About Trish Morey

TRISH MOREY is an Australian who’s also spent time living and working in New Zealand and England. Now she’s settled with her husband and four young daughters in a special part of South Australia, surrounded by orchards and bushland, and visited by the occasional koala and kangaroo.

With a life-long love of reading, she penned her first book at age eleven, after which life, career and a growing family kept her busy until once again she could indulge her desire to create characters and stories, this time in romance. Having her work published is a dream come true.

Visit Trish at her website at www.trishmorey.com

Don’t miss Trish Morey’s exciting new novel, The Italian Boss’s Mistress of Revenge, available from Modern™ romance in September 2008.

Back in the
Spaniard’s Bed
Trish Morey

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

What is it about the Mediterranean male that makes him so hard to resist? Is it the olive-skinned good looks, the flashing eyes and thick dark hair? Is it the rich accent that curls its way into your senses? Both get a huge tick from me.

But what really sets the Mediterranean male apart is passion, a passion for life, a passion for family and a passionate nature that means he’ll meet any conflict head on. And if that conflict comes in the shape of a woman, then watch out, because the sparks will really fly!

Alejandro Rodriguez is one such passionate man. Nobody had ever walked out on this Spaniard before. Not until a certain blue-eyed bombshell, Leah Mitchell, who decided to cut her losses and walk away, before she ended up losing her pride as well as her heart to him. But Alejandro hadn’t finished with Leah, so there was no way he was going to let her get away with that!

I’m thrilled to be part of this Her Latin Lover anthology in this, Harlequin Mills & Boon’s Centenary year. I hope you enjoy it!

With love and best wishes,

Trish

x

With thanks to Bec, Kate, Karen, Alison and Robbie for a fabulous girls’ own weekend.

Here’s to row boats, abandoned beaches, chilled lime cordial on a hot summer’s day and fabulous Thai food.

But most of all, here’s to great friends!

May there be many more such adventures.

With love and fond hugs,

Trish

CHAPTER ONE

NOBODY walked out on Alejandro Rodriguez. Not business tycoons or CEOs or poker-faced politicians. And definitely not women. Leah Mitchell was just going to have to get that through her head.

He watched her working through the window of her small dressmaking shop from his vantage point across the narrow street, her head down, totally focused on the task at hand, her fingers nimble and quick as they worked the fabric through the machine.

He remembered those fingers, long and slender like the woman herself, and he remembered how they’d once worked their skilful magic on him …

He missed them.

He growled, low in his throat, a familiar thumping demand building below. Soon, he knew, soon he would feel her hands weave their magic upon him once again.

All of a sudden those same fingers stilled and she looked up, her eyes alert, searching the streetscape outside, the passing pedestrians and traffic, almost as if she’d sensed his presence. He smiled as he flipped the collar of his coat up against the unseasonable November cold. So she wasn’t over him? He’d suspected as much.

And he’d enjoy proving it to her.

He’d make her wish she’d never left him, make her beg for more.

And then he’d unceremoniously dump her.

The peak hour Sydney traffic was bumper to bumper along the narrow one-way street, but somehow Alejandro forged a path through, parting the sea of cars as if he had a God-given right, the tails of his long black coat swirling in his wake like the wings of a manta ray.

He was oblivious to the sound of car horns, oblivious to the calls from irate drivers to get off the road. Because right now his focus was on one thing and one thing only—Leah Mitchell, and how he was going to get her back into his bed.

Leah rolled her head, trying to relax her neck and shoulders, trying to dispel the crazy feeling that someone was watching her. It was nerves, she told herself, crazy nerves following the panicked phone call from Jordan, informing him that the bank had given him a week to pay them back or they would foreclose. She’d hardly eaten in the two days since, desperately trying to work out how she could help him while surviving on nothing more than coffee and dry crackers. No wonder she was jumpy.

She’d barely turned her attention back to the garment she was altering when a movement outside caught her eye. Nothing more than a flash of black, but enough to set every hair on the back of her neck to prickling awareness. There was something about the way that dark shadow had moved—something that had rippled through her on a wave of dread and taken her right back to another time, another place.

But it couldn’t be him.

Not here.

Not now.

And then the door opened, the ancient bell above tinkling. An incongruous sound, given the man who had just entered. A man, it occurred to her, who should more likely be accompanied by a thunder clap or heralded by a blast of trumpets, not the mere tinkle of a tiny bell.

Nor even the desperate thumping of her heart.

He stood there across the small room like some kind of gunslinger ready to draw, looking simultaneously more dangerous and yet more handsome than any man had a right to.

‘Leah,’ he uttered, and heat infused her veins, his deep Mediterranean voice filling all the places in the room that his sheer presence didn’t already occupy. She rose behind her machine, refusing to dwell on the ripple of pleasure that had accompanied hearing her name spoken in that rich accent once again, desperately wishing she was wearing heels instead of her workaday flats, so she felt at less of a disadvantage.

Yet there had never been a time when she hadn’t felt at a distinct disadvantage where Alejandro Rodriguez was concerned, even wearing the highest heels or when done up to the nines. It wasn’t just his height, or the span of his shoulders. Only in bed had she ever felt anywhere near his equal, and even there just the force of his dark personality had always been enough to make her feel inconsequential.

And then there were his eyes.

Dark and fathomless under a dark slash of brow, and framed in lashes women would kill for, those eyes stared at her now, pinning her to where she stood. There was still traffic outside. She was vaguely aware of the bustle and movement of a city in motion. But all that shrank in her ears under the thump of her beating heart and the questions that framed themselves so jaggedly in her mind.

‘What do you want?’ Her voice sounded unnaturally tight in the tiny shop—but how could it sound anything else now that he was absorbing all the space, effectively shrink-wrapping the room? She’d heard not a word from Alejandro since she’d left his home in Spain two months ago, and the look in his eyes before she’d done so had been no less unforgiving than it was now. Clearly nothing had changed.

He paused. Or was it just that time slowed in the air that hung heavy and thick between them, in the dark laser glare he directed her way?

‘My dear Leah,’ he said at last, holding out his arms as he made a move closer. ‘Is this any way to greet an old friend?’

Her eyes narrowed, along with her thoughts. Alejandro wanted something. Friendship had been the last thing on his mind that fiery day two months ago, when she’d walked out of his villa and out of his life, his savage parting words still stinging in her ears. ‘Get the hell out,’ he’d yelled after her. ‘There are plenty more where you came from.’

And she’d known what he said was true. Hadn’t she lived with that fact hanging over her head every day of their six-month liaison? She’d known from the very beginning that she was only one more in a long line of mistresses. She’d been reminded of that fact every time she was out in public with him and women jostled to get close, flashing him white-toothed smiles and perfectly angled décolletages. Because they’d known it just as much as she had. Her position as mistress to Spain’s hottest property was tenuous. Short-term. Temporary.

And after half a year her time must have been nearly up.

And that was why she’d fled. While she still had her pride, if not her heart. Before she’d crashed and burned like so many others before her.

‘Why are you here?’

He frowned and drew closer, until there was barely a metre and her ancient sewing machine between them, the look in his eyes almost wounded. ‘You sound so suspicious.’

She wasn’t taken in for a moment. She crossed her arms over her chest, needing to feel together—whole—when her world seemed to be unravelling by the minute. But he was too close for her to think. So close she could breathe in his exquisite cologne. So close she could have reached a finger out and touched the dark curls kissing his collar. So close she could all but taste the salt on his skin.

Distressed by her body’s betrayal, she edged away, moving deeper into the narrow shop, not stopping until she had the solid counter between them. She clutched onto the counter-top like a lifeline. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’

He smiled then, and his dark beauty just got better. The sensual slash of mouth suddenly more passionate, a dimple transforming his jawline from ruthless businessman to lover in an instant. My God, she thought. She’d turned her back and walked away from this man. How the hell had she managed that?

‘I came to give you something.’

She blinked and tried to focus on his words. She’d left something behind? She turned her thoughts back to those frantic few hours after she’d made her decision, haphazardly throwing her few scant belongings into her suitcase, trying to shut out Alejandro’s orders that she stop—orders that had soon turned to demands that she get out when it had become clear there was no way she would change her mind. She’d left nothing, she knew. Only the trappings of her mistress life, the gowns and shoes and jewels, and those had never really been hers.

Only those, and the heart she’d had no choice but to leave battered and bleeding behind. ‘I left nothing,’ she lied. ‘So what is it?’

The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile that missed his eyes completely. ‘I came to offer you a second chance.’

For just a moment it felt as if her heart had stopped beating, until the thumping kicked in again, louder and more insistent than ever, and her lungs demanded to be filled with air, demanded it now! How many nights had she lain awake, wishing he would call, wishing he would tell her he missed her, wishing more than anything that he might discover he loved her after all? But not once had he bothered to contact her. Not once had he even bothered to get in touch. She’d long ago given up hope that he would. And yet he was here now …

Had she given up hope too soon?

She searched his eyes and her hopes were dashed anew.

Not a chance.

Just one look at the hostility emanating from those dark depths and common sense prevailed. Alejandro had the look of a man who wanted to do someone some serious damage, and right now she was the only one standing in the line of fire.

She shivered and shifted nervously away, wanting to get out of range, knowing there was nowhere in the small shop that would afford her sanctuary. ‘I don’t understand what you’re offering? A second chance at what, exactly?’

‘I will take you back as my lover. All will be forgiven.’

This time she laughed out loud. He was forgiving her? Did Alejandro’s arrogance know no bounds? And to think that for a half-second she’d imagined he’d come back because he’d suddenly discovered he loved her.

‘You’re forgetting something, Spaniard. I left you. I neither need nor want your “second chance”.’

Her laughter had been bad enough, cutting through the tense atmosphere and leaving jagged edges, but to refer to him as if she couldn’t even bear to mention his name … His teeth ground together, his jaw jammed tightly closed. Things had not been that bad between them. Of that he was certain.

‘You would not have me believe you have forgotten my name? A name you cried out so frequently and with such passion?’

‘You know I wasn’t trying to insult you. I was trying to keep this conversation impersonal.’

‘But it has always been personal between us. Or should I say—’ he hesitated, daring her to turn her eyes away ‘—intimate.’ He caught her reaction, the widening of her eyes, the kick of her chin as she swallowed back on her shock, and he knew she hadn’t forgotten. ‘We are good together. Why would you throw that away?’

‘Because I’m perfectly happy with my life just the way it is.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘And I don’t care what you believe. You can take your second chance and go home.’

His eyes took her in, scanned her like radar, swallowing her whole. ‘You’ve lost weight.’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Too busy to eat?’

She shrugged and averted her eyes, but not before he caught the clouds rolling across them. Money problems could do that to people, he knew, but she would soon find her money problems were a thing of the past. ‘I would make sure you ate.’

She snapped her head around. ‘And what would you expect in return?’

‘Nothing you wouldn’t want to give me. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t miss our lovemaking.’

She turned away, throwing her hands out wide. ‘Look, what’s the point of this? Whatever we had is over, and it’s pointless to try and reignite it.’

‘I don’t have to reignite anything. I can see the fire burning now in your eyes, no matter how much you try to deny it. You’ve burned for me ever since I walked through that door.’

‘I left you …’

‘You left before we could extinguish the flames!’

I left to save myself from burning up completely.

Behind Alejandro the tiny bell tinkled, and a burst of cool air swirled into the room before the door was jammed home. A customer entered, smoothing down the grey tendrils escaping from the tight twist behind her head as she stood to one side in her navy-coloured corporate attire, oblivious to the tension in the room, patiently waiting her turn.

Leah had never been so grateful for an interruption in her life. ‘Your trousers are ready, Mrs Turner,’ she said, reaching for the package like a lifeline.

The customer looked from Leah to Alejandro, who had angled himself towards her. ‘I don’t want to push in …’

Alejandro smiled and gave a small bow, holding out one arm to her, suddenly all Latin charm. ‘Please, I would be honoured if you would be served. I am not exactly a customer—more a friend visiting for old times’ sake. It is a pleasure to meet a friend of Leah’s.’

The woman’s cheeks bloomed as if someone had flicked a switch, her hand automatically returning to her hair. His smile was enough to do that, Leah knew, but coupled with an accent that seemed to vibrate its way right into your bones, the woman had no defence. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the customer had melted into a puddle right then and there.

The woman only took her eyes off Alejandro for the barest second, to exchange a high-denomination note for the parcel Leah pressed into her hands.

‘Allow me,’ Alejandro said as the older woman headed for the door, and Leah could have sworn she heard the customer giggle.

‘Mrs Turner,’ she called out from the cash register. The woman turned her head slowly, as if reluctant to drag her eyes away from him, even for one brief moment. Leah held out her hand. ‘Your change.’

The customer’s eyes shot open wide and she giggled again, her cheeks flushed, hugging the parcel to her chest. She hurried back and collected the money before lingering where Alejandro stood ready to hold open the door. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered breathlessly, before launching herself into the street.

He pressed the door home behind her. ‘You see,’ he said, turning back to Leah, ‘not everyone seems to find my company so intolerable.’

‘Don’t I know it! That’s why I can’t believe you’re here. When I was with you there was a line of women who would have gladly scratched out my eyes if it meant they could replace me. Surely you couldn’t have got through them all that quickly?’

He shrugged in his couldn’t-care-less way as he checked the lock. ‘Where is the key for this door, Leah? We cannot talk if we’re going to be constantly interrupted.’

‘I can’t lock the door. I’m trying to run a business here.’

‘This is no place for you.’

‘I like my job.’

‘Working as a seamstress? Taking up other peoples’ hems?’

‘It’s an honest job. Maybe not up to the dizzy heights you’re used to, but not all of us are power-hungry megalomaniacs.’

His midnight eyes glinted dangerously as he came closer, moving around the counter as silkily and purposefully as a shark moving through the depths, all power and dangerous beauty. Her back stiffened as he drew alongside her, trapping her against the counter with his arms, his height forcing her to look up at him to meet his gaze—a gaze that turned her body’s thermostat to a slow sizzle. His dark eyes were suddenly so searching she’d swear he could see right into her soul.

‘I have hunger, I agree, but right now it’s not for power. I want to make love to you, Leah. Right here. Right now.’

Shock transfixed her to the spot. That and the primitive thrill that zipped along her spine and bloomed through her flesh in a rush of heat. Trust Alejandro not to play fair. She clamped down on her body’s reaction, doing her best to ignore the masculine scent that seemed to curl around her and tighten like a noose. ‘We can’t always have what we want.’

‘Oh, but I can.’ He lifted one hand and touched the backs of his fingers to her cheek, running them down the side of her face, and it was all she could do not to lean into his strong hand.

She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Alejandro …’

‘Ah, so now, you see, you remember my name. Likewise you must remember how good we can be together. Would you like to make love to me now, as I would like to make love to you?’

Beneath her bra and fitted shirt her nipples peaked and strained for release. Beneath her denim skirt the heat was already pooling, heavy and insistent. She swallowed and battled a body determined, it seemed, to betray her. ‘Look … this is crazy. It’s not even five o’clock in the afternoon—’

‘And when has the clock ever stopped you before? Don’t you remember how you used to inflame me, no matter what time of the day it was or where we were, and the more risk of being discovered, the more risk someone would happen upon us, the better? Do you remember how much you enjoyed it?’

Did he really think she could forget? Her face grew hotter as the memories of their sensual adventures, only shallow-buried in the recesses of her mind, were laid bare, all the more sharp-edged and powerful for their exposure. In their time together Alejandro had flicked some kind of switch inside her and turned someone who had never been taken with the sex act into a tigress. She’d matched his unrivalled appetite, sometimes even taking him by surprise by her own hunger.

But still she couldn’t answer him. Dared not. Lest he see how much she was moved, how much she was tempted.

‘Or was that the real reason?’

She swung her head up, something in his tone alerting her, making her suddenly suspicious. ‘The real reason for what?’

‘For not locking the door.’ An avaricious smile lit his features. ‘So we could make love here, now, with the door open, the windows uncovered. We could make love right here in this room, separated from the city of Sydney by just one glass door. Would you like that, my perfect Leah? Is that what you had planned all along?’

Arousal coursed like liquid fire through her veins. Arousal that welled up and threatened to consume her. Arousal that promised to bring her undone. ‘Alejandro,’ she said, battling to stay sane, battling to shore up a resolve that was fading fast. ‘What we had … it’s over.’

And he smiled again. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, querida. You and I, we are only just beginning.’

CHAPTER TWO

SHE knew he was going to kiss her. Knew it before he’d dipped his head and angled his face in her direction. Knew it before his hand curled had around her neck, drawing her closer to him.

Knew it and didn’t move a muscle to get away.

‘Alejandro …’

‘You already said that,’ he whispered, so quietly against her lips that she wasn’t sure if she’d heard the words or merely read them on his breath.

And then his mouth found hers and she didn’t care, for his taste was no longer just a distant memory, his touch was no longer just a dream. He was here and real and he was kissing her, his mouth moving over hers gently, his fingers stroking her neck in a massage so sensually inviting that it was impossible not to kiss him back.

And his lips were smooth and warm, inviting her participation, smoothing her objections. If Alejandro were a fabric, she decided as she melted into him, he would be silk, the finest quality Italian silk, black and rich and lustrous, moving like shadows in the light.

Her fingers bunched in his shirt, once more itching to be let loose on the firm-packed skin that lay so close beneath. He took advantage of her complicity to pull her deeper into the kiss, and she went with him into a kiss that was utterly magic and so infinitely sweet that her heart squeezed tight on the question—why couldn’t it have always been this way?—before two fat tears spilled unbidden down her cheeks.

Damn him! Two tears were more than enough to bring her to her senses. It was bad enough that she cared, but letting him see her tears—letting him know that she cared—would be suicidal.

‘I don’t want this,’ she said, finding untapped reserves of strength, taking him by surprise as she pushed at his rock-solid chest. She spun away, her hands swiping at her cheeks, obliterating any trace of tears before she was game enough to face him again. ‘I told you. I don’t want you back.’

As if a mask had dropped, his features were suddenly harsher, all unforgiving angles and damning planes, every trace of her silken seducer banished. From across the room he regarded her coolly, his eyes like polished stones, hard and unrelenting. ‘I don’t believe you.’

She crossed her arms over her chest, keeping herself together—centred—in a world that was in danger of lurching out of control. ‘I’m afraid you’ve wasted a trip, Spaniard,’ she said, not caring this time if she was rude, determined not to make the mistake of mentioning his name again. It was distance she needed right now. Distance, and to be once more left alone.

‘You will come back to me,’ he said, taking a step closer.

‘Not a chance.’

‘You will be my lover again.’

‘Don’t tell me what I will do! This is my city, my world. Here, I decide.’

‘And I tell you now, you will decide to come back to me.’

She crossed to the door on knees that threatened to buckle beneath her, opened it and let the noise of the outside world in. It was a welcome intrusion, loud and full of the pulse of the city, a reminder that the world didn’t begin and end with Alejandro, whatever he thought. ‘I think it’s time you were leaving.’

His passage to the door took much less time than hers but he didn’t exit as she’d hoped. Instead he stood in the doorway, regarding her solemnly. ‘I will go,’ he said, with such an air of finality that part of her wanted to weep. With relief, she tried to tell herself. But her nerves were too jangling and raw, and the thought that Alejandro might blow out of her life just as quickly as he’d blown in was somehow too much to come to terms with.

‘My car will pick you up at six o’clock. Don’t keep the driver waiting.’

So close to achieving her goal, his words were like a punch to the gut, sending her already scattered emotions further into disarray. ‘I don’t believe you. Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve been saying?’

‘I heard, but it makes no difference to me.’

‘This isn’t about you!’

‘No? Perhaps on that point we can agree. What if it was about your brother?’

She reeled back. ‘What do you know of Jordan?’

His eyes gleamed like a fisherman who’d just landed the first catch of the day. ‘We will discuss it tonight.’ He turned and made a move to comply with her request to leave. Except now she couldn’t let him.

She reached a hand out and latched on to his lean forearm, his muscled power evident even through the fine merino cloth of his coat. ‘Alejandro!’

He turned, his eyes sweeping enquiringly up from her hand to her face.

‘Please,’ she said, dropping her hand, knowing that it would be madness to meet him tonight, knowing the more time she spent with him, the more he would whittle down her shaky defences. ‘Tell me now.’

‘We will discuss it over dinner. I will take you somewhere to eat.’ His eyes flicked mercilessly over her. ‘You need filling out.’

‘Tell me now, or I won’t come.’

‘Oh, I think you will.’

And of course he was right. There was no way he was going to tell her until she complied with what he wanted. It was the way Alejandro worked, she knew. Never giving the opposition a chance. It was the reason he was so successful in business. It was the reason he was so successful in everything. Why should he treat her any differently? But a meeting was one thing. Going out for dinner with Alejandro was something else entirely.

She glanced down at herself, taking in her well-worn shoes, her denim skirt and casual shirt. Alejandro was not the type to eat at fast food chains, and that was all she was dressed for. ‘I can’t go out like this. I’ll go home first, get changed.’ Into what, she had no idea. She’d left the glitz and glamour of her mistress lifestyle in her dressing room at his villa.

‘You will not go home. You will come as you are. Just be ready when my car arrives.’

‘But—’

‘Six o’clock,’ he said.

‘Look, just so we understand each other. I’ll have dinner with you. I’ll hear what you have to say about Jordan. But I’m not changing my mind. I won’t come back to you.’

He looked down at her knowingly. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, and then he was gone.

She closed the door behind him and leaned against it, watching him slice his way through the crowded sidewalk, beautiful and black and oblivious to the stares and head-turns his passing generated. She watched him until he was absorbed into the city.

She sighed and rested her forehead against the cool glass. Jordan was up to his eyeballs in debt, just days away from the deadline to repay the money he’d borrowed—days away from who knew what disaster if he didn’t? And the last person she wanted to see, the man she’d broken ties with to save herself, Alejandro, was here, insisting she come back and press-ganging her into seeing him again.

Could things possibly get any worse?

* * *

He burned for her. His car banished, his stride ate up the Sydney streets. The wind whipped around him, but it couldn’t banish his heat; it couldn’t consume his need. Nothing could. He wanted her, and after seeing her he wanted her more than ever.

And he could have had her.

If she hadn’t pulled away, telling him she didn’t want him—lying to him—he would have had her there and then. Once more he would have felt her sweet tightness embrace him as no other woman could. Because she wanted him, he knew. He had known it from the first moment he had walked into her store, had read her own hunger in her eyes.

She needed him, no matter how much she pretended otherwise. He looked around for a street sign, getting his bearings. A woman caught his eye, smiled up at him. He scowled back and veered right.

But he had been right to come. Mentally he applauded the board’s decision to expand its casino operations into Australia. Tomorrow he was due in Queensland. And tonight he would get Leah back in his bed.

Soon her resistance would fall away. Soon she would have every reason to comply with his demands. And victory would be all the sweeter for the wait.

But right now he burned.

And he would not wait long!

Leah had never travelled to or from work in such style. She felt ridiculous, being ushered into the black limousine on a bow from the uniformed driver as if she were someone special instead of just another no-name, struggling for existence and survival in the big city. If it weren’t for the fact she needed to find out what Alejandro knew about Jordan, she would have refused point-blank to get in the car.

Especially for a six o’clock dinner. Not once in all the time she’d been with him had they eaten so early. What was the rush?

Fifteen minutes later the car pulled up at one of Sydney’s top hotels, making her feel even shabbier. She poked some stray tendrils that had escaped from her ponytail behind her ears as the driver came round to open her door, and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to quell the butterflies that had taken possession of her stomach at the prospect of seeing Alejandro again.

A smiling woman in a white fitted uniform met her as she alighted, holding out her hand. ‘Ms Mitchell? I’m Belinda from the beauty spa. Would you like to come with me?’

Leah looked to the driver, but he merely tipped his hat at her before curling himself into the driver’s seat. ‘I thought I was meeting Mr Rodriguez.’

Belinda smiled. ‘We have orders to deliver you to his suite no later than eight p.m.—which means we’d better get started. He’s ordered you the works.’

‘Has he?’ Leah bristled as she fell into step behind the woman. So, not only did he consider her scrawny and needing feeding up, now she needed a makeover before he’d be prepared to be seen in public with her. How very flattering.

Then again, anything that put off her meeting with Alejandro couldn’t be a bad thing. And a session in the beauty spa need not only be for Alejandro’s benefit. Anything that improved her self-esteem and made her feel at less of a disadvantage could only help her own cause.

She handed over her clothes for laundering in exchange for a fluffy robe, and surrendered herself to ‘the works’. It had been months since she had experienced anything like it—months since such pampering had been part and parcel of the package of being Alejandro’s love interest—and her body lapped up a luxury she could now ill afford. A scented oil bath and hot rock massage was followed by pedicure and manicure while someone else applied a facial. Finally her hair was cut and blow dried, then gathered into a style that pulled most of it up behind her head and left trailing coils down her neck. Professional make-up was the final touch.

Leah had to hand it to the team as she gazed at her reflection. They obviously knew their stuff. She felt more feminine than she had in weeks, with the dark circles around her eyes banished, letting her blue eyes sparkle, her formerly overdue-for-a-haircut hair now sleek and tamed, her cut-short-for-work nails now tapered and glossy red.

‘How do you feel?’ Belinda asked over her shoulder as the team surrounded her and surveyed their work.

Like a princess. ‘Wonderful,’ she said, and it wasn’t just their work she was applauding. Their skilful artistry had paid dividends, but there was something else she hadn’t noticed before. A resilience, a firmness in her chin that shone through and told her she didn’t have to be afraid. She’d walked away from Alejandro once before. She could handle whatever he had in mind. And now she was ready to prove it. ‘Where are my clothes?’

‘They’ve been sent up to the suite already. There’s a private lift that will take you direct to the penthouse. I’ll let the concierge know you’re ready.’

Leah swallowed back on a tinge of panic. She was expected to ascend to his room wearing nothing more than a fluffy robe? Alejandro certainly expected things all his own way. But she refused to let it undo her resolve as Belinda led her to the lift and bade her a good evening. She was up to whatever he threw at her. Hadn’t she just convinced herself of that?

There was no lobby. The lift doors opened directly into an expansive living room, decorated in golden hues and sprinkled with antique furniture. A grand piano held pride of place in one corner, a massive chandelier hung from the ceiling, and the scent of fresh flowers from numerous arrangements perfumed the air.

But all these things were incidental when it was the body sprawled so seemingly casually into a chair, one foot propped up on a footstool, that held her interest. For there was nothing casual about him. He looked ready to spring from his chair like a jungle cat, all grace and dark power, beauty and danger, wrapped up in one irresistible package. That she would resist! He watched her over steepled fingers, his gaze dark and penetrating. She refused to shrink back, although she did tighten the belt around her waist.

‘They said my clothes were sent up here.’

His head moved the merest fraction—his concession to a nod. ‘Not that you will be needing them.’

He rose from the chair in one languid movement that emphasised the lean power of his body. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘for forgetting my manners. I was deep in thought, and then you emerged from the lift looking like a goddess. I was simply struck dumb.’

All her senses were on red alert as he came closer. Not just because of his silken words, but because he looked so good himself. He’d showered recently, she could tell. His hair was curled and damp at the collar of his stark white shirt—a shirt that emphasised his rich olive skin and made him look even darker and more dangerous.

‘Lucky for me I scrub up well,’ she tossed into the ring, wanting to show him she was not bothered by his presence, while desperately trying not to be bothered by the clean scent of him curling into her senses.

He circled her—the jungle cat back at work, sizing up his meal. ‘Indeed you do, querida.’ His voice rumbled through her. ‘You “scrub up” very well.’

‘I assume if we’re to go to dinner I am to wear something?’

He came to a standstill in front of her and smiled. ‘If you are not to drive all the men wild with lust and their women wild with jealousy, it would be wise, yes.’

‘Perish the thought,’ she said, trying to lighten the mood in the room, though her skin prickled under her robe, her temperature rising. She was immune to his hyperbole—for the most part it washed over her—but as much as she wished it were so, there was no way she was immune to the man. The way he looked at her, the way his eyes sought hers and held on, tempting her, teasing, promising things he couldn’t deliver—she should know better, but how did one gain immunity from the man one loved?

‘So, what am I to wear?’ she asked, impatient with the game. The sooner she got dressed, the sooner they could go to dinner—and the sooner she could find out what he knew about Jordan’s situation.

‘Through here,’ he said, leading the way through the vast suite to an elaborate bedroom dominated by a massive four-poster bed. She hesitated when she realised where he was leading her, but he turned and smiled. ‘If I were going to seduce you, querida, do you not think I would employ a more subtle method than leading you straight to my bed?’

Knowing Alejandro as she did, she had to concede he was right.

‘Your dress,’ he said, waving in the direction of a swathe of sapphire-blue silk lying on the bed. A pair of diamante-studded high heels sat below on the floor. ‘And I am assured these will be a perfect fit.’

She moved closer, letting her fingers slide over the silk as she took in the stunning halter design, the fabric gathered at one hip to fall gracefully to the floor. It was complexity designed to look simple. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

‘No more beautiful than you. I shall leave you to it.’

She had turned to thank him when another thought occurred to her. She shifted the dress, scanned the bedcover, but there was nothing more to find than a small clutch purse.

‘Alejandro?’

He paused, the door halfway closed behind him.

‘There’s no underwear.’

He nodded, the merest hint of a smile tugging at his lips. ‘I know.’

CHAPTER THREE

HE HAD to be joking! ‘But, Alejandro—’

‘Don’t you remember that time you surprised me? The time you shocked me with your brazenness?’

Never had she been happier to be adorned with the very best camera finish make-up as heat flooded her face. How could she have forgotten that night? Alejandro had been suddenly called away on business for two nights, and had only just made it back in time to collect her for a promised night at the opera. Ensconced in their private box, she’d leaned over and whispered in his ear just as the curtain was going up, and he’d spent the entire evening trying to insinuate himself closer to her, trying to discover if what she’d told him was true and driving her wild with his need when he had.

Before the opera was over he’d finally manoeuvred her into the shadowed recesses of the box and they’d come together in a heated rush. It had been wild and daring and reckless, and all of those things that had made their lovemaking so passionate and satisfying.

‘That was before,’ she whispered, trying to suppress the once familiar thrill of risky sex with a man made for it.

‘Indulge me,’ he said, so huskily and suggestively that it was all she could do to resist her insides melting, ‘for old times’ sake.’

After what they’d done before, how could she not be tempted? But giving in to him would hardly help her cause. She lifted her chin, determined to make her case plain. ‘It makes no difference. I won’t sleep with you.’

‘Have I asked you to?’

‘Well, maybe not in the last five minutes, no.’

‘Relax, querida,’ he said with a shrug. ‘You have told me you do not wish to become involved with me again. Why must you keep repeating it? Who are you trying to convince?’

‘Bastard,’ she muttered, with some satisfaction as he pulled the door closed behind him. She felt herself being sucked deeper and deeper into his dark plans, but that didn’t mean she had to go along with them. Immediately she crossed to the bank of wardrobes that lined one mirrored wall, sliding open the doors, searching for the clothes she’d been promised had been returned to the suite. She pulled open every drawer, searched every space, but there was nothing of hers, only Alejandro’s impeccable clothes gracing the wardrobe. She flopped down on the bed, her heart heavy in her chest.

She cursed him again—yet even as she did, even though she knew she should feel incensed by his actions, she couldn’t dispel the heavy coiling ache building inside her, the inexorable build-up of excitement that came with being with this man. He wanted to make love to her. He’d made that plain.

But damn him! She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he was affecting her. And if she needed a reason to be all the more determined to resist his advances, this was surely it.

Reluctantly she abandoned the voluminous wrap in which she’d once felt so exposed, and slipped the dress over her head, the fabric falling like a waterfall, sliding over skin in a silken kiss. She zipped it up, thankful that the halter offered some kind of support, and never before more grateful for lining. But still the fabric caressed her skin, sensitising it, and even as she strapped on the glittering sandals she could feel her breasts swelling, her nipples hardening at the sensual caress of silk against skin—and the knowledge that Alejandro would know exactly how little she was wearing under it.

She gathered up the clutch purse and opened it, surprised, but realising she shouldn’t be, that someone had transferred from her handbag the very items that she might need tonight. As she straightened and turned she caught her reflection in the wall of mirrors. Just as he’d asserted, the dress was a perfect fit, accentuating curves she’d thought she’d lost, its length lapping at the ground behind her like the waves lapping at the shore as she moved.

And the way the fabric draped across her hips nobody would know she wasn’t wearing a stitch underneath.

Nobody except Alejandro. But no way would she give him the satisfaction of knowing it bothered her.

She opened the door to join him, doing her best to ignore the feel of a lover’s caress on her skin as she moved, and plastering a supremely confident look on her face she had no right to claim.

He stood with his back to her, pouring champagne into two gold crystal champagne flutes. Reflected in the mirrored back of the sideboard she could see his look of concentration, his expression and every part of his bearing showing his aristocratic upbringing. Leah’s feet came to a halt, the madness of her situation defying understanding. For even after she’d had the best in beauty treatments, was now wearing haute couture

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