Kept at the Argentine's Command

‘You don’t really know me,’ she said in a small voice.

No, he guessed he didn’t, and he knew he couldn’t make any false promises to her. The only way he could get to know her was to see her again—and that wasn’t going to happen after this weekend. He only did weekends. Besides, they’d agreed. One night.

But why? murmured a low, persuasive voice. Why not continue over this weekend? Hell, why not fly out to the Mediterranean with her? Forget the wedding.

He could imagine Lulu’s response.

It was part of the reason he was so attracted to her. Any other woman of his acquaintance would fall in with his plans without a squeak.

Lulu wouldn’t just squeak—she’d give him a lecture on the duties and etiquette of being best man.

So he kissed her gently and her lips clung a little, as if she were already afraid he was going to get up out of their bed and walk away.

Nothing short of an earthquake was going to drag him away from her tonight. He already knew he wasn’t going to be able to fly out on Monday and forget about her.

He also knew something else. He wanted to meet the guy who’d frightened her and knocked her confidence like this. Meet him in a back alley and take his balls off.

‘I do know you’re beautiful and giving, and when I’m playing in the Buenos Aires Cup next month I’m going to have a hard time concentrating on my game because I’ll still be thinking about you.’

It sounded like a line, and it had begun as one, but Alejandro recognised with an odd sense of having finally found something worth having that it was also true.

She smiled at him, and while she looked pleased he could see in the flicker behind those beautiful dark eyes that she’d got the message his words were supposed to convey.

Now he just needed to convince himself.

CHAPTER NINE

THE MORNING AFTER came too soon.

Last night her fears had hidden themselves away, but Lulu was well aware that the longer she lay there in that bed in broad daylight the more easily she’d begin to make them out.

They were all coming back, like crows gathering on a wire, waiting to rush in upon her in a frenzy of flapping wings and pecking beaks.

She knew her parents were going to be waiting for her. They’d take one look at Alejandro and then her mother would take him aside and spill all.

Lulu is special. Lulu needs looking after. Are you sure you’re the man for the job?

He’d take one look at the set-up and head in the other direction.

It had happened before. Julien Levolier—dance class, the summer she was almost eighteen. He’d been very keen, until the little ‘talk’ from her mother. At least he hadn’t just hopped on his Vespa and headed off to greener pastures, where the girls were lower maintenance and able to look after themselves. No, he’d taken the time to explain first that he didn’t want the hassle. She’d understood. Sort of.

She sat up and let herself appreciate Alejandro’s striking physical presence as he stood fully dressed by the window, his hair damp from the shower.

He wouldn’t want the hassle. Who would?

She remembered a book she’d once read, in which the hero, after his first night with the heroine, had strewn the bed in red rose petals as the heroine slept, and when she woke up he’d made love to her on those crushed petals.

That wasn’t this

.

They were virtual strangers and it had to stay that way.

As Lulu considered these facts all the bright, unexpected lights he’d lit inside her began to go out, one by one, until she was just anxiety-ridden Lulu again, naked and suddenly cold, with her options few and regimented.

It was time to pull herself together—and, really, she had to get out of this bed and wash and put on clothes.

Feeling a little shell-shocked, despite her best intentions, she slid out of bed, opting to pull the eiderdown around her, and waddled over to join him at the window.