Hot Nights with a Spaniard (Mills & Boon M&B) (Mills & Boon Special Releases)

by Carole Mortimer

  And yet he was drawn to her. Could still feel sympathy for her. It was a paradox he didn’t understand. “We will not talk about this tonight,” he declared. He didn’t want to think too deeply about his feelings for this woman right now. He wanted to savor her body, that was all. No feelings, no past. Just heat and passion and the sweetness of release.

  Her laugh was bitter. “No, of course not. God forbid that you might actually be forced to rethink your opinion of me. I wasn’t seducing your father, but naturally the same can’t be said of how far I will go with you, right? And you’ll allow nothing to contradict that opinion, so we won’t even discuss it.”

  “What could you possibly say to change my mind?” he bit out. “There is nothing you can say, no proof you can offer, that changes what you did to me.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. “No, I can’t prove my innocence,” she said softly, her voice heavy with emotion.

  People began to clap politely. It took a moment before Alejandro realized the music had stopped. But he and Rebecca were still locked tightly together, their gazes tangled. Hers was sad, beseeching—disappointed?

  He stepped back as if she were a live wire, forced his hands to his sides. “You cannot prove it because you are guilty, Rebecca. Cease trying to make me doubt what I know to be true. It will not work. We can never go back to those days before you betrayed me.”

  Rebecca sipped champagne and chatted with a woman who was the wife of a Spanish television star. But her attention wasn’t on the woman as much as it was on the man across from her. Alejandro was so achingly handsome it hurt. And so remote it chilled her.

  From the moment they’d left the dance floor and come to the head table he’d been closed off and cold. Of course he would never believe she hadn’t been the one to betray him. She knew that. But being here now, in the place where she’d shared so much with him, her emotions were skewed and raw.

  From the moment he’d left her in the suite she’d been on edge. She felt like an exposed nerve, reacting to every stimulus, aching with pain, wanting to escape. She’d actually hoped to see approval in his eyes when he’d first seen her at the party. The dress she’d chosen from the few the salesgirl had brought fit like it was custom-designed for her. The shoes were exquisite. A quick visit from one of the salon’s stylists, and her hair and makeup were perfect. Looking at herself in the mirror, she’d never have believed that a half hour before she’d been more suited for an evening by the beach rather than a formal gathering at a posh hotel.

  She’d swallowed her trepidation and gone downstairs, but Alejandro had been nowhere to be found. Seeing Juan Ramirez had been a relief. The man was a carbon copy of his son—just older and more distinguished-looking. He’d shown no signs of recognizing her name when she had introduced herself. She’d believed he would whisk her to Alejandro. It was only after he’d pulled her into his arms and started swaying that she realized she’d been deceived, that Juan was a bit of a Casanova. Rather than be impolite, she’d danced. And of course Alejandro had chosen that moment to appear. The universe had a bizarre sense of humor.

  Now Alejandro sat beside his mother, listening politely while she talked about something Rebecca couldn’t understand. Complained about something, more likely, judging from the expression on her face and the speed with which she spoke. Her champagne sloshed over the rim of the glass she clutched; she didn’t seem to notice. Alejandro calmly took it and put it down, away from her. A moment later she flagged down a waiter and snagged a fresh glass.

  Rebecca didn’t miss the frown Alejandro gave his mother as she quaffed most of the liquid in one go. Juan Ramirez chose that moment to appear, and Carmen shot up out of her seat. She would have fallen down again had Alejandro not bolted up and steadied her.

  The table grew quiet as Carmen railed at her husband. Rebecca might not understand Spanish, but she could tell the conversation wasn’t a pleasant one. Juan refused to look at her. A second later she lunged. Alejandro stopped her, caught her close as she began to sob. Juan pushed his son out of the way and put his arms around his wife. Oddly enough, Carmen didn’t shove him away. She clutched his lapels and buried her face against his chest, her shoulders shaking as she cried.

  Alejandro sank into his chair, a stony expression on his face.

  The woman beside Rebecca whispered, “My husband tells me that Señor Ramirez has been seeing Isabella Ayala. She is a young actress, very promising.”

  Rebecca blinked at the woman, her heart slowing to a crawl in her chest.

  “No, no.” She patted Rebecca’s hand. “Juan—not Alejandro, darling. It is clear that Alejandro is smitten with you, though it is too bad about his parents.” She tsked. “This one is far more serious than usual, though. He may even leave her for this woman. Or so my husband says. I am not so sure, however.”

  A few moments later Rebecca murmured an excuse and rose from her chair. Alejandro’s face was frozen in a blank mask as he watched his parents. He glanced over at her and she offered him a sympathetic smile. His expression didn’t change.

  She hurried to the ladies’ room, needing to be alone for a minute or two. She just wanted to sit and breathe and be surrounded by muted noise rather than this discordant mix of voices, clanging dishes and music. She wanted to think without watching Alejandro and wondering at every turn what he was feeling inside.

  Rebecca sank onto one of the plush benches and gazed at her reflection. Her table companion, whose name she’d forgotten almost as soon as they were introduced, had been wrong, or was just being nice, about Alejandro being smitten with her. But her heart ached at the look of helplessness on his face while he dealt with his parents. Oh, he masked it well, but she saw the pain and anger he tried to hide.

  She didn’t want to feel sympathy for him. She simply couldn’t afford it. She had to be hard, cold, ruthless—just like him. Layton International depended on it.

  Rebecca touched up her lipstick, smoothed her dress, and returned to the party. Alejandro’s parents were gone now, but Alejandro stood with a strikingly beautiful woman, his hand on her arm, his head bent close to hers as he talked. Her face seemed a little tight as she took a step away and disappeared into the crowd. Not a romantic moment, then. Rebecca didn’t want to analyze the relief that washed through her at the realization.

  Alejandro whirled, catching sight of her. He came and took her arm, tucked it into his. “We’re going now,” he said in clipped tones.

  “Fine with me,” she replied, her pulse thumping. She didn’t like seeing him this way, didn’t like the way his emotions played over his face in the rare moments when he struggled for control. It forced her to see him as human and vulnerable, reminded her that she’d once loved him with every last breath in her body.

  They left the hotel by the front entrance this time. The paparazzi snapped photos and called out to him, but he ignored them. Soon they were in the car, moving down the drive and out into the paseo. The silence crushed down on her until she had to speak.

  “The hotel is even better than I remembered,” she said.

  “Gracias.”

  “The service is impeccable.”

  “Sí.”

  Rebecca sighed. There was only one thing she could say. “I’m sorry, Alejandro.”

  He turned his head. She was looking out the window, her arms folded beneath her breasts, the material of her dress softly shimmering in the light leaking into the car. The fabric skimmed her curves like a lover, clung to all the peaks and hollows he wanted to explore.

  “What are you sorry for, Rebecca?”

  Her eyes met his, huge blue pools in her beautiful face. Her throat moved as she swallowed. “What happened. Your parents.”

  He was too weary to try and put a positive spin on it. “They do what they do,” he said. “It has always been so.”

  “Is it true?” she said. “About the actress, I mean.”

  “It was,” he replied. “But no longer.”

  “That was her you were talking
to, wasn’t it?”

  He sighed. “Sí. But she will not get what she wants. I will ruin her first.” He’d warned Isabella Ayala what he would do if he ever heard of her with his father again. Juan would find another mistress—he always did—and Carmen would accept it readily enough. But Isabella was angling for a ring, for wealth and position. He’d set her straight. Without him, his parents had no money of their own. And he would not hesitate to cut his father off without a euro should Isabella succeed in her quest.

  “Do you ever get tired, Alejandro?”

  “¿Qué?” He came back to himself with a start, focused on the woman across from him.

  She leaned across the seat and put her hands on his knees. The warmth of her palms through the fabric of his trousers stunned him. The drumbeat of desire flared to life in his blood. Dios, he couldn’t even remember the question she’d asked him. If she were to run those palms up to his groin, he’d be a very happy man.

  Her soft voice brought him back to the moment. “It must be very tiring, seeing the world in black and white, ruining people right and left. It’s okay to see shades of gray, you know, to not always need to control everything. The world will still go around. You don’t have to make it move.”

  Something knifed into his heart. She pushed herself back, breaking that electric contact, and he found himself staring at her. Since he was a boy, he’d always needed to be in control, to order his world as best he could. Control was his security blanket.

  “You know nothing of it,” he snapped. “I have always had to be responsible, to take care of myself and my family. Control is everything.”

  She looked sad. “It’s not the only thing.”

  He sliced a hand through the air, dismissing her. “Sí, it is everything. My parents have never understood the need for control either. Did you not notice this tonight?”

  She bowed her head. “I understand you might have been embarrassed, but—”

  “Embarrassed?” He laughed harshly. “Dios, if only it were that simple. No, those two have always subjected me—and Roberto and Valencia—to their tantrums, their rages, their personal dramas. If I hadn’t found the control they lacked within myself, I would not be who I am today.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Roberto died because he had no strength. He was just like my parents in his own way, and he paid the price. Valencia married her Parisian and rarely returns to Spain.”

  “I didn’t know,” she said softly.

  She watched him with those sympathetic eyes, and he found himself teetering on the edge. How had she seen so deeply into him? Or was it simply a coincidence?

  A sudden need to lash out at her, to inflict pain, overtook him.

  He spoke with scorn. “We cannot all have a privileged life like yours, Rebecca. Some of us have to work very hard to succeed.”

  She choked out a laugh. “Oh, God, you think you know everything, don’t you?” Her blue gaze flashed. “Well, you don’t. So don’t presume to tell me how I’ve lived my life.”

  “I know that you had a fortune handed to you on a silver platter. And that you and your father mismanaged everything so badly you leveraged your company to the hilt. If you hadn’t been quite so greedy we would not be sitting here now.”

  She glared at him. “You’re a fine one to talk of greed. With all you have at your fingertips, you still couldn’t resist taking my company away, could you? Don’t be hypocritical with me, Alejandro.”

  Finally, this was territory he understood. He almost laughed in relief. How easy it was to shift the conversation onto things he knew, things that didn’t strip him bare and threaten to expose his soul to her gaze. “It’s business, Rebecca.”

  “And it’s personal,” she shot back. “You came after us and didn’t stop until you found a weakness.”

  For a moment he thought she was talking about what he’d done to put Layton International into jeopardy, but he realized she didn’t know. If she did, she’d probably launch herself at him the way his mother had tried to attack his father tonight.

  He almost told her. Almost explained that he owned the bank that had made the loans when no one else would, how he’d dangled the Thailand properties in front of their noses and waited for them to take the leap into debt in the first place. But something stopped him. Now wasn’t the time. He wanted to savor his revenge first, wanted to take her down even farther than he already had.

  Wanted her to need him, to beg for his touch the way she once had. She might have been lying about her love for him, but some of that physical need was real. He knew it now, knew it the second he’d turned and seen her on that couch. She’d remembered, the same as he had. Her jaw had gone slack, her eyes had glazed, and he’d known what she saw because he saw it too. It was why he’d had to get out.

  “It was business first,” he said coolly. “Layton International was no longer relevant. You need me to keep you viable in today’s marketplace.”

  “You?” She shifted forward on the seat, her eyes glittering with sudden anger. “What do you know about relevancy, Alejandro? Until a few years ago you were no one in this industry! What you know about this business could fill a thimble compared to what my father knew, what he taught me—”

  “Oh, yes,” he ground out. “Your precious father, who sent you to do his dirty work instead of facing me like a man. Spare me your analysis, Rebecca. I’m still the one in control of Layton International.”

  He thought she would say something else, would let her true colors show now that she’d pointed out his inferior past, but she drew in a shaky breath and fixed her gaze on a point outside the window. The car had been crawling forward for some time. Now, it drew to a halt in the Puerta del Sol. Alejandro swore. Women with placards marched and shouted, blocking the square that was the heart of Old Madrid. Protests were common here, and there was nothing to do but wait as the policía directed cars down the side streets.

  “I have a life. I’d like to get back to it,” Rebecca said after they’d sat in silence for nearly ten minutes. “So if you plan to fire me, why don’t you just get it over with and put us both out of our misery.”

  “Layton International is your life,” he said.

  She bristled. “I have an apartment, friends. I can’t stay here forever, wondering what your plans are.”

  He was in no mood to be delicate with her. “You don’t even have a pet fish, Rebecca. You have nothing in your life but work.”

  Her mouth dropped open as she looked at him. She snapped it shut. “How do you know I don’t have a cat or a dog? A boyfriend?”

  “I know that you eat Chinese takeout from a restaurant called Tai Pan on Friday nights when you are in town, that you buy flowers from a place called Robertson’s, and that you have a grocery store across the street from your apartment but rarely visit it.”

  His investigators had been very thorough, though they hadn’t been able to tell him everything. Like when she’d last spent the night with a man. He wanted to know, but he’d steadfastly refused to ask for that kind of information. It would show a level of interest in her life he no longer had. All he really needed to know was that she had no long-term entanglements.

  He watched as shock and hurt chased each other across her face. Now, why did the hurt pierce his conscience?

  “You had me watched?”

  He shrugged. “I am very thorough when taking over a company.”

  It was several moments before she spoke. “Oh, God, I can’t believe …” She clasped her arms around her waist, her chest rising and falling faster and faster. “You … spied … on me. You—”

  She bent double, air whistling in and out of her body as she took deep breaths.

  Alarm snaked across his nerve endings, prickled the hair on his arms and neck. Of all the things he’d expected her to say or do, this hadn’t crossed his mind as a possibility. “Querida, what is wrong?”

  She didn’t answer, just kept breathing hard. She was on the verge of hyperventilating and they were stuck
in the Puerta del Sol. Dios, he felt so helpless. Like the night Anya—

  No. He had to do something, now.

  “Rebecca, hold on,” he said, reaching for the door. “Just hold on.” He had to get help—had to get one of the policía to radio for an ambulance. He could call, but the police would be faster.

  “I have to get out of here,” she wheezed. “Have to … go.”

  Before he could stop her, she reached for the opposite door and slipped out into the churning crowd.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ALREADY she could breathe again. Rebecca hugged herself tighter and forged through the crowd. She’d forgotten her wrap, but she wasn’t going back. He’d had her watched. Investigated. Her privacy invaded. What else did he know? That she hadn’t had sex in a year and a half? That she’d kept on taking birth control pills in the pitiful belief she might someday find a man she could love the way she’d once loved him?

  It was pathetic. She was pathetic. She swiped at her cheeks, ignored the catcalls and whistles of the men she passed. She was vaguely familiar with the Puerta del Sol, but not enough to understand where it was in relation to anything else. She knew there was a department store on one side, El Corte Inglés, but that was in the direction of the protestors, who now congregated around the statue of a Spanish king on a horse. To one end of the square was a red neon Tio Pepe sign. Ahead, there was nothing but a steady trail of people who seemed un-involved in the protest. That was the direction she’d first headed, and the one she kept going in.

  She didn’t know where she was going or what she would do when she got there, but right now she couldn’t sit in that car with him and know he’d spied on her. An image of Parker Gaines—his smooth lies, the voice recorders he’d used to capture their conversations, the humiliating meeting with her father—flashed into her mind, and she thrust it out again with a growl.

  The cobblestone walk sloped upward, toward an archway in the medieval buildings. She kept walking, hoping it was similar to the place Alejandro had taken her years ago. If so, there were cafés, restaurants, places she could disappear and sit for a while, until she felt like returning to Alejandro’s villa.