She pushed the application across the table to Emilio but she knew Ricco was looking at it as well. “I’m Mariko. Mariko Majo.” She bowed her head, her gaze sliding away from his in shame. That was unusual for her, she usually stared defiantly, daring anyone to notice her name. To comment. Still, she watched Ricco carefully from under her long feathery lashes. She’d perfected that particular art many, many years earlier.

His gaze drifted over her face so that she had to fight to keep color from rising. Very slowly his hand, large and strong with long fingers, turned the application toward him. All the while his eyes remained on her face, and then his gaze dropped to the writing. His features went utterly still.

He knew. He could read those characters and he knew what her last name meant. The name she’d been given, not born with. She didn’t know her true last name; that had been taken away from her and her brother. Humiliation almost had her snatching the paper out from under his hand, but pride won out and she lifted her chin and her gaze to his face, steeling herself for his snide comment. Let him judge her. She was used to it. She lived with disapproval every day of her life.

“May I call you Mariko? I prefer not to be formal.”

She inclined her head, surprised that he would forgo any reference to her surname. Female devil. She’d kept the devil character out of defiance. If she was being strictly truthful, sometimes she was the devil. She noticed he hadn’t given her permission to call him by his first name, but then he would be her employer if she got the position.

“You have no experience, yet you want to be a rope model. Why?”

She’d known she would have to answer that and she could tell the strict truth. She pushed the book across the table to him. “I never knew my mother. This is all I have of her. She was a rope model in Japan.”

He continued to look at her, not at the book, although his palm dropped to the cover. “Tell me about your mother.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She knew very few facts, most of which weren’t good, but she was determined to be honest. “She traveled to Japan with the express purpose of finding a rope master. She was very interested in the art.” Make that the erotic elements, if those raising her told the truth. It had been a terrible scandal, her father dishonoring his family by wanting to marry her. That had been the story she’d been told, but when she’d done the research, looking for him…

“Her name?”

She fought to keep the color from rising. Of course she should have started with that. Why was she allowing him to shake her usual composure?

“Maria. Maria Hammond. She met my father there and they wanted to marry.” To the horror of his entire family. According to what she’d been told, her father had reputedly nearly destroyed his family with his choice. Her mother had been everything his family had predicted and more. In the end he hadn’t married her and she’d lived on the streets, making her living as a whore. She’d abandoned Mariko and her brother to the streets and had taken off.

“The name of the rope master?”

She hesitated. She was no longer certain he was her father. There was a long silence. “I prefer not to say.”

Ricco kept his eyes on her for a moment and then he spun the book around and opened it. He studied the photographs. “This appears to be Eiichi Hayashi’s work.”

Mariko had traced her mother through the names in the book, but the rope master was dead. He’d died of old age, and his children had told her that he’d had numerous models over the years and had never married any of them. Mariko suspected the story she’d been told wasn’t altogether the truth, but she’d met dead ends everywhere she’d turned. Eiichi was too old to be her father.

She inclined her head, waiting for his denouncement, but again he surprised her by remaining silent, waiting for her to continue.

“Is that what you’re hoping to do?” Emilio asked. “Marry your own rope master?” There was the slightest touch of sarcasm in his voice.

She flinched. She’d heard that note of derision so many times growing up, children taunting her about her American mother. Her “family,” the ones so gracious and honorable to take in two orphans, was harsh with her for her own good so she wouldn’t become the whore her mother had been.

“Emilio.” Ricco’s voice was very low, but it was a whip, lashing at the other man.

She never wanted him to use that tone with her. It was terrifying, and she wasn’t a woman to be terrified by much of anything. Her family had been strict, at times bordering on brutal, and she should have been used to such a soft but harsh reprimand. Clearly, Ricco was a force to be reckoned with.

“I’ve got this. Thank you for your help.”

It was a dismissal and Emilio instantly stood. She didn’t want him to leave her alone in the room with Ricco Ferraro. It was dangerous. The tension in the room was tangible and growing more so every moment. Mariko kept her head slightly down, just as she’d been taught since she was a child, a respectful position when the men were talking, but her eyes were moving, noting everything about them, body positions, the way they moved, Emilio like a fighter, Ricco like a panther.

This was the most difficult thing she’d ever done. Sit quietly, absolutely still, feeling more vulnerable than she ever had in her life with the exception of once, but that was a very long time ago when she was a child. She was an adult and fully capable of choosing her own fate. She had come to this place determined to get this job – and she was still determined. She just hadn’t expected to feel so defenseless or susceptible to Ricco Ferraro.

There was silence after Emilio closed the door, leaving her alone with the panther. She counted her heartbeats but refused to raise her eyes. Her body was already humming, alive, a strange rhythm she’d never felt before, one that not only alarmed her but puzzled her. Physical attraction to date, at best, had been mild. This was anything but mild. It was shocking in its intensity, her body reaching for his. She could barely breathe with him so close. She’d never been so aware of another human being.

“Look at me.”

She didn’t dare lift her eyes to his. She had to gather her courage first before she went into battle. This one she had to win or she might be dishonored for all time.

“If you can’t even look at me, Mariko, how do you expect this to work?”

His tone was mild, but there was a hint of a reprimand in it and she winced. She didn’t like that voice, but it wasn’t because she wasn’t used to the tone, it was more she didn’t want to disappoint him – or herself. Swallowing hard, she lifted her gaze to his.

At once she fell into those dark, dark eyes. She’d never seen anyone with eyes so compelling. Her heart drummed even louder. Fight or flight? She was frozen and couldn’t do either. She touched her tongue to her lip, a leftover childhood habit she’d been beaten for. The moment she did it, she was ashamed of herself. She forced air through her lungs and held his gaze.