Taming the Last AcostaItalian Boss, Proud Miss Prim
Page 3
And why not? What happened was freely given and freely taken by both of you.
‘Are you okay?’ he said, glancing down when she remained immobile.
‘Of course I am,’ she said in a casual tone. Inwardly she was screaming. Was she really so stupid she had imagined she would come out of something like this unscathed?
Even inward reasoning didn’t help—she was still waiting for him to say something encouraging. How pathetic was that? She had never felt like this before, and had no way of dealing with the feelings, so, gathering up her clothes, she lost herself in mundane matters—shaking the grass off her jacket, pulling on her jeans, sorting her hair out, then smoothing her hands over her face, hoping that by the time she removed them she would appear cool and detached.
Wrong. She felt as if she’d come out the wrong end of a spin dry.
Her thoughts turned at last to her camera. It was still lying on the bank, temptingly close. She had learned her lesson where lunging for it was concerned, but felt confident that Kruz would give it to her now. It was the least he could do.
Fortunately Kruz appeared to be oblivious both to her and to her camera. He was on the phone, telling his security operatives that he was patrolling the grounds.
She eased her neck, as if that would ease the other aches, most of which had taken up residence in her heart.
Hadn’t she learned anything from the past? Had Kruz made her forget her father’s rages and her mother’s dependency on a violent man?
Kruz hadn’t been in any way violent towards her—but he was strong, commanding, and detached from emotion. All the things she had learned to avoid.
She was safe in that, unlike her mother, she had learned to avoid the pitfalls of attachment by switching off her emotions. In that she wasn’t so dissimilar from Kruz. This was just a brief interlude of fun for both of them and now it was over. Neither of them was capable of love.
Love?
He swung round as she made a wry sound. Love was a long road to nowhere, with a punch in the teeth at the end. So, yes, if she was in any doubt at all about the protocol between two strangers who’d just had sex on a grassy bank, she’d go with cool and detached every time.
‘Right,’ he said, ending the call, ‘I need to get back.’
‘Of course,’ she said off-handedly. ‘But I’d like my camera first.’
He frowned, as if they were two strangers at odds with each other. ‘You’ve had your fun and now you’re on your way,’ he said.
She’d asked for that, Romy concluded. ‘Well, I’m not going anywhere without it,’ she said stubbornly. It was true. The camera was more than a tool of her trade, it was a fifth limb. It was an extension of her body, of her mind. It was the only way she knew how to make the money she needed to support herself and her mother.
‘I’ve told you already. You’ll get it back when I’ve checked it,’ he said coldly, hoisting the camera over his shoulder.
‘You’re my censor now?’ she said, chasing after him. ‘I don’t think so.’
The look Kruz gave her made her stomach clench with alarm.
‘You can sleep in the bunkhouse,’ he said, ‘along with the rest of the press crew. Pick up your camera in the morning from my staff.’
She blinked. He’d said it as if they hadn’t touched each other, pleasured each other.
They’d had sex and that was all.
Except for the slap in the face she got from realising that he saw it as no reason to give up her camera. ‘By morning it will be too late—I need it now.’
‘For what?’ he said.
‘I have to edit the photographs and then catch the news desk.’ It was a lie of desperation, but she would do anything to recover her camera. ‘There is another reason,’ she added, waiting for a thunderclap to strike her down. This idea had only just occurred to her. ‘I need to work on the shots I’m donating to your charity.’
As if he’d guessed, Kruz’s eyes narrowed. ‘The Acosta charity?’
‘Yes.’ She had a lot of shots in the can, Romy reasoned, quickly running through them in her mind. She had more than enough to pay for her mother’s care and to keep herself off the breadline. She had taken a lot of shots specifically for Grace’s album, and he couldn’t have those, but there were more—plenty more.
Had she bought herself a reprieve? Romy wondered as she stared at Kruz. ‘I’ve identified a good opportunity for the charity,’ she said, as the germ of an idea sprouted wings.
‘Tell me,’ Kruz said impatiently.
‘My editor at ROCK! is thinking about making a feature on the Acostas and your charity.’ Or at least she would make sure he was thinking about it by the time she got back. ‘Think of how that would raise the charity’s profile,’ she said, dangling a carrot she hoped no Acosta in his right mind could refuse.
‘So why didn’t Grace or Holly tell me about this?’ Kruz probed, staring at her keenly. ‘If either of them had mentioned it I would have made sure you were issued with an official pass.’
‘I am here on a mission for Grace,’ Romy admitted, ‘which is how I got in. Grace asked me not to say anything, and I haven’t. It’s crucial that Nacho doesn’t learn about Grace’s special surprise. I hope you’ll respect that.’ Kruz remained silent as she went on. ‘I’m sure Grace and Holly were just too wrapped up in the wedding to remember to tell you,’ she said, not wanting to get either of her friends into trouble.
Kruz paused. And now she could only wait.
‘I suppose Grace could confirm this if I asked her?’
‘If you feel like interrogating a bride on her wedding day, I’m sure she would.’
One ebony brow lifted. Whether Kruz believed her or not, for the moment she had him firmly in check.
‘The solution to this,’ he remarked, ‘is that I take a look at the shots and I decide.’
As he strode away she ran after him. Dodging in front of him, she forced him to stop.
He studied Romy’s elfin features with a practised eye. He interpreted the nervous hand running distractedly through her disordered hair. The camera meant everything to her, and if there was one thing that could really throw Ms Winner he had it swinging from his shoulder now. She was terrified he was going to disappear with her camera. She worked with it every day. It was her family, her income stream, her life. He almost felt sorry for her, and then stamped the feeling out. What was Romy Winner to him?
Actually, she was a lot more than he wanted her to be. She had got to him in a way he hadn’t quite fathomed yet. ‘Is there some reason why I shouldn’t see these shots?’ he asked, teasing her by lifting the camera to Romy’s eye level.
‘None whatsoever,’ she said firmly, but her face softened in response to his mocking expression and she almost smiled.
Testing Romy was fun, he discovered, and fun and he were strangers. With such a jaundiced palette as his, any novelty was a prize. But he wouldn’t taunt her any longer. He wasn’t a bully, and wouldn’t intentionally try to increase that look of concern in her eyes. ‘Shall we?’ he invited, glancing at the press coach.
She eyed him suspiciously, perhaps wondering if she was being set up. She knew there was nothing she could do about it, if that were the case. She strode ahead of him, head down, mouth set in a stubborn line, no doubt planning her next move. And then she really did throw him.
‘So, what have you got to hide?’ she asked him, swinging round at the door
‘Me?’ he demanded.
‘You think that’s why I confiscated it?’
‘Maybe,’ she said, not flinching from his stare.
That direct look of hers asked a lot of questions about a man who could have such prolonged and spectacular sex with a woman he didn’t know. It was a look that suggested Romy was asking herself the same question.
‘Are you worried that I might have taken some compromising pictures of you?’ she said. There was a tug of humour at one corner of her mouth.
‘Worried?’ He shook his head. But the truth was he had never been so reckless with a woman. He sure as hell wouldn’t be so reckless again.
‘Kruz?’ she prompted.
His name sounded soft on her lips. That had to be a first. He smiled. ‘What?’
‘Just checking you know I’m still here.’
He gave her a wry look and felt a surge of heat when she tossed one back. He wasn’t an animal. He was still capable of feeling. His brother Nacho had made him believe that when Kruz had been discharged from the army hospital. It was Nacho who had persuaded him to channel his particular talents into a security company, saying Kruz must need and feel and care before he could really start living again. Nacho was right. The more he looked at Romy, the more human he felt.
Did Kruz have to stare at her lips like that? Here she was, trying to forget her body was still thrilling from his touch, and he wasn’t making it easy. She was a professional woman, trying to persuade herself she would soon get over tonight—yet all he had to do was look at her for her to long for him to take hold of her and draw her into an embrace that was neither sexual nor mocking. She had never wanted to share and trust and rest awhile quite so badly.
And she wasn’t about to fall into that trap now.
‘Shall we take a look?’
She looked at Kruz and frowned.
‘The pictures?’ he prompted, and she realised that he had not only removed the key to the press coach from her hand, but had opened the door and was holding it for her.
That yearning feeling inside...?
It wasn’t helpful. Women who felt the urge to nurture men would end up like her mother: battered, withdrawn, and helpless in a nursing home.
She led the way into the coach. Her manner was cold. They were both cold, and that suited her fine.
Romy’s mood now was a slap in the face to him after what they’d experienced together, but he had to concede she was only as detached as he was. He was just surprised, he supposed, that those much vaunted attributes of tenderness and sensitivity, which women were supposed to possess in abundance, appeared to have bypassed her completely. He should be pleased about that, but he wasn’t. He was offended. Romy was the first woman who hadn’t clung to him possessively after sex. And bizarrely, for the first time in his life, some primitive part of him had wanted her to.
‘Are you coming in?’ she said, when he stood at the entrance at the top of the steps.
His senses surged as he brushed past her. However unlikely it seemed to him, this whip-thin fighting girl stirred him like no other. He wanted more. So did she, judging by than quick intake of breath. He could feel her sexual hunger in the energy firing between them. But Romy wanted more that he could give her. He wanted more of Romy, but all he wanted was sex.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE MADE HER way down the aisle towards the area at the rear of the coach set aside for desks and equipment. Her small, slender shape, dressed all in black, quickly became part of the shadows.
‘I know there’s a light switch in here somewhere,’ she said.
Her voice was a little shaky now the door was closed, and the tension rocketed between them. He could feel her anticipation as she waited for his next move. He could taste it in the air. He could detect her arousal. He was a hunter through and through.
‘Here,’ he said, pressing a switch that illuminated the coach and set some unseen power source humming.
‘Thank you,’ she said, with her back to him as she sat down at a desk.
‘You’ll need this,’ he said, handing over the camera.
She thanked him and hugged it to her as if it contained gold bars rather than her shots.
He had more time than he needed while she logged on. He used it to reflect on what had happened over the past hour or so. Ejecting Romy from the wedding feast should have been straightforward. She should have been on her way to Buenos Aires by now, then back to London. Instead his head was still full of her, and his body still wanted her. He could still hear her moaning and writhing beneath him and feel her beneath his hands. He could still taste her on his mouth, and he could remember the smell of her soap-fresh skin. He smiled in the shadows, remembering her attacking him, that tiny frame surprisingly strong, yet so undeniably feminine. Why did Romy Winner hide herself away behind the lens of a camera?
A blaze of colour hit the screen as she began to work. What he saw answered his question. Romy Winner was quite simply a genius with a camera. Images assailed his senses. The scenery was incredible, the wildlife exotic. Her pictures of the Criolla ponies were extraordinary. She had captured some amusing shots of the wedding guests, but nothing cruel, though she had caught out some of the most pompous in less than flattering moments. She’d taken a lot of pictures of the staff too, and it was those shots that really told a story. Perhaps because more expression could be shown on faces that hadn’t been stitched into place, he reflected dryly as Romy continued to sort and select her images.
She’d made him smile. Another first, he mused as she turned to him.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Do you like what you see?’
‘I like them,’ he confirmed. ‘Show me what else you’ve got.’
‘There’s about a thousand more.’
‘I’m in no hurry.’ For maybe the first time in his life.
‘Why don’t you pull up a chair?’ she suggested. ‘Just let me know if there any images you don’t feel are suitable for the charity.’
‘So I’m your editor now?’ he remarked, with some amusement after her earlier comment about censorship.
‘No,’ she said mildly. ‘You’re a client I want to please.’
He inclined his head in acknowledgement of this. He could think of a million ways she could please him. When she turned back to her work he thought the nape of her neck extremely vulnerable and appealing, just for starters. He considered dropping a kiss on the peachy flesh, and then decided no. Once he’d tasted her...
‘What do you think of these?’ she said, distracting him.
‘Grace is very beautiful,’ he said as he stared at Romy’s shots of the bride. He could see that his new sister-in-law was exquisite, like some beautifully fashioned piece of china. But did Grace move him? Did she make his blood race? He admired Grace as he might admire some priceless objet d’art, but it was Romy who heated his blood.
‘She is beautiful, isn’t she?’ Romy agreed, with a warmth in her voice he had never noticed before. She certainly didn’t use that voice when she spoke to him.
And why should he care?
Because for the first time in his life he found himself missing the attentions of a woman, and perhaps because he was still stung, after Romy’s enthusiastic response to their lovemaking, that she wasn’t telling him how she thrilled and throbbed, and all the other things his partners were usually at such pains to tell him. Had Romy Winner simply feasted on him and moved on? If she had, it would be the first time any woman had turned the tables on him.
‘This is the sort of shot
my editor loves,’ she said as she brought a picture of him up on the screen.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because you’re so elusive,’ she explained. ‘You’re hardly ever photographed. I’ll make a lot from this,’ she added with a pleased note in her voice.
Was he nothing but a commodity?
‘Though what I’d like to do,’ she explained, ‘is give it to the charity. So, much as I’d like to make some money out of you, you can have this one gratis.’
As she turned to him he felt like laughing. She was so honest, he felt...uncomfortable. ‘Thank you,’ he said with a guarded expression. ‘If you’ve just taken a couple of shots of me you can keep the rest. ‘
‘What makes you think I’d want to take more than one?’
Youch.
What, indeed? He shrugged and even managed to smile at that.
Romy Winner intrigued him. He had grown up with women telling him he was the best and that they couldn’t get enough of him. He’d grown up fighting for approval as the youngest of four highly skilled, highly intelligent brothers. When he couldn’t beat Nacho as a youth he had turned to darker pursuits—in which, naturally, he had excelled—until Nacho had finally knocked some sense into him. Then Harvard had beckoned, encouraging him to stretch what Nacho referred to as the most important muscle in his body: the brain. After college he had found the ideal outlet for his energy and tirelessly competitive nature in the army.
‘There,’ Romy said, jolting him back from these musings. ‘You’re finished.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ he said, leaning in close to study her edited version. He noticed again how lithe and strong she was, and how easy it would be to pull her into his arms.
‘I have a deadline,’ she said, getting back to work.
‘Go right ahead.’ He settled back to watch her.
The huge press coach was closing in on her, and all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck were standing erect at the thought of Kruz just a short distance away. She could hear him breathing. She could smell his warm, sexy scent. Some very interesting clenching of her interior muscles suggested she was going to have to concentrate really hard if she was going to get any work done.