The Latin Lover

by Lucy Monroe

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE beachside restaurant was theirs for the evening, turned over exclusively to the meet-and-greet party for the Casino de Diamante team. Leah and Alejandro were late arriving. Guests were spilling out onto the deck enjoying the balmy evening by the time they arrived, already sipping on champagne and nibbling on hors d’oeuvres to the crash of surf on the adjacent beach.

  They should have been on time—would have been on time if Alejandro hadn’t decided that the spa was a much more attractive option than the shower for a pre-function freshen-up and lured her in. Not that it had taken much luring, she recalled guiltily, her body still humming from the slippery pleasure. Being fashionably late had never held such appeal.

  But it was obvious the assembled crowd had been anticipating his arrival. His entry was turning heads. He handed her a drink from a passing tray as they moved slowly through the room, and introduced her to various members of his team, making himself known to others he’d come to meet. Leah had never seen so many Spanish people in one place outside of Spain. His so-called ‘team’ more resembled an army, with financiers, lawyers, architects and designers. If this project had any chance of working, Alejandro would make it so.

  But that was how he did business. Why merely invest when you could take over? And why merely take over when you could conquer?

  And the way he worked the room—treating everyone, no matter how briefly, as somebody special, somebody integral to the team—only supported the respect she already held for his business acumen.

  From across the room she heard a tinkle of laughter that set her nerves on edge.

  Surely not?

  She turned her head, caught a flash of red silk in the midst of a nearby group, and her heart sank. Alejandro hadn’t mentioned that his sister would be part of the team, but there she stood, Catalina Rodriguez, holding court over a cluster of men and looking more dazzling than usual.

  Somehow Catalina had been cursed with the dominant Rodriguez features—the strong nose, the angled jawline—and yet somehow still managed to turn those features into a blessing, giving her femininity a strength one wasn’t used to seeing worn so blatantly on a woman. Yet on Catalina it worked, lending her a regal, unapproachable air. And tonight, in a red toga-style dress, diamonds encrusting the tiara in her upswept dark hair and flashing on her arms and fingers, she looked more beautiful and more haughty than ever. In her simple white gown, with her hair bundled into a quick up-do and unfussy silver accessories, Leah felt pale and uninteresting by comparison.

  At that moment Catalina turned her head, as if awaiting Alejandro’s approach, and for a moment her eyes lit up with recognition, a smile curving that passionate red-slicked mouth—until she took in his partner for the evening and the cold fires of hell consumed every hint of warmth in her face. Leah shivered. Absence had failed to make Alejandro’s sister’s heart any fonder, that was a certainty.

  ‘Alejandro,’ she gushed, rattling off a line in Spanish in greeting, and ignoring Leah as if she were no more than blighted fruit. She wrapped one arm around his neck and pulled him in tight, kissing his cheeks and keeping her arm there. Possessively? Leah couldn’t help but think so as his sister angled him ever so slightly away. ‘Why couldn’t you have waited for us to travel down together? It is such a long way. We missed your company on the flight.’

  He returned the greeting. ‘You had company enough. I had a few things to attend to.’

  Briefly Catalina’s attention returned to Leah, her disapproval of Leah as one of those ‘things to attend to’ obvious.

  ‘Hello, Catalina,’ Leah offered, refusing to be cowed by the woman in spite of her enmity. ‘I didn’t realise you’d be here tonight.’

  The darker woman arched one eyebrow. ‘Why wouldn’t I be here? I am part of this business. Whereas you…’

  She suddenly tossed her head and gave a little laugh, patting Leah on the arm as if it didn’t really matter, as if bygones could be bygones and she’d already put such differences aside, as if she’d already effectively made her point and so had no need to say more. And she did have no need to say more—at least not to Leah.

  She took her brother by the arm, blood-red talons on designer wool, drawing him away from Leah and into her circle. ‘What is more important is that you meet Jack Riverstone, the original architect for the project. You’ll want to hear his vision for the casino.’

  ‘You go,’ Leah assured Alejandro as he looked over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be fine.’ But she noticed he’d already turned away before she’d had a chance to smile.

  Business, she thought with a rueful smile as she turned away. Casino de Diamante was all about business. Which was why she would never fit in. She hadn’t needed Catalina’s blunt reminder. She wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for her brother’s lack of business acumen, and she certainly wasn’t here for her own benefit, whatever Catalina clearly thought.

  He knew exactly where she was. The speeches of welcome had been made, the introductions performed, the formalities taken care of, and he’d known where she was every second of every minute of that time.

  He’d followed her with his eyes as she’d circulated. He’d seen her ready smile and her easy manner as she’d engaged in conversation, looking more like a goddess in that dress than a woman. He’d seen other eyes follow her around the room, and it had taken all his resolve to concentrate on the task at hand of building the bonds that would lubricate any deal and not sweep her away from their hungry eyes.

  But now the party was winding up, the guests peeling away to prepare for the round of meetings and consultations and negotiations that would start first thing tomorrow. Now she stood on the deck, gazing out over the sandy beach to the white line of foam that marked the edge of the dark sea. Now it was time to reclaim her for his own.

  He picked up two fresh glasses of champagne and turned towards the doors.

  A hand on his arm halted him, the red nails biting deep. ‘What’s she doing here?’ His sister’s furtive question in their own language came with a toss of her head in Leah’s direction. ‘I thought you were through with her? Papá thought you were through with her. How can you let her back in your life after what she did?’

  Catalina unhooked her fingers from his arm and slid them around one champagne flute. He let her take it, not needing right now to be reminded of their father and his wishes, needing to be reminded even less that he had ever admitted to Catalina that Leah had walked out on him. ‘She means nothing to me. We merely have—unfinished business.’

  She arched one eyebrow high and pointed the flute at disapproving red lips. ‘You know Papá is eager for you to settle down. He was hoping to announce a match with Francesca de la Renta on your return.’

  ‘Papá can keep on hoping. I told him that I will choose who and when I marry. It is his dream to head up a dynasty, not mine.’

  Her hand found his arm once again, this time more tender, and her expression was one of sympathy. ‘Alejandro,’ she soothed, ‘Papá is not well. Of course he wants to see you settled with a wife and an heir. And Francesca is so beautiful and sweet. She will be the perfect wife.’

  ‘Papá is strong as an ox!’

  ‘You know that’s not true. Otherwise he would be here with us now, barking out orders, telling us all what to do.’

  Catalina was right. Their father had been a bear of a man once, but those days were gone—and, deny it all he might, each day his father’s illness drained a little more of his strength. Was he wrong to deny him the dynasty he desired? He could do much worse than Francesca. She had the perfect blood connections, and her father was an international hotelier. The benefits of the union to their combined operation would be immense. And with her sheltered upbringing and finishing school education she would make the perfect wife for a businessman. A meek and obedient hostess and a dutiful mother to his children, practically invisible.

  ‘You know it’s time,’ Catalina crooned. Then her head jerked towards the deck again. ‘So how lon
g will it take to finish this “unfinished business” of yours?’

  He looked out to where Leah stood at the railing, the loose tendrils of her hair floating on the breeze, the long white folds of her gown shifting, revealing artful slits that gave tantalising glimpses of the perfect legs beneath—legs that had been slippery with soap and bubbles and wrapped around him so deliciously just hours ago.

  He gave a wistful sigh. It was such a shame he didn’t have longer before he had to dump her. But it could not be helped. He would just have to make the best use of what time he had. Starting tonight.

  ‘Not long,’ he said. ‘I have a score to settle.’

  Catalina smiled conspiratorially as she drained the glass and handed it back to him, her eyes once again hard. ‘Make sure you do.’

  ‘She doesn’t like me, does she?’

  ‘Who doesn’t?’ He’d traded the glasses he was holding for fresh ones and joined her at the railing. He had no doubt who she was referring to.

  ‘Catalina. I saw you talking together, and I saw the way she looked at me. She can’t bear the thought that a humble seamstress is somehow tangled up with her brother.’

  He shrugged, not wanting to get into a discussion about who might be worthy of him when right now he just wanted to get her back into his bed while he still had the chance. The next few days would be full-on with meetings. He would have to make the most of the nights. ‘Catalina has always had a strong sense of family, especially since our mother died. She wants the best for me, naturally.’

  ‘And she makes it clear I’m not the best. That’s fine. Anyone would think I actually wanted to be here.’

  He halted, his glass halfway to his lips, knowing something was wrong. ‘But you do want to be here,’ he said, moving from defending his sister to defending himself. ‘Aren’t you enjoying being with me?’

  ‘You know why I’m here, Alenjandro. Maybe you should let your sister know that I didn’t come crawling back to you—that I had no choice and that it was you who blackmailed me back into your bed!’

  ‘I saved your brother.’

  ‘And now you’re exacting payment! Why don’t you tell Catalina that? Tell her that I have no designs on you, no wish to upset her perfect plans for her baby brother and his perfect wedding and his perfect life.’

  His teeth ground together. ‘Nobody makes plans for me.’

  ‘No? Well, maybe you should tell your sister that.’ She handed back the glass. ‘I’ve got a headache. I should go.’

  ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘It’s only next door. I’ll be fine. You stay and do whatever it is billionaire businessmen do. I’ll go and play with the scullery maids.’

  ‘Then go! But when I come back you’d better be ready for me.’

  ‘Of course,’ she hissed. ‘You paid for it. You take what you want.’

  He watched her leave, a goddess on a war footing, marching out of the restaurant as if she was somehow in the right.

  Maybe Catalina was right after all. Maybe marrying Francesca wasn’t such a bad idea. Francesca would never stand up to him. She would be meek and mild and utterly obedient, and he would be able to concentrate on work without any distractions. It would make a pleasant change.

  He turned to find somewhere to put down the glasses—right now he needed something stronger than champagne!—and caught a flash of red across the emptying room.

  Catalina was smiling at him, a look of victory emblazoned across her bold features.

  Mierda!

  She shouldn’t have argued with him. Leah stood in the bathroom, a robe having replaced her gown, while she took off her make-up. What was the point of arguing with Alejandro? What could she possibly achieve? But Catalina had made her so angry—the poisoned looks, the heated discussion going on just a few feet behind her. Had his sister not realised that she could understand some of the exchange, enough to know that it was her they were discussing?

  She slammed her hands down on the marble counter-top.

  Dammit!

  She didn’t know how long Alejandro expected to keep her around to pay off her debt to him, but she didn’t want to spend it fighting.

  She was ready to climb into bed when she heard the apartment door to the living room open and slam shut. She braced herself for his entry, and the continuation of their earlier hostilities, but there was nothing but the bump of cupboard doors being thrown open and closed and the tinkle of glass against glass. Eventually all was quiet, apart from the rhythmic whoosh of the waves crashing onto the beach below.

  Eventually she gave up on sleeping and padded out to the living room. She found him on the sofa, his head slumped to one side, a half-filled tumbler in his hands tilting at an alarming angle, and she allowed herself a smile as she eased it away. So Alejandro was mortal, after all. The curtains were open along one windowed wall, and he’d obviously fallen asleep watching the waves rolling in along the shore.

  For a moment she just looked at him, his dark face beautiful in repose, his lashes curled long and thick over his closed eyes, before finding him a pillow and a cover.

  The night was still warm, without a hint of the chill there’d been further south, but he would need it later on.

  It had been a long three days of doing nothing. Alejandro had been involved in wall-to-wall meetings with architects, builders and government officials, and Leah had been relegated to the role of ‘little woman’ and packed off to wander the boutiques and cafés, instructed to ‘keep herself busy’.

  She had—for as long as she could. She’d found a new pair of bikinis and a matching tie skirt, and that had consumed all of an hour of the first morning. She’d bought a book and read it from cover to cover by the pool. But the idea of aimless shopping and doing little more, when she should have been back in Sydney running her shop, held little appeal. And not being there for Jordan bothered her too. He’d got himself in trouble last time while she was away. Sure, he was an adult, but he was still her younger brother. Someone had to look out for him.

  But, if the days were filled with aimless nothing, at least the nights had proved productive. Alejandro had woken on the sofa some time during that first night and slipped under the covers of her bed, slipping simultaneously under her defences. They’d made love without words, then drifted back into sleep and done it all over again upon wakening. And the nights had just got better since then.

  But the days. The days were endless. She stood now on the terrace of their apartment, watching the ever-changing view. On one side lay the Pacific Ocean, the crashing waves, the surfers and beachgoers, and beyond them, out to sea, the shipping lanes busy with enormous vessels ploughing along the coast.

  From another terrace she could see the northernmost tip of Bribie Island, a thin, narrow scrub-covered spit that ended at Caloundra, where Pumicestone Passage emptied into the sea. And from another she had a magical view across the city to the hinterland, with the majestic Glasshouse Mountains often shrouded in mist or spearing passing clouds.

  It was beautiful. It was a charmed life she was living. But it wasn’t enough.

  Because every time she made love with Alejandro, she loved him just a little bit more. Every time he pushed inside her, pleasuring her, taking her to new heights of passion, she lost more of herself to him.

  And soon he would undoubtedly decide she’d paid off her debt in full and depart, leaving just a broken and empty shell behind.

  He should never have come back.

  She was doomed, she was edgy and she was resentful, and it was all Alejandro’s fault. Why couldn’t he have just left her alone?

  Half a dozen times today she’d been tempted to just ring up the airline and book the next available flight back to Sydney, to escape this constant pressure cooker existence, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She’d made a bargain with Alejandro to save Jordan’s hide, and for all she knew of the thugs who ran those money-lending operations he probably had. She at least owed him something for that.

  If only i
t didn’t come at such a personal cost!

  It was after seven by the time Alejandro finally returned to their suite that night, looking surprised to find her standing on the balcony in shorts and tank top, even though she’d left the building before nine this morning to walk with him on his way to yet another round of meetings.

  ‘What have you been doing today?’ he asked, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her bodily towards him for a kiss.

  ‘Nothing.’

  He smiled as he headed towards the drinks cabinet, as if she were talking rubbish. ‘Nobody can do nothing all day.’

  She followed him inside, shaking her head when he held up a bottle. ‘And nobody can shop twenty-four-seven. It tends to lose its appeal rather rapidly.’

  ‘You surprise me,’ he said, pouring a slug of Laphroaig into a glass. ‘I thought all women loved shopping.’

  ‘Apparently not. Especially when they could be doing something useful, like running their business.’

  He put the bottle and glass down and surveyed her through narrowed eyes. ‘Your business is not being ignored. You have someone to take care of that for you. Besides, you are doing something useful. You are here to service my needs.’

  She scoffed. ‘You make me sound like some kind of livestock!’

  ‘I thought you enjoyed the sex?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Then what are we arguing about?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We have a dinner tonight, but there is still time…’

  There was a hunger in his eyes that fed straight into her bloodstream, setting it fizzing and steaming when it was supposed to be her temper that was steaming. But he was right. She loved the sex, and right now that was all she had—all she would ever take out of this deal. It wasn’t love, but she would settle for it. The best sex ever. It would have to be enough.

  She swallowed as he came closer, her nipples already peaking, her thighs already thrumming.