The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride

The lovely Kinsella, Cristina thought dryly. ‘I was there,’ she said, then explained about the mix-up in names.

Gabriel shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘I was beginning to think he’d abducted you,’ he said gruffly. ‘I had this image of him bundling you into a sack and shoving you in the boot of his car, then driving off to some unknown location to have his evil way with you.’

‘Not very English of him, Gabriel,’ she mocked, though Luis had bundled her into bed pretty effectively, she allowed.

‘He does not look very English…just sounds it.’

He makes love in English, Cristina thought, then had to turn away before Gabriel could see the look in her eyes.

Too late, though. ‘You look like death, querida,’ he observed gruffly.

Feel it too, Cristina thought. ‘I need a shower,’ she said, and walked down the hall towards her allotted bedroom.

Gabriel followed. ‘You want to explain why you look like death?’

Not particularly, Cristina thought as she crossed the bedroom to open a drawer that held the bits of underwear she’d brought with her.

‘I spen

t the day visiting the banks,’ she told him, shifting to the wardrobe to rifle through the few items of clothing she had. Just two good dresses worthy of the kind of social events like the gala last night—both black. Vaasco had only allowed her to wear black.

‘Scott-Lee’s offer was not good enough?’

Her shoulders ached with the strain of trying to appear normal. ‘It was not the right one.’

‘As in…?’

As in I would be his willing mistress for the next fifty years even if he married another woman and had twenty children with her. But that was not what Luis wanted.

‘He wanted your body,’ Gabriel derived from her silence. ‘Since you spent the night with him, I conclude that he had your body?’

A strained laugh escaped past the lump in her throat.

‘I cannot believe that you were stupid enough to give him his reward before he’d handed over the money, Cristina,’ he muttered.

It was so like advice for a street hooker that she swung on him angrily. ‘Don’t speak to me like that, Gabriel!’

But he was angry too. ‘What did he do? Seduce you with a load of promises, take what he wanted, then throw you out on the street this morning?’

No, I sneaked away when he wasn’t looking, Cristina thought heavily. ‘Can we leave the lecture until after my shower, please?’ she requested.

‘Sure,’ Gabriel replied, and stormed out, leaving Cristina to wilt down onto the end of the bed, recalling how she had left Luis.

She’d pretended to be perfectly content to lie curled in his bed while he got dressed for a business meeting at his bank. She’d even smiled when he’d kissed her farewell and let that kiss cling enough to send him away with a rueful smile upon his face. The moment he’d left the suite she’d been out of that bed and racing for the shower.

Coward, she thought now. Weak little coward.

It was probably appropriate that she should have met Kinsella Lane

in the hotel lobby, wanting to come into the lift as she was leaving it. The blonde had taken one look at her and said, ‘Bitch,’ shocking a neatly dressed young man standing to one side of the lifts. When she’d tried to walk away Kinsella had grabbed her wrist and spat the kind of venom at her that was still turning her stomach. ‘Don’t kid yourself that I will stand back and let you take my lover away from me, because I won’t. It was my body he drowned in the night before you fell into bed with him, and it will be me he will return to London with.’

Odd how the truth had the power to hurt so much, Cristina thought now. Because Luis would be returning to London with Kinsella, and she—

She spied her suitcase, sitting at the bottom of the wardrobe, and on a sudden burst of urgency pulled it out and tossed it onto the bed. She did not want to think about what she would be doing when Luis returned to London. She did not want to think of anything other than packing her case and catching the first flight to Sao Paulo she could get a seat on, and to hell with—

The door swung open. Gabriel stood there. Big and lean and endearingly handsome, even with that look of contrition on his face. ‘I did not mean to insult you,’ he apologised gruffly.

‘I know that.’ And, strangely enough, she did. Gabriel had been her friend for too long for her to take any real offence because he gave it to her as he saw it.