Spring Bride (Landon's Legacy 4)

Kyra stood staring after it, and then she began trudging along again. All right, then. She’d just keep walking. Maybe she’d get lucky. Maybe a police car would come along, or another taxi. She wouldn’t be stupid this time; she’d wait until they got to Caracas before she told the driver she had no—

Something, or someone, hissed at her from the darkness and a dark shape skittered past her toes. As it did, she heard the throaty roar of an engine. Without hesitating, Kyra raced into the middle of the road and jumped up and down.

“Stop,” she yelled.

Tires squealed against wet asphalt as the headlights picked her out. She danced back as the vehicle swerved, shot past her, spun crazily and finally came to a stop.

She stared at the car. It was low and long—a Jaguar, perhaps. Not that it mattered. What did matter was the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as the driver’s door opened.

No, she thought, please, no. Not again…

“Mother of us all,” Antonio snarled. He stormed toward her and clamped his hands on her shoulders. “What are you trying to do to me?”

Kyra’s chin tilted up a notch. “I had no idea it was you. In fact, had I known—”

“Am I fated for disaster at your hands?”

“Disaster at my hands?” Kyra tossed her wet hair from her eyes and glared at him. “I was not the one going a hundred miles an hour on a wet road, was I?”

“What are you doing here? Are you trying to kill me? Or will you be satisfied simply to drive me insane?”

“Isn’t it amazing?” Kyra wrenched free of his hands and folded her arms. “Men always think of themselves first!”

Antonio felt his fingers twitch. No court on earth would convict him, he thought grimly, and jammed his hands into his pockets.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “You were in a taxi. You should have been out of this area—out of my life—by now!”

Kyra shrugged. “I suppose.”

“You suppose?” His jaw tightened. “What does that mean, you ‘suppose’?”

She stared back at him. “It means,” she said, “that I need a ride into Caracas.”

“You need a ride into…” Antonio took a deep breath. “What happened to your taxi?” He looked around as if it might be hiding in the shadows. “Did it break down?”

“It left.”

“Left? What do you mean, left? Taxis don’t leave, for God’s sake!”

Kyra hesitated, but what was the point? It was night, it was raining, and she was too desperate to go on pretending. “They do when you haven’t any money to pay for them.”

Antonio cocked his head. “What are you talking about, woman?”

“My money was stolen,” she said bluntly, “I haven’t got a single bohvar.”

“You mean, the cabdriver…?”

“A man on a motorbike snatched my purse.”

“I don’t understand. When did this happen? Surely not before that fiasco outside my office?”

Kyra sighed “Look, I’ll answer all your questions—”

“You most certainly will!”

“But could we please continue this discussion inside your car?”

Please? Had Kyra Landon really said “please”? For the first time, Antonio took a good look at the creature standing before him.

If she’d looked like a half-drowned rat a while ago, then there were no words to describe her now. Her hair was plastered to her skull, water dripped from her chin and nose, and her skirt was splattered with mud.

It was a sight that should have brought a smile of satisfaction to his lips. Instead, he had to fight back the sudden, unreasoning desire to gather her into his arms and tell her that everything would be all right…

Hell, he thought. What insanity was this? He’d sooner comfort a piranha than this woman!

Irritably, Antonio wrenched open the door to the car.

“Well?” he demanded. “Are you going to get in and ruin the leather or are you hoping I’ll toss you a life jacket?”

Kyra stiffened. For just a moment, she’d almost thought she’d glimpsed a speck of human kindness in Antonio del Rey, which only showed how muddled you could get after a long, wretched day.

“Spoken like a true gentleman,” she said sweetly, and she flounced past him into the Jaguar.

CHAPTER FOUR

ACTUALLY, dripping all over the Jaguar’s leather seats sounded like a pretty good idea, but it turned out to be impossible. She’d hardly settled into the seat when Antonio reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief.

“Here,” he said brusquely, tossing it into her lap. “Dry yourself off.”

By the time she finished blotting the rain from her face, the handkerchief was soaked. What was protocol in this kind of situation? Did she hand this wet bit of linen back, or did she hang on to it? After a moment, she sighed, balled it into her fist, and sat back.

“Put your seat belt on.”

Her head swung toward Antonio. Dry your face, put on your seat belt…

“Certainly,” she said. “Anything else you’d like me to do?”

“Yes,” he said coldly. “Tell me where in Caracas I am to take you.”

Nowhere. There was nowhere to take her, not in this entire country. She had no money, no passport, no friends. She knew no one on this continent, in fact, except the stern-faced dictator seated beside her.

The thought sent a chill up her spine, and she gave a quick, inadvertent shudder.

“Are you cold?”

Kyra blinked. “What?”

Antonio shot her an impatient glance. “I thought I saw you shudder a moment ago.”

“Did I?” She forced a smile to her lips. “I hadn’t realized…”

“There is a jacket behind you. Put it on.”

“That’s not necessary.”

”Por Dios, must everything be an argument?” He took one hand from the wheel, reached behind him, and snatched up the jacket. “Put it on, please,” he snapped, dropping the garment in her lap.

Please? Who was he kidding? His tone made it clear that she had no real choice in the matter. Kyra’s mouth turned down as she slipped the jacket around her. It was soft and warm, and it smelled faintly—and pleasantly—of its owner.

Kyra fro

wned and sat up straighter.

“Your wish is my command, sir,” she said briskly.

If she’d meant to insult him, she hadn’t succeeded. He laughed and looked across at her.

“Keep thinking that way,” he said, “and we’ll get along very well.”

Kyra looked at him. “Has anyone ever told you you’re living in another century?”

A smile curved across his lips. “Ah,” he said softly, “a feminist.”

“Only you would think so.”

Antonio sighed. “You will be rid of me soon enough,” he said. “Where am I to drop you off in Caracas?”

Kyra shifted uneasily in her seat. Now was the time to tell him she wasn’t visiting friends as she’d let him believe, that the Empress had sailed without her.

But what then? Where could she ask him to take her? The thought of having to tell him that she didn’t know where to go or what to do was too embarrassing.

“Well?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s—it’s not far now,” she said. “I’ll tell you where when we get there.”

What would she say when they got into the heart of the city? Where could she ask him to let her off? More to the point, how had she gotten into such an awful mess? The Jaguar raced through the night as her brain proposed and discarded a hundred different ideas.

She’d set off on an adventure meant to turn her life in a new direction; instead, she was broke, reduced to taking commands from a South American dictator—or had she been right in the first place? Was he Spanish? It was impossible to tell from his name, that long, rolling mouthful of poetic syllables. It was impossible to tell from his looks, either. That thick, inky black hair, the chiseled features, the golden-toned skin might have been Old World or New.

But those eyes, those shockingly blue eyes. What were they? Gorgeous, that was for certain. He might have the heart and soul of a penny-ante tyrant but…

“I am still waiting, Kyra.”

She looked at him. “For what?”

“For an explanation of why you let me put you into a cab without admitting you could not pay for it.”

“I, ah, I…”

“You what?”

I didn’t want to owe you anything else, she thought, but she didn’t say it. If she didn’t come up with something clever soon, she was going to be in his debt again, she was going to have to ask him to lend her at least enough money to pay for a meal and a hotel room…