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He was doing it deliberately, she thought chokily. And if she had any pride at all, even a smattering of that precious commodity, she would turn on her heels and walk right out of here. But he mesmerised her, took away her backbone, and she
could only weakly stand and watch, gulping to ease her suddenly parched throat, trying to slow down her racing pulsebeats, as he turned and fluidly gathered up the pile of delicate garments, telling her in that wickedly husky voice of his, ‘We go back to our room, yes? And there you can clothe yourself in a manner befitting the owner of a tantalisingly delectable body. And I will watch, and maybe I will find myself being tantalised beyond mortal endurance. Who knows?’ His mouth quirked enticingly. ‘Señorita Sarah might be transformed into a veritable Salome. I shall,’ he ended loftily, ‘be happy to give my verdict.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘AVERITABLE Salome’—not if she could help it! A decade ago she had sloughed off that ridiculous name—along with the image that went with it. Erroneous, in her case, as he would soon see!
Stepping out of the shower, Sarah towelled herself dry, one eye warily on the closed door.
To her self-admitted amazement and neverending relief, there hadn’t been the expected need to fight her corner. Ending up back in his suite of rooms, she had sternly demanded privacy while she showered and changed. And he had calmly acquiesced, as if his disgusting earlier threat had not been made, the only proviso being that she didn’t lock the door.
Which meant that he still thought she might do away with herself, she sighed, pulling on the clean underwear he had dropped on a stool earlier that morning. She was going to have to disabuse him.
Stringing him along had seemed like a good idea at the time, a foolproof ticket out of here because, she had figured, he wouldn’t want her self-inflicted demise on his conscience.
Only events had proved he didn’t have one, or only enough of one to make sure he kept his eyes on her at all times. And no way was she going to share his bed again. No way! So she would have to come clean. He would be furious when she explained how she’d made a fool of him. All that wounded Spanish pride didn’t bear thinking about.
Yet it could work to her advantage, she comforted herself optimistically. He might even be furious enough to lock her up someplace else. Out of his sight. Which would be a darned sight more acceptable than having him forever hanging around, taunting her, insulting her, watching her, touching her…
The thought of him touching her made her feel decidedly giddy, as if every cell in her body was being whirled around in a giant mixer, her blood singing and throbbing round her body, leaving her brain starved of oxygen.
So she would think of something else instead. Such as what to wear. Pick the most sensible garment out of this bundle of froth and frivolity.
But there wasn’t anything sensible to find—just silks and lace and cottons so soft and fine they were almost transparent. Trust a man to pick out unsuitable fripperies just because he liked the look of them, the feel of them as they slithered through his hands!
Pressured by the fear that he might get tired of waiting around while she made her selection, and decide to poke his head round the door to satisfy himself that she wasn’t busily slitting her wrists, she scrambled into a wrap-over sheer cotton skirt in a delicate apricot shade and topped it with a sleeveless blouse in oyster-coloured silk. Then she discovered, too late to chop and change, that instead of demurely tucking into the waistband of the skirt the blouse was cropped revealingly short, ending just beneath her bosom, leaving her slender midriff bare.
Her cheeks went pink as she suspiciously examined her reflection in the mirror. And, just as she had feared, her image was the last word in femininity, her ash-blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders, the soft expensive fabrics hinting at the delicate curves beneath, her feet bare because for some ridiculous reason she couldn’t bring herself to slip on the sensible flatties she had chosen to travel in. They would look hideous teamed with the things she was wearing.
And, she found to her inner disgust, she didn’t want to look in any way hideous in his eyes. Not that she wanted to feel that way; she didn’t. But there was nothing she could do about it for the moment. Tantalising: that was the word he had used, wasn’t it? And tantalising simply wasn’t her style. When she dressed up she preferred elegance and simplicity, not—
But at least she felt cooler and fresher and she could ask Rosalia to put her grey trousers and shirt in the washing machine. She needn’t wear this sort of stuff all the time. And perhaps she could look for herself, borrow something more suitable from Encarnación’s apparently limitless wardrobe. She would ask.
So she hooked the wings of her hair behind her ears, resolutely stuffed her feet into the black leather flatties and walked out, and he didn’t look up from the papers spread out over the desk at the far end of the room until she edgily cleared her throat, the stern, brooding beauty of his profile making her unaccountably nervous now. And the nervousness increased to near panic when he did turn round, his smile too gorgeous to be borne, his eyes inviting her to drown in them.
‘Beautiful, just as I predicted.’
His voice was a dark, sexily accented purr, which did nothing at all to help and her reaction to him made her despair, made her voice emerge as a sulky mumble as she plucked at the fabric of the floaty skirt and asked, ‘Couldn’t you have chosen something more practical? Jeans? T-shirts? I feel like a Barbie doll!’
‘No, you don’t. You feel adorable because you look adorable. Is that not so?’
He rose, sweeping the papers into a drawer and nudging it closed with a wickedly lean hip. ‘Except for the shoes. We must see if something of Encarnación’s might fit. As for the rest—’ his dark eyes suddenly smouldered over her ‘—my sister is not like the rest of today’s youth. You will not find Encarnación astride a moped, hanging around bars or discos. She has not been brought up to the ugliness of the ubiquitous jeans and T-shirts; she is feminine to the core, brought up to look and behave like a princess.’
A dark anger shimmered in his gaze and Sarah shuddered, sorting rapidly through what he had told her, her sympathies veering in Encarnación’s direction for the first time. ‘A princess’, he had said. Shut away from reality in an ivory tower? Pampered and spoiled but allowed no real life of her own, no thoughts of her own? Little wonder she had taken to her heels.
All at once it no longer seemed to matter that she’d been forced to wear the other girl’s clothes, and the tiny frown that had formed between her eyes deepened fractionally when the hard slash of his mouth softened again as he told her, ‘I’m sure you’re not in the least interested. Come, I promised to open your cage, did I not?’
But she was interested. What she had learned made sense of the way the Spanish girl had taken it into her head to disappear with a lover old enough to be her father—and then some.
Despite being pampered and protected all her life she would have been normal enough to rebel, to want to join in with whatever the rest of humanity was doing. But she might well have been wary of going it alone in the world outside her ivory tower, warier still of relying on a boy of her own age to guide her through the nitty-gritty of the real world. But a much older man, a wealthy man, a man who—as Sarah knew—could charm the female of the species without even trying, then yes, she might have seen Piers as a form of salvation.
Fully occupied with thoughts of the missing Encarnación instead of brooding on her own predicament, she followed where Francisco led, barely registering anything but the sound of their footfalls as they descended the stone stairs and crossed the main courtyard, blinking bemusedly when he unlocked the huge outer door and the harsh sunlight illuminated the dim apartment.
‘There,’ he announced lightly. ‘Your cage is open. And here is where we keep the key.’ He reached up and placed it in a niche in the stone door surround. ‘You need never feel you are a prisoner again.’
She raised her narrowed eyes to his, searching his features for a hint of treachery; she found nothing but a challenge, bright and glittering, and only understood it when he escorted her through an open doorway in the walled castle approaches to a sweeping terrace, dripping with wisteria, standing back from her the better to watch the play of emotions on her face, his own an awesomely handsome mask that didn’t quite hide the devilish inner amusement.
The sort of freedom she had been hoping to gain in no way equated with the situation. She had been a fool ever to imagine that it would, to experience the quick, tight lift of excitement when he’d unlocked the door, told her where the key was kept.
