Defending Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

  “Are you kidding?” Rio’s jaw slackened as he took it in. “I love it.”

  Eva bit her lip for the millionth time that day, trying to hide her endeared smile at Rio’s enthusiasm. From the middling turnout at the press conference, to her two-door hatchback instead of the limo that had broken down on the highway, and now this ostentatious house, Rio’s excitement hadn’t waned.

  The mansion had been built by former Skyline player Hector González, who’d sold it to the club for a bargain-basement price when he signed a bountiful new contract with a club in his native Spain. He’d been so delighted to get away from Atlanta—and her, by extension—that he probably would’ve given it away for free if Roland had been more patient.

  She hated the seven-bedroom monstrosity in the exclusive Buckhead neighborhood. Every ornate cornice and embellished light fixture reminded her of the two years she’d spent as Hector’s interpreter. Two years traipsing behind the most self-centered man on earth, being treated like the semi-human equivalent of a can opener: absolutely essential when you needed it, utterly forgettable when you didn’t.

  Hector’s English was better than Rio’s—which wasn’t saying much, from the look of things.

  Rio would undoubtedly require much more from her, and her contract didn’t include overtime, but she didn’t mind. Two years with Hector made her hate the job she’d worked so hard to get in a sport she’d loved since childhood. Two hours with Rio had already turned that around.

  It didn’t hurt that he was easily ten times more attractive than Hector—to her at least.

  Hector was classically handsome, and probably spent more time in magazine photo shoots than he did on the pitch. Whenever people found out she was his translator, the first question was always whether she had the inside scoop on his love life. Although she always said no, the answer was yes.

  She knew full well how many young, inebriated, dubiously consenting women came and went from his bed. She’d even raised it with Roland, who’d been visibly concerned but said his hands were tied until someone made a complaint. No one ever did, but she still lost sleep over that parade of women and whether she should’ve—or could’ve—done more for them.

  Every instinct she possessed told her Rio was completely different. For one thing, he was unlikely to grace the cover of a glamorous men’s magazine unless it was a special South American issue. At barely five-foot-seven he was short and compact, nowhere near the statuesque, six-foot-two Hector.

  And as much as she chastised herself for indulging the stereotype, she liked how Rio looked, well, Latino. She liked his dark-olive skin, his nut-brown eyes, the thick, black hair shaved closely on the sides and coiffed on top. She liked the way he spoke Spanish with a working-class Chilean accent, full of dropped consonants and distinctive vocabulary. She especially liked his smile, its lopsidedness, the way it showed his back teeth, and the frequency with which it appeared. Hell, she even liked his horribly pronounced attempts at English.

  Whereas Hector had artificially tanned skin, light eyes, and all the airs and graces of a royal-blooded European, Rio looked and acted authentically, never contradicting exactly who he was: the son of an industrial port city caught between the desert and the sea, where copper mines made people unbelievably wealthy and crushingly poor by turns. The local soccer star who’d caught the world’s attention—and hers—with his boundless energy and creativity on the pitch. The new signing trying to make his way in a foreign city, in a foreign language.

  Me gustas, Rio. I think we’re going to get along just fine.

  “Oh my God.” Rio pulled open the drawers built into the wall beneath the screen to reveal row after row of DVDs. “I thought I had a big collection but it’s nothing compared to this. Why didn’t he want to take any of these with him?”

  “I don’t think American DVDs work in European DVD players.” She perched on the edge of one of the leather-upholstered theatre seats, trying and failing to settle her internal debate. She should get going, give Rio space to check out his new house, take a nap, have a shower—she slammed on the mental brakes at that last thought, fighting back an image of the chiseled torso he’d shown millions of viewers when he ripped off his shirt after scoring a goal in the South American Cup final.

  She should definitely leave. She’d see him bright and early on Monday morning, and he needed time to decompress after everything that happened today. He was probably jet-lagged, desperate to unpack his essentials, decide which of the seven bedrooms he wanted to sleep in…

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Are you hungry? Should we order dinner?”

  “What? Why? Aren’t you tired?”

  “Not really, but I am starving. Do you have to be somewhere?”

  Say yes.

  “No.”

  Dammit.

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you sure? It’s Saturday night. I wouldn’t ask you to cancel your plans.”

  He wouldn’t? Really? Apparently Rio wasn’t just different to Hector, they were total opposites. She doubted it ever occurred to Hector that she had a life outside her employment as his interpreter. If it had, he certainly hadn’t let it bother him.

  Anyway, why shouldn’t she stay for dinner? It would be good for them to get to know each other before he started training with the team on Monday. He’d invited her—why should she feel uncomfortable? Just because he was the hottest man she’d ever been this close to, and she was having intrusive thoughts about touching the bicep tightening the sleeve of his sweater, and she hadn’t gotten any action in over a year, well, unless you counted that guy on Halloween, and she totally didn’t count him, and—

  “So?” Rio’s expression suggested she’d overrun the normal-people time limit on accepting or declining in-person dinner invitations. “Do you have plans?”

  “I do now,” she replied way too perkily, regretting her high-pitched tone as soon as it hit her ears.

  Get a grip, Torres. It was going to be a long season if she couldn’t pull herself together. Where was the immutable professionalism her professors had raved about during her MA in Translation Studies? Where were the discretion and levelheadedness that had launched her career in sports interpreting? Where was the unflappable ice queen who had sat across the desk from Roland, unshaken by his unyielding, pointed interviewing until he leaned back in his chair and announced, “You’re hired”?

  Oh right, she was back at the airport, her knees knocking and her heart racing as weeks of Internet image searches in the name of “research” appeared live, three-dimensional, and even sexier than she imagined.

  “Eva?” Rio waved a palm to get her attention. “You okay?”

  “Yes, sorry, just thinking about dinner.” And your legs. And your chest. And wondering if I should quit now or wait to be fired for sexual harassment.

  “What would you like?”

  She shook her head. “It’s your first night in Atlanta, so you pick. You can get almost any kind of food here. Chinese, pizza, barbecue—Mexican?”

  He rose from his seat on the floor, stretching his arms over his head. Eva tried very, very hard not to notice the way his thin sweater pulled taut against his chest.

  “Are you from Mexico?” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

  “I’m from Texas,” she replied stiffly, automatically bristling at the question before considering its context. More gently she added, “My parents are Mexican.”

  He nodded. “I can tell from your accent.”

  “I’m not doing a good job, then.” She smirked. “I spent a lot of years learning to speak with as little accent as possible.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s nice, the way you talk. Fancy. Not like me.”

  His playful grin was back. She swallowed hard.

  “You speak just fine.”

  “Not English, though.” He began a slow wander around the ro
om, pausing in front of each of the expensively framed posters Hector had left behind. “I tried to learn a bit before I arrived, but I hate studying. I was terrible at school. I skipped class as often as I could. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I wasn’t good at soccer.” He traced the letters at the bottom of one of the posters. “Been a miner, I guess.”

  “We’ll work on your English at a pace that suits you,” she assured him. “I’ll teach you differently than you would learn in a class. For a start, we’ll focus on the vocabulary you need on the pitch. Then we’ll look at conversation as it’s relevant to your career, like answering post-match questions from the press. Nothing too technical, at least not until you get the hang of the basics.”

  He turned back to her with a smile. “That’s great. Much better than the ten minutes I spent learning to ask where to board the train.”

  “Yeah, that’s not going to get you too far in Atlanta.”

  “So, your parents.” He was on the move again, continuing his tour of the room’s circumference. “Where in Mexico are they from?”

  “North,” she replied with forced casualness. This was not a topic she liked discussing with anyone, let alone her brand-new client. “In fact, there’s a restaurant in town owned by a family from Monterrey. I don’t know if they deliver, but—”

  “Is that where your parents are from? Monterrey?”

  “Juarez,” she told him quickly. “I’ve got the number on my phone, I’ll give them a quick call to see if they’ll deliver out here. Their beef empanadas are absurdly good.”

  She had scrolled halfway through her contacts when she realized Rio hadn’t responded. She looked up to find him studying her from across the room, his high forehead creased in thought.

  “What?” The single word carried more annoyance than she’d intended, and she pushed her lips into a smile to soften it.

  “I’m just surprised.” He propped one shoulder against the wall. “I didn’t think I’d ever meet a woman more beautiful than the ones in Chile, yet here you are.”

  “Rio,” she chided, praying the heat climbing her neck wasn’t showing on her skin. “Save your smooth lines for the women in the nightclub. They’re wasted on me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m your interpreter, and they don’t pay me enough to be anything else.”

  She hoped her joking tone defused the situation without offending him. It worked—he moved back to the front of the room and flopped down on the floor with an exaggerated sigh.

  “You break my heart, Eva.”

  “You’ll live.” She held up her phone. “Do you want to see the menu?”

  He gestured for her to toss him the phone, but she lowered it instead.

  “Are you kidding? You play soccer, not baseball. I don’t trust those hands.”

  He hauled himself to his feet with a comical groan and crossed the short space between them. He dropped into the chair beside her and reached across the armrest, but instead of taking the phone, he wrapped his hand around hers where she held it.

  “These are the safest hands you’ll find,” he murmured. He was right beside her now, his face so near she could see the amber flecks in his brown eyes, his body so close she could feel his heat, catch his scent.

  Tea tree oil. Saltwater. Asphalt in the sun. She let her lids fall closed as she inhaled, and when she opened them again he was watching her.

  He slid his thumb over hers. His skin was warm, dry, slightly rough.

  They spent a full minute frozen in this tableau. Her heart raced yet her thoughts had ground to a halt. If Rio had asked her name she probably couldn’t have told him. The only word her multilingual mind seemed to retain was yes.

  Yes.

  He snatched the phone from her hand, shattering the stillness. She dragged air into her lungs as he threw her phone high above their heads and caught it one-handed behind his back.

  “See?” He held it up with a wink. “Hands you can trust.”

  She cleared her throat, tugged at the cuff of her long-sleeve shirt. Hector must have the heating programed on a timer. No way was it this hot when she’d first walked in.

  “Beef empanadas,” she repeated firmly, “With frijoles negros for me. Best in town.” She grabbed her phone from his hand and started dialing, ignoring the way her fingers trembled.

  She raised the phone to her ear. “It’s ringing. Last chance to tell me what you want.”

  He arched a brow.

  She ordered without waiting for his answer.

  Meet the Author

  Rebecca Crowley inherited her love of romance from her mom, who taught her to at least partially judge a book by the steaminess of its cover. She writes contemporary romance and romantic suspense with smart heroines and swoon-worthy heroes, and never tires of the happily-ever-after. Having pulled up her Kansas roots to live in New York City and London, Rebecca currently resides in Johannesburg, South Africa. You can find her on the web at rebeccacrowley.net or on Twitter at @rachelmaybe.