Mia spoke to her mum every day. They met up at least once a week. She didn’t see her sister as much but that was only because Amy worked shifts and Mia tended to work evenings, their days off rarely coinciding. They still spoke lots and messaged all the time and got together whenever they could.
It hadn’t always been like that. Their father’s sudden death almost a decade ago had had the effect of a grenade being thrown at them. That grenade had detonated and caused what Mia had once feared was irreparable damage. Slowly though, the damage had repaired. There would always be scars but Mia, Amy and their mum were now as whole and as tight a family unit as they could be. She had to pray there would be no fallout from this job she’d been given...
She straightened. In a flash, it came to her how she could get out of this.
‘Damián...’ Speaking his name aloud for the first time was as strange an experience as everything else she’d been through that day. It seemed to just roll off her tongue, which immediately longed to have it roll off again. She shook the strange notion away and focused. ‘You said you’d shortlisted other actresses for this job.’
‘And?’
‘Let one of them do it. I only agreed because I thought you were blackmailing me, but as you’re not then—’
‘It’s too late,’ he interrupted tonelessly.
‘I won’t say anything,’ she pleaded. She would beg if she had to. ‘Please? I’ll give you the money back and sign anything you want.’
‘I said it’s too late.’ His face turned to hers. The darkness in his eyes glittered. ‘We’ve been seen together.’
‘But we’ve only had one date.’
‘Believe me, mi vida, I would gladly swap you for another actress but it’s too late. The wheels of our love affair have been set in motion.’
‘After one date?’ she asked in disbelief.
‘I’m being watched and my communications monitored.’
‘By who?’
‘My brother.’
She stared at him in utter shock. Her head was ready to explode with all that had happened that day and this little nugget of information could have ignited it.
His jaw clenched, anger etched deep into his features. She had the feeling the anger was directed at himself. He hadn’t meant to reveal that. It had been a slip of the tongue, and for the first time she felt a pang of sympathy for him.
‘Emiliano is the one behind all this?’
His answer was silence, broken only when the car came to a stop outside her door.
‘Tomorrow we will eat in my apartment,’ Damián said curtly. ‘My driver will collect you at seven.’
Her sympathy vanished at his arrogant assumption. ‘I’m performing tomorrow night.’
‘I fly back to Buenos Aires on Wednesday. It has to be tomorrow.’
‘I’m working.’
‘Get your understudy to fill in for you.’
‘Why don’t you get your understudy to fill in for you in Buenos Aires?’ she retorted pointedly.
‘I do not have an understudy,’ he informed her through what sounded like gritted teeth.
‘Guess what? I don’t have an understudy either. I’ve got eight shows left and then on Sunday the tour’s over.’ And she still didn’t have another job lined up. ‘I’m not pulling out of any of them, so don’t even think of asking me to—or, in your case, ordering me to. I’ve agreed to be available for you next week so don’t push me any further.’
His eyes narrowed to tiny points. She could almost feel the lasers of affronted dislike shooting from them.
‘I will collect you after your performance,’ he said, his voice now clipped. ‘Pack an overnight bag.’
‘I’m not staying the night.’
‘Then cancel your performance and spend the evening with me.’
‘No.’
A sudden breeze kissed her cheeks as the driver opened the door for her. Before she could get out, long warm fingers closed around her wrist and Damián’s face was inches from hers, close enough that she could see the individual hairs of his trim black goatee and the beginnings of stubble breaking out across his jawline. Close enough too for the exotic cologne he wore to dive into her airwaves and send her pulses surging.
A smile played on his lips as his eyes swirled menacingly. ‘You will spend tomorrow night in my apartment, mi vida,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And you will spend next week in it too, as per the contract you signed. I’m paying you a fat fee to do a job and I expect you to fulfil it, and fulfil it to the best of your abilities. Is that understood?’
Swallowing back the moisture in her mouth, dimly aware of his driver waiting for her to get out and likely paying attention, Mia smiled back and brought her mouth to Damián’s ear to whisper, ‘Let go of me right now or I will scream.’
She didn’t mean to touch him but the tip of her nose brushed against his earlobe and, frightened of the jolt that crashed through her, she quickly reared back.
Eyes clashing, his nostrils flared. Barely a second passed in that look before he loosened his hold and dipped his head to place his mouth against her ear, and it was enough for her stomach to flip over and for a fuzziness to envelop her brain.
‘The only screams a man wants from a woman’s mouth are the screams of pleasure,’ he whispered cuttingly. ‘The only thing a man will want to do with your mouth, though, is zip it up.’
With the warmth of his breath lingering against her skin, it took another beat before she realised Damián had let go of her wrist and settled back on the seat. While she tried to open her contracted throat and get her lungs to function properly, he was staring at her with the look of a man who knew he’d dealt a zinger of a finale.
A thick black brow rose as he bestowed her with a sardonic smile. ‘Goodnight, mi vida. I will dream of you.’
Their eyes clashed again, fire and ice raging between them. And something else. A pulse. A charge she’d never felt before but which she instinctively knew spelled danger.
‘Don’t have nightmares,’ she said in the sweetest voice she could muster before jumping out of the car, thanking the driver and doing her best not to run to the sanctuary of her flat.
Damián’s smile vanished as he watched Mia disappear into the rundown building she called home. He rapped on the partition to let his driver know they could go, then rested back on the seat and closed his eyes. The beats of his heart thudded with such strength he felt the echoes through his heated skin.