Dressed to Thrill

by Bella Frances

  ‘Is she wasted?’

  ‘Michael, calm down—she’s fine.’

  Angelica’s fluttering was beginning to annoy him. Fernanda was lying in a white trash coma—he had enough experience to know that—so why was anyone trying to tell him otherwise? This was how it started. This was how kids like Fern took the hand they’d been dealt and tossed it up in the air. She was sixteen years old—exactly the same age he had been when he had begun to run with the wrong crowds and then down the wrong roads. Too cocky to listen to any advice that hadn’t been about how great he looked or how good he was in bed. And totally too stupid and too naïve to know he couldn’t possibly be good in bed. This was how lives careered out of control—when there weren’t adults around who really, truly cared.

  And Angelica might think she was doing the right thing—like his mother had thought she was—but they were different people. Trusting, kind, good. Not like him. Not at all like him.

  And he wasn’t going to let history repeat itself. No chance.

  ‘Get her up, Angelica. And then you can tell me what the hell went on last night. You think I can’t see through your scheme? You planted that little sex bomb with me to keep me out of the way, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, Michael, you weren’t horrible to her, were you?’

  ‘You’ve already asked me that. And it has nothing to do with you what I did or didn’t do, or say, to Tara.’ He was getting distracted and losing the whole point of why he was here. ‘Just get Fern up—I’ll be in the kitchen.’

  He strode through to the gleaming, glossy kitchen. His head pounded with too much caffeine and too much grief. He’d been played for a fool by three women in one night and for the first time in years he felt that things were spinning off in directions he didn’t like.

  He took out his phone and stabbed in the code. He had the rest of the weekend and then a trip to Spain on Monday. Things to sort, zero sleep and a crushing series of flashbacks involving Tara Devine.

  Tara Devine? What or where or how had that name figured with his? Twenty-four hours ago he’d been given Fern’s itinerary and had agreed to accompany Angelica to Tara’s show. Had reluctantly agreed. Had sat through an hour of torture, counting his blessings that he had nothing to do with any of this puerile drivel any more.

  Eighteen hours later he was banging the same Ms Devine for all he was worth and not getting anything near his fill. Was that his problem? Sexual frustration? It had been a while since his last lover, and maybe Tara had just sparked something.

  ‘You’re up.’ He watched Fern’s cagey steps through the kitchen. She was walking as if she had broken glass in her brain. ‘Headache? Or worse?’

  She kept her head down. He couldn’t see her face for her hair but she sat up on a bar stool with her phone in her hand, ignoring him. Her normally upright posture was folded in on itself and she looked pretty fragile in her short pyjamas and giant socks. That didn’t stop her from texting continuously.

  ‘Put the phone down, Fernanda.’

  She clicked it off and turned it face-down, but still wouldn’t look at him.

  ‘Where were you last night?’

  ‘I was out. At a party.’

  ‘So why say you were going to stay home?’

  She looked up at him. Pasty, shadowed. Confrontational. He’d never seen her like that before.

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘Answer my question—and not with one of your own.’

  She scowled from the depths and muttered, ‘Tara’s right. You are a control freak.’

  ‘I’m glad we’ve got that ironed out. Tara’s opinion is really important to me.’ He was that good a control freak that the words were coming out calm and slow.

  ‘Fabulous! We can all have a chat about that in a moment or two. She’s on her way over.’

  If he’d had coffee in his mouth he would have spurted it. But he was smarter than to give anything more than a bemused look to Angelica, who had just joined them in the kitchen—breezily, as if this was like any regular Saturday morning and Tara Devine was any regular visitor.

  ‘Lunch? I suppose it’s time for lunch…we seem to have missed breakfast.’

  The ridiculously flippant musings of his sister were interrupted by the doorbell. He looked at the others but they were playing their little game. So he went through to answer it.

  If Tara hadn’t been expecting to see him she hid it well. The super-bright smile, pink lips today, and a flick of her eyes as if he was so much rubbish on the street and she would sweep it away. She walked straight in.

  ‘Michael.’

  On down the hall and his eyes followed the swagger of her ass in a leather skirt that fitted her like a second skin. That skin—her skin—he’d never seen or felt anything like it. Dove-pale and down-soft. His eyes trailed her all the way until she reached the kitchen. He heard a whoop of welcome from his sisters, even from the pathologically hung-over Fernanda.

  ‘So you’ll come?’

  Come where?

  He entered the kitchen. Saw Tara approach Fern. Hugged her and was rewarded with a soft smile.

  ‘I’d love to. But I have a lot on, so maybe best to leave it. Until all the other issues are sorted.’

  What issues?

  Angelica’s performance was award-winning. Little light smile and duchess head-tilt.

  ‘Of course…of course. We could diary some time in for after Paris. I worry about leaving it too long, though. I think these may be the only free days I have between now and next month.’

  Tara was handed a cup of coffee and now stood next to Fern.

  ‘It’s going to be tough. When would you need to know?’

  Need to know what?

  ‘Oh, I just need to know so that I can pick you up before we fly—or if you need to make your own way. I can collect you from the airport.’

  What? Had they all been handed a script before he came in?

  ‘What’s going on here? Where are you all going?’ Michael demanded, barely able to keep a lid on his growing frustration.

  They turned to him—two dark heads and one blonde. All big eyes and mouths in perfect Os.

  ‘Barcelona. Tara has agreed to design my wedding dress and she’s coming out to stay for… Well, we can sort out the exact details later.’

  ‘Is that right? Tara, maybe you and I should have a talk.’

  ‘About…?’

  About the state of Fernanda. About the signals she was sending his impressionable sister. About the mind-blowing sex they’d shared less than six hours ago. Her coming to Barcelona was not an option. He wanted order, not chaos. He wanted Fern calm and back at school. He wanted to be able to think about Tara Devine in the past and not look at her in the present and want to rip her clothes off.

  He needed control over his head and his body. And Tara Devine seemed to have this insane capacity to reduce him to knee-jerk reactions and bizarre emotions. Who the hell wanted that near them? She’d already made him question his self-control, his sense of guilt and his whole value system. This was not an option. Could not be an option.

  His sisters seemed to have left the room. But it was more the fire in Tara’s eyes than the absence of other people that alerted him. As the door clicked shut she turned on him.

  ‘I agree that we should talk. Me first. I came to your house in good faith, expecting to catch up with the others. I told you clearly in the car that I didn’t want to kiss you. I get in the door of the apartment and you clearly decide that no means yes.’

  ‘Are you saying you didn’t want to do what we did?’

  ‘No.’ She couldn’t hold his eyes there. ‘No, I’m not. All I’m saying is that the way you treated me afterwards was shocking.’

  She turned back to face him. Her eyes were huge. The spill of vulnerable tears wo
uld have formed in any other woman’s eyes but she was white-hot with hurt. And that hit harder.

  ‘You sent out some pretty clear signals yourself. I came after you—in the bathroom, remember? But you wanted privacy.’

  ‘Do you blame me? My pulse hadn’t even settled back down and I was told the meter was running.’

  ‘Tara, you’re a player. Don’t try to fool me that you were hoping for some gallantry. You know how these games work. You’re in or you’re out. And you were in up to your gorgeous neck.’

  He looked right there, right then. Her silver slash-necked knit top showed more expanse of that silken skin. Her collarbone etched out a line that he had run his mouth over. The swell of her cleavage lay just out of eyesight, but the knowledge of it was all he needed to kick his lust awake again. He looked up and she was staring right back at him. Those blue eyes still stored hurt and the pinkest, plumpest lips still formed that tetchy moue. But she couldn’t hide it any more than he could. They had a huge thing going on—a thing that he needed to rein in and redirect.

  It had happened before—this kind of heat between two people. OK, maybe not to the extent he was feeling it right now, but close enough that he knew how much havoc it could cause.

  ‘A player? Who plays games with rules like the ones you made up? Rule One: act like an arrogant jerk. Rule Two: ignore the other person’s clear warning off. Rule Three: muscle in like an uncaged beast…’

  ‘Rule Four: respond like the Miss Whiplash you paint yourself as.’

  She gave a little gasp there.

  ‘Well? Did I call it wrong? You’re playing with the big boys now, Tara. Better make sure you’ve thought it all through, because this isn’t a rehearsal.’

  She put her hands on her hips and squared right up to him. Her chest was heaving and her skin had flushed to the colour she’d bloomed when he’d made love to her. She was magnificent in her rage.

  ‘Just listen to yourself. You absolute ego trip. I wouldn’t play with you again if my life depended on it.’

  ‘Your life will depend on you staying away from my sisters. So why don’t you go and tell Angelica you’ve changed your mind?’

  ‘Are you threatening me? Are you seriously threatening me?’

  No, of course he wasn’t threatening her. It had just come out like that. He needed her away—from them and mostly from him, and now. Because the way she looked right now, with her eyes flashing and her mouth open and moist, with her hands on her hips and her breasts pressing their tempting outline against the thin, soft fabric of her sweater, he wanted her as up close and personal as he could possibly get her.

  ‘This isn’t going to work, Tara.’

  ‘This is going to work perfectly. And here’s how. I won the commission for Angelica’s dress fair and square. I need to spend time with her to get her thoughts. We’ve arranged that for next week. The fact that you and I had sex is irrelevant. The biggest problem is your need to control every aspect of everyone’s life—including mine! Well, that just isn’t happening. OK?’

  She moved toward him to emphasise her little rant and it was all he needed. He reached out and cupped her face, stepped closer and hauled her right up against him. He took that pink mouth and made it his. He tasted her lips, her tongue, and silenced her but for the bone-deep sigh she finally eased out.

  He moved her steadily backwards until her back was against the door. He pressed her with his body and ran his hands over her breasts, under her sweater and inside her bra. She yelped into his mouth with pleasure and he swallowed her sounds. Her hands were all over him, clutching at his butt, running over his shoulders, down his pecs and finally cupping his erection. She was hotter than the Mojave and she matched him in every way.

  He stepped back, braced his arms on her shoulders, drew breath. She was right, of course. Even if she really was the full-on party girl she painted herself to be, and he was beginning to suspect it was a media myth, he had been bang out of line. But that was really beside the point. His first loyalty was to his family; and always would be. And no amount of sexual attraction or the spur of smart-mouthed comments were going to make her the sort of person he wanted hanging around. One week in her company and look what had happened to Fern. One week in her company and who knew what would happen to him?

  ‘I don’t need this kind of thing in my life. I don’t want Fernanda any more influenced by your world than she already is. You’ve got your commission with Angelica—fine. But the rest is off-limits.’

  The venom was back.

  She recovered quickly and stepped to the side. One hand on the door handle, the other patting her hair. She eyed him, shaking her head and breathing her contempt.

  ‘As I said. I make up my own rules. Deal with it.’

  FOUR

  The last thing she needed was hassle. Of any description. The stress of organising the next show was off the charts and, yes, she was brazening it out in front of her team, but her shoulders were only so broad and her skin was only so thick.

  She clicked the phone off and looked at it in her hand. Closed varnish-chipped fingers over it and wondered if it would ever ease up. So Dutch Ronnie was backing out. She should have seen it coming. He was too good to be true. Well, apart from how self-obsessed and downright dull he was. Beautiful, bisexual and boring. And also broke, it now seemed.

  She rolled her eyes. This would mean another grovelling interview with the bank to extend her borrowing. And, sure, there were definite advantages to looking bad girl gone worse, but when it came to meetings with the suits that held all the cards she sometimes wished she owned even one thing knee-length in navy. The business side of life just seemed to roll much more easily when you played with a conservative ball.

  Still, her media strategy had held her in good stead up until now. They loved that she was a natural at self-promotion. They loved that she ‘was her brand’. And she knew most of them could see past her party persona when they focused on what was coming out of her mouth rather than what she was barely wearing.

  That was the real irony, of course. That these stuffed shirts knew her better than most of her friends and all of her family. Funny that she could feel quite comfortable baring her soul to them, plotting out her five-year plan and being totally overt about how she wanted…okay, needed to have achieved a foothold in Europe within the next twelve months. The only thing they didn’t know was why.

  Why was she so driven? What had turned the quiet, unassuming mousy-haired, Girl Least Likely to Succeed into the competitive, controlling, crazy woman she was today? Did she even know herself?

  Sometimes. And it didn’t make her heart sing.

  Which was why a head full of business was way better than any amount of navel-gazing. She just had to get things back on track.

  Still, a week ago she would never have called this one! Angelica Cruz’s wedding dress. It wasn’t going to save her whole empire, but it could lead to some very lucrative long-term interest. If only she could keep her mouth shut and her gaze away from the eye candy that she seemed to want to gorge on.

  She cast her eyes down over Barcelona outfit number one—a little red full-skirted silk-satin shirt-dress, peep-toe nude patent slingback wedges and… She lifted out what jewellery she’d brought, which was a joke: a few hoops of gold… She hated that she’d had to rush to pack like that. She back-combed her hair and then smoothed it into a ponytail. Red matte lips—no trace on her teeth—and…she looked down…yep, flaky nail varnish.

  But she’d have to get around to that later. For now it was time to soak up the Cruz family atmosphere and start to tune in to Angelica’s muse. A couple of hours of wandering around the house and gardens before lunch and then some time together reviewing the albums of previous Cruz brides that had been left out in her room on arrival.

  And what an arrival it had been. Radio silence had been observed since she’d
told Michael to ‘deal with it’ and he’d obviously gone all alpha and cracked his Daddy Cruz whip. Fern’s pouting lip was big enough to trip her up and Angelica’s almost brittle brightness had taken hold since they’d landed at BCN. Tara knew family dynamics well—Devine style. No words left unsaid, no look left undelivered. Tears, screams and tantrums. Then repeat until exhausted.

  Until Grandpa Devine came home. Then everyone scuttled to the shadows. Whispers and eyes cast down. Favourite dinners and nothing a problem.

  She picked more polish off, scraping her cuticles, drawing blood, feeling nothing. No, nothing was a problem—even in-your-face bullies like her grandfather. Her problem was that she’d had the front to call him on it. That had made her the problem.

  So when the time had come to make choices—when some had got jobs, some had chosen college—she’d chosen the fastest train out of town. And never looked back. And, really, Michael Cruz was just a Hollywood version of Grandpa Devine. Smoother edges and whiter teeth, but that arrogance, that expectation that all females would do exactly as they were told…

  She looked at the little pile of scarlet shards now lying on the crisp white bedcovers. Sweep up the damage and get on with it. Get on with life. Because no one was ever going to stand behind you, let alone agree with you that women were created equal! Oh, no. Not your aunts, not your grandfather, and certainly not your mother.

  And that was why it was a far better idea to be completely and utterly independent. In every aspect of life. To stay as far away from people who would control her. And, if she absolutely had to date, she dated carefully—no lies, but no promises. And absolutely no men who judged her or disrespected her. They had to be totally in tune with their feminine sides. Or they didn’t even get past first base.

  And that did not make her a player! Damn Michael Cruz and his insults. Look what happened when she ignored her own rules…