Page 177 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

They hadn’t seen each other for twenty years and she was far from that nineteen-year-old girl with crazy hair and stars in her eyes. She was groomed now. Wild hair tamed into a sleek chignon. Loose cheesecloth shirts and floaty skirts swapped for buttoned down jackets over crisp white shirts and pencil skirts. She was as sensible as her court shoes, she was grounded and cynical, and not about to be blown away by a dark-eyed, dark-haired god with a chiselled jaw and even more chiselled body. Even her name was different.

Whereas, of course, she’d recognise him. There was only one Estefan. She’d seen his picture on the international business pages, seen his photo emblazoned on the society pages, attending a gala ball or a big-ticket charity event, and always with some beauty on his arm. He’d grown from a good-looking twenty-something into a drop-dead handsome man. Fully formed, assets at the ready. To charm. Convince.Seduce.Would he still wield the same power over her? Would he still be as commanding a presence, as magnetic?

No, she assured herself. Because that vulnerable creature had been Marianne. She’d been so young. She’d been so naïve and unworldly, and ripe for the taking. Maybe this was her opportunity to discover that he had no hold over her now, that it had all been a figment of her fevered teenage imagination.

And that had been before he’d betrayed her. Before she’d hated him.

Someone shoved at her shoulder, sending her feet stumbling forwards, a burly man wielding an oversized backpack who couldn’t be bothered going around. ‘Blasted tourists,’ he muttered, as if she’d been standing there with a camera phone in hand.

She glanced at her watch—five to eleven. That shove was the wake-up call she’d needed. She sucked in a breath and mounted the steps, uttering a mantra to herself.

Maybe he wouldn’t recognise her.

Maybe he wouldn’t recognise her.

And maybe, if he didn’t recognise her and he did indeed offer her a job, she could tell him exactly where he could shove it. God, wouldn’t that be satisfying?

Dom had a suite, the concierge informed her. Well, of course he did, Eric had said as much. What Eric hadn’t informed her was that Dom was booked into the Presidential Suite. Mari wasn’t sure why she was surprised.

The Langham Hotel’s signature ginger flower scent offered none of its usual calming magic as the lift climbed, her earlier bravado evaporating as the floor numbers lit up.

Twenty. Twenty-one, Twenty-two…

And when the lift doors opened to the twenty-third floor, Mari was once again assailed by conflicting emotions. Nerves, anger and, most of all, something she hadn’t banked on—a niggling undercurrent of fear that twenty years had not dulled his magnetism or the power he’d once held over her.

Not a chance, she reinforced to herself as she stepped out. Her anger was both her armour and her superpower. They would make sure she would never fall victim to the siren call of that man’s charms again.

A butler opened the door.

Of course.

He saw her into the room—suite—although even that word didn’t do the space justice. There was a dining table to her immediate right, an adjoining kitchen into which the butler had melted away and a closed door beyond that. The bedroom, she presumed. There was a living room to her left, leading to another closed door. Another bedroom? Lordy, this place made her unit look like a closet.

And there, behind a gigantic timber desk, sat a man facing the window, studying the device in his lap.Dominico…

Her breath hitched, nerve-endings up and down her body sparked and fizzed. If he turned now, he’d see her frozen, a kangaroo trapped in headlights.

But he didn’t turn to face her. He made no move to so much as acknowledge her presence. If he’d heard her come in, he didn’t show it. He didn’t so much as flinch as he sat with his back to her and stared down at whatever he was studying. And even though all she could see of him was his broad shoulders and the back of his dark-haired head, she was spun back in time. The broad shoulders she’d wrapped her arms around, the dark hair she’d splayed her fingers through as he’d gone down on her.

She turned her eyes up to the ceiling.

Don’t go there. Think instead about what he did to you. Think about how he left you high and dry with your pain and your despair, without so much as a backward glance.

Just like he wasn’t giving her so much as a backward glance now.

Charming, she thought, her nerves already stretched tighter than piano wire,why not ratchet up the tension one more notch?

Damn him, she might be a bundle of nerves, but she wasn’t about to stand here cowering all day.

‘You asked to see me.’

Dom had wondered how long it would take for her to speak. He’d sensed her nervousness, he was well used to that, but there was something else about her voice. A note. An inflection. Something he almost thought he recognised. He glanced around from the flight details his PA had just forwarded, and just as quickly looked back down again. A glance was all he needed. He’d been mistaken—there was nothing to recognise. She looked exactly like he’d expected. Like a mouse. Drab. Dull.

Beige.

‘I did, but only as a favour. I don’t have much time.’ In his peripheral vision he registered her bristle. Seriously, what had she been expecting? A welcome party? Eric had insisted on this meeting—he’d all but begged for it, for that matter—but it didn’t mean anything had to come of it. ‘So, you’re the accountant?’ Of course she was, with her scraped back hair, sensible shoes and chain store navy suit. She was wearing the uniform of every low-ranking bean counter he’d ever met.

‘Finance director, yes.’

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