Reinventing Romeo

The last time she had seen Alex Romero, he was wearing nothing but one of those swimsuits that show off way more of a man's body than they cover. It was blue. A shade darker than the aqua Caribbean where he moved through the waves like a fierce, irresistible Aztec god. Water sparkled off every delicious inch of his tanned body. Sunlight dappled hair the color of Colombian coffee. The swimsuit was tapered enough to make the most of his broad shoulders. Small enough to show off his washboard abs and rock-hard stomach. Tight enough to ignite any number of fantasies. Every one of which came back to Kate Ellison in a flash that sent her cheeks flaming and a twin fire sparking through her insides. This was not the timeor the placeand just to remind herself, she looked around the conference table where she was seated. On her left was a grim-faced man in a pin-striped suit, a man who just happened to be her immediate superior. On her right sat a tight-lipped representative of the New York City Police Department. An attractive middle-aged woman from the mayor's office sat next to him. She was dressed all in red and she didn't bother to introduce herself. She assumed everyone knew who she was. Two plainclothes detectives sat directly across from Kate, their backs to the breathtaking view outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the forty-sixth-floor office suite. She'd worked with them for the last nine monthsnot always amicably. Now they were finally close to blowing the top off a money-laundering scheme the likes of which even this town hadn't seen in years, and the cops made no secret of what they thought of having what they optimistically called "their work" usurped by the FBI. And then there was Alex Romero. Kate reined in her wild fantasies. She forced herself to forget the image of Romero in his swimsuit, the one sheand at least a couple million other womenhad drooled over when it appeared on the cover of a popular supermarket tabloid under the headline World's Sexiest ManMillionaire Playboy Romero is Jet Set Romeo. It took more willpower than she knew she had to convince Kate that a long, heartrending sigh wasn't wise. Or professional. If a picture was worth a thousand words, the real Alex Romerolive, in person, and in an incredible package of poise, polish, and a suit that looked like it cost more than she made in a monthwas worth more than any of the photographs of him that regularly graced the fashion magazines, the gossip pages, and the tabloids. He was a smidgen under six feet tall, with the chiseled features and dark eyes so many women all over the world dreamed about. Though Kate had been introduced to him only a few short minutes earlier, she already knew that he more than lived up to his legend. He was confident. Sophisticated. Aristocratic. Even sexier in person than he was in print. And a lot more formidable. He was enough of a tactician to realize the strongest position in the room was at the head of the table. And conscious enough of the image that had been built around him by an army of corporate spin doctors to keep his trademark bottle of Dom Perignon '86 iced in a Waterford crystal bucket at his elbow. For those timesthe gossipmongers all saidwhen he had yet another ubiquitous stroke of investment genius, or another corporate triumph, or another female conquest to celebrate. There was no doubt about it: Alex Romero was the Romeo of the tabloids. He had the patrician good looks of his Cuban ancestors, the razor-sharp mind of a man who'd attended all the best schools, and the breeding that could come only from belonging to the right country clubs. Right then, he was also in something of a snit. [read more]