Eduardo growled low under his breath, cursing the existence of this woman all together. She was bossy, entitled, and Dio Mios she was breathtaking. He hadn't thought their encounter would lead to all of that- he just planned on kissing her to shut her up, and one thing led to another! It was completely unlike him to let go of himself in public like that.

Maybe when he was a horny teenager and had nothing to lose, sure.

But he was a grown man with a business and a reputation to protect- he didn't need any disreputable pictures of him or her in existence.

As much as the girl got on his nerves, she didn't deserve to have indecent, nonconsensual pictures of herself floating around. Though when he scrolled down her uploaded pictures on her public social media, he didn't really get the impression that she was a saint ready to be enrolled at a monastery.

Damn him and his honor- his mother would roll in her grave if he let this scum walk away with this. So, before he could think of all of the legal consequences, Eduardo snatched the camera from the man's hands and smashed it against a nearby wall three times, feeling more satisfaction than he should have.

He couldn't quite put his finger on the feeling, but just knowing that he protected Isabella from the possible nightmare this could have been put a certain swell in his chest.

"Hey! That's private property- you've destroyed a $25,000 camera! I'll call the cops!" The paps pulled out his phone to dial 911 but Eduardo snatched that from him too and tossed it to the ground with a satisfying cracking noise. For good measure he stomped on the expensive cell a few times, as if his feet could erase the last few moments from ever happening at all. "Dude, what the fuck? That was bran new! We have rights you know- there's laws protecting us from thugs like you!"

Eduardo let out a dark chuckle and stepped towards the scraggly man, letting his height speak for itself. "The law? Her father was one of the lawyers that got OJ off on murder- you think a judge is going to side with the scumbag that tried to take an inappropriate picture of her?" He knew he had just opened himself up to a dozen different lawsuits but it felt too damn good to matter. "Security!" Eduardo called over a nearby doorman, who ran toward them with a new pep in his step.

This was supposed to be an exclusive establishment that was booked primarily because it kept stragglers out- he knew the hotel would be on his side of this. "This gentleman just took a picture of my date under her skirt. See him out." The security guard snatched the balding man by his collar and ruthlessly tossed him on the other side of the chromed grand doors without any more explanation.

Eduardo thanked the heavens that he wasn't a young hothead anymore or else things would have escalated much more, and the damage of a flashy camera would be the least of his worries.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and contemplated his next decision. He could easily go back upstairs, escort Helena from the party, and leave all of this mess behind. The picture was destroyed, their moment was over- he didn't owe her anything else as far as he was concerned.

It was the smart decision to walk away from her.

So far she had been nothing more than dramatics and a headache- he could easily let good ol' boy Mick take the bullet for him by thrusting her into his hands.

Yes, he should leave this stupid country now instead of waiting another week and head back to his own, successfully avoiding the whole damned Aguirre-Lopes family for the rest of his life. His best friend had married into it, not him. As striking and intriguing as Isabella was, she wasn't going to be worth the hassle it was to be near her.

Eduardo was an intelligent man with a multimillion dollar empire under his belt- he hadn't gotten that from a rich daddy or by being an idiotic brute.

He was smarter than this and he needed to start acting like it.

He made it all the way to the elevator, his index finger hovering over the lift button before a nagging sensation tugged at his collar. It was a feeling he had before- it was what led him to invest in his first business, which flourished against all odds and made him his first million at twenty-two. The feeling had also called him home earlier than he ever left his office to find his infant son alone, crying and wet with no one in sight.

If he was a more sentimental man, he might have thought it was his mother's spirit guiding him from the grave… but he wasn't very sentimental at all, so he chalked it up to male instinct.

But like the embedded fool he was, Eduardo turned himself around and ran through the doors into the cold night looking for the cladly dressed American girl.

And she wasn't hard to find at all- she was causing quite the commotion at the valet, her hands waving erratically and her small purse slamming against the valet boy's standing desk. "I want my car! So what the ticket's not in my name? I have the fucking keys! Ugh!" She screeched hazardously.

Isabella was a rich brat indeed.

She was the kind of girl that leeched off of mommy and daddy's good fortune, never knowing a bad day in her life. She wouldn't know what it was like to work for her own keep or fight for scraps of food to keep starvation at bay- life was cherries and butterflies for broads like her.

Despite how he felt about her, he still didn't know exactly how to approach her- which unnerved him.

Women were all fairly predictable in his book, but he really didn't know what to expect at any given time with her.

She could be sexy and willing to kiss him, she could be psychotic and try to hit him, she could be soft and crying… he never knew.

"Isabella." He started simple, almost enjoying the stiffening of her spine when she realized he was behind her. "It's freezing out here, you should get inside."

When she turned to face him, slowly and with contempt, he hadn't realized how blazing a woman's set of eyes could be. Isabella nearly shook with the rage she was feeling, and it was never clearer the mood she was in than in that moment. "Fuck off!" She spat at him, ignoring the audience of employees they had. "Did your photographer not get a good enough shot? Should I have taken my top off?" She was nearly screaming at him, just a few feet away from his body but he could feel the prowess from every syllable she spoke. "You piece of shit!" Isabella barreled at him the fastest she could in those ridiculous high heels she wore, her handy clutch swinging through the air the way Thor's hammer would.

He sidestepped her maniacal approach and snatched her wrists. "Ya vale de tonterias, Isabella!" He was pleasantly surprised when she shut her mouth at his command. If only she could keep her mouth shut more often, he might have had a chance to take in her beauty the way he wanted to.

Her pink lips were puckered angrily and void of any lipstick, the edges smeared from their earlier rendezvous, and her short button nose was reddened by the cold air- but she looked more beautiful in this raw state than she ever did upstairs stuffed into that ballroom.

If it was possible to be mesmerized by a woman he met twice, this was it.

And it made no sense, considering all the tail he had encountered in his life. Hell, he had a former supermodel waiting idly for him upstairs that he was guaranteed to have a pleasant, calm, no-strings-attached lay with that night. Helena would never yell at him, or attack him with her purse, or even dare to go up against whatever he decided.

That's the way he preferred his women- sexy, agreeable, and mentally stable.

It was everything Senora Aguirre-Lopes was not.

"I took care of it. You don't have to worry about that picture ever getting out." When she faced away from him in skepticism, he let go of his death grip on her wrists and held her chin to force her gaze onto his. "I promise." Isabella's eyes softened at that, just as he knew they would.

People loved promises- it made them feel content, as though all wrongs could be righted no matter the circumstance or consequence.

Eduardo didn't like making promises to just anyone, though. They were too much pressure, filled with too much expectation, and he had always been a man of his word- he wouldn't be able to rest unless he felt that he had fulfilled any and all promises or agreements he made.

He had an unnerving feeling that he would make this woman any promises she wanted, as long as she kept looking at him like he could hold the sun and stars.