ahead of him, she didn’t speak a word as they headed for his limousine. Perhaps she didn’t trust herself to speak.
His driver opened the door for them, and she got in. She remained silent at his side, allowing him plenty of time to weigh up the shadows in her eyes.
‘You haven’t told me where we’re going yet,’ she reminded him, conscious of his scrutiny.
‘You always used to like surprises, Karina.’
‘And now I don’t have time for them.’ She crossed her legs and sat up primly to make her point. ‘I have a working life to consider,’ she added, when he continued to stare at her.
‘Then stop worrying, because the place I’m taking you is directly connected to the business between us.
‘Relax,’ he advised.
‘I’m perfectly relaxed,’ she snapped, staring straight ahead.
* * *
Dante’s driver drove carefully through the crowded streets. It was carnival. How could she have forgotten? The city was packed with musicians and performers, and crowds from all over the world. At one time this had been her favourite event of the year.
‘You used to love carnival,’ Dante commented, as if he had picked up on her thoughts. ‘Has that changed now?’
‘It hasn’t changed.’ She felt a charge as she turned to look at him. His hands, his lips, his face, his body all so familiar, were within a few scant inches of her, and her mouth dried as she turned to look out of the window at the exuberant crowd. Carnival was all about rhythm and music, abandonment and lust, and here she was, old before her time, dressed in a sober business suit, feeling like a dried-up leaf.
‘I’m not dressed for this,’ she murmured, unconsciously voicing her inner concerns.
‘I don’t know what you’re worried about,’ Dante argued as his driver parked. ‘Who cares what you’re wearing? It’s the spirit of carnival that counts.’
That was what worried her. She’d used to have plenty of spirit, but life changed you.
‘I can’t—these heels...’
Dante glanced at her feet and laughed. ‘That’s the worst excuse I ever heard.’
She shook her head in disagreement. ‘We can’t afford to waste time here when we could be discussing plans for the polo cup.’
‘That’s precisely why we’re here,’ he argued, reaching for the door handle. ‘The event will be a huge success—if you can relax enough to organise it.’
‘I can relax,’ she insisted, pressing back against the seat. ‘I just don’t have a lot of time. I thought you understood that.’
‘I understand that you’re making excuses,’ he said, opening the door and getting out.
What the hell was wrong with Karina? What had happened to her sense of humour—her sense of fun? At one time it wouldn’t have been she leading him astray and distracting him from his work. In the past it hadn’t been possible to keep Karina away from carnival, but now it seemed she hadn’t even registered the fact that that it was carnival week in Rio. She’d be no use in this sombre mood to the event he wanted to create. He had expected the Karina he’d once known, would come up with something fabulous, something that would appeal to all ages. ‘Shall we?’ he invited, helping her out of the car—or rather drawing her out, as she seemed so reluctant. He was beginning to wonder if he’d made a huge mistake to allow Luc to talk him into this.
‘Lead the way,’ she said, with the same lack of enthusiasm, as if he hadn’t touched her at all.
He intended to lead. He intended to elicit a reaction from her. When they had all been kids together the annual carnival had been the highlight of their year, and that was exactly what he wanted to re-create on his ranch for the Gaucho Cup.
‘All work and no play will destroy your creative juices,’ he warned, as she stared around.
‘If you say so.’
Her small smile was better than nothing at all, he supposed.
‘We need to get a move on, Karina,’ he prompted. ‘The procession will start any time now.’
‘Okay.’
Wobbling on the cobbles in her high-heeled shoes, she did look out of place—as she so obviously felt. His stone heart responded just a little. Even back when Karina had been a tomboy, tormenting the life out of him, he’d cared about her in his offhand teenage way. He still cared about her, and felt compelled to get to the bottom of the changes in someone who had used to shed light, but who now cast only shadows.
IGNORING DANTE’S OFFER to link arms, she walked ahead. This wasn’t a personal expedition, this was business.
Really?
Dante didn’t need to know that just being within touching distance of him made her heart go crazy, or that she beginning to feel the excitement of carnival thaw the ice around her heart. She hadn’t done this for ages—walked in the city for no better reason than to have fun. She hadn’t felt this free for years. Her gaze was darting around like a hermit let out of a cave as she desperately tried to soak up all the sights and sounds and smells at once.
She felt drunk on them, elated, after the hushed silence of her brother’s luxury hotel, and for a moment she was so wrapped up in events around her that she stopped walking altogether and got jostled along by the crowd. She almost lost her balance and then a steadying hand rescued her—Dante’s. She sucked in a noisy breath, glad that the ruckus from the crowd drowned it out. Even that briefest of touches was a warning of how receptive she still was to Dante.
She shouldn’t have come here with him, she fretted as she made for some shadows beneath the awning of a shop. Carnival in Rio was the highest-octane party in the world. No one came to carnival to discuss dry business deals or to cement business relationships. If couples talked at all, their faces were close and their eyes were locked on each other.
The music, the colour, the spectacle, the noise, the heat of the sun and the warmth of the cobbled street beneath her feet, combined with the scent of cinnamon and spices, made a riotous feast for the senses, and she had been on an austere diet. Appealing to her senses was the very last thing on her agenda for today. Logic and facts were all she needed to make the Gaucho Cup a success.
But she was here. And with him. Get over it. Get out there and make the most of it.
‘Hold on,’ Dante cautioned, as she followed a sudden impulse to plunge into the crowd. ‘It gets wild from here.’
Like she didn’t know that—though anything was wild compared to the way she’d been living. She exulted in the beat of the approaching drums as they grew louder. Maybe she wasn’t so dead inside after all. She wasn’t—she wasn’t dead at all. In fact, she had to fight the urge to go along the crowd and lose herself in the echo of a different life.
‘Karina!’
