Exotic Nights
Marcos laughed. The sound surprised her. Sent an answering grin to her lips. God, he was sexy.
She wiped the smile away as quickly as she was able. She did not need to be too friendly with him. She didn’t really believe she was in danger of being charmed the way she’d once been, but she could take no chances. It was safer to keep her emotional distance from this man.
“You look far too serious, Francesca,” he said. “It’s a cocktail reception for a charity I support, not a guillotine we are going to.”
“I haven’t been to an event like this in years. I don’t know what to do anymore.” There was no sense hiding it from him; he would know soon enough when she tried to fade into the background.
“It will come back to you,” he said with more confidence than she felt. “You’ve spent the last several years running a shop—how could you not be a natural at inter acting with people?”
“That’s different.”
“I doubt that,” he replied. His gaze skimmed over her once more. “You need something else.”
He retrieved a long velvet box from the antique foyer table. Francesca’s stomach flipped. The Corazón del Diablo. She’d promised to wear it.
But when he opened the box, it wasn’t the necklace
she’d expected. The jewels sparkling against the deep blue velvet were cool and green. Emeralds of the finest variety. Her practiced eye skimmed over them: they would have cost him a fortune.
Though of course he hadn’t bought them for her, she reminded herself. No doubt he’d had them locked away and pulled them out for tonight. But why hadn’t he brought the Corazón del Diablo? She gazed up at him as he took the necklace from the box.
“Another time, perhaps,” he said. “This is better for tonight.”
Francesca hesitated, then turned and held up her hair while he laid the stones against her collarbone. One egg-shaped emerald dripped into the shadow of her cleavage. The stones were cool in their platinum settings, but she welcomed the shivery feeling.
His fingers brushed the back of her neck, sending prickles of heat up her spine, down her back. She couldn’t stop the ripple of a chill.
Marcos’s hands settled on her shoulders, pulling her back against him. His lips touched her ear. “You look beautiful, querida.”
Her silly heart thrummed at the compliment. Her head told her not to believe it.
“I believe this time,” he continued, “our wedding night will end as it should.”
Marcos watched his new bride as she stood nearby, engaging in polite conversation with a group of ladies. She looked as elegant and polished as any of them, and if she were at all nervous or uncomfortable, she hid it well. Not that he’d expected anything different. She was, after all, a d’Oro female. She’d grown into a woman every bit as elegant as her mother and sister had been.
His eyes skimmed down her lush form. She’d protested over the dress, but she looked fabulous in it. How could she look in the mirror and not know how very enticing she was? And why did she insist on wearing shapeless clothes that hid her curves?
He sipped the glass of wine a waiter handed to him and studied the sleek lines of one leg as the side slit in her dress opened. He had a sudden urge to go to her, but he’d been caught in conversation with an elderly matron. The woman nattered on about something he ignored—until she began to speak of teaching proper manners to orphans.
Nothing else could have so effectively ruined his mood.
“Señora,” he cut in suddenly—sharply if the startled look on her face was any indication, “the street children of Buenos Aires need more than etiquette lessons to improve their situation in life.” He gave her a clipped bow. “If you will excuse me.”
He didn’t look back to see how the woman was taking his abrupt exit. Dios. One of the things that drove him insane about these kinds of events were the wrong-headed ideas people who’d never suffered from hunger a day in their lives had about the children he so desperately wanted to rescue.
No child should suffer the way he knew that many of them did. Manners were laughable when survival was the goal.
The crowd of elegantly clothed people fell away as he approached his wife. She looked up as Marcos arrived by her side. Her eyes clouded when she saw him. Surprisingly, a sharp pain pierced a spot right below his heart when she looked at him like that.
Like he was evil incarnate, a devil come to steal her soul.
He shoved the pain down deep and held out his hand. “Come, Francesca,” he said. “I wish to dance.”
He didn’t really, but it was as good an excuse as any to hold her. He did not ask himself why he wanted to do so. He simply knew that he did.
“I—” Whatever she was about to say, she changed her mind. “Yes, of course.” With a polite word to her companions, she put her hand in his and let him lead her to the dance floor.
The music was soft, slow, flowing around them as he drew her into his arms. She gazed up at him, her smile gone. In its place was a frown.