Chapter 3
Viviana moved ever so slightly away from the glowering man beside her. She knew Martinez needed to make it clear that she was with him, but his overbearing possessiveness annoyed her. Lifting her chin, she allowed a slight smile to curve her lips as she gazed at the crowd of men staring at her. She managed not to shrug dismissively at their interest. After all, she’d worked damn hard on her entrance; the least she could do was congratulate herself for a job well done. The fact that most of them quickly looked away, refusing to meet her gaze, proved that Flores was as bad as she knew he was.
Glancing around the room, to her surprise, she recognized Francesca Ortiz from her surveillance photos. The presence of the haughty woman confirmed that the conclave was even more important than she’d told her captain it was. Viviana shivered slightly at the clear anger radiating from the frowning woman, who was glaring at her. Obviously Ms. Ortiz didn’t like competition. Which, Viviana thought with a sigh, was too damn bad. Her job was to entice the hell out of the disgusting man at her side, and if her antics annoyed the cartel’s queen bee, so be it. Viv was accustomed to dealing with jealous women. It was the price she paid to look and act the way she did. The only problem was that this particular green-eyed viper was almost as dangerous as her longtime lover, Carlos Muñoz.
Deciding that discretion was distinctly the better part of valor, Viviana couldn’t resist a slightly dismissive shrug as she pulled her gaze away from the forbidding woman in search of a more favorable sight. The minute she did, she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. For a brief second, Viviana convinced herself that it wasn’t possible. There was no way that the tall, dark-haired man standing beside Carlos Muñoz’s paramour was the man she’d seen at the diving pool this afternoon. It couldn’t be. The gods couldn’t be that cruel, or worse, that mischievous. Granted, she was always pushing her luck. Challenging both her angels and devils with her often careless, and even more often outrageous, behavior. But this…this was too much. It was too dangerous a place for whimsical demons to test her ability to extricate herself from her self-induced quicksand.
Swallowing hard, Viviana met his gaze. It wasn’t his tall, sleek physique that caused her stomach to flip dangerously. Or the crease on his tanned cheeks or his chiseled jaw that had her heart pounding madly. It wasn’t even his narrowed, emerald-green eyes that were locked on her, freezing her in place. No, it was the sardonic tilt of his lips as he gazed at her, looking for all the world as though he knew her. Knew her intimately and well. As if he knew what she looked like naked. Managing to drag a breath of air into her vise-tight chest, Viviana closed her eyes, acknowledging that he did.
Forcing her eyes open, Viviana called on her considerable cache of chutzpah. She reminded herself that if anyone knew how to put men in their places, she did. Meeting the man’s knowing gaze, she lifted her chin another notch, then slid her hand into the crook of Flores’s arm and tugged on it. When Martinez looked down at her in surprise, she brushed a non-existent piece of lint off his lapel and tossed him a coquettish smile. “I was wondering, big guy, what it would take for a girl to get a glass of champagne?” To her relief, he responded by putting a possessive arm around her and shepherding her into the dining room. Her relief was short-lived when she heard a deep, compelling voice. Without looking for its source, she knew it could only belong to the individual who she now knew was the most dangerous man in the room—at least to her.
“Ah, Martinez, I was wondering when you would arrive. It’s been much too long, my friend.”
Flores looked up at the tall man approaching them. To Viviana’s surprise, a rare smile lit Martinez’s pockmarked face. He eagerly moved forward, abandoning Viviana in the process. Reaching up, he wrapped a burly arm around the taller man’s shoulders and bellowed, “Goddammit, Dubois. You did come! I sure as fuck hope that means what I think it does!”
The man he called Dubois gracefully extricated himself from Flores’s grasp and nodded pleasantly. “I expect that we both will be satisfied, Martinez.”
As much as she wanted to ignore him and move as far away from him as quickly as possible, Viviana found herself drawn to the man who’d approached them. It wasn’t only Martinez’s surprisingly effusive greeting or the man’s cultured French accent that kept her from fleeing. It was his commanding presence. Given that, just minutes before, he’d been standing next to Francesca Ortiz, Viviana realized with a shudder that she may inadvertently have bared her ass to one of the kingpins in the Muñoz cartel.
At that moment, a grating female voice interrupted her harried thoughts.
“Well, well, Martinez. I see that you finally agreed to join us. My understanding was that you were due to arrive this morning. Carlos has been asking for you.”
Before Viv’s companion could respond to the clear rebuke from the haughty woman, Francesca turned her steely gaze on Viviana. In a tone dripping with spite, she tossed her head contemptuously. “But then, you always were easily distracted. Please, Martinez, don’t keep us in suspense. Who is your companion that you chose to invite to this select gathering, if in fact, you’ve known her long enough to have gotten her name?”
Knowing that her face had to be flaming, Viviana managed to smile and extend her hand, which the iron madam dismissed with a flick of her fingers. Ignoring Flores’s confusion, Viviana met the vicious woman’s searing gaze. “I do hope it is not problematic for me to be here, Madam Ortiz. In answer to your question, my name is Maja Nilsson.”
To her surprise, before either Francesca or Martinez could respond, the man Martinez had called Dubois stepped forward and reached for her hand. Smiling down at her, he said, “Hmm, an auspicious and not surprising heritage, Miss Nilsson. Sweden, like France is a beautiful country, known for its lovely women. Tell me, Maja, how you happened to come to Belize. It is quite a jaunt from Sweden.”
Viviana knew he had stepped in to buffer Francesca’s nasty insult when Martinez had wilted in the face of his boss’s woman. On one hand, she was grateful that Dubois had rescued her from Francesca’s sneering disdain. But seeing the handsome man’s narrow-eyed, clearly amused gaze, she was annoyed. Ignoring his question, she snatched her hand from his grip. Turning to the frosty woman who was glaring at her, she said sweetly, “But you weren’t interested in my name, were you, Francesca?” Glad when the dark-eyed viper bristled at the affront of Viviana calling her by her first name, Viv stoked the embers. “In answer to the question you were really asking, Martinez and I met in a bar in Tijuana. It was lust at first sight, wasn’t it, big guy?” At Martinez’s dumbfounded silence, she brushed his hand off her arm and smiled at the trio. “If you’ll excuse me, please, I’m in desperate need of a hearty drink of single malt scotch, the more expensive, the better.”
Sauntering across the room toward the bar, Viviana willed her legs not to shake. Accentuating the sway of her hips from side to side helped steady her gait. So did the shot of Compass Box Hedonism she tossed back in a single gulp. The name of the whiskey alone strengthened her resolve. Leaning over, she let the edge of the bar give an added oomph to her already surging breasts. Grinning at the wide-eyed bartender, she gave him a saucy wink and pushed the empty glass toward him. “How about another, hot stuff? Something tells me I’m going to need all the liquid courage I can get tonight.”
The bartender seemed to collect himself. He met her brazen gaze and refilled her glass, then disagreed. “Uh, in my humble opinion, ma’am, the only thing you’re going to need tonight is as big a stick as you can find to beat away all the men who will be risking their most valued body parts to get next to you.”
Viviana laughed aloud at the mischievous guy, who had not only answered her, but also did it with a wink as impudent as hers. She smiled at him and shook her head. Noting the name embroidered on his white uniform jacket, she said, “I hope you’re right, Marcus. Although it’s not the men in the room I’m concerned about.” With a sigh, she added, “Those, I can handle.” Without looking over her shoulder, she said, “No, my bigger concern is that angry woman who is glaring at me hard enough to drill holes in my back.”
Pretending to busy himself with polishing one, then another of the bar glasses with a white linen napkin, the bartender nodded in agreement. “Yes, miss, I believe you might be right. If I’ve ever seen a cobra ready to strike, it may be the hostess of this little soiree.” He added conspiratorially, “Although I think she’s focusing a little lower in her attempt to drill holes in you.”
Viviana threw back her head and laughed aloud. Leaning forward, revealing even more luscious, creamy skin, she grinned at the bartender, whose eyes were sparkling with mirth. “Why, Marcus, are you telling me that Madam Ortiz is after my ass?”
The bartender was prevented from answering by the angry growl of the man who’d charged up next to her. Fuming, Martinez Flores grabbed her arm and yanked her next to him. His voice was fierce. Ignoring the bartender as if he didn’t exist, he barked, “Goddammit, Maja, are you fucking insane? Do you have any idea who Francesca Ortiz is?”
Viviana gave the angry man a nonchalant shrug and hoped she wasn’t miscalculating her ability to hold him off. She tossed her head and said clearly enough to be overheard not only by the cheeky bartender but also the men nearby who’d given up pretending disinterest. “How could I not know who she is, Martinez? She’s the bitch who turned my supposed big, tough date into a sniveling pussy.”
At the chorus of gasps from the bystanders close enough to hear her shocking retort, Viviana tipped up her chin and turned on her heel. Glancing back at Martinez, whose stunned expression was morphing into a mottled purplish rage, she sniffed. “If you don’t mind, darling, I think I’ll get a breath of fresh air. All of this masculine outrage, ersatz testosterone, if you will, makes it hard to breathe.”
As she strode toward the outside patio, Viviana was shocked to see Dubois standing to the side but clearly within earshot of her altercation with Martinez. Making a quick detour around him, Viv headed for the nearest ladies’ room. Something in her gut told her that the serious man studying her with his knowing, narrowed gaze had not only heard her insult the fuming gangster, but also had every intention of calling her on it.