Indebted To Moreno

A swift, sharp inward shake of his head broke the train of his thoughts, dragging them back from the path down which they had wandered.

She was the last thing he wanted in his world right now. Hadn’t she come close to ruining his life all those years before? Ten years younger, and a lifetime more naïve, he had risked losing everything for the sake of a few short nights of heedless passion. He had even, foolishly, blindly, come close to giving her a piece of his heart. Only to discover that he had been nothing to her when the promise of a reward for information had more appeal instead.

‘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.

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 every dark detail about Nairo Roja Moreno. And wished she didn’t. ‘I certainly won’t be telling.’

‘Make sure you don’t.’

The finger that rested on her cheek traced a slow, gentle path down the line of her jaw, to rest against the corner of her mouth, hooded eyes watching every flicker of expression across her face.

It was all that Rose could do not to turn her head sharply, pull away from that small, lingering touch. She wanted to move, desperately longed to back away, and yet at the same time that simple touch was so familiar, bringing back memories of the feel of his hands on her skin, the taste of his mouth...

She couldn’t go there. She mustn’t go there!

‘Take your hand off my face.’ She hissed the words out as much against the feelings that were stinging her as at him. ‘I didn’t give you permission to touch me and I...’

She couldn’t continue in the face of his unexpected soft laugh and the way that he deliberately twisted his hand so that the backs of his fingers were now against her skin. Deliberately he stroked his fingers down her cheek again.

‘I said don’t do that!’ This time she couldn’t hold back and jerked her head away in angry rejection.

His laughter scoured her spine, but he lifted his hand slowly, bronze eyes gleaming with wicked mockery.

‘My, you do have a tendency to overreact, querida. It didn’t use to be that way. I can recall a time when you would beg for my touch.’

‘Then you must have an amazing memory. It was a very long time ago.’

‘Not long enough,’ Nairo drawled, the smile evaporating fast. ‘Some things you just don’t forget.’

‘Really? Well, I’m afraid my recollection isn’t as good as yours—and it’s certainly not something I want to revive.’

Making the movement look as if she were only wanting to ease his departure, she slipped away from him, holding open the door again.

‘I’ll pass on your messages.’

The words showed every trace of the effort she was making to get them out, fighting against giving in to the burning response even that most gentle of touches was sparking off all over her skin. One flick of a glance up at him was more than she could cope with. She could see herself reflected in those burnished eyes, small and diminished in a way that made her legs feel weak as cotton wool.

‘I’ll tell her—everything you said.’

‘Except that you knew me before.’

How did he manage to inject such deadly poison into six simple words? The stepfather she had run from in a flight that had ended up with her living in the squat might have ranted and roared, bellowing threats, but he had never managed to make her quail inside in the way that this quietly spoken command could do.

‘Except for that,’ she managed jerkily.

For another dangerous moment his fingers still lingered too close to her face, but then, just as she thought that she couldn’t keep control any longer, he lifted his hand away and let it drop to his side. The smile that he flashed on and off was like burning ice, no emotion at all in it.

‘See you around, Red.’

‘Not if I see you first.’

The words were muttered to an empty space. He’d gone, striding out into the darkness and the rain without a single glance back. It was as if defiance of his presence was all that had been holding her upright as she sagged back against the wall and let the door slam back into place.

He was gone. And she was free, safe—for now.

But it was only a temporary reprieve. There was no way she could hold off having Jett—in the form of Nairo Moreno—back in her life while he still wanted to see Rose Cavalliero. Right now he had no idea that she was the Rose he’d come to talk to, but she couldn’t hope to let that last for very much longer. He would put two and two together, and when he did, then he would be back.

She had to get rid of him; she couldn’t cope with him intruding into her life. Not just because of the past but because of the shocking effect he still had on her today.

Slowly her hand crept up to her face, covering the spot where Nairo’s fingertip had touched her. She almost expected it to have etched a brand into her skin, marking her as his. He had done that long ago, hadn’t he? He had touched her life and encircled her with bands of emotional and sexual steel so that she had never been able to break free. Even now, all these years later, he could still invade her life and if she wasn’t careful he would leave it in ruins all over again.

CHAPTER TWO

HE SHOULD NEVER have let himself touch her.

Nairo slid his car into the nearest empty parking space, stamped on the brakes with uncharacteristic lack of care and switched off the engine. His concentration had been shot all afternoon, in a way so untypical of him that it felt as if he was teetering on the edge of a form of madness. The tips of his fingers still seemed to burn with the imprint of that touch, the connection of skin on skin, even though it was hours since he had walked out of the shop and left Red behind. He was sure that if he brought his hand close to his face he would still inhale the perfume of her skin, the fresh, unique combination that was this woman mixed with the light floral scent she had worn.

Or perhaps that was because the cloud of her personal body perfume seemed to enclose him ever since he had realised just who she was. It had been like that after they had first become lovers. In the squat she had always washed every day, even in the freezing water that was all they had available, and the scent of her skin had been the only thing that was fresh or clean in the grubby little room that they had called ‘home’.

Waking up each morning to find her curled against him, the soft hair, longer and redder than she wore it now, falling over her face, had made him feel as if life was worth living at a time when he had had serious doubts on that matter.

She’d had her own problems too. Running from an aggressive and abusive stepfather, a mother who had been too weak to protect her, she had still given him a reason to wake up—if only because waking up usually meant another opportunity to take her in his arms, and give in to the heated passion that burned into his soul every time he touched her.

He had even thought about changing his life for her.

‘Change—for her—hah!’

The words punched into the air as he pushed open the door to the hall where the wedding fayre was being held, the violence of the movement expressing the way the memories burned like acid.

He had thought about change—had even taken the first steps towards it—and she...she had just walked out on him, never looking back. She’d also added an extra little sting to her departure that had come close to ruining every chance he had had of rebuilding what was left of his relationship with his family.

The burn of that memory almost had him turning and marching right back out again. He wanted nothing to do with Red—and yet he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Her betrayal, her desertion, demanded some sort of retribution and yet he had no wish to tangle himself up with her all over again. He had just about found peace after ten years’ hard work. Did he really want to stick his head right back in the lion’s mouth and risk it all over again?

But the promise he had made to Esmeralda held him prisoner. He had sworn he would bring her this designer she had set her heart on, and he was not going back on his word. Only with that contract secured and his sister happy would he consider just how he would deal with Red.

The sound of the buzz of many voices from the end of the corridor told him just where the event was being held and had him heading towards the glass-paned door.

The noise of conversation hit him along with a strong wave of perfume—a heady mixture of so many different fragrances. The room was full of women of all ages, shapes and sizes. There were flowers everywhere too, and a small runway set up in the centre of the hall with a white floor, leading to a fall of heavy velvet curtains in rich red. The colours of the flowers, the curtains, the women’s dresses and suits whirled and blurred into a kaleidoscopic haze.

‘And now, ladies, we have a special treat for you...’

The voice was immediately familiar and Nairo cursed under his breath. Because there she was again. The woman he had known as Red.

If he had felt that she had grown into a beautiful woman when he had first seen her in the boutique, then this was even worse. Now she was groomed, and sleek, elegant in a silky peacock-blue shift dress, simple and sleeveless, that clung lovingly all the way from the softly scooped neck, over the curves of breasts and hips to end just above her knees and reveal a heart-jolting slender length of leg. The ridiculously high-heeled shoes were exactly the same colour as the dress, except for a perky little white bow at the toe. The whole effect had him clenching his hands into tight fists and pushing them deep into the pockets of his trousers as he fought with his immediate and primitive response.

He’d thought he’d put her out of his mind. He’d tried his damnedest to do just that, but it had taken only one look, one touch, and it had become obvious just why he’d been hooked in that way. She’d had the power to entrance him as a skinny girl and now she’d grown up, matured, he was swamped by a hunger he hadn’t felt before or since. Then he’d been naïve enough to label it with a softer emotion because then he’d been fool enough to believe that emotion existed. He’d soon learned his lesson.

Now was not the time he wanted to remember how he had once been able to hold one slender foot in his hand, lift it to his mouth and kiss it from the long, delicate toes all the way up to where her legs disappeared under her skirt...

...and beyond.

Infierno! He could feel an unwanted heat flooding his body, hardening him and making his heart pulse in a hungry response to the erotic memory that had him in its grip. Violently he shook his head to drive it away and only succeeded in drawing the attention of the women closest to him. Their expressions of surprise and the widening of their eyes a sure giveaway of how unexpected his presence was, here in this ultra-feminine environment.

Nairo ruthlessly determined to ignore them—he had no interest in any woman here except for Red—and the important designer, wherever she was. He pointedly directed his gaze towards the runway, and the woman on it, her auburn hair gleaming glossily under the spotlight.

He watched Red lift the microphone again and announce, ‘As I said—a real treat—for the first time ever an exclusive preview of my brand-new designs for spring.’

My.

The word exploded inside Nairo’s head, battering at his thoughts. My brand-new designs...