The Buenos Aires Marriage Deal. Maggie Cox

sat next to him on the padded red-velvet seat. His thigh deliberately pressed up against hers. The distinct quiver that shuddered through her made him smile with satisfaction. The sweetly seductive scent of her light perfume and the warmth of her body elicited a similar response inside Pascual. Dios mio! He could hardly credit why he should still be so violently attracted to her after all this time.

      Something about the combustible mix of chemistry they produced when they were together, obviously.

      Seeing the jealous flare in Steve Nichols’ pale watchful gaze as he surveyed the brunette with Pascual, the Argentinian ironically found himself musing that all was fair in love and war, and deliberately leaned closer to Briana, so that she gazed up at him with those smoky alluring eyes of hers and coloured hotly.

      ‘You choose the numbers for me tonight,’ he instructed softly as the smartly dressed croupier dealt the chips.

      ‘I’m not sure I agree with gambling,’ she breathed. ‘What if you lose everything because of me?’

      As if realising what she had said might also refer to the way their relationship had ended, she let her even white teeth come down hard on her tender lower lip and couldn’t hide her intense discomfort.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.

      For a moment Pascual forgot they were in company, in a public albeit supposedly discreet venue that was used to visiting VIPs with a need for privacy, and warred with an almost insatiable urge to savagely claim her mouth and passionately kiss her.

      Maybe that could come later? he considered, willing his heartbeat to slow down, unable to tear his heated gaze from hers. A quiet but pervasive excitement took root inside him at the idea.

      ‘Place your bets,’ the dealer invited, and Pascual raised an eyebrow at his female companion. ‘What will it be?’

      Clearly reluctant to participate, but knowing she could hardly refuse, Briana frowned. ‘Red six,’ she replied.

      ‘Why six?’

      ‘It’s always been lucky for me.’

      As the little hard white ball hopped and skipped round the moving wheel, every glance round the table seemed hypnotised by it. The other patrons had bet too. Hardly caring whether he won or lost, Pascual felt his heart nearly miss a beat when the ball landed squarely on red six. He had just won thirty-five times his stake, and his had been the only coloured chip on that number.

      His hosts and the other two couples round the table politely applauded. When the croupier paid him out in the appropriate chips, he turned and put them on the table in front of Briana.

      ‘Play again,’ he urged smoothly, smiling at the shock on her face. ‘Perhaps you have other lucky numbers at your disposal? Whatever you win…you keep.’

      ‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’ Appearing distressed, she pushed to her feet. Her cheeks reddening, she halted a passing cocktail waitress. ‘Can you tell me where the ladies’ cloakroom is, please?’ she asked.

      In faint concern, Pascual also got to his feet. He caught Briana’s elbow as she started to move away. ‘What is the matter? Are you unwell?’

      ‘I shouldn’t have come here!’ she hissed, her silvery eyes shimmering beneath the twinkling lights of the opulent chandelier sparkling above them. ‘I came against my better judgement, and now I wish I hadn’t!’

      ‘Why? Are you so averse to winning money?’

      ‘I’m not winning anything, Pascual! It’s your money that you’re so recklessly throwing away to chance, and I want nothing more to do with it.’

      ‘Such principles you have! What a shame they were not in such evidence when you ran away from me in Buenos Aires five years ago, without even giving me a good reason why you’d suddenly decided I was not good enough to be your husband!’

      ‘I saw you kissing another woman!’ Jealousy and hurt slashed through Briana’s insides like a blade, with no lessening of the pain she had suffered at the time of the incident five years ago.

      Remembering where she was, she quickly glanced behind her and realised that they had an audience. She moved her head in anguish. She hadn’t meant to just come out with it like that, but the memory had been dragging at her heart from the moment she’d set eyes on Pascual again and she could stem the tide of hurt no longer. Pulling her arm free from his hold, she tried to regain control of her briefly lost equilibrium and restore her dignity.

      He considered her with a stunned look. ‘Who?’ he demanded. ‘Who was this woman you saw me kissing?’

      ‘You know very well who!’ Her lip trembling, Briana kept her voice low.

      ‘I imagine you are referring to Claudia at the party that night? A very drunk Claudia, who barely even knew what she was doing!’

      ‘Oh, she knew what she was doing Pascual…And so did you, by the looks of things.’

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me you saw this? Was that the real reason you left? Dios mio!’

      ‘We’d better not have a scene here, in front of everyone. Think how it will look to your hosts—and it might reflect badly on my business too.’

      ‘Yet you clearly did not care how it looked to my family and friends when you heartlessly deserted me just a week before our wedding!’

      Pascual’s heart was pounding again, and he almost did not care whether he made a scene or not. The memory of Briana’s renunciation of both him and their marriage still cut him to the bone. And now to discover that she had witnessed that distasteful incident with Claudia, to learn that that was the reason she had left! Inside he was reeling from the knowledge. Why hadn’t she immediately said something to him? Demanded an explanation and given him the chance to tell her that his ex had been drunk and he had frankly been appalled by her throwing herself at him?

      Mindful that they were not alone, he had no intention of providing entertainment for the night for all and sundry who might be watching. A more personal discussion of events would have to wait. Giving Briana a stiff little bow, he barely disguised his impatience and annoyance.

      ‘Go to the ladies’ cloakroom. When you return I will instruct our driver to take us back to the house. I have suddenly lost my interest in gambling any further tonight!’

      Taking her brush out of her compact leather handbag, Briana made a half-hearted attempt at tidying her hair. The bank of sparkling mirrors in the luxurious ladies’ powder room left her with no place to hide her distress. She should have controlled her emotions better just now in the gaming room! But it had been so hard, when the reality of Pascual had just kept overwhelming her. And then when he had so carelessly and tauntingly put that little pile of coloured chips in front of her, each one reflecting a sum that would easily pay three months’ rent on her house, it had all been too much. Here she was, worrying herself sick over her business and facing potential bankruptcy, and Pascual was acting as if money was nothing to him! But of course with the vast wealth he had at his disposal the value of those coloured chips was even less than a drop in the ocean. If Briana was really honest it was not her financial worries that were causing her the most concern right then. Her little son’s beautiful face was constantly in her mind—a face that was a perfect miniature version of his father’s—and she wondered how on earth she could break the earth-shattering news of his existence to a man who would probably despise her even more than he did already when he heard it. She had kept Adán from him, and Pascual had every right to deride her.