The Spanish Consultant (Westerling)

She nodded and he spoke in rapid Spanish, selecting a number of dishes that he thought she’d enjoy.

‘This is a variety of olive grown in Seville,’ he told her, lifting an olive towards her soft mouth. ‘It’s called Manzanilla.’

She tasted it and smiled. ‘It’s delicious.’

‘And this is Chorizo—a spicy sausage.’

Katy nodded. ‘I’ve seen it in the supermarket at home.’

‘Not the same,’ Jago assured her with an exaggerated shudder. ‘This is fat and juicy, try it.’

She chewed slowly and he suppressed a groan as he watched her lips move. Food became unbearably erotic when Katy was involved.

‘You look great in that outfit,’ he said gruffly, helping himself to some food. ‘Libby knows what will suit you.’

‘She also knows that I never wear this sort of thing,’ Katy confessed, glancing down at herself with a rueful expression. ‘I feel…conspicuous. As if I’m shouting, “Look at Me,” at the top of my voice.’

‘Katy, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,’ he said dryly, ‘and the same goes for every man in this room. You could be wearing a bin bag and people would stare.’

She looked shaken by his compliment and he resisted the urge to yank her off the bar stool and carry her back to the hotel.

For a minute she didn’t reply and then she lifted her eyes to his and he saw the sadness there.

‘But sometimes people don’t see any further than the way I look.’ Her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear her.

‘It’s true that the human race has an uncomfortable tendency to judge on appearances,’ he agreed, forking another morsel into his mouth. ‘But being beautiful must surely work to your advantage.’

She shook her head. ‘Not always. Take being a doctor. To begin with, all anyone sees is my blonde hair and the fact that I’m so tall. That’s why I wear flat shoes—’

‘And glasses,’ he finished, and she nodded.

‘The glasses were Alex’s idea. He has this thing that women look more academic if they wear glasses, and I think he’s right. If I scrape my hair back, wear something sober and put on my glasses, people take me more seriously.’

Jago decided against confessing that he wanted to drag her into bed whatever she was wearing. He found her naïvety incredibly sweet.

‘Is that why you gave up modelling?’

‘Partly. It was so shallow. And incredibly boring.’ She pulled a face. ‘And I hated the falseness of it all—people just wanting to be seen with you because you were a model.’

Thinking about it, it didn’t surprise him that she’d given it up. He’d been out with enough models in his time to know that she was much too gentle and sweet to survive long in such a cut-throat profession.

Suddenly he found himself fascinated by every tiny detail of her life and he realised that they were talking about things they’d never talked about before. Eleven years ago their relationship had been based on a searing mutual attraction that had pretty much eclipsed all other aspects of their relationship. Which was why he’d been so hasty to believe her father. If he’d known more about her thoughts and feelings, he would have known that such an action would have been totally out of character.

‘So when did you decide on medical school?’

‘When Alex started talking about it.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘It sounded so exciting and my exam results were almost as good as his so I didn’t see why I couldn’t do it, too.’

‘But your father objected.’

Her face lost its colour and he felt his shoulders tense. Was she really so afraid of he

r father?

‘He had other plans for me.’

‘And he didn’t think that you should be allowed to decide your future for yourself?’

‘That isn’t the way my father works, as you should know by now. He’s very controlling.’