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Yolanda listened with keen interest, but demonstrated not the slightest sympathy for Cindy’s plight. ‘I still don’t see why you should be taking the heat for her.’
‘Cindy didn’t plan it that way.’
‘But she’s anything but sorry that it’s turned out that way!’ Yolanda scanned Lucy’s troubled face and shook her head in apparent wonderment. ‘You’re just too nice to fight your own corner. You let everybody walk all over you.’
‘No, I don’t—’
‘What am I doing right now? You didn’t even shout at me for going through your handbag!’
Lucy gave her a rueful smile, thinking that for all her sophistication and self-confidence the other woman could occasionally sound very naive. ‘I’ve got more important things to worry about.’
‘No, you just need a fast-track escape from Joaquin and I can give it to you,’ Yolanda announced.
Incredulity at that announcement blossomed in Lucy’s eyes.
Her beautiful companion reddened. ‘Well, what’s the use of you staying on here? You can’t sign that agreement and you can’t leave without help.’
‘But you’re Joaquin’s sister,’ Lucy heard herself mutter helplessly.
‘Half-sister,’ Yolanda qualified, tossing her head, her full mouth compressing. ‘I’m not being disloyal; I’m just suiting myself. Big Bro will be on your sister’s tracks no matter what happens, and there’s nothing you can do about that.’
There was an awful truth to that assurance and it made Lucy shiver. She could only hope that that bank transfer of cash which her twin had mentioned would be sufficient to put Joaquin Del Castillo in a more reasonable frame of mind where Fidelio Paez was concerned. But she still could not understand why Yolanda should be offering to help her.
‘How would it suit you to help me to leave?’ Lucy asked with wide eyes.
‘That’s my affair. But you have only a few hours to make up your mind. Joaquin’s leaving for a business meeting in New York later this afternoon, but he’ll back by tomorrow night. I certainly couldn’t help you to vanish while he’s still around!’
Joaquin’s half-sister rose and glided with fluid steps back to the door. ‘So it’s up to you, Lucy. Seems to me you haven’t got many options, because if you don’t decide to go I will probably feel that I have to tell Joaquin that he’s got the nice twin instead of the nasty one!’
Lucy’s tummy clenched at that unashamed threat. She hurried to the door, but Yolanda was already heading back upstairs. It was clear that as far as the brunette was concerned the interview was at an end. So what was Lucy going to do?
Not knowing whether she was on her head or her heels, she wandered back down to the office. As the staff were taking the long lunch break favoured in hot climates, it was empty. She sat down at her workstation and drew in a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. If she didn’t sign that repayment agreement Joaquin would get really, really furious, and Lucy felt that she had already made enough of a fool of herself without being forced to hang around where she most definitely was not wanted.
At the same time, however, if she performed a vanishing act without signing she might well bring down Joaquin on Cindy’s head before the wedding. But wasn’t Roger safe in Germany right now? If she left a letter behind promising that bank transfer her twin had mentioned, wouldn’t that satisfy Joaquin for a week or two at least? He was a hugely important and busy guy. How likely was it that he would drop everything and race over to London immediately?
The door opened. Joaquin stilled on the threshold.
Lucy collided with his spectacular eyes, watched them narrow and veil. It hurt, it really hurt her to see the cold distance in his gaze. And right at that minute, when she herself was aware of him with every fibre of her being, the pain felt just about unbearable.
‘What are you doing in here?’ Joaquin demanded with sardonic bite.
‘I didn’t feel like lunch—’
‘Por Dios…you would put up with anything sooner than agree to strip yourself of your ill-gotten gains!’ Joaquin condemned with slashing contempt. ‘However, if you’re determined to play this charade out to the bitter end, you might as well make yourself useful.’
‘Useful?’
Joaquin settled a sheet of paper down on the desk beside her. ‘Turn up that file and print it out for me.’
Her teeth plucking at her lower lip as she struggled to utilise what she had learnt earlier and perform the task, Lucy found herself wondering why she was bothering. Who was she trying to impress? Where was her pride? He was behaving like an absolute louse. She was rigid with the force of her pent-up emotions. She shifted on the seat, reminded by the intimate ache of her body that Joaquin had enjoyed a most thorough acquaintance with it before developing convenient but very belated regrets.
‘Are you planning to take all day over this one minor request for output?’ Joaquin demanded icily.
Her hands suddenly lifted off the keyboard and balled into fists which she slammed back down on the keyboard again. ‘Stop talking to me like that!’ she practically shrieked at him as she jumped out of her seat, temper erupting from the emotional turmoil she had been fighting to contain. ‘I’ve got the message…OK?’
‘You’ll have got the message when you sign that agreement,’ Joaquin countered, with a cool that she would have found formidable had she been in a calmer frame of mind.
‘For goodness’ sake—’
‘Once you sign, I may…I just may consider calling on you the next time I’m over in London,’ Joaquin imparted flatly.
Totally disconcerted by that assurance, Lucy blinked. ‘I don’t understand—’
‘Don’t you?’ Joaquin vented a cynical laugh, his lean strong features hardening. ‘You appeal to the very worst side of my nature, querida. If I can contrive to withstand temptation, you won’t ever see me again.’
Lucy’s soft mouth opened and closed again in slow motion.
Joaquin’s jewelled eyes wandered in a leisurely appraisal over her slight slender frame, lingering on the firm swell of her small breasts and the highly feminine curve of waist and hip so well defined by the deceptively simple shift dress she wore. By the time he had completed that increasingly bold evaluation of what they both knew he had an infinitely more intimate acquaintance with, Lucy’s cheeks were scarlet and her hands were knotted into defensive fists.
But at that moment it was herself she was fighting rather than him. His potent magnetism was firing the atmosphere between them. That suggestion that he might see her again in London had thrown her, leaving her in no fit state to muster her defences. Her mouth was dry and her heartbeat had accelerated.
Spiky ebony lashes semi-screened his slumbrous green gaze, his beautiful mouth taking on a sensual curve which was all too familiar to her. ‘On the other hand,’ Joaquin mused in a husky undertone roughened by all-male satisfaction, ‘I’m single and I can afford you. Why should I deny myself the occasional indulgence?’
An indulgence? Lucy thought of chocolate as an indulgence, but she had never thought of herself in that line. I can afford you. She could not credit that she had sunk low enough to be faced with such an offensive statement. That Joaquin even felt confident enough to say that to her appalled her. Then she met those brilliant knowing eyes of his and she paled to the colour of parchment and finally understood. Joaquin Del Castillo was supremely well aware of his power over her. It was the final humiliation and it chilled her physical response to his presence.
‘You think I…you think I care about you,’ she said unsteadily.
Joaquin spread fluidly expressive hands in a gesture that was anything but an indication of humility.
‘And you are ready to use that to make me do what you want?’ she framed, in quivering disbelief that any male could be that cruelly manipulative.
Joaquin gave her a measured nod of confirmation.
Lucy folded her arms in a jerky motion. She thought of the way she had behaved the previous night. She was no a
ctress, and had had no idea of playing it cool. She had probably betrayed herself a hundred times over in the way she’d looked at him and what she had both said and done. At the very least, he knew that she was keen. No longer could she meet his eyes. She was deeply shaken by the degrading proposition he was outlining to her.
‘I do understand your shocked sense of injustice, querida,’ Joaquin murmured silkily. ‘How many times have you run rings round men crazy for you? But this time around it’s going to be different.’
Lucy stepped out from behind the workstation separating them, two coins of high colour adorning her taut cheekbones. ‘If you think for one moment that I’d be stupid enough to let you reduce me to the level of some tramp you spend the night with whenever you feel like it—’
‘Such emotive words,’ Joaquin sliced in, smooth as glass. ‘Yet you set no boundaries last night. You wanted me too much to be sensible or calculating and it paid dividends, es verdad? For what I am now offering you is an arrangement to which you are uniquely well suited—’
