Humiliation flushing through her blood, Mia stormed to the front door, teeth clamped together to stop her mouth firing expletives at him. While she checked she’d put her keys in her new clutch bag, she took some very deep breaths and worked on transforming her features into something soft and loving. The first role she’d ever played had been Juliet in a school production. The boy who’d played Romeo had been a vile braggart with halitosis who’d believed himself to be God’s gift to women. She still considered convincing the audience that she’d been madly in love with him to be her finest acting achievement. If she could pull that off she could pull this off. She had to.
When Damián joined her in the hallway, she slowly tilted her head and fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘There you are. For a horrible moment I thought you’d flown back to Argentina.’
His eyes narrowed.
Making sure her voice was soft and verging on simpering, she put her hands to her chest and said, ‘I can’t tell you how excited I am for our date. It feels like I’ve spent my life waiting for you and now you’re finally here...’ She let her voice trail off and gave another flutter of her eyelashes for good measure.
His firm mouth twitched before he inclined his head. ‘Much better.’
She smiled dreamily and opened the door. ‘Shall we?’
They stepped out into the cool evening air. When Damián put his arm around her waist she made sure not to flinch, kept the same dreamy smile on her face all the way to the waiting car. The driver jumped out to open the back door for them.
Only when they were secure in the car’s confines, the driver hurrying to climb back in, did she look at Damián and, with the dreamy smile still firmly in place, say, ‘Don’t even think of touching me in private.’
His dark eyes held hers before he slowly dipped his face to her ear and whispered, ‘I’d rather touch acid. It would have less of a burn.’
When Mia got out of the car and saw the name of the restaurant Damián had brought her to for their ‘date’ she choked back a gasp. Never in a million years had she dreamed she would dine here, in a restaurant widely regarded to be one of the finest in the world.
‘Am I allowed to be star-struck?’ she murmured when he reached her side.
‘No.’ Then, slipping his arm around her waist, he swept her inside, where the maître d’ greeted him like a long-lost Messiah.
Affecting nonchalance at the glorious interior, she clamped her vocal cords shut so as not to squeal when the first person she spotted was an A-list Hollywood actress and her director husband. Even though Mia kept her gaze fixed on the maître d’s back as they were led to their table, she couldn’t fail to notice all the heads turning as they walked past and the sudden flurry of impeccably dressed women smoothing their hair and dabbing under their eyes to catch wayward mascara.
Strangely, although the place was full, there was none of the noise she associated with busy restaurants. The background music was pitched at just the right level and the owner must have done some tricks with the acoustics because she couldn’t hear a word of any surrounding conversations, only a low-level buzz.
To play it safe, she waited until they were alone before leaning forward to say in a low voice, ‘Can we speak freely here?’
Damián, who was reading his menu, raised his gaze to hers. ‘Yes.’
‘In that case, tell me what it is, exactly, that you’re forcing me into.’
To her immense frustration, the waitress came to their table to take their order. Having not eaten anything since the slice of toast she’d had for breakfast—after her awful meeting with Damián, food had been the last thing on her mind—Mia realised she was starving. And, for the first time since she’d left home for drama school almost six years ago, she didn’t have to worry about the cost. She could choose anything she liked.
If Damián could blackmail her she might as well take advantage of the perks. This might be her only chance to eat in a three Michelin star restaurant, and she quickly selected the lobster and langoustine ravioli starter and the roasted monkfish for her main course. Considering the only seafood she’d eaten these past six years had been tins of tuna, these felt like decadent choices and she was happy to take the waitress’s advice on the best wine to pair with them.
‘Well?’ she said when their wine had been poured for them and they’d been left alone.
He leaned forward and covered her hand. Unprepared for the gesture, unprepared for the sudden clatter of her heart at his touch, she only just stopped herself from tugging it away.
As if sensing her internal war, he murmured, ‘Remember to keep your features soft and loving. People can’t hear what we’re saying but have no doubt we’re being watched.’
She forced the dreamy smile back on her face. ‘Better?’
He flashed another mesmerising high-voltage smile and nodded.
‘Then please get on with it before the suspense kills me.’
Speaking as casually as if they were discussing the weather, he said, ‘There are documents hidden in Celeste’s villa—important documents—that I need to find as a matter of urgency. Your job is to help me find them.’
‘Celeste? As in your mother?’
He nodded.
She studied him closely. There was no way it was as simple as he’d just made out, not with all the subterfuge and money he was spending. ‘What kind of documents?’
‘You don’t need to know that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It isn’t relevant. All you need to know is that the documents are hidden somewhere in Celeste’s villa.’
‘She’s hidden them?’
‘No. And I am not going to tell you anything more about them. It is not relevant to your job. What is relevant is that the villa is like a fortress and designed for concealing secrets. It was designed to Celeste’s specifications when she married my father, and I have all the necessary blueprints and video tours of the interior for you to study. I will need you to become as familiar with the villa’s layout as you are with your own home before we go there.’
‘Why?’
‘The weekend we’re there, the villa will be packed with staff. It takes a team of hundreds to organise the party and this will work in my favour as it means I can search for the documents. With bodies everywhere, it will be hard to keep track of us but I don’t like leaving things to chance. I need you to be my eyes and ears while I’m searching.’
Their conversation stopped as their starters were brought to the table, giving Mia the excuse she needed to remove her hand from under his. She resisted the strong urge to shake it and rid herself of the warm impression his fingers left on her skin.