He looked nervously over his shoulder and Annie couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He was no more than a kid, maybe nineteen, if that. His eyes were wide with excitement and his hands were moving as fast as he was spitting out the Spanish she didn’t understand.
Annie shook her head again, even though he kept motioning frantically for her to hurry. “No Española,” she told him and threw her hands up in the air, indicating she didn’t understand.
Diego held up one finger. Then he opened the bathroom door himself and gently pushed her inside.
Annie held up one finger and pointed it at him. “You tell Rico he has exactly five minutes before I walk right out of this restaurant.” She held up all five fingers. “Five minutes. That’s all. Understand?”
Diego nodded and quickly closed the door in her face.
“This is ridiculous,” Annie complained to no one, then looked around the small bathroom.
There were only two bathroom stalls, but at least the place was spotlessly clean. Diego had kept saying, “Tornado! Tornado!” But that was impossible. The weather outside was as clear as a bell.
However.
When the bathroom door suddenly blew open and Miss Hell-Hath-No-Fury twisted inside, Annie changed her mind about the possibility of an unexpected tornado.
Miss Twister slammed the door behind her with a wall-shaking bang. She was Hispanic, incredibly beautiful, and obviously mad as hell. And she looked, Annie decided, like a walking advertisement for a spandex commercial.
Her bright pink spandex halter top barely covered her voluptuous bosom. Talk about diversionary cleavage! Collin would have had a coronary. Her shiny black spandex capri pants showed off her tiny waist, her flat stomach, and her long, slender legs. Her long black hair reached well past her tanned exposed shoulders.
She was in-your-face breathtaking.
Annie suspected she was very well aware of it too.
She looked Annie up and down with a cool, dismissive glance, her black eyes dancing with mischief and flashing with anger.
I’m glad I’m not the one who pissed her off, Annie thought.
Until.
Someone pounded loudly on the bathroom door.
A voice Annie recognized as Rico’s yelled, “Helena! Something, something, something, something. Annie. Now!”
Helena’s answer was to toss a cascade of jet black curls over one shoulder, smile a deadly smile, and lock the bathroom door.
Oh. My. God.
“I am Helena,” she announced, as if Annie hadn’t already figured that out for herself. “You steal my Rico?” She made a slicing motion across her jugular with a four-inch red talon. “I sleet your throat.”
Annie gulped.
Having her throat sleeted was not at the top of her list of things to do anytime soon. Nor, for that matter, was being locked in a bathroom with a Hispanic spitfire who was evidently the scorned lover of a man Annie didn’t want anyway.
The throat sleeter took a threatening step in Annie’s direction. Annie’s hand flew to her neck for her own protection. “I know karate,” she warned. And a few other Japanese words. She was definitely about to get her butt kicked. Big-time.
“Rico! You’d better put an end to this,” Annie screamed toward the door.
The banging started up again. Helena wheeled around and started banging on the door just as forcefully from the inside of the bathroom. The yelling continued back and forth between them for several seconds before Helena turned to Annie and said, “You tell Rico to go away. Now. And I will not hurt you.”
Annie laughed. “Do I really look that stupid?”
One raised eyebrow was Helena’s answer.
“Look,” Annie said. “I’m not trying to steal Rico. It’s only business. Nothing personal.”
Helena’s hands immediately flew to her shapely hips. “Not personal? Ha!” She spit toward Annie’s feet. “To Rico’s fiancée”—she poked her bulging bosom with her thumb—“it is personal.”
Annie was speechless. “His fiancée?”
Helena looked at Annie for a second.
Then Rico’s fiancée burst into tears.
“Annie. What is happening?” Rico yelled, pounding on the door again.
“Go away,” Annie yelled back. “We’ll be out in a minute.”
What a freaking nightmare.
Annie turned and grabbed a towel from the dispenser and ran it under the water facet. She guided the sobbing Helena into one of the bathroom stalls, waited until she took a seat on the toilet, then handed her the dampened paper towel. Helena accepted it without question.
“Helena. What I said earlier. About it being nothing personal. I was only trying to explain I have no personal interest in Rico.”
She dabbed at her eyes. “It does not matter. It is you he wants now. He told me the day after you come to the Cabaña Club he would not honor our engagement.”
“He broke your engagement after I came to the club?” Annie felt her heart lurch at the thought of how she would feel if the tables were turned.
Helena dabbed at her eyes a few more times. “I am Rico’s intended fiancée. Chosen by his family. A custom the old Rico would have honored. This new Rico”—she waved her hand in the air—“his head is now filled with big dreams. He is restless. Confused.”
Annie leaned against the stall, thinking what a common bond she had with Helena, even if the woman had threatened to slit her throat only a few minutes earlier. Annie had been dumped herself so many times, it was amazing there weren’t billboards all over Atlanta—her picture, standing stoically, holding up a Hefty bag with giant block letters that said: Got Dumped?
Annie reached out and touched Helena’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Helena. I mean that.”
Helena’s head popped up like a jack-in-the-box. “How sorry?”
The sudden gleam in her shining black eyes told Annie she was going to regret those words. She sent Helena a suspicious look. “What do you mean, how sorry?”
“Sorry enough to help me get my Rico back?” Helena’s expression had now turned from hopeless to hopeful.
Annie said, “Exactly how would I go about doing that?”
This time, Helena’s beautiful smile lit up her entire face. “Right now, you are pushing Rico away, sí? So, Rico, he only wants you more. But we will trick him. Like the movie. Where the guy, he gets lost in ten days. Everything Rico does not want in a woman, I know it. I will tell you. And then you will pretend to be a woman Rico would not want. This will work. I am sure of it.”
Annie couldn’t believe she was actually taking time to think over everything Helena had just said, but she was. Maybe because Helena had been right about one thing. Her own plan definitely hadn’t been working.
Oh, what the hell, Annie thought.
It wouldn’t hurt to try. She certainly didn’t have a better idea. And she was definitely just as eager to get rid of Rico as Helena was to get him back.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll help you. But under one condition. The project Rico and I are working on together is very important to me. Rico has to finish filming my video game. No interference from you in that respect. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Helena said. “And there is also one condition from me. No sex with my Rico. Or . . .” She made the scary motion across her throat again.
Annie shivered. “Got it.”
“Because the sex is the second part of my plan,” Helena said with a confident smile. “Rico will come to me for the sex.”
Annie’s mouth dropped open. “And that doesn’t bother you? That Rico is romancing me, but he’ll come to you only for the sex?”
“Only the sex? Ha!” Helena rolled her eyes. “You big career women, you worry too much about all the wrong things. It is the passion that is important.” She pressed both hands zealously over her heart. “You must live it. Breathe it. Taste it. Without the passion? Pffffft,” she said. “There is nothing.”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Bing. Bing. Bing.
“I will think on this,” Helena said, standing up from her unglamorous seat on the toilet. “On the things you should do to make Rico not want you. We will meet later, sí? To discuss the plan.”
Annie nodded, then walked back over to the sink vanity and rummaged through her purse. She found one of her business cards, scrounged around for a pen, and jotted her cell phone number on the back. When Helena walked up to stand beside her, Annie handed over the card.
Helena unzipped the small fanny pack strapped around her trim waist and slipped the card safely inside. Then she ran her fingers through her long black hair several times before giving herself a final look of approval in the bathroom mirror. “Now we go out,” she said with authority. “I will tell Rico I give him my blessing. You and Rico will have dinner. Then he will take you home.” She reached for the door handle, but then turned back to face Annie one last time before she opened the bathroom door. She held her finger up and shook it back and forth. “But no sex.”
“No sex,” Annie repeated.
She made the slashing motion herself this time, to save her passionate new friend the trouble.
Rico stopped pacing in the hallway and looked at the closed bathroom door. That Helena would do this to him was no big surprise. The woman loved him. With the passion of a thousand burning suns, she loved him. Though it saddened him to pretend he was turning away from such a phenomenal love, his own desire for a better life was fierce enough to win the battle with his guilty conscience.
There had been no need to tell Helena about his master plan. She would never have agreed anyway. Of that, he was certain. To Helena, it would not matter what type of future they had together. As long as she was his wife, Helena would be happy. And that’s why there was no other way than to let her believe—at least for now—that he was interested in Annie.
He sighed deeply, wishing he could bring Helena into his confidence and spare her the pain. But he needed Annie. At least until she had served her purpose. Once she introduced him to the right people, he would tell Annie she was right. That they should only be friends.
A good friend she has been, so far.
And very beautiful. But Annie was not his type of woman. He would never want a woman too timid to let go of her emotions. Annie was guarded. Maybe because she had been hurt. Maybe not. But his blood ran hot. A hot-blooded woman was the only type of woman he wanted. A woman like Helena, who had proved just how hot-blooded she was by tossing her pride aside and coming to the restaurant tonight to fight for him.
When the bathroom door suddenly opened, Rico prepared himself for the worst. When the two women walked out into the hallway, he shook his head.
“Helena,” he said with the disappointment of a parent scolding a naughty child. “Why do you do this? Have I not been truthful with you? And still you shame me? Try to make Annie think I am going behind your back, trying to hurt you?”
He expected her to fly at him and scratch his face with her long red fingernails, leave the mark of her desire on his face the way she did on his back when he made love to her. He wasn’t prepared when Helena said, “You are right, Rico. I am sorry. You have been truthful from the day Annie stole your heart away from me. I will step aside. I give you my blessing.”
That was the craziest thing he had ever heard.
Helena? Giving up? And giving him her blessing? Not in one million years would that happen.
He watched suspiciously as Helena turned to Annie. She kissed the air on each side of Annie’s face. “Good-bye, Annie,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Be good to my Rico.”
“Wait,” Annie called out when Helena reached the place where Rico was standing. Annie said, “It’s getting late, Rico. Tomorrow is an important day for both of us.”
Ah yes. The morning television program. Annie had told him about it when he first arrived at her apartment. After she had told him there could be no more flowers and no more private lunches. There was too much talk at her office, she’d said. It was important to keep their relationship professional in front of her peers.
But Annie was right. A promotion for the video game would also be a promotion for his own career. Tomorrow would be a very important day for both of them.
“Why don’t you take Helena home?” Annie suggested. “I can take a taxi.”
“No,” Helena said, her nose in the air.
Rico looked in her direction. No? Who is this woman? Not my Helena.
“A taxi is how I got here,” Helena said with a toss of her regal dark head. “And a taxi is how I am going home.”
Rico looked from one beautiful woman to the other, his brow wrinkled in a deep frown. Annie did not want to stay and have dinner now. Helena did not want him to take her home. This did not sit well with his ego. Any of it. Not Annie, always trying to order him around. And especially not Helena saying she was giving up and giving him her blessing to be with Annie.
He would not let two women push him around.
“Annie is right, Helena. It is late and she has an important business appointment in the morning. I will take you home. Annie will take the taxi.”
Rico dug into his pants pocket and handed Helena his car keys. “Wait for me in the car,” he ordered. When Helena didn’t argue, took the keys, and disappeared down the hallway, Rico knew he was back in charge.
He turned back to Annie.
With her, however, he would need a softer approach. Not that he expected anything he said to change the situation now. Helena had seen to that. Sadly, just when he was finally making a little progress. Now maybe Annie would even fire him.
Rico sent her an apologetic smile. “I am sorry, Annie. For everything. I am embarrassed more than you can know.”
Wait. Was that a smile? That Annie would smile back at him was not what he expected.
“I’m sorry, too, Rico,” she said. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed. Helena seems like a wonderful person. I’m sorry us being together hurts her.”
What? He took his time, turning Annie’s words carefully over in his mind. “Can I be so fortunate?” he finally dared to ask. “You would possibly see me again? And not just as business associates?”
He was shocked when she said, “Yes.”
Maravilloso!
“Diego,” Rico called back over his shoulder. When his friend appeared, Rico said, “Diego, call a taxi for the lady, por favor.” He turned back to Annie. “I will wait with you, of course, until the taxi arrives.”
She walked up to him and placed a hand on his arm. Touching him was also something she had never done before. “Thank you, but that’s not necessary. I’ll be fine, Rico. You take Helena home. Just remember to watch City Singles at seven in the morning. I’ll call you after the television interview.”
Annie will call me?
Bravo! Another first. Maybe Helena showing up had been a blessing in disguise.
Rico was still marveling over the amazing change in Annie’s attitude as he walked toward the parking lot. The irony of the situation amused him. But it also left a bittersweet taste on his tongue. Annie’s sudden interest meant he would have to continue lying to both women. He would have to keep pretending he was interested in Annie. He would have to keep telling Helena that, at the moment, they could not be together.
Women.
That God Himself understood them, Rico knew, was questionable.
He opened the car door and slid behind the wheel.
“Santa Maria!” Rico exclaimed.
Helena was stark naked.
And she was sitting sideways in the passenger seat in one of her no-doubt-about-what-she-wanted poses.
Rico sent a hasty look around the dimly lit parking area, thankful he’d parked far away from other cars, as usual, to protect his treasured sports car.
“Do you think your Annie would ever do this?” Helena asked when he looked back in her direction. “That she would ever be so hot for you? That she would rip her clothes off and beg you to make love to her no matter who was watching?”
She ran her hands seductively over her full, luscious breasts, letting her fingers trail even lower to caress the dark triangle between her long, tanned legs. And when the unquestionable movement she was making with one finger in particular got faster and faster and faster, the blood in Rico’s brain rushed to a more demanding part of his body.
“You like this?” she asked through pouty, parted lips. “You like that I am so hot for you? That when I take many lovers, it will still be you that I want?”
“Many lovers?” Rico shouted.
The thought of Helena taking even one lover other than himself filled Rico with a surge of jealousy he couldn’t control. He grabbed her slender shoulders and pulled Helena forward, crushing his mouth against hers.
“For you, there will be no other lovers,” he told her when their lips broke apart.
Helena’s answer was to smile. She leaned backwards, slipping between the front seats into the small backseat area of the car. When she opened her legs wide, beckoning Rico to enter the gates of a heaven no sane man had ever been able to resist, he unzipped his pants and set the primeval green-eyed monster free.
“Sí!” Helena screamed triumphantly.
“Give it to me, Rico.
“Give it all to me!”
CHAPTER 9
It was still dark at 5:30 a.m. Friday morning when Annie drove up to the building that looked more like an old southern plantation than a television studio. She entered the building, amazed to find so many people scurrying around at such a ridiculous hour. She stopped the first person she could, explained who she was and why she was there, and was directed to her first stop—makeup.
She was not a happy camper when she walked into the room and found Matt already there, seated in a salon-type chair with his usual cocky grin on his freshly shaven face. She’d hoped to arrive first. Have time to sweep away the sleep-deprived cobwebs in her brain before she had to deal with him.
No such luck.
“How’d the big date go?” were the first words out of his mouth.
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