that hadn’t appeared to affect the dark and dangerously unreliable CEO of Messena Construction in the slightest.
The rich, heady notes of a tango emanating from her handbag distracted Elena from an embarrassingly loud series of whistles and catcalls.
A breeze whipped glossy, dark tendrils loose from her neat French pleat as she retrieved the phone. Pushing her glasses a little higher on the delicate bridge of her nose, she peered at the number glowing on her screen.
Nick Messena.
Her heart slammed once, hard. The sticky heat and background hum of Friday afternoon traffic dissolved and she was abruptly transported back six years....
To the dim heat of what had then been her aunt Katherine’s beach villa, tropical rain pounding on the roof. Nick Messena’s muscular, tanned body sprawled heavily across hers—
Cheeks suddenly overwarm, she checked the phone, which had stopped ringing. A message flashed on the screen. She had voice mail.
Her jaw locked. It had to be a coincidence that Nick had rung this afternoon when she was planning one of her infrequent trips back to Dolphin Bay.
Her fingers tightened on the utilitarian black cell, the perfect no-nonsense match for her handbag. Out of the blue, Nick had started ringing her a week ago at her apartment in Sydney. Unfortunately, she had been off guard enough to actually pick up the first call, then mesmerized enough by the sexy timbre of his voice that she’d been incapable of slamming the phone down.
To make matters worse, somehow, she had ended up agreeing to meet him for dinner, as if the searing hours she’d spent locked in his arms all those years ago had never happened.
Of course, she hadn’t gone, and she hadn’t canceled, either. She had stood him up.
Behaving in such a way, without manners or consideration, had gone against the grain. But the jab of guilt had been swamped by a warming satisfaction that finally, six years on, Messena had gotten a tiny taste of the disappointment she had felt.
The screen continued to flash its message.
Don’t listen. Just delete the message.
The internal directives came a split second too late. Her thumb had already stabbed the button that activated her voice mail.
Nick’s deep, curt voice filled her ear, shooting a hot tingle down her spine and making her stomach clench.
This message was simple, his number and the same arrogant demand he’d left on her answerphone a number of times since their initial conversation: Call me.
For a split second the busy street and the brassy glare of the sun glittering off cars dissolved in a red mist.
After six years? During which time he had utterly ignored her existence and the fact that he had ditched her after just one night.
Like that was going to happen.
Annoyed with herself for being weak enough to listen to the message, she dropped the phone back into her purse and stepped off the curb. No matter how much she had once wanted Nick to call, she had never fallen into the trap of chasing after a man she knew was not interested in her personally.
To her certain knowledge Nick Messena had only ever wanted two things from her. Lately, it was the recovery of a missing ring that Nick had mistakenly decided his father had gifted to her aunt. A scenario that resurrected the scandalous lie that her aunt Katherine—the Messena family’s housekeeper—had been engaged in a steamy affair with Stefano Messena, Nick’s father.
Six years ago, Nick’s needs had been a whole lot simpler: he had wanted sex.
The blast of a car horn jerked her attention back to the busy street. Adrenaline rocketing through her veins, Elena hurried out of the path of a bus and stepped into the air-conditioned coolness of an exclusive mall.
She couldn’t believe how stupid she had been to walk across a busy street without taking careful note of the traffic. Almost as stupid as she’d been six years ago on her birthday when she’d been lonely enough to break every personal rule she’d had and agree to a blind date.
The date, organized by so-called friends, had turned out to be with Messena, the man she’d had a hopeless crush on for most of her teenage years.
At age twenty-two, with a double degree in business and psychology, she should have been wary of such an improbable situation. Messena had been hot and in demand. With her long dark hair and creamy skin, and her legs—her best feature—she had been passable. But with her propensity to be just a little plump, she hadn’t been in Messena’s league.
Despite knowing that, her normal common sense had let her down. She had made the fatal mistake of believing in the heated gleam in Nick’s gaze and the off-the-register passion. She had thought that Messena, once branded a master of seduction by one notorious tabloid, was sincere.
Heart still pumping too fast, she strolled through the rich, soothing interior of the mall, which, as luck would have it, was the one that contained the premises for Coastal Realty.
The receptionist—a lean, elegant redhead—showed her into Evan Cutler’s office.
Cutler, who specialized in waterfront developments and central city apartments, shot to his feet as she stepped through the door. Shadow and light flickered over an expanse of dove-gray carpet, alerting Elena to the fact that Cutler wasn’t the sole occupant of the room.
A second man, large enough to block the sunlight that would otherwise have flooded through a window, turned, his black jacket stretched taut across broad shoulders, his tousled dark hair shot through with lighter streaks that gleamed like hot gold.
A second shot of adrenaline zinged through her veins. “You.”
Nick Messena. Six feet two inches of sleekly muscled male, with a firm jaw and the kind of clean, chiseled cheekbones that still made her mouth water.
He wasn’t male-model perfect. Despite the fact that he was a wealthy businessman, somewhere along the way he had gotten a broken nose and a couple of nicks on one cheekbone. The battered, faintly dangerous look, combined with a dark five-o’clock shadow—and that wicked body—and there was no doubting he was potent. A dry, low-key charm and a reputation with women that scorched, and Nick was officially hot.
Her stomach sank when she noticed the phone in his hand.
Eyes a light, piercing shade of green, clashed with hers. “And you didn’t pick up my call, because...?”
The low, faintly gravelly rasp of his voice, as if he had just rolled out of a tangled, rumpled bed, made her stomach tighten. “I was busy.”
“I noticed. You should check the street before you cross.”
Fiery irritation canceled out her embarrassment and other more disturbing sensations that had coiled in the pit of her stomach. Positioned at the window, Nick would have had a clear view of her walking down the street as he had phoned. “Since when have you been so concerned about my welfare?”
He slipped the phone into his jacket pocket. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve known you and your family most of my life.”
The
