indiscriminately but never, it seemed, managed to wipe it out. Not if it could be woken again so fast and so easily.

‘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.