Playing With Fire

Brushing a strand of hair off her face, she looked away.

“What the hell was that?” he asked. The words came out gruffer than he’d intended.

She didn’t say anything. Just held very still.

“Mari?” he said, softer.

Her shoulders rose, and she brought a shaky hand to her mouth. Damn. Bold, strong Marianna Ruiz was about to lose it.

Instincts took over. Simon took a step closer—to do what exactly he didn’t know. She shuddered and turned away a little. Just as he started to step back, she slowly faced him again. Her shoulders dropped, and she buried her face in her hands. She breathed in and let out a long, deep sigh. Was she shaken by William, or at seeing him again?

“It’s really you, Simon,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The scent of her perfume was cracking the dam he had built to hold back these memories. He shook his head. He had to get ahold of himself, but now that she was so close, it was impossible to not reach out and touch her.

No, it wasn’t impossible. Because he had spent the last eleven years doing just that. Still, the sight of her hazel eyes, soft and dewy with unshed tears, was killing him.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on, Mari?” he said, his voice raw.

Marianna glanced away again, shaking her head.

“I gather that was your husband.” The man who was good enough for her to marry. He swallowed back all the bitterness that was flooding in. Time to focus on what was happening right now. “It’s not my business, but he looks like an asshole. An abusive asshole. You’re in a bad situation, aren’t you?”

Marianna’s eyelashes fluttered closed. “It’s a long story, Simon.”

“I’m not in a hurry,” he said, coaxing her softly. “I see this kind of thing in my line of work.”

She bit her lip. “I know.”

She knows? How much did she know? Did she break down some nights and search for clues about his life the way he did with hers?

Simon stepped back and ran his hand through his hair, trying to shut out the clench in his gut. But he stopped, midgesture when he caught her gaze traveling over to his biceps. Her eyes snapped back to his face, filled with heat and longing, and then the look was gone. Her cheeks flushed, and she turned away.

He took a steadying breath and frowned. The seductive pull between them hadn’t changed. Probably never would.

Finally, Marianna let out a deep breath. “What are you doing in Miami? I thought you lived in Australia now.”

Her question was more of an accusation. He didn’t blame her, not after the way things ended between them.

Simon didn’t react. “Just a quick stop in the States for work. So I came to Miami to visit my father’s grave.”

The truth, but not anywhere near the whole truth.

“And you happened to pass by my house?”

“Something like that.”

Her hazel eyes turned darker as she sized him up again. Her husband was long gone, the threat dissipating into the heavy Miami heat. He should leave now, get away from the memories of her that were threatening to pull him under.

Her hands on his hips. Her breaths in his ear as she whispered every dirty thing she wanted to try. They had been better together than any eighteen-year-olds deserved. Now that he knew what the hell he was doing? Shit. It would be the kind of thing he’d never recover from. It was time to let her go again.

He thought he was angry when he pulled up in front of her house, but Simon had no idea what to call this punch-in-the-gut reaction to seeing her again. Not quite anger. Something murkier.

She crossed her arms. “I still haven’t forgotten how you left things between us.”

“I know.”

“Just so we’re clear,” she said softly, then nudged her head at the house. “Let’s go inside.”

Marianna pulled her keys out of her pocket and pressed the driveway gate lock. Then she turned her back on Simon and started for the front door.

What the hell was he doing here, after all these years? Simon Rodriguez. The man who still haunted her dreams every now and then, though haunted was hardly the word for what happened in those dreams. And, damn, he was even sexier than she remembered. Different. A little bigger, a little harder. And now he had shown up, right when this mess with William had taken yet another turn for the worse. When she was vulnerable.

Why is he here? How is he here? I don’t hear from him for a decade and now he just appears...

If he had come looking for anything close to the eighteen-year-old girl he left, he was wasting his time. She was gone. That spoiled girl wanted fun with a fairy-tale ending. That was before real life had happened, taking her illusions with it. Love was the first illusion to go—Simon took care of that when he’d dropped her years ago with no warning—followed by marriage, trust and loyalty, all at once, thanks to William. The only piece of her childhood she still clung to was family—and with her parents gone, that meant the family’s company legacy.

Marianna should have simply thanked Simon on her front lawn and sent him away. No, because she still didn’t understand what was going on. Just happened to drive by her house? Not a chance. Inviting him in would give her a little time to pry it out of him.

But her hands were still shaking as she gripped the handrail to the front steps. Goddamn William and his unyielding fight for power over Ruiz Imports.

“So, you’re living here again?” His voice came from close behind her. Close enough to feel the sharp hum of attraction between them. Or maybe just echoes of their past.

Marianna paused, halfway up the stairs, trying to wrap her mind around the question he had asked. How much should she tell him about the end of her marriage? She didn’t turn around. “Ever since I left William. We divorced shortly after my father passed away.”

“I see.”

Now she was even more confused. Simon didn’t sound surprised that her father had died, yet he didn’t know she’d moved back here—he thought the house was empty. What did he want? There was something she was missing in all this. Something she needed to get to the bottom of before she was led down yet another murky road with no map. Because the last year had been one long lesson: the moment her father died, all his complications became hers.

Marianna fumbled with the front door until it swung open. She took one last glance at the empty front yard. William wasn’t coming back, at least not today. She stepped inside, and Simon followed close behind.

He slowed to a halt inside the entry, his gaze wandering around the room. So he wouldn’t notice if she did a little staring of her own. She took in this new, adult version of the man who had shattered her fairy-tale vision of love. His skin was bronzed from the sun—it was summer right now in Australia, wasn’t it? His arm muscles filled out the sleeves of his T-shirt, defined even in their relaxed state. Larger now, but familiar. The same muscles that used to flex as he held himself over her. The memory flashed in front of her, sudden and visceral. She took a sharp breath, taming down the heat that rushed through her. It only took a few minutes with Simon for all those old feelings to flood back in. Oh, God it was so good with him back then.

And so, so over.

Back to the situation at hand: Why the hell had Simon shown up here today? Exes didn’t swoop in for a quick hello and then disappear. They came because they wanted something from her. William wasn’t the first to teach her that.

To be fair, most people wanted things from her, though these things tended to be much easier to assess—a contribution to a charity, an appearance to endorse an event, something like that. In her father’s eyes, this was an unavoidable by-product of wealth. She had accepted that. But exes were more insidious, less direct at first and more demanding as time passed. They knew how to get under her skin. But they also let their dicks distract them.

Which led right back to Simon, who was currently inspecting her front door.

“You need new locks,” he grumbled.

“I’m taking care of that,” she said. “I just haven’t figured out how to secure the front gate.”

She reached around him and locked the door. Then she looked up at Simon. He was staring at her hand, with a look in his eyes like he was a million miles away. Or maybe just eleven years. His gaze flicked up to hers, and the faraway look disappeared, replaced by that new, hard expression she didn’t recognize.

Simon steeled himself against the memories that walking into the Ruiz family house unleashed. Nothing had changed. Not the terra-cotta-tiled floor he had crossed, barefoot, on the way out of her bedroom. Not the warm yellow of the walls he had backed her up against when they were alone in the house. Not the hallway closet, where he had hidden when Alex Ruiz had come home unexpectedly in the middle of the day. Every room in the house held details from that one magical summer. But in this house, Simon was still just the son of poor Cuban refugees who would never get ahead. That wouldn’t change, either.