The Vasquez Baby

Being with the horses calmed her slightly but still she couldn’t stop thinking about Raul and kept one eye on the drive, desperately hoping to hear the throaty roar of his car or the sound of the helicopter which would have announced his return.

Eventually she gave up watching and returned to the Beach House for a shower.

Still he didn’t appear and she picked up the phone, intending to call him, and then put it down again instantly, afraid of looking needy—afraid that in his current mood he’d think she was hassling him.

Wh

ere was he?

Had she driven him away for good this time?

Exhausted and miserable, she lay down on the bed and turned out the light. What was the point in waiting up for him when he so clearly didn’t want her company?

Having spent the day trying to work off his dangerous mood, Raul waited until dark to return to the Beach House, assuming that Faith would be asleep and he’d avoid another bout of female confrontation.

He spoke five languages fluently but never, ever would he understand women.

First she’d been angry with him and now she seemed to think he might need to talk about his feelings.

With an impatient frown, he threw his jacket down on the chair and poured himself a large drink.

Why was it that women thought that spilling their guts was a good thing?

As far as he was concerned it was a pointless exercise, designed to make everyone feel a thousand times worse. In his opinion, the secret of success lay in the ability to stifle and suppress any emotions that threatened one’s equilibrium.

And thanks to Faith’s persistent probing, his emotions were definitely threatening. She’d opened parts of his mind that he’d kept safely sealed for years.

His hand tightening around the glass, he swallowed the drink in one mouthful, ruthlessly pushing back against the thoughts that were closing in on him, cursing Faith for her desire to know him better.

She didn’t want to know that part of him, he thought grimly, depositing the empty glass on the table.

Intentionally or not, she was edging him closer to something that he’d avoided for his entire adult life. It loomed in front of him, a dark, deadly swarm of dirty, foul emotions from his past.

Suddenly his phone rang, cutting through the silence, and he gave a soft curse and reached for it, afraid that the sound would wake her.

‘It’s me.’ She stood in the doorway of the bedroom, her voice soft with sleep, the phone in her hand. ‘I’m the one ringing you.’

‘What for?’ Bracing himself for more confrontation, Raul felt every muscle in his body tense to snapping point. ‘Why are you ringing me at three in the morning?’

‘Because I was worried.’

He scanned her in a single sweep of his gaze. Her feet were bare, her cheeks were flushed from sleep and she wore a tiny, flimsy sheath of silk, apparently designed with the express intention of driving a man out of his mind.

Raul instantly forgot to be angry. In fact his mind emptied itself of everything except thoughts of sex. His body responded with electrifying force, his groin sending urgent signals to his fevered brain. In the grip of an arousal that bordered on the painful, he eyed the sofa.

Hot and fast. Right here. Right now.

On the verge of grabbing her and spreading her flat, he caught the look in her green eyes and saw something that stopped him.

Concern.

She really had been worried about him.

Trying to remember the last time that anyone had worried about him, Raul stifled his instinctive desire to flatten her underneath him, sensing with an unusual degree of insight that this would not be a good move.

On the other hand, not flattening her underneath him didn’t seem like a good move either.

‘Are you all right? You’re so, so tense. I can feel it from here.’ She was staring anxiously at his face and Raul realised that she had absolutely no idea that she was responsible for the rocketing levels of his tension.