Passionate Protection

For some reason his mouth compressed angrily at that statement, and with one of those quickly shifting moods she was coming to dread Jessica felt a frisson of awareness steal through her. He had discarded his jacket, and the breeze from the open windows flattened his shirt tautly to his body, moulding the muscled power of his torso. His shirt was open at the neck, the pale glimmer of the white fabric emphasising the darkness of his skin. A pulse beat steadily at the base of his throat, drawing her eyes, a curious sensual tension enveloping her. She moistened her lips and watched as he moved slowly towards her.

'Jessica…' He broke off as the sala door was suddenly thrust open and a tall young man with a shock of dark hair and a mobile mouth hurried in, coming to a standstill as he saw Jessica.

'Jorge!' Sebastian exclaimed in surprise. 'Dios! What are you doing here?'

Jorge! Jessica stared in disbelief at the newcomer. This was Sebastian's brother?

It was plain that he was slightly taken aback by Sebastian's attitude. He glanced uncertainly first at his brother and then at Jessica.

'I wanted to see you,' he said in a puzzled voice. 'I had no idea you were planning to come here. You never mentioned it when we spoke on the telephone.'

'Perhaps because I had no idea you were intending your stay with the Reajons to be of such a short duration. It was, I believe, to be for one month.'

Jessica felt sorry for the younger man as he flushed and looked uncomfortable. 'That is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, Sebastian. I…' He broke off and glanced hesitantly at Jessica, then turned to his brother, saying gallantly, 'But you have a guest—and a very beautiful one. Aren't you going to introduce me?'

To say that Sebastian looked stupefied was an overstatement, but there was a certain amount of shock as he registered the words. He too turned to look at Jessica, and she quailed beneath the message she read in his eyes.

'I thought Miss James was already known to you,' he said in icy tones. 'In fact to such an extent it is not so long ago that you were pleading with me to help you remove her from your life.' Jessica felt sorry for the young man when he flushed again, but it was obvious to her that Sebastian intended to spare her nothing.

'I am Isabel's cousin,' she explained to Jorge, ignoring Sebastian. 'There's been a slight misunderstanding and your brother mistook me for Isabel. When I learned what he had to say to her I decided not to enlighten him. For all her faults, Isabel is acutely sensitive…'

She didn't need to say any more. Jorge looked appalled, and turned horrified eyes on his brother. 'Sebastian, you said nothing about speaking personally to Isabel! We were agreed that a letter…'

'So we were, but then I had no idea that she intended to come and plead her case personally— or so I thought. Naturally my first priority was to protect you.'

'Another misconception on your part,' Jessica told him bitterly. 'Isabel… didn't tell me the full facts. She was terrified that you intended to go to England to see her. She is now engaged to someone else… and quite naturally…' She was beginning to flounder, not wanting to betray Isabel's stupidity and lack of moral fibre, but Sebastian, it seemed, had no such qual

ms.

'What you are saying is that your cousin lied to you.'

'Not deliberately,' Jessica hastened to defend Isabel. 'She simply wanted to make sure there would be no repercussions from her letter to Jorge—written when she was feeling extremely worried and almost desperate. She wanted me to tell Jorge that she fully accepted that their liaison was at an end.'

It wasn't quite the truth, but it would suffice.

'You knew I had mistaken you for her, why did you not tell me the truth then?' Sebastian demanded, watching her with narrowed eyes.

'Because I didn't want to expose Isabel to the same sort of insults I had been forced to endure myself,' Jessica told him coolly. 'Just as you wanted to protect your brother, I wanted to protect my cousin!'

'We will speak of this later,' he told her silkily. 'For now…'

'You naturally want to be alone with your brother,' Jessica supplied dryly, not adding that she was more than happy to leave them alone together.

Jorge's unexpected arrival had given her a bad shock. Whereas she ought to be experiencing relief and satisfaction that Sebastian now knew the truth, all she could think was that he might now send her back to England, and for some reason she didn't wait to analyse too carefully, she didn't want to go!

* * *

CHAPTER SIX

'Ah, there you are, I hope you will permit me to join you?'

Jessica glanced at Jorge's concerned face and smiled. She was sitting in her small courtyard, working on some of the designs, and enjoying the sunshine.

'Sebastian is working in his laboratory,' Jorge informed her, needlessly, since Sebastian himself had told her at breakfast that he could be found there should she want him. There had also been a look in his eyes that told her that there was still a reckoning to come, but that was something she was refusing to think about!

'I must apologise, for my… for my brother's behaviour,' Jorge managed at last, flushing a little. 'It is unforgivable that he should have involved you in this affair.' He bit his lip. 'He has given me the gist of what has happened between you, although why, feeling as he does, he has brought you here to the hacienda to work for him I do not know!'

He looked perplexed and unhappy, but Jessica didn't enlighten him. He might think Sebastian had told him the truth, but she knew differently.