Exotic Nights

The morning was gray and gloomy as she unlocked the doors. The air was beginning to turn brisk with the promise of winter. Yesterday, she hadn’t seen her breath. This morning, it frosted and made her think about long ago days at her family’s estate, when the leaves turned golden and the apple cider tasted spicy and sweet on her tongue.

She rarely thought of her life before, but seeing Marcos again dredged up memories of her past. She’d once daydreamed about what a life with him would be like, but he’d crushed her dreams beneath his custom soles. Life itself had dealt the final blow. She had no dreams left.

She went to the small kitchenette off the main showroom and poured a cup of coffee. The bell dinged in the shop, letting her know someone had come inside.

Cup in hand, smile fixed, she returned to the shop to help the first customer of the day.

A tall man stood with his back to her as he bent over a case. Outside the door, two more men stood with arms folded across massive chests. The hair on the back of her neck prickled in warning. The old horror threatened to consume her, but she wouldn’t allow it.

Francesca set the coffee down quietly and slid her fingers toward the gun beneath the counter. They hadn’t had a robbery attempt in months now, but she was taking no chances. Memories of pain and blood, of the fear she’d had for her baby as her assailant had kicked and punched her, flooded in as her fingers touched the cool metal. She’d learned to defend herself in the aftermath of that dark time, learned that she could be cold and calculating if lives depended on it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The man turned toward her and all the breath left her lungs. She had an impression of cold, cruel strength. Of a strong jaw, tanned skin, and thick black hair.

And then he spoke again.

“Buenos días, Frankie. Or should I say Francesca?”

Marcos Navarre did not like being made a fool of by anyone. And a fool was what she’d tried to play him for. The woman looking back at him was nothing like the sweet, shy girl he’d once thought her to be. This woman was cold, hard, and ruthless. No wonder he hadn’t recognized her.

At the moment she looked stunned, however. And maybe a touch vulnerable, though he dismissed the thought as fancifulness on his part. His protective instincts were too finely tuned, too accustomed to reacting to others’ fear and pain. That’s what a childhood in the streets of Buenos Aires did for a man.

He’d learned the hard way that he couldn’t save everyone. Francesca d’Oro least of all. Oh yes, he’d had some misguided notion of rescuing her several years ago—when in fact she hadn’t needed rescuing at all.

As she’d proved to him again just a few hours past.

He’d felt sorry for her once, had resented her a bit later—now, he hated her for what she’d done. She’d stolen the Corazón del Diablo from him, and she’d forced him to endure the kind of captivity he’d never thought to endure again. He hadn’t spent long chained to the bed, but even a second was more than he cared to endure. He’d had to remember his darkest days, the blood and pain and fear as he’d been kept chained in a dark room and beaten for information all those years ago in the jungle.

Francesca couldn’t have known what had happened to him—he’d never told her about it—but he hated her for her selfishness, for reminding him of what it felt like to be utterly helpless.

He was here to make her pay.

A noise on the stairs captured Francesca’s attention before she’d recovered herself enough to speak. She took a step in that direction but was unable to halt the progress of the man who stumbled to a halt and stared at Marcos with barely disguised loathing.

“Please don’t, Gilles,” she said when the man looked ready to pounce on him. “It’s not worth it.”

The two exchanged a look and a different sort of rage blazed to life in Marcos’s gut. The way this man looked at Francesca, the way they communicated without speaking another word. It was nothing to Marcos, and yet—

She turned back to him then. “Marcos—”

“Tell your lover who I am, Francesca. What I am to you.”

There were two high spots of color in her cheeks. A moment later her expression hardened. “How dare you? You are nothing to me. Less than nothing.”

“This is not what you said when you promised to love, honor, and obey me for the rest of our lives.”

She didn’t look at her lover, not once. She didn’t have to. Marcos could tell the other man knew what their relationship had been. What manner of other things had she told him to get him to cooperate in stealing the necklace? Because Marcos knew this had been the man on the other end of the radio last night.

“We are not married, Marcos. Not any longer. You left, remember? And you did not contest the annulment.”

He let his eyes move lazily down her body. Though she was dressed in a baggy black sweater and jeans, they did little to hide the lush curves underneath. Francesca d’Oro had not looked like this at eighteen. If she had, perhaps he’d have been unable to leave for Argentina so soon after their sham of a marriage had taken place.

She’d shed the baby fat that had once clung to her, rounding her face. The thick glasses were gone as well. Her hair had been blonde before, and cut in an unflattering bob that only made her face seem plumper.

Now, the golden-streaked mass was closer to brown than blonde and fell halfway down her back. Her eyes were hazel, he noted, more chocolate than green or gold, and her mouth was kissable in a way he hadn’t remembered. Her lower lip was thicker than the upper, giving her an artless sexy pout.

He wanted to plunder that mouth, spend hours making love to it. The strength of the compulsion shocked him.

When he met her gaze again, he was almost amused to see the hate in her eyes. If she thought she hated him before, she was certain to do so even more when he finished with her this time.