Watching the flicker of response in her caramel-coloured eyes, he felt his heart beat faster.
She shook her head. ‘Sorry for what? Sorry that I heard what you said? Or sorry you didn’t get a chance to prove to your parents what a worthless person I am?’
Something in her voice made his heart clench inside his chest. His hands curled involuntarily. Her pain sounded old, and he wondered where it came from. And why did it matter to him?
His eyes drifted over her face. He’d known beautiful women all his life. Some were so confident of their beauty that they expected to be fought over. But Cristina was different—exceptional, really. Her beauty was more than just an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of features. In part it was her vulnerability, in part her pride.
It was a pride he knew he had wounded—not intentionally but carelessly. Gazing at her, he felt his heartbeat accelerate as he saw the mix of doubt and defiance in her light brown eyes.
He took a breath. ‘Please don’t leave. I am sorry—sorry for what I said and for upsetting you.’
Cristina looked up at him warily. He sounded sincere, and with his dark eyes softer than she had ever seen them it would have been easy to accept his apology. Her stomach muscles clenched. But it didn’t really change anything. He was apologising for his thoughtlessness, not his actual opinion, and it still hurt that he thought so little of her photographs.
‘You’re entitled to your point of view,’ she said stiffly.
He stared at her pensively. ‘No, I’m not.’
Before she could respond, he sighed.
‘Whatever I said to my mother, I’m not entitled to any opinions on your photographs. Especially not these.’
He lifted his hand, and for the first time she registered that he was holding her portfolio.
She looked at him, her eyes wide and wary. ‘You haven’t looked at them.’
It wasn’t a question but he shook his head anyway.
‘No. I spoke to Grace, but I didn’t look at any of your work.’ He hesitated. ‘Until just a moment ago.’
She head was suddenly swimming with fear, her hands clammy. She wanted to snatch the portfolio from his fingers, tear the photos into tiny shreds—anything but hear him try and pretend that he hadn’t meant what he said.
‘I don’t care. I don’t want to know—I don’t need to know,’ she said quickly, panic hoarsening her voice.
He held her gaze. ‘They’re incredible. And I know you’ll think I’m probably just saying that, but I’m not. Your photos are more than “competent”. They’re poetic and powerful. You have real talent, Cristina,’ he said simply.
There was a charged silence.
Cristina could feel the blood buzzing inside her head. She felt dizzy, and suddenly she was fighting to get on top of her emotions. For so long she had wanted to hear those words. To know that she mattered.
‘You do believe me?’
To her surprise, he sounded anxious. She nodded slowly. ‘Yes. I do.’
And she did. Maybe it was the hesitancy in his voice, or the way his eyes were fixed on hers, but somehow she knew that he was telling the truth.
He took a step towards her. ‘Look, we made a deal tonight to stop jumping to conclusions about each other and I meant it.’
‘I meant it too.’
‘Good.’ He breathed out. ‘So, my mother said that you exhibited these?’
He was watching her closely, and she felt her pulse leap as their eyes met. God, he was so handsome. She’d been so busy hating him, hating herself, that she’d forgotten what it was like to be this close to him. Heat as dark and glossy as an oil slick slid over her as she remembered the last time they had been so close.
Pushing aside memories of that night, she cleared her throat. ‘I did. That’s how I met Grace, actually. She came to the exhibition.’
Her skin tightened with the same prickling excitement that she’d felt that day, when Grace had come over to her, casually held out a business card and told her to call her. It had only been later, sitting with her mother, trying to eat but still wound up with nerves and disbelief, that she’d realised Grace had written her personal mobile number on the back of the card.
Even now she still couldn’t believe that she’d pulled it off—or that Grace was even real. But she was. And what was more she was the editor of the biggest news magazine in Europe. It was crazy. Meeting her had felt like one of those feel-good stories that got turned into films. She shivered. Except that in the movies her character wouldn’t mess up her big break by having sex with the client’s son.
Oh, yes, she would, she thought a moment later, as her eyes rested on Luis’s handsome face. Unless for some reason she was trapped under a wardrobe during the entire film.
A very large and heavy wardrobe.
Dragging her gaze away from his beautiful, firm mouth, and the memory of what he could do with it, she forced herself to speak. ‘She was kind to me. I didn’t really have much experience…’ Her cheeks felt warm, and she knew she was blushing. ‘In portrait photography, I mean. But she gave me a chance.’
His dark eyes lingered on her face. ‘Grace is smart and honest. And she’s a very busy woman. If she gave you a chance it’s because you deserved it. She must have seen something special in you…’
He paused, his gaze penetrating deep inside her, and then took a step closer.
‘Just like I did.’
She felt her stomach lurch sideways in response to his simple statement. Nothing he’d said before had suggested that to be the case. Certainly there had been nothing in the way he’d behaved towards her to imply that he thought anything of her at all beyond his superficial and mistaken belief that she had shamelessly seduced him to further her career.
‘What do you mean?’
Her eyes fluttered over his face. And as his gaze locked onto hers her body stilled. She knew exactly what he meant, for even now she could still recall the intensity of his focus. And the way she had responded. There had been no boundaries between them. Even fully clothed she had felt naked.
As if he could see inside her head, Luis took another step closer, his dark grey gaze homing in on the pulse at the base of her throat, and her own eyes dropped to his mouth—that beautiful firm mouth—and instantly she was imagining how it would feel pressed against her bare skin.
Luis sucked in a breath. Around them the air was vibrating, tiny ripples of tension flaring out in waves. But what was he doing? He hadn’t come here for this.
The blood was pounding in his veins, but somewhere deep inside his head he could hear a voice telling him to leave. To turn and walk away. Only for some reason he didn’t move. It was as though his body was acting on instinct—like a boat slipping free of its moorings and following the swirling currents beneath the surface of the sea.
As if to prove that point he took another step closer, and now he was close enough to feel the heat of her skin like a caress.
‘I mean this,’ he said softly and, leaning forward, touched his mouth to hers lightly.
He felt a jolt like lightning—felt his breath spinning out of him at the softness of her lips—and the intensity of his desire almost knocked him off his feet.
With an effort he lifted his head, and as her eyes collided with his they stared at one another in the pulsing silence.
Cristina felt dizzy. Not the fainting, falling over kind. The kind you got when you went on the Waltzer at the funfair. A tingling, shivering rush of endorphins that mixed fear with excitement and pleasure.
She didn’t want to feel like this. Deep down she knew that she should be fighting it. But whatever logic and common sense arguments she should have in her head had been eclipsed the moment his lips had touched hers.
Her heart seemed to slide sideways. She could still feel Luis’s gaze, his dark grey eyes seeking her out, impossible to ignore, futile to resist.
She turned towards him, her breath hot and scratchy in her throat. He held her gaze and then slowly lowered his
mouth back to hers, kissed her again.
Cristina moaned as heat exploded inside her. Her lips parted and she was kissing him back, her hands seeking out the warm muscles of his arms, her fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt.
It would have been a lie to say that she had forgotten what it felt like to be kissed by him. She hadn’t. She’d dreamed about it so often and so intensely that some mornings she’d woken and reached across the bed to find him. But she saw now that no dream could match the reality of Luis’s warm, firm body against hers.
She shook with need as he opened her lips, deepening the kiss, his mouth claiming hers, his hand curving around her waist and pressing her against the hard breadth of his chest. And then his fingers splayed against her back, anchoring her closer, and he was tipping her head, kissing down her neck.
Her stomach tensed and she squirmed against him, wanting more, feeling the pulse beneath her skin and between her legs urgent now.
As though reading her thoughts, Luis tightened his hands around her waist and in her hair, and then they were stumbling backwards towards her bed.
Panting, she pulled him closer, her fingers curling into his belt, clumsily plucking at the buckle. His low groan made her legs start to shake.
Breathing unevenly, he dropped the portfolio on the table by the bed and began pulling at the buttons on her blouse. She felt cool air on her skin and, whimpering, let her head fall back, her eyes seeking something solid to combat the dizzying effect of the heat soaking her skin.
She blinked. Her portfolio was lying on the table, where he’d dropped it, but some of the photos had fallen to the floor. Her heartbeat slowing, she stared at them dazedly.
Suddenly her breath felt like concrete in her chest. She wanted to look away but she couldn’t. Her eyes wouldn’t let her.
Maybe if it had been another photo… But how could she expect to block that image out?
She stared miserably at the photograph. That briefcase had changed her life. Or rather opening it had. Had totally destroyed everything she had believed to be true. Two letters and a snapshot had been all it took to stop her world from turning.
Her body must have frozen, for she felt Luis grow still against her and she breathed in sharply, her hands shrinking back from his body.
Where moments earlier there had been sweet pulsing heat, now panic was rising inside her.
What the hell had she been thinking?
Had she really been going to have sex with Luis again?
Last time had been stupid, but forgivable. She hadn’t known his real identity. Or that he was happy to lie about who he was. But she had known the truth since the moment he had walked into his parents’ sitting room.
Briefly she closed her eyes. So either she was stupid or she was genetically determined to follow the disastrous path her mother had taken. Either way, the outcome would be the same. Pain, humiliation, rejection.
‘Cristina—’
The urgency in his voice cut into her thoughts and, gazing up at him, she took a shaky step backwards. ‘This is wrong.’
Luis stared at her in confusion. Wrong? Wrong? What did she mean? Her words didn’t seem compatible with the painfully aroused state of his body.
Somewhere inside what was currently functioning as his brain, he tried to make sense of what she’d said.
‘Ah, you’re not protected?’ He frowned. ‘I have condoms in my room…’
Cristina felt heat spread over her face. She had been so frantic, so lost in her own responses, that she hadn’t even considered whether she was protected or not. That had never happened—ever—and it was one more reason why this had to stop. Now.
She shook her head, trying to focus on something other than his handsome face. It didn’t help that her longing for him was still clawing inside her like a frightened animal.
‘No, it’s not that. It’s this—us. We shouldn’t be doing this—’
Because…?’ he said slowly.
She stared at him blankly. What was she supposed to say? The truth? That she don’t want to become her mother. Or be with a man like her father. That she didn’t want to get hurt and that although having sex with him would be incredible it would also ruin her life—the life she’d only just got back.
Her throat felt tight with panic.
No, she couldn’t tell him the truth, for that would mean revealing more about herself than she had ever shared with anyone.
‘Because I don’t want it. I don’t want you.’
An ache was building in her chest. She wanted to change her mind. To rewind back to the moment before she saw that photo and to close her eyes. But it was too late.
‘But I thought—’ he began.
‘Then you thought wrong,’ she said curtly, wincing inside as she spoke. ‘I don’t want you here and I’d like you to leave. Please.’
She watched his face twist, harden.
‘You don’t want me?’
He said it slowly, as if he didn’t believe her, and judging by the look on his face he didn’t. For that she could hardly blame him. She didn’t believe herself either.
‘So this…’ He gestured towards his unbuckled belt. ‘This was you not wanting me?’
She cleared her throat. ‘You misunderstand me.’
Her voice sounded too clear, and too high, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to get the words out so that he would leave before she fell to pieces.
‘I do want you—but only because you’re here.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Is that right?’
Words failed her and she nodded. Suddenly she was hanging on by a thread. ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
But her apology went unheard. Before she had even finished speaking he had turned and stalked out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.
She collapsed onto the bed.
Some men would have lost their temper. One or two might even have ignored her protests and carried on. Most of them would have slammed the door.
But not Luis.
Her eyes were burning. People said that the truth hurt. And it did. Only nobody ever said that lying hurt more. Worse, she clearly had a natural propensity for deceit, so that after years of believing she was her mother’s child it turned out that she was actually more like her father.
Overwhelmed with confusion, and misery, she fell back against the pillow, and began to cry softly.
CHAPTER SIX
STRIDING INTO HIS BEDROOM, Luis resisted the urge to slam the door and instead began pacing frenetically across the floor. He felt as if he’d been hit by a truck. He could see his body and yet it seemed unconnected to his brain. Or rather the mass of tumbling, incoherent blink-and-you’d-miss-them thoughts that appeared to be all that remained of his brain.
What the hell had he been thinking?
Glancing down at the hard outline of his erection pressing against his trousers, he gritted his teeth. Not much, apparently. Or at least nothing that had anything to do with logic or common sense. His entire being had been focused on the need to take Cristina in his arms.
And not just for some hot, feverish kisses either.
The truth was that he had wanted her in the most basic, primitive way. Needed her in the same way that a starving dog needed a bone.
He started pacing again, his footsteps matching the thumping of his heart. It had been just like that night in Segovia—only this time the storm had been beneath his skin, a whirlwind of heat and desire, spinning out of control, whipping his senses until he’d had no choice but to reach out to her.
His chest was burning and he realised that he’d been holding his breath, his rapt body caught up in how it had felt to touch Cristina again, to lose himself in the sweetness of her kiss.
Remembering how she’d pushed him away, and the distance in her voice as she’d told him that she only wanted him because he was there, he felt his stomach clench. Not with anger—for that would have meant he thought she was telling the truth, and he knew without question that she had
been lying to him.
Except, of course, the part when she’d told him that she wanted him to leave. She had wanted him to leave, but only because she didn’t want a witness to her pain. A week ago he would have believed her cover story—would have been drawn by the apparent confirmation in her words of who he thought she was: a hustler he had every reason not to trust.
Now, though, it wasn’t Cristina he was struggling to trust but himself.
An image of her face—pale, strained and young—slid into his head, and he felt his breathing quicken. Suddenly he was moving again, as though by doing so he could put some space between himself and that picture of her looking so tense and wary.
Had she wanted to, she could easily have seduced him. It would have been the perfect moment, for there was no way he could have resisted her. She had brought him to his knees…reduced him to nothing more than a rippling mass of impulses. His face felt suddenly hot with an almost adolescent shame as he remembered how effortlessly she had robbed him of his reason and resistance.
But hadn’t it been inevitable that it should happen? They’d been alone in her room, and they’d been tiptoeing around one another since the moment she’d stepped foot on the island, the attraction between them invisible and yet omnipresent, heavy and taut—like rain about to fall.
So why, then, had she stopped?
A beat of blood pulsed inside his chest.
Every time he’d imagined just such a scenario in his head it had played out in many ways, but each time the outcome had been the same. With the two of them alone in her room, Cristina lifting her mouth to his, her breath whispering against his lips, her body blurring beneath his fingers…
He’d expected her to offer herself to him, slowly peeling off her clothes in front of his unfocused gaze, only for him to push her away, demonstrating his resolve before casually turning his back on her.
Only none of that had happened. It had been she who had stopped it—not him. He’d been wrong, so maybe he’d been wrong about her in Segovia. Maybe she really hadn’t known who he was.
Surrender to the Ruthless Billionaire Page 9