Kept at the Argentine's Command

She gave him a more definite push. ‘Mr du Crozier.’

No response.

‘Alejandro!’

Thick sable lashes lifted and his eyes gleamed speculatively over her in the same way the headlights lit up the road ahead. He was looking at her as if she were naked, which was disconcerting enough, and Lulu had a sudden, completely outrageous thought that he hadn’t been sleeping at all.

‘We appear to be lost,’ she said unwillingly.

‘You don’t say?’

His voice was husky, but not with sleep. Lulu swallowed.

There was something very intimate about their proximity, as if the darkness outside and the quiet within had made the space between them somehow more personal.

Lulu licked her lips. ‘I don’t know where we are.’

‘Fortunate, isn’t it,’ he said in that low, taunting voice, ‘that I do?’

He undid his seatbelt and opened the car door.

‘I’m driving,’ he said unnecessarily.

Lulu released the breath she hadn’t known she was holding and, rather than stepping outside, scrambled nimbly over the gearbox and tucked her skirts around her in the passenger seat.

Alejandro took the wheel and swung the car back out onto the road.

‘How do you know?’ she demanded.

‘I saw the last sign. We’re just outside Inverness.’

Relief swamped her. Then she frowned. ‘But you were asleep.’

‘Let’s just say I’m not a heavy sleeper, querida,’ he responded with a glint in his eyes.

She knew it! Impossible man. But her heart was pounding a little, and she found herself watching him and waiting to see what he’d do next.

Alejandro had them on the motorway within ten short minutes. Lulu discovered she was feeling a little out of sorts now her adventure was over.

She tried to envisage the weekend ahead on her own, and it was so depressing that in her head she found herself shaping sentences she didn’t know if she had the guts to go through with, let alone ask.

I’m on my own this weekend…you’re on your own. I’m maid of honour…you’re best man. Doesn’t it make sense if we pair up? Maybe you could kiss me again?

And that was when a huge gust of wind buffeted the car and all the available light left in the sky dwindled to nothing and the rain came down.

Alejandro slowed them to a crawl, along with the two or three other vehicles on the road.

‘Kilantree…’ she read from the sign ahead under the spray of their headlights. ‘One mile. Is Kilantree near Dunlosie Castle?’ she asked.

‘Not near enough.’

To her surprise, Alejandro eased the car into the turn-off lane.

‘What are you doing?’

‘It’s dark, it’s raining, and I don’t know these roads. We won’t make Dunlosie tonight.’

‘What does that mean?’