by Kim Lawrence
To wake up and find her gone had been the low point of the last twenty-four emotionally turbulent hours. He had thrown on his clothes in a blind fury, fully intending when he picked up the ringing phone on his way to the door to slam it down.
Then he had heard his father’s querulous voice saying, ‘You haven’t responded to my message.’
He had slammed the phone down then and listened to the message. What he heard confirmed his suspicions and explained pretty much why she had left, but where?
If in doubt it was Emilio’s habit to follow his first instincts—he headed for the airport. He was confident that his motorbike and his knowledge of the city would considerably cut down on the journey time. The only problem being he had no idea how much of a head start Megan had on him.
He had actually been there less than five minutes before he saw her. His initial relief was followed by an equally intense rush of blind anger. How could she think that his father’s threats meant anything to him? That he gave a damn who her mother was?
∗ ∗∗
‘Do I have to spell everything out for you?’ he growled. ‘Come,’ he added, taking her elbow again, this time in a firm grip.
‘My flight.’
He ignored her.
Megan struggled to inject a little common sense into the proceedings. ‘Emilio, you can’t kidnap me in broad daylight.’
‘Kidnap implies coercion. You want to come with me,’ he asserted confidently.
She bit her trembling lip and swallowed the lump of self-pity lodged in her throat. Was she destined to become one of those bitter people railing at the deal fate had dealt them?
She lifted her chin. ‘A person cannot always have what they want.’ Compared to others she had a lot: her health, friends, a good job.
But not Emilio!
Under the circumstances it was hard to feel suitably grateful.
Without warning Emilio halted, oblivious to the other people on the congested pavement. He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her face up to him.
‘But you want to stay with me?’
Emilio, a stranger to insecurity, despised himself for voicing the question, but he couldn’t help himself.
The lie stayed locked in her throat. Instead Megan found herself nodding, her misted gaze missing the triumph that blazed bright in his eyes at her admission.
‘It’s been lovely.’
‘Lovely?’ Not the first word or even the last that sprang to his mind when he thought of the last twenty-four hours.
‘I’ve really enjoyed myself, but duty calls. I have to get back. Perhaps I could visit some time?’ Oh, God, I’m babbling.
‘On a friends-with-benefits basis?’ He vented a hard laugh. ‘Shall we check our diaries?’ The mockery in his voice was savage as he shook his head and added, ‘I think not, querida.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant …’ She passed a hand across her eyes and admitted, ‘I have no idea what I meant. Why did you have to come?’ she wailed, past caring by this point if she attracted attention. ‘Why couldn’t you just let me go without a fuss?’
‘I made that mistake once.’
Before she could question this cryptic statement or wonder about the odd, driven expression on his face, Emilio spotted what he had been looking for in the distance and changed direction.
‘Come!’
Literally swept along, she had no time to think about resisting his imperious command; she was too busy trying to keep up with his long-legged pace.
She was panting by the time they reached the long, low, gleaming limousine.
‘This is yours? ‘
He nodded.
‘But what about your motorcycle?’
‘It is hard to have a conversation while wearing a helmet.’ He threw his own into the back seat and spoke to the uniformed driver who had emerged from the driver’s seat when they appeared.
After exchanging words with Emilio in Spanish, he nodded courteously to Megan as he opened the rear passenger door and stood to one side.
Megan did not respond to the unspoken invitation. She turned instead to Emilio, who stood there visibly oozing impatience at the delay.
‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
‘I talk, you listen, whatever.’
Unprepared for his hands-on approach to the situation, Megan let out a soft shriek of protest as he scooped her up and placed her bodily inside the vehicle.
Ignoring both her shriek and the lucky punch she landed on his shoulder, Emilio slid in beside her and calmly indicated to the driver that they were ready to leave.
‘I’m not ready!’
Her shrill protest went ignored by both men.
Megan smoothed down her skirt and turned in her seat to level a furious look at his impassive face.
‘This is ludicrous. What do you hope to achieve by kidnapping me?’
‘We have already established it is not kidnap, and as for what I hope to achieve—I suppose a degree of sanity.’ His dark eyes skimmed her face as he sighed and admitted, ‘It might be a long time before I let you out of my sight.’ He would be afraid of closing his eyes for fear of her vanishing while he slept.
‘Very funny.’
‘I was not attempting to amuse you.’
‘Has it occurred to you that someone might have snapped that little scene back there?’ she asked him, nodding over her shoulder.
Emilio settled back in his seat and, taking advantage of the space offered by their luxurious transport, he stretched his long legs out in front of him and unzipped his leather jacket.
‘Like yesterday morning, you mean.’
Megan stiffened, guilty colour flooding her pale face. He knew she’d listened in and was probably furious about the invasion of his privacy.
‘It wasn’t deliberate. I didn’t mean to listen to the message,’ she told him earnestly. ‘I was just going to get a drink of water when the answer machine kicked in. I was coming back to bed and then I heard Dad’s name. I thought there might be a problem at home.’
Instead she had discovered that she was the problem.
‘What an amazing relief. I thought for one awful moment that I was lumbered with the sort of woman who checks her man’s emails and text messages.’
‘I wouldn’t— I—’ Her wide indignant gaze flew to his face and she stopped. ‘You’re not serious.’ Of course he wasn’t serious—he’d called himself her man.
He gave a crooked smile. ‘You think …?’
Her eyes fell from his. ‘Have you spoken to your father? Is he still angry?’
‘Probably.’ He gave an uninterested shrug. ‘My father is generally unhappy about something or other.’
Realising that he was downplaying the situation out of consideration for her feelings, Megan covered his hand with hers. ‘It’s all right, Emilio,’ she soothed, producing a bright brittle smile to prove the point. ‘It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.’
She stopped, a fractured sigh escaping her parted lips as he covered her hand, sandwiching it heavily between the two of his.
‘It is something that you will not hear again!’ he growled.
Ribbons of feverish colour appeared along her cheekbones as she gave a little laugh and stopped trying to tug her hand free. ‘He’s right, I am … a … b—’
Emilio cut across her in a voice that vibrated with outrage. ‘Do not say it!’
Megan winced at the volume. ‘All right,’ she said, taken aback by the intensity of his response. ‘But you have to remember your father is of a different generation. Things like that matter to him—’
‘It is not a matter of age, it is a matter of ignorance. You will not make excuses for him.’
‘All right,’ she soothed. ‘I won’t. Can I have my hand back?’
‘No.’
His brooding expression as he stared at her intensified the dark fallen-angel look and made her hopelessly receptive heart skip several beats.
‘You will ignore anything you heard my
father say,’ he instructed grimly. There was menace in his expression as he scanned her face, exuding offended masculine aggression. ‘How dare he? ‘
It was becoming clear to Megan that this was more about Emilio’s relationship with his father than her. She wondered how the older man could not realise that issuing edicts to a man like Emilio was the equivalent of waving a red rag to a bull!
Emilio was the sort of person who would not give an inch if pushed, even if it was against his best interests. He was just too stubborn for his own good.
‘I thought you might react this way. That’s why I left.’
He arched an interrogative brow. ‘What way would that be?’
He had no idea what was going on in her head, but he seriously doubted that she was about to say, You were blind to everything except the compelling need to find me and bind me to you.
She didn’t.
‘Admit it, Emilio, if you hadn’t been determined to prove to your father that he has no control over you, you wouldn’t have hared off after me this way. But, point proved—do you think you could take me back to the airport?’
Emilio vented a harsh laugh and dragged a hand through his hair. ‘The way your mind works is a continual source of fascination to me.’ Not to mention frustration. ‘So if we follow your logic, if my father had told me to marry you I would have shown you the door to prove a point? ‘
‘I’m not saying you’d go that far, but—’ She stopped, her throat drying as he leaned in towards her.
His eyes were trained on her mouth as he said softly, ‘I think you will find that there is no limit to how far I would go to protect what is mine.’
‘You don’t think your father would really disinherit you, would he?’
A sound of frustrated incredulity whistled through his clenched white teeth as he drew back. ‘I am not talking about money! My father’s threats mean nothing to me. He said he would disinherit me when I got divorced and my response was then what it would be now—I said, “Fine, go ahead.”‘
‘You called his bluff.’ A risky policy, but then Emilio was a born risk taker.
‘Blackmail only works if you care about the thing that is being threatened.’ His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘I enjoy what I do, and I’m good at it, but if it vanished tomorrow and I had to start again I would not lose any sleep. My father, however, who is enjoying his retirement, has some very expensive hobbies—I am very good at making money and he enjoys spending it.’
‘So he wouldn’t disinherit you.’ Megan gave a sigh. ‘Well, thank God for that, but if necessary I’ll speak to him myself and explain there’s no chance of us … you know, of me polluting the Rios gene pool or anything.’
Aware that her laugh had a hollow, unconvincing sound, she struggled to inject more conviction into her voice as she added, ‘That it was just, you know …’
‘No, I do not you know. Perhaps you would like to tell me you know.’
‘Just sex, casual sex.’ She saw anger flame hot in his eyes and, lifting her chin to a defiant angle, cried, ‘What … what have I said now?’
A pulsing silence followed her question.
Emilio struggled to speak past the knot of anger lodged in his chest. ‘I know about just sex. I have had just sex, you have not.’
‘Great sex, then,’ she admitted in a small voice.
A muscle clenched along his jaw. ‘We made love, Megan.’
She felt his hand tighten over hers until it hurt, but she barely registered the pain. She couldn’t take her eyes off his face and the impossible, incredible things she was seeing in his eyes.
‘I’ve dreamt about making love to you for two years.’
Megan’s stomach took a lurching dive. She stared at him, her head spinning. She was feverishly shaking—literally shaking from head to toe in reaction to this amazing statement.
He lifted the hand under his and, still holding her eyes, raised it to his lips. ‘But the reality, mi esposa, was much, much better than dreams.’
The throaty confession sent a shudder through her body.
‘Emilio … I don’t understand …’ I’m the one dreaming, she thought, not allowing herself to believe the possessive, tender glow in his eyes meant what she wanted it to mean.
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ He groaned. ‘You are without exception the most clueless woman it has ever been my misfortune to fall in love with.’ He stared into her face, drinking in the beauty of her delicate features like a starving man. ‘Actually, the only woman I have ever fallen in love with.’
She started to shake her head. That was wrong; she knew that was wrong. ‘But you loved. You still love. the woman who—’
‘You still don’t get it, do you?’ He framed her face in his big hands. ‘I fell in love with you, Megan. You are that woman.’ The relief of having finally told her after two years’ delay sent a rush of adrenaline through his body.
The low hum of confusion in her head had become a loud buzz. Megan, hardly daring to move, slowly lifted her wary gaze to his face. He was totally still, not an eyelash flickered, not a muscle moved as, deathly pale, he looked back at her with eyes that glittered with a febrile intensity.
‘Me?’ Was this a joke? If so it was in the worst possible taste. ‘But you left your wife, you—’ She stopped, the moment of comprehension causing the blood to slowly seep from her face until she was parchment pale. ‘That was me?’
‘Is you,’ he corrected huskily. ‘Why is that so hard for you to believe?’
He dabbed his thumb to the tear running unchecked down her cheek, his smile so tender that more tears welled in her eyes. Her heart felt full enough to explode.
‘But you didn’t like me.’
Her protest was lost in his long, lingering, tender kiss.
Finally Emilio lifted his head, but only fractionally. He stayed close, close enough for their breaths to mingle as they stared in silence at one another.
If I’m dreaming, Megan thought, I definitely don’t want to wake up.
She slid her hands under his leather jacket, pulling herself closer as she pressed her hands flat against his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin through the cotton of the
T-shirt he wore underneath, feeling the heavy, strong, hypnotic thud of his heart through her fingertips.
‘You feel real.’ He felt marvellous.
Emilio smiled and nipped gently at the full curve of her lower lip with his teeth.
‘And you feel delicious,’ he said, sliding a hand under her skirt and along the smooth, silky skin of her outer thigh. Megan caught her breath sharply. ‘You have the most incredible skin.’
Megan felt regret when he removed his hand. If he had decided to make love to her in the back of this limo with only a tinted-glass panel separating them from the driver it would not have crossed her mind to stop him. She would have gone out of her way to assist him!
The realisation came with not a scrap of shame.
‘But, Emilio,’ she said, frowning as she struggled to sort out the puzzles and unanswered questions in her head, ‘I don’t … How … That weekend.’
‘That weekend,’ he said heavily.
‘You snubbed me. You barely spoke to me and then you told me I was a tart!’
‘That weekend I couldn’t look at you.’ Dark colour stained his cheekbones as he forced himself to meet her gaze now. ‘Por Dios,’ he groaned, pulling back from her, his face dark with the remembered pain as he dragged not quite steady hands over his sleek dark hair.
‘I couldn’t even trust myself to be in the same room as you for fear of giving myself away! To make it worse I knew that you were attracted to me.’
‘I knew it!’ she cried, leaning back in her seat and clapping a hand to her forehead, feeling utterly mortified in retrospect. ‘I knew you knew. It was awful—you made me feel so … so … When I sat next to you at dinner that first night I couldn’t breathe … I really thought I was having a panic attack or something. There were freesias on the
window sill—I can’t smell a freesia now without hyperventilating!’
‘I do not remember flowers, but I do remember you arriving late during dinner looking so …’ Sucking in air through flared nostrils, he sighed and shook his head. ‘It was as if I was seeing you for the first time. You took my breath away.
‘But I fought it. I was not willing to admit even then that such a thing was possible. Love was a fantasy, my life was planned, my work, a wife who made no emotional demands on me. Emotional detachment makes life easy, but I didn’t realise until that night how lonely it can make you too.’
Moved beyond tears by the husky confession, she reached up and touched his cheek lovingly. For this strong, self-contained man to acknowledge, let alone confess, any weakness must, she knew, have taken great courage.
‘And when I caught that loser in the car with you I knew, I knew, and I wanted you so much that not touching you was like some sort of— It was sheer torture. It—’
He stopped, his startled expression morphing into one of desire as Megan grabbed his face between her hands and pulled him towards her.
Nose resting against his, she closed her eyes and breathed in his warm male smell, then fitted her mouth to his. For a split second he did not respond to the pressure of her lips, then with a groan he kissed her back with a fierce hunger and bruising urgency that awoke an equal hunger in her.
‘Wow!’ She breathed in shakily when they drew apart.
‘Indeed … wow!’ Emilio echoed, looking almost as shaken as she felt.
Megan turned her head and kissed the hand pressed to her cheek before she held it there. ‘Why didn’t you touch me, Emilio?’
‘I was married.’
‘Of course.’ She blushed that she needed reminding—reminding that Emilio was a man of honour and finding himself in such a situation must have been incredibly difficult. ‘But afterwards, when you were divorced, why on earth didn’t you …?’
He arched a brow.
‘Come and get me,’ she said simply.
‘I did,’ he admitted. ‘After a decent interval passed—the last thing I wanted was anyone calling you the other woman—I came to your flat intending to sweep you off your feet and into my bed.’ One corner of his mouth curled upwards into a self-derisive smile. ‘It never even crossed my mind that you would not be there waiting for me.