He was here, and Luna was here, and there was other business to settle now that he knew Ginny was safe. The Spaniard was staring at him with satisfaction gleaming in his black eyes, a faint, smug smile touching the corners of his mouth. Steve didn’t even glance at Ginny.

“You’re just where I thought you’d be, General Luna. Still stirring up trouble, or did you come to Mexico to line your own pockets?”

Bishop didn’t move from Ginny’s side, but murmured that it was not the time or place to settle old scores. Steve ignored him.

Rafael Luna merely smiled coldly, regarding him with a triumphant smirk. “You remember me now, I see.”

“I remember you well enough. It’s been a long time since Milan, when I had to remove you forcibly from Francesca’s dressing room.”

A small space had cleared out between them, men and women scattering as the two faced each other. Tension vibrated in the air. Rafael Luna’s eyes had narrowed, and his mouth twisted into a smile that was more of a snarl.

“It was not your place to remove me from her dressing room or anywhere else. You took advantage of my inattention at the moment.”

Steve allowed a slow smile to touch the corners of his mouth. “You were cowardly enough to run, as I remember it.”

Luna went rigid; his arms fell to his sides, hands curling and uncurling, fingers flexing as if he held a weapon, but he only bowed slightly from the waist.

“As crude as usual, I see. I demand satisfaction for your insult.”

“Name the time and place.”

“Tonight!” Luna fixed him with a fierce stare, and a strange light glittered in his eyes. “So that your lovely wife will be a widow. Not that it matters so much to her, I believe, as she has spent some time in my company of late. A most lovely and compliant companion.”

Slow rage gathered at the back of his throat and behind his eyes, but Steve allowed nothing to show in his face or in his tone. His brown face was as impassive as an Indian’s, but his cold implacable stare conveyed a ferocity and danger that penetrated even to Rafael Luna, who betrayed himself with a swift, faint flicker of uncertainty shadowing his eyes. It was the first sign of weakness, a chink in the armor Luna had erected.

“You know why I’ve come, Luna. And it has nothing to do with my wife.”

How many times had he faced a man intent upon killing him? Across a dusty street or a marble floor, it was always the same. The man who allowed emotion to weaken his reflexes ended up making new dust. Not even the sight of Ginny—with her green eyes all wide and glazed, her breasts almost bare in that damned gown and her lips wet and parted—not even that would distract him.