‘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.
‘This is some kind of joke, yes?’ Gabriel asked curiously, as a set of slender white fingers claimed Cristina’s attention by coiling possessively around Luis’ sleeve.
The fingers belonged to his beautiful blonde companion. Cristina glanced into a pair of gentian-blue eyes and blinked at the amount of ice she met with. Was this the kind of woman Luis preferred these days?
‘No joke,’ the man himself was denying, bringing Cristina’s eyes slewing back to his face. ‘Cristina and I are very old friends—hmm, amante?’
Lover.
Her senses went haywire. She had to fight to pull in some air, unaware of the silence slowly thickening around them, unaware of everything but those eyes and that smile and that word, playing like a silken caress across her skin.
A thumb-pad stroked against the skin of her palm and she looked down at it, staring blankly at the way his long fingers coiled so easily around the fragility of hers.
‘Cristina?’ Gabriel prompted an answer from her, because she was taking too long to speak.
She looked up at him next, not seeing him—not seeing anything. Not even the flash of venom that hit Luis’s companion’s eyes. Her heart had stopped beating. The thick curdling slurry of so many old feelings was churning inside her, leeching the last of the colour from her skin. She couldn’t think. Even as she tried very hard to find the right response that would defuse the tense moment a thick whooshing sound in her head stopped her from being able to think.
His thumb stroked her palm again and she looked back at her hand, still caught in his. She felt a strange lethargy creep over her, and on a shivered gasp tugged her hand free.
‘I—please excuse me,’ she heard herself mumble in stifled constriction. ‘I n-need to—use the bathroom…’
And on that crass, stupid and utterly unsophisticated exit line she turned and fled, leaving a stunning silence in her place.
On legs that felt dangerously like cotton wool she made it into the foyer. A passing waiter had only to take one look at her face to quickly direct her to the nearest private bathroom. Closing the door behind her, she leant back against it. She was shaking all over, locked in the kind of hard shock that turned flesh to ice. Lurching unsteadily across the room, she sank down onto the toilet seat.
Luis was here in Rio. ‘Meu dues,’ she whispered.
Why was he here? Why now, after all of these years? Why should he want to acknowledge her at all?
It came then, that final damning scene they’d had six years ago, swimming up through her mind to send her hands up to cover her face. She saw Luis standing there, stunned and bewildered, staring at her as if she had grown a forked tail and hooves.
‘What’s wrong with you? You love me. Why are you doing this? We lived here together for a year before I had to go back to England to attend my father’s funeral. That year must have meant something to you—told you that I was serious about us!’
‘Things change—’ He’d been too angry to notice her deathly pallor, or the agony etched into her face.
‘In three months? No, they don’t,’ he’d denied harshly. ‘You made me promise to come back for you and here I am as promised, with a rock-solid marriage proposal and plane tickets to a whole new life! For goodness’ sake, Cristina—’ his voice had roughened ‘—I love you. I want you to be my wife, I want to have children with you and grow old with you, watch those children grow into adults and have their own children!’
Cut to death inside by his vision of the future, she’d tossed her head at him. Sitting here in this room lined in glaring white marble, Cristina winced as she remembered the way she’d tossed her head at him that day. ‘I will never marry you, Luis. I will never have your children. There, I have said it. Will you accept it now?’
Oh, yes, he’d accepted it. Cristina had seen it happen as she’d watched the bitter look that overtook his face. ‘Because you don’t want to spoil that perfect body of yours?’
‘That is exactly it,’ she’d agreed. ‘I am selfish and heartless and incurably vain. I am also a Marques, with three centuries of pure Portuguese blood running in my veins. Diluting my blood with your half-English blood would be a sin and a sacrilege that would turn my ancestors in their—’
The brief knock on the door was the only warning she received before it was swinging open. Cristina lifted her face out of her hands, and froze yet again.