“That’s right,” Evan said cautiously, but she was already moving out from behind the table to stand between him and Raghav, the bright, alluring smile from earlier fully back in place. She was just a tad shameless when it came to her business. One more item in the list of things he found deeply irritating in everyone but her.
“Gentlemen, I have a proposition for you.” She flashed rows of perfect white teeth at them. “I will be happy to give you a couple of my two-hundred-liter casks, as a gift, of course, in the spirit of fellowship and camaraderie of the exposition.” She was nothing but sweetness now.
“I thought we had agreed to that already.” Evan could not trust himself with more than that as she prepared to deliver her coup de grâce.
“As I mentioned earlier, I do have to sell the rum in order to empty the casks. Fortunately, we seem to have a solution right in front of us.” She leaned down to grab an enormous leather bag and heaved it onto the table, then extended a hand toward the exit. “I would be honored to accompany you to your meeting with the Japanese buyer.”
She was blatantly blackmailing them, and if they were not surrounded by people, Evan would’ve dragged her to a dark corner and had her right then. “Did you just extort an invitation to meet with our buyers, Miss Heith-Benzan?”
“Absolutely,” she conceded happily. “And there’s no need for that kind of formality among associates. Call me Luz Alana, please, Evan.”
Raghav lost his battle and let out a bark of laughter.
“My, how things change in a matter of seconds,” he said as she regaled them with another cloying smile.
“We are here to do business, Mr. Sinclair.” She angled her head to the side, looking positively angelic. “Mutual aid is vital for all of our success at the exposition, as you so wisely advised me just yesterday.”
“Mutual aid,”he echoed, and she nodded with a brash grin on her perfect mouth.
“Luz Alana makes a compelling case, Evan,” Raghav said—or rather wheezed, as the man was turning an appalling shade of purple. “Fraternité and all that.”
“Exactly.” She clapped with enthusiasm and started moving around the room. “I only require a few seconds, and I shall be ready for our meeting.”
“We are not suitable chaperones for an unmarried young woman,” Evan added solely for the purpose of hearing what outlandish thing would fly out of her mouth.
She did not disappoint.
“Mr. Sinclair, you must stop worrying about my chaperones,” she said, her voice still sweet as honey. “But if you are so worried foryourvirtue, I’m sure we can find someone to help protect you from my wily ways.”
“Myvirtue.” He called after her, but she was already crossing the room to talk to a man at another table.
“She’s got you reduced to parroting her words, old man. I never thought I’d live to see it,” Raghav observed unhelpfully, just as their companion joined them again.
“Gentlemen, shall we?” It seemed flagrant behavior gave Luz Alana a particular glow. She looked bloody radiant as she brushed past them.
“We don’t want to make you late for your buyers,” Evan grumbled as he chased after her.
Seven
Evan Sinclair was bewildering.
The man went from overbearing to disarmingly heroic from one moment to the next. Not to mention charming. Distractingly, dizzyingly charming. It was no small feat keeping her wits about her in his presence. Women probably crumbled at the mere sight of that dashing smile.
Luz hoped she could resist that onslaught of tempting smiles and spine-tingling winks. She absolutely had to stay on task with Evan Sinclair, because one thing was clear: he was a very good man to know. After only an hour, she’d left the Japanese pavilion with a lucrative contract to supply a few of the families in the Kazoku—the Japanese aristocracy—with Caña Brava. As irritating as it was to admit, she’d accomplished more with his help in one morning than she’d done on her own in the month she’d been in Paris.
“Why didn’t you let Dairoku sample the Dama Juana?” he asked her as they made their way out of the pavilion and on to the crowded street on the fairgrounds. She whipped her head up in surprise. A flicker of warmth ran through her at his recalling the name of the spirit.
Then he ruined it with his high-handedness. “Which I still haven’t been allowed to try, by the way.”
“Are you a buyer, Mr. Sinclair? You’re worse than Clarita.” The man was absolutely maddening.
“Do you take pleasure responding to my questions with another question?”
Luz could only laugh in response, but he continued.
“And shall I assume Clarita is your friend from last night?”
“Clarita’s my sister. She’s ten,” she told him pointedly. Raghav snickered at her taunt, but Evan’s countenance remained impassive.
