Mistress to the Mediterranean Male (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘If your girlfriend hadn’t arrived, you mean—’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Alejandro cut in softly. ‘I am not going to allow you to antagonize me into changing the subject in that way.’ He crossed the room to stand just in front of her.

  Making Brynne all too aware of him, the heat of his body, that all-male smell, the leashed power that could be released at any second.

  She avoided that compelling silver gaze as she moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘I like to think—’

  ‘No, Brynne!’ Alejandro grasped her arms and shook her slightly. ‘No thinking. No wishing. No imagining.’ He shook her again. ‘Tell me what you think would have happened after I had touched you here.’ One of his hands moved to caress lightly across her breast before returning to grasp her arm. ‘Kissed you here.’ He held her gaze as his head lowered. His lips and tongue grazed lightly across her hardened nipple beneath her cotton top.

  ‘Stop it!’ Brynne struggled to pull away from him but was held tight by the strength of his hands on her arms.

  ‘What if we had not stopped—for whatever reason—when we did, Brynne?’ he repeated softly. ‘What do you think would have happened next?’

  She didn’t need to think—she knew what would have happened!

  She had wanted Alejandro last night, mindlessly, urgently. She had been unable to think of anything but him, of being even closer to him; she hadn’t even been aware of the approaching car that had alerted him to Antonia Roig’s arrival.

  Alejandro could see the pained bewilderment in Brynne’s eyes, could guess at the reason for it, knew that he was hurting her, but needed to make her understand the past.

  It was this lack of understanding—perhaps of experience?—that caused her to judge him and Joanna as harshly as she did, and while he did not care for himself, Joanna was a different matter.

  ‘We both know what was going to happen next.’ He released her abruptly, moving several feet away to thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘The two of us would have become lovers—’

  ‘No—’

  ‘But yes, Brynne,’ he insisted softly. ‘We were almost there already.’

  ‘You’re despicable!’ she gasped.

  ‘I am honest,’ he corrected grimly. ‘With myself. And with other people. It is the same honesty that Joanna and I had between us seven years ago. We were not in love with each other, but we liked each other, were attracted to each other. It was an attraction that we acted upon. The same attraction that was between us last night—’

  ‘No—’

  ‘What are you saying, Brynne?’ he taunted. ‘That what you felt last night was not lust but something else? That you are in love with me?’ he added derisively.

  Of course she wasn’t in love with him!

  He was hateful. Arrogant. Mocking. And she despised him for discussing last night in this cold, analytical way.

  That completely mindless passion had never happened to her before, with anyone, and it was something she still had trouble accepting, let alone understanding.

  ‘Well, are you?’ Alejandro continued remorselessly.

  ‘No, of course not—’

  ‘Of course not,’ he echoed scornfully. ‘But you allowed me to touch you, to caress you, to kiss you—’

  ‘Stop it!’ she cried emotionally. ‘Just stop it!’ She turned away, shaking.

  ‘Yes, I will stop.’ Alejandro sighed heavily. ‘But you are a hypocrite, Brynne Sullivan. You are fooling only yourself by believing you are incapable of the same feelings that drew Joanna and I together seven years ago.’

  Brynne knew she was fooling herself. She was totally aware of the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to pull back from making love with Alejandro last night. She had wanted him completely. She had continued to ache for his possession for hours afterwards.

  She still ached for that possession …

  ‘You also blame me for the fact that Joanna went through her pregnancy alone, brought Michael up alone for the first four years of his life,’ he continued determinedly. ‘My defence to that is it was Joanna’s choice—’

  ‘Because you were married—’

  ‘My marriage is immaterial. It was Joanna’s choice not to tell me of the pregnancy or of Michael’s existence,’ Alejandro continued remorselessly. ‘If anyone should be angry about that, then it should be me, not you,’ he stated flatly. ‘I am disappointed not to have known Michael until now, yes, but I do not blame Joanna for the choices she made. They were hers to make, after all.’

  He was right. Brynne knew he was right. But it had been far easier to be angry with Alejandro, living, breathing, arrogant Alejandro, rather than Joanna, her feistily independent sister-in-law.

  ‘I do not intend to discuss this subject with you again, Brynne,’ Alejandro told her huskily. ‘The past is gone. Joanna is gone. And so any further discussion on the subject is pointless. Harbour such thoughts as you want about me—I am sure that others have thought much worse,’ he added dryly. ‘But do not think those things of Joanna.’ He sobered. ‘She was a beautiful free spirit when I knew her, a woman who knew her own mind and body, and that is how I will always think of her.’

  Joanna had been the same beautiful free spirit when Brynne had known her too, when Tom had fallen in love with her.

  And that almost gentle way that Alejandro talked of her seemed to imply that his own emotions had not been as removed in that relationship as he would have liked them to be …

  ‘There is only Michael now,’ Alejandro continued briskly. ‘He is all that is important.’

  ‘I agree,’ she said quietly.

  ‘You do?’ Alejandro sounded amused now.

  She raised her head to look at him, that amusement also in his eyes. ‘Yes, I do,’ she confirmed ruefully. ‘And I’ll try not to be hypocritical again,’ she added softly.

  Alejandro studied her between narrowed lids, knowing exactly what she meant by that last remark.

  Brynne intended to ensure that the opportunity to make love with her did not occur again.

  He knew it was the sensible thing to do. The right thing to do. And yet sensibility was not an emotion this young woman aroused in him.

  He had wanted her badly last night, had felt her quiver in response a few minutes ago when he had touched her, and knew he could not offer the guarantee, given similar circumstances, that it would not happen again …

  ‘You will “try”, Brynne …?’ he taunted softly.

  Her mouth tightened. ‘Yes.’

  Alejandro nodded. ‘Then I will try also,’ he murmured huskily.

  ‘Although this is perhaps not the right room in which to make such an assertion?’ He looked around them pointedly.

  The sudden vision he had of Brynne lying naked with him on his four-poster bed, those golden limbs entangled with his, the fiery swathe of her hair cascading over his chest, was perhaps not conducive to such a claim either!

  ‘I’ll go back and sit with Michael now.’ Brynne turned away from him abruptly.

  ‘Brynne …?’ Alejandro reached out to lightly grasp her arm. She stared up at him and he looked down into that beautiful but pale face; he saw the guarded emotions in those dark blue eyes.

  Alejandro was overwhelmed with a desire to kiss her again, to touch her, caress her!

  Instead he spoke harshly. ‘I shall be out to dinner again this evening but I will speak to Michael before I leave.’

  Brynne didn’t need two guesses as to whom Alejandro would be having dinner with again this evening.

  Obviously their discussion earlier had made no difference to his continuing a relationship with that other woman. No doubt Antonia Roig was sophisticated enough to deal with the sort of relationship Alejandro was used to, the only sort of relationship he would allow in his life.

  The sort of relationship she and Alejandro had almost fallen into themselves last night …

  Alejandro had been right to upbraid her on that subject. Her own response to him last night had made a com
plete nonsense of her assumptions about his casual relationship with Joanna all that time ago.

  Last night she had been a victim of her own desire for this man. She knew even now that she could so easily have forgotten everything but Alejandro as his hands and lips had weaved a magic over her body that she had had no thought of denying.

  Just the touch of his hand on her arm right now was once again weaving that magic …

  ‘I’m sure Michael would like that,’ she bit out.

  ‘And you, Brynne?’ Alejandro murmured throatily. ‘What would you like?’

  She would like him not to go to Antonia Roig! But to stay here with her this evening. For them to talk. To laugh. Before they made slow, leisurely love together.

  Madness!

  Her chin rose; she was determined to fight these feelings. And to go on fighting them.

  ‘Once Michael is awake I would like to go and have a quick bath before our evening meal,’ she dismissed lightly.

  The thought of Brynne, those long, golden limbs completely naked, her hair secured loosely on top of her head as she floated in the Jacuzzi bath in the room that adjoined her bedroom, was almost Alejandro’s undoing.

  Instead he thrust her away from him, his expression harsh and remote. ‘Go and bathe now, if you wish,’ he rasped, forcing that image firmly from his thoughts. ‘I will sit with Michael until you return.’

  She looked at him quizzically. ‘You’ve decided to call him Michael, after all …?’

  ‘For the moment, yes.’ Alejandro shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Perhaps in wanting him to become immediately Spanish, I am expecting too much too soon.’

  Brynne gave a rueful smile. ‘I think that’s very wise.’

  ‘Wise, Brynne?’ he echoed mockingly. ‘I did not think you believed me capable of such an emotion.’

  She believed him capable of many more emotions than she would care to admit, the main one, she realized as she continued to look up at him, being an integrity where the existence of his son was concerned.

  Alejandro had remained in ignorance of Michael’s existence for over six years, and even once he had seen the newspaper article on Joanna’s death, and realized that her son could also be his own son, he could have continued to ignore that existence if he had chosen to. But instead he had claimed his son, had fought a legal battle with her in order to secure that claim. And through all of that he had maintained a respect and affection for Joanna that was unshakeable.

  Alejandro Santiago, she acknowledged, was indeed an honourable man.

  The fact that he resented her, and her earlier efforts to deny him his son, was perhaps the price she paid for that realization …

  Her smile deepened. ‘I’m sure that what I think of you is of absolutely no importance to you whatsoever, Alejandro!’ she said with certainty.

  Was it unimportant? Alejandro wondered. Last night he had made love with this woman, would have taken her completely if Antonia had not arrived so unexpectedly. How would Brynne have behaved towards him today if that had happened?

  It would, he knew with sudden clarity, have made it impossible for them to continue to stay here together.

  He gave a hard smile. ‘None whatsoever,’ he confirmed dismissively. ‘Go and take your bath,’ he instructed curtly before turning away, his back rigid, hands clenched at his sides as he stared out of the window until he heard the bedroom door close softly as Brynne left.

  His breath left him in a shaky sigh as he forced the tension from his shoulders and slowly unclenched his fists.

  This completely candid conversation with Brynne had been necessary and perhaps long overdue. Even though she didn’t appreciate the comparisons he made between his past relationship with Joanna and what had happened between the two of them last night, it had needed to be said. Although it hadn’t been deliberate, Brynne now knew that desire was as forceful an emotion as love was reputed to be.

  Reputed. Because Alejandro had never loved any woman. Not Joanna. Not Francesca. Certainly none of the now nameless, faceless women he had been involved with over the years.

  He wasn’t in love with Brynne either, but nevertheless her flame-coloured hair, those candid blue eyes and that delectably arousing body had become a torment to him, a temptation.

  It was a temptation he was finding it increasingly difficult to resist …

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BRYNNE awoke drowsily as she felt herself being lifted, an arm about her shoulders, another beneath her bent knees. Her lids felt heavy as she looked up and found Alejandro’s face only inches from her own, those two cradling arms obviously his.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she murmured sleepily.

  He looked down at her, eyes dark and unfathomable. ‘What does it look like I am doing?’ he came back softly.

  It looked—and felt—as if he were holding her against that muscled hardness of his chest. Brynne was able to hear the steady beat of his heart beneath the silk material of his shirt.

  ‘I found you asleep on the sofa when I returned home,’ he added huskily as he began to walk up the stairs.

  Oh, yes, she remembered now. She and Michael had eaten a leisurely dinner together, her own meal accompanied by a couple of glasses of wine. After she had put Michael to bed she had sat in the sitting-room reading—still unable to banish thoughts of Alejandro out with the beautiful Antonia Roig—and must have fallen asleep.

  She had been waiting for Alejandro to return, that was it. She had something she needed to tell him. But cradled close against him like this she couldn’t think straight, certainly couldn’t remember what that something was!

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ She frowned.

  Where indeed? Alejandro wondered as he looked down at her, the long red hair feeling like silk as it cascaded over his bare arm, her eyes once again that dark smoky blue, her face slightly flushed from sleep, those slightly parted lips so full and inviting.

  It was an invitation, with her silk robe–covered body held so closely against him, the swell of her breast pressed to his chest, that he was fast losing the struggle to resist!

  He had gone upstairs to check on Michael when he returned home shortly after eleven o’clock. He hadn’t expected to find anyone still up, but the small lamp he had seen still on in the sitting-room when he had let himself in had drawn him back downstairs to investigate.

  Finding Brynne there asleep on the sofa had been the last thing he had expected.

  Or wanted, after earlier fighting the impulse he’d had to follow her to the bathroom and sit and watch her as she bathed.

  She had sat curled up against the cushions, her beautiful face bare of make-up, the rumpled folds of her robe revealing the creamy swell of her breasts, those long, sensitive fingers, that had caressed his back so arousingly the night before, curled loosely about the book she must have been reading when she fell asleep.

  Alejandro had looked down at her for several long minutes, drawn between the desire to lie down on the sofa beside her as he kissed and caressed her awake, and the more sensible idea of waking her so that she could get herself off to bed before he gave in to that desire.

  In the end he had done neither, instead bending down to lift her easily into his arms with the idea of carrying her up the stairs to her bedroom.

  She felt so light in his arms, so soft and silky, that he realized now he had been foolish to think he could simply carry her to her room and just leave her there. The rapidly rising desire in his body clamoured for him to do something quite different …

  Brynne, fully awake now, looked up at Alejandro beneath lowered lashes, seeing his tightly clenched jaw, a nerve pulsing in one rigidly set cheek.

  He smelt faintly of wine and expensive cigars, of a spicy aftershave, and underlying those scents was the all-male smell that was Alejandro.

  And he felt wonderful, she discovered as her arms moved up about his neck and her hands rested lightly on those broad shoulders. He was warm and sensual to the touch, the heat from his body transmitting
itself to her much cooler one—that heat seeming to increase as her fingers became entwined in the dark thickness of the hair at his nape.

  He looked down at her beneath hooded lids. ‘What are you doing, Brynne?’ he rasped.

  After their earlier conversation about the danger of the two of them being close like this, she wasn’t quite sure, only she knew that she wanted to continue touching him. That she wanted more than to touch him. She wanted him to touch her too, to kiss her in the way he had the night before.

  ‘Do not look at me in that way, Brynne,’ he ordered, that nerve pulsing more rapidly in his cheek.

  ‘What way is that, Alejandro?’ she murmured huskily, slowly moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue, deliberately holding his gaze as she did so.

  His mouth firmed impatiently. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘Not as much as you have, I’m sure,’ she dismissed, knowing it was Alejandro himself that was making her feel so wantonly reckless, not the two glasses of wine she had drunk hours ago and already slept off.

  Alejandro came to a halt in the hallway as he looked down at her, knowing he should just take her to her bedroom and leave her there. But his own bedroom was nearer. And at this moment Brynne was so soft and willing in his arms …

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you going to regret this in the morning, Brynne?’

  ‘Probably,’ she whispered. ‘But I’m trying not to be … hypocritical about it.’

  His mouth curved into a smile at this joke directed towards herself.

  ‘You are intoxicated—’

  ‘With you,’ she murmured throatily as she turned to where his shirt was unbuttoned, her lips lightly caressing. ‘Only with you, Alejandro,’ she assured him huskily before her tongue moved to taste him.

  Dios Mío, he could perhaps fight his own desire, but he could not fight Brynne’s as well.

  He hesitated no longer, kicking his bedroom door open and then shut again behind them, before carrying Brynne over to his bed, laying her down there amongst the cushions.

  ‘I always wanted to sleep in a four-poster bed,’ she told him huskily as he moved to release the drapes that enclosed them in their own private world.