Santiago's Command

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘Perhaps you would like to clean up, Miss Fitzgerald?’

  She glanced down to hide her hot cheeks, mortified as her body reacted with dramatic tingling awareness to the critical clinical stare directed at the smears of blood on the upper slopes of her breasts.

  She could see his point, a little blood could go a long way and the smears did look awful.

  ‘And obviously you will send me a bill for the cleaning.’

  Actually he was just realising that nothing about this woman was obvious.

  She had had an expensive dress ruined and, obviously, spoilt, self-absorbed materialist that she was, there should have been tantrums. But no, what did she do? Go all Mother Teresa on him! And he’d seen her face—her concern was either genuine or she was the best actress he had ever seen.

  So maybe she was not all bad, but her redemption was not his business. Saving his brother was.

  For Lucy the faint sneer in his voice was the last straw. She could almost hear the sound of her control snapping as she turned on him, eyes blazing, bosom heaving.

  ‘I can pay my own bills. Do you think I give a damn about the dress? I …’ She stopped, horrified to feel the prick of tears behind her eyelids. ‘I’ll go wash up!’ she blurted, making a dash for the door.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  OUTSIDE the room Lucy had composed herself enough to ask for directions to the bathroom when she was approached by a staff member in the bewildering baronial hallway.

  In the decadently appointed bathroom she had been directed to, Lucy stood with her hands under the running water, waiting for the desire to cry her eyes out to subside.

  Finally feeling marginally more composed, she looked at her reflection in the mirror above the marble washbasin. The lighting above it emphasised the waxy pallor of her oval face; she didn’t even have her bag with her to make running repairs to her make-up.

  With a deep troubled sigh she set about sponging the smears of blood from her skin and clothes.

  Reluctant to leave the marble lined sanctuary, Lucy stood with her back against the cool wall. She shook her head, still totally bewildered. She had no idea what had been going on in there, didn’t have a clue why she had blown up that way.

  Her efforts to analyse what had happened and why were hindered by the fact that every time she felt an answer to the puzzle was in reach, the image of his dark face and sleek body rose in her head, effectively blanking everything else.

  What is your problem Lucy? He was meant to think she cared more about dresses than people, that had been the idea, so why had she reacted that way?

  She had no idea how long she had been standing there before there was a tentative tap on the door. It was followed by a voice calling her name.

  ‘I just wondered—are you all right, Lucy?’

  Lucy straightened her shoulders, took a deep sustaining breath and opened the door. An anxious-looking Ramon, who was standing directly behind it, took a step back.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, forcing a smile as she emerged. ‘Sorry about that but I’ve never liked the sight of even a speck of blood.’ She stopped and shook her head and looked at him with eyes dark with emotion. ‘I’m fine with blood, Ramon, but not your brother. I can’t do this … over the years I’ve developed a thick skin but somehow he manages … I’m tired of being judged,’ she finished with a weary sigh.

  Ramon shook his head and looked remorseful as he enfolded her in a comforting bear hug. ‘God, no, it’s me. I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. It’s my problem, not yours, and to be honest I wasn’t expecting Santiago to be quite so …’ His hands slid down her arms and stayed there.

  Standing in the loose circle of his arms, Lucy gave a shrug. ‘And you thought I could take it? I thought so, too,’ she admitted. ‘I really don’t care what your brother thinks of me,’ she hastened to assure Ramon. ‘But this stopped being my idea of a fun evening when he started making snide remarks about my family.’

  ‘I understand,’ Ramon said.

  Lucy was wondering a little uneasily about the inflection in his voice when he reached out and touched her forehead. ‘God, you’re going to have a bruise there,’ he said, touching the discoloured area that was developing on her forehead. ‘You really took a bang.’

  Santiago stood in the minstrels’ gallery, his unblinking stare trained on the couple below, tension vibrating in every taut fibre of his lean body as he listened to the buzz of their soft voices, unable to make out the words, but you didn’t need words to see the intimacy in the way they stood close together.

  When his brother touched her face tenderly he turned, biting back a harsh gasp as he felt something kick hard and low in his belly.

  ‘I’ll try and stay in character,’ Lucy promised Ramon. ‘But after tonight that’s it.’

  She returned to the dining room with some trepidation, but the rest of meal passed relatively uneventfully. Their host showed little inclination to make conversation other than a few passing asides to Carmella, which should have been a good thing but turned out not to be.

  Lucy was painfully conscious of his eyes following her and spent the entire meal waiting for him to pounce, so tense that every bone in her body ached with it.

  And of course she did what she always did when she was nervous: she babbled like an idiot until the sound of her own bright chattering voice was giving even her a headache. Afterwards she didn’t have a clue what she had been talking about, which was probably a good thing.

  Santiago excused himself before coffee was served and Lucy used his absence to make her own hurried exit. Outside, it was a beautiful night. She released a long sigh and breathed in the fresh night air almost dizzy with relief that the ordeal was over.

  Just behind her she was conscious of Ramon pausing to speak to the man who had emerged from the house but the effort of translating what they were saying was beyond her.

  She was struggling to think anything beyond the fact that she was escaping from this place and that hateful man; she wanted to forget the entire evening had ever happened.

  And she would—tomorrow she would go back to doing what she had actually come here to do. God knew why she had ever got involved. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been insulted before, but she had never lowered herself to her persecutor’s level; she had always maintained her silence and the moral high ground.

  Anyway this was not her battle, it was Ramon’s. If he had issues with his brother he could sort them out himself. ‘Wait in the car.’

  Lucy automatically extended a hand to catch the keys he threw her. ‘What?’

  ‘Phone call. It’s urgent and no one can find Santiago. I’ll be back in a minute,’ Ramon promised, following the sober-suited man back indoors.

  No one knows where he is. She glanced back at the building; golden light spilled from the windows making her think of eyes watching her.

  ‘Seriously paranoid, Lucy.’ Her laugh had a hollow sound as she turned her back on the building, unable to shake the feeling that the man they couldn’t find was in one of those windows watching her.

  She shivered and told herself it was the chill in the evening air. Despite this she did not follow Ramon’s suggestion and take shelter in the car. Instead Lucy wandered away from the brooding presence of the sombre fortified house.

  She had walked some way across the manicured lawn when she found herself drawn towards the sound of water and discovered, not the pond she had expected, but a river.

  She walked out onto the wooden bridge and, leaning her arms on the rail, gazed down into the dark water. Her expression was pensive as her thoughts drifted, the memories of the evening revolving in her head. If not the worst night of her life, it had been right up there.

  On the plus side—her brow puckered as she struggled to come up with one, other than the fact the night was over and if she ever saw Santiago Silva again she would leg it in the opposite direction. She was hanging up her scarlet-woman hat.

  Trailing a hand towards the water, she leaned f
arther over the rail, following a leaf caught on the current, running to the opposite side as it disappeared from view to follow its progress.

  Santiago, who had followed her from outside the house, watched as she leaned forward. The lust that lay coiled in his belly morphed into alarm as she leaned so far over the rail that she appeared in danger of toppling in. This woman seemed oddly drawn to water and bridges.

  ‘If you’re planning on jumping in don’t expect me to leap in and save you.’

  Lucy started as if shot, took a hasty step backwards and found herself staring at Santiago. He was looking mean, moody and, if she was honest, totally magnificent in the moonlight.

  She took a deep breath and lifted her chin as he stepped onto the bridge.

  ‘Relax, I don’t need saving. I’m not on the lookout for a white knight.’ Which was just as well as he definitely did not meet the criteria … all that dark brooding stuff made him far more likely to be the bad boy.

  ‘That wasn’t an offer.’

  ‘And it so happens I swim like a fish.’ She felt no guilt for playing up her ability.

  ‘Just as well, given your affinity for water. I keep finding you knee deep.’

  She extended a leg, displaying a dry and slightly muddied shoe. ‘I wasn’t paddling, but I’m a Pisces so maybe that’s it, and I wasn’t going to jump.’

  ‘No …?’

  ‘You sound disappointed.’

  His grin flashed and faded as his dark glance slid down her body. Lucy was disgusted with herself for being unable to control the flash of heat that engulfed her body. Dear God, all the man had to do was look at her and she started acting like some sort of hormonal teenager.

  ‘If I throw you into the water will you sprout a tail and swim away?’ It was true, she did look like a particularly sultry mermaid in that dress with the cloud of silvery hair, a siren capable of luring men to their deaths.

  And her intended victim was Ramon. His brother’s life might not be in danger but his heart was, and he would save Ramon from this woman’s clutches by whatever means possible.

  And if money was not a lure he would have to think of something that was … and if it required that he used himself as bait it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

  You’re a saint, Santiago, admired the sardonic voice in his head.

  Lucy inhaled and straightened her shoulders. Her fingers tightened on the wooden rail, her defiant pose perilously fragile as he walked towards her. It was utterly mystifying how a man as big as him could move so silently, like some big jungle cat stalking his prey.

  The analogy sent a shiver sliding down her spine as she watched him approach, the golden-toned skin of his throat and face very dark in contrast to the dazzling white of his shirt.

  You didn’t have to like the man to be utterly riveted by the way he moved and nobody could fail to be aware—in an objective way—of the aura of raw, earthy sensuality he exuded.

  Lucy bit her lip and felt her shaky composure develop a few more cracks as he paused, his hand on the rail, a few feet away from her. She looked at his fingers only inches away from her own and tightened her grip, easing her hand back surreptitiously. She had a nasty feeling that if he touched her even lightly those cracks she was aware of would split wide apart.

  ‘Do I make you nervous, Lucy?’ he asked, staring at the blue veined pulse point that was throbbing at the base of her throat.

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  When he responded to the breathless accusation with a slow smile that said he knew exactly how his presence made her feel, her heart hammered against her ribs. She found herself hating him more than ever. It was weird but she had never felt this sort of violent animosity towards anyone, not even Denis Mulville, who had made her a hate figure out of sheer spite.

  ‘Do you always lurk like that?’ She pressed a hand to her breastbone, hating the fact she still sounded breathless because, yes, he made her nervous … not excited, because that would be stupid.

  ‘I’m not lurking. It is my habit to take a walk before I go to bed.’

  ‘Then don’t let me stop you.’

  ‘From walking or going to bed?’

  ‘You followed me, didn’t you …?’ Lucy felt pretty stupid for not seeing the obvious and smelling a set up. ‘You planned …’ she moved her hands in an expressive fluttering motion and fixed him with a blue accusing glare ‘… this.’

  ‘Such piercing insight,’ he drawled, drawing a hissing sound of rage from between her clenched teeth. ‘I did warn you what would happen if you came near my family.’

  ‘So how is Gabby?’

  ‘Back in school.’ Gabby had assumed the day-early return was part of her punishment and Santiago had seen no reason to disabuse her of this notion. At least she was safely out of reach, though he doubted that his daughter would have found the scent of this woman’s perfume quite so disturbing.

  Sure, Santiago, you’re so ‘disturbed’ that you can’t think above the waist. Admit it like a man—you want her so bad you can taste it.

  ‘Lucy’s changed her mind—she’s coming!’ had been the words that had greeted him on his return that morning, making it pretty conclusive that his threats had backfired big time and Lucy Fitzgerald had lost no time calling his bluff—only he didn’t bluff, as she would find out.

  ‘I thought we could have a private little talk …’ Not this little talk—Santiago was annoyed with himself for losing focus.

  ‘We don’t have anything to talk about and, for the record, I don’t like being played. How did you know—’ She stopped, feeling stupid. ‘There wasn’t an important call, was there?’

  ‘Of course there was a call … and I imagine it will take a good thirty minutes.’

  ‘Imagine or know!’

  He met her angry glare with a lazy, insolent smile. ‘What’s the problem, Lucy—you can dish it out but can’t take it?’

  Her chin went up at the challenge. ‘Dish it out?’ she echoed, her blue gaze falling from his. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she denied, thinking, He knows … The realisation that he had seen through their act was, she realised, almost a relief. She expelled a long sigh—no more pouting! With all the sexy stuff she hadn’t felt like herself all evening—’herself’ being cool, blonde and in control.

  This evening she’d been blonde and continually on the edge of losing any semblance of control. This man pressed all her buttons and made her feel the victim’s rage she had thought she had conquered long ago.

  She felt a twang of guilt, which turned into pity for Ramon—she could not imagine his brother seeing this as a bit of harmless fun.

  ‘I am presuming that the overacting this evening was for my benefit?’ An image of her stroking his brother’s arm, a relatively innocent action if it had been anyone but this woman, drifted into his head and he snarled, ‘Ever heard of subtlety?’

  Lucy’s head lifted and she read the contempt and anger etched in the sculpted lines of his hard-boned face.

  ‘I presume this was to drive up the price.’

  Her eyes widened—so he didn’t know.

  He saw her reaction and gave a thin smile. ‘Another language you speak fluently … money.’

  It occurred to Lucy as she sucked in a breath that she had played her part a bit too well—he was looking at her with a level of loathing that she struggled to be objective about.

  ‘And did it work?’ she wondered, hiding the stab of irrational hurt that threatened to make her well up behind her amused smile. The opinion of a self-righteous jerk, she reminded herself, was no reason to feel bad. In fact the time to worry was when a man like him started approving of you.

  ‘No, there is no extra money on the table—there is no money.’

  She pursed her lips into a pout and took what she hoped came across as a fearless step towards him. Thrusting one hip out, she planted her hands on her thighs and fixed him with a smile that deepened as she heard the distinct sound of his teeth grinding.

/>   ‘Pity … still, sometimes the satisfaction of a job well done is reward in itself.’

  ‘I have no idea if some bad experience turned you poisonous or if you were just born that way because, to be frank, the nature-nurture argument does not interest me.’

  Inside seething, Lucy adopted an air of amused interest, watching the muscles along his strong jawline ripple.

  ‘And I can take anything you can throw at me.’ Brave words, or should that be reckless? Lucy just hoped they would not come back to bite her.

  ‘We’ll see, shall we …?’

  Sheer stubbornness made her retain eye contact. It saved running the risk of not being able to look away. His black stare had a disturbingly hypnotic quality.

  Her pounding heart drowned out the lonely cry of a hunting owl overhead. The atmosphere was suddenly thicker than the thick emerald-green moss that grew along the riverbank, the moss her heels had sunk into as she’d walked to the bridge … Lucy felt as though she were sinking now. She swallowed past the constriction in her throat and, doing her best to look amused, met his black stare. He probably got some sadistic kick from seeing people squirm. No, she thought, there was no ‘probably’ about it.

  She was aware that anything she said now might be construed as a challenge … and he was obviously a man who could not resist any opportunity to prove himself superior. He was pathetic, she told herself, though actually pathetic was about the most inappropriate term imaginable to describe the man standing there. He oozed a raw masculinity. There was something raw and elemental about him that made her traitorous heart skip a beat and her mouth dry and her knees weak.

  A lot of other things were going on that she didn’t even want to think about right now. Deep breaths, Lucy … deep breaths.

  He held her eyes with a steady stare and watched the colour in her face fluctuate. Her skin fascinated him, so creamy he wanted to feel it to see if it felt as soft and satiny as it looked. He wanted to feel her naked underneath him. He had wanted it from the moment he had set eyes on her and, damn her, she had known it.

  His chest swelled. He had never wanted a woman this much in his life, so badly that he could taste it. He wanted to taste her so badly that … He embraced his anger just to stay in control.