Exotic Nights

“It’s not here,” he repeated.

“That’s impossible. I was assured—” The gun was leveled at him again, her voice full of purpose. “Where have you hidden it?”

“Forget it, Frankie,” he said smoothly, emphasizing the name the voice had called her. She had been assured? By whom? “You’ve failed. Now take what’s there and go.”

“You aren’t the one in control here, Navarre. You will not tell me what to do. Not ever again,” she added so quietly he wasn’t certai

n he’d heard her right. Never again?

“Who are you?” he demanded, blazing hot anger sizzling through him like a living flame.

Before she could answer—or tell him to shut up, most likely—he reached over and flicked the light switch.

“Bastard,” she cried, blinking against the light that flooded the room. Yet still the gun was firmly pointed at him.

He didn’t care. The girl, this Frankie, was compelling—and he’d never seen her before in his life. Sun-streaked hair was pulled into a tight knot at the base of her neck, its thickness indicating long length when her hair was down. Her skin was pale with a hint of golden color. Her eyes glared at him hot and dark. She was dressed in a workman’s black coveralls, but the garment was a size too small because it clung to her generous curves like a protective sleeve.

She looked furious, determined—but then she bit down on her plump lower lip and he recognized it for what it was: a crack in her armor. A current of desire arced through him at that single display of vulnerability.

Dios, now was not the time to be attracted to a woman. Especially not a woman with a gun pointed at his heart. Marcos clamped down on his wayward libido and tried to memorize everything about her. Should she get away, should she not shoot him in the process, he needed to remember what she looked like.

Because—female or not, vulnerable or not—he was going to hunt her down. He would find her and he would make her pay for thinking she could rob him of his birth right.

“Who are you, Frankie, and why do you want my necklace?”

Her eyes widened briefly before narrowing again. The gun shook in her grip. Odd when she’d been so controlled only moments before.

“You really don’t know, do you?” Her laugh was strangled. “God, of course you don’t. Because you’re selfish, Marcos Navarre. Selfish and cruel.”

Some little bit of knowledge buzzed at his mind like an annoying mosquito. He brushed it aside impatiently. He had no time to puzzle out what it was. He simply needed to remember this woman—and possibly disarm and capture her—before she could get away. “The Corazón del Diablo is mine. You will not steal it from me this night, so either take what’s there and go, or shoot me and be done with it.”

“I would like to,” she said, her voice dripping with menace and fury. “Believe me I would. But I want that jewel, Navarre. One way or the other, you are going to give it to me.”

Francesca forced down the bile in her throat. When he’d flipped the light on, she’d thought she would die. If he’d looked at her with pity, or shook his head sadly, she’d have crumbled like a house of cards. Her will and determination would have evaporated like an early morning mist, leaving her vulnerable and exposed.

But there’d been no flicker of recognition in his eyes, no stiffening of his form, nothing to indicate he had the slightest clue who she was.

And it hurt. Hurt like bloody hell that he hadn’t known her. After all, she’d been the one to give him the Corazón del Diablo in the first place. Like a love struck imbecile, she’d handed it over just the same as she’d handed him her heart.

What happened next had been inevitable to all but the most blind of souls. He’d kept the jewel and discarded her love. Discarded her. She’d learned the truth too late. He’d conned her out of the diamond just like he’d conned her into believing he cared.

The Devil’s Heart was aptly named. She’d given it to the devil and it had cost her nothing but heartache.

And now he stood here so haughty and handsome in his custom tuxedo, looking down his fine nose at her as if she were a bug. Her traitorous heart thumped painfully.

He was still so damn gorgeous. Tall, broad-shouldered, and as handsome as any movie star. He had a silver-edged scar that zigzagged from one corner of his mouth, a reminder of a long ago accident, she imagined. Far from ruining his dark male beauty, it only made it seem more potent. He had the kind of Latin good looks that made women prostrate themselves at his feet.

Just like she’d done. Idiot.

Her life had been ruined by that single act of falling for Marcos Navarre’s smooth lies and sensual body. For thinking she had a future with him if only she gave him what he wanted. She’d been stupid. How could a man like him ever be interested in a chubby, shy, ugly girl like her?

He couldn’t. Her sister had tried to warn her, but she hadn’t listened. She’d believed Livia to be jealous. Livia, the beautiful one. The one who should have been the object of Marcos’s attention. But Francesca hadn’t wanted to accept the truth and she’d tumbled them into ruin with her need to be loved.

He’d fooled them all, she reminded herself. Charmed them all.

Didn’t matter. It was her fault the Navarres destroyed d’Oro Shipping. Her fault that her father shot himself, that her mother clung to the remnants of her wealth in a drafty old house in Upstate New York, and that her sister barely ever spoke to her.

She’d made poor choices, choices that had cost her much more than hurt pride in the end.