A Spanish Inheritance

by Susan Stephens

  ‘Can you wait that long?’

  Annalisa’s wide mouth curved in a smile. ‘No,’ she admitted huskily. ‘So talk fast.’

  ‘You can’t hurry Ben Jonson,’ Ramon argued with a sigh as he turned back to her breasts. ‘Who would think these could bring such pleasure…and in so many ways?’ he murmured, lifting his head to level a darkly amused stare at her.

  ‘Ramon,’ Annalisa groaned in complaint, fighting to keep in touch with reason as his teeth toyed lightly with her nipple.

  He broke off long enough to look at her. ‘You want me to stop?’

  ‘Just long enough to finish that quotation…if you can,’ she challenged in a broken whisper, the words melting into a long shuddering sigh as his lips moved down over her belly. And when his tongue began lapping the top of her thighs she grabbed hold of him, ploughing her fingers through his ebony hair. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Don’t stop.’

  But Ramon was enjoying her arousal too much. ‘You don’t care for Jacobean dramatists?’

  ‘I love them…I love them!’ Anything to have him back where he belonged. ‘So finish the quotation! And be quick!’ she urged. She knew he was playing with her…controlling the pace of their lovemaking… Well, two could play at that game! Somehow she managed to sit up. ‘So when did you become interested in literature?’ she said, clearing her throat to give him the idea that this could turn into a very long discussion indeed.

  His sensuous mouth edged into a teasing curve. ‘Let’s just say I’ve had an extremely wide-reaching education.’

  ‘You can say that again, she thought. ‘So…finish the quotation.’

  Ramon made a seductive sound deep in his chest. ‘How dare I refuse?’ His winged brows rose in a lazy gesture of compliance. “‘For love’s sake, kiss me once again! I long, and should not beg in vain—’”

  ‘You? Beg—?’

  He cut her off decisively this time, his tongue plunging into the moist warmth of her mouth while his hands brought her round easily beneath him. ‘Who’s begging now, Señorita Wilson?’ he husked fiercely in her ear as he eased her thighs apart and lodged himself between them.

  “‘For love’s sake”?’ Annalisa challenged ironically as she fought to control her breathing.

  He paused, suspended over her. ‘Are you frightened of love, Annalisa?’

  ‘I’m not afraid of anything.’

  Lowering himself to her side, Ramon looked her straight in the eyes. ‘You don’t need to pretend with me, querida. We’re all frightened of something.’

  The intensity in his gaze threatened to bounce their relationship onto a whole new level. A rush of sensation carried fear in place of passion. She moved restlessly in his arms even as he tried to reassure her. There were so many unanswered questions…and, yes, she was frightened—of commitment, pledges…love. Love was fragile, unpredictable. She didn’t know if she had the courage to expose herself to the hurt that came with it.

  ‘I promise I’ll never hurt you,’ Ramon said, more gently than she’d ever heard him speak before.

  ‘You promise?’ Annalisa demanded softly, stroking her finger across his lips. ‘And what if you break that promise? Why should I take that risk?’

  He caressed her face and kissed her eyes. Then, sifting her silky black hair through his fingers, he murmured, ‘If you never take a risk, you’ll never know.’

  At that moment she believed him and, reaching up her hands to him, she drew him close. ‘For love’s sake?’

  ‘For love’s sake,’ he confirmed, kissing her deeply, tenderly, seductively.

  Annalisa found he had ordered room service while she was in the shower.

  ‘Champagne!’ she said accusingly.

  ‘Buck’s Fizz,’ Ramon corrected, slanting her a look as he lifted the glass jug of freshly squeezed orange juice.

  ‘But if I’m to see a lawyer this morning—’

  ‘That’s later. First there’s another important matter I want to discuss with you.’ He tightened the belt of his towelling robe before settling into an easy chair.

  ‘Since when do we drink champagne before a meeting?’ she challenged, raising the glass to her lips. Surely business could wait just a little longer?

  ‘Take a seat,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘To us.’

  Sitting on the edge of her chair, Annalisa took a sip. The champagne was delicious, and his toast had her heart thundering into a gallop…but the tone of his voice put a brake on her excitement. It was so businesslike; too businesslike. She put the glass down again on the small table between them.

  ‘I’m thinking…partnership,’ Ramon said making a steeple of his fingers as he waited for her reaction.

  ‘Partnership?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Professional, you mean?’

  ‘No. Permanent. Marriage is for life as far as I’m concerned,’ he said as he poured them both another drink.

  ‘Is that a proposal?’ Annalisa demanded incredulously as he placed the glass in her hand.

  ‘What do you think?’

  He was so objective, so cold and calculating, she felt ice trickle in to replace the spark of confidence he had worked so hard to instil.

  ‘Marriage between us makes a lot of sense.’

  ‘Sense!’ She almost choked on her drink.

  ‘Yes,’ he said evenly. ‘To me…to your father.’

  ‘My father’s dead!’

  ‘Surely you can see that he hoped you would make your home in Menorca?’

  ‘Well, yes, perhaps I can now. But—’

  ‘Maybe he hoped for a lot more than that.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Maybe his last wish was that we should be together.’

  A whole slew of possibilities churned around in her mind… Perhaps Ramon had tried to buy the finca from her father and been refused…the daughter had proved a far easier target…just seduce her and— She felt physically sick just thinking about it. ‘I never imagined you’d sink to using tactics like this.’

  ‘Tactics?’ Ramon demanded sharply. ‘Your father thought of me as his son. He trusted me. And he loved you.’

  The breath exploded out of Annalisa’s mouth in a sound of utter disbelief. ‘Well, he had a funny way of showing it.’

  ‘You’re wrong—’

  ‘So, tell me the truth about my father, Ramon,’ she challenged angrily.

  He looked at her steadily for a few moments. ‘When your father and mother first met, his relationship with Claudia was over. He considered himself free to marry. And that was his intention…’

  She heard the hesitation in his voice. The pause told her he was trying to phrase some unpalatable truth to make it acceptable to her. ‘Go on,’ she prompted.

  ‘Then Claudia told him she was pregnant.’

  ‘And that’s supposed to make me feel better?’ Annalisa demanded incredulously. ‘Knowing he got two women pregnant around the same time?’

  ‘But Claudia wasn’t pregnant,’ Ramon went on calmly. ‘She sacrificed everyone’s happiness when she tricked your father into marriage. She didn’t even want a baby. She just wanted his money.’

  ‘But my mother was pregnant,’ Annalisa said bitterly. ‘With me. And he abandoned us both.’

  Ramon shook his head. ‘No. His code of honour would never have allowed it. I know he would have provided for you.’

  ‘Well, sadly, that’s where your story unravels,’ she broke in. ‘There never has been any money.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re wrong. But, whatever the outcome for your fortunes, marriage to me—’

  ‘Save your breath!’ Did he really think she would follow in Claudia’s footsteps and marry for money?

  ‘Try looking at things calmly, logically. There’s attraction between us—’

  ‘Sex?’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ he warned. ‘It’s a great deal more than that as far as I’m concerned. You have everything I need. And I have—’

  ‘Too much,’ Annalisa interrupted
coldly. ‘You don’t need me to add to your trophies. You don’t even need to buy my land at a fair price. You can just wait until I go broke.’ And then something else occurred to her. ‘Or is that what this meeting with another lawyer is about? Signing contracts, Ramon? Take me to bed and it’s a done deal—is that what you think?’

  His eyes were little more than blazing arrow-slits of pent-up fury. ‘Why don’t you just sit down, calm down, and listen to me?’

  ‘Listen to you? I’ve listened to you for long enough!’

  ‘Why can’t you trust me, Annalisa?’ The question started in a shout and ended in a whisper, as if some giant fist had coiled around his guts and yanked it out of him. ‘I thought we were close—’

  ‘And I thought you wanted me for my own sake and not for my land.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he demanded angrily.

  ‘Your marriage proposal is nothing more than a cynical attempt to manipulate my feelings so that you get the land for your marina!’ She made an angry sound, as if enlightenment had truly struck this time. ‘If I sell on the open market someone else might beat you to it—my father’s widow, for instance!’ She gazed up at him accusingly. ‘You really think I’m for sale, don’t you? You think you can take advantage of me because you have all the money in the world and I have nothing! Nothing except that stupid piece of sand! What you want, Ramon, is a merger, not a marriage!’

  ‘You have no idea what I want,’ he said calmly. ‘You’ve made that abundantly clear.’ And then without warning he came towards her and backed her up against the door.

  ‘Don’t come any closer,’ she warned, knowing he could turn her anger into passion in an instant. ‘Do you really think I’ll do anything you say just because we slept together?’

  ‘We slept together?’ he said, spitting out each word as if it was too bitter to keep in his mouth. ‘Is that what we did?’ And when she didn’t reply he straightened up with a sharp gust of exasperation and turned away. ‘Think what the hell you like, Annalisa! I’ve got nothing left to say to you.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BY THE time she finished in the bathroom Ramon was gone. Annalisa tiptoed across the sitting room, but the silence was absolute. The suite was empty, with not a sign of him ever having been there. And she didn’t even know the name of the lawyer he had arranged for her to see. But the lonely ache in the pit of her stomach had no connection with her inheritance, let alone lawyers.

  And then she saw it. Leaning against the clock on the mantelpiece. With a sharp cry of relief she crossed the room and snatched up the small cream business card. In Ramon’s handwriting she read, Michael Delaney, Barrister at Law, Chaucer House 11.30 a.m. Wednesday 23rd. Glancing at her watch, she firmed her mouth. If she hurried she could still make the appointment.

  She was shown straight into an imposing book-lined office. The rotund gentleman advancing from behind a vast and cluttered desk reminded her of a clean-shaven Father Christmas.

  ‘Ah, Miss Wilson. What a pleasure to meet you. Michael Delaney at your service. Won’t you take a seat?’ he invited, ushering her towards a well-worn leather chair. ‘Tea? Coffee? Something a little stronger?’ he demanded eagerly.

  ‘Oh, no, thank you. It’s a little early—’

  ‘Perhaps not when you hear what I have to tell you,’ he said, beaming over the top of his wire-rimmed spectacles.

  Her tentative smile faded. Not more bad news!

  ‘Don’t look so worried, young lady. I hear you’re a lawyer turned agriculturist.’ He sat down across the desk from her and rubbed his hands together as if the idea delighted him.

  ‘Perhaps it was a little rash—’

  ‘Nonsense! Nonsense!’ he said, growing more expansive with each exclamation. ‘Don’t you think I’d exchange this dusty old office for a chance to get out in the fresh air—?’ He broke off, inhaling theatrically to make his point.

  ‘There’s a lot to be said for dusty old offices,’ Annalisa said, her eyes fixed on his framed certificates banked across one wall.

  ‘Courage! Courage, Miss Wilson,’ he insisted with a wave of his hand. ‘Now, then. I have it here somewhere.’

  ‘What…what do you have?’ Annalisa prompted anxiously.

  He stopped what he was doing and cocked his head to one side. ‘Are you telling me that Señor Crianza di Perez didn’t tell you why he had arranged this visit?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me anything,’ Annalisa confessed, omitting to add that she hadn’t given him much of a chance.

  ‘Ah,’ the lawyer said, plucking at his lips with his fingertips. ‘I had imagined… No matter! No matter! Yes! Here it is!’ he exclaimed triumphantly, plunging in his hand like a conjurer to extract a slim file from the midst of the muddle.

  ‘What is it?’ Annalisa said curiously.

  ‘What is it?’ He turned it over thoughtfully in his hands. ‘This is the codicil to your mother’s will, Miss Wilson.’

  ‘But shouldn’t that have been kept by Mr Patterson?’

  ‘Strictly speaking this is an unofficial document…a letter, if you like, left in my keeping—’

  ‘By my mother?’

  ‘Correct.’

  Her heart-rate picked up. ‘Shall we open it?’

  ‘Good idea! Good idea!’ Tipping out a single envelope, he picked up a bone-handled paperknife and neatly slit the top. Scanning the letter inside, his face became still. ‘Ah, yes. I see. All is as I had imagined. It’s quite clear…quite clear.’

  ‘What’s clear?’ Annalisa asked, dreading his answer.

  He smiled, his twinkling eyes barely visible above his ballooning cheeks. ‘You are an heiress, Miss Wilson. And of some considerable worth…just as Señor Perez said—’

  ‘Ramon knew!’

  ‘He suspected something,’ the lawyer said carefully. ‘He insisted there should be some treasure at the end of your rainbow. And now I shall have to congratulate him, both on his perspicacity and his persistence in winkling me out. After all, you didn’t leave a forwarding address when you sold the house in England, did you, Miss Wilson?’

  ‘That’s right, I didn’t,’ Annalisa agreed slowly. Shakily she rose to her feet. ‘So he wasn’t trying to buy me—’

  ‘Buy you? Buy you!’ Michael Delaney exclaimed, slapping the table as if it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. ‘I can assure you, Miss Wilson, that Señor Crianza Perez’s only motive in coming to see me was to ensure that you received your inheritance in full.’

  Annalisa shook her head stubbornly. ‘I still don’t understand. My father never gave my mother a penny—’

  ‘He gave her far more than a penny,’ the elderly lawyer argued kindly. ‘There was money for you and for your mother so that she would never have to worry.’

  ‘But we didn’t have any money,’ Annalisa insisted. ‘How can this be true?’

  ‘I tell you it is true,’ he said. ‘It’s all in here. See for yourself,’ he offered, passing the letter over to her. ‘Your mother chose not to touch any of your father’s money. She saved all of it for you—’ He broke off and looked at Annalisa anxiously. ‘Would you care for that drink now?’

  So much had changed, Annalisa thought as the huge jet eased off the runway. Now she was not only the owner of a huge estate, but had the funds to restore it as she wanted. It was like standing outside the secret garden, holding the key to the door. But her mind was still spinning with unanswered questions—about her parents, and above all about Ramon. Without him it might have taken years for Michael Delaney to track her down…by which time the finca would have become nothing more than a distant memory. Had he done all this because he wanted an equal partnership, a merger, just as she had suggested?

  That seemed the most rational explanation… But rational explanations were not enough to plug the hollow in her heart.

  The low-slanting rays of early morning sunshine looked as if they had been finger-painted by a child across the pellucid sea, and suddenly Annalisa couldn’t wait to
get out of the taxi. ‘Would you drop me here?’ she said, leaning forward in her seat.

  ‘Here, señorita?’

  ‘It’s not far now to the finca.’

  The taxi driver shrugged, but pulled over as she’d asked.

  Climbing out, Annalisa asked him to take the luggage on for her, knowing that Maria Teresa would have been up at dawn to feed the animals. ‘Here,’ she said, pushing a generous amount over the fare into his hand, ‘I’ll walk from here.’

  The taxi was quickly lost to sight on the meandering lane, but Annalisa made no move to follow. Standing motionless, she drew deeply on the herb-scented air. Then, shading her eyes with both hands, she looked beyond the intricate drystone wall to where the fields stretched up into the pine-clad hills. At the highest point stony fingers of talayotts and taulas pointed to the sky. These mysterious monoliths of a distant Bronze Age stood as monuments to the generations before her who had cared for the land. But no one could own the majesty of the cliffs, she reminded herself, or the deserted sugar-sand beach where a drifting film of mist still hovered tenaciously.

  She turned at the sound of muffled hoof-beats. It was hard to be sure where the sound was coming from until she saw the horse and rider streaking down the valley towards her. The horse was black and his tail streamed behind him like a banner as he galloped, his neck outstretched full-tilt with his rider crouched low across his back. And then she gasped. ‘Ramon!’

  Taking the wall in his stride, Ramon brought the horse round in a sharp turn and then reined him in to a wild-eyed, snorting halt in front of her.

  ‘Welcome back, Annalisa!’

  But there was more challenge than welcome in his eye, and certainly no warmth in his face. Annalisa made herself stand unflinching as the horse raked the ground with his ironclad hooves. But when suddenly he reared up and punched the air she started back.