A Spanish Vengeance

Would Manuel be willing to drive her? There shouldn’t be too much difficulty about that, she decided sickly. Hadn’t Rosa insisted she leave? The Spanish woman might be disgusted by her but she would make sure her husband facilitated that sensible outcome, if only to see the back of her.

Her fingers shaky, she carefully slotted her passport and wallet into the zipped compartment where she would know where they were, and was beginning to shovel everything else back any old how when Diego walked in.

His beautiful face was grim. His wife had obviously been giving him a hard time. Serve him right! Lisa thought, trying to ignore the stab of pain that pierced her already mangled heart. She hadn’t wanted to set eyes on him again but now that she had she wasn’t going to let him see how devastatingly upset she was.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘What does it look like?’ Lisa muttered fiercely, wanting to strangle him. ‘And there’s no need to snap. It’s your fault if your wife’s been reading the riot act, so don’t take it out on me!’ She grabbed the packet of tissues and something rolled off the bed. ‘Rosa, in her wisdom, told me to leave so that’s what I’m doing. Eminently sensible under the circumstances, wouldn’t you say?’

Straightening abruptly after automatically stooping to retrieve the object that had dropped from the bed, Diego drew a sharp breath in through his teeth. Black brows meeting, he demanded, ‘Run that by me again. Why the hell should Rosa tell you to leave? By what right? And what wife? I don’t have a wife!’

He sent her a dark, exasperated glance and Lisa sank down on the bed and vented a huge sigh that seemed to come up from the soles of her feet.

So that was the way he was going to play it. Lying creep! With the patron saint of liars and deceivers on his side—or patron devil, more likely—he must have persuaded the hysterical Isabella to return to whence she had come, in double quick time. Made her believe there was no other woman holed up here with him, that he was here alone to commune with nature, or some such other unlikely story.

But she wasn’t that gullible. No way! ‘Right,’ she said through gritted teeth and shot to her feet. ‘Wait here,’ she growled and stalked out of the room, red flags of furious disgust flying on her cheeks as she headed for his rooms, hearing his firm footsteps following as he disregarded her instruction and came after her.

She’d wanted a few minutes on her own, away from the man she was tempted to do serious damage to. But at least this way she’d have to stay a few minutes less in this place.

Swooping into his bedroom, she homed in on the framed photograph and whipped round to face him. He towered over her, bemusement coupled with the irritation of a man reaching the end of his tether writ large on his too-handsome features.

‘This—’ Lisa stabbed a forefinger at the lovely smiling face ‘is the woman I saw you with in Marbella on that last evening. You were all over each other. Even Sophie said you were a real steamy couple!’

He was looming over her, his expression that of a man who had been hit over the head with a rock, but that didn’t fool her, not for a single instant. ‘And I found this—’ again a stab at the picture of the wronged Isabella ‘—this morning after you’d spent the night making love to me!’

When this hatefully necessary confrontation was over, she’d probably be stupid enough to cry herself to sleep every night for a year but right at this moment anger was fuelling her blistering attack.

‘I came looking for you to ask for an explanation of your obvious on-going relationship with her and there she was, having hysterics, and you were—were—’ Words almost failed her in her furious need to lash out at him, but she ploughed on raggedly, ‘Cuddling her and stroking her…’ Her voice rose to an anguished wail. ‘And Rosa told me that Isabella had exploded because she had found out you had another woman. And then Rosa told me to leave.’

Struggling to make sense of the disjointed statements that were issuing from that lushly desirable mouth was like wading through a thick fog and then emerging into bright sunlight. Diego’s mouth curved with immense inner satisfaction. She was behaving like a jealous virago. Bravo! It had to mean she cared for him!

With one hand he reached out to take Isabella’s portrait from her and became aware of something digging into the palm of the other. He opened his fist on the glitter of the hoop of tiny diamonds he’d seen her wearing on the night of her engagement party.

He dragged in a breath. It didn’t mean a thing. He held it out to her. Lisa, her face going bright scarlet, snatched it and felt awful. Ben had told her to keep it as a memento of their affection and what had she done? Carelessly dropped it into the messy and cavernous depths of her handbag!

Knowing Ben it wouldn’t be worth much materially, but it was worth a great deal as a token of friendship and abiding affection that had been in place for most of their lives.

Cursing herself for not taking proper care of it, she slipped it on her finger for safe-keeping and Diego, watching from suddenly narrowed eyes, told himself that her wearing another man’s ring didn’t mean anything, either. She was almost incandescent with rage and fierily beautiful with it and now that everything had slotted into place he couldn’t blame her.

As she made to stalk past him, out of the room and, presumably, given her assumptions, out of his life, Diego clamped both hands on her slight, stiffly held shoulders and swung her round to face him.

Inky-blue eyes dealt him a slaying glance and Diego grinned. Under the circumstances it probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do but he couldn’t help it. She was already bristling like a wild kitten and at any moment she would use her claws!

As a small hand rose to slap the grin off his face he captured it, slid an arm around her tiny waist and deftly deposited her on the bed, quickly joining her.

‘Will you stop mauling me?’ Her full lower lip jutted petulantly and the temper had gone out of her voice, replaced by grumpiness. Her breathing was short and rapid, Diego noted on a tidal wave of tenderness. And something else, he decided, as desire steamed in his blood. Was she, too, remembering what had happened for them last night in this bed? She looked fantastic. His fingers itched to undo those tiny buttons down the front of the sexy top she was wearing, to slide beneath that gauzy skirt, to claim her as his own for all time because he point-blank refused to spend the rest of his life without her…

‘Mauling you isn’t what I had in mind,’ he affirmed thickly and felt her shudder. He stopped there, hauling himself back to the present situation.

Briskly clearing his throat, he got back on track. ‘From your verbal assaults I think I’ve worked out what’s sent you up like a volcano.’ His eyes, as they rested on her defensively prickly profile, went soft with compassion. He ached to take her in his arms and make her believe he loved her, had never stopped, but he had to sort out this mess first.

‘Isabella—the girl you obviously saw me with in Marbella, the girl in the photograph—is my sister. That last night, when I’d asked to meet your friends, I’d planned to explain who I was and introduce you to the only member of my family who was in Spain at that time—my parents being on an extended visit to relatives in South America.’

Disconcerted by that statement, Lisa sneaked a sideways glance. He looked really sincere. But apparent sincerity was the stock-in-trade of the con artist, wasn’t it?

Huffing out a sharp breath, she returned her gaze to the uncontentious consideration of her feet. She wanted to believe him and sitting beside him on this bed wasn’t the best idea in the world.

‘Isabella and I met up in Marbella. She insisted on going with me when I chose the ring I intended to give you. And if you saw us and decided she was all over me, well, I guess you could have got that impression. Lisa—’ he cupped her chin and turned her to face him ‘—my sister has been a drama queen since the day of her birth, completely over the top! She was so excited that her adored brother had gone and fallen in love, was about to get engaged, and she was determined to celebrate every inch of the way.’