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By then it was too late. Her swift movement had caught his attention. The next instant she found herself welded to the spot as a pair of darkly hooded glinting green eyes fixed on her shocked face.
Luis, she thought. Meu Dues, it was Luis…
He was standing less than ten feet away, a tall, lean, solid, dark force backed by the night view of Rio. Her legs turned to water, her head swirling so dizzily that for a horrible moment she was afraid that she was actually going to faint. No one else was in the room suddenly. No voices sounded. No slow and sensual bossa nova beat. All she could hear was the blood pumping heavily through her body as those hooded eyes looked at her and took everything, stripping away six long miserable years to leave her standing there feeling so exposed and vulnerable that she just could not bring herself to look away.
And he wasn’t going to do it, she realised as she watched those eyes begin a slow, slow glide over her face. Her shock-blackened eyes. Her shock-whitened cheeks. He let his gaze linger on every telling detail until finally fixing it on her helplessly parted lips.
Those lips quivered as if he’d touched them. A knowing smile stretched the contours of his. It was electric, dynamic, so overwhelmingly sexual and intensely familiar she was nailed by it, drenched in sensation that slithered and danced across her skin. They had been lovers for twelve months more than six years ago, yet for these few breathtaking seconds those years just did not exist.
She trembled—all over. He watched that happen too, and swung his gaze up to clash with hers again. Mockery lanced through those glinting green eyes and he lifted his glass, tilting it towards her in a salute that was so dryly cynical it sucked her back through those six years with a painful, dizzying whoosh.
He hated her. It was there for her to see it. And she could not even blame him for feeling that way. She had encouraged him to hate—worked at it like an actress putting on an Oscar-winning performance. She’d mocked him and cursed him and died a little more inside with each slaying remark she had thrown at his face.
Tears began to gather, hot, like acid burning in her chest and her throat. She loved him, would always love him for as long as she had left to draw breath, but she’d wished—oh, how she had wished—never to set eyes on him again.
Someone shifted beside him, forcin
g her gaze to flicker 840 sideways in time to watch a woman step in close to murmur something to him. She was beautiful, a reed-slender blonde wearing aquamarine silk. Whatever it was that she said to Luis, it lost Cristina her contact with his eyes as he turned to the woman with a lazy, sensual smile on his lips.
And Cristina knew that smile, recognised it with every sensory nerve she possessed. They were lovers. Jealousy roared up like a snarling, spitting wild animal inside her, and on a choked little whimper she spun away.
Trembling like mad, she moved in so close to Gabriel that she earned herself a curious glance as his arm accommodated her, though his attention did not falter from the discussion he was involved in.
‘The problem has been global,’ he was saying smoothly. ‘But the industry is showing signs of recovery, and we have a plan in place to get in first where this growth is happening. People will pay a high price for a flawless pedigree. Santa Rosa can give them that—hmm, Cristina?’ He prompted some input from her.
Gabriel was into his sales pitch, and she had to fight a gigantic battle with herself to find sensible words to speak.
‘S-Santa Rosa stock is conceived born and raised on the land on which it roams free,’ she heard herself say, as if from down a long dark tunnel. ‘We are proud that we still farm by traditional methods where quality always takes precedence over quantity.’
‘But quantity is what makes the big profit, senhorita,’ Gabriel’s companion wryly pointed out.
‘Sim.’ She nodded, battling to keep herself together. ‘We know this, which is why we want to diversify a little…turn Santa Rosa into a showcase where people can come and stay for a while, experience what it is like to live in a genuine Portuguese mansion house, and spend time with the gauchos learning of the life and true traditions of a working ranch. But such plans require investment—’
‘At great risk to the investor, I would say,’ a smooth-as-silk voice put in.
Both Gabriel and his companion turned to face the newcomer. Cristina didn’t—not again, she told herself as her pounding heart increased its crazy beat.
‘Most worthy investments require a certain amount of risk, senhor,’ Gabriel countered easily.
‘The knack for the successful investor is to pick out those investments that have at least a starting chance to earn him some profit.’
‘With commitment to hard work and true dedication we can certainly promise our investors their profit,’ Gabriel declared without hesitation, at the same time making out that he had a big stake in the project himself, when in truth he was simply playing the machismo rule to the hilt for her sake. ‘Let me introduce myself,’ he then offered affably, releasing Cristina to hold out his hand. ‘I am Gabriel Valentim, and this is—’
‘I know who this is…’ Anton smoothly put in, and the instant that Gabriel’s hand left the base of her spine his replaced it, fingertips moving in an all too familiar stroke that sent shock waves stinging up her spine.
His warm breath brushed her nape as he moved in closer. ‘Cristina, meu querida,’ he greeted with husky intimacy. ‘Surely you must remember me?’
It took every ounce of will power she could muster to turn and face him. Her insides were dipping and diving even before she lifted her chin and looked directly into his face.
‘Luis,’ she responded, with very shaky coolness.
‘But you’re mistaken,’ a cool English voice intruded. ‘This is Anton—Anton Scott-Lee.’
Anton Luis Ferreira Scott-Lee, to give him his full title, Cristina corrected silently. Anton to most people, but always Luis to her. A man with two faces—his English face and his Brazilian face.
And she was seeing his Brazilian face right now, as he smiled one of his slow, sensual smiles at her and reached out to take a light grasp on her hand. ‘Don’t look so shattered,’ he softly admonished. ‘I will answer to Luis if it still pleases you to use it…’
The air in her lungs ceased to be of any use to her. This close up he was everything she remembered about him—everything. Her lips parted, trembling again as she tried desperately to find something light to say.
