His Suitable Bride

by Cathy Williams/Abby Green/Kate Walker

  So she bit her lip and kept quiet, submitting to Santos’s ministrations, determined not to let him or anything he said or did get to her in any way.

  And that was a resolution that she found impossible to stick to. If she thought that Santos’s touch had been gentle before, then now it was soft as a caress. The warmth of the water and antiseptic ointment soothed and numbed the raw patches on her skin, and the sticking plasters he applied seemed to have magical healing properties in them.

  But she would have been a liar if she hadn’t admitted that she was far more affected by the sight of this dark, stunning man kneeling at her feet once again, and tending to her injuries with the gentleness of a lover. The urge to reach out and touch him, to stroke her hands across the black silk of his hair, or along the line of his jaw, was almost more than she could bear. She had to actually slide her hands underneath her thighs to keep them safe from straying into that dangerous temptation. And then when he finished, sat back on his heels, looked up into her face and directed that devastating smile straight at her, she felt her heart seem to stop for a moment, making her catch her breath in shock.

  ‘I think that will help.’

  ‘It will do more than help,’ she managed in a voice that sounded as if it was about to break in the middle. ‘They feel wonderful.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ Santos pushed himself to his feet, took the bowl from the small table on which it stood and headed for the bathroom to empty out the cooling water. ‘So now we can talk.’

  How had he done that? Alexa wondered. How had he managed to inject a note into the otherwise innocuous words that made her whole body tense, every nerve stretching tight and tingling in wary apprehension, even the fine hairs on her skin lifting uneasily?

  ‘Talk about what?’

  ‘About where we go from here.’

  Santos came to lean in the doorway, hooded silver eyes fixed on her face as she swivelled round on the bed to face him.

  ‘The only place we go from here is downstairs …’ And preferably right out of the house. ‘I have no wish to be alone with you!’

  ‘But I thought that was the plan all along, querida.’

  The words were hissed at her with an icy control that transformed him totally. Suddenly the concerned man whose gentle touch had brought tears to her eyes had vanished and in his place was the cold-eyed, hard-faced fiend who had sent shivers down her spine in the first moment she had been introduced to him.

  The man she had wondered how her sister could possibly love.

  How anyone could possibly love.

  And yet somehow throughout the day her opinion had changed. She had even found herself attracted to this man. Had wanted him to kiss her, to hold her.

  So which one was the real Santos?

  There was a nasty, slimy sensation crawling over her skin as she faced the fact that the man she had felt herself so drawn to was in fact the performance planned to deceive. And that she, like a stupid, gullible fool, had fallen straight into the trap he had set for her.

  ‘Plan? What plan? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know of any plan.’

  ‘No? Forgive me if I don’t believe you, querida, but I refuse to believe that your parents didn’t have a back-up plan.’

  ‘A back-up plan to what?’

  Had the man gone mad? Was he seeing conspiracy where there was none? And if so, who exactly were the conspirators?

  ‘They must have known that your sister was likely to run at the last minute, or perhaps that was what was meant to happen all along. And then what was I supposed to do? Take one look at the bridesmaid and fall head over heels so that I would forget about Natalie?’

  ‘No.’

  Alexa shook her head so that her loosened hair flew wildly around her face.

  ‘No way!’

  But Santos obviously wasn’t listening. One more of those arrogant flicks of his hand dismissed her protest.

  ‘So, all right,’ he said coldly, ‘I’ll take the bait.’

  ‘What?’

  He couldn’t have said what she thought she’d heard. It just wasn’t possible that he meant.

  ‘There was supposed to be a wedding, with a Montague daughter as a bride. It doesn’t matter which one.’

  With her hands in her lap, Alexa pinched herself hard on one palm, trying to convince herself that this was actually happening and she was not just in the middle of a bad dream. The pain was sharp, making her wince and driving away any hope that she might somehow have drifted asleep.

  ‘You are joking!’

  ‘No joke.’ Santos shrugged off her horrified protest. ‘One Montague bride is as good as any other when this was only meant to be a dynastic marriage—’

  ‘What sort of cold-blooded monster are you?’

  Alexa forced herself to stand, ignoring the agonised protests from her sore feet. She couldn’t just sit there and let him tower over her with that dark look in his eyes, the curl to his lips that she couldn’t tell was a smile or a sneer.

  ‘Dynastic marriage or not—marriage of convenience or whatever—you can’t just swap one bride for another because you want to!’

  ‘Oh, but I can,’ Santos assured her icily, snatching away what little was left of her breath as she struggled to inhale naturally while her heart was thudding frantically against her ribcage. ‘A deal is a deal and no one breaks their word to me and gets away with it.’

  But it was Natalie who had broken her promise to marry him! Alexa felt as if the world was spinning out of control and she didn’t know whether she was on her head or her heels. Even if he wanted to sue for breach of promise then surely he couldn’t go this far.

  ‘Or maybe this was what you and your family had planned all along. You baited the hook with the glamorous sister, always knowing that she was going to run out on me.’

  And leave him with the less glamorous, less attractive one. He didn’t have to say the words—they were buried in his callous declaration, aimed at her like a slap in the face, as cold and as cruel as any physical blow.

  ‘There was no plan. And I have no intention of marrying you.’

  ‘You don’t have any choice. It’s either that or watch your family go to the wall.’

  ‘Why aren’t you listening? I don’t want to marry you …’

  His words made no sense and they barely registered as she flung her angry response into his arrogant, beautiful face. His look was totally blanked off, eyes opaque. And Alexa was grateful for that strange lack of expression. Anything more and she would have lost the fight she was already having not to lift her hand and lash out at him, wipe the condescension from his carved features. As it was, her fingers twitched at her sides, twisting in her skirt as she sought for control.

  ‘I don’t want anything to do with you.’

  That got through to him.

  ‘And we both know that to be a lie,’ he tossed back at her, an unholy amusement lighting in those pale eyes as they gleamed down at her. ‘Outside, by the pool, you were mine for the taking.’

  ‘No, that’s the lie! I never—’

  ‘Oh, come, now, querida,’ Santos mocked. ‘If I’d kissed you, you wouldn’t have spared a thought for your sister or for anyone else. You would have melted into my arms …’

  But that was just too much. The knowledge that he hadn’t seen anything other than what she had really been feeling wasn’t enough to hold her back as a terrible sense of having been manipulated, played like a puppet with Santos holding the strings, blazed like a firestorm inside her head.

  ‘A kiss maybe—but not this! This is crazy! Mad! Impossible!’

  ‘No it is not,’ Santos returned smoothly. ‘To my mind it’s completely possible—the perfect solution. Natalie ran out on me, but you are right here. So now you can take your sister’s place.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SO NOW YOU can take your sister’s place.

  It was impossible. The man was mad—he had to be.

  ‘No way! It’s just not hap
pening!’

  ‘And why not, hmm?’ Santos shot back. ‘Why is that so impossible?’

  ‘Because—because you don’t know me. I don’t know you.’

  ‘I know that I like what I see and I believe that you do too.’

  ‘Well, yes …’

  The answer was snatched from her lips before she had time to consider just how foolish she was being in admitting it. The look of dark satisfaction that crossed his face, burning in his eyes, curling the corners of his sensual mouth, made her blood run both hot and cold in exactly the same moment so that she trembled as if she was in the grip of some dangerous fever.

  I like what I see. Had he really said that about her? After years of living in Natalie’s shadow, of hearing her sister described as the beautiful one, the one who had men buzzing round her like bees around a honey pot, it shook her rigid that a man like Santos would actually express his feelings so bluntly. But it was a huge jump from that to saying that he wanted to marry her!

  ‘So you must see.’

  ‘No. No, I see nothing because there is nothing to see. Nothing at all! How can there be when we have said nothing—admitted nothing—but that we like the look of—that we fancy each other? How can that mean anything? How can you claim anything so ridiculous, so preposterous, as to say that you—you’ve …?’

  She couldn’t say it, no matter how many times she opened her mouth and tried to force her tongue to form the words, she couldn’t bring herself to echo the wildly impossible declaration that he had made just moments before.

  Santos, however, had no such problem.

  ‘That I’ll take you as my wife? Why not? I never wanted your sister as I want you.’

  ‘But you …’ Alexa began but then the realisation of just what he had said sank into her numbed brain. ‘Is that the truth?’

  ‘Why should I lie to you, belleza?’

  Santos’s tone was suddenly soft. His gaze still held hers as he spoke, his eyes so deep and clear that she felt they were like a still, smooth pool in which she risked drowning, going in over her head completely.

  Alexa wished that she could look away, but she found it impossible to drag her gaze from that mesmerising stare of his, the look that seemed to search right to the depths of her soul and know exactly what was hidden there.

  ‘But …’

  Her head was spinning, the room seeming to blur around her.

  ‘But how can you know that? You haven’t even kissed me …’

  Santos pushed both hands through the gleaming darkness of his hair in a gesture that could have been taken as showing that he was relaxing, easing some of the tension that held his long body taut. But his eyes said exactly the opposite. They were as cold and sharp, as predatory as ever.

  ‘That is something that is soon remedied.’

  To her horror he crossed the room, skirting the table with a lithe, elegant movement, coming towards her with his intent clear on his face.

  ‘No …’

  Alexa’s hands came up as if to ward off danger, and immediately she started backing away, taking hasty steps away from him. But the truth was that she knew that what she feared deep inside wasn’t really Santos but herself. The memory of those moments in the garden was burned into her mind, and she knew she would never forget how she had felt when he leaned towards her and she had been so sure that he was going to kiss her.

  If her heart had picked up a beat then, now it was thudding so hard that her blood pulsed like a thunderstorm inside her head, pounding at her temples until she was unable to think. She had wanted that kiss so much and it had stung so badly when he had withheld it at the last minute. And he had known the way she was feeling, she was positive of that.

  So now he knew what he was doing as he came towards her with that look in his eye, his gaze fixed on her mouth. And she was afraid of herself, not for herself. She was afraid of her own reaction, of the way she might respond to him if he kissed her. If she felt this way already, then how much more might she feel if … when …?

  So, ‘No!’ she said again, more urgently this time, moving backwards all the while, not looking where she was putting her feet because she did not dare to take her eyes from his face, seeing the way it was hard and set, tight with determination and resolve. ‘No, Santos—I—Oh!’

  The exclamation was forced from her in shock as the backs of her legs hit something—the side of the bed, from the feel of it. Knocked off balance and unable to stay upright, she suddenly plonked down onto the quilt, all the breath escaping from her lungs in a rush so that she gasped out loud as she landed.

  And still Santos prowled closer, big and dark and sleekly dangerous, like some elegant hunting panther that knew it had its prey totally cornered and was enjoying delaying the moment of pouncing until the very last second.

  She tried to get up, but it was as if all the bones had been removed from her legs and she couldn’t find the strength to push herself to her feet. And suddenly he was there. Looming over her, with one hand each side of her, long, lean, bronzed fingers spread out over the crisp white cotton, square-tipped nails immaculate.

  For the first time, seeing them this close, she noted a scar that ran across the knuckles of the right hand. Obviously made a long time before, it was just a fine, silvery line in the tanned skin, but her fingers itched to reach out and trace their way along it, and the need to ask how it had happened burned on her tongue.

  But in the same moment Santos spoke her name, his voice low and soft, disturbingly cajoling, and instantly she forgot what she was thinking, every last trace wiped from her mind. The scarred hand moved, sliding under her chin, lifting her face towards his, and his dark head bent slowly, his beautiful mouth coming closer to hers inch by infinite inch.

  She’d stopped breathing. Her mouth was painfully dry but her throat seemed paralysed unable to swallow, and she couldn’t do anything to ease it. She was sure that even her heart had ceased to beat, though the blood still throbbed at her temples and at the vulnerable pulse point at the base of her throat. The way he held her, with his proud head, his handsome face coming between her and the light, meant that she could look nowhere but into his eyes, seeing the way that his pupils had expanded, black where they had once been silvery grey.

  Suddenly afraid of what her own eyes might reveal, she lowered her lids hastily, retreating inside herself, fighting the need that simply having him so close was already sparking off inside her. But her temporary blindness only made matters so much worse, heightening every other sense to painful sharpness. She could smell his skin and the faint tang of some citrus soap or shampoo that lingered on his body, hear the soft sound of his chest rising and falling as he drew air into his lungs.

  ‘Belleza,‘ Santos murmured and she felt his breath against her lips, snatching it in with the oxygen she needed so that she felt she could already taste him in her mouth, against her tongue.

  But when his lips finally touched hers it was as if she had never known anything like it before in her life. As if she had never been kissed before, never felt the brush of a man’s lips against her own at any other time, with anyone else in the world.

  After the force of his approach, the power of his movements as he strode towards her, she might have expected that his kiss would be forceful too. Her whole body was tense, waiting for the impact of his mouth on hers, the feeling close to being punished for daring to challenge him, for defying his declaration that he wanted her. So it was a shock to her system when his kiss was the softest, most gentle touch she could have imagined, a butterfly-wing stroke of his lips to hers with a delicacy that tore at her heart, drawing out her soul and making her sigh her response straight into his caressing mouth.

  Just one kiss and then he drew back again. And the ache of loss when he did so was almost more than she could bear, bringing an involuntary murmur of protest that there was no way she could hold back.

  ‘Patience, querida … ‘

  Never before had his voice sounded so sexy, so enticing, and b
ehind her closed eyelids she could almost hear the smile that curved his seductive mouth.

  Santos …

  His name sounded in her head, never quite reaching her tongue because even as she tried to speak he kissed her again, with just the faintest increase of pressure so that her heart kicked against her ribs, her senses swimming.

  Again he kissed her, and again, harder each time, until she was breathless with response and with the growing need that he had sparked off inside her. Each time his lips touched hers she wanted it to last for ever and each time he took them away again she felt as if something was breaking up inside, splintering into a thousand tiny, yearning, needy pieces.

  ‘Santos!’

  The sound of his name brought her lips against his in the first kiss she had given him and the sensation of it was like a bolt of burning lightning flashing through her, making her toes curl, her hands clench against her sides, fighting the need to reach out and touch him, to lace her hands in the midnight-dark silk of his hair, feel it curl around her fingers. Heat was building in her veins, hunger uncoiling in the pit of her stomach. And obviously Santos felt it too because he slid both hands into the fall of her hair around her face, cupping the bones of her skull and holding her head in just the right position so that he could deepen the kiss, bring her mouth open under his.

  Or did she respond to him in this way? Alexa had no idea who reacted to whom and when. She only knew that now she desperately needed him to give her more than the gentle caresses that had stunned her so much at first. That she needed more than softness, than a delicacy of touch. She needed heat and hardness, strength and pressure. She needed to feel the power of his hands, the tightness of the muscles in his arms as they closed around her, lifting her from her seat.

  Or did she stand up to him?

  She didn’t know the answer to that, only knew that somehow she was on her feet, pressed tight against the hard strength of his body, feeling the warmth of him enclose her as she drew in the clean scent of his skin.

  His mouth was no longer gentle but demanding in the way she had feared it might be from the start. Now she had no fear of that demand and met it with a hunger of her own, pressure for pressure, need for need. Now her hands were free to tangle in his hair as she had wanted, but as soon as she had her wish she knew that it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. Wanted to touch him everywhere, to feel the strength of muscle and bone underneath her searching fingers, slide in at the open neck of his white shirt and know the satiny warmth of his skin, the crisp feel of his body hair tickling her palm.