The Spaniard's Love-Child

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘I interrupted her swim,’ she heard Roxie say as they reached the spot where she was standing, every muscle in her body poised for flight.

  ‘I didn’t know you were swimming.’

  Being directly addressed meant she could no longer avoid looking at him. Her breath caught in her throat. Raul might have more confidence than she considered acceptable in a man, but she had to admit he did have some justification! He looked totally sensational! Elegant to his fingertips in a way that didn’t detract one jot from his raw masculinity, dressed in an immaculately tailored suit, Raul presented a picture guaranteed to instantly arouse lust in the female breast.

  Well, hers at least.

  Roxie was his male equivalent. Him dark, and her divinely fair. A combination of their genes would make incredibly beautiful children. Was it something they’d discussed?

  Why do this to yourself, Nell?

  Chin up, she took a deep breath and angrily drew a veil across this line of speculation.

  ‘I did ask your mother whether it was all right,’ Nell responded defensively, aware in the periphery of her vision of Roxie laying her head against Raul’s shoulder.

  A spasm of annoyance twisted Raul’s mouth. ‘There is no need for you to ask anyone. Have I not made myself clear on that score?’ he demanded. ‘Is something wrong with the air-conditioning in here?’ he added abruptly.

  ‘Not that I know,’ Nell replied with a sneaking suspicion of where he was heading.

  ‘It feels pretty warm to me, darling,’ Roxie added.

  ‘That’s because it is meant to be kept at a constant humidified eighty-four,’ he added, his significant stare coming to rest on Nell, who was cocooned from head to toe in towelling. ‘I take it there is some reason for this display of modesty?’

  Roxie’s splutter of laughter drew Raul’s attention from a hot-cheeked Nell. ‘Sorry, darling, but if you’d seen her swim suit…’ She shot Nell an apologetic glance. ‘I’ve walked through town showing more than she is.’

  The lines around Raul’s eyes deepened with affectionate warmth as he looked down at the woman beside him. ‘But then it’s not what you wear, but how you wear it.’

  Nell’s response was pretty much what any female’s would be if someone implied she didn’t have class or style. He hadn’t come right out and said it, of course, but the implication was obvious. Well, I might be able to wear clothes if I had a personal stylist and designers just begging me to wear their latest creations!

  ‘It’s very bad to let your muscles get cold after exercise,’ Nell explained coldly.

  ‘Well, you look much more likely to succumb to heat-stroke,’ Raul observed sardonically.

  Roxie, with an exasperated cry, curled her fingers around Raul’s strong, masculine jaw and turned his head firmly back towards her. With her free hand she stroked his sleeve. ‘Will you stop teasing the poor girl, Raul?’ There was a sexy huskiness that hadn’t been in her voice when she’d spoken to Nell. ‘I’m the one you’ve kept hanging around half the evening waiting for you,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Tell me why I’m going to this party again?’

  ‘No more calls?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’ Raul put a hand on the smaller one that was stroking his arm and brought it deliberately to his lips. As his head lifted he looked directly at Nell. The taunting smile almost instantly left his lips and concern filled his eyes.

  Her deathly pallor extended even to her lips; the intense blue of her wide-spaced eyes supplied the only scrap of colour that was in her face. It seemed to him that she was on the verge of passing out. He tensed, fully expecting to be required to catch her when she fell.

  Nell deliberately let her towel drop to the floor. Bending forward to pick it up sent the blood rushing back to her oxygen-starved brain. The action had been instinctive. A dormant protective instinct awakening in a moment of extreme need. She had been totally unprepared for the violence of the revulsion she had felt when Raul had touched the other woman.

  Though outwardly composed as she straightened up, inside she felt the knife-thrust of jealousy cutting into vital areas of her anatomy. She had not known that such extremes of emotion existed, let alone suspected that she was capable of experiencing them. Like the final piece in a jigsaw, everything slotted into place—you could only keep up the pretence that something wasn’t happening for just so long. She had fallen for him. She had fallen for Raul Carreras!

  ‘I got bored waiting for you so I thought I’d explore,’ Roxie was explaining to Raul.

  ‘So I see.’

  Raul did not seem to be an overly demonstrative lover, which, considering she’d almost passed out when he had touched the other woman’s hand, was possibly a blessing! Perhaps, she mused, he kept his demonstrations for the privacy of the bedroom? Nell closed her eyes willing the erotic images of intimately entwined sweat-drenched bodies to go away.

  ‘Actually I was just saying to…? Sorry, I don’t know your name.’

  When Nell didn’t respond it was Raul who supplied the information.

  ‘Nell.’

  Nell jolted free of the imagined scene of seduction that was playing in her head, opened her eyes and collided with Raul’s implacable stare. Suddenly, totally convinced that her hopeless longing was written as clear as neon on her face—what other reason could there be for the inexplicable strain stamped on his own dark features?—she was gripped by a frantic desire to escape.

  ‘Have a nice evening,’ she muttered indistinctly. Her rigid facial muscles ached with the effort of smiling.

  ‘You don’t need to go on our account. We’re on our way to a party, and I make it a point to be late. Though not,’ Roxie added, tapping Raul playfully on the arm, ‘as late as this, usually.’

  Despite this pointed reminder Raul did not respond. His eyes continued to follow Nell’s movements.

  ‘No, I’m all swum out,’ Nell promised hoarsely.

  ‘Raul, I was just telling…Nell—’ she gifted Nell one of her truly dazzling smiles ‘—to go see my colourist. With her colouring she’d just look incredible blonde.’ She smiled at the younger girl warmly. ‘Blondes have the most fun, I promise you.’ She cast Raul a sultry look from under her long, curling lashes. ‘Come on, honey, back me up here.’

  Raul was looking at Nell. ‘No!’ he said flatly.

  The word stopped Nell in her tracks. She stood there poised for flight like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

  The actress frowned at Raul. ‘Why shouldn’t she go blonde if she wants?’

  ‘I don’t want…’ Nell began, longing to be anywhere but here. The air-conditioning couldn’t regulate the atmosphere of growing tension in the room.

  ‘She is not going blonde.’

  ‘Not platinum or anything, much more subtle a—’

  ‘She is not touching her hair.’

  This autocratic decree made the actress look indignant on Nell’s behalf. ‘Just because the girl works for you…’

  ‘She doesn’t,’ Raul slotted in without taking his eyes off Nell’s face.

  The actress looked from one to the other with a thoughtful expression. ‘Then what does she do?’ She gave a slightly puzzled smile. ‘Other than swim.’

  Nell’s body sagged as Raul’s eyes finally left her face. His devouring gaze had left her weak as a kitten.

  ‘She is a guest here.’

  The actress’s skilfully enhanced pale eyes widened. ‘Oh, I see.’ There was a wealth of understanding in the sentence.

  A wave of scalding heat passed over Nell’s skin. It was obvious to see what the older woman was thinking. Even worse was her apparent casual acceptance of the situation. Nell couldn’t imagine herself having the sort of relationship where the strongest emotion you experienced on learning of your lover’s infidelities was curiosity!

  If it had happened to me? A grim expression settled on her soft features as she contemplated her response to such a betrayal. Then, belatedly conscious that her prolonged silence might be
interpreted as an admission, she summoned an amused smile.

  ‘No, it’s not like that at all!’

  She turned her attention to Raul, her expression inviting him to intercede and explain the circumstances that had brought her here. He just stood there, looking if anything faintly bored.

  ‘I lived with Raul’s brother.’ The reminder made Raul frown darkly. ‘I’m here to help the children settle in.’

  Why is it the truth often sounds less plausible than a lie? Maybe because it was only part of the truth; deep down could she honestly say that her motives in moving in had been so entirely altruistic? Hadn’t the fact that she would see Raul affected her decision?

  ‘So you two aren’t…?’ Roxie looked from Nell to Raul and back again. She laughed. ‘Oh, don’t look so horrified, darling,’ she told Nell. ‘You’re not at all his type. I could see that straight off,’ she confided, apparently oblivious to the antagonistic glitter that had entered Nell’s blue eyes.

  ‘And he’s not mine!’ Nell said, gritting her teeth. Except when he’s nothing better to do than give me a glimpse of what I’m missing.

  ‘Well, honey, that makes you kind of unique,’ the other woman purred, looking entertained by the younger girl’s spitting declaration. ‘But be careful. That’s the sort of challenge some men can’t resist,’ she warned playfully. She tilted her head up to Raul. ‘What do you say, darling?’

  ‘I say it might be a good idea if you answer that phone, Roxie.’ Raul, his face set like stone, did not respond to his companion’s raillery.

  The blonde, not even slightly put out by his impatient attitude, pouted prettily and obligingly pulled out a slim phone, which had been ringing intermittently for the last five minutes from her tiny, beaded evening purse.

  Nell, her face still burning with mortification at being the source of their amusement, gathered up her damp towel and the paperback she had planned to read. Without even looking at Raul she prepared to take her leave. A hand on her shoulder spun her back.

  She shrank away from his touch and with a dark scowl Raul dropped his hand. ‘What is wrong?’ he demanded, his dark eyes raking her face.

  He had not made any attempt to lower his voice and Nell, worried that he might say something that would embarrass her further in front of the other woman, glanced towards the far end of the pool where the actress had retreated to take her call. Not, if the volume of her voice was anything to go by, for privacy. Though listening in on a conversation that seemed to consist for the most part of a series of ‘darling’s in varying tones did not provide excitement for even the most dedicated eavesdropper.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she hissed, clutching her belongings to her chest.

  ‘Then why are you running away?’ he drawled. ‘And why did you almost pass out back there? Have you got a migraine?’

  ‘I have not got a migraine. I never pass out and I’m not running away; I’m simply going back to my room.’ She took a deep breath, no longer able to contain her anger. ‘So if you want a floor show I suggest you go to a club,’ she suggested, blinking away the tears that threatened to spill from her huge, accusing eyes. ‘Call me peculiar, but I happen not to like being the butt of the joke for you and your friends,’ she informed him coldly.

  ‘I am not laughing at you.’

  He wasn’t.

  It might have been easier to bear if he were. The intensity of his regard was far harder to bear than laughter. His hooded gaze slid hungrily down the length of her body. The contraction of the muscles in his brown throat as he swallowed was visible.

  She was always painfully conscious in his presence of her body and her femininity in a way that made her feel awkward and excited simultaneously. Seeing him at any time made her body react; the casual brush of his eyes as they passed could make her nipples harden with longing. But this was no casual brush of his eyes; the challenge gleaming in his eyes was overtly sexual. The look said, I want you.

  Heat flooded through her; she couldn’t breathe. Literally weak with lust and longing, her knees shook. His dark face swam as her vision blurred.

  If you pretended something wasn’t happening, did it go away?

  ‘I suppose you think I’m being oversensitive?’ Her voice sounded strange, as though it were coming from a long way away.

  ‘You are sensitive to my touch,’ he rasped. ‘You tremble when I touch you.’

  ‘The same happens when I touch a live electric wire…at least it would do if I did, which I don’t,’ she added, some sense of her desperation seeping into her voice.

  Raul moved his head in acknowledgement of her words. ‘Electricity would describe it, yes.’ His velvet drawl was more accented than was usual, but it still sent the same shivers up her spine. He took her arm and, turning it over between his fingers, ran his thumb along the blue-veined aspect of her wrist. Nell shivered; the fine invisible down on her skin stood on end. ‘Your skin is like satin…’

  A fractured sigh of shock escaped her parted lips. His eyes lifted to her face; the darkness held a raw, needy hunger. Her stomach muscles tensed with excitement.

  ‘And so soft.’ His sensuous whisper made the heat low in her belly spread…rapidly.

  She dredged deep and discovered enough strength to pull her hand away. She rubbed it along her hip but dropped it abruptly when the action drew his attention to the soft, inviting curve of her thigh. ‘How can you talk like that?’ she snapped furiously. ‘With your girlfriend standing over there?’

  ‘Nell—’ Raul was cut off. Too self-absorbed to notice the crackling tension, Roxie, her phone conversation completed, interposed her body between them. ‘It was Tris,’ she explained to Raul. ‘I sent your love.’ She laughed at his pained expression and turned to Nell, her body language as lavish as her curves.

  ‘How would you like to come to the party with us?’ she asked in the manner of someone offering a great treat.

  Nell looked at the woman in horror. ‘I wouldn’t!’ she declared, too repelled by the proposal to be tactful. She could see from Roxie’s expression that she had been expecting the ‘nice little nanny-type person’ to be grateful for this offer. ‘I mean, it’s terribly kind of you but I—’

  Not one to take no for an answer, however, Roxie did not let the younger woman’s abhorrence put her off.

  ‘You’d be doing me an enormous favour,’ she cajoled. ‘I’d be so grateful and so would…’ she paused, prolonging the dramatic tension like the true performer she was before delivering the punchline ‘…Tristram Nichols.’

  ‘Who?’ Nell asked with an abstracted frown. Clutching her towel, she decided that nothing short of an act of God was going to keep her here another second.

  ‘Tristram Nichols,’ Roxie repeated, looking at Nell as if she were from another planet. ‘He played Ben Lucas in Tomorrow’s People…?’

  ‘Oh, is he an actor?’

  Roxie’s jaw dropped.

  ‘He specialised in your archetypal English upper-class twit,’ Raul cut in smoothly. ‘I’m not sure how much acting is involved.’

  ‘Raul!’ Roxie reproached. ‘Tristram is a marvellous actor. The thing is he is, or rather was, engaged to Laura Hill. The bitch, not satisfied with dumping him, has moved in with his best friend. She told the press before Tristram.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘She’s turning up at this party tonight complete with her new love; that’s so, so typical of her!’ she fumed. ‘And poor Tristram can’t possibly go without a partner. Not when the press are going to be there in force, and not turning up would be letting Laura win…’

  It was only towards the end of this explanation, which Nell had been half listening to, that she realised what Roxie was suggesting.

  She shook her head. ‘Me!’

  Roxie smiled.

  Nell did some even more fervent head-shaking. ‘You’re joking. Oh, no, definitely no!’

  ‘But you’d be perfect, mysterious…nobody will know who you are. Nobody will be paying any attention to the awful Laura, they’ll all be wond
ering who you are, and she’ll be sick.’ This prospect seemed to afford Roxie considerable delight.

  The woman, Nell decided, was obviously mad. ‘I don’t want people looking at me.’

  Roxie misunderstood. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. Give me half an hour and some make-up. Not that you…’ she began as it dawned on her she might have given offence.

  ‘I’m sure your friend can find a more suitable partner for this party than me,’ Nell said drily. ‘Being such a famous actor.’

  ‘I’m sure he knows a good escort agency.’

  Roxie flashed Raul a censorious frown. ‘Not in the next half an hour he couldn’t, Nell.’

  ‘Well, why did he wait until now?’

  ‘They only broke up this morning and the poor dear has had the press on his doorstep ever since.’

  ‘This morning…? And he’s going to a party tonight? Isn’t that a bit fast for a broken heart to heal?’

  ‘This isn’t just any party and Tris is good at hiding his feelings…’

  Raul took hold of Roxie’s elbow and drew her to one side. His expression suggested he’d heard enough about Tristram. ‘In Roxie’s world a marriage that lasts six months is considered remarkable, Nell,’ he remarked drily. ‘Come on, Roxie, your Tristram will just have to take it on the chin like a man, or stay at home.’

  Roxie looked at him as though he’d suggested burning books was a good idea. ‘Stay at home?’ she parroted. ‘Have you any idea what sort of photo opportunity this party will offer?’

  ‘No, or I wouldn’t have agreed to go with you,’ he replied bluntly.

  ‘Tristram’s last two films have been flops and in this business you’re only as good as your last box-office receipts. It’s incredibly important at the moment he gets some positive press.’

  Raul’s expression softened. ‘You really care for the rat, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, I was married to the man.’

  ‘Married?’

  Neither responded to Nell’s startled exclamation.

  ‘I know you want to help, Roxie, but there’s just no way Nell here could carry this thing off.’ He took hold of her narrow shoulders and turned her around to face Nell. ‘Look at her,’ he commanded.