‘I do not—’ He broke off, standing only inches away from her now as he looked down into her face. ‘You look—strained …’ he finally murmured.
‘Well, that’s hardly flattering, Alejandro,’ she told him dryly, wishing he would just leave.
She needed him to go now, and not just because she desperately needed to put some more cream on her back!
Alejandro shook his head, not in the least convinced by her attempt at humour. ‘I refuse to leave until you tell me what is wrong, Brynne,’ he said firmly.
She gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘I could just scream,’ she warned.
Her humour was still forced, in Alejandro’s opinion. ‘Is it Michael? Your parents, perhaps? Tell me what is wrong, Brynne,’ he repeated sharply.
Her mouth set stubbornly. ‘Nothing is—oh, very well,’ she snapped impatiently as Alejandro continued to look at her. ‘I just stayed out in the sun too long this afternoon, that’s all. Are you satisfied? Will you leave my bedroom now?’ She glared at him, colour flooding her cheeks.
It was what he should do, Alejandro knew. To do anything else could be dangerous in the extreme.
But he also knew that the Majorcan sun could be fierce in the afternoons, and if Brynne really had stayed out in it too long …
‘Show me,’ he said impatiently.
Brynne stared up at him with wide eyes. Show him? Take her top off and—
No way! There was absolutely no way she was going to undress for this man, even though the idea was making her body tingle all over.
‘I don’t think so,’ she told him primly. ‘I’m quite capable of dealing with it myself, thank you,’ she added defiantly as he still stood looking at her in that arrogant way that said he could be just as stubborn as she could.
‘Obviously not if you are still in pain,’ Alejandro rasped tersely.
‘I’ve put some after-sun on,’ she assured him irritably as she moved across the room to pick the bottle up from the bedside table. ‘Here. See.’ She held it up.
‘On where?’ His voice was silkily smooth.
She could feel the heat in her cheeks once again. ‘On my back. Now would you please—’
‘You cannot possibly reach the whole of your back,’ Alejandro told her with maddening accuracy.
Brynne was becoming more and more agitated by the minute.
Wasn’t it humiliating enough that he had kissed her earlier, that she had found herself becoming aroused just by his presence in this room, without having to bare her back to him?
‘I can reach far enough,’ she told him stubbornly.
‘I disagree—’
‘Do you know something, Alejandro?’ she interrupted. ‘It’s of absolutely no interest to me whether or not you agree or disagree with me! Now please leave my bedroom before I start to scream with rage!’
Alejandro continued to look at her, noting the fire in her eyes, and the flush to her cheeks. But was that with temper? Or something else …?
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps that is the answer, after all,’ he murmured as he took the bottle of after-sun from her unresisting fingers and began to unscrew the top. ‘If Maria comes in answer to your scream then she can put on the after-sun for you instead of me!’ he said in a mocking tone as Brynne frowned.
He was nowhere near as calm and controlled as he wished to appear though. The thought of running his hands across Brynne’s back, and feeling her soft skin beneath his fingertips, was playing havoc with his self-control. His hands shook slightly as he tipped some of the after-sun lotion into the palm of his hand.
‘Do as I say, Brynne,’ he told her, his voice coming out harshly as he acknowledged his deepening arousal. And he hadn’t even touched her yet!
Brynne glared at him for several more seconds before letting her breath out in an angry hiss. ‘Oh, all right!’ she snapped before marching over to the bed and lying down on her stomach, pulling the back of her top up as she did so. At least she could try to protect some of her modesty—
‘That will not do, Brynne,’ Alejandro said quietly from just behind her. ‘I cannot reach your shoulders or the top of your back like that,’ he explained patiently as she turned to frown at him.
No, he couldn’t, could he? she conceded with an irritated sigh, sitting up to turn away from him as she undid the buttons to her top—mainly so that he shouldn’t see the way her hands were shaking!
‘Will you please look the other way for a moment?’ she told him uncomfortably, waiting until he had done so before dropping her top to the floor and then quickly moving to lie face down on the bed once again, her face burning now rather than her back—with pure embarrassment!
Alejandro sat down on the side of the bed to rub some of the cream onto his hands, then began to caress the lotion into her burning shoulders, relieving some of the soreness but at the same time instantly creating a burning sensation somewhere else in her body.
Brynne’s skin felt just as luxuriously silky as Alejandro had imagined it would, and his hands were necessarily gentle as he sensed her discomfort.
As he leant forward he could see the gentle swell of her breasts as they pressed into the cool sheets beneath her, a tantalizing glimpse that made him long to see them fully. He imagined running his hands over her there too, to bring her another sort of relief—
‘To lie out in the sun and let yourself get burnt like this was an extremely stupid thing to do,’ he declared harshly in an effort to hide his rapidly rising desire.
Brynne lifted her head to glare at him. ‘Oh, yes, I just sat out there and got burnt on purpose!’ she replied scathingly. ‘I fell asleep, okay?’ she added as she once again buried her face into the pillow.
Alejandro smiled slightly at her obvious annoyance with herself.
‘I hope that isn’t a smirk I see on your face, Alejandro Santiago!’ Brynne said indignantly, having opened one eye to look at him.
His smile deepened. ‘You sound like my mother when she used to chastise me as a child,’ he explained as he could see Brynne’s exasperation rising. ‘Except she always used my full name of Alejandro Miguel Diego Santiago!’
‘Perhaps I will too now that I know what it is!’ Brynne muttered irritably—at the same time as she realized that one of his middle names was Miguel, the same as Michael.
Had Joanna known that when she had named their son, or was it just a coincidence?
Coincidence or not, it certainly served as a reminder of exactly who and what Alejandro was!
‘I’m not sure that Señorina Roig would be too happy if she could see you right now,’ she murmured tauntingly.
‘Antonia?’ She could feel Alejandro’s hands tense at her mention of the other woman’s name. ‘What does Antonia have to do with my helping you deal with your sunburn?’ he demanded haughtily.
‘In my bedroom helping me deal with my sunburn,’ Brynne corrected pointedly. ‘In my bedroom helping me deal with my sunburn while I’m only half-dressed,’ she added. ‘She may just decide to call off the engagement if she knew.’
She felt the bed give slightly as Alejandro stood up abruptly, and Brynne reached out to pick up her top from the floor, holding it protectively against her as she sat up to face him.
To say he looked angry was an understatement. His eyes had turned pale silver, the arrogant planes of his face were enhanced by his tightly clenched jaw and his nostrils flared in the aquiline nose.
‘There is no engagement,’ he bit out icily. ‘There will never be an engagement between myself and Antonia Roig.’
Alejandro was more furious than Brynne had ever seen him—although she had no idea why her teasing should have roused him so intensely …
She gave a shrug. ‘Perhaps you haven’t made that plain enough to Miss Roig yet, because I’m pretty sure that she was lining up boarding-schools in her head earlier for Michael once the two of you are married.’
Alejandro’s eyes glittered coldly. ‘You were mistaken,’ he said tightly.
She had introduc
ed the subject of Antonia as a means of putting an end to a situation that was becoming far too intimate for her comfort, but she hadn’t expected it to succeed quite as well as it had.
She gave a puzzled frown. ‘It was just an idea …’
‘Once again it is an example of your interference in something that is none of your concern—’
‘If she becomes Michael’s stepmother it will be my concern—’
‘She will not!’ His accent was so thick now Brynne thought he was in danger of lapsing into his native tongue completely. ‘Miguel will never have a stepmother, Antonia or any other woman, because I never intend to marry again! There, does that satisfy your curiosity?’ he rasped harshly.
Again …
Alejandro had said he would never marry ‘again’ …?
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE HAD said too much, Alejandro realized in disgust as the desire he had been feeling only minutes ago faded as if it had never been.
He had told Brynne Sullivan far too much.
Far more than she needed to know!
She was looking at him now with wide, suspicious eyes, as if the fact that he had once been married somehow made him into a—
‘I married precisely three months after my brief relationship with Joanna was over,’ he stated forcefully as he guessed the reason for the accusation in Brynne’s gaze.
‘That was convenient for you,’ she replied hollowly, shaking her head slightly. ‘No wonder you and Joanna never married—you were probably already married to someone else by the time she realized she was pregnant with Michael!’
‘It was not like that at all—’
‘Wasn’t it?’ Brynne scorned. ‘Forgive me if I don’t believe you!’
‘I do not forgive you.’ Alejandro was every inch the wealthy, arrogant Spaniard as he looked down at her with icy grey eyes. ‘Once again you speak of things, make accusations, you do not understand—’
‘I understand you were married to someone else while Joanna had your baby, completely on her own!’
‘I did not know she was pregnant—’
‘And what would you have done about it if you had?’ Brynne questioned. ‘Paid for her to have an abortion? Or confessed all to your wife of only a few months and ruined her life as well? Although the fact that the two of you are no longer married probably shows that she at least had enough sense to leave you!’ She was breathing hard in her agitation.
Alejandro had never received such insults to his honour before, from either a man or a woman, and the fact that minutes ago he had ached with wanting this particular woman only seemed to make it all the worse that the insults came from her.
His mouth twisted. ‘My wife is dead. And there would have been no question of Joanna having an abortion! If Joanna had told me of her pregnancy, I would have supported both her and my child.’
‘It must be nice to be rich enough to be able to salvage your conscience so easily!’ Brynne scorned.
‘If you were a man I would have knocked you down for the insults you have given me tonight,’ Alejandro bit out coldly. ‘But as you are not, I instead think it best that I leave you now to give you chance to calm down. We can talk about this again in the morning if that is what you wish.’
What she wished was that she had never met him—and her reasons for that no longer concerned Michael alone!
Minutes ago she had known herself aroused by Alejandro. And not for the first time, either.
What she really wanted to do right now was sit down and have a good cry at her own stupidity in allowing herself to become attracted to this complicated man!
She could so easily have turned over on the bed a few minutes ago and pulled his head down to hers and have him kiss her until she could think of nothing and no one but him. She longed to have him caress her in all the places that ached for his touch.
She was as disturbed by that admission as she was by learning he had been married.
‘I don’t know what I’ll want in the morning,’ she said dully.
But she did know. She wanted to go home, back to England, to forget she had ever met this unfathomable man. And instead she had to stay on here, for Michael’s sake …
‘Please go now,’ she told Alejandro flatly.
Alejandro looked at her bowed head, and the beautiful hair that cascaded over the bareness of her delicate shoulders like a living flame. As he stared at her endearing freckles he had longed to kiss such a short time ago some of the anger he was feeling left him.
He had not thought it necessary for Brynne to know the details of his relationship with Joanna or the circumstances of his marriage to Francesca, and, knowing how close he had come tonight to taking her in his arms and making love to her, he believed that more than ever.
Brynne Sullivan was the last woman he should ever make love to!
‘Perhaps you are right,’ he snapped.
‘Yes.’ She sighed, reaching up a hand to push back the thickness of her hair to look up at him with pained blue eyes.
Alejandro looked at her for several more seconds before turning sharply on his heel and walking to the door, closing it softly behind him as he left.
He closed his eyes as he leant back against the wall outside in the hallway, fighting the yearning he had to go back into the room, to take Brynne into his arms.
But he had made a decision when Francesca had died five years ago that any relationship he had in future would only ever be of the transient kind, of short duration, with no emotional entanglement, and Brynne Sullivan, he already knew, with her prim morality, and her soul-destroying blue eyes, was not a woman of that type.
Brynne felt gritty-eyed and irritable from lack of sleep the next morning. She’d found it hard to sleep after the things she had learnt about Alejandro.
He had probably been engaged when he and Joanna had met seven years ago and already married by the time Joanna had known she was expecting his baby. Although it appeared that his wife had died some time in the last seven years.
All of these things had gone round and round in her head for hours last night.
One thing she did know was that any growing attraction she might have felt towards Alejandro had to stop.
It should never have happened in the first place after the battle the two of them had had six weeks ago over the custody of Michael!
In fact, the more she came to know about Alejandro Santiago, the stronger her feeling that Michael should have been allowed to stay with her.
The fact that Alejandro was sitting alone at the dining table, calmly reading a newspaper, when she got downstairs for breakfast did nothing to improve her mood!
Alejandro looked up as he sensed Brynne quietly entering the room, his mouth tightening as she avoided meeting his gaze to go over to the side dresser and pour herself some juice.
‘Where’s Michael?’ she asked as she came to sit at the table opposite him.
‘He went down to the orchard with Maria to pick some fresh oranges,’ Alejandro dismissed, carefully folding his newspaper to place it on the table beside him. ‘Is juice all you are having for breakfast?’ He frowned.
Brynne shrugged dismissively. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘How are you feeling this morning?’ he probed softly.
She raised her chin, her blue eyes bright with challenge. ‘How should I be feeling?’
He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘I merely wondered if your back was still painful …?’
‘Oh.’ Her gaze once again avoided his. ‘It’s much better this morning, thank you.’
She didn’t look better, Alejandro noted, seeing that her face was pale and that there were dark shadows beneath her eyes.
He nodded abruptly. ‘That is good. I have some business to attend to in Palma today,’ he said curtly. ‘Will you and Michael be able to amuse yourselves by the pool? With the appropriately applied suntan lotion, of course,’ he added ruefully.
‘Of course,’ Brynne echoed dryly. ‘If Michael gets bored I can always tak
e him for a walk to Banyalbufar. Maria says its only just up the coast and—’
‘I would rather you did not walk anywhere today,’ Alejandro cut in.
‘I’m sure the walk will do Raul and Rafael good,’ Brynne finished mockingly. ‘From their unhealthy pallor they obviously don’t get out in the sun enough!’
‘But you have,’ Alejandro spoke firmly. ‘And to go out walking when you are already burnt is not wise.’
Brynne gave him a scathing glance. ‘I think I’m old enough to know not to make the same mistake twice!’
Alejandro gave her a searching look. Were they still talking about yesterday’s sunburn? Or something else …?
From her guarded response to his earlier enquiry as to how she was feeling this morning he would say it was something else!
Her skin had felt wonderful to the touch last night as he had carefully applied the soothing lotion to her shoulders and the curve of her spine, and he was experienced enough to know that Brynne had enjoyed the caress of his hands. But if she feared he would suggest repeating the process then she was mistaken.
He had paid for his own unsatisfied arousal with a sleepless night, and did not intend repeating the experience!
‘I suggest you ask Maria to put some after-sun on your back before you go outside,’ he snapped dismissively, throwing his napkin down on the table to stand up. ‘I am not sure what time I will get back, so do not—’
‘Oh, please don’t hurry back on our account,’ Brynne assured him derisively, relieved to know that he would probably be out most of the day. ‘Michael and I are quite used to entertaining ourselves.’
Alejandro looked down at her coldly before turning on his heel and striding from the room.
Brynne heaved a deep sigh of relief as she relaxed the tension from her shoulders. Painful shoulders, as it happened, with the skin on her back bright red this morning and slightly itchy. No doubt it would start to peel in a couple of days, and then instead of having the appearance of a lobster she would look like a snake shedding its skin. Very attractive!
Although if Alejandro was looking for attractive, he didn’t have to look any further than Antonia Roig!
Mistress to the Mediterranean Male (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 6