by Penny Jordan
Her heart jolted against her ribs. In absolute contempt for what he was, Fliss assured herself, and certainly not because any foolish part of her was tempted to wonder what it would be like to be possessed so completely by a man like Vidal.
‘What happened in the past happened, and I’d suggest that you would be a lot happier if you allowed yourself to move on from it.’
Fliss dragged her thoughts back from the dangerous sensuality they had escaped to and made herself focus on the sharp timbre of Vidal’s voice.
‘If you questioned your mother as antagonistically as you have spoken here you must have caused her a great deal of pain by never allowing the matter to be forgotten.’
The callousness of his accusation almost took Fliss’s breath away. She had to fight not to let him see how easily he had found where she was most vulnerable, and defended herself immediately. ‘My mother did not want to forget my father. She wore this locket he gave her until the day she died. She never stopped loving him.’
The gold locket chain shimmered with the agitated movement of the pulse beating at the base of Fliss’s throat. Vidal could remember how it had shimmered with an equal but very different intensity of emotion the day Felipe had fastened it around Fliss’s mother’s neck.
It had been here in Granada that Felipe had bought the necklace for her. He had found them when they were on their way to visit the Alhambra, announcing that some unexpected business had brought him there from the family estate. They had been walking past a jeweller’s shop when he had caught up with them, and when Vidal had told Felipe that it was Annabel’s birthday his uncle had insisted on going into the shop and buying the trinket for her.
Vidal shook his head, dragging his thoughts back to the present.
‘The house is mine to do with as I wish, as I understand it,’ Fliss said, and dared Vidal to contradict her.
‘That is true,’ the lawyer intervened. ‘But since the house was originally part of the ducal estate it makes sense for Vidal to buy it from you. After all, you can have no wish for the responsibility of such a property.’
‘You want to buy the house from me?’ she challenged Vidal, her gaze steady.
‘Yes. Surely you must have expected that I would? As Señor Gonzales has just said, the house belonged originally to the estate. If you are concerned that I might try to cheat you out of its true value—and I am sure that you are, given your obvious hostility towards me—I can assure you that I am not, and that it will be independently and professionally valued.’
Turning her back on Vidal, Fliss told the lawyer quickly, ‘I want to see the house before it is sold.’ When he began to frown she said fiercely, ‘My father lived there. It was his home. Surely it’s only natural that I should want to go there and see it, so I can see where and how he lived?’
The lawyer seemed uncomfortable, looking past her towards Vidal, as though seeking his approval.
‘The house belongs to me,’ she reminded him. ‘And if I want to go there no one can stop me.’
There was a small silence, and then Fliss heard Vidal exhale.
‘I have some business to attend to at the castillo, Luis,’ he told the lawyer, using his Christian name for the first time. ‘I will escort Felicity there tomorrow, so that she can satisfy her curiosity.’
The lawyer was looking relieved and grateful, Fliss recognised, as Vidal stood up, signalling that their meeting was over and saying, ‘We shall meet again in a few days’ time to progress this matter.’
Fliss noted that the lawyer avoided meeting her gaze when he shook hands with her before going, and that he and Vidal left the library together, leaving her still inside it and alone.
Alone.
She was alone now. Completely alone, with no family of her own. No one to support her; no one to protect her.
To protect her? From what? From Vidal? Or from those feelings Vidal aroused in her that led her body into responses to his maleness that were shamefully treacherous given what she already knew about him?
Shakily Fliss pushed the unwanted question away. So she had let down her guard accidentally, and somehow that had caused her to become aware of Vidal as a man. It had been a mistake, that was all—something she could put right by making sure that it didn’t happen again.
The copy of her father’s will that Señor Gonzales had given her was still on the desk. Fliss picked it up, her attention drawn to her father’s signature. How many times as a child she had whispered that name over and over again to herself, as though it was some kind of magic charm that would cause her father to become a part of her life. But her father had not been part of her life, and she would not find him in the house in which he had lived. How could she when he was dead? She had to go there, though. She had to see it.
Because Vidal did not want her to?
No! Not because of that. Because of her father—not because of Vidal.
Fliss felt as though her emotions were threatening to suffocate her. She could hardly breathe from the force of her own feelings. She had to get out of this house. She had to breathe some air that was not tainted by Vidal’s presence.
The hallway was empty when she walked through it, heading for the stairs and intent on getting her handbag and her sunglasses. She would go out and see something of the city—cleanse her mind of the unwanted influence that Vidal seemed to be exerting over it.
Ten minutes later Vidal watched from the library window as Fliss left the house. If he had had his way her departure would have been for the airport and England—and permanent. He had enough to think about without having her around, reminding him of things he would preferred to have left shrouded in the shadows of the past.
He still hadn’t come to terms with his own behaviour last night—or with his inability to impose his will on his body.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE had spent virtually all day exploring the city. The city, but not the Alhambra—she wasn’t ready for that yet. She felt too raw after this morning’s run-in with Vidal—too vulnerable to visit the place where her father had first declared his love for her mother, where the boy had witnessed that exchange and then reported it to his grandmother.
A small tapas bar had provided her with lunch. She hadn’t been very hungry, and in fact felt she had not done proper justice to the delicious delicacies that had been served up for her.
Now, with her exploration of the conservation site that was the old Moorish quarter of the city behind her, she was forced to admit that her body had probably had a surfeit of hard pavements and intense sunshine. It craved the cool shade promised by the courtyard garden her bedroom overlooked.
The same shy maid who had brought her breakfast opened the door for her when she pulled the bell. Thankfully there was no sign of Vidal, and the library door remained firmly closed. She asked the maid how best she could get into the courtyard, thanking her when she explained that a corridor accessed from the rear of the hallway had a set of doors that opened into it.
While she was out she’d taken the opportunity to go shopping and buy some clothes to supplement those she had brought with her. Now that she was staying with the Salvetore family, rather than the hotel she’d booked, she realised she would need some more. After trying on a variety of things she had settled on a loosely gathered cotton dress in her favourite shade of cream, because it felt so light and cool, adding a simple linen shift in pale blue, a pair of tan cut-offs and a couple of softly shaped tops—cool, practical, easy-to-wear clothes in which she would feel much more comfortable than jeans and her city skirt.
In her bedroom, after a quick shower, she put on the cream dress. Simply styled, it was tiered in pleats from a square neckline banded with crunchy cotton lace. Worn with the flip-flops she had brought with her, the dress felt pleasantly cool and airy.
Back downstairs, she quickly found the corridor the maid had described to her, and the doors from it that led into the cloistered walkway that she could now see ran the full width of the courtyard. As she came out of
the darkness of the corridor into the brightness of the sunlight beyond, momentarily dazzled by the light, Fliss came to an abrupt and self-conscious halt. She realised that she hadn’t got the courtyard to herself.
The woman she could see seated at an ornate wrought-iron table, drinking a cup of coffee, had to be Vidal’s mother. They had the same eyes—although in Vidal’s mother’s case their gaze was warm and gentle rather than cold and filled with contempt.
‘You are Annabel’s daughter, of course,’ the Duchess said, before Fliss could retreat, adding, ‘You are very like her. But I think you have something of your father’s blood as well. I can see it in your expression. Please—come and sit here beside me,’ she invited, patting the empty chair next to her own.
Hesitantly Fliss made her way towards her.
Tall and slender, her dark hair streaked with grey and worn in the kind of elegant, formal style that suited Spanish women so well, Vidal’s mother smiled at her and apologised. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be here to welcome you yesterday. Vidal will have explained that I have a dear friend who is not very well.’
A small shadow darkened her eyes, causing Fliss to enquire politely, ‘I hope your friend is feeling better?’
‘She is very brave. She has Parkinson’s disease, but she makes light of it. We were at school together and have known one another all our lives. Vidal tells me that he is taking you tomorrow to see your father’s house? I would have liked to go with you, but my friend’s husband was called away unexpectedly on urgent business and I have promised to keep her company until he returns.’
‘It’s all right. I mean, I understand …’ Fliss told her truthfully. She stopped talking when she realised that the Duchess was looking past her into the shadows of the house, her smile deepening as she exclaimed, ‘Ah, Vidal, there you are! I was just saying to Fliss how sorry I am that I shan’t be able to accompany you to the castillo.’
Vidal.
Why was that quiver of sensation racing down her spine? Why did she suddenly feel so aware of her own body and its reactions, its womanhood and its sensuality? She must stop reacting like this. She must ignore these unwanted feelings instead of focusing on them.
‘I’m sure Felicity understands why, Mamá. How is Cecilia?’
Immediately she registered Vidal’s voice. Fliss’s heart went into a flurry of small frantic beats that made her feel more breathless than she liked. It was because she hated him so much, she assured herself. Because she hated him for betraying her mother.
‘She is very weak and tired.’ The Duchess was answering Vidal, then suggesting to him, ‘Why don’t you join us for a few minutes? I’ll ring for a fresh pot of coffee. Fliss looks very like her mother in her pretty cool dress, don’t you think?’ she asked.
‘I suspect that Felicity has a very different personality from her mother.’
‘Yes, I have—and I’m glad. My mother’s gentleness meant that she was treated very unkindly.’
Fliss saw the colour leave the Duchess’s face and Vidal’s mouth tighten. Her remark was not the kind a guest should make to her hostess, but she had not asked to stay here with her late father’s family, Fliss defended herself, before turning on her heel and heading for the opposite end of the courtyard, wanting to put as much distance as she could between herself and Vidal.
The only reason she had chosen to escape further into the garden and not the house was that to get into the house she would have had to walk past him. Knowing how shamefully vulnerable her body was to him, that was something she had not been prepared to do. Now, hidden from view of the cloistered terrace by the shadows thrown by the rose-covered pergola at the bottom of the garden, Fliss lifted her hand to her heart to calm its angrily unsteady thudding.
The petals on the roses trembled as her sanctuary was penetrated. A tanned male hand brushed aside the branches, and pink petals swirled down onto the tiled pathway as Vidal stepped into the rose-cented bower formed by the pergola.
Without any preamble Vidal launched into his verbal attack, telling her coldly, ‘You may be as antagonistic as you wish to me, but I will not have you hurting or upsetting my mother—especially at this time, when she has her friend’s health on her mind. My mother has shown you nothing but courtesy.’
‘That’s true,’ Fliss was forced to agree. ‘However you’re hardly the person to tell me how to behave, are you? After all, you obviously didn’t have any qualms about intercepting my letter to my father, did you?’ she accused him vehemently, her voice wobbling slightly over the final word.
Fliss was shaking inwardly and outwardly. Her one desire was to escape from Vidal’s coldly critical presence before she made a complete fool of herself by telling him how unfairly he had misjudged her and how much that misjudgement had hurt her. How much it still hurt her.
Avoiding looking at him, she started to walk quickly back down the pergola—until she was brought to an abrupt halt when she slipped on the petal-scattered path.
The sensation of strong hands reaching for her, strong arms supporting her, brought her an initial and automatic surge of gratitude—but as soon as her body registered the fact that the hands and arms, like the body she was now being supported against, belonged to Vidal that gratitude was replaced by panic. Frantically Fliss struggled to free herself, thoroughly alarmed by the way her body was already reacting to the intimate contact between them.
For his part Vidal had no wish to hold on to her. Turning to watch her rush away from him, he had seen how the sunlight shining through her thin cotton dress revealed the female curves of her body, and immediately—to his grim disbelief—his body had responded to that sight and to her. Now, having her twisting and turning in his arms, her breasts rising and falling with agitation, her breath touching his skin in a silken caress, the scent and the feel of her was calling to an instinct within him that wouldn’t be denied. An instinct that demanded he taste the erotically tender pink flesh of her lips, that he find and possess the soft rounded curves of her breasts, that he hold the cradle of her lower body close to the now swollen sexuality of his own.
In an attempt to push Vidal off, Fliss reached out wildly with her hand. Her whole body selate f with shock when her fingertips encountered the satin warmth of his bare chest. Fliss looked down at where her hand was resting and saw that Vidal’s shirt was now unfastened almost to the belt of his chinos. Had she done that? Had she ripped open those buttons when she had clung to him earlier and then struggled against his confining grip? Her hand was now resting palm flat on his golden skin, and the dark cross of fine hair that narrowed downwards over his impressive six-pack made Fliss feel as though nature herself had used that male body hair to mark him out as her own.
Was it the scent of the roses or the scent of Vidal’s skin that was making her feel so weak? She was forced to sway closer to him, her body bending pliably and willingly to his without needing to be guided there by the pressure of his hand on the small of her back, heating her body through the fine fabric of her dress. The topaz gaze was fixed on her own. Then as she caught her breath it slid deliberately to her mouth, capturing the small frantic moan of longing assent that escaped from her lips.
The quiver that shook her body as though she found her desire for him beyond her ability to control, that soft sigh of acquiescence, that liquid look of longing she had given him—they might all be a deliberate ploy to entice him, Vidal told himself. But whilst his mind might deride his folly for responding to them his body had no such inhibitions. Anger against it and against the woman he was holding exploded through him in a savage burst of primeval male need.
Beneath the fierce onslaught of his kiss Fliss’s already shaky defences gave way, her trembling lips opening to the demanding thrust of his tongue, her breast swelling into the cup of his hand. A heavy, aching sensation was rolling though her lower body and beginning an insistent pulsing beat that grew in tandem with the fiery burst of pleasure Vidal’s probing fingers and thumb drew from the aroused tip of her breast.
Fliss had never thought of herself as a woman whose sensuality had the power to overwhelm her self-control. On the contrary, she had believed in her most private thoughts that she had an unfashionably low sex drive. But now, shockingly, Vidal was proving to her that that judgement of herself must have been wildly wrong. Her out-of-control and unwanted arousal, her need for the intimacy it was causing her to ache and long for, was sweeping through her like a forest fire, burning away any resistance that tried to stand in its way. Her desire to have Vidal touching the flesh of her breast had flamed into life well before Vidal had lifted its sensually engorged roundness free of her bra, so that her nipple was pushing eagerly against the tightly drawn fabric of her dress, its shape and even its dark rose colour easily visible beneath the thin fabric.
The sight of that enticement, that incitement to his own desire, had Vidal bending Fliss back in his arms and then lowering his head over her body, so that he could taste her nipple, so close in colour to the petals of the roses that were providing them with their privacy. Unable to stop herself, Fliss gave a soft, aching gasp of delirious pleasure. The sensation of his tongue stroking and caressing her so-sensitive flesh, one second soothing its need, the next tormenting with a flick of his tongue, was driving her to fresh heights of aching longing, and it stole away what was left of her self-control. Her spine arched, lifting her breast closer to Vidal’s mouth.
The sheer wanton sensuality of the seeking movement of Fliss’s body combined with the erotic feel of her hot, tight nipple against his tongue made Vidal forget what she was and where they were. At last—at last he had her in his arms, this woman whose memory so tormented him. His hold on her tightened as he drew her nipple deeper and harder into his mouth. Far from satisfying the volcanic ache of male need, that action only increased the savage torrent of desire rushing through him.