by Kim Lawrence
‘I’m fine now.’ Her level look dared him to contradict her.
‘Of course you are,’ he said, pushing a box of tissues supplied by the ever-alert Sabina her way.
‘About your father—’
Nell blew her nose. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said in a fierce little voice. ‘You’ve got what you want.’
Luiz, on whom her unfriendly attitude had not been wasted, angled a questioning brow. ‘I have?’
‘Well, your grandmother’s going to leave you her loot, isn’t she?’ She lifted her scornful red-rimmed eyes to his and added, ‘I suppose it beats working for a living.’
A look she couldn’t interpret crossed his face. It wasn’t guilt, but it should have been.
‘Perhaps we do not all have your strong moral integrity.’
The faint derision she heard in his voice brought an angry flush to Nell’s tear-stained face. ‘I’m not suggesting I’m perfect.’
Luiz looked at her, the red swollen eyes, the pink nose, and found himself thinking, Maybe not perfect, but awfully appealing. And not his type…even his grandmother had recognised this.
She sniffed and he experienced a sharp twinge of emotion. Refusing to recognise its source, he got abruptly to his feet and walked across to the table where the tea tray lay undisturbed.
‘Can I get something for you?’
‘You can get me Lucy, take me to her.’
He regarded her incredulously. ‘Now?’
‘Certainly now.’
He shook his head doubtfully. ‘You don’t look in any condition to go anywhere.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m terribly sorry I don’t reach your standard of airbrushed perfection, but we had a deal and I’ve done my bit, which, I have to tell you, has left a nasty taste in my mouth, so now it’s your turn. Do you actually even know where they are? If so just tell me. I’ll drive myself there—I have a car.’
The silence stretched. She was, he decided, more than capable of doing just that if he allowed her. The woman gave a new meaning to stubborn…or maybe, he conceded, she just had to keep going because if she stopped or slowed down she would feel. The grief would come crashing in. It was a coping mechanism that he recognised, he had used it after Rosa died. In his case it had taken the form of work and more work that had been viewed in some quarters as a lack of caring.
Not that Luiz had cared. Strange that back then he had been unconcerned what anyone thought, and now Nell’s assumption he was an avaricious scrounger felt like a slap in the face. It had been a warped sense of pride that had prevented him putting her right, warped because he had given her little reason to have a good opinion of him—a good opinion he still refused to accept he wanted.
‘The road, such as it is, is not good. Only a four-wheel drive or preferably a horse will get you there.’
‘I don’t ride a horse.’ But it was not difficult to see Luiz Santoro on one.
‘Then four-wheel drive it is.’
Nell gave a watery smile of relief. ‘You’ll take me?’
‘As you are clearly not fit to be let out alone—yes, I will.’
Nell let the inference she needed a keeper pass. She was just so relieved to actually be doing something and not standing around.
He glanced at the metallic banded watch on his wrist, screwed up his eyes as though making a mental calculation, and said, ‘I have some things to attend to, so we’ll say an hour’s time. In the meantime eat. I’ll send Sabina, who will show you where to go if you want to freshen up.’
His frowning scrutiny brought a self-conscious flush to Nell’s face. The last thing she wanted was to look in a mirror.
‘Who is Sabina?’ she began, but he had gone.
She did not have long to wait to find out as the Spanish woman appeared moments later carrying fresh coffee. Nell found her manner soothing as she explained in heavily accented but perfect English that she was the housekeeper.
A few sandwiches forced down, her caffeine levels topped up, her hair combed and her face washed, Nell felt a lot more like herself and able to cope…so long as she didn’t think of that kiss.
Luiz returned forty-five minutes later.
He had been to his grandmother’s sick room to explain he would be away for the rest of the day.
It was soon clear that his plan had gone even better than he had anticipated. His grandmother had been more animated than he had seen her in many weeks.
Listening to her talk about his English bride, and the grandchildren she looked forward to living long enough to see born, made him wonder if extricating himself from this fake betrothal should the need arise might not be as simple as he had predicted.
It was a problem of his own making and, ironically, one he sincerely hoped he would have to face. But though the future was still uncertain and he could not allow himself to hope, one thing was clear: Nell Frost had Doña Elena’s stamp of approval. Nell Frost, who was nowhere to be seen.
Luiz looked at the disturbed tray, and glanced around the room seeing no immediate signs of the blonde English girl. Noticing that the double doors that led into the library were wide open, he strolled through them and almost immediately found her, perched on the top steps of one of the ladders that gave access to the topmost shelves that lined the room.
Lost in a book, she did not notice his entrance and Luiz did not immediately make her aware of his presence. Instead he paused—she made an aesthetically pleasing picture, the sun filtering through the wooden shutters that covered the south-facing library windows revealing not only the golden highlights in her hair, but a great deal of the slender curves beneath the cotton dress that it rendered virtually transparent.
His response to the image was more earthy than aesthetic.
Irritated, he had to make a conscious effort to put his libido back in its box. There was a time and a place for such indulgences and this was neither… It seemed a good moment to remind himself that she was not even his type!
He liked tall, athletically built women and she barely reached his shoulder, he recalled as his glance slid down her slim bare legs.
His hooded lids came down. Not close to his type, he reminded himself.
‘A busman’s holiday?’
She jumped at the sound of his voice and slid the dusty tome balanced on her knee into the vacant space on the top shelf. She did it with the care such a rare treasure deserved, which gave her the time to gather the wits that had gone walkabout the moment she had heard his voice.
She cleared her throat and pitched her voice at a cool level, ignoring the shivery tremors in her stomach as she told him, ‘I was looking at your books.’ The book she had extracted had been the only one Nell felt able to touch without protective gloves and yet still would have been counted a gem in many collections.
Did he know, she wondered, just how many rare and precious books this room held?
‘Could you not have looked at them on ground level?’
Nell ignored the question. ‘Do you realise that there is no system here at all?’
His brows rose at the admonitory heat in her voice.
‘There are some incredibly rare books here.’
‘And it’s a great shame they belong to an unappreciative philistine?’
‘You said it.’
‘I believe my great-grandfather was something of a collector.’ Over the years he had suggested to his grandmother that the collection be catalogued, but she had considered the project a costly waste of money.
Nell’s indignation flared. That someone so uninformed should have access to such a treasure seemed sacrilege.
‘Well, he’ll be turning in his grave right now because the condition of some…’ She made a clicking noise of disapproval with her tongue and shook her head. ‘Actually it’s criminal. There are some incredibly rare—’
Luiz’s amused drawl cut across her animated protest. ‘I have rarely seen a woman display such passion for anything unless it is a designer handbag.’
Nell
couldn’t let the sexist comment pass unchallenged. ‘Really, if the women you know only get excited by handbags it speaks volumes for your skill in bed, and,’ she added, thinking of her limited collection at home, ‘you probably know more about designer handbags than I do.’
Her satisfaction at delivering the cutting comeback lasted for the two seconds it took her brain to supply an image of tumbled sheets and entwined limbs, fair skin looking very pale against the dark.
It had been clearly a major error to introduce the subject of the bedroom when she was talking to this man. Nell squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the explicit mental images playing in her head.
‘I didn’t mean—’ To mentally undress you.
‘To issue a challenge?’
She opened her mouth to protest but before she could offer a hasty placatory reply he added, ‘Or cast a slur on my masculinity…’ There was something mingled with the sardonic amusement that sent a shivery surge of sensation along her nerve endings. In her eagerness to deny the suggestion Nell almost fell off her perch as she shook her head vigorously in horrified denial.
‘Be careful!’
His sharp warning echoed the voice in her own head, though the voice in her head was not so worried about falling off the ladder as the knot of excitement pulsing low in her belly!
Good God, Nell, get a grip, girl! This is what happens when you don’t have a life. You step outside your comfort zone and the first OK male you see makes your hormones go haywire.
Nell’s darting eyes connected for a split second with the dark gleaming gaze of the man below and a small sigh of alarm left her lips as adrenaline and desire surged through her. She drew back, her brows knitting in consternation as she shuffled her bottom back along the top step until she could feel the spines of the books dig into her back.
All right, better than OK.
She took a couple of calming deep breaths and injected a note of amusement into her voice as she leaned forward, her hair swinging like a bell around her face.
‘Truth told, I’m more interested in finding Lucy than exploring your male insecurities.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not that insecure.’
That was the problem, she thought.
‘Are you planning on coming down from there any time soon?’
In response to the question Nell gave a small shriek, drawn from her lips as her foot slipped. ‘Oops,’ she said as she grabbed at the rail to steady herself.
Below her she heard him growl something in husky Spanish that didn’t sound polite—not polite but very sexy. She made the rest of her descent more carefully until three steps from the ground a pair of big hands spanned her waist.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Set safely on the floor, she spun around pink-cheeked and indignant.
‘Preventing a potential accident.’
The cool explanation drew a derisive snort from Nell, or it would have if her choppy breathing had allowed anything but a faint sigh to emerge from her parted lips.
‘You shouldn’t climb ladders, Miss Frost, if you have no head for heights.’
Very conscious that his hands were still resting lightly on her waist, Nell lifted her chin and brushed a shiny skein of hair from her face.
To her intense relief Luiz’s hands fell away, but he was still standing close enough for her to feel the heat from his lean body.
‘Actually I have no problem with heights.’ Tall Spaniards with fallen angel faces were another matter.
She struggled to tear her eyes from the sternly sensual outline of his wide mobile mouth and cleared her throat as she recalled his kiss.
‘It’s these shoes.’ She glanced down at her sensible shoes and Luiz followed the direction of her gaze. ‘The soles have no grip.’
More of a grip than she had, she reflected with a small grimace of self-disgust. It was a struggle to keep focused and concentrate. Her mind kept drifting off on dangerous tangents.
And you’re not the sort of girl who has sexual fantasies, she reminded herself as she felt his steadying hand on her arm.
‘You have very small feet.’ Luiz’s glance lifted, the distracted expression she saw in his eyes vanishing as he scanned her face and added in an accusing manner, ‘Are you all right?’
She kept her eyes trained on the floor and lied through her teeth. ‘Fine.’ So the man was sexy—it wasn’t as if she had some sort of uncontrollable sex drive.
Luiz watched as a warm tide of colour rose up her slender neck until her face was aglow with colour. Moments earlier she had been deadly pale. ‘You don’t look fine.’
Her chin came up, though she continued to dodge his gaze, studying a point over his left shoulder.
‘I can’t help the way I look.’
And he, Luiz realised with a sense of shock, could not help liking the ways she looked—a lot. He had not wanted more than sex from a woman in a long time, to do so now with a woman he barely knew felt like a betrayal to Rosa’s memory. Not that there could be a comparison with his feelings now. Rosa had known him inside out and he her, they had grown up together and their bond had grown and blossomed.
‘Well, are you ready?’
Nell responded to the grouchy enquiry with a robust reminder that she was the one who had been waiting.
CHAPTER SIX
THE big off-roader, unlike the car Nell had arrived in, was equipped with air-conditioning. She got in and Luiz immediately irritated her by telling her to fasten her seat belt as though, she reflected crankily, she were an imbecile or a small child.
To ignore him would unfortunately have proved she was at least one, so Nell fastened herself in.
‘Where are we going?’ A little late in the day to display this basic curiosity but better late than never.
He flashed her a quick sideways look. ‘A cottage the other side of the mountain.’ He nodded towards a blue-tinged peak that framed the castle. ‘By the sea.’
‘What makes you so sure that they are there?’
‘Felipe has always liked the place. He has mentioned on more than one occasion it’s his idea of the perfect love nest.’
Or lair, she thought darkly.
Luiz showed no further inclination to talk and a silence not of the comfortable variety stretched between them.
The road turned out to be as bad as he had suggested and the gradient steadily increased, until it became so steep the back wheels struggled to gain purchase on the potholed ground.
On one occasion Nell winced.
Luiz flashed a look at her pale, tense face and said, ‘It’s not normally this bad—they had some freak storms up here last month.’
‘So long as we don’t have any now.’ Not long later the road levelled out and they began to travel through a forested area. Nell expressed her surprise that there was so much greenery.
‘Oak groves,’ he said by way of explanation.
‘Can’t you go any faster?’
‘I could,’ he replied, not increasing his speed. Not necessarily a bad thing, Nell was forced to concede as they were taking a sharp bend that necessitated her clinging to the door to stop herself being thrown against him.
‘You could drive, but it would require you to keep your eyes open.’
It would also require her mind not drifting off without warning and, while she was forced to share an enclosed space with him, that seemed unlikely. ‘I’m not good with heights, and you should have your eyes on the road, not on me.’
‘Perhaps I’m helpless in the face of your fatal allure.’ Luiz’s heavy lids lowered concealing the flicker of surprise at the unexpected truth in his dark eyes.
What was it about her face that fascinated him?
Luiz turned his head and allowed his eyes to slide across the soft contours of her profile before returning his attention to the road. He had never met a woman who had such an expressive face, who wore her emotions so close to the surface.
Rosa had been a classic beauty.
This girl was not; he fe
lt a need to search out her imperfections. To the objective observer, her eyes were beautiful. The rest of her features were not exceptional, but her unexceptional mouth, far too generous for her small face, exerted a growing fascination for him. He kept hearing that husky sigh she had breathed into his mouth when she had melted into his arms. His sarcasm shouldn’t have hurt but it did.
‘Very funny,’ Nell said, flashing a cool smile before she turned her head and trained her eyes on the passing scenery.
Busy refusing to acknowledge the odd achy lump in her throat—she was just tired—it took a few minutes to register the mist rising off the ground. It hung low, shrouding the vegetation in a spectral white fog and reducing visibility.
‘Will the fog get worse, do you think?’
‘Possibly.’ The fog would be the least of their problems, Luiz mused with a glance towards the fuel dial that hovered around empty.
He released a long hissing sigh of irritation through his clenched teeth. Only last summer he had given Felipe, who had just got his driving licence, a lecture when he had got stranded driving to a party at a friend’s house.
His cousin would no doubt be amused to see the tables reversed, but he doubted that his driving companion would find the situation so amusing when she realised. For the last few miles the four-wheel drive had been running on fumes, dashing his earlier hopes they might make it to the coast before the tank ran dry. He saw no useful purpose in telling her—she would find out soon enough.
Struggling to see the funny side himself, Luiz flashed a sideways glance at her profile—any excuse. Her pensive profile, chin pressed into her white knuckles, smooth brow furrowed, was turned to the window. She looked tense enough to snap like an overstrung guitar. Luiz could almost see visible waves of tension and impatience rolling off her rigid body.
His reply regarding the weather was irritatingly vague but his confident manner did ease her anxiety slightly.
‘Just why are you here?’
Nell cast him an irritated look. ‘I’ve already explained.’