style="font-size:15px;"> Well, good riddance to her, he told himself, shaking off his memories in the same moment as he slid into the car that was waiting for him. He had had no inclination to go after her, and there had been no time to even consider it. He had been so occupied turning his life around and making his way back to his family—a reconciliation that she had almost destroyed by her actions—that she had been the last thing on his mind. He’d managed a second chance and he wasn’t going to stuff it up. This trip to London would be the final part of the task he had set himself.
‘Dacre Street,’ he told the driver in response to the man’s request for a destination. He could only hope the driver knew where the damn place was; it was in no part of the London he usually frequented.
Nairo settled back on the seat, frowning darkly as he raked his wet hair back from his face. He had to get into the city, do the job he’d come to do, keep his promise to Esmeralda. He had so much to make up to his sister and this one last thing to make her happy was what mattered. After this, his duty was done.
* * *
If there ever was a day when it was the worst possible moment for Louise to need to go home sick, then it had to be today, Rose told herself, sighing as she pushed back a floating strand of bright auburn hair that had escaped from the neat braid for the nth time. Obviously her normally efficient and organised assistant had been feeling worse than she had let on the previous day, if the state of the reception area was anything to go by. Everything needed tidying, and the diary that detailed today’s appointments had been splashed with coffee, blurring the details.
Not that Rose needed any reminders. The appointment had been made a week ago, the first contact being with a heavily accented voice on the other end of the phone. Nairo Roja Moreno’s PA as she declared herself to be.
‘Nairo Roja Moreno...’ Rose murmured to herself as she considered the blurred words in the diary. The eldest son of an aristocratic Spanish family, his PA had informed her. And he wanted to talk to her about a wedding dress?
She’d meant to look up this Spaniard on the Internet last night, but her mother had been so unwell that it had taken all of her time and attention to get them both through the evening.
When she’d got the confirmation email she’d been overjoyed. It had seemed like a rescue mission arriving just in time. Caring for her mother through her illness had drained her resources, taken all her energy, mental and physical. She’d had no new commissions in an age. The mess of her marriage that had never been and the scandal that had followed it had seen to that. She was behind with the rent on the boutique, had barely been able to meet the costs of her flat. But if this Nairo Moreno really did want her to design his sister’s wedding dress together with the bridesmaids’ outfits, the flower girls and pageboys of which there seemed to be dozens, well, it might just save her from going under. Save her reputation publicly, save her life financially and perhaps even save her mother’s life in reality.
Joy had endured a long and difficult battle with the cancer that had assailed her. She was weak and drained by chemotherapy, the operation, and was only just starting to recover. Any new shock, any extra stress might be dangerous, and, after all the time it had taken to rebuild their relationship from a perilously rocky point ten years before, Rose hated to think that everything could be destroyed now.
Her aristocratic visitor would be here any moment. Tapping her pen in a restless tattoo on the appointment book, Rose frowned as she looked out at the lashing rain that was splattering the plate-glass window of her design rooms. Not the best day to imagine a summer wedding.
Jett had hated the rain, particularly in the unheated squat. As a result, so many rainy days had been spent cuddled up together...
A rush of dark memories swamped her mind, loosening her grip so that the pen dropped from her hand, falling to the floor and rolling away under a display cabinet.
‘Darn it!’
Getting down on her hands and knees, she groped in the darkness, fumbling for the pen just out of reach. It was then that she heard the door open behind her, the rush of cold damp air telling her that someone had come into the building from the street.
‘Sorry! Just a moment.’
‘De nada.’
It was the sexiest voice, deep and dark and so beautifully accented.
Of course! The Spanish aristocrat—what was his name? Nairo something. Suddenly becoming aware of the way she must look, bottom in the air, narrow skirt stretched tight, she made one final lurch, banging her head on the shelf before grabbing the pen, then turning to push herself upwards.
It was no problem to wait, Nairo reflected. He was perfectly happy to stay here and enjoy the spectacle of a deliciously rounded bottom stuck up in the air as its owner groped for something under the shelving. Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned back against the door feeling his pulse kick up and thud hard and heavy in his veins as he enjoyed the view before him.
If there was one thing he hadn’t anticipated on this unwanted trip to England, then it was the possibility of indulging in a little sensual pleasure. There was so much to be planned and organised back in Spain, with the demands of his sister’s soon-to-be in-laws to take into consideration, that he had allowed himself only the freedom of a couple of days away from the chaos and uproar that The Wedding of the Century had created.
Now, with this tantalising display of female charms on display before him, he allowed himself to reconsider.
It had been a long time—too long—since he had had the pleasures of a woman in his bed. His father’s final illness, the need for ferocious commitment to work on the family estates, restoring the Moreno fallen fortunes, and now, of course, Esmeralda’s engagement and upcoming wedding had ensured that he had had little time to breathe.
Suddenly the prospect of a few days’ relaxation, even in the grey, rainy city of London, had infinitely more appeal.
‘Got it!’
The triumph in the woman’s voice made him smile, but it was a smile that leached from his lips as he saw her lift her head.
Red hair. His personal curse. A bronze, auburn red it was true, not the bright red that had been one of the glories that he had so loved in the woman who had once filled his days, haunted his dreams.
Red...
The echo of his own voice sounded inside his head as memories threatened to surface. He had fought against those memories, pushing them behind him as he set about restoring his life to some degree of order and rebuilding it from the mess it had become. The last thing he wanted was the resurfacing of anything that connected him to the time when he had lived in London in such very different circumstances.
Scarlett. It was the name of this shop—the designer that Esmeralda had sent him to find—that had put these thoughts in his mind.
‘I’m sorry— I— Ouch!’ The sharp cry of pain broke into his thoughts.
She had lifted her head rather too quickly in her triumph at having found whatever it was she was looking for and so had caught her face on the side of the shelf. Immediately he moved forward, holding out his hand to her.
‘Allow me...’
That voice was designed to turn any woman to mush, Rose told herself. And the firm, warm grip of his hand was like touching a live wire, sizzling
