by Sarah Morgan
The door opened and he found himself frozen into immobility.
She looked stunning.
She was wearing something stretchy and blue that brought out the colour of her eyes and clung provocatively to the soft curve of her breasts. Her skirt was long enough to be decent but short enough to reveal a tempting expanse of her perfect legs. And as for her hair…
Feeling himself harden in an instinctive male reaction, Jago fought the temptation to power her back inside the bedroom and lay her down on the nearest suitable surface.
Conscious that he was staring, he made a supreme effort to pull himself together, wondering what had happened in the few hours since he’d last seen her.
As long as he’d known her, Katy had always tried to conceal her looks. But not tonight. Tonight for some reason she’d chosen to put her incredible beauty on display.
‘You’re staring.’
Her husky tones penetrated the haze of lustful male appreciation and he jerked his eyes to hers, noticing with no small degree of satisfaction that she was trembling.
‘And who can blame me? You look stunning, querida.’
‘Do you think so?’ She glanced at him and then looked down at her feet. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure if I can even walk in these. They were Libby’s choice. The minx switched the contents of my suitcase.’
‘Did she now?’ Jago’s eyes narrowed as he contemplated the meaning behind those words.
So he wasn’t the only one who was trying to unveil the real Katy.
Her cheeks were pink and she smiled apologetically. ‘I don’t usually wear heels. I dwarf whoever I’m with.’
‘Then it’s fortunate that I’m tall,’ he said with amusement, extending an arm. ‘For the record, I’m glad you’ve left your hair loose.’
She gave a wry smile. ‘I thought it would save you the trouble of pulling it down.’
‘Very wise.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Shall we go?’
She locked the room and followed him into the lift. ‘Are we going to the conference dinner?’
‘No.’ He could see the taut outline of her nipples under the clinging fabric of her top and he had to stop himself pushing her against the side of the lift and taking her in the most primitive way possible. His whole body ached with the strength of his arousal and he closed his eyes and tried to apply logic to the situation.
He was about to walk across a hotel lobby in full view of a large number of staff, not to mention guests, and if he didn’t think about something other than Katy spread beneath him then he was going to be arrested.
‘So where are we going?’
How could she be so totally unaware of the effect she had on him? Was she really still as innocent as she’d been at eighteen? Jago gritted his teeth and concentrated hard on the buttons of the lifts. Surely they were suitably boring?
‘I’m taking you to see the real Seville.’
The lift doors opened and Jago ran a hand through his dark hair, feeling thoroughly out of control. His feelings intensified as he intercepted the appreciative male stares that Katy received as they walked out of the hotel. Growling under his breath, Jago took her hand possessively.
The down side of her looking so stunning was that everyone else thought she looked stunning, too. For the first time he had some understanding as to why she chose to conceal her beauty. Katy could stop traffic in the dark.
They walked for a short distance and then he pushed open the door of a well-known bar.
Katy looked at him in confusion. ‘Are we eating here?’
Jago laughed. ‘This is a tapas bar, querida. In Spain we eat dinner late in the evening. Tapas is a way of preventing us from dying of hunger. It’s an integral part of Spanish culture.’
‘Oh.’ She looked interested and pleased and settled herself on a stool by the bar, looking round her with wide-eyed enthusiasm. ‘I’ve had tapas in London but I don’t suppose it’s the same thing.’
‘Similar, but each bar here will have its own speciality,’ he told her, gesturing to some of the dishes that kept appearing.
‘Translate, please.’ She looked at him expectantly and he fought the impulse to kiss her.
That was going to have to wait until they were back in the privacy of their hotel.
With considerable difficulty he turned his attention to the food. ‘Do you trust me to order?’
She nodded and he spoke in rapid Spanish, selecting a number of dishes that he thought she’d enjoy.
‘This is a variety of olive grown in Seville,’ he told her, lifting an olive towards her soft mouth. ‘It’s called Manzanilla.’
She tasted it and smiled. ‘It’s delicious.’
‘And this is Chorizo—a spicy sausage.’
Katy nodded. ‘I’ve seen it in the supermarket at home.’
‘Not the same,’ Jago assured her with an exaggerated shudder. ‘This is fat and juicy, try it.’
She chewed slowly and he suppressed a groan as he watched her lips move. Food became unbearably erotic when Katy was involved.
‘You look great in that outfit,’ he said gruffly, helping himself to some food. ‘Libby knows what will suit you.’
‘She also knows that I never wear this sort of thing,’ Katy confessed, glancing down at herself with a rueful expression. ‘I feel…conspicuous. As if I’m shouting, “Look at Me,” at the top of my voice.’
‘Katy, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,’ he said dryly, ‘and the same goes for every man in this room. You could be wearing a bin bag and people would stare.’
She looked shaken by his compliment and he resisted the urge to yank her off the bar stool and carry her back to the hotel.
For a minute she didn’t reply and then she lifted her eyes to his and he saw the sadness there.
‘But sometimes people don’t see any further than the way I look.’ Her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear her.
‘It’s true that the human race has an uncomfortable tendency to judge on appearances,’ he agreed, forking another morsel into his mouth. ‘But being beautiful must surely work to your advantage.’
She shook her head. ‘Not always. Take being a doctor. To begin with, all anyone sees is my blonde hair and the fact that I’m so tall. That’s why I wear flat shoes—’
‘And glasses,’ he finished, and she nodded.
‘The glasses were Alex’s idea. He has this thing that women look more academic if they wear glasses, and I think he’s right. If I scrape my hair back, wear something sober and put on my glasses, people take me more seriously.’
Jago decided against confessing that he wanted to drag her into bed whatever she was wearing. He found her naïvety incredibly sweet.
‘Is that why you gave up modelling?’
‘Partly. It was so shallow. And incredibly boring.’ She pulled a face. ‘And I hated the falseness of it all—people just wanting to be seen with you because you were a model.’
Thinking about it, it didn’t surprise him that she’d given it up. He’d been out with enough models in his time to know that she was much too gentle and sweet to survive long in such a cut-throat profession.
Suddenly he found himself fascinated by every tiny detail of her life and he realised that they were talking about things they’d never talked about before. Eleven years ago their relationship had been based on a searing mutual attraction that had pretty much eclipsed all other aspects of their relationship. Which was why he’d been so hasty to believe her father. If he’d known more about her thoughts and feelings, he would have known that such an action would have been totally out of character.
‘So when did you decide on medical school?’
‘When Alex started talking about it.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘It sounded so exciting and my exam results were almost as good as his so I didn’t see why I couldn’t do it, too.’
‘But your father objected.’
Her face lost its colour and he felt his shoulders tense. Was she really so afraid of he
r father?
‘He had other plans for me.’
‘And he didn’t think that you should be allowed to decide your future for yourself?’
‘That isn’t the way my father works, as you should know by now. He’s very controlling.’
Jago frowned. ‘Is he the same with Alex?’
‘He’s the same with everyone, but he has absolutely no influence over my brother.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘My father has met his match in Alex. They clash like herd bulls fighting over territory.’
‘And Libby?’
Katy gave a rueful smile. ‘We each handle him in a different way. Libby takes the confrontational approach and provokes him constantly so the atmosphere is pretty charged when they’re together.’
‘Whereas you go for the path of least conflict?’
She hesitated. ‘Let’s just say that over the years I’ve learned that it’s better not to antagonise him. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t stand up for myself on the big issues.’ She tilted her head to one side and her blonde hair shone under the lights. ‘What about you? Why did you go into medicine?’
Jago made a huge effort and dragged his eyes away from her hair. It was confession time. Just how honest did he dare be with her? For the first time since they’d met again, she seemed to be relaxing with him and he certainly didn’t want to destroy that. On the other hand, he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that having secrets definitely didn’t work. Especially not with someone as honest as Katy. ‘I’d been thinking about it for a while,’ he hedged, and then he caught her puzzled glance and let out a long breath. ‘You’re not going to like what I tell you, querida.’
Her blue eyes widened, and he reflected grimly that telling the truth certainly wasn’t the easy option.
‘After he showed me the photographs, your father suggested that it would be better for everybody if I left the company and started afresh somewhere else,’ he said curtly, aware that the facts looked uncomfortably incriminating. ‘You have to understand I was very hurt by the photographs. Had I stayed with the company it was inevitable that we would have run into each other again. I was only too pleased when your father encouraged me to leave.’
There was a long silence as she made the connection.
‘He paid you off, didn’t he?’ Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘He showed you the photographs and then he paid you to leave.’
She was obviously more attuned to her father’s tricks than he’d been.
‘At the time I thought of it as a generous severance package,’ he admitted not quite levelly, all too aware of the interpretation she would put on the facts.
Pale and taut, she slid off the bar stool and looked at him blankly.
‘I’d already decided to train as a doctor and he offered me a good package,’ Jago said, feeling the tension spread through his shoulders. ‘It’s standard practice in many companies. At the time I didn’t think it had anything to do with my relationship with you. It was a business issue.’
‘Not to my father. He didn’t dare risk having you anywhere near me because he knew you’d find out what he’d done.’ It was almost as if she was talking to herself and he felt maximum discomfort for the part he’d played in the destruction of their relationship eleven years previously. ‘He was determined to keep us apart.’
Jago found himself unable to argue with that. Even he was stunned by the level of manipulation to which her father had stooped and he thought of himself as a fairly cynical guy.
Katy stared at him in disbelief. ‘You accepted money from him in return for an agreement not to see me again.’
He stiffened. ‘That’s not true. Your name was never mentioned in connection with the money. That was a business issue.’
‘You’re deluding yourself.’ Her eyes glistened with hurt. ‘He paid you off, Jago. And you took the money.’
‘There seemed no reason not to.’
‘You were already rich, Jago. I know that. How much money was enough?’ she said shakily. ‘How much did it cost him to get you to walk away from me?’
Jago swore softly in Spanish. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘My life fell apart when you left but you were so self-absorbed, so wrapped up in your own emotions and feelings that you didn’t stop to think about me even for a minute. You took the money and ran. Literally.’
Aware that the warmth of the atmosphere had plunged several degrees below zero, and extremely disconcerted by her less than flattering interpretation of the facts, Jago attempted to salvage the situation.
‘We were having a pleasant evening before we started talking about your father,’ he said calmly. ‘Can we just forget it?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Her breathing was rapid and she lifted her chin. ‘You’ve just reminded me why I shouldn’t have said yes to going out with you tonight. You are arrogant and selfish and we don’t share the same beliefs and values. Goodnight, Jago.’
Reaching the frustrating conclusion that women were definitely from another planet, Jago made an abortive attempt to prevent her from leaving but she was too quick for him, heading for the door as fast as she could reasonably manage in Libby’s ridiculously high-heeled shoes.
CHAPTER NINE
STILL sniffing back tears, Katy slid out of her skirt and dragged off the clingy blue top that she’d put on with such breathless anticipation. Feeling in need of a warm drink, she ordered from room service and then padded into the bathroom in her underwear to run herself a bath.
Of all the men on the planet, she’d chosen to fall in love with someone so totally wrapped up in himself that he didn’t even know there was a world around him.
She emptied the entire contents of the miniature bubble bath bottle into the water and watched while it frothed.
Jago could be so charming when he wanted to be, but it was all part of his strategy for getting her back into his bed. And she’d nearly fallen for it.
Removing her underwear, she stepped into the water, reflecting that the sooner she learned to apply cynicism to her judgement of people, the happier she’d be. For a short time she’d been fooled by his trick of seeming so interested in her family and her feelings, and it had only been the shocking discovery that he’d actually accepted money from her father to remove himself from her life that had reminded her that this was the man who’d given absolutely no thought to her feelings whatsoever.
They said that everyone had their price, but it was agonising to realise that it was true.
In his own way, Jago shared many traits with her father. He was driven and ruthless and all he thought about was money.
It didn’t matter how much she loved him. She’d be crazy to start a relationship with him again.
Hearing a knock on the door, she stepped out of the bath and wrapped herself in a fluffy white bathrobe. She opened the door to receive the drink she’d ordered and found Jago lounging there, his expression hidden under lowered lashes.
‘I’ve come to the conclusion that we should both stop talking, querida,’ he drawled, planting a lean brown hand in the middle of the door to prevent her shutting it in his face. ‘Words can so easily be misinterpreted, which is why we’re moving on to actions.’
She backed away from him, acutely conscious of her still damp, naked body underneath the softness of her white, fluffy bathrobe.
‘I was having a bath.’
‘I can tell. The ends of your hair are wet,’ he murmured, his dark gaze roaming with appreciation over the golden strands.
Without her even being aware of how it happened, he was inside her room with the door firmly locked behind him.
Paralysed by the hot, quivering excitement that erupted inside her, she reminded herself repeatedly that he was a selfish, egotistical, thoroughly objectionable male who would break her heart again if she were to be so stupid as to let him.
‘There is just no way you’re marrying Freddie,’ he imparted thickly, hauling her against him with all the finesse of a wild animal. In fact, s
he realised with some considerable degree of shock, Jago didn’t seem controlled at all. The hand that brushed her damp hair away from her brow was decidedly unsteady, and his breathing was far from even.
His mouth fused with hers, his kiss rough and demanding, and despite all her resolutions Katy just melted.
She kissed him back, her fingers resting on the hard muscle of his chest and then sliding upwards round his strong neck. Wild excitement exploded inside her. He felt so good.
He cupped her face, his tongue teasing hers, exploring every part of her sensitive mouth, and suddenly she found she was shivering.
He lifted his head with a reluctant groan, and hugged her close. ‘Are you cold?’
‘I’m not cold.’ She looked at him with helpless longing, knowing that she ought to tell him to leave, but totally unable to do it.
His mouth descended to hers again and this time she felt his hands on her shoulders, divesting her of her fluffy bathrobe with electrifying efficiency.
‘Jago!’ Suddenly aware that she was naked and he was still fully clothed, she pulled away from him, but he swept her into his arms and deposited her on the bed before she could even consider covering herself.
‘You have the most incredible body,’ he muttered, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt with considerably less finesse than he’d shown when he’d undressed her.
His shirt hit the floor and she stared, feasting on the sight of his muscular chest and flat abdomen.
‘You could help me,’ Jago suggested huskily, but Katy found she couldn’t move.
She just lay there, watching him, flattened to the bed by an excitement and anticipation so intense that it was almost painful.
She wanted him. Badly.
Every single part of her body ached for him to possess her.
Gloriously naked, Jago moved over her with the lithe movement of a jungle cat and all the confidence of a male with the upper hand.
‘Are you going to speak, querida?’ His soft, teasing tone made her insides melt and she shook her head, her eyes dropping to his incredible sexy mouth.
She was beyond speech.