“Fine, I’m finished.” She blotted her mouth on her napkin and left a brilliant red lipstick stain. She shoved the napkin into her lap and assumed the commercial laundries must be adept at bleaching out a multitude of stains for the restaurant business.
She noticed a man approaching them before Santos did, and gave his left knee a squeeze to alert him. “Who’s this?”
“A reporter who covers bullfights.” Santos introduced her and then spoke to the man at length in Spanish.
Knowing the subject had to be Santos’s injury and recovery, Libby followed the jest of the fluid exchange of questions and answers. Santos smiled often and shrugged, as though the conversation were a friendly one rather than an incisive interview about his career. He brought it to a swift close, and the reporter nodded to her and walked away.
“What did he ask?” she inquired.
“He’d heard, or at least he said he’d heard, that I’d sustained a career-ending injury. I assured him that I haven’t. He also wanted to know who you were.”
“You introduced us.”
“A name isn’t enough for a reporter. To sell papers, they yank on every loose thread to search for a hint of scandal. I just tantalized him with your name.”
“Thank you, the last thing I need is to become involved in some sordid scandal when I look like the skank Barbie.”
Santos tried to muffle his deep laughter in his napkin and failed. “Did you play with Barbies when you were small?”
“I preferred a soccer ball, but Patricia loved them, and our mother sewed little outfits for her dolls. She had quite a collection.”
Santos leaned close and kissed her. “Let’s go home.”
By the time they arrived at the beach house, Libby was so anxious to shampoo the hairspray out of her hair she could barely stand it. “I have to shower until I look like myself again.”
Manuel helped Santos up the stairs and went down the back staircase leaving them alone in the hallway. Santos stopped at her door. “Come shower in my room.”
He had been so charming at lunch, she’d pushed Ana Santillan to the back of her mind, but now they were home, and the exotic model rolled right over her. The whole day had been so far from her normal routine, and it was no wonder she felt so conflicted. “I’d rather be by myself. I’ll see you later.”
He reached for the doorknob before she could open her door. “There’s one other thing I should tell you about Ana.”
Dreading it, she drew in a deep breath. “I’m not sure I want to hear it.”
“Did you notice her ring?”
“Who wouldn’t? It was huge.”
“My father left it to her in his will. He’d wanted to propose, but was too ill and didn’t want to leave her a widow. Had he been well, she would have been stepmother number four. My family is already a tangled mess without my sleeping with her. There’s nothing between us. Now come to my room.”
She remained by her door. “The ads had been planned for your father and her, hadn’t they?”
“He’d only told me he couldn’t do them and I should. He didn’t mention her, or how much he’d been paid for the campaign. I just fell into the ads unaware of what had been promised.”
Rather than criticize his late father, she followed him down the hall to his room. She did stay in the shower longer than usual, and by the time she’d dried her hair, Santos lay stretched out on his bed sound asleep. Even asleep he drew her close, and dressed in her lingerie, she curled up beside him. She matched her breathing to his, and slept just as soundly.
When Santos awoke, he found the dent left in Libby’s pillow, proof she’d taken her nap there, but he wanted her there now. He pressed his face into her pillow and found only the soft scent of his own soap, not a delicious hint of her. Annoyed she’d slipped away without waking him, he got up, took his crutches from the floor and made his way out on his balcony. He half expected her to be racing up and down in front of the house, but she was swimming, and Manuel stood on the beach keeping watch on her with his hands rested on his hips. Manuel could swim better than most fish, but Santos was certain he’d told her not to go in the water.
He watched until she walked out of the surf. She was wearing a black one-piece suit, the kind serious swimmers wore, rather than a tiny bikini, but she looked so damn hot he nearly drooled. He watched her shake out her hair, and could almost hear cameras clicking all up and down the beach. He wanted to be angry with her for disobeying him, but he ached so badly to have her again he couldn’t muster up a single bit of outrage.
Libby found him seated on the patio sipping what looked like lemonade. She took the seat by his side and waved to Manuel as he headed toward the garage. “I asked him to watch me, so you can’t complain I disregarded your wishes.”
Santos tilted his head to take in her gorgeous body in a long sweep. She’d wrapped a towel around her hips as a sarong, but even partially covered, her legs were firmly imprinted on his mind. “Do you hear me complaining?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming.”
“But you went swimming anyway.”
Julian appeared with a tall glass of lemonade on his tray. He placed it in front of her along with a small plate of sugar cookies.