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Getting into her torn nightie was hardly a joy, and as he’d been the one to tear it he might have had the decency to supply her with something of Encarnación’s. Sighing crossly, she held the ripped edges together and sidled out into the bedroom, her heart pattering around, only relaxing a little when he stalked past her and closed the bathroom door without so much as a word or even a look.
Scurrying to the sitting-room, she grabbed an armful of cushions and scampered back to place them in a straight line right down the centre of the bed then leapt beneath the light covers. As a barrier it wouldn’t take much dismantling, but she would instantly know if he tried to remove them, and take immediate evasive action.
Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she turned her face into the pillow, her ears straining to pick up the sounds that would tell her he’d returned to the bedroom. She would kill Piers with her own bare hands—save Francisco the bother—for getting her into such an intolerable situation! She then spent a long time wondering where all her prized control had gone, pondering on how easily a given set of circumstances could present her with a bucketful of raw emotions she was beginning to find increasingly difficult to control.
Given set of circumstances! she scoffed at herself, punching the pillow. Who did she think she was kidding? She had never come within a whisker of losing a scrap of her careful control through all sorts of difficulties, be they with her impossible father, over-demanding clients or ultra-pedantic bank managers, until she had come up against this Spanish devil! And the fact that he was holding her hostage had nothing whatever to do with it, she recognised, hating him all the more for that uncomfortable truth.
It was the way he made her feel, just by looking at her. And when he actually touched her she went completely haywire, she acknowledged under direct and painful self-examination. A chemical reaction which had never come near to occurring with any other man, and one she could do precious little about.
All she could do was to work hard at hiding it, and as she had never been afraid of hard work she supposed it shouldn’t present a problem she would be incapable of handling. What had happened earlier this evening would not be repeated. She had been taken unawares that time. In future she would be rigidly on guard. And whether Piers responded to that message or not Francisco couldn’t keep her here indefinitely. Nothing lasted forever.
On that hopeful thought she settled more comfortably but the unmistakable click of the bathroom door closing, the small sounds he made as he moved around the bedroom had her as tense as piano wire, every cell in her body on red alert as she waited for the inevitable.
She heard his soft-footed approach to the other side of the bed, and then the humphing sound he made in his throat as he pulled back the cover. Presumably because he’d noticed the barrier—and was showing his contempt for its flimsy nature?
Doing her best to pretend that she was already deeply asleep, she felt the mattress dip as he slipped in beside her. Leaving the cushions where they were, he turned on his side and clicked off the light and the mome
nt she heard his breathing relax she fell asleep as if someone had pressed a switch inside her head.
Sarah flopped over on to her tummy as she began to come awake, an outstretched hand pushing against the barrier of cushions. And just for a moment, before she opened her eyes to the golden morning light, she experienced a deeply slicing pang of regret for the distance Francisco had been quite happy to leave between them.
The assimilation of that piece of self-knowledge brought her fully awake immediately and she twisted round and sat up in a hurry, anguished eyes scanning his side of the bed, the room. No sign of him. Drawing in a shaky breath, she pulled the covers up to her chin and forced herself to look the unpalatable facts squarely in the face.
That regret, the nature of it, had presented itself before she’d been properly awake. So it had been uncensored. It had been the unvarnished truth.
Subconsciously she had wanted him to hold her, cuddle her close, as he had on the previous night. And had she actually wanted more than that? Very much more?
Frowning, she pushed that conjecture aside. It was unproven. And she had enough to cope with without adding idle speculation to the burden of knowing she had wanted him to toss the cushions out of the bed and tug her into the curve of his body.
You are, she warned herself sternly, in serious trouble, lady.
She felt herself flush with the shameful embarrassment of her knowledge when Francisco walked through the door. Her heart leapt at the mere sight of him, though there was nothing ‘mere’ about him, she acknowledged as she tried unsuccessfully to will the tide of fiery colour to recede.
Dressed all in black this morning, he was unfairly spectacular and the smile he gave her wasn’t lacking in that department either, because it made her toes curl, sent a shiver of sensation that was decidedly delicious all the way down her back. Unfortunate physical manifestations of a malaise she didn’t quite know how to treat, she decided uneasily.
And he wasn’t helping because his voice was warm and sunny, his accent riveting, as he came over to the bedside, put a glass of chilled orange juice in her hands and said, ‘This morning we will walk before the sun gets high. We both need the exercise.’ He dipped his head to one side, his eyes wandering over her flushed features. ‘We shall take our breakfast with us—I have already told Rosalia. Hurry now; drink your juice.’
The grin he gave her made her head swim; she clutched the glass tightly with both hands because she felt giddy enough to spill the contents and she watched him, mesmerised, as he strolled over to the wardrobes and riffled through the clothes he had decided his sister wouldn’t miss.
His black mood of the night before had gone as if it had never been. He was impossible, unpredictable, a devil. She never knew how he would be with her from one moment to the next, and her eyes were wary as he selected a hanger and draped something in peacock-blue filmy cotton over the foot of the bed. His sinfully beautiful mouth was curling at the edges as he told her softly, ‘Wear this; it will cover you adequately. You must treasure your beautiful, delicate skin, protect it. You are not like me, a gypsy, to walk uncovered in the sun. So no more anger between us, eh, Salome? Today we will be friends.’
Oh, a devil indeed! After the chilling anger of the night before she felt as if she had walked into brilliant sunshine. And he was getting more Spanish by the second, she thought wildly as she watched him watching her from lazy black eyes, his longfingered hands planted on his sexily lean hips.
She would have given at least two of her teeth for the strength of will to command him to go away, to take himself for a walk and forget to come back. But she doubted there was a woman alive who could resist him and knew he was aware of it, but even that failed to put a stop to her willingness to fall in with any plans he had made. And she hadn’t even inwardly objected to his use of her given name, she thought, more in sorrow than in anger, watching him as he took the empty glass from her limp fingers then walked out into the adjoining sitting-room, the smile curving his lips telling her plainly that he knew he could get his own way, whatever the opposition.
Only she wasn’t opposing him, was she? she thought as she clambered out of bed and into the bathroom, excusing herself on the grounds that there seemed little point in getting stubborn about this because a walk would pass the time, and she could do with the exercise, and, anyway, her father might have turned up by the time they got back.
But she didn’t believe that, did she?
However, she refused to think about that, or anything else, as she slid the soft fine cotton over her head, and didn’t scowl at the ultra-feminine reflection the mirror threw back at her because the simple loose style, the cool V-neckline and floaty sleeves that came down to her wrists felt good. And the colour suited her, dramatically darkening her aquamarine eyes, making her hair even paler, glossier.
She walked back into the bedroom, her breath escaping on a tiny gasp when she met the gleaming approval of his eyes as he wandered back through from the other room.
The things he could do to her with his eyes alone shouldn’t be allowed, not in a civilised society, she thought raggedly, then decided he wasn’t civilised at all, not really, because beneath the handsome, groomed exterior, all the laid-back charm he seemed able to turn on at will, lurked a bundle of primitive passions that could explode without warning, a truly arrogant belief in his own omnipotence, a raw vitality that made every other man she knew seem congenitally anaemic and a ferocious sexuality that had the power to stun.
He was holding a wide-brimmed straw hat and as he advanced she felt her bones turn to water. She said chirpily, trying to rally herself, ‘Is that for me?’ and lost the little ground she’d gained for herself when his slow mocking smile, the unholy gleam in his eyes rendered her incapable of speech or movement.
‘I guess it must be. It’s not quite my style; doesn’t do a thing for me.’
