Indebted To Moreno

‘Ms Cavalliero!’

Belatedly becoming aware of the way that she had been standing, silent and stunned, while her audience grew restless, Rose blinked hard, clearing her eyes of the haze of panic that had blurred her vision and forced herself to focus. At the front of the audience were the special guests, the reporters who had been invited specially in the hope of giving the new collection a great opening. That even more hopefully would lead to the sort of sales that would save her business, pay the rent for another twelve months. Give her mother a place to live and rest as she recovered from the draining bouts of chemotherapy. They’d only just found each other again properly; she couldn’t bear it if their time together was so short.

Dragging her gaze away from the dark figure at the door, she switched on what she hoped was a convincing smile as she turned her attention to the first reporter to get to her feet—a well-known fashion writer for a luxury magazine.

‘Do you have a question?’ she managed. ‘I’m happy to answer...’

‘I’m glad to hear that.’

It wasn’t the fashion reporter who spoke but another woman, a blonde she hadn’t spotted before. Rose’s heart sank. She knew this woman and so what was coming.

‘Don’t you think it’s something of an irony, the fact that you are publicising your new collection now—with images of love and happy-ever-afters—when your own story is so very different?’

The bite in her voice was unmistakeable, sharp as acid. Rose recognised her as Geraldine Somerset, a person she had seen at one of Andrew’s parties. The woman everyone had expected to be his fiancée before he’d met Rose.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you do.’

Geraldine lifted a newspaper that had been lying on her chair. Rose had no need to see it to know that it was a notorious scandal rag. She also knew just what headline the woman wanted everyone to see. Geraldine unfolded the sheet to its full length, waved it above her head, turning so that everyone could read the banner headline: ‘Dream-maker or dream-breaker?’

Rose even knew what pictures went with that story. How could she not when a copy of just that paper had been pushed through her letter box less than a week ago? On one side of the text was a picture of Andrew, head down, frowning and glum. The other was a picture of Rose herself, striding into her boutique—the name Scarlett perfectly clear and in focus. It had been taken shortly after the news of the broken engagement, the cancelled wedding, had hit the fan.

‘Would you want to buy your wedding dress from a woman who only cancelled her own marriage just three days before the ceremony?’ Geraldine was demanding now. ‘Would you entrust the most important day of your life—or your daughter’s—to someone who had so little care about her fiancé that she left him broken-hearted practically at the altar?’

‘That isn’t the way it was...’ Rose protested, only to have the newspaper waved even more violently in rejection of her words.

‘“Dream-maker or dream-breaker?”’ Geraldine declared, clearly very proud of the headline it was obvious she had created.

It was equally apparent that she was having the effect she wanted. The whole mood of the evening had changed. The murmurs of appreciation and approval that had marked the end of the fashion show had now changed to darker, more critical comments. Already people were pushing back their chairs, getting to their feet.

‘This has nothing to do with my work!’ Rose tried, but it was like Canute asking the sea to go back. Everything had changed and Geraldine, with her emotive headline, the carefully slanted photographs, had turned the tide of opinion.

Rose had forgotten that Nairo Moreno was here. That he was watching all this.

The moment the thought had crossed her mind she lost her concentration as she flicked a hasty, nervous glance to where Nairo leaned against the wall by the door. Or rather, where Nairo had been leaning. Even as she watched she saw his eyes narrow sharply, the beautiful, sensual mouth tighten until it was just a thin, hard line. The frown that snapped his black brows frankly terrified her.

Not meeting her eyes, his gaze fixed on the scene before him, he levered himself up from his position and stood tall and dark and powerful as he surveyed the room.

‘The woman’s bad luck—she taints everything she touches.’ Geraldine was getting into full flow again, her voice rising to almost a screech, the newspaper flapping wildly as she waved it high. ‘I mean—who would want her to design a dress...?’

‘I would.’

Cold and clear, the response cut through the buzz of outrage and comment that had filled the room. The silence that fell was as if a huge blanket had been dropped over everyone, stifling any sound. The audience stilled too, as Nairo moved forward, his movements the dangerous prowl of a predatory wild cat. A path opened up to let him through and even Geraldine froze to the spot, her words deserting her as he came closer.

Rose couldn’t blame her. Seen like this, Nairo Moreno was the sort of man who could suck all the air out of a room simply by existing. She found herself struggling to breathe, waiting and watching...

‘I said I would.’

Nairo had reached Geraldine’s side now and he snatched the newspaper away from her, sparing it only the briefest, iciest glance before he crushed it brutally in one hand and tossed it aside, contempt in every inch of his powerful body.

‘I would have Miss Cavalliero design a dress for someone I loved. Anyone with eyes to see would do the same—wouldn’t you?’ he challenged, his fierce gaze raking over the rest of the audience. ‘Anyone but a fool could see that as a designer Miss Cavalliero is hugely skilled. As a man, I’m no expert in fashion...’

Rose watched in amazement as he actually shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of assumed self-deprecation.

It had to be assumed, didn’t it? Even as the Jett she’d known he wouldn’t willingly admit to any sort of weakness in his own make-up. But the gesture had worked. The women surrounding him had actually smiled. Some of them were nodding.

‘But even I can see that these dresses are works of art.’

He had the room in the palm of his hand, Rose realised. He was turning the tide of disapproval that Geraldine had threatened to direct against her.

‘Miss Cavalliero...’

Nairo had moved closer, was holding out a hand to her. For the space of a dazed heartbeat she stared at it, only realising after a moment that he meant to help her down from the runway, onto the floor of the main ballroom.

She needed that help. Needed the support of his strength and the warm power of that hand. But even as his grip closed over her fingers, she knew a sudden stunning change, felt the sting of burning electricity fizz through her so that the hold she took on him was more than to get down the steps to the floor. It was like being taken back in years, to the days when she had been just a stupid, crazy, hormone-ridden teenager and she had first met Jett. Back to the days when she had given him her heart, her soul, her virginity. And he had only to touch her to send her up in flames.

From being cold with shock, she was now burning with response and could feel the colour heating her cheeks.

‘Now can we talk about the dress you will create for my sister?’

Rose knew that everyone was watching, that she was the focus of all eyes, and she knew there was only one answer she could give. He had saved her reputation, her business, and the slam of the door told its own story: that Geraldine had conceded defeat and was on her way out of the room, out of the building—please heaven, out of her life.

She had caught that firm and deliberate emphasis on the word now even if no one else had. He knew she had tried so hard to get out of the commission he had proposed. The commission that would mean she would have to work with him, for him, all the time she was planning the dress for his sister. At least it was not for his bride.

But she’d been here once before, when Nairo had seemed to be her saviour and turned out to be a threat of danger she had barely escaped. So now had she been rescued or entrapped? Was he offering her freedom and a new security or had he actually caught her tight in some carefully planned and deliberately achieved spider’s web? Did he really just want her to design a dress for his sister or was there more to his intervention than that?

Right now it seemed that he was her saviour—at least that was what everyone else would think. And because of everyone else, all those eyes on her, she knew she had no option but to give him the response he wanted.

‘Miss Cavalliero?’

The prompt sounded easy, almost gentle, but she had regained enough composure to look into his eyes and easy and gentle were not what she saw there.

What she saw was ice, resolve and the sort of ruthless determination that warned her that if she didn’t do as he wanted, then he was more than capable of turning this apparent rescue mission into one of total, devastating destruction.

She had been offered a lifeline as long as she went along with what Nairo Moreno wanted. Her life had been full of problems before, but now it seemed that by escaping one set of difficulties she had landed herself with a whole new adversary. One who she suspected was much more formidable than anyone she’d come up against before.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. But what else could she do?

‘Of course, Señor Moreno...’ She forced her stiff lips into what must have looked like the most wooden and unbelievable of smiles. ‘I’d be happy to discuss your commission with you.’

CHAPTER THREE (#ufada0f11-934c-58c4-9dc8-0002d6120c31)

NAIRO MIGHT HAVE said that he wanted to discuss the design for his sister’s wedding dress, but he showed no inclination to deal with that business right then and there. Instead he waited, smiling, courteous—apparently patient—while Rose spoke to the women who wanted to talk to her about designing their dresses, or their daughters’. The endorsement that Nairo Moreno had given her was apparently enough to convince them that Scarlett was the designer that everyone wanted now.

Which was not surprising really, Rose admitted to herself. After all, as she had discovered earlier in a quick, mind-blowing search on the Internet, the wedding that he was organising for his sister was to be the society event of the year. Esmeralda Roja Moreno was to marry into powerful Austrian aristocracy, it seemed. Duke Oscar Schlieburg was the eldest son of Prince Leopold of Magstein and his wedding was to be almost a state occasion. Her head was spinning simply at the thought of the boost of publicity and the prestige that would come to her business as a result of her involvement with such an event.

A boost that had already started, it seemed, as she collected up the lists of names and addresses of all the potential new customers she’d gained.