Taming the Last AcostaItalian Boss, Proud Miss Prim

by Susan Stephens

  ‘Too good,’ Jane confessed, shimmying out of the red silk clingy number. ‘Those gauchos really know how to drink. But they’re chivalrous too. One of them insisted on accompanying me to the press coach and actually waited outside while I sent my copy so he could escort me back here.’

  ‘He waited for you outside the press coach?’

  ‘Of course outside,’ Jane said, laughing. ‘He was about ninety. And, anyway, it didn’t take me long to send my stuff. What I write is basically a comic strip. You know the sort of thing—scandal, slebs, stinking rich people. I only got a look-in because my dad used to work with one of the reporters who got an official invitation and he brought me in as his assistant.’

  Looking alarmed at this point, Jane waved a hand, keeping the other hand firmly clamped over her mouth.

  Jane had landed a big scoop, and Romy was hardly in a position to criticise the other girl’s methods. This wasn’t a profession for shrinking violets. The Acostas had nothing to worry about, but some of their guests definitely did, she reflected, remembering those prominent personalities she had noticed attending the wedding with the wrong partner.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she asked with concern as Jane got up and staggered in the general direction of the bathroom.

  ‘Fine...I’ll sleep it off on the plane going home. The gauchos said their boss has places going spare on his private jet tomorrow, so I’ll be travelling with the young royals, no less. And I’ll be collected from here and taken to the airstrip in a limo. I’ll be in the lap of luxury one minute and my crummy old office the next.’

  ‘That’s great—enjoy it while you can,’ Romy called out, trying to convince herself that this was a good thing, that she was in fact Saint Romy and thoroughly thrilled for Jane, and didn’t mind at all that the man she’d had sex with hadn’t even bothered to see her back to the bunkhouse safely.

  * * *

  He stayed on post until the lights went out in the bunkhouse and he was satisfied Romy was safely tucked up in bed. Pulling away from the fencepost, it occurred to him that against the odds his caring instinct seemed to have survived. But before he could read too much into that he factored his security business into the mix. Plus he had a sister. Before Lucia had got together with Luke he had always hoped someone would keep an eye on her when he wasn’t around. Why should he be any different where a girl like Romy was concerned?

  * * *

  London. Monday morning. The office. Grey skies. Cold. Bleak. Dark-clad people racing back and forth across the rainswept street outside her window, heads down, shoulders hunched against the bitter wind.

  It might as well be raining inside, Romy thought, shivering convulsively in her tiny cupboard of an office. It was so cold.

  She was cold inside and out, Romy reflected, hugging herself. She was back at work, which normally she loved, but today she couldn’t settle, because all she could think about was Kruz. And what was the point in that? She should do something worthwhile to make her forget him.

  Something like this, Romy thought some time later, poring over the finished version of Grace Acosta’s wedding journal. She had added a Braille commentary beside each photograph, so that Grace could explain each picture as she shared the journal. Romy had worried about the space the Braille might take up at first but, putting herself in Grace’s place, had known it was the right thing to do.

  Sitting back, she smiled. She had been looking forward to this moment for so long—the moment when she could hand over the finished journal to Grace. She wasn’t completely freelance yet, though this tiny office at ROCK! had housed many notable freelance photographers at the start of their careers and Romy dreamed of following in their footsteps. She hoped this first, really important commission for Grace would be the key to helping her on her way, and that she could make a business out of telling stories with pictures instead of pandering to the insatiable appetite for scandal. Maybe she could tell real stories about real people with her photographs—family celebrations, local news, romance—

  Romance?

  Yes. Romance, Romy thought, setting her mouth in a stubborn line.

  Excuse me for asking the obvious, but what exactly do you know about romance?

  As her inner critic didn’t seem to know when to be quiet, she answered firmly: In the absence of romance in my own life, my mind is a blank sheet upon which I will be able to record the happy moments in other people’s lives.

  Gathering up her work, Romy headed for the editing suite run by the magazine’s reining emperor of visuals: Ronald Smith. ROCK! relied on photographs for impact, which made the editor one of the most influential people in the building.

  ‘Ronald,’ Romy said, acknowledging her boss as she walked into his hushed and perfumed sanctum.

  ‘Well? What have you got for me, princess?’ Ronald demanded, lowering his faux-tortoiseshell of-the-moment spectacles down his surgically enhanced nose.

  ‘Some images to blow your socks off,’ she said mildly.

  ‘Show me,’ Ronald ordered.

  Romy stalled as she arranged her images on the viewing table. There was no variety. Why hadn’t she seen that before?

  Possibly because she had given the best images to Kruz?

  Ronald was understandably disappointed. ‘This seems to be a series of shots of the waiting staff,’ he said, raising his head to pin her with a questioning stare.

  ‘They had the most interesting faces.’

  ‘I hope our readers agree,’ Ronald said wearily, returning to studying the images Romy had set out for him. ‘It seems to me you’ve creamed off the best shots for yourself, and that’s not like you, Romy.’

  A rising sense of dread hit her as Ronald removed his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. She needed this job. She needed the financial security and she hated letting Ronald down.

  ‘I can’t believe,’ he began, ‘that I send you to Argentina and you return with nothing more than half a dozen shots I can use—and not one of them of the newly married couple in the bridal suite.’

  Romy huffed with frustration. Ronald really had gone too far this time. ‘What did you expect? Was I supposed to swing in through their window on a vine?’

  ‘You do whatever it takes,’ he insisted. ‘You do what you’re famous for, Romy.’

  Intruding where she wasn’t wanted? Was that to be her mark on history?

  ‘It was you who assured me you had an in to this wedding,’ Ronald went on. ‘When ROCK! was refused representation at the ceremony I felt confident that you would capture something special for us. I can’t believe you’ve let us down. I wouldn’t have given you time off for this adventure if I had known you would return with precisely nothing. You’re not freelance yet, Romy,’ he said, echoing her own troubled thoughts. ‘But the way you’re heading you’ll be freelancing sooner than you want to be.’

  She was only as good as her last assignment, and Ronald wouldn’t forget this. She had to try and make things right. ‘I must have missed something,’ she said, her brain racing to find a solution. ‘Let me go back and check my computer again—’

  ‘I think you better had,’ Ronald agreed. ‘But not now. You look all in.’

  Sympathy from Ronald was the last thing she had expected and guilty tears stung her eyes. She didn’t deserve Ronald’s concern. ‘You’re right,’ she said, pulling herself together. ‘Jet-lag has wiped me out. I should have waited until tomorrow. I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.’

  ‘You haven’t wasted my time,’ Ronald insisted. ‘You just haven’t shown me anything commercial—anything I can use.’

  ‘I’m confident I can get hold of some more shots. Just give me chance to look. I don’t want to disappoint you.’

  ‘It would be the first time that you have,’ Romy’s editor pointed out. ‘But first I want you to promise that you’ll leave ear
ly today and try to get some rest.’

  ‘I will,’ she said, feeling worse than ever when she saw the expression on Ronald’s face.

  Actually, she did feel a bit under the weather. And to put the cap on her day she had grown a nice crop of spots. ‘I won’t let you down,’ she said, turning at the door.

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ Ronald said, glancing up from the viewing table. ‘There’s someone waiting for you in your office.’

  Some hopeful intern, Romy guessed, no doubt waiting in breathless anticipation for a few words of encouragement from the once notorious and now about to be sacked Romy Winner. She pinned a smile to her face. No matter that she felt like a wrung-out rag and her only specialism today was projecting misery and failure, she would find those words of encouragement whatever it took.

  Hurrying along the corridors of power on the fifth floor, she headed for the elevators and her lowly cupboard in the basement. She could spare Ronald some shots from Grace’s folder. Crisis averted. She just had to sort them out. She should have sorted them out long before now.

  But she hadn’t because her head was full of Kruz.

  ‘Thank you,’ she muttered as her inner voice stated the obvious. Actually, the real reason was because she was still jet-lagged. She hadn’t travelled home in a luxurious private jet but in cattle class, with her knees on her chin in an aging commercial plane.

  And whose fault was that?

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Romy said out loud, to the consternation of her fellow travellers in the elevator.

  The steel doors slid open on a different world. Gone were the cutting edge bleached oak floors of the executive level, the pale ecru paint, the state-of-the-art lighting specifically designed to draw attention to the carefully hung covers of ROCK! In the place of artwork, on this lowly, worker bee level was a spaghetti tangle of exposed pipework that had nothing to do with minimalist design and everything to do with neglect. A narrow avenue of peeling paint, graffiti and lino led to the door of her trash tip of a cupboard.

  Stop! Breathe deeply. Pin smile to face. Open door to greet lowly, hopeful intern—

  Or not!

  ‘Language, Romy,’ Kruz cautioned.

  Had she said a bad word? Had she even spoken? ‘Sorry,’ she said with an awkward gesture. ‘I’m just surprised to see you.’ To put it mildly.

  It took her a moment to rejig her thoughts. She had been wearing her most encouraging smile, anticipating an intern waiting eagerly where she had once stood, hoping for a word of encouragement to send her on her way. Romy had been lucky enough to get that word, and had been determined that whoever wanted to see her today would receive some encouragement too. She doubted Kruz needed any.

  So forget the encouraging word.

  Okay, then.

  Standing by the chipped and shabby table that passed for her desk, Kruz Acosta, in all his business-suited magnificence, accessorised with a stone-faced stare and an over-abundance of muscle, was toying with some discarded images she had printed out, scrunched up and had been meaning to toss.

  They were all of him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  OKAY, SHE COULD handle this. She had to handle this. Whatever Kruz was here for it wasn’t her.

  She had to make sure he didn’t leave with the impression that he had intimidated her.

  And how was she going to achieve that with her heart racing off the scale?

  She was going to remain calm, hold her head up high and meet him on equal ground.

  ‘I like your office, Romy,’ he murmured, in the sexy, faintly mocking voice she remembered only too well. ‘Do all the executives at ROCK! get quite so much space?’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ she said, closing this down before he could get started. ‘So space is at a premium in the city.’

  The smile crept from Kruz’s mouth to his eyes, which had a corresponding effect on her own expression. That was half the trouble—it was hard to remain angry with him for long. She guessed Kruz probably had the top floor of a skyscraper to himself, with a helipad as the cherry on top.

  ‘What can I do for you, Kruz?’ she said, proud of how cool she sounded.

  So many things. Which was why he’d decided to call by. His office was just around the corner. And he’d needed to...to take a look at some more photographs, he remembered, jolting his mind back into gear.

  ‘Those shots you gave me for the charity,’ he said, producing the memory stick Romy had given him back in Argentina.

  ‘What about them?’ she said.

  She had backed herself into the furthest corner of the room, with the desk between them like a shield. In a room as small as this he could still reach her, but he was content just to look at her. She smelled so good, so young and fresh, and she looked great. ‘The shots you gave me are fantastic,’ he admitted. ‘So much so I’d like to see what else you’ve got.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  Was she blinking with relief? Romy could act nonchalant all she liked, but he had a sister and he knew all about acting. He took in her working outfit—the clinging leggings, flat fur boots, the long tee—and as she approached the desk and sat down he concluded that she didn’t need to try hard to look great. Romy Winner was one hell of a woman. Was she ready for him now? he wondered as she bit down on her lip.

  ‘We’ve decided the charity should have a calendar,’ he said, ‘and we thought you could help. What you’ve given me so far are mostly people shots, which are great—but there are too many celebrities. And the royals... Great shots, but they’re not what we need.’

  ‘What do you want?’ she said.

  ‘Those character studies of people who’ve worked on the estancia for most of their lives. Group shots used to be taken in the old days, as well as individual portraits, and that’s a tradition I’d like to revive. You make everyone look like members of the same family, which is how I’ve always seen it.’

  ‘Team Acosta?’ she suggested, the shadow of a smile creeping onto her lips.

  ‘Exactly,’ he agreed. He was glad he didn’t have to spell it out to her. On reflection, he didn’t have to spell anything out for Romy. She got him.

  ‘What about scenery, wildlife—that sort of thing?’ she said, turning to her screen.

  ‘Perfect. I think we’re going to make one hell of a calendar,’ he enthused as she brought up some amazing images.

  Hallelujah! She could hardly believe her luck. This was incredible. She wouldn’t lose her job after all. Of course a charity would want vistas and wildlife images, while Ronald wanted all the shots Kruz wanted to discard. She hadn’t been thinking straight in Argentina—for some reason—and had loaded pictures into files without thinking things through.

  ‘So you don’t mind if I have the people shots back?’ she confirmed, wondering if it was possible to overdose on Kruz’s drugging scent.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, in the low, sexy drawl that made her wish she’d bothered to put some make-up on this morning, gelled her hair and covered her spots.

  ‘You look tired, Romy,’ he added as she started loading images onto a clean memory stick. ‘You don’t have to do this now. I can come back later.’

  ‘Better you stay so you’re sure you get what you want,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, I will,’ he said, hiding his wry smile. ‘Thanks for doing this at such short notice.’

  She couldn’t deny she was puzzled. He was happy to stay? Either Kruz wanted this calendar really badly, or he was...what? Checking up on her? Checking her out?

  Not the latter, Romy concluded. Kruz could have anyone he wanted, and London was chock-a-block full of beautiful women. Hard luck for her, when she still wanted him and felt connected to him in a way she couldn’t explain.

  Fact: what happened in the press coach is history. Get used to it.

  With a si
gh she lifted her shoulders and dropped them again in response to her oh, so sensible inner voice. Wiping a hand across her forehead, she wondered if it was hot in here.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Kruz asked with concern.

  No. She felt faint. Another first. ‘Of course,’ she said brightly, getting back to her work.

  The tiny room was buzzing with Kruz’s energy, she thought—which was the only reason her head was spinning. She stopped to take a swig of water from the plastic bottle on her desk, but she still didn’t feel that great.

  ‘Will you excuse me for a moment?’ she said shakily, blundering to her feet.

  She didn’t wait to hear Kruz’s answer. Rushing from the desk, she just made it to the rest room in time to be heartily sick.

  It was just a reaction at having her underground bunker invaded by Kruz Acosta, Romy reasoned as she studied the green sheen on her face. Swilling her face with cold water, she took a drink and several deep breaths before heading back to her room—and she only did that when she was absolutely certain that the brief moment of weakness had been and gone.

  He was worried about Romy. She looked pale.

  ‘No... No, I’m fine,’ she said when he asked her if she was all right as she breezed back into the room. ‘Must have been something I ate. Sorry. You don’t need to hear that.’

  He shrugged. ‘I was brought up on a farm. I’m not as rarefied as you seem to think.’

  ‘Not rarefied at all,’ she said, flashing him a glance that jolted him back to a grassy bank and a blue-black sky.

  ‘It’s hot in here,’ he observed. No wonder she felt faint. Opening the door, he stuck a chair in the way. Not that it did much good. The basement air was stale. He hated the claustrophobic surroundings.

  ‘Why don’t you sit and relax while I do this?’ she suggested, without turning from the screen.

  ‘It won’t take long, will it?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then I’ll stand, thank you.’

  In the tiny room that meant he was standing close behind her. He was close enough to watch Romy’s neck flush as pink as her cheeks.