‘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 you have a question?’ she managed. ‘I’m happy to answer...’
‘I’m glad to hear that.’
It wasn’t the fashion reporter who spoke but another woman, a blonde she hadn’t spotted before. Rose’s heart sank. She knew this woman and so what was coming.
‘Don’t you think it’s something of an irony, the fact that you are publicising your new collection now—with images of love and happy-ever-afters—when your own story is so very different?’
The bite in her voice was unmistakeable, sharp as acid. Rose recognised her as Geraldine Somerset, a person she had seen at one of Andrew’s parties. The woman everyone had expected to be his fiancée before he’d met Rose.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you do.’
Geraldine lifted a newspaper that had been lying on her chair. Rose had no need to see it to know that it was a notorious scandal rag. She also knew just what headline the woman wanted everyone to see. Geraldine unfolded the sheet to its full length, waved it above her head, turning so that everyone could read the banner headline: ‘Dream-maker or dream-breaker?’
Rose even knew what pictures went with that story. How could she not when a copy of just that paper had been pushed through her letter box less than a week ago? On one side of the text was a picture of Andrew, head down, frowning and glum. The other was a picture of Rose herself, striding into her boutique—the name Scarlett perfectly clear and in focus. It had been taken shortly after the news of the broken engagement, the cancelled wedding, had hit the fan.
‘Would you want to buy your wedding dress from a woman who only cancelled her own marriage just three days before the ceremony?’ Geraldine was demanding now. ‘Would you entrust the most important day of your life—or your daughter’s—to someone who had so little care about her fiancé that she left him broken-hearted practically at the altar?’
‘That isn’t the way it was...’ Rose protested, only to have the newspaper waved even more violently in rejection of her words.
‘“Dream-maker or dream-breaker?”’ Geraldine declared, clearly very proud of the headline it was obvious she had created.
It was equally apparent that she was having the effect she wanted. The whole mood of the evening had changed. The murmurs of appreciation and approval that had marked the end of the fashion show had now changed to darker, more critical comments. Already people were pushing back their chairs, getting to their feet.
‘This has nothing to do with my work!’ Rose tried, but it was like Canute asking the sea to go back. Everything had changed and Geraldine, with her emotive headline, the carefully slanted photographs, had turned the tide of opinion.
Rose had forgotten that Nairo Moreno was here. That he was watching all this.
The moment the thought had crossed her mind she lost her concentration as she flicked a hasty, nervous glance to where Nairo leaned against the wall by the door. Or rather, where Nairo had been leaning. Even as she watched she saw his eyes narrow sharply, the beautiful, sensual mouth tighten until it was just a thin, hard line. The frown that snapped his black brows frankly terrified her.
Not meeting her eyes, his gaze fixed on the scene before him, he levered himself up from his position and stood tall and dark and powerful as he surveyed the room.
‘The woman’s bad luck—she taints everything she touches.’ Geraldine was getting into full flow again, her voice rising to almost a screech, the newspaper flapping wildly as she waved it high. ‘I mean—who would want her to design a dress...?’
‘I would.’
Cold and clear, the response cut through the buzz of outrage and comment that had filled the room. The silence that fell was as if a huge blanket had been dropped over everyone, stifling any sound. The audience stilled too, as Nairo moved forward, his movements the dangerous prowl of a predatory wild cat. A path opened up to let him through and even Geraldine froze to the spot, her words deserting her as he came closer.
Rose couldn’t blame her. Seen like this, Nairo Moreno was the sort of man who could suck all the air out of a room simply by existing. She found herself struggling to breathe, waiting and watching...
‘I said I would.’
Nairo had reached Geraldine’s side now and he snatched the newspaper away from her, sparing it only the briefest, iciest glance before he crushed it brutally in one hand and tossed it aside, contempt in every inch of his powerful body.
‘I would have Miss Cavalliero design a dress for someone I loved. Anyone with eyes to see would do the same—wouldn’t you?’ he challenged, his fierce gaze raking over the rest of the audience. ‘Anyone but a fool could see that as a designer Miss Cavalliero is hugely skilled. As a man, I’m no expert in fashion...’
Rose watched in amazement as he actually shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of assumed self-deprecation.
It had to be assumed, didn’t it? Even as the Jett she’d known he wouldn’t willingly admit to any sort of weakness in his own make-up. But the gesture had worked. The women surrounding him had actually smiled. Some of them were nodding.
‘But even I can see that these dresses are works of art.’
He had the room in the palm of his hand, Rose realised. He was turning the tide of disapproval that Geraldine had threatened to direct against her.
‘Miss Cavalliero...’
Nairo had moved closer, was holding out a hand to her. For the space of a dazed heartbeat she stared at it, only realising after a moment that he meant to help her down from the runway, onto the floor of the main ballroom.
She needed that help. Needed the support of his strength and the warm power of that hand. But even as his grip closed over her fingers, she knew a sudden stunning change, felt the sting of burning electricity fizz through her so that the hold she took on him was more than to get down the steps to the floor. It was like being taken back in years, to the days when she had been just a stupid, crazy, hormone-ridden teenager and she had first met Jett. Back to the days when she had given him her heart, her soul, her virginity. And he had only to touch her to send her up in flames.
From being cold with shock, she was now burning with
