The Latin Lover

But then Leah had got in first, asking him to release her from their deal and foiling his plans to dump her.

The lift bumped gently to a halt, and with a shudder it hit her. He hadn’t told her he loved her until she’d told him she was leaving him—again. So he’d upped the stakes, telling her the only thing he’d known would reach her, the only thing that would lure her back to him so that he could complete his plan for revenge.

Alejandro’s marriage proposal was a sham. Just as his love was clearly a sham. Surely his reaction to her confession as to why she’d left him was proof enough of that? He hadn’t been ready to hear her declaration of love. He’d been shocked senseless by it, his revulsion at the very concept apparent. So he was hardly in any position to declare his own.

Numb and shell-shocked, she stepped out into the lobby. She turned her head and caught her Spaniard standing there, his back to her, as he scanned the busy lobby, waiting impatiently as ever for her to arrive.

r />

No, she corrected herself, not her Spaniard. He had never really been her Spaniard. Only in her dreams. And those dreams had been proved to be just that. Dreams. Empty bubbles. Bubbles that had now been well and truly pricked.

And if happiness was better when you were coming from the depths of despair, then despair was ten times deeper when you were coming from the dizzy heights where she’d been such a short time ago. Such dizzy heights. Such a long, long way down.

Blindly she turned to go back the way she’d come. But the lift doors had closed behind her, the elevator gone. Another opened alongside, spilling its jovial passengers into the warm Caloundra evening.

In a panic to get away unseen, she dived in after them, punching the ‘close doors’ button for all it was worth.

Back in the apartment the last few things were thrown into her suitcase, organisation swept aside in her desire to get out of there as soon as she could. It was still early enough. She could be away and gone from Caloundra before nightfall. There had to be a flight to somewhere she could take. Anywhere would do. Anywhere that took her away from Alejandro…

The phone beside the bed rang. She stopped, the suitcase zipper only halfway around its track. If that was Alejandro, down in the lobby wondering where she was, then she still had time to get away. She ignored the ringing phone, snapped closed the bag and left the apartment, aiming for the stairwell rather than the lift without a second glance. She had never belonged here with him. Never.

It was just as well she’d discovered the truth now—before she’d gone with him, before she’d believed his lies. Because she’d wanted to believe them. With all her heart and all her soul. And Catalina, for all her faults, was right about one thing. It would have hurt her more than ever to arrive in Madrid and discover that Alejandro’s proposal had been nothing but a sham.

She was gone. The apartment was empty—of her, of her clothes, of her suitcase. Every last trace of her was gone.

And the roar that erupted from his lungs consumed every last place she’d been.

She couldn’t be gone.

Not now.

Not again!

She had left him not once but twice. Walked out on him for a second time. And for a second time the rage threatened to consume him, the fury that she could do this to him turning his blood to steam.

How could she do that to him now? After he’d told her he loved her. After he’d asked her to marry him. What kind of woman did that?

In a moment of clarity, a tiny glimmer of hope amongst the rage, he phoned Reception. Maybe he was wrong? Maybe he’d missed her and she was waiting for him downstairs? Maybe there was an explanation for her missing luggage? Only to be told that she’d taken a car to the airport ten minutes ago. His fury intensified, spreading like a cancer through his body, turning solid in his gut.

Somehow she’d eluded him. Somehow she’d avoided him. Clearly that had been her intention.

He strode out onto the terrace, his hands closing tight on the railing while the endless ocean rolled in below, crashing in waves upon the shore before sucking out again.

She’d done that. She’d come into his life like a wave, beauty and form in motion, before crashing over him, all energy and power and passion.

And then she’d left, sucking him dry.

Nobody walked out on Alejandro Rodriguez. Not business tycoons or CEOs or poker-faced politicians. And definitely not women. But Leah Mitchell had. Twice.

And he would not give her the opportunity to do it again.

CHAPTER TEN

THE sky over the Sunshine Coast Airport was clear and blue and went on for ever. Alejandro’s mood was dark and foul, and began and ended in the same black hole. His team sensed it, keeping their distance, keeping their voices low around him, as if not to provoke his wrath.

This short flight to Brisbane to connect with their international flight was an inconvenience he didn’t need. Catalina’s late arrival for the flight even more so. He wanted to be gone from this place and this country as soon as possible. Gone from the memories and the pain. Until the casino opened he would not have to return, and that would be at least eighteen months away. He would not miss it.

Finally a car pulled alongside the plane, and he watched his sister emerge, unhurried, the cabin attendant holding a stash of shopping bags and ushering her up the stairs. At last.