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If only Maria would make the sacrifice worthwhile. If only she would stop playing with trinkets and get a real job…
“My mother,” Maria said, and sighed again. “Did she say what she wanted?”
“Her back is acting up. She has indigestion. Her doctor is of no use to her.” Joaquin cleared his throat. “Mrs. Ferrara’s daughter was just promoted.”
Maria nodded. “Of course.”
“So was your cousin Angela.”
“Again,” Maria said, deadpan.
“Again,” Joaquin agreed.
Suddenly, it seemed too much. The day. The disappointment. The overdue bank loan. The flu symptoms she couldn’t shake, and now a call from Mama… A little moan escaped her lips. Joaquin put his arms around her and she gave in and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Maria, I have a fine idea. Come with me. You know Sela will be thrilled to see you. She is making Chile Colorado for supper. When was the last time you had something so delicious, hmm?”
She smiled, stood straight and knotted the woolen scarf at his neck.
“Joaquin,” she said gently, “go home.”
“If there was a way Sela and I could help you—”
“I know.”
“If only you had gotten that commission. I still cannot understand the reason you didn’t win.”
She understood it, but she’d sooner have died than divulge it. “You’ll see, Joaquin. Everything will work out.”
“De su boca al oído del Dios.”
From her mouth to God’s ear. It made her smile again. She clasped his face in her hands and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Go home, mi amigo.”
“Sela will be angry I left you alone at a time like this.”
“Tell Sela I love her but I am your boss,” Maria said with mock severity, “and I sent you home.”
Joaquin grinned. “Yes, boss,” he said, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
She watched as he made his way to the door. It swung shut after him and she wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. It was very cold in the loft. The high ceiling seemed to steal the landlord’s miserly allotment of heat from the radiators and the windows, though wonderfully big, were as old as the building. On a day like this, the wind was relentless and sent chilly air straight into the cavernous room.
A draft was blowing right on her. And a film of frost was just beginning to form on the glass. Maria rubbed at it with her fist…
What was that car doing here?
It was parked just across the street. A big car, long and black and elegant. She knew little about automobiles but in this still-ungentrified stretch of Lower Manhattan a Rolls or a Mercedes or a Bentley, whatever the vehicle was, stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.
Her lips turned down.
It was probably a realtor, trying to get a feel for things. They’d been showing up as regularly as rats in the alley, a sure sign that the area was about to become too expensive for people like her. One realtor had even turned up at her door a couple of weeks ago, oozing charm. She’d only managed to get rid of him by assuring him she didn’t own her loft—though she hadn’t been able to keep from telling him that if she did, there wasn’t a way in the world she’d sell it to him.
In a gesture of defiance and frustration, she glared at the car and stuck out her tongue. Then she drew back into the darkness, laughing nervously at herself. What a crazy thing to do but on a day that had gone as badly as this, it was better than nothing.
Alex, sitting in the back of the Bentley limo, blinked in surprise.
Had the Santos woman just stuck her tongue out at him?
No. Why would she do that? She couldn’t even see him. It was dark. The windows of the car were tinted. She had no way of knowing if there was someone in the car or not.
A distortion, then, caused by the cold and the heavily falling snow.
Not that it had been falling heavily enough to have kept him from seeing that cozy lovers’ greeting between her and the man who’d just left. And not that he gave a damn. Five minutes to explain why he was here, that the commission was hers, and that would be the end of it.
This was for his mother. He could ignore his anger. His disgust. He could do this.
He just wished he hadn’t had to view such a charming little scene. It was enough to make his belly knot. A snowy evening. A lover, so eager for his woman that he met her downstairs. Greeted her with tenderness. Went back upstairs with her. Talked to her. Kissed her…
And walked away.
Alex frowned.
What sort of lover was this man? Why had he chosen the cold night instead of a woman’s heat? As for tenderness… Did he not know that tenderness was not what Maria Santos wanted? She was hot. Wild. Eager in bed.
Even now, he could remember how she had been that night. Her scent. Lilies of the valley, he had thought, as delicate and fragrant as those that grew wild in the hills near his home on the cliffs. Her skin, warm and soft under his questing hands. Her hair, brushing like silk against his throat.
Her nipples, sweet on his tongue.
Her mouth hot, so hot against his.
Her little cries. Her moans. That one incredible moment as he’d entered her when he’d thought—when he’d imagined—that she had never before known a man’s possession.
And, damn it, what in hell was he doing? His body had grown hard, just remembering. Alex let down the window and drew a long breath of cold, snow-laden air into his lungs.
The thing to remember was not how she had been in his bed but the reason she had been there. It had not been an accident; that she’d stood in seeming uncertainty just in front of the building in which he had his offices in Ellos, guidebook in hand, had been, he knew, deliberate.
He had not suspected it then.
But he’d noticed her right away. What man wouldn’t?
Slender, very pretty, her dark mane of hair pulled away from her face by a simple gold clasp and left to tumble down her back, her figure limned by the fading light of the day, she’d been a delightful sight.
He’d paused as he came out the door. She had a pair of small reading glasses perched on the end of her nose; somehow, that had added to her charm.
American, he’d thought, a tourist. And, without question, lost.
He’d been in no particular hurry to go anywhere. Okay, why not? he’d said to himself, and smiled as he’d approached her. “Excuse me,” he’d said pleasantly, “but do you need some help?”
She’d looked up from the slim guidebook, her eyes a little blurry because of the glasses. Her hesitation had been artful, just enough to make her seem not just cautious but almost old-fashioned.
“Well—well—thank you. Yes, actually, I do. If you could tell me… I’m looking for the Argus. It’s a restaurant. Well, a café. The guidebook says it’s supposed to be right here. The hotel desk clerk said so, too. But—”
“But it isn’t,” Alex had said, smiling again. “And, I’m afraid, it hasn’t been, not for at least a year.”
Her face had fallen. Disappointment had only made her lovelier.
“Oh. Oh, I see. Well—thank you again.”
“You’re most welcome.”
She’d taken off her glasses and gone on looking up at him, her eyes—hazel, he’d noted, neither brown nor green nor gold but a veritable swirl of colors—as wide and innocent as a fawn’s.
Innocent as a fox approaching a hen house, he thought now, his mouth thinning to a tight line.
Maria Santos had known exactly what she was doing, right up to how she’d reacted when he’d suggested another restaurant nearby.
“Is it …?” She’d hesitated. “I mean, is this other restaurant—?”
“As good as the Argus?” Truth was, he had no idea. He’d never been to the Argus. From what little he recalled, it had been a tiny café, just a place to get a quick bite.
“As inexpensive.” Color had swept into her cheeks. “The guidebook says—”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he’d said, because she wouldn’t.
The restaurant he’d recommended was incredibly expensive—but he would take her to it. He would dine with her and pay the bill. Just to talk, he’d told himself. Just to be a good ambassador for his country, even though—to his surprise—this beautiful stranger did not seem to recognize his face when the simple truth, much to his chagrin, was that spotting him was as much a tourist attraction as the beaches, the yachts and the casino.
The hell she hadn’t recognized him.
She’d known who he was. She’d set the entire thing up.
But he had not known it, then.
She’d protested prettily that she couldn’t possibly let him pay for her meal but she’d let him think he’d overcome her protests. And, after dinner, when they’d walked along the sea wall, when he’d kissed her while they stood surrounded by the tall pines that grew on a little promontory and their kisses had gone from soft and exploratory to hot and deep, when his hands had gone under her silk skirt and she’d moaned into his mouth, when he’d put his arm tightly around her waist, still kissing her, and led her through the now-quiet streets to his flat, to his bed, when she’d clung to him and whispered she’d never done anything like this before…
When she’d come apart in his arms, her cries so sweet, so wild, so real…
Alex cursed.
“Sir?” his driver said, but Alex ignored him, swung open the door of the Bentley himself and stepped into the night.
Lies, all of it, lies that had come undone in the early morning when he’d reached for her again and found her side of the bed empty. He’d assumed she was in the bathroom.
She wasn’t.
He’d heard her voice, soft as the breeze from the sea. Was she on the phone? Without knowing why he did it, he’d carefully lifted the one on his night table and brought it to his ear.
Yes, he’d heard her say with a breathy little laugh, yes, Joaquin, I think I really do have a good chance of being named the winner. I know the competition is tough but I have every reason to believe my chances are really excellent.
She’d looked up from the telephone when he walked into the kitchen. Her face had gone crimson.
“You’re awake,” she’d begun to say, with an awkward smile.
He’d taken the phone from her hand. Pressed the ‘end’ button. Carried her back to bed without saying a word, taken her in passion born of anger.
Then he’d told her to get her clothes on. To get the hell out. And not to bother showing up at the palace, later.
“Your chances of being named to design my mother’s birthday gift,” he’d said in clipped tones, “are less than those of a snowball in hell.”
Alex strode across the street.
It had taken two months but that prediction was no longer just a metaphor. Here was the snow. And, in just a couple of minutes, Maria Santos would get a first-hand introduction to hell.
And he would get the satisfaction of putting her, and that night, out of his head.
Forever.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_49df7f2a-42b9-567f-bfd4-1e90ae0dacd7)
MARIA sighed, peeled off her dressed-for-success suit jacket, tossed it over the back of a chair and automatically reached for the phone to return her mother’s call.
Her hand stilled.
What was she doing? A ten-minute litany of aches and pains, followed by a lecture about how she needed to get a real job, were the last things she wanted right now.
Get out of her clothes. Run a hot bath. Eat something. Then she’d make the call.
Maria looked at her shoes, made a face and heaved them into the big trash can beside her work table. Gorgeous but impractical. She should have known better than to have bought them. Gorgeous but impractical was not for her. It never had been.
And she hadn’t bought the shoes for today, she’d bought them for the weekend she’d gone to Aristo. She’d wanted to look sophisticated, but the shoes hadn’t done her much good then, either. Even if she’d looked sophisticated, she’d behaved like a—like a—
No. She wasn’t going there. Not tonight. Rejected by a phony Frenchman today, rejected by an arrogant Aristan two months ago.
That was more than enough.
She stepped out of her skirt and padded, barefoot, to the end of the loft that served as a sleeping area. She tossed the skirt on the futon, peeled off her bra and pantyhose, yanked the clasp from her hair, bent forward and ran her hands briskly through the now-wildly curling strands. Then she tossed her head back, grabbed a pair of old, scruffy sweats, and put them on.
Time for supper, though the thought of eating made her feel vaguely queasy.
Nothing new in that. On top of everything else, she’d felt vaguely ill for the past week or so. No big surprise, considering that half the city was down with the flu. She probably had it, too, but she couldn’t afford to give in to it right now, not with half a dozen pieces to complete by the end of the month.
Her buyers expected her to be prompt. And she needed the money they’d owe her on delivery.
So, no, she wouldn’t even admit to the possibility that she might be sick. Absolutely not. She was under stress, she was working hard. The fatigue, the heaviness in her limbs, the faint sense of nausea that came and went…
Stress, was what it was.
Something to eat, something bland, would make her feel better. Nerves had made her bypass breakfast; lunch had been a joke. Definitely, she had to put something in her stomach.
Soup? Scrambled eggs? Grilled cheese? Better still, she could order in from Lo Ming’s, down on the corner. Egg drop soup. Steamed dumplings. Forget the calories. Forget the cost. An order of Chinese comfort food, then she’d turn on the TV, curl up on the sofa, get lost in something mindless while—
