“C’mon,” he said. “Turnabout’s fair play. I shared with you…”

She took a long time to answer, then the words came out reluctantly; she had no other choice. “I had a call from the States,” she said finally. “It was my ex-husband. He’s getting remarried.”

Raul didn’t expect to have a reaction, but it came, anyway. A moment’s disappointment, maybe, a curl of displeasure? He wasn’t sure what to call it, but it didn’t matter. Surely he didn’t care if she was still in love with her ex. “I’m sorry,” he said in a neutral voice.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Those things happen. People move on.”

“I’m sorry the news hurt you,” he found himself saying. “That’s what I meant.”

She looked up at him, her eyes full of shadows, the hazel edging into a deeper green color. He got the feeling his words surprised her, but maybe that was because they’d surprised him.

“We’ve been divorced for more than two years,” she said. “I expected him to have found someone before now.”

“Why would you think that?” Raul met her gaze, turning so that he faced her fully. “I’d think he’d have a hard time.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’re a very beautiful woman,” he answered before she could finish. “You’d be a hard act to follow.”

“Thank you,” she said simply. “That’s a nice thing to say, but Todd didn’t see it that way.”

“Then he was a fool.”

Her gaze skittered away from his, then back before she spoke again. “I have my flaws.”

“We all do.”

Suddenly the urge came over him to kiss her. Not a simple touch of the lips, either, but a deep kiss that would make them both forget why they were here and what they were doing. The feeling was totally unexpected and caught him by surprise. Would her lips feel as soft as they looked? Would they taste as sweet as he imagined?

With no further thought, he reached toward her, his fingers drawing a line down her cheek. Her skin was soft and smooth, but before he could pull her nearer, she stepped backward and out of reach, her expression remote, her voice cool.

“I think it’s time to go back inside.”

He wanted to disagree, but he couldn’t.

She was right.

THEY RETURNED to the party, and Emma found herself glad to be back in the light and confusion. Being outside with Raul had made her even more nervous than being in the middle of the crowd, especially after she’d read the intention in his black eyes. He’d wanted to kiss her, and for just one second, she’d wanted him to. The realization shocked her, but when she thought about it some more, she understood. He’d listened to her and wanted to know more about her. He cared. The unexpected knowledge made her heart thump with something that felt way too much like longing.

When they stopped at the bar inside, Emma excused herself and made her way to the lounge. She had to have a bit of time alone or she’d never make it through the rest of the evening.

The quiet moment wasn’t to be. Reina caught up with her just as she entered the powder room. They’d already exchanged a quick hello, and Reina had managed to let Emma know she didn’t approve of her date for the evening. Emma had tried to explain that it wasn’t a date, but Reina hadn’t bought the story.

“Are you leaving soon?” Reina asked.

“I hope so,” Emma replied. “I’ve enjoyed this about as much as I can stand.”

“Let me take you.” Reina’s dark eyes met Emma’s. “I’ve got to go to your side of town, anyway, and we could talk on the way home-”

Emma interrupted her. “Reina, I can’t abandon Raul. I know you don’t like the man, but he is my guest. I have to ride back with him.”

“No, you don’t.”

Emma stared at her curiously. “Are you that worried about this guy? Just because you heard some gossip?”

“I don’t like the way he looks.” She threw a glance around the room. “And…”

“And what?”

A group of women, chattering like the parrots overhead, interrupted them as they swooped past and entered the lounge behind them. Reina pulled Emma to the side, out of their hearing and away from the traffic. “I’ve heard more,” she said mysteriously. “And I like it even less than what I heard before.”

His compliments still ringing in her ears, his touch under the moonlight still fresh in her mind, Emma asked slowly, “What did you hear?”

“I can’t tell you right now. I don’t want to risk being overheard, but it came from a reliable source. Very reliable.”

Emma stared at her friend, then it clicked. “Did William Kelman tell you something?”

Reina’s eyes widened. “How did you know it was him?”

Emma explained the confrontation she’d heard between the two men. “There’s bad blood there,” she said. “Tell me what he said. Tell me now.”

“He said Santos is a crook, that’s what he said!” Reina glanced over her shoulder. “But I don’t want to say more right now. Not here. Just call me when you get home, okay?”

Feeling uneasy but having no other choice, Emma nodded unhappily. A moment later, as she reentered the open-air room, she spotted Raul. He was standing exactly where she’d left him, near the bar. With the crowd swirling around him in a tangle of noise and exuberance, he was all alone, and she studied his unguarded expression. Wearing expensively tailored clothes and holding a drink, he regarded the room with a certain amount of boredom. Behind the gaze, though, was a sharpness, a kind of on-guard attitude totally at odds with everyone else. He wasn’t there to party, he was there to work. Just like her.

The knowledge startled her, but there was no mistaking it. She’d worn that same expression herself too many times. So what did he want? Why was he there? His conversation with Kelman was also puzzling. Something was going on there-he’d worked too hard to distract her, she realized now.

Without any warning, she suddenly remembered her unlocked gate. She had no idea why she’d linked the two thoughts, but it frightened her, frightened her almost as much as her growing attraction to Raul.

He must have felt her stare. Lifting his eyes to sweep the room, his gaze locked on hers a second later. Like a river current, the connection was swift and strong. It carried her away before she could begin to fight it.

AS SHE CROSSED the floor to where he waited, Emma looked more worried and upset than she had when he’d picked her up earlier that evening. Despite her expression, in the press of overdressed and over-made-up women, her natural beauty drew his gaze and he felt a corresponding pull of attraction.

He simply couldn’t figure her out; she was a mass of contradictions and filled him with the same. What he knew about her past didn’t jibe with the obviously smart and together woman approaching him now. And the feelings she produced in him were the exact opposite of the ones he needed if he was going to fulfill his goal. How could he let her get tangled up with Kelman when all he could think about was kissing her? Suddenly the crowd and the noise and the loud music were too much to bear.

“Are you ready to go?” As she neared him, he put his drink on the bar and tilted his head toward the crowded room. “This is too crazy, even for me.”

She hesitated for a second, then spoke over the din. “You read my mind.”

A few minutes later, they were outside. The sidewalk was barely visible in the moonlight, the bamboo leaning over it, the cries of the caged monkeys and wild parrots taking over from the raucous rock and roll still pounding-but now more faintly-from inside the club. A cluster of white and purple orchids quivered in a nearby planter, their fragrance heavy and sensual in the velvet night. Raul found himself wondering how he would feel if he was here for a different reason. If he and Emma were actually on a date and he had no ulterior motives. Once, in a different time and place, he had been the kind of man who appreciated a setting like this.