silent type he’d been. Not any more, it seemed.
He was going on. “Sorry I had to leave you like that. Had to discuss the little boy’s continuing care with Miguel, my assistant, about his oral burn, arrange for his follow-up and future corrective surgery. He thought it was incredible for both of us to be here, just in time to help. I think it’s more than incredible.”
“You think so? I bet you there are dozens of doctors floating around the airport. If it hadn’t been us, it would have been another couple of people.”
“Maybe, but what about us—before the emergency?”
She was already busy groping for theories to explain her shocking reaction to him, for why he’d singled her out.
He wasn’t giving her time to think. “Come on, let’s go somewhere where we can...talk.” He tugged gently on her arm, his arm going around her shoulders until he had her in the curve of his body, steering her away from the crowds.
In a minute she found herself towed into a VIP lounge, two security men holding the door open for them. Inside there were just three other people, very distinguished-looking men in thousand-dollar suits.
So the man had clout. Didn’t hesitate to throw his weight around. It figured. From his more than shady beginnings, he’d always been an opportunist, bent on climbing up as high as he could reach in the world. Over anyone. Years ago, when she’d finally stopped following his progress, and had made sure no one told her any more about him, he’d already reached the top.
He turned from closing the door and bore down on her. “I came back running, though I knew...” Those long, strong fingers, his precise surgeon’s tools, went to her hair, tucking it behind her ear, the motion intimate. Penetrating. As if he’d touched her in all her secret places. Blood whooshed in her brain, amplified by the sudden change from the hubbub of the open airport to the lounge’s soundproofed serenity. “I knew you’d wait for me.”
She sat down on the plush couch before she fell, and looked up at him as he came to stand above her.
He’d changed. As a young man he’d been incredible. Now...now he was a fully matured force of nature.
No wonder she hadn’t recognized him.
Broader, leaner. Tougher. Harsher. And those eyes—no wonder she hadn’t recognized them. She’d never really seen them behind the obscuring glasses he’d never taken off. Those were now gone. As was the raven, unruly mane, the sallow tinge of years of study and sun deprivation and the yucky facial hair of the last six years of their...relationship. Now he was all silver-laced uncompromising crop, deep bronze and clean-shaven slashed lines.
He’d changed all right, for the best. Only on the surface, no doubt. She’d bet good money the inside changes were for the worse.
If that was possible.
Another thing had changed: the way he looked at her. At their last meeting, he’d looked at her as if she’d been a human-sized parasite. Now the look in his eyes said...plenty.
It also said he still didn’t recognize her.
The Vidal Arroyo Martinez she had known would have rather been skinned alive than be within a five-mile radius of her. Let alone hit on her.
Ooh, but this was just too delicious! Her anonymity was a great weapon at the moment. No way was she passing up the chance of using it. Let her see how far he’d go if she played this game his way. If she gave him as much rope as he needed to hang himself with.
Her heart was still thumping hard enough to shake her, but her old imp had resurfaced. A dizzying mixture of resentment and excitement drove her on. She fluttered her lashes at him, the exaggerated huskiness in her voice only half pretense. “And as I did, what do you intend to do with me?”
Surprise invaded those annihilating eyes. Though it was followed by a flare of raw hunger, she saw her response had thrown him. He hadn’t expected her to be as outrageous as he was.
Oh, yes. Revenge was going to be so sweet.
CHAPTER TWO
“DO YOU really want me to tell you? Or shall I surprise you?”
Vidal heard the aroused tone of his voice, felt his body hardening even more, had no control over it at all.
What was happening to him? What was he doing?
Instead of gulping down some coffee and heading for the plane he should have boarded an hour ago, he was waxing poetic, all but pouncing on the woman. A woman whose name he didn’t even know. A woman who might even be engaged or married.
His eyes darted to her hands—those supple, skilled fingers, made for taking lingeringly into his mouth...
Whoa. Focus, Vidal.
No rings. Good. Great.
But why great? Why should that matter? In an hour he’d leave, never see her again. And, anyway, she’d said she was a surgeon. That probably explained the absence of rings. She wasn’t wearing any kind of jewelry at all. And she should—she should wear sapphires, like her eyes—and nothing else, with just his leg thrown over hers for cover...
What was wrong with him? He didn’t pursue women. Never. Not even in his mind. In fact, he’d turned dodging them into an art. So what was he doing, standing there like a hormone-ridden adolescent, panting over this—this...vision?
Vision? The woman wasn’t even beautiful!
No, just the answer to his every taste and fantasy.
“So, will you tell me? Or will you just stand there and hyperventilate?” The vision was also all but laughing her head off at his eagerness. He should mind. He didn’t.
He gazed into her disarming eyes and something warm and soft spread in his gut. Let her make fun of him if it would keep them radiating that wicked innocence, make that exquisite head tilt, letting that burnished carmine hair riot over those full...
That’s it. He’d gone over the edge. Right into mental breakdown.
He’d thought he’d been suffering from clinical depression. But no depression manifested as uncontrollable lust and a desire to make a fool of oneself. Maybe manic depression?
Oh, whatever. It was worth it. She was worth it.
“I am far from back to normal.” He pitched his voice lower, throwing himself into this weirdness of wanting to be open, needing to communicate. “And right now I’m wiped out. I forgot how exhausting CPR can be. If it wasn’t for you taking over ventilation, I think I would have passed out. So I could say that’s why I’m hyperventilating. But I won’t. It’s you. You leave me breathless.” He reached out, ran his thumb over the elegant line of her nose, tracing the soft freckles’ pattern. She let him, her eyes turning turquoise with... equal eagerness?
“And you’ll leave me in suspense? Oh, the torture!” she gasped in perfect damsel-in-distress mode, her lament both intentionally silly and provocative.
Her teasing tickled his all but forgotten
