Thinking faster than she had ever thought in her life, Lucy muttered, ‘My knee…I fell when I was scrambling round the ruins this afternoon—’
‘And you said nothing?’ Joaquin broke in censoriously. ‘In this climate, any injury needs attention!’
Her scraped knee was duly inspected. Joaquin sprang out of bed, insisting that the cut ought to be bathed and treated with antiseptic. While he occupied himself at that praiseworthy endeavour, Lucy began breathing more normally again.
‘You’re so careless of your own well-being!’ Joaquin’s concern was liberally laced with exasperation. ‘Even a small wound can lead to a serious infection, and if it’s bled again, it hasn’t yet begun to heal.’
Lucy withstood the lecture, giddy relief seeping through her as she realised just how close she had come to having her fake identity exposed. Had Joaquin realised that he had been her first lover, he would have known that she could not be Cindy Paez. Joaquin affixed a plaster to the offending limb and surveyed her where she sat, head humbly bowed.
‘Under no circumstances will you enter the rainforest again,’ he decreed. Her taut mouth began to stretch into a helpless smile. She stole a glance up at him, irrepressible dimples indenting her cheeks.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You’re just so bossy. Were you born domineering or did you get that way growing up?’
Joaquin reached out and very slowly tipped her back across the tumbled bed. ‘The talent comes entirely naturally to me, querida,’ he countered with immense cool.
Lucy laughed; she couldn’t help it. Joaquin pinned her hands to the sheet in mock annoyance, his brilliant eyes intent on her animated face. The leap of instant awareness she experienced made her still. He smiled again, the indolent sensual smile of a male sure of his welcome, and bent his tousled dark head to kiss her.
Lucy turned over and reached out, only to discover that she was in bed alone.
Sitting up, she studied her surroundings in surprise. While she’d slept, Joaquin must have returned her to her own room. Discreet and sensible, she conceded, but she was uneasily aware that discretion had not been on his mind when he had first swept her off to bed. Suppressing a faint pang of anxiety, and refusing to acknowledge her disappointment at not waking up in his arms, Lucy got up.
As she showered, all she could think about was Joaquin. How could she have fallen so much in love in the space of a week? But then it had been a strange, intense and very eventful week, and Joaquin was really quite unique. As she donned a navy shift dress she was recalling her last memories of the previous night. It had still been dark the last time he had made love to her. His passionate urgency had set her on fire but burned her out. She had slept, and that must have been when he’d shifted her back to her own bed.
A yawn crept up on Lucy. But, tired as she was, she was determined to show up for the computer training which Dominga had mentioned. She didn’t want Joaquin to think that she would try to take advantage of their new intimacy. It was ironic, she thought ruefully. It wasn’t for her sister’s benefit alone that she was now keen to prove that she was neither lazy nor unreliable.
Hopeful of running into Joaquin, Lucy went downstairs in search of breakfast. However, a maid showed her into a grand and imposing dining room where she found herself eating in splendid isolation. The bubbly sense of happiness she was containing was entirely new to her. She didn’t want to examine how she was feeling too closely. She didn’t want to let other more threatening thoughts intrude. He doesn’t even know who you are, an unwelcome little voice whispered regardless at the back of her mind. In panic, she squashed the reminder and closed it out.
Dominga wasn’t quite quick enough to hide her surprise at Lucy’s arrival. Evidently the older woman had not expected her to show up for work again. She had definitely been seen with Joaquin in the courtyard the night before. How many of the staff suspected that she had spent the night in his bedroom? Lucy paled at those all too realistic concerns and hurriedly shelved them. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was painfully aware that she had broken every rule she had ever respected, but the intoxicating happiness which filled her whenever she thought about Joaquin was far more powerful.
A young male whizzkid arrived to give her the basic training she had been promised on the computer. But Lucy found it incredibly hard to concentrate. Should she have sought Joaquin out before breakfast? Or would that have seemed too pushy? Was she supposed to wait until he came looking for her?
Late morning, Joaquin finally put in an appearance by coming in to speak to his secretary. The instant he entered Lucy’s heartbeat speeded up. She almost rose from her seat before she recalled that they had an audience. Feeling bound to stay where she was and allow him to make the first move, she pinned her gaze to his tall powerful figure. His dark grey business suit was superbly tailored to his athletic frame but very formal. For perhaps the first time Lucy recognised who Joaquin Del Castillo was. He was a powerful and wealthy industrialist, light years distant from her in status, and finally facing that reality dismayed her.
But, just as quickly, Lucy recovered her confidence. She remembered Joaquin laughing with her the night before, hugging her close with the easy physical affection that was so natural to him and so powerfully appealing to her, and she lifted her head high again.
She waited for him to finish speaking to Dominga. The seconds passed, her tension steadily climbing. His bold bronzed profile looked remote and serious. She wanted to see his eyes. She was just desperate to meet his eyes. But it didn’t happen. A moment later Joaquin had strolled back out again without so much as a glance or nod in her direction.
Lucy sagged. He hadn’t seen her…of course, he hadn’t seen her! She was barely visible seated behind the computer monitor, she told herself ruefully. He might even think she was still in bed. He wouldn’t ignore her, would he? Could that be his idea of being discreet? Sort of super-super-discreet?
Tortured by such uncertainty, Lucy found that the lunch break seemed to be a long time in coming. But, as soon as it did arrive, Lucy headed straight up the corridor towards Joaquin’s office. However, several yards from the ajar door of his office, she realised Yolanda was back; the girl was shouting at the top of her voice. She paused, winced at the chilling timbre of Joaquin’s no doubt withering response.
Just as she was about to move on and abandon any attempts to see him, the door flew back on its hinges and Yolanda stalked out, slamming the door shut behind her again. Her stunning face was flushed and streaked with tears. ‘I might as well be a slave!’ she gasped on the back of a distraught sob. ‘Joaquin’s threatening to take my allowance away. Even my money is not my own. I feel so humiliated!’
‘Oh, Yolanda, please don’t get so upset…’ Without hesitation, Lucy closed a comforting arm round the weeping brunette’s waist, which was about as high she could comfortably reach. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t mean it—’
‘Then you don’t know my brother,’ the brunette whispered raggedly. ‘He says that it is his right to tell me how to live my life and that I have had too much freedom—’
‘Too much?’ Lucy was surprised, for on the face of it it didn’t seem to her that Joaquin’s sister had any freedom at all. Except perhaps in the matter of her fairly noticeable wardrobe.
‘Now I am to go nowhere without a chaperon,’ Yolanda shared with shuddering mortification. ‘At my age! I’ll be a laughing stock!’
As the brunette pinned her quivering lips together and turned away, Lucy’s heart went out to her. A chaperon? In this century? Lucy wasn’t surprised the other woman was distraught. Even allowing for cultural differences, Joaquin was treating his sister like a wayward child who had to be kept down and controlled. It was natural for Yolanda fight for independence.
Her brow furrowing on that straying thought, Lucy knocked on the door of Joaquin’s office. When there was no response, she went in. Joaquin was standing with his back to the door. Even his well-cut jacket couldn’t conceal the powe
rful tension etched into his broad shoulders. As she entered, he swung round, blazing anger in his shimmering green eyes.
Intimidated, Lucy stilled and watched his darkly handsome features freeze, his brilliant eyes narrow and shutter.
‘How may I help you?’ Joaquin drawled flatly.
That distant invitation, which carried not a shred of intimacy, made Lucy’s cheeks burn as if she had been guilty of some awful faux pas. ‘Maybe this isn’t the best moment to…well, er—’
‘Why wouldn’t it be the best moment?’ Joaquin enquired even more coolly.
Lucy worried at her lower lip, nervous perspiration dampening her skin. She was so tense her muscles ached. Suddenly her attempt to see him seemed like a dreadfully forward move and the ultimate in mistakes. ‘I know that you and Yolanda have just had a bit of an argument,’ she admitted awkwardly.
‘That is no concern of yours,’ Joaquin countered with chilling reserve.
‘Of course not, but…’ Lucy’s voice petered out; she honestly didn’t know what to say. This was not the passionate teasing male who had held her in his arms and made love to her only hours earlier.
The silence lay like a dead weight between them.
‘You thought sharing my bed last night gives you some special privileges?’ Joaquin enquired with smooth derision, an ebony brow slanting.
Every scrap of colour drained from Lucy’s face. That contemptuous question hit her squarely where it hurt. In the same moment she lost her naive faith in what she had believed they had shared and she was badly shaken. She felt her knees tremble, her tummy perform a sick somersault.
‘Well, possibly one special privilege,’ Lucy framed with strained dignity as she backed towards the door. ‘That you would have the good manners not to throw that in my face!’
Suddenly Joaquin unfroze and strode forward to intercept her. ‘Lucy…’ he grated.
She didn’t want to look at him, but she couldn’t stop looking at him. Shock was trammelling through her in stricken waves. A faint line of colour accentuated the taut slant of his superb cheekbones. His lean strong face was all angles and tension, a tiny muscle pulling at the corner of his sensual mouth. He had partially lifted one brown hand as though he intended to touch her, but he dropped it back to his side.
‘This situation is untenable,’ he murmured with harsh clarity. ‘Stop playing games, Lucy. Accept defeat, sign that agreement and go back to London.’
‘But I—’
‘Por Dios…I will not conduct an affair with you while my sister is under the same roof,’ Joaquin stated with distaste, his strong jawline squaring. ‘Last night was complete madness!’