Every inch of Rafael’s tall, lean, muscle-packed frame oozed sex—every hollow and plane of his dark face. Maggie’s eyes drifted from the full curve of his sensual upper lip to his hooded glittering gaze, and her level of anxiety went off the scale.

‘You’ve never had a one-night stand, have you?’

Maggie considered lying, but decided it was doubtful she could pull it off. ‘Not as such…’ she conceded reluctantly.

He leaned into her close, very close, but not touching. ‘But you came with me. What were you thinking of…?’

Kim Lawrence lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

Under The Spaniard’s Lock and Key

BY

Kim Lawrence

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

SUSAN Ward manoeuvred herself down the ramp into the kitchen, her daughter and husband protectively shadowing her progress.

Propping her crutches against the chair her husband pulled out, Susan lowered herself into her seat, ignoring her nearest and dearest as they hovered anxiously.

Maggie, watching the procedure apprehensively, released a relieved sigh when her mum was safely seated. ‘You’re getting pretty good on those things, Mum,’ she observed, privately concerned that she was also far too ambitious. It was lucky her dad was now retired from his job on the oil rigs so was around to keep an eye on things when she wasn’t.

It had been three months since the experimental surgery, but to see her mum, who had been confined to a wheelchair for the last eighteen years, on her feet even for short periods still gave Maggie a thrill.

And now, if things went according to plan, in a couple of months she would no longer need the chair or even the crutches.

Susan dismissed the comment and turned her frowning regard on her daughter, who took a seat opposite. ‘Never mind that, how are you feeling? Really feeling,’ she added, holding up her hand in anticipation of her daughter’s reply. ‘She looks exhausted, doesn’t she, John?’ She appealed to her husband for support.

John Ward’s warm glance swept his daughter’s pale face, touching the warm dark ebony curls that clustered around her heart-shaped face. ‘She looks beautiful.’

Oh, well, Maggie reflected, at least I have got one fan even if he is my dad. ‘Thank you, though according to you I was beautiful when I was twenty pounds too heavy, had teenage acne and braces,’ she reminded him.

‘Don’t change the subject, Maggie,’ her mother said sternly.

‘I told you, I’m fine, Mum,’ she replied, pasting a determinedly cheerful smile on her face to illustrate the level of her fineness.

She had perfected the ‘I’m fine’ smile a long time ago, because no matter how bad her day had been Maggie had always been pretty sure growing up that her mum’s had been worse.

This conviction dated from the day when her dad had returned home from the hospital with her baby brother and no Mum—she had been four at the time.

Her other brother Ben, at the noisy toddler stage, had run around the room while John Ward sat with baby Sam in his arms and explained to Maggie that Mum would not be coming home yet and when she did Maggie would have to be a big girl and help her because Mum was not well.

Maggie had only vaguely understood the explanation of what was wrong with her mother, but she had known it was bad because her big strong dad didn’t cry.

The tears had scared her and made her feel sick inside. She had begged him to stop crying, and promised that if he did she would never ever be a bad girl.

Of course she had not been able to keep that promise, but the determination that had been born that day to protect her mum and stop her dad crying had never left her.

Compared with what her mum had coped with, a broken engagement and a cancelled wedding faded into insignificance.

‘Seriously, I am fine,’ Maggie promised in response to the sceptical looks directed her way as she anchored her heavy dark hair at the nape of her neck with one hand and accepted the mug of coffee her father passed her. ‘I’m just sorry about messing everyone about this way,’ she added, her brow furrowing as she tried to calculate how much her parents had already laid out on the wedding.

It was easier to address the practicalities of the situation than think about what an idiot she had been. ‘All that money,’ she fretted.

‘Forget the money,’ her father said firmly. ‘That’s not important—’ He broke off mid sentence as the door opened to let in a cold gust of air and two young men in muddy rugby kit.

They ignored their sister, grunted in the direction of their father and mother before heading for the fridge.

‘Glass, Sam,’ Susan said out of habit as her younger son raised a carton of milk to his lips.

He lowered the carton and said, ‘We lost, if anyone’s interested.’

His older and slightly more intuitive brother nudged him with his elbow and removed the pad he was holding to his own cut lip. ‘They’re not interested, Sam. So what’s up, guys?’

Maggie got to her feet. Telling her parents had been bad enough—they at least, bless them, had not asked any awkward questions even though she knew they were dying to. She could not, however, rely on her brothers to be similarly restrained. ‘Nothing. That lip could do with a stitch,’ she added, casting an expert eye over her brother’s mouth.

Ben rolled his eyes and, taking the carton from his brother, took a swig of milk before subjecting his sister to an equally critical narrow eyed stare. ‘Sure. You always look like death warmed up.’

‘I’ve just worked a ten-night stretch in a busy casualty department,’ Maggie reminded him.

‘So?’ Ben retorted, looking unimpressed. ‘Nothing new there—you always work crazy hours. You have to be certifiably insane to be a nurse.’

‘Thanks.’ Maggie’s mouth twisted into a grim little smile.

Simon had called her the perfect nurse. The recollection sent her stomach muscles into tight unpleasant spasm, though, to be totally accurate, apparently Simon had been quoting his mother, the possessive Mrs Greer, whom Maggie had found to be manipulative and very overprotective of her only child, when he said this.

She resisted the temptation to cover her ears as snippets of that conversation drifted through her mind.

‘Obviously you won’t work when we are married. You can help out with my constituency work, and the social engagements.’

‘I like my work,’ she had replied, wondering how Simon would take the news she had no intention of giving up work.

‘Of course you do, darling. Mother has always said you are the perfect nurse and when she moves in—’

Maggie had been unable to hide her horror. ‘Your mother is going to live with us?’

Simon had looked annoyed by the interruption, giving a thin lipped smile. ‘Of course.’

He had made it sound as if it were a done deal, and why not? she thought with a grimace of self-disgust. She had always gone along meekly with what he said.

‘Did you get any injuries from the train derailment I saw on the telly, Mags?’

Maggie dragged her wandering thoughts back to the present and responded to the ghoulish enquiry from Sam with an absent nod of her head.

‘That explains why she looks so wrecked,’ Sam observed.

Ben shook his head. ‘No, it’s not work…’ His eyes widened. ‘Are you pregnant?’

The colour flew to Maggie’s cheeks, and Susan Ward looked uncomfortable, making it obvious that this had been her first thought too.

‘Ben!’ his father warned.

‘No, it’s OK, Dad,’ Maggie said, placing her hand on her dad’s shoulder. ‘It’s not a secret.’ She took a deep breath. ‘If you must know the wedding is off.’

Sam closed the fridge with his elbow and let out a silent whistle. ‘So no more slimy Simon!’

‘Simon is not…’ Maggie stopped. Actually he was. She suddenly felt pretty stupid that her little brother had recognised the characteristic and she hadn’t.

She had wasted four years of her life on Simon, which might have been acceptable if she had been desperately in love with him, but Maggie now knew she hadn’t been.

Maybe she was one of those people that couldn’t fall in love? A depressing thought but a definite possibility; she had certainly never experienced the sort of blind, intense passion her friends spoke of.

‘Do you have to send back the presents? There’s a coffee maker that’s much better than the one we have—’

Sam’s brother cut across him. ‘Did he dump you? Or…God, had he been cheating on you?’ The idea drew a chortle of laughter from his brother. ‘I didn’t think he had it in him.’

‘Simon did not sleep with anyone.’ Not even with me, Maggie thought, swallowing the bubble of hysteria in her throat.

‘Well, what did he do, then?’

Maggie’s eyes fell as she hesitated. For the first time in her life she felt awkward bringing up the topic of her adoption.

She had never had any hang-ups at all about being adopted, no yearning secret or otherwise to find her natural mother—it had never even occurred to her that Simon had any concerns.

Though concern was clearly an understatement considering the lengths he had gone to to trace her birth mother. Thinking ahead, he had called it; anticipating future problems, he had explained with a self-congratulatory smile.

Maggie closed her eyes and could hear him calling her birth mother’s identity ‘a potential skeleton-jumping-out-of-the-cupboard situation’ before going on to explain in the same pompous manner that a politician in his position—one with a future—could not be too careful.

‘He had a problem with…’ She looked at the expectant faces and hesitated again.

Mum and Dad had told her years ago that they would understand if she wanted to contact her birth mother, but Maggie had never believed they could be as all right with the idea as they appeared.

Maggie, who had always been keenly conscious of the crazy guilt thing Mum had about not being able to do the things with her children that able-bodied mums took for granted, had no intention of searching out a mother who was able to enter the mums’ race on sports day.

To her mind even thinking about her birth mother felt like a betrayal of the parents who had loved and cared for her, and why contact a stranger who had given her away and risk rejection for a second time?

Would they believe that Simon had made the unilateral decision to search for her birth mother? Or would they think that she had decided they were not enough family for her? Maggie decided there was no point taking a risk.

‘It was a lot of little things. We simply decided that we didn’t suit. It was all very amicable,’ she lied, absently touching the bruised area on her wrist.

‘Maggie will talk about it when she’s good and ready and you two,’ John Ward said sternly, ‘have all the sensitivity of a pair of bricks. Your poor sister—’

‘Had a lucky escape,’ Ben interrupted. ‘And don’t look at me like that—I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking. Sorry, Maggie, but it’s true.’

Susan broke the awkward silence that followed this pronouncement.

‘What you need is a holiday.’

Maggie laughed. ‘You think I should go on the honeymoon cruise?’

Maggie had no desire to go on the cruise that had been a cause of friction. Though Simon had reluctantly agreed that it might not be proper to take his mother on their Mediterranean honeymoon, he had assured her that next time of course she would go with them; Mother apparently loved cruises.

He hadn’t asked Maggie if she enjoyed them.

‘Oh, goodness, no, there’d be too many middle-aged people on a cruise,’ Susan exclaimed, adding, ‘Where did I put those brochures you brought home the other day, John? I think they’re on the piano stool. Go get them, Ben.’

‘Mum, I can’t go on holiday. There’s so much to do. I need to cancel the—’

‘Your father and I will do that.’

John nodded. ‘Of course, and you might as well say yes, Maggie, because your mum will wear you down eventually. She always does,’ he added, dropping a kiss on the top of his wife’s fair head.

He wasn’t wrong. By the time the weekend was over Maggie found she had booked herself on a European coach tour.

Her mum had mixed feelings about her choice.

‘But, Maggie, there will be nobody under forty on a coach tour.’

‘Mum, I’m not looking for romance.’

‘What about fun?’

It was a question that Maggie considered on more than one occasion over the next few weeks.

Maybe, she mused, she ought to put sensible on hold and try spontaneous, though not as spontaneous as her friend Millie had suggested when she heard the news of the broken engagement. Fun was one thing but, as she told Millie, the idea of a casual fling with a stranger did not appeal to her.

She had responded with a mystified shake of her head to Millie’s suggestion that she might not have met the right stranger yet.

What Millie didn’t get was that she simply wasn’t a very sexual person.

CHAPTER TWO

RAFAEL worked his way across the room crowded with members of two of the most ancient and powerful families in Spain, brought together to celebrate the baptism of the twin boys who were the result of the marriage that had joined the two dynasties.

His cousin Alfonso, a frown on his face, approached.

Rafael arched a dark brow. ‘A problem?’

‘I’ve just been speaking with the manager, Rafe.’

Rafael nodded encouragingly.

His cousin shook his head and said quietly. ‘I can’t let you pay for this, Rafael.’

‘You don’t think I’m good for it?’

His cousin laughed. The extent of Rafael’s fortune was something that was debated in financial pages and gossip columns alike, but even the most conservative estimates involved a number of noughts that Alfonso, who was not a poor man himself, struggled to get his head around.

Like all the Castenadas family members present, Alfonso was old money, though like many of the old families, including his wife’s, the Castenadas family were not the power they once had been.

Except Rafael, the family maverick whose massive fortune was not down to inherited wealth.

When Rafael’s father died in a sailing accident he did leave his son an ancestral pile and several thousands of acres, but the land that hadn’t been sold off had been mortgaged to the hilt and the ancestral pile had been sadly neglected.

The estancia had needed a massive investment of, not just cash, but enthusiasm and expertise to bring it into the twenty-first century.

Rafael had both.

In the last year Rafael-Luis Castenadas had added a newspaper and a hotel chain to his already wide-ranging holdings. It was a long way from the disgrace Alfonso’s uncle had always predicted his son would bring to the family name.

‘If he was still with us Uncle Felipe would have been proud of all you’ve achieved.’

Rafael raised a dark slanted brow to a satirical angle. ‘You think so?’

Alfonso looked surprised by the question. ‘Of course!’

Rafael shrugged, recalling his father describing his career choice as a ‘passing phase.’

‘All things are, I suppose possible.’ All things except his ability to please his father, Rafael mused, unable to recall the exact moment he had realised this, but able to recall the sense of release he had got when he’d finally stopped trying.

Following this revelation there had been a short interval when out of sheer perversity he had adopted a lifestyle guaranteed to embarrass his father.

He had rapidly outgrown the rebellion, but he was still paying the price for this youthful self-indulgence, those early colourful bad-boy antics had attracted the attention of the press at the time, and Rafael had never totally shaken that youthful reputation or the interest of the media.

‘But surely…’ Alfonso protested.

Rafael’s lips curved into a sardonic smile.

‘My father was an elitist snob—being a Castenadas was his religion.’ How anyone could think an accident of birth made him somehow better than his fellow man had always seemed bizarre to Rafael.

The lack of emotion in the dry delivery, as much as the sentiment, made his cousin stare.

Reading the shock and disapproval Alfonso struggled to hide reminded Rafael that, though he had always got on well with his cousin, who was the epitome of a decent guy, when it came to family pride they were not reading from the same page.

‘You will allow me to give my godsons this gift.’

Responding to the charm in Rafael’s smile—very few did not—Alfonso grinned back. ‘Gift? What were the cases of vintage wine?’

Rafael’s arm moved in a dismissive gesture. ‘Wine is a good investment and I managed to locate some rare vintages.’

‘I’ll say, and I’m grateful on the boys’ behalf but that’s not the point, Rafael.’

‘The point is I wish to do this for my godsons. They are, after all, my heirs.’

Alfonso laughed. ‘I won’t raise their hopes. You’re thirty-two, Rafael—I think you might manage an heir or two of your own,’ he observed drily.

‘I have no interest in marriage.’ Why perpetuate a flawed formula?

He was surrounded by failed marriages, unhappy marriages and expensive divorces. If marriage were a horse it would have been put down years ago on compassionate grounds, but it was a product of wishful thinking and people, it seemed, needed dreams.

Rafael was content with reality.

He rarely had a relationship that lasted more than a couple of months, which was as a rule about the time when he started hearing ‘we’ a lot. It was also generally around this time he began to find the qualities that had first attracted him to a woman irritating.

He was not waiting to find his soulmate.

‘I will leave the domestic bliss to you and Angelina. I do not buy a restaurant if I want a meal and I do not intend to take a wife in order to have sex.’

Alfonso winced and said, ‘Nice analogy.’

‘I do not have a reputation for niceness,’ Rafael reminded him. He did, however, have a reputation for being utterly ruthless and single-minded when he pursued a goal. It was debated whether it was this ruthlessness, his sharp analytical mind or a combination of the two that accounted for his success.

Rafael, not given to introspection, had never attempted to analyse the formula; he did what he did because he liked the challenge—when he stopped enjoying it he would walk away.

An hour later all was still going smoothly—so far, at least. In the days when he’d had to attend every last family event, Rafael had seen far too many that had gone sour to rule out the possibility totally.

It might at least liven the proceedings, he mused, and almost immediately felt ashamed of the selfish sentiment. This day meant a great deal to the proud parents so for their sake he hoped the day stayed boring.

With luck he would not be obliged to see his family until next Christmas.

He put down the drink he had been nursing since he arrived, glanced at his watch and wondered when he could leave without causing offence.

‘Have I thanked you for all this?’

He turned at the sound of the voice behind him, the hard light of cynicism that made several of his relatives uncomfortable absent from his eyes as he smiled at Angelina.

It was hard not to smile, not just because his cousin’s wife was a beautiful woman—it was more than that. Angelina was the most genuine person he had ever met, she had a warmth that made people around her feel good.

A tall woman, and one blessed with symmetrical features set in a perfectly oval face, a slim, elegant figure and an aura of serenity, his cousin’s wife was probably many men’s idea of a perfect woman.

Rafael had wondered more than once why he wasn’t attracted to her in a sexual way, but he never had been.

‘Alfonso has already thanked me.’

She watched the uncomfortable look cross his face and gave him a hug. ‘Why do you hate people to know you can be nice?’ she wondered.

‘I am not nice. I always have an ulterior motive—ask anyone.’

‘Yes, you’re totally selfish. I can see how much you’re enjoying yourself.’ She angled a quizzical look at his dark face. ‘Wondering when to make your escape?’

There was an answering smile in Rafael’s eyes as he asked, ‘Should I mention you have baby vomit on your shoulder?’

Angelina carried on smiling, displaying a perfect set of white teeth as the dimple in her chin deepened. ‘No, Rafael, you should not.’

The first time he had seen Angelina and Alfonso together it had been obvious even to a cynic like him that they were crazy about each other, and as far as he could see the honeymoon was still on.

Ten years down the line, who knew?

‘Motherhood suits you.’ He saw the flicker cross her face and knew he had inadvertently dredged up a memory.

‘Thank you, Rafael. The twins, it’s hard not to think about…It was all so different this time.’

Rafael had no trouble interpreting the disjointed sentence. He watched her swallow and wished he had kept his mouth shut.

He saw her lips quiver and hoped she was not going to start crying. He put a lid on his empathy, a sympathetic word or gesture now would no doubt open the floodgates and he had a major dislike of female tears. ‘Why think about it?’ he said brusquely.

Rafael’s philosophy was if you made a mistake you lived with it. Beating yourself up over it was to his way of thinking a pointless exercise, and an indulgence.

‘You’re right.’

‘If only more people realised that.’

Generally appreciative of his ironic sense of humour, Angelina did not smile.

Her shadowed eyes were trained on the far end of the vaulted hall where her husband, a son balanced expertly on each arm, paused to allow admiring relations to kiss the cherubic cheeks.

‘He is such a good father.’

‘And you are a good mother, Angelina.’

She shook her head. ‘It makes me think…did I do…?’ She lifted her troubled brown eyes to Rafael. ‘Was it the right thing?’

Rafael had no doubt. ‘You did the right thing.’

Rafael had strong feelings about advice: he never requested it and he never gave it.

It was a sound position, it was just a pity that he had forgotten and made an exception for Angelina.

‘But I hate lying…’

‘Confessing might have made you feel better, but what would it have achieved other than—?’

‘Make Alfonso call off the wedding. He would never risk a scandal.’

‘Maybe,’ Rafael lied. In his mind there was no maybe.

He actually had no doubt at all what the outcome would have been had Angelina found Alfonso and not himself at home the day she had arrived at his cousin’s city apartment to confess all.

Would Alfonso have felt sympathy for Angelina, forced to give birth at sixteen to her married lover’s child? Yes.

Would he have married her after she had confessed? No.

‘You did the right thing, Angelina. Why should you suffer now for a mistake you made when you were little more than a child? You were the victim then—is it fair you be the victim now? Everyone makes mistakes…’

‘Alfonso doesn’t,’ she said wistfully.

Rafael might have said that Alfonso wasn’t perfect, but he knew it would be a waste of breath. To his wife he was.

‘It doesn’t seem right I’m this happy. I wonder if she’s happy, my little girl. I wonder sometimes…’

‘Better not to,’ Rafael advised tersely. ‘Why think about what you can’t have?’ He had wasted many nights wanting his mother back, but he was no longer ten and he knew better.

CHAPTER THREE

MAGGIE WANDERED THROUGH the winding streets just soaking up the atmosphere. She had a whole afternoon to do her own thing before she needed to be back at the hotel for what the tour guide had enthusiastically described as an ‘authentic paella experience.’

Attendance was optional but he’d told her it was highly recommended.

Having paused for a glass of wine at a pavement café, she pulled the map from her shoulder bag. The tour guide had declared the street market a must for any visitor to the city in search of authentic Spain and, according to her map, it was really close.

Half an hour later and totally lost in a maze of alleys Maggie decided to admit defeat. With the clock ticking and the tour guide’s instruction to be back at the hotel by seven if she planned to join the group for dinner, she finally decided to head straight for the cathedral.

Maggie was just beginning to think that she would miss out on seeing that too when she spotted the distinctive spire of the cathedral directly ahead.

Standing on the pavement, sweat trickling down her back—the day had been hot; the evening was sultry without a breath of breeze to offer relief—she waited for a lull in the steady stream of traffic. It quickly became clear there was none. Not that this seemed to bother other people, who just stepped confidently into the road weaving their way through the traffic to an accompaniment of horns, yells from drivers and rude gestures to the opposite side of the congested road.

Before she could think better of the idea she stepped out.

The security outside the hotel was tight; the media had been kept away, only a couple of approved photographers had been permitted access, though unfortunately Rafael’s departure coincided with their arrival.

‘Since when were you camera shy, Rafael? I’d heard you are very photogenic. I think your face and reputation keep half the scandal rags in business.’

Rafael reacted to his elderly uncle’s cackle of laughter with a sardonic smile.

‘I suppose I was slightly naive to think that my family at least would give me the benefit of the doubt.’ Rafael liked women, he liked sex, but if he had bedded as many beautiful women as the press liked to suggest he doubted he would have the strength to get out of bed.

‘You were never naive, Rafael—not even when you were a baby like those two…I remember your baptism like it was yesterday,’ his uncle reminisced. ‘You bawled your head off all through and your father kept saying, “Elena, do something,” and she did, though I doubt if Felipe had an affair in mind.’ He angled a look that held more curiosity than apology at his tall great-nephew’s face as he added, ‘No offence intended.’

The muscles along Rafael’s strong jaw tightened, but his expression did not change as he promised, ‘None taken.’

‘Her mistake was confessing. Honesty is not the best policy, especially when dealing with people like your father. How old were you when he…?’

‘Threw her out? Ten.’

Old enough to feel angry and betrayed. An image flashed into his head and he felt nothing as he watched his ten-year-old self begging his mother to take him with her and shouting when she tearfully sobbed she couldn’t.

‘It was a tragedy she died so young.’

Before he ever had a chance to retract the things he had yelled at her as she left.

Not insensible to the sensitivity of the subject, Fernando slid a glance at Rafael’s stony profile before observing, ‘There are worse things in life than being considered a sex god.’

‘A hard reputation to live up to.’

The comment drew a laugh from the older man. ‘Modesty,’ he mocked. ‘That’s not like you, Rafael.’

‘You think I need a lesson in humility?’ Meekness was to his mind an overrated virtue, he had never turned the other cheek in his life and he wasn’t about to start any time soon. In his world displaying any weakness was fatal.

‘You care what I think?’ Fernando stopped dead, his attention straying across the road. ‘Now that is what I call a remarkably good-looking woman…she reminds me of someone…Rafael…?’

It was not hard to identify the object of his relative’s admiration. She stood poised uncertainly on the edge of the pavement watching for a gap in the heavy traffic that moved through the congested street.

A little above medium height, she had a natural poise and elegance that made her stand out from the crowd even wearing standard-issue faded denims and a loose cotton tee shirt that hinted at the lush curves of her breasts, the natural attribute he suspected had first drawn his reprobate great uncle’s attention.

As his glance moved upwards to her face she stepped backwards as a scooter mounted the pavement. As she lifted a hand to throw the ponytail that had flopped forward over her shoulder her head turned and he saw her face for the first time.

The breath left his body as Rafael froze, feeling as if someone had just landed a punch in his solar plexus.

‘Over there…I think she’s trying to cross the road. You see her?’

‘I see her.’

‘Now that is what this party lacked—a few pretty faces to look at.’

‘Not pretty,’ Rafael contradicted.

His elderly relative looked outraged. ‘Not pretty? What is wrong with you? Don’t tell me you like your women like sticks. A woman should be soft and—’

‘Beautiful,’ Rafael corrected, cutting across his great-uncle’s list of womanly attributes.

As his brain emerged from its temporary paralysis his eyes remained trained on the slim figure, but it was not the brunette’s face or her indisputably womanly figure that held his stunned gaze.

He glanced briefly at his great-uncle, who played the forgetful old man card when it suited him but was anything but; the last thing Rafael needed at this moment was Fernando to realise why the girl looked familiar to him.

He was surprised he hadn’t already.

The sooner he got him safely away from this potentially explosive scene, the better.

Rafael dragged his eyes off the brunette. Still aware of her in the periphery of his vision, and aware he was not the only one aware of her—this was a woman accustomed to male attention—he offered his great-uncle a supportive arm, nodding to the driver who held the door open as Fernando took his place in the car.

The car moved off and Rafael was able to focus all his attention on the brunette.

She was obviously heading for the hotel. If she walked in now he could imagine the reaction and there were photographers to record the moment for posterity and every tabloid on the planet!

An illegitimate love child reunited with her mother while the unsuspecting husband and social elite looked on. My God, the girl had to have engineered the moment for maximum embarrassment—not that her motivation or her feelings were what he needed to concentrate on now, he told himself, blocking out this line of speculation.

This was about damage limitation. Let Angelina have this day at least before disaster in the shape of this girl arrived.

He couldn’t let her go into the hotel.

So how did he stop her?

He found himself wistfully contemplating a less civilised and much simpler age when he could have simply slung her over his shoulder.

This not being an option, he had to repress his natural instincts and opt for more subtle methods. As he sifted through the possibilities he was very aware that no matter what action he chose, he could not give this situation a happy outcome.

The story had everything: sex, money and a beautiful woman—or in this case two!

If she walked through those doors now he could imagine the reaction to that face and tomorrow’s headlines. He couldn’t allow it to happen.

Rafael tried to narrow his focus to the here and now. It was a struggle: he had a mind wired to asking why…where; a question mark was a challenge to him.

As he walked towards the road his mind was working fast as he sifted through the possibilities. What was she doing here?

Coincidence did not even make it to the list.

Rafael did not believe in coincidence any more than he believed in the Easter bunny or the general decency of his fellow man…or in this case woman. He did believe in protecting the people he cared about.

His silver grey eyes narrowed. The brunette, her hair and other things bouncing gently, had begun crossing the road towards the hotel entrance, confirming all his worst suspicions.

He felt something kick low in his stomach—anger, he told himself—as he watched the gentle sway of her hips in the tight jeans she wore.

Of course there were decent and genuinely good people—people like Angelina. He liked to think he was not without the odd scruple, but this woman was not one of life’s innocents.

It always amazed Rafael how that vulnerable minority managed to get through life with their ideals and their lives intact while most people were out for what they could get regardless of the people they trampled over in their pursuit of whatever ambition drove them.

What was driving Angelina’s daughter?

Greed, revenge…possibly a combination?

A child genuinely wishing to discover a parent would hardly choose a public occasion to do so.

Then as he watched she stepped off the pavement. Dios, he might not have to worry about scandal—the girl was a traffic statistic waiting to happen!

It was pure luck that she reached his side of the road before disaster struck—or almost. He watched as she jumped in response to the blast of a scooter horn as it whizzed past her, lost her footing and began to fall back into the moving traffic.

CHAPTER FOUR

MAGGIE lifted her head, a smile of gratitude ready to thank the person who had leant a steadying hand and pulled her onto the safety of the pavement.

‘Thank you…’ The words and the smile died a death as she found herself looking into the lean face of her saviour.

The sound of the traffic retreated somewhere into the recesses of her shell-shocked brain. She was looking into the dark face of the most beautiful man she had ever seen or even imagined.

She was too startled to disguise her reaction. Maggie’s gaze travelled in wide-eyed appreciation over his strongly sculpted features.

This was not a face anyone would forget in a hurry.

As a child Maggie remembered wondering what her mum had meant when she spoke of someone’s ‘beautiful bones.’

He was what she meant.

The genetic gene pool had been very generous to this tall Spaniard, who had been gifted cheekbones sharp enough to cut yourself on, a strong aquiline nose and a firm, angular jaw.

His unlined brow was broad and intelligent and he possessed the most striking eyes she had ever seen—pale icy grey, almost silver, the striking colour intensified by the dark ring around the iris, they were fringed by incredibly long spiky lashes that were as dark as his strongly delineated ebony brows.

But it was his mouth that Maggie couldn’t take her eyes off. Was it the hint of cruelty she saw in the sensual curve of his sculpted lips that tugged so strongly at her senses and made the aura he projected so overtly sensual and masculine?

Close your mouth, Maggie, you’re drooling.

In an effort to respond to the ironic voice in her head, she gave herself a mental shake.

It didn’t help. Her head remained a swirl of impressions and her nerve endings continued to thrum, sending shivers across the surface of her overheated skin.

She’d had too much sun, Maggie decided, shading her eyes as she struggled to find an explanation for being struck dumb and foolish at the same moment—an explanation that did not involve being in the presence of a six-feet-four black-haired Mediterranean male who looked like a fallen angel who worked out!

The fine lines around his marvellous eyes deepened as he looked down with concern into her face.

‘Are you all right? There is someone you’d like me to call, perhaps?’

Oh, my God, even his voice was sexy! Deep and slightly gravelly, his cultured voice contained a faint and attractive foreign inflection.

‘I…I…’ She gulped, then he smiled and she thought, Wow!

Get a grip, girl. So you were smiled at by a good-looking man—there is no need to act as though you’ve just been released from a convent.

‘You’ve had a shock. You’re shaking…’ Rafael pushed aside an intrusive flicker of genuine concern. Save it, he told himself, for Angelina and her marriage.

Besides, in his expert opinion this was about sex, not the sun or a blow to the head. He was not the only one to feel the sexual charge in the air. This was not a thing he could have anticipated, but Rafael knew that such things were easier to work with than fight against—not, obviously, to the extent that he followed the advice of the loud voice telling him that what he really wanted was to know what she would taste like when he kissed her!

Though had the circumstances been different, who knew…?

The comment drew Maggie’s gaze to the fingers still curved around her upper arm. She made no attempt to break the contact; in fact she was conscious of a strange reluctance to do so.

She could feel the warmth in his long brown fingers through the thin fabric of her cotton top and sense the strength in them…in the man himself.

Her eyes lifted and the impression of strength she picked up from the light contact intensified. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and athletically built—he was both lean and hard.

He projected an undiluted force-field of raw masculinity. It was utterly overwhelming and…seductive?

The latter question made Maggie’s eyes widen with shock. Curbing the imaginative dialogue in her head, she began to pull her arm away, then stopped as she encountered the flash of concern in his silver grey eyes.

She swallowed past the sudden emotional thickness in her throat and blinked as her eyelids prickled. She looked away, embarrassed by her emotional response to this cursory show of concern.

‘I’m fine…oh!’ Maggie grunted as a passerby bumped into her. ‘Sorry…’

‘You are sorry?’ Her rescuer mumbled something under his breath and directed a glare of such autocratic outrage at the retreating back of the clumsy culprit that Maggie would not have been surprised to see the burly figure disintegrate into a pile of dust.

‘You’re very kind.’

Her low-pitched voice with the husky timbre came as a surprise—not an unpleasant one. ‘You’re English?’

Had he needed confirmation, this would have been it. He knew that Angelina had been shipped to England to have her baby.

She had not gone into details, but he could only imagine that the experience of being sent away from family and friends at such a time must have been a terrifying ordeal for a sixteen-year-old.

Maggie saw the flicker of expression move at the back of his incredible eyes and interpreted it as surprise. She had seen a lot of that when people realised she was not Spanish. There had been several occasions on this trip when unable to respond when, someone spoke to her in Spanish, she had had to explain that she was English.

It was difficult not to think about her genetic heritage when for the first time in her life her colouring made her blend in, not stand out.

She lifted a hand to smooth her tousled hair, a frown settling on her brow as she blinked to clear the unbidden image of Simon’s excited expression when he had revealed that the firm he had employed to investigate her background without telling her had discovered her real mother did not have, as his own mother had suspected, Romany blood, but was in fact a member of one of Spain’s oldest families.

‘Like Mother said, it explains your temperament and your colouring, doesn’t it, sweetheart? The way I see it,’ he had mused, ‘if this family are willing to acknowledge you it would do us no harm at all. Obviously we have to approach them sensitively…’

Sensitive—he actually said sensitive and with no trace of irony. ‘You told your mother about this?’

Simon had remained oblivious to the danger in her voice and stilted manner. ‘It was her idea.’

He had not appeared to notice her flinch as he’d smiled indulgently before announcing confidently, ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

Maggie had been pretty sure Simon hadn’t or he wouldn’t have been standing that close to her clenched fists.

She could remember clearly staring up at his handsome face, and thinking, I’ve never actually seen you before.

She was engaged to a man who didn’t know her at all, a man who under the caring exterior he liked to cultivate, was utterly and totally self-centred.

‘You’re thinking how did the daughter of a Spanish aristocrat come to be adopted by an ordinary English couple.’

Maggie had recovered her voice in time to silence any further revelations and assure Simon that she had no interest in her birth mother or a family who were strangers to her, and neither did she have an interest in marrying him.

It had taken some time to convince Simon that she wasn’t joking, but when he had realised he had been furious, revealing a side to his nature that she had never glimpsed previously.

Maggie flicked her ponytail firmly over her shoulder and equally firmly pushed away the memories.

She had moved on and in a rather unpredictable way, she thought, directing a bold direct stare at the face of the dark, devastatingly handsome Spaniard. Communication was not a problem; he spoke perfect English.

The problem was her inability to stop staring at him or speculate on how good his non-verbal communication skills were.

‘You are here with your family?’ He arched an ebony brow, his eyes travelling up from her toes to her glossy head.

She shook her head, feeling ridiculously tongue-tied and unable to shake the crazy conviction he could read her thoughts.

Rafael arched a dark slanted brow. ‘Boyfriend…?’

Maggie rubbed the finger that had recently sported her engagement ring. ‘No’

Rafael’s sharp gaze noted the action and he filed it away for future reference. She was young to be divorced, but he did not discount the possibility.

‘I’m here alone. On holiday.’ Nice move, Maggie—you’ve just told a total stranger that you’re a vulnerable target. ‘With friends,’ she added quickly as her natural caution kicked in.

‘You are alone with friends?’

She flushed and gave a self-conscious laugh and struggled not to look guilty. Her inability to lie without blushing remained a constant source of irritation. ‘I’m with a group of friends,’ she lied.

The corners of his sensual mouth lifted as he arched an ebony brow. ‘Public place and I’m totally harmless,’ he drawled, displaying an uncomfortable ability to read her mind as he stood there looking about as far removed from harmless as a wolf. She tilted her head back to look into his face and qualified further—of the big and bad variety.

‘I’m sure you are,’ she lied politely, adding, ‘Excuse me,’ as she fished her phone from her pocket and scanned last night’s text from her mum with an expression of interest.

For some women, of course, the bad part would have been a plus, but she had never been drawn to danger. Danger was for women who could live in the moment, and men like him were for women who did not worry about how it would feel the next day.

Maggie had never been swept away by the moment, she had never said to hell with tomorrow and she didn’t see the attraction of dangerous men any more than she felt the urge to walk along a crumbling cliff edge because the view was nice.

She studied her companion’s dark lean face and couldn’t deny that the view was very nice…The skin on her scalp tingled as her glance drifted to his mouth and she corrected her assessment. This man was many things but nice wasn’t one of them!

Uncomfortably conscious of the flash of heat that washed over her skin, she pressed her hands to her stomach where a flock of butterflies were rioting and lowered her eyes back to her phone.

‘Bad news?’ he asked, not fooled by the little pantomime but playing dumb and for time.

His thoughts raced.

He needed to warn Angelina and give her the opportunity to tell Alfonso. He owed her that much, as he was the one who had encouraged her in her lie of omission to her husband in the first place.

That one had really come back to bite him, he reflected grimly. The next time he got asked for advice he would politely refuse.

This girl might, for all he knew, be an expert liar, but there were some things that you couldn’t control and she was genuinely shaken. Whatever the cause it seemed logical to take advantage of it before she fully recovered her wits.

All he had to do was figure out in the next thirty seconds how to get her some place that wasn’t here without breaking any laws…If it involved kissing that would be a plus, he reflected as his heated glance shifted to the full sexy curve.

‘Not really…I just missed them.’

‘Your many friends.’

Fascinated, he watched the colour rush over her cheeks.

She nodded, not meeting his eyes, but lifted her chin defiantly. ‘We’re meeting up back at the hotel,’ she told him creatively before glancing at her watch and exclaiming, ‘It’s that time already!’

To her dismay the tall Spaniard did not take the hint; he just carried on looking at her. Looking hard. She lowered her own gaze. The unblinking regard was unsettling on more levels than she wanted to admit, let alone examine.

Maybe the novelty of a man noticing she existed had spooked her. Wincing at the self-pitying direction of her thoughts, she shook her head and laughed.

Rafael raised an enquiring brow. ‘Something is funny?’

‘Not funny—sad,’ she admitted, hoping the enigmatic response would shut him up.

As he watched her soft lips curve into a determinedly cheerful smile that did nothing to banish the despondent shadow from her luminous eyes he felt feelings stir. Refusing to recognise them as concern—definitely not empathy—he reminded himself that his concern belonged with the mother and her threatened marriage, not the daughter.

He was attracted to the daughter—inconvenient, but not a problem. He had never had a problem keeping his libido on a leash. He couldn’t allow himself to look at her and think of her as a beautiful woman because she was business and sex and business did not mix.

He had to look at her and think, Disaster waiting to happen.

While he could not stop the disaster unfolding, he could control the timing to minimise the impact and give Angelina time to tell her husband that she had a past and that that past had come calling.

There was a problem. Just one? mocked the voice in his skull. Every time he tried to focus on his strategy his train of thought got hijacked and he found himself thinking about her mouth.

He puzzled over this growing obsession.

It wasn’t even as if she were as beautiful as Angelina. The resemblance was startling, but she was not, as he had first thought, a duplicate copy. Her face was heart-shaped and her nose, though delicate, was tip-tilted, her mouth was…

His thoughts slowed as his eyes drifted to that full, generous curve.

Her mouth, he admitted, was a problem.

He wanted to kiss her. The weakness angered him.

‘Sad?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘Just a private joke.’ It was joke when she realised that she had allowed Simon to systematically undermine her confidence and make her feel that her wants and needs were always secondary to his.

It took a total stranger noticing her and being kind to bring home the extent to which she was hungry for attention and how invisible she had felt.

For Simon she had come just above…maybe above…his appointment with his hair stylist, because whether he liked it or not, as he was fond of telling her, the sad fact was that appearances counted in politics…The first time he had said this he had felt compelled to advise her that the amount of cleavage she was showing in her favourite red dress might give the wrong idea.

Her blue dress, he had added, made her look wholesome.

And she had been so eager to be the woman he wanted her to be that she had gone and changed, the same way she had stopped wearing her hair loose and had abandoned her killer heels.

Part of the problem was that she had been so young and impressionable when she met Simon, a first-year student on her first ward allocation, and the handsome son of a rather demanding patient had seemed very sophisticated.

And, yes, she had been flattered that he noticed her. For years boys had not noticed her, not really until the last year at school when she had finally said goodbye to the ubiquitous braces. The event had coincided with her skin clearing up, and, once revealed as smooth and flawless, her golden-toned complexion made her stand out among her fair-skinned class-mates.

Her excess inches had also melted away almost overnight. She had needed a belt to keep her school skirt from falling down—she had a waist.

The boys at school had noticed her then, but their admiration had taken the form of crude comments and clumsy passes and Maggie, to hide her shyness, had responded to them with an icy disdain that had earned the not very inventive nickname of Ice Queen.

To Maggie at eighteen—and in her head still the dumpy teenager—Simon, a nearly-thirty-year-old lawyer with political ambitions, had seemed very sophisticated, and he had been interested in her!

He hadn’t been clumsy, he’d been charming, and he had never made her feel awkward or uncomfortable. He had even been sympathetic when she confided how self-conscious her overgenerous breasts and curvy hips made her feel, patting her hand and assuring her comfortingly that nobody was perfect. With very limited experience of men and dating, Maggie had been relieved when he had put no pressure on her to go farther than kissing. Though the circumstances of her childhood had made her mature in many ways in other ways, she had led quite a sheltered life.

When he had asked her to marry him a dazzled Maggie had really believed herself in love and fully expected the relationship to move on to another level; her feelings about this had been mixed.

When Simon had said he respected her and he wanted to wait until they were married she was pretty sure that relief should not have figured even fleetingly in her reaction, but it had.

Her fists curled as she reflected angrily on how submissive she had been, how she had let Simon mould her into the person he wanted her to be.

‘You wish to share this joke?’

Maggie shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to tell this man above all others that she was not used to male attention. She tried to frame a suitable excuse to make good her escape.

She could always just open her mouth and say, ‘Go away,’ but, having had good manners instilled in her from the cradle, it was hard for Maggie to tell anyone to get lost, especially when that someone had just sort of saved her life.

‘Allow me to walk you back.’

Maggie shook her head and smiled to rob her refusal of offence. ‘I couldn’t possibly put you to the trouble.’

She thought of cliff edges and pretty views and sighed. No, she would definitely opt for the safe route even if the view was not so thrilling, although for a split second she had been tempted.

The same way you opted for the, oh, so safe Simon and that worked out so well.

Ignoring the contribution of the critic in her head, she folded her phone and held out her hand.

‘Thank you very much for saving me, but I won’t impose on you any longer.’

The stilted dismissal made Rafael veer between amusement and astonishment, then as his attention was captured by the rapid rise and fall of her rather magnificent breasts both were swallowed up by a blast of raw lust so strong he actually took a stiff half step backwards as his body hardened.

It took him unawares. It was a long time since he had wanted a woman this much, let alone a woman that was out of bounds…Maybe, he mused, that was the attraction…the forbidden fruit?

The fingers that tightened on her arm made her wince. He murmured an apology.

She couldn’t see his expression; his heavy eyelids were lowered, leaving only a glittering slit of silver.

For a second she thought he wasn’t going to take her hand, then he did, holding it a moment too long, giving time for the electrical tingle under her skin to morph into a shameful throb of awareness that clutched low like a fist in her belly.

Then his brown fingers tightened slightly before falling away.

She stayed motionless her eyes meshed with his compelling silver eyes. His gaze was strangely emotionless considering the electrical charge that shimmered in the air between them—or did it?

She brought her lashes down in an ebony protective screen and sucked in a shaky breath. She clearly needed to get her overactive imagination in line. It made no sense that the brush of a stranger’s fingers could…She rubbed her hand against her thigh and dismissed the moment from her mind.

The sexual charge in the air did not diminish even though they were no longer touching.

‘You are not well enough to walk.’ It was not a lie; she looked pale and shaken.

‘I’m fine. I just missed lunch and if I don’t hurry I shall miss the paella evening.’ Authentic, she reminded herself as she tried to work up enthusiasm for the prospect—the authentic flamenco evening had involved dancers who hailed from Manchester, though in their defence they had been very good.

‘I know where they do the best paella.’

‘How nice.’

He watched the appearance of the polite smile that was starting to aggravate him and thought about doing something that would wipe it off her face.

‘It would be nicer if I had company…would you come share some paella with me?’

CHAPTER FIVE

MAGGIE stared at Rafael, startled by the invitation.

‘With you?’ she asked, trying to judge if he was serious; not that it mattered—she was not going to say yes, was she?

His shoulders lifted in a magnificent shrug as he inclined his dark head.

Maggie gave a strained laugh and lifted her flushed face to his…So, all right, it was gratifying that a gorgeous man like this wanted her company, but not reality. ‘I couldn’t possibly…’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t know you…and I’m not…’ she stumbled. ‘Not?’

She gave him a direct look.

‘You have very beautiful eyes.’

The eyes in question fell from his. ‘You don’t have to compliment me, and actually I don’t like it.’ Her heart was thudding so hard against her ribs that he had to hear it above the hum of the traffic.

‘If that were true it would make you a very unusual woman, but as a matter of fact it was not a compliment.’

A laugh left Maggie’s lips as her eyes swept upwards. ‘No?’ She arched a feathery brow. ‘It definitely wasn’t an insult.’

‘You have a lot of experience of insults?’

Maggie smiled. ‘I have brothers.’

He began to smile back, then as his eyes drifted to her mouth he stopped abruptly. The buzz of sexual awareness that had been pumping through his veins became a loud thrum.

‘It was actually a statement of fact—you have very beautiful eyes.’

His eyes were resting on her mouth when he said it and something in the smoky scrutiny made Maggie’s heart rate quicken.

And why not? She was allowed to be attracted to a man; it was plain silly to deny it. She was not expert at reading the signs, but it seemed possible he might be attracted to her, although he might be one of those men who were able to make every woman think she was special.

Attraction or not, it wasn’t going anywhere. If she had been the sort of girl who could separate sex from emotion he would have been exactly the sort of man she would have chosen—she wondered uncomfortably if she had been sending out the wrong signals.

She gave an apologetic shrug and explained. ‘I’m not looking for a holiday romance.’

Though some people had suggested—even her own mother had dropped hints—that this was exactly what she ought to be looking for.

Her friend Millie’s typically outspoken parting shot came back to her.

‘What you need to recover from Simon is some fun for once in your life—head-banging sex with no strings with, of course, the right stranger.’

Was there such a thing as the right stranger…and was he it? Maggie brought the train of thought, shocked, to an abrupt halt.

Her eyes widened. I am tempted. I’m really tempted!

He gave a sardonic smile. ‘I was offering dinner.’

The mortified colour flew to her cheeks. ‘Of course you were…sorry…that is, I was…’ Wondering if no strings sex was such a terrible thing. And why shouldn’t she? It wouldn’t hurt anyone; it might even be liberating…it might even be fun.

She doubted this was the sort of fun her mum had had in mind.

He grinned, immediately achieving the impossible and looking even more rampantly gorgeous—he really was the most incredibly male man she had ever met—and looked amused.

‘That is a yes.’

Flustered, Maggie swept the hair from her eyes. ‘Yes, that is, no, I…’

‘You wish for references perhaps?’

She flushed and shook her head feeling gauche, foolish and excited; her eyes widened in recognition of this last emotion. ‘Of course not.’

‘I am Rafael. Rafael-Luis Castenadas.’ Holding her eyes, he bowed formally from the waist. He straightened, pushing a dark hank of hair back from his wide brow as he did so, then angled an enquiring brow and waited.

Not recognising the cue to give her own name, Maggie heard herself say, ‘That’s a lovely name.’

She squeezed her eyes closed and thought, Please, please, let the ground open up and swallow me.

He watched as she bit her lip hard enough to bruise the soft pink flesh and break the skin. He saw a bead of bright blood form and thought about blotting it with his tongue before…He stopped the thought but was unable to stop his body reacting lustfully to the image.

He had never met anyone with a more expressive face. Did she allow every emotion she felt to register on those lovely features?

It made his task easier that she was so easy to read though he wondered how many men had taken advantage of her transparency—as he was.

He pushed aside the sliver of guilt. He had an excuse and he wasn’t trying to get her into bed…though in other circumstances that might, he conceded, have been a tempting idea.

Maggie opened her eyes and found he was watching her; the unblinking intensity of his regard was unsettling.

‘And you?’ he prompted.

‘Me?’ she echoed, wondering about the expression she had glimpsed on his face.

‘You have a name?’

She flushed and struggled to get her brain into gear. She could not believe the effect this total stranger was having on her. ‘I’m Maggie. Maggie Ward, well, Magdalena really, but nobody calls me that.’

‘Everyone starts out as strangers, Magdalena.’

His deep voice had a intimate quality. Maggie, uncomfortably conscious of the forbidden shiver trickling down her spine, told herself it was his accent. Just because he made her name sound exotic didn’t mean she was—she was still the same Maggie who was far too sensible to get silly because a man with a pretty face and a more than all right body noticed she existed.

Her glance skimmed the long, lean, male length of him and the breath left her parted lips in a tiny sigh of appreciation that she hurriedly covered in a cough. Ruefully she admitted to herself he was better than all right—actually he was better than stupendous though a person would have to see him without the clothes to be sure.

Maggie stopped dead mid-speculation, her eyes widening to saucers. I’m mentally undressing a man!

‘Even lovers…’

Her wide eyes leapt to his face. ‘Lovers?’ she echoed, thinking if ever there was a cue to walk this was it. This was not a subject that total strangers discussed. His next comment made it clear he did not share her inhibitions. She was starting to think he might not have any.

‘Lovers start out as strangers.’

He smiled at her with his eyes and her stomach flipped and quivered.

She recalled Millie’s friendly advice on how to add some spice to her holiday.

‘Act available, Maggie,’ she had counselled. ‘When your eyes meet his and your heart starts to thud and you get that delicious fluttery kick in your belly, don’t look away. A guy needs some encouragement.’

Maggie took a deep breath and didn’t look away.

It was just dinner, there would be other people, and she’d be experiencing some of the local culture, which was what she liked about foreign travel.

‘Will they have room at this paella place?’

Just for once it would be good to break away from her sensible image—not too far, obviously. And they were not talking the head banging, no-strings sex thing—this was dinner.

Where would be the harm?

As his strangely hypnotic eyes swept slowly across her upturned features. It probably made her pathetic, but she really wished she’d put on more make-up than a swipe of lip gloss and a smudge of eyeshadow.

As he examined the fine-boned features Rafael was struck once more by the startling resemblance between mother and daughter, but now he was equally conscious of the dissimilarities. The younger woman would be considered by most to have less claim to classical beauty, but when it came to sex appeal she was streets ahead.

‘They will always make room for me. Come…’

No shocker that he should issue commands—he had that written all over him. The shock was that she allowed him to steer her through the throng.

Looking back on the moment and the ones that followed later, Maggie was left to wonder if her body had not been taken over by an alien.

Maggie paused, ducking her head to look through the door he held open for her. The sumptuous interior looked just as impressive as the exterior of the long, low, powerful-looking car.

‘This is yours?’

‘You are going to lecture me on my carbon footprint or car theft?’

She slung him a cross glance and slid inside, lifting the newspaper that lay on the passenger seat. The headline was in Spanish but the image was one that had graced several front pages across the world that week—a well-known Hollywood star with his long-term partner making their relationship official at a civil ceremony.

The image of the two hand-in-hand, smiling men shifted her thoughts back to her dad’s parting words when Maggie had been startled to realise that her dad, at least, had his own ideas about what had caused her to break off the engagement.

‘I respect the fact you don’t want to talk about it, love, but the fact is, Maggie, some men…just because Simon has issues with his…leanings…’

Maggie had stared, astonished, as her father, red-faced, had cleared his throat before finishing huskily. ‘Never think you were the problem or it was your fault.’

‘No,’ she had responded faintly, thinking, Was I the only one who didn’t have a clue?

And she hadn’t—not until that final argument when things had got pretty ugly.

Maggie had never seen the normally restrained Simon so angry before, and the trigger to him losing it totally had of all things been a throwaway comment in the heat of the moment, because he didn’t have the faintest idea why she was angry. ‘I don’t think you even like women!’

‘Who have you been listening to? I am not gay!’

Before Maggie had been able to assure him she hadn’t meant that at all he had grabbed her arm and wrenched her towards him, lowered his face to her and snarled, ‘If you spread lies like that I’ll…’

Startled by his aggressive reaction, Maggie had frozen with shock, but had not lowered her gaze from his menacing glare. She knew from past experience it was a mistake to show fear to bullies. And Simon was a bully.

Why had she not known that before?

Anger had come to her rescue; her chin had come up and she had asked with cold disdain, ‘You’ll what, Simon?’

The ruddy colour rising up his neck had reached his cheeks, darkening the skin to magenta as he’d glared at her in furious frustration. ‘I…I’ll…’

Pretending not to notice the fingers tightening painfully around her wrist, she had cut across him. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I touched a raw nerve, but your sexuality is not a subject that interests me.’

Simon had looked at the ring she held out to him and released her arm.

She had dropped it into his palm, walked away and not looked back.

Maggie threw the newspaper into the back seat and fastened her belt with a click. Her chin lifted. Being sensible had got her nothing but humiliation; it was time for a bit of recklessness.

But maybe not this much, she thought half an hour later as they seemed to finally arrive at their destination. The village cut into the hillside was small, in a matter of moments they had driven through.

Keeping her voice carefully casual, Maggie turned her head in time to see the village lights disappear as the road began to climb steeply and asked, ‘Aren’t we stopping?’

Maggie recognised the extreme vulnerability of her position; she was in a car miles from anywhere with a man who could, for all she knew, be a homicidal maniac and nobody knew where she was.

She should be seriously scared, so why wasn’t she?

‘Relax, Maggie, I’m quite harmless.’

She looked at his profile and thought, If you were I wouldn’t be here. It was a bit late to recognise that it was the danger he represented that had drawn her here.

He was her rebellion against the self-imposed rules she had lived her life by.

‘Relax—you will enjoy yourself, you know.’ She looked at him with big wary eyes and he expelled a sigh. ‘That was not a threat, you know, and you can take your hand off the door—it’s locked.’

‘Why didn’t we stop in the village?’

‘Because,’ he said, pulling the car onto a patch of rocky ground beside a number of other vehicles, ‘the villagers are all here.’ He released the central lock. ‘You are sorry now that you came?’

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