Good question, Luiz responded silently. There was quite clearly only one answer, or there had been until he had returned and found her looking so delicious.
When he had left to organise petrol thirty minutes earlier he had not been thinking about a repeat performance of the previous night—well, he had, but only in a ‘this would be a very bad idea’ kind of way.
He had made love to a virgin. To his mind that automatically put him in the wrong even though she could, she should, have told him. Dios, it just wasn’t something a man expected, and he was used to women who were as relaxed and open about their sexual needs as men.
If she had told him he wouldn’t have—would he?
The question hung there. Could he, hand on heart, swear that if she had told him things would have turned out differently?
The silence stretched as he presumably struggled to come up with a way to let her down gently. Nell decided to do the kind thing and let him off the hook.
‘Look, you really don’t have to pretend last night was the start of a beautiful friendship.’
Friendship was what he had shared with Rosa, lots of high-quality friendship, but had their relationship been lacking a vital spark? The moment the disloyal thought formed Luiz felt a vicious stab of guilt that added a harsh note to his voice as he responded.
‘Last night had nothing to do with friendship.’ And everything to do with a blind, compulsive lust that even now was making its presence felt.
‘Do you reserve that sneer for women who sleep with you on the first date?’ Nell struggled to inject a note of amusement into her voice.
Luiz angled an incredulous frown. ‘We didn’t have a date. You were a virgin.’
‘You make it sound like a contagious disease. Well even if it was I’m no longer infected.’
‘This is not a joke.’
Nell watched the muscles in his brown throat work. He was angry but she couldn’t figure out why exactly.
‘There was a farm a mile or so farther up the road. I have petrol, some food and a flask of coffee. The car was locked. I’m assuming you have the keys.’
Nell’s eyes widened. Other things—she determinedly pushed away the details that crowded into her head—had taken the key situation right out of her mind.
‘Slight problem.’
Luiz raised a dark brow and looked expectant; she swallowed. The dark shadow on his chin gave him a piratical appearance and emphasised the brooding danger that was always just below the surface in him.
‘I did lock the car. It’s sensible to take precautions,’ she added, anticipating his mockery.
What she didn’t anticipate was the stern expression of self-recrimination that spread across his face. ‘It was unforgivable.’
Nell, taken aback by the vitriolic harshness in his manner, blinked. ‘What was? Locking the car?’ She stopped as it clicked, a dark tide of colour washing over her skin.
‘You mean the sex—I was not exactly unwilling.’ The recollection of how not unwilling she had been brought a dark crimson flush to Nell’s cheeks.
‘But you didn’t know what you were doing.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
The bitter retort drew an impatient frown from him as he caught her meaning. ‘Do not be ridiculous. You were—’
He paused and Nell inserted her chirpy tone at variance with the pain locked in her chest. ‘Good, bad or indifferent? Do you always grade your one-night stands?’
‘Do not speak of yourself that way and do not cheapen what we shared.’ Luiz was shocked that the words had emerged from his own mouth…because he did not share. Sharing was for Rosa.
Unaware of the inner devils he was fighting, Nell looked at him in shock.
‘I simply wanted to promise you I do not make a habit of having unprotected sex.’ His irresponsibility weighed heavily on Luiz.
‘I hadn’t really thought about it.’ It was one of many things she was trying not to think about, but it wasn’t easy when the object of your persistent carnal fantasies was standing there talking about unprotected sex.
The admission did not lighten his mood. If anything his expression grew sterner. ‘Well, you should.’
He was right, of course, but his sermonising manner struck her as ever so slightly hypocritical. ‘Wasn’t it you that advised me not to worry about something I have no control over?’ Control was what she ought to have shown the previous night, Nell reflected grimly.
‘I want you to know that I am prepared to live with the consequences of my actions.’
‘What consequences? Once I have found Lucy we’re never going to see one another again.’ A little time and distance and she might be able to look on last night with a little more objectivity.
‘“What consequences?”’ he echoed.
His meaning hit her and the colour rushed to her face. ‘Oh!’
Lips compressed into a thin smile, he nodded. ‘Exactly. I am not a man who walks away from his responsibilities.’
She stuck out her chin and curled her lips into a smile of mild contempt and turned away from him to cover her acute embarrassment, saying, ‘I’m not your responsibility. Statistically the chances of getting pregnant the first time—or even the second—must be minimal. And don’t worry—if I’m pregnant you’ll be the last to know.’
She hadn’t taken a step before a hand on her shoulder swung her back. His fingers closed around her upper arms as he jerked her towards him until their bodies collided.
His dark eyes drilled into her. ‘It is not a subject for humour.’
She said. ‘Obviously not.’ And rubbed her arms where she could still feel the imprint of his fingers.
She assumed that he was scared rigid at the thought of an unwanted pregnancy.
‘No more jokes,’ she promised. Suddenly she didn’t feel much like joking; his reaction was natural, but hurtful all the same.
‘I have never had unprotected sex with a woman, not even my wife.’ There was a confessional quality to the words that spilled from him. ‘Rosa wanted a baby, I said there was time, only there wasn’t.’
Nell’s tender heart ached to see his pain. ‘You couldn’t have known.’
Ignoring her sympathetic intervention, Luiz continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I wouldn’t give her the child she wanted and now with you, a woman I barely know…you could be carrying my child.’
His words explained a lot and hurt her on more levels than she knew existed.
‘Well, I’m not, so let’s just change the subject…the keys.’ She snatched a little wildly for her bag that lay on the floor, brushing the inexplicable moisture from her cheeks as she did so. ‘They were in here,’ she explained, straightening and looping it across her shoulder. ‘They must have fallen out when I slipped,’ she confessed.
‘You lost the keys?’ He could not believe he had said those things to her. What was it about this woman that made him forget a lifetime of keeping his own counsel and guarding his emotions?
It seemed to Nell he was avoiding looking at her, she couldn’t read anything in his voice, but he had to be unhappy about the keys. She couldn’t allow herself to think about the other things he was unhappy about.
‘I didn’t do it on purpose—it was an accident.’ Would the same excuse work for sleeping with a man you barely knew, and wanting to do it again even though he was not only clearly regretting it like mad, but still in love with his dead wife?
‘It was dark,’ she added, wishing it were dark now because she felt as though her carnal cravings were written all over her face.
What had happened to pride and self-respect?
‘I was going to get up early before you were awake…’ Their eyes met and she blushed. ‘That was the plan anyway.’
He extended his hand and opened his fingers. The key lay in his palm. ‘I thought it might be something like that.’
Nell’s eyes lifted from the keys to his face; two circles of colour appeared on her cheeks. ‘You had them all along.’
&nb
sp; ‘I found them near the car.’
‘But you just thought you’d make me squirm? What a nice man you are.’ A flash of something that on anyone else Nell would have interpreted as remorse appeared in his eyes.
‘Last night should not have happened.’
A mortified flush climbed up her neck until her face was burning. ‘Don’t dwell on it. I won’t.’
‘Because losing your virginity is something that happens every day of the week.’
‘It had to happen some time.’
‘You are very casual about it.’
‘For heaven’s sake, will you stop going on about it?’ She gave a shrug and tried to inject some humour into the situation. ‘Relax. I realise the last time you slept with a virgin you married her, but I’m not expecting a proposal.’
‘I have never slept with a virgin before.’
‘Oh! I assumed that as you were both so young your wife…’ He raised a sardonic brow and Nell broke off mid-sentence, colouring deeply. This was one of those occasions when you had to recognise the hole you had just dug was deep enough.
‘Rosa was not a virgin, I was.’
‘You were a virgin?’ She struggled to picture a youthful and inexperienced Luiz.
‘Young men frequently mature later than girls, though not it seems in your case. Now turn around and let me fasten your dress.’
‘I can manage.’
Luiz ignored her. ‘Turn around.’
Face set, she did, mainly because it was easier than arguing. ‘It’s jammed.’
She rolled her eyes at his assessment. ‘I could have told you that—’ She stopped as his fingers touched the bare skin of her back and gasped as the contact sent a slug of sensation swirling through her body.
‘I almost have it. There, done.’
‘Thank you,’ she muttered, not looking at him. He was much better at taking off clothes.
Nell took some of the coffee he had brought and forced down one of the delicious pastries, if only to delay the moment when she had to get in the damned car beside him.
When he asked if she was ready to leave she took a deep breath and painted on a smile.
‘When you are,’ she agreed cheerfully.
‘Try not to worry about Lucy,’ Luiz said as she clicked her seat belt.
‘I’m not worried.’ That was the problem—until he had mentioned her Nell hadn’t thought about Lucy all morning.
CHAPTER TEN
IT only took half an hour to reach the cottage and Nell spent most of that time with her head poked out of the window, but the seething silence in the car made it one of the longest journeys she could recall ever enduring.
Nell flashed an occasional look at Luiz’s profile, not out of choice, but because her eyes drifted in that direction of their own volition with worrying frequency. On every occasion he looked remote and aloof.
It was probably better that way. If last night was any gauge a smile might be enough to make her start ripping off his clothes, she thought with a wince of self-disgust. No, a bit of distance was what was needed right now and she could live without his smiles, though it might be nice if he noticed she was alive.
The man had no manners.
The potholed road they were travelling diverged and Luiz took the right fork that led through a pair of open wrought-iron gates.
‘We’re here?’
‘Yes.’
Nell looked around. The building they had pulled up in front of was not a cottage as she understood it. The home she had just sold had been advertised as a large comfortable family home, this cottage was probably four times its size. Single-storey and stone built in the style of a Mediterranean villa, it had wisteria rather than roses growing around the door.
It was certainly secluded enough for a love nest.
He nodded and said flatly, ‘That’s it.’
‘Well, I just hope they’re here after all this.’
Luiz, on whom the significance of the absence of a car had not been lost, thought she might well be disappointed. He kept the opinion to himself as she virtually exploded from the car and ran, skirt hitched above her shapely knees, over the gravel to the front door.
Nell looked around for a bell but could find none so instead banged her fist on the wooden panelling. The door immediately swung inwards and she almost fell inside.
She turned and yelled back to the car. Luiz was still sitting there watching her and she shook her head, impatient with his total lack of urgency.
‘It’s open!’ she yelled, and stepped inside yelling her niece’s name.
Luiz took a deep breath before he entered through the front door she had left open. The last time he had been here had been after the funeral. He had vowed on that occasion never to step through the door again; now here he was and very little had changed, except the raw intensity of his pain.
He had expected to feel…what?
Pain? Melancholy? Nostalgia…?
He had expected to feel more and coming in the wake of last night’s emotional betrayal it only intensified his guilty discomfort.
He had entered the hallway when Nell reappeared with a clatter on the polished wooden floor, breathing hard, her soft features contorted in anxiety and frustration. Her eyes shone with accusatory anger as she levelled a glare at him.
‘There’s nobody here.’ Her voice was hoarse from yelling. ‘You said they’d be here!’ she accused shrilly. ‘And—’ this was the worst part ‘—I believed you.’ She couldn’t believe she had not even paused to question the possibility he might be wrong.
‘I said this was the place they would be most likely to come,’ he corrected. ‘They were here or somebody was—’
Nell rolled her eyes. ‘What are you—psychic?’
‘There are fresh car tracks outside in the gravel.’
She gritted her teeth; his calm was totally maddening. ‘Which is no help at all. Don’t just stand there, do something!’
He raised a laconic brow and she wanted to shake him. ‘What would you have me do, Nell?’
Nell regarded him with simmering frustration. ‘I thought you always knew what to do.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Where you are concerned,’ he observed drily, ‘what I do is always the wrong thing.’
Like sleeping with me. ‘And you care so much for my opinion!’ she snorted.
‘I—’
‘Luiz! What are you doing here?’
At the sound of his name Luiz turned his head. ‘Good morning, Felipe.’
Nell spun around to face the doorway where a young man stood. He was dressed in jeans and a shirt like Luiz; there the similarities ended. The newcomer, who was a little above average height, had a slim, boyish build. He wore horn-rimmed spectacles and had shoulder-length floppy brown hair that gave him an earnest, slightly disheveled student look.
‘I was looking for you.’
His cousin looked confused. ‘You were? Did we arrange something? I forgot. I thought you didn’t come here any more. I didn’t go into the studio.’
‘It’s empty, Felipe.’ It had seemed wrong to him to hide away Rosa’s talent behind dusty covers; her work was permanently displayed in a gallery in Seville.
‘He’s Felipe? You’re Felipe?’ Nell, following very little of this interchange was unable to hide her doubt. She looked from one man to the other. Man in the case of the younger Santoro was a stretch; she doubted he had started to shave yet.
Reality and imagination were poles apart and she struggled to reconcile her mental image of a slick seducer of young women with the fresh-faced youth before her.
‘This is Felipe. Felipe, this is Nell Frost.’
The boy’s eyes widened. ‘You’re Lucy’s Aunt Nell!’ he exclaimed.
Nell took a step towards him feeling suddenly rather old. ‘Yes, I’m Lucy’s Aunt Nell. Now where,’ she demanded sternly, ‘is Lucy?’
He shook his head. ‘I d-don’t know.’
The faltering response did not impress Nell, who waved a war
ning finger in his direction. ‘Please do not muck me around—my patience is not infinite.’
‘Her patience is non-existent.’
The sly aside drew a repressive glare from Nell. ‘Do you mind? I’m talking to your cousin. Now, Felipe, what have you done with Lucy?’
‘I haven’t done anything with her. She…I don’t know…I tell you I don’t know. She took the car last night and left me here. She said she was going home. I don’t understand—she said she loved me and now, now says she is not ready for marriage and…’ The boy’s voice broke as he buried his face in his hands.
Nell expelled a gusty sigh and breathed a fervent, ‘Thank God!’ A loud sob brought a guilty grimace to her face.
‘I love her!’ Felipe, the picture of heartbroken misery, wailed.
Nell’s tender heart was touched by his anguish, but her sympathy was tinged with a touch of shame. It probably made her guilty of a variety of sexism, but she didn’t have a clue how to cope with a man who was crying.
She glanced towards Luiz, who was a man, but not one, she was guessing, who had much personal experience of public displays of any form of weakness. But despite that she’d seen his vulnerability—did he resent that?
She caught his eye and mouthed, Do something, but he shrugged and continued to look at his cousin with mild distaste mingled with not so mild irritation.
The man seemed to have no heart, but she knew he had—had he wept when his wife died?
Nell pushed away the thought, because feeling any form of empathy with Luiz Santoro could, she instinctively knew, take her back into a dangerous place. She brushed past him and gave a loud contemptuous sniff. Her voice soft with sympathy, she smiled encouragingly at Felipe.
‘Of course you love her,’ she soothed, feeling disloyal but unable to repress the horrified thought that Lucy might be the sort of girl that mothers warned their sons about.
Watching his shoulders heave as he struggled to control himself, Nell placed a tentative hand on the shoulder of the distraught young man. ‘There, there,’ she said awkwardly.
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