A Slow-Burning Dance Read online

“We haven’t spoken in six years. What’s changed?”

  “I met you a long time ago. You were just a kid.”

  “I was a nineteen year old woman.”

  “Sela, I barely remember that day. If I hurt you in some way, I assure you it was unintentional.”

  She was stunned into silence, and he looked like he’d just stepped in a huge pile of dog shit. She was being utterly unfair here. She’d been attracted to him the second she met him, but he didn’t know that. He had done nothing hurtful toward her then, and he wasn’t doing anything hurtful now. She was the one acting like a bitch.

  The atmosphere in the building was suddenly oppressive. Sela wanted to leave before she did or said something foolish.

  “Thank you.” The response was automatic, but she had to say something. “I’m really sorry. I never meant to upset you. You’re right. We met a long time ago, and I’ve made assumptions about your life that obviously aren’t true.”

  “Thank you for that. I never meant to upset you either. The corner office is yours. I’ll have the papers sent to your email this afternoon.”

  He turned and walked out of the building before she could think of something else to say. She followed, desperate to turn this around, but unable to find the words. She was so damn confused right now, and wished someone would step in and help her make sense of it. The guilt was horrible. What the hell was wrong with her?

  The same foreman Damien had been arguing with earlier walked toward them with a pained look on his face, and Sela knew she’d lose her chance to salvage this conversation in about two seconds. She opened her mouth to say something—anything—but it was clear that Damien’s attention was already focused on the next problem.

  “Take care of yourself, Sela.”

  It took her a second to speak. “Okay. Thanks. Bye.” She stood watching him walk away, wanting to cry. What the hell had she done?

  Chapter Two

  Damien forced his feet to keep moving toward Ernest Hamilton. He didn’t like the man at all, and had already tried to persuade Tomás to fire him. Things were already strained between him and Tomás over this project as it was. They’d experienced endless delays and hang-ups, most of which had been initiated by something Ernest didn’t like. Damien and Tomás been friends a long time, and Damien didn’t want something as inconsequential as a strip mall remodel to ruin their relationship.

  He barely remembered meeting Sela Chavez, but he’d been such a smug prick back then that didn’t surprise him. What little he did remember was that she had looked like she was still in high school. She had one of those faces that looked younger than her chronological age, which wasn’t a terrible thing.

  Unless you’re a nineteen year old woman who thinks of your brother’s new boss as a player.

  Ernest was talking, but Damien’s focus was on that day six years ago as he struggled to think of a way to prove to Sela that he was no longer that same man. Everything had still been in chaos at the time. His attention had been pulled in a hundred different directions at once. He’d had to move his entire operation underground, quickly, and not all the employees who had worked for him above ground had been accounted for at the time. He’d later learned that most of the people who hadn’t been able to move that quickly had not survived.

  Santino and Sela were the only two of their family to have escaped the flood. The town they’d lived in, Tecate, had been swallowed up by the Pacific Ocean within a matter of hours. The only reason Sela and Santino hadn’t died as well was because they’d been underground at the time, looking for a place large enough to house their entire family.

  “What do you think?” asked Ernest.

  What? Damien blinked a few times. “Yeah, yeah, sure. That will work. Do that.”

  Ernest frowned, clearly not fooled by Damien’s less than total attention, but now that he had an answer, he finally left. Damien turned around, his gaze sweeping the row of suites where he’d been standing with Sela moments ago, but she was gone, along with his chance to get to know her. What the fuck was wrong with him? He’d really blown it.

  As he made his way back toward downtown and the building that housed the offices of Rivera Construction, his thoughts turned once again to the day he’d first laid eyes on Sela. She and Santino had rented an apartment after learning about the flood and realizing they’d lost their entire family. Santino was five years older than his sister, and had already earned his degree above ground.

  Damien hired him during the interview because he was intelligent, and his story of survival told Damien the man would work hard and be loyal to the company. His instincts hadn’t been wrong. A few weeks after he was hired, Damien had gone to the apartment Santino shared with Sela to work on a project they were both putting in extra time on to complete.

  Sela had been in college, and Damien remembered Santino scoffing at her choice of majoring in dance. He had tried to convince his sister to earn a business degree, but Sela had always gone her own way, according to Santino.

  At the time, Damien was still learning about former employees who had not survived the storms on the surface. His entire business was in chaos, and he was struggling to bring it under control. Santino had been a go-getter from day one, and he’d found himself relying on the man more than he should have, but Santino never complained. He’d stepped up and done the work of someone far more experienced, which was why he became head of IT at Rivera Construction within a year.

  Sela had come into the room where Santino and Damien had been sitting side-by-side at their laptops, working on the project. Damien remembered glancing up as Santino introduced her, thinking she was pretty but far too young for him, and that was it. He recalled nothing else.

  He shook his head as he entered his office. What a smug prick he’d been. Today hadn’t been much better. All he’d focused on were Sela’s beautiful face and her curvy ass moving under that skirt. He’d asked her out without so much as a glance backward at that day all those years ago, or any concern for what she now thought of him and his former escapades..

  Santino talked about her all the time, but Damien only half listened because Santino talked about a lot of things all the time. He was that kind of a person, which made him great at his job. He not only had the technical skills necessary to keep Damien’s systems running smoothly in the background, but he was able to communicate with every department and each employee in a friendly, helpful manner.

  What would happen now? Would Sela tell her brother about Damien asking her out? He had never approached Santino about dating Sela, and he didn’t want this to become a source of discomfort for them. Even worse, he’d hurt Sela today without meaning to. He had to fix this. It was the right thing to do.

  Sela was a business owner, or soon would be, and she’d proven herself to be an intelligent, resourceful woman this morning. She deserved his respect, not some hound-dog attempt to get her alone in a box seat at the Music Pavilion.

  That was the old Damien, and he had stopped being that person a long time ago.

  ****

  As soon as Sela returned to her apartment, she rescheduled her own dance lesson for the following week because she was in a terrible mood, and she knew it would take more than a few days to get over it. She still took lessons with one of the professors at SouthWest University so she kept her skills current, but she knew her concentration wouldn’t be at peak level for the next couple of days.

  She considered calling Santino to discuss what had happened, but then realized that would be the worst thing to do. She no longer lived in the same apartment as her brother, but they talked all the time. Santino never shut up about Damien. He worshipped the man, and adored working for him.

  If Sela told Santino that she’d made an ass out of herself with his boss, merely because he’d asked her out, it would bring down trouble that Santino didn’t deserve because her brother would feel compelled to say something to Damien.

  The best thing to do would be to go to the gym and work this out on the machines,
but she wasn’t in the mood for that, either. Instead, she paced her tiny apartment and wished she could start over again from early this morning. This time, she’d leave the area as soon as she’d spotted Damien instead of standing there gawking at him while he spoke with the foreman.

  ****

  By the following morning, Sela was still sulking over the events of the previous day. She decided to work on finalizing her schedule of private students for the next month, as well as send them each email reminders that the studio was scheduled to open in three months. Work kept her mind occupied and off Damien Rivera, until an email came through from his company late in the morning.

  Santino sent them so often that she didn’t glance twice at it but instead opened it right away, thinking it was from her brother. It was from Damien, and it contained the paperwork he’d promised on the corner unit. He hadn’t mentioned their conversation from the prior day, or the upcoming concert. The email was all business. Sela had been hoping to have a chance to speak with him about yesterday, but now it looked like she’d blown that chance. Instead of brooding about it all evening, she should have contacted him.

  As Sela looked over the documents, she had an overwhelming urge to cry, and she hated the sign of weakness. It’s not as if they had any kind of a relationship and had quarreled. She hadn’t seen him since shortly after settling underground with Santino.

  So he’d flirted with her yesterday and invited her to see her favorite band in the entire world … so what? Having him check her out and missing a concert she’d kill to attend wasn’t what bothered her. It was the way she’d behaved.

  He barely remembered her, and in the end she’d dredged all that up once more for no reason. Nothing had changed the past, despite all her misery during the past twenty-four hours. Obviously Damien wasn’t thinking about it, if his email was anything by which to judge his mental state.

  She forced herself to concentrate on the paperwork he’d sent. The contract for the corner suite at the same rent she’d have paid for the interior unit was only for one year. Tomás would likely raise her rent after that. Because they now had to reconfigure the walls in the corner unit, she also realized her studio opening would be delayed by another month to six weeks.

  She really should have walked away as soon as she’d spotted Damien in that parking lot. She would have found another way to have her space behind the mirrors in the original unit, and she would have avoided all this angst over something Mr. Damien Rivera did not even remember.

  ****

  Early that evening, while Sela was drowning her discord in a pint of berry-flavored ice cream and a really sappy movie, the intercom buzzed. Frowning, she wondered if it was a late delivery. She often received packages after business hours, but couldn’t recall anything she had ordered recently.

  When she pushed the button to ask who was downstairs, she was told she had a floral delivery. Someone had sent her flowers? Who would do such a thing? No one she knew sent flowers. They were horribly difficult to grow underground and therefore ridiculously expensive.

  She took the box, waiting until she was back upstairs to open it. Gasping, she pulled out a large bouquet of wildflowers that she hadn’t seen since living above ground. She recognized blue sage, California bluebells, desert marigolds, lacey phacelia, and nasturtiums.

  They had to be from Damien, but where in the hell had he found them? There was a cream-colored card in the bottom of the box. Sela turned it over and read the words, written in a surprisingly pretty script.

  Sela, I thought these might remind you of happier times. I know I enjoy having native flowers in my apartment to cheer me up. I’m sorry I was such an ass yesterday. I hope you’ll reconsider attending the concert tomorrow night with me.

  He’d written his private Internet phone number at the bottom of the card, with the words Call anytime next to it.

  Holy shit. It wasn’t only the flowers, or the phone number. It was what he’d written about them. They cheered him up and reminded him of happier times. The days when they all lived above ground.

  Sela knew what Damien and the other eleven men who called themselves the Weathermen were trying to do. Santino oversaw not only the entire IT department at Rivera Construction, but Damien’s two secret teams that she had no business knowing existed, but that Santino had told her about, regardless.

  Each of the other Weathermen had the same teams, and they all had one common purpose. To find the bastards responsible for the Tommy Twister virus that had sent The Madeline Project on a destructive course.

  One team tracked user names across both company message boards, and across places online where weather geeks and known hackers hung out. The second team took those user names and tracked IP addresses and machine IDs.

  Santino had even told her recently that Barclay Hampton, one of the Weathermen, had involved his contacts in Homeland Cyber Security. Once these cabróns were found, the government could deal with them appropriately. That is, if the public didn’t find them and kill them first.

  What Damien and his friends were doing was noble, and completely uncharacteristic for the ruthless womanizers they were portrayed as by the media. Although, one of them was married and three were now engaged, so perhaps the media had it all wrong?

  Ace Easton and Harper Mathews had married less than two weeks ago. Emmett Radcliffe and Liane Peyton were getting married in six months, Dominic Greco was marrying Angela Davidson a year from now, and Kane Bannerman and Julianne Wallis hadn’t yet set a date, but Kane had proposed to her at Ace’s and Harper’s wedding reception.

  Santino hadn’t been able to attend Ace’s and Harper’s wedding, but Damien had. He’d come back and told Santino that while the wedding had been beautiful and elegant in its simplicity, NorthCentral city was too boring and plain for his tastes.

  Sela glanced at the bouquet once more, lifting it to her nose to inhale the scents that took her back to her childhood. She and Damien shared that, even if they were fifteen years apart in age. They came from the same area and shared the same heritage. He was a passionate man who loved bright color and exotic scents, just as she did. He lived his life with a purpose, as did she. Would it really hurt anyone to go out with him just once?

  He was good-looking, rich, and they shared a love of the same music and flowers. Not exactly the secret recipe for a lasting relationship, but at least she’d have a good time. The fact that he’d sought out these flowers and sent them, along with a sincere apology, told her once more that she’d misjudged him. She was the one who owed him an apology, not the other way around, which meant he was a gentleman, as well.

  It was late and she didn’t want to take a chance on waking him, so instead she sent a text, thanking him for the beautiful flowers and telling him she’d love to attend the concert with him. Her phone rang almost immediately, and she jumped a bit.

  “Sela, I’m still up. I almost always work late.”

  “I imagine your work never ends with a company to run.”

  His soft laugh sent a shiver down her spine. “No, it sure doesn’t. I’m pleased you liked the flowers.”

  “Damien, they’re gorgeous. I love them. Thank you.”

  “You deserve beautiful things. I’ll meet you at your place Friday about six. Will that work for you? There’s a restaurant at the Pavilion, and we can grab some dinner before the concert.”

  “I can meet you at the Pavilion.”

  “Nonsense. It’s a date, and a gentleman escorts a lady. He doesn’t ask her to meet him there and expect her to find her own way.”

  She almost giggled at the old-fashioned concept, but was touched by his graciousness. “Thank you. Six will be fine. Damien, I owe you an apology for the way I behaved.”

  “Nonsense. Let’s start over, all right?”

  She smiled. “All right.”

  “Great. See you tomorrow evening, then.”

  Sela had a tough time falling asleep as she imagined what the following night might bring. When she did finally drift
off, her dreams were filled with erotic images of making love to Damien.

  Chapter Three

  After literally taking everything out of her closet and dresser drawers, Sela finally chose to wear her favorite summer dress. It had a bold flower print over a red background, which looked perfect with her dark hair and eyes. Plus she loved the pleated skirt. She wore matching sandals and jewelry, and took way too much time deciding how much makeup to wear, or whether to wear any at all. Finally, she decided not to bother with it because she might look ridiculous and over-dressed, since she rarely wore any.

  Damien buzzed from downstairs at ten to six, but she was ready. He looked too damn handsome in a pair of dressy jeans and a button down shirt. She couldn’t stop staring at him. He had also looked great in the suit she’d seen him in the day before last, but this gave him an air of casualness that was even sexier. She caught the scent of the same cologne he’d worn Wednesday, and wondered how he found it underground. Cologne and perfume were very hard to come by. Anything non-essential to basic life was.

  “Uh, wow.” He stared at her as if he’d never seen a woman before. “You look incredible.”

  “Thank you. I was just thinking the same about you.”

  He looked genuinely surprised by her compliment. “Thank you for saying so.”

  “You don’t need me to tell you that you’re a good looking man, Damien.”

  A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “No, but I like hearing it from you, just the same. Thank you for giving me a chance to make up for the way I behaved at the construction site.”

  She shook her head. “Like I said on the phone, I’m the one who behaved badly.”

  “Well in that case, let’s agree once more to start over from this night forward. What do you say?”

  His delighted smile made her pussy wet.

  “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

  She needed to get a grip on her hormones. She had no intentions of having sex with this man tonight, despite the erotic dreams that had haunted her sleep. Sela Chavez was not going to be splashed all over the tabloids with her brother’s boss, no matter how fucking hot he was.