A Spanish Vengeance

He wanted to take her in his arms, feel that beautiful body trembling with need against his own, kiss her until they both forgot what planet they were on, wanted it so much that he didn’t know how he managed to get himself out of that room.

But how could he talk rationally to her when they were in the throes of making love—which was what would happen if he stayed in the intimacy of the bedroom with her—naked and utterly desirable as she was?

Couldn’t be done.

On the secret silvery beach, just the two of them and all the time in the world, he could open his heart to her. They could disregard all that had happened in the past and plan for the future. A long and happy future together. If she’d have him, if she could fall in love with him all over again.

And if she was having any trouble in that direction he’d make it happen for her just as it had for him, he decided with a surge of fierce Spanish possessiveness before he turned his mind to more practical matters and stalked off to find Rosa to order a lavish picnic hamper.

A tender smile on her face, Lisa couldn’t move for quite some time. They were to spend the day together. Not like yesterday when he’d stalked around with a face like thunder, spending money on her as if it were an unpleasant but necessary duty. Not like the days that had gone before when they’d met only briefly at mealtimes, either. But together, really together, and loving too. Well, she was almost certain about that.

Almost.

With a guilty squawk, realising time was flying, she showered in his bathroom and scurried back to the bedroom to get into the clothes he’d so thoughtfully brought in here for her.

Gossamer fine underwear, just panties, no bra. Her face bloomed with frankly delicious lustful pleasure because the top he’d provided was definitely provocative—a fine cotton, much the same colour as her eyes, sleeveless, cut to reveal her shoulders with a sexy V neck and tiny buttons down the front. She could just imagine him undoing them, slowly, one by one.

Before those mind pictures could get the better of her she stepped into a floaty cream-coloured skirt and thrust the hem of the top under the narrow waistband, then used Diego’s comb to restore her hair to its normal sleek, beyond-shoulder-length waterfall.

She was nervous as a kitten faced with a bristling Alsatian, she admitted as she stepped into the strappy sandals that completed the outfit, frightened of what the future might bring.

What if Diego saw the future as the few weeks, or mere days even, before he had to get back to his busy working life? Nothing more than a stolen interlude of fabulous sex with a very willing woman? And then: goodbye, it’s been nice getting reacquainted, see you some time. Maybe.

She took a deep breath to calm herself down, told herself to stop being paranoid—she really meant something to him, didn’t she?

Of course she did!

To stop herself from dwelling senselessly on the worst case scenario, she decided to spend a few minutes before joining him for breakfast taking stock of his room in daylight.

Unlike the room she’d been given, it was almost austere, dominated by the huge bed. Highly polished floorboards, no softening colourful rugs. A cavernous wardrobe, heavily carved with what appeared to be exotic fruits and vine leaves, and a solitary desk set against the wall between two of the tall windows.

Gravitating towards it, she noted the angled lamp, the pens in a horn beaker, suggesting that when he was here he sometimes wrote letters or jotted down memos for his staff before retiring for the night.

A photograph in a plain silver frame. A handsome middle-aged couple. His parents? Running her fingers over the frame, Lisa wondered if she’d ever get to meet them and tried to block out the memory of his scathing, ‘There are women a man would be happy to introduce to his parents. Patently, you are not one of them.’

That had been before they had made love and found each other again. Things were very different now. Of course they were, she assured herself staunchly.

A smaller frame was half hidden behind the photograph of the smiling middle-aged couple. Curiously, Lisa slid it out into the light. And her heart literally stopped. Then crashed on. She would never forget that fascinatingly sensual face. The face of the woman she’d seen him with all those years ago. Feeling nauseous, she pushed it roughly back out of sight.

He wouldn’t still keep her photograph near his bedside if she’d been simply a young man’s fling, part of his wild oat sowing period, would he, part of a promiscuous past he would rather forget. She had to be someone really special to him. The knowledge left Lisa feeling cold and frightened. Had she got everything wrong? Was her heart to be broken all over again? And could she hope to survive it?

Had he married this vibrantly lovely creature? Was that why he kept her photograph beside that of his parents, part of a family group? Was he being unfaithful to his wife, treating her, Lisa, as nothing more than a piece of unfinished business?

He was used to cheating on women, wasn’t he, as she knew to her cost. She should have remembered that.

Her hand flew to her trembling mouth to smother a cry of pain, the suspicions crowding in, thick and fast. And why, in the name of all that was holy, hadn’t she thought to ask him, way back in London, if he was married?

She swung out of the room. It was an omission she was about to remedy. The last time, when faced by evidence of his perfidy, she had cut him brutally out of her life without telling him why.

This time it would be different.

CHAPTER NINE

CALM, at all costs she had to remain calm, Lisa repeated to herself as she trod the upper corridors of the ancient monastery, heading for the stone stairs that would take her down to the magnificent great hall.

There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation why that photograph was in Diego’s bedroom, though she couldn’t for the life of her think of one. But she loved him, didn’t she, even if he turned out to be the selfish bastard, ruthless and cru

el, that was being conjured up by all these unwanted suspicions.