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She was twenty-five years old today, for goodness’ sake, long past the wide-eyed-teenager stage. She needed to act accordingly...emulate a little bit of the sophistication Luis oozed and Ramon commanded from his very fingertips with such effortless ease.
She needed to raise her head. Yes, that was right. Take in the six-foot-four tower of masculine sleekness and suppressed power who’d arrived at their booth. Stop herself from ogling the square, rugged jaw, the sculpted perfection of his face. Meet his gaze—
‘Felíz cumpleaños, mi hermano.’
Dear God, he was too much.
A weird sizzle racing down her back, she lowered her head again, swallowing at the sound of that dark, smoky voice caressing the Cuban Spanish words.
‘Gracias, although I was beginning to think I’d only get belated birthday congrats from you, seeing as the day is almost over,’ Luis replied, a trace of tension twining his sardonic tone.
Ramon’s strong, capable hands slid into his pockets. ‘It’s barely eleven o’clock and I made it, as I said I would,’ he said, an even deeper throb of tension in his voice.
Suki’s gaze darted up in time to catch his narrow-eyed gaze on their joint hands before it shifted to his brother. After a second, Luis gave a slight grimace and released her before he shrugged.
‘In that case, take a seat. I’ll go and fetch the champagne I had the bartender put on ice.’
He slid out of his seat, but despite the slight strain between them, the brothers hugged briefly, Ramon murmuring something to his brother Suki didn’t quite catch. Luis nodded, his features relaxing as he murmured back.
Face-to-face, their striking resemblance was unmistakable, the only differences being their eyes, Luis’s inch shorter height and hair that was a dark chocolate to his brother’s jet black. But where Luis’s face and stature evoked keenly interested second glances, Ramon’s completely captivated, hypnotising every human being who made the mistake of glancing his way.
It was why, several seconds after Luis had left the booth, and despite urging herself otherwise, Suki couldn’t look up. She tightened her hold on the glass holding her wine spritzer, willing her fingers not to shake. But reassuring herself that he was mere flesh and blood seemed utterly useless.
Her breath emerged hard and choppy, when, contrary to her thinking he’d take Luis’s seat, he slid into the booth next to her.
Another minute crawled excruciatingly by. A minute when the power of his fixed gaze burned her averted face, when every nerve screamed at being the object of his scrutiny.
‘Felíz cumpleaños, Suki.’
Unlike the birthday wish he’d delivered to his brother, this one held a little extra...something. Hot and mysterious. Dark and dangerous. Or was it just her stupid, fevered imagination? A shiver went through her. She managed to free one hand from around her glass, long enough to tuck her hair behind her ear before it returned to its death grip around her drink. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
‘It’s the done thing to look a person in the eyes, at least once, when they’re talking to you, is it not?’ he drawled. ‘Or is your drink infinitely more interesting than I am?’
‘It is... I mean...it’s the done thing, yes, not my drink—’
‘Suki.’ Her name was a rigid demand.
One she couldn’t have denied even if she’d wanted to. And absurdly, now she was commanded, she didn’t have any qualms about turning her head, meeting the gleaming, intense green eyes that focused on her.
She’d met Ramon Acosta a handful of times over the last three years. From the first time when Luis had introduced them at their university graduation ceremony and every occasion since, she’d been struck progressively speechless. Because almost impossibly, her best friend’s older brother grew more captivating, the force of his raw magnetism intensifying every time she saw him. Far from Luis’s tireless mocking acting as the impetus she needed to kill her senseless crush, her traitorous emotions heightened and sparked even more explosively with each meeting, the stern talking-to she gave herself before each meeting a useless exercise once in Ramon’s presence.
It was becoming a problem. But not one she wanted to deal with right now. It was her birthday, after all.
Besides, even if Ramon Acosta were anywhere in her league, he would still be out of bounds on account of his very public, very serious engagement to Svetlana Roskova, the drop-dead gorgeous Russian model.
But, having met his gaze, she couldn’t look away. Couldn’t think beyond the affirmation of how completely irresistible he was. From the olive-toned vibrancy of his skin to the strong column of the throat exposed by the top two buttons left undone in his dark navy shirt, to the slim fingers resting dangerously close to hers, she was absorbed by him.
‘There you are,’ he murmured, a trace of dark satisfaction in his voice that triggered alarm within her. ‘I’m infinitely pleased that I don’t have to spend the rest of the night addressing your profile.’
‘You are?’ she blurted, then cringed.
Seriously, get a hold of yourself!
One side of his full mouth tilted upward, although Suki didn’t spot a single scrap of mirth on his face. ‘Contrary to what is widely believed, it turns out that looking into the whites of someone’s eyes doesn’t guarantee insight into their true nature, but I still prefer that mode of communication.’
This time she caught a definite thread of bitterness, wrapped in thinly veiled fury. ‘Is...is something wrong?’ she ventured. ‘You seem agitated.’
The mocking laugh was unexpected. ‘Do I?’ he enquired lazily.
