Kitabı oku: «Indebted To Moreno»

CHAPTER ONE

NAIRO ROJA MORENO stepped out of the door of his private jet and frowned savagely as the icy blast of air and rain crashed into his face, making him blink hard against the cold.

‘Perdición!’ he swore, pulling up the collar of his jacket, the wind whipping the word from his lips and whirling it up into the steel-grey sky. ‘It’s raining!’

Of course it was raining. This was England, and it seemed that the weather had conspired to remind him just how much he loathed the place.

London, where he’d once thought his life might start afresh only to find that what was left of his heart had been taken and carelessly discarded without a second thought.

‘No.’

He made his way down the steps, tossing back his hair in defiance at the weather. The memories that swirled in his thoughts had nothing to do with the temperatures, except for the fact that it had always been cold in that damn house. Cold and miserable except for the times that he had been able to persuade Red to join him in the tatty, inadequate sleeping bag.

Be honest. It wasn’t the weather or the house that had got to him. It was the coldness of betrayal. The coldness of a heart he had once thought was warm and giving. Until she had left him with nothing when she had vanished out of his life and into the night.

Well, good riddance to her, he told himself, shaking off his memories in the same moment as he slid into the car that was waiting for him. He had had no inclination to go after her, and there had been no time to even consider it. He had been so occupied turning his life around and making his way back to his family—a reconciliation that she had almost destroyed by her actions—that she had been the last thing on his mind. He’d managed a second chance and he wasn’t going to stuff it up. This trip to London would be the final part of the task he had set himself.

‘Dacre Street,’ he told the driver in response to the man’s request for a destination. He could only hope the driver knew where the damn place was; it was in no part of the London he usually frequented.

Nairo settled back on the seat, frowning darkly as he raked his wet hair back from his face. He had to get into the city, do the job he’d come to do, keep his promise to Esmeralda. He had so much to make up to his sister and this one last thing to make her happy was what mattered. After this, his duty was done.

* * *

If there ever was a day when it was the worst possible moment for Louise to need to go home sick, then it had to be today, Rose told herself, sighing as she pushed back a floating strand of bright auburn hair that had escaped from the neat braid for the nth time. Obviously her normally efficient and organised assistant had been feeling worse than she had let on the previous day, if the state of the reception area was anything to go by. Everything needed tidying, and the diary that detailed today’s appointments had been splashed with coffee, blurring the details.

Not that Rose needed any reminders. The appointment had been made a week ago, the first contact being with a heavily accented voice on the other end of the phone. Nairo Roja Moreno’s PA as she declared herself to be.

‘Nairo Roja Moreno...’ Rose murmured to herself as she considered the blurred words in the diary. The eldest son of an aristocratic Spanish family, his PA had informed her. And he wanted to talk to her about a wedding dress?

She’d meant to look up this Spaniard on the Internet last night, but her mother had been so unwell that it had taken all of her time and attention to get them both through the evening.

When she’d got the confirmation email she’d been overjoyed. It had seemed like a rescue mission arriving just in time. Caring for her mother through her illness had drained her resources, taken all her energy, mental and physical. She’d had no new commissions in an age. The mess of her marriage that had never been and the scandal that had followed it had seen to that. She was behind with the rent on the boutique, had barely been able to meet the costs of her flat. But if this Nairo Moreno really did want her to design his sister’s wedding dress together with the bridesmaids’ outfits, the flower girls and pageboys of which there seemed to be dozens, well, it might just save her from going under. Save her reputation publicly, save her life financially and perhaps even save her mother’s life in reality.

Joy had endured a long and difficult battle with the cancer that had assailed her. She was weak and drained by chemotherapy, the operation, and was only just starting to recover. Any new shock, any extra stress might be dangerous, and, after all the time it had taken to rebuild their relationship from a perilously rocky point ten years before, Rose hated to think that everything could be destroyed now.

Her aristocratic visitor would be here any moment. Tapping her pen in a restless tattoo on the appointment book, Rose frowned as she looked out at the lashing rain that was splattering the plate-glass window of her design rooms. Not the best day to imagine a summer wedding.

Jett had hated the rain, particularly in the unheated squat. As a result, so many rainy days had been spent cuddled up together...

A rush of dark memories swamped her mind, loosening her grip so that the pen dropped from her hand, falling to the floor and rolling away under a display cabinet.

‘Darn it!’

Getting down on her hands and knees, she groped in the darkness, fumbling for the pen just out of reach. It was then that she heard the door open behind her, the rush of cold damp air telling her that someone had come into the building from the street.

‘Sorry! Just a moment.’

‘De nada.’

It was the sexiest voice, deep and dark and so beautifully accented.

Of course! The Spanish aristocrat—what was his name? Nairo something. Suddenly becoming aware of the way she must look, bottom in the air, narrow skirt stretched tight, she made one final lurch, banging her head on the shelf before grabbing the pen, then turning to push herself upwards.

It was no problem to wait, Nairo reflected. He was perfectly happy to stay here and enjoy the spectacle of a deliciously rounded bottom stuck up in the air as its owner groped for something under the shelving. Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned back against the door feeling his pulse kick up and thud hard and heavy in his veins as he enjoyed the view before him.

If there was one thing he hadn’t anticipated on this unwanted trip to England, then it was the possibility of indulging in a little sensual pleasure. There was so much to be planned and organised back in Spain, with the demands of his sister’s soon-to-be in-laws to take into consideration, that he had allowed himself only the freedom of a couple of days away from the chaos and uproar that The Wedding of the Century had created.

Now, with this tantalising display of female charms on display before him, he allowed himself to reconsider.

It had been a long time—too long—since he had had the pleasures of a woman in his bed. His father’s final illness, the need for ferocious commitment to work on the family estates, restoring the Moreno fallen fortunes, and now, of course, Esmeralda’s engagement and upcoming wedding had ensured that he had had little time to breathe.

Suddenly the prospect of a few days’ relaxation, even in the grey, rainy city of London, had infinitely more appeal.

‘Got it!’

The triumph in the woman’s voice made him smile, but it was a smile that leached from his lips as he saw her lift her head.

Red hair. His personal curse. A bronze, auburn red it was true, not the bright red that had been one of the glories that he had so loved in the woman who had once filled his days, haunted his dreams.

Red...

The echo of his own voice sounded inside his head as memories threatened to surface. He had fought against those memories, pushing them behind him as he set about restoring his life to some degree of order and rebuilding it from the mess it had become. The last thing he wanted was the resurfacing of anything that connected him to the time when he had lived in London in such very different circumstances.

Scarlett. It was the name of this shop—the designer that Esmeralda had sent him to find—that had put these thoughts in his mind.

‘I’m sorry— I— Ouch!’ The sharp cry of pain broke into his thoughts.

She had lifted her head rather too quickly in her triumph at having found whatever it was she was looking for and so had caught her face on the side of the shelf. Immediately he moved forward, holding out his hand to her.

‘Allow me...’

That voice was designed to turn any woman to mush, Rose told herself. And the firm, warm grip of his hand was like touching a live wire, sizzling reaction sparking all along her arm.

‘Th-thank you.’

The sharp bang on her forehead had brought tears to her eyes so that she was blinking hard to clear them as he swung her to her feet, the strength of the movement bringing her up and close to him. So close that she almost fell against him as she rocked on her toes before she managed to snatch back her balance and settle her feet on the floor.

She was assailed by a rush of heat from the closeness of a powerful male body, her senses tantalised by the heady combination of the musky scent of clean male skin, a sensual tang of some citrusy aftershave, all topped off with the fresh, wild trace of rain and wind that he had brought in from the street outside.

Suddenly, shockingly, all she could think of was one word, one man, one memory.

Jett... The word slammed into her mind without thought, without control.

No!

Why was she thinking of him? It was almost ten years since the night she had fled from the squat. A decade in which she had picked herself up, dusted herself off and built her life back up again. To the stage where this Spanish aristocrat was here today to discuss a commission to design a wedding dress for his sister.

A commission that she desperately needed. It would be the first time ever she had been asked to design a dress outside the small spread of the local area, unless you counted the dress that her friend Marina Marriot had worn just last month at her wedding to an up-and-coming actor.

‘I’m fine now...’

She wished she didn’t sound quite so breathless. Wished she had let go of his hand before this so that it didn’t look quite so embarrassing as she had to ease her fingers from his.

‘De nada.’

Again the sound of that sexy accent coiled around her, bringing memories of another man who had spoken with just that hint of an exotic pronunciation.

But there was no way that Jett would wear a suit like this one that made this man look so sleek and powerful and magnificent. That had to have been custom-made to flatter the powerful straight shoulders, the width of his chest and the lean length of his legs down to where his feet in polished handmade shoes were firmly planted on the tiled floor. Jett had never owned a suit. Like her, he had barely had a change of clothes. The tee shirt and jeans she wore as she fled from the house where the unwanted attentions of her stepfather had made sure it had never felt like a home being the only items that she’d had to drape over the door to what was laughingly called their bedroom.

Her eyes had cleared now and she was looking up into the carved, hard features of the most stunning man she had ever seen. Amber eyes framed with impossibly lush, black lashes burned down into hers. Hard bones shaped the lean cheeks, touched with a darkness of stubble even this early in the day. That mouth was an invitation to sin, warm, sensual, full lips slightly parted over sharp white teeth.

And she knew how that mouth felt, how it tasted...

She felt the world tilt on its axis, the room swinging round her.

‘Jett...’

There was no holding it back this time. She didn’t even try. It escaped on a breath that was all she could manage as she realised just who this man was.

A man who had once filled her days and haunted her nights. Even when she had run from him she had still taken him with her in her thoughts, her nights filled with memories that jolted her awake, left her drenched in sweat, her heart pounding. A man she had had to hand over to the police when she had learned the source of the money he had suddenly come into, then left to face the repercussions of his actions.

‘Jett?’ She heard him echo her response sharply, a frown snapping the black, straight brows together, cold eyes looking down into her upturned face.

Those amazing eyes narrowed, the beautiful mouth tightening as his head came up and he took a step back, away from her.

‘Red... I didn’t know you worked here.’

Worked here. Perhaps that was a score one to the fact that he really was here by accident. That he hadn’t sought her out—because why would he do that after all this time? The thought didn’t help with the thumping of her heart, the feeling like the beating of a thousand butterfly wings in the pit of her stomach. He hadn’t come looking for her and it was all just a terrible misstep of fate.

But that dark emphasis on the word you twisted something in her guts, bringing home an awareness of the fact that she was all alone, not even Louise in the office, within call. Tension stiffened her back, tightened her shoulders.

‘And I didn’t know you worked for Nairo Moreno.’

That brought an unexpected twist to his mouth, the sensual lips twitching into something that could have been described as a smile but was totally without any warmth in it. His eyes seemed to impale her where she stood.

‘Not worked... I am Nairo Moreno. I came here to see Ms Cavalliero. Oh—what, my darling Red...?’

The smile grew wider, darker.

‘Did you think I was here to see you? That I would have hunted you down after all this time, determined to find you?’

She had actually considered that fact, Nairo told himself. It was written all over her beautiful face. The young girl he had once known as ‘Red’ had always held the promise of being a looker, but he had never anticipated her growing into the sleek, sexy vision who stood before him.

That pert bottom that had caught his attention from the start was only a small part of a slim, shapely figure displayed to full advantage in the cream lace blouse and navy blue, clinging skirt. The hair that had once been the vivid, vibrant colour that gave her her nickname was now a more subtle auburn shade, still with the glint of red blending in with the glossy darker tones. Those almond-shaped, slightly slanting hazel eyes were even more feline than before when accentuated with the subtle use of cosmetics that she would never have been able to afford back then.

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.