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Funds received. If you want to know what happened to your mother come home. But come alone.
* * *
Javier told himself it was tiredness casting the shadows in Carla’s eyes. He even managed to believe it for the better part of a week. She smiled when he walked into the room, engaged him fully and attentively in conversation, and lost herself completely in his arms each time desire whipped sharp and urgent between them.
But something was wrong. Her laughter wasn’t quite as carefree and a fleeting expression of panic crossed her face when she thought he wasn’t looking. Most telling of all, she’d begun to catch her hair up in that blasted knot again. Javier was certain she wasn’t aware she was doing it. Each time he’d reached out to free it, she’d looked surprised. And a touch alarmed.
He gritted his teeth and tossed his pen onto his desk. Swivelling in his chair, he stared out at the New York skyline, wondering if geography was playing a part in the general sour mood he found himself in today.
After her last X-ray her doctor had agreed to remove her cast and replace it with a tensor bandage. She’d also conditionally freed Carla to work, and she’d wholeheartedly thrown herself into the tequila shoot. The test shots strewn across his desk were already perfect. He turned back and stared at the photos.
Dios, she was breathtaking. The pale gold skater leotard and gold-hued tights gave the illusion of her being nude, with the exception of the gold ice skates adoring her feet. Stunning green eyes, made up to deliver a sultry look, stared straight into the camera...into him...her legs parted wide enough to frame the life-size bottle as her fingers gripped its neck.
The results surpassed his every expectation. She was sexy, provocative enough to guarantee a mega-successful launch. The creative director had proclaimed herself happy with her so far and had progressed to the ice-skate shoot. In another forty-eight hours, the shoot would be over.
She would be back in New York with him. With her eyes still shadowed with emotions she was determined to hide from him.
Snarling a curse, he reached for the phone.
She answered on the second ring, with the same breathy excitement she’d met him with when he’d flown back to Miami at the end of each working day. Each time he’d hoped the shadows would be gone. Each time he’d looked deeper and found they’d grown.
‘Ciao, Javier.’
‘I have your test photos on my desk,’ he said as a starter, because he didn’t want to be met with a patently false nothing when he asked what was wrong.
‘And?’ she asked, a thin thread of dread lacing her voice.
‘They’re good.’
Her laughter held a tinge of relief. ‘Just good? Jemma must have been exaggerating then when she said you loved them?’
He relaxed in his seat, a knot of tension unravelling from his shoulders. ‘Fine. They’re great. How did the practice shoot go?’
‘I’ll let you be the judge of it. I detest watching myself on video. And there wasn’t much actual skating involved. Just a lot of simulated moves and posing.’
Javier refrained from mentioning he had a copy of it awaiting his review on his laptop. He wasn’t exactly sure why he hadn’t been able to bring himself to watch it yet. ‘You’ll get my verdict soon enough,’ he prevaricated.
‘Are you on your way home?’
He heard the careful anticipation laced with the tiny trepidation and his fingers tightened around the phone. The urge to batter her defences, demand to know what she was hiding, powered through him. But he couldn’t fight this battle. Not just yet.
‘No. Not tonight.’
‘What...umm...why?’
‘My father got in touch. I guess the waiting game is over. I’m flying to Spain tonight.’
Silence punctuated by her soft breathing flowed over him. Javier wanted to demand her every thought, her every need. But he kept silent.
‘How long will you be away?’ she finally asked.
‘Two days, three at the most. He has no bargaining chips remaining.’ And he intended to drive that message home should his father decide to indulge in another useless ego trip.
‘I hope you’re successful,’ she murmured.
All of a sudden, he’d had enough. Enough of dancing around their issues. Enough of the distance yawning between them. ‘Come with me,’ he suggested.
She gave a soft gasp that reached into him and settled around his heart. ‘I can’t. I would be sabotaging your project if I left now.’
