Red after all these years—that his intelligence had failed him and he hadn’t made the connections that he should have done.
Red. Scarlett. The name written above the window of the small boutique. And the designer’s name was Rose Cavalliero.
Rose red. Scarlett.
The velvet curtains had opened and a model had emerged from behind them, walking up the runway, her progress marked by gasps of delight and admiration. She was a willow-slim beauty, and the dress she was wearing was a masterpiece of lace and silk, a fairy-tale wedding gown.
But he spared it only one brief glance. There was no space in his mind to focus on anything but the woman who stood on the side of the runway, microphone in hand, talking about trains, beading, boned bodices...
All he could think was that she—Red—was also Rose Cavalliero—
Scarlett’s talented designer—the one his sister dreamed of having to create a dress for her upcoming wedding.
The woman he had once known as Red was the woman he had come to London to meet—and to persuade her to come back to Spain with him.
Suddenly the room that had already felt so alien to him in its total focus on femininity, the overwhelming reek of clashing perfumes, seemed to constrict around him, the lights dimming. It couldn’t be any further from the rooms in his father’s home where he had lived as a boy. The old-fashioned high-walled castle so wrongly named Castillo Corazón—the castle of the heart! But the feeling of being trapped was just the same.
As an adolescent, he had felt this sensation of being cornered when his new stepmother had insisted that he meet all her female friends—the wives or daughters of acquaintances, some of whom had once been or still were his father’s mistresses. They had almost mobbed him, circling round him like brightly painted predators. He had learned fast and young to recognise when someone was genuine and when they were fake.
Or he’d thought he had.
He hadn’t recognised the secrets behind Red’s green eyes. And he had known the slash of betrayal when he had found out the truth.
‘And perhaps for an older bride, this elegant look...’
The clear, confident voice carried perfectly, no real need for the microphone, but it was not the woman on the runway whom Nairo was seeing. Instead it was the woman he had met in the boutique that morning.
Hell, she’d still deceived him even then. She had known who he was, known that he had come to see her, and yet she had let him linger in his belief that she was just the receptionist and that Rose Cavalliero was someone else entirely.
She had had the opportunity to tell him the truth then, but she hadn’t taken it. Instead she had dodged the issue, kept it to herself, and then she’d dismissed him once again in a brief and curt email.
Scowling, Nairo remembered the message that had reached him in his suite just an hour and a half ago. Rose Cavalliero was sorry, but she was afraid that she couldn’t manage to fit in a meeting with him after all. She apologised for the inconvenience, but the truth was that she wasn’t taking on any more commissions at the moment. She was sorry that he had been inconvenienced in coming to London for nothing, but she needed to take time to care for her mother...
Coldly polite but dismissive. All of which could only mean that she had something to hide.
‘And this is the highlight of the Spring Collection. I’ve named it the Princess Bride.’
Perhaps it was the name, perhaps it was the sound of the murmurs of appreciation that flowed around the room, but something made Nairo look up to see yet another model emerging from behind the scarlet curtains.
In that instant he knew just why Esmeralda had been so insistent that this particular designer should create her dress. If she could make these women—every one of them—look so stunning, then what would she do for his sister? She would turn his shy, uncertain sibling into a glorious beauty—the princess she was meant to be—and surely that would give Esmeralda the confidence to face up to Duke Oscar’s critical and demanding family without making herself ill again. And that was what he owed to his sister.
A memory stirred in his mind. The image of Esmeralda when he had come back from Argentina, where his father had sent him as penance for his adolescent rebellion. His sister had always been slim, but then she had been frail and delicate as a tiny bird. He’d even been afraid to hug her in case she might break. It had torn at his conscience to realise that the truth was that she was suffering from anorexia. It had taken him months to encourage her to let go her hold on her appetite and eat.
There and then he’d vowed that he would never let her down again. That he would do whatever it took to make her happy—keep her healthy and strong. To do that he now had to bring Rose Cavalliero back with him. Even if she had turned out to be the woman he had known all those years ago.
And when he had Red—or Rose or whatever her name was—in the castle in Andalusia, then he could tie up all the loose ends that were left hanging from when they had been together before. He would get rid of this unwelcome desire that still made him burn for her and he would teach her how it had felt to be the one cast aside when something better presented itself.
Leaning back against the wall, he folded his arms and prepared to wait and watch until it was time to talk to her.
Rose had been so focussed on the fashion show and making sure that everything ran smoothly that she had had no time at any point to actually look up and take notice of the crowd. But now, with the last dress displayed and the final parade of models down the runway, she could relax and look up, take a breath, glance out across the room...
And that was when she saw him.
Apart from the fact that Nairo Moreno was the only male in the room, it was impossible to miss him. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded, dressed all in black, with his shirt open loose at the neck. Like a big dark bird of prey amongst a flock of gaudy, chattering parrots. The burn of his golden-eyed stare was like a laser beam coming across the room.
He must have read the email she’d sent trying to get out of the commission he wanted. She’d asked for a receipt, so she knew he’d opened it. But he had determined to ignore it. She’d tried to avoid telling him who she was—who the designer Rose Cavalliero really was—but it seemed she’d failed miserably. Because now he was here—waiting, watching like some dark sentinel at the door.
‘Rose!’
‘Ms Cavalliero!’
Belatedly becoming aware of the way that she had been standing, silent and stunned, while her audience grew restless, Rose blinked hard, clearing her eyes of the haze of panic that had blurred her vision and forced herself to focus. At the front of the audience were the special guests, the reporters who had been invited specially in the hope of giving the new collection a great opening. That even more hopefully would lead to the sort of sales that would save her business, pay the rent for another twelve months. Give her mother a place to live and rest as she recovered from the draining bouts of chemotherapy. They’d only just found each other again properly; she couldn’t bear it if their time together was so short.
Dragging her gaze away from the dark figure at the door, she switched on what she hoped was a convincing smile as she turned her attention to the first reporter to get to her feet—a well-known fashion writer for a luxury magazine.
‘Do
