Page 94 of Virgin's Stolen Nights with the Boss

She scanned the label, looking for a little love heart, a clue, even a moustache on hermamá.

There was no hate in his words. No ultimatum. No threat. No challenge. No comparison or competition.

Elias Henley wanted to dance with a woman who insisted she didn’t want to...

But desperately did.

Carmen looked in the mirror at her rather too tanned shoulders, and possibly too muscular arms, and then she took out the lipstick from her sister-in-law and painted her full lips red.

She picked up her phone to text Seb and tell him she was ready to take things from here, but she didn’t want that tonight...

Alejandro, maybe. She would tell him she would not be heeding his warning about a certain playboy...

Then her mind flicked to Maria, to hermamá. No, her mother wouldn’t be excited for her tonight...

So she started a new group: Carmen, Anna, Emily... And she attached a photo of herself in her velvet gown, her diamonds, and her red lips with their very wide smile.

Allá voy. Deséame suerte!

Then Carmen had a little panic. Because she’d written,Here goes. Wish me luck!in Spanish, and they were, of course, both English, and she didn’t want them asking her brothers to translate.

But the replies were instant...

Hearts.

Shining eyes.

Kisses and best wishes.

It made her feel braver to know she had them on her side.

Putting down her phone, she took one more breath and looked in the mirror—and there she was.

Carmen.

Who just happened to love Elias—the man who turned on her smile.

And if it didn’t work out...?

Instead of running from the thought, she faced it. Faced herself in the mirror.

‘You’ll survive,’ she said aloud.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘WHERE’SWANDA?’ asked his mother, when she saw Elias was attending one of these functions for the first time without a date.

‘We broke up,’ Elias said, offering no more than that.

‘Darling...’ Eleanor said. ‘You didn’t say!’

He took a drink and all he could think about was Carmen...that she might right now be in a car on the way to LAX.

He could not understand why Carmen was leaving tonight...how she could walk away from such promise and hope... But his mother was giving him a tiny smile, a supportive smile, and although she was difficult at times, even through hard times Elias knew she had always loved him.

He would never take her for granted.

‘I am sorry...’ Eleanor sighed. ‘How long were you and Wanda...?’

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