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She was dressed in a simple green silk slip of a gown, tiny straps supporting the soft fabric that clung loosely to her lithe body, the hemline ending just above her knees to reveal her long, shapely legs. On her feet delicate wedge-heeled gold and green sandals glittered as she skipped lightly down the stairs.
She had left her blonde hair loose to curl enticingly over her shoulders and down her back because she knew that Raul preferred it that way. She was totally unaware of how stunning she looked. The glow of love had given her fine features an incandescent beauty, her softly swollen lips needed no lipstick, and her blue eyes sparkled with the inner radiance of a woman who knew she was loved.
'Penelope.' The voice was harsh.
Penny's foot hesitated on the bottom step of the stairs; her heart thumped in her breast. Raul was standing in the entrance, elegantly dressed in a dark business suit, the sun behind him outlining his huge frame in a halo of fire. For a second he looked like the devil incarnate. His business meeting must have finished early, she thought inconsequentially.
'Raul, you're back.' She moved towards him, a tentative smile pulling at her wide mouth.
'Too late, it would seem, to stop your idiocy,' he drawled scathingly.
'My idiocy?' She shook her head, her fair hair floating around her naked shoulders. What on earth was he talking about? Her eyes searched his rugged face and she shivered inside.
'Don't play the blue-eyed innocent with me, Penny. I'm too old to be fooled.' And the contempt in his voice flicked her like a whiplash.
'Please, Raul.' She lifted her hand to his chest but he swept her aside.
'In my study... now.'
She followed him. Noting the tension in his broad back, she chewed nervously at her bottom lip. Something had upset him, but what?
She had barely put a foot in the oak-panelled study before he turned on her, and, slamming the door behind her, he rested one hand on the hard wood and stared down into her confused face. But this was not the man who had l
eft her a handful of hours earlier. His dark eyes were as hard as jet, and as unyielding.
'What the hell have you been doing, woman?' he demanded icily.
'P-p-packing,' she stammered, totally intimidated by the cold rage in his dark eyes.
'Don't be facetious; it does not suit you.'
'I...' Trapped against the door, with his huge body towering over her, Penny touched the tip of her tongue to her dry lips. ‘I wasn't—'
'Who on earth gave you the right to insult my neighbours, to order a friend from my house in my absence?'
She felt the colour drain from her face. She stared at him helplessly. The shock of being confronted in such a way by the man she loved was totally numbing.
'How dared you do such a thing?' A cruel smile twisted across his face. 'On what authority?'
'On what authority'. The words echoed in her brain. They were lovers, partners—or so she had thought. Obviously Raul's idea of a partnership was not the same as hers.
Angry colour flooded Penny's cheeks. The nerve of the man, yelling at her as if she were no more than a servant in his home. Not even that—he was unfailingly polite to Ava and Carlos. What was the matter with her? She was letting Raul intimidate her yet again, as he had in the beginning when she had mentioned marriage, and again in Dubai, when he had packed her off to Spain. Was she a woman or a doormat? she asked herself.
Her spine stiffening, she looked straight into his dark, furious eyes. 'I was under the impression that we were partners, and in your absence I was to treat your house as my own,' she said, her voice coolly measured in sharp contrast to her rapidly beating heart. 'If I misunderstood you, I'm sorry.'
A dark flush covered his hard face and he had the grace to look ashamed at his outburst, but not for long... 'Yes, yes, but not to the extent of insulting my neighbours.' He stormed across the room and then swung back to face her, running his large hand through his dark hair in angry frustration. 'You will have to apologise to Dulcie, not me.'
'I presume you are referring to that hateful woman, Dulciana Maria Costas. She marched into the house and was unspeakably rude to poor Ava. I told her to leave, as any other right-minded person would have done, and if you think for a second I will apologise to the woman forget it.' Penny glared at him and folded her arms across her chest.
His mouth thinned to a hard line. 'Dulcie does not speak English. How do you know what was said?' he sneeringly demanded.
'Because my Spanish is good; I understood perfectly and acted accordingly.'
'Nonsense, Penny, you must have misunderstood. I have known Dulcie all my life. Unlike you, she would not deliberately insult anyone,' he said with cutting sarcasm.
'Obviously you have no such qualms,' she shot back, but his words bruised her heart. Nonsensical was she? Along with 'dumb' and 'idiocy' it all added up to a man who had no respect for her as a person. Suddenly with blinding clarity she recognised what she had become. From an intelligent, ambitious woman she had turned into a fool for love. She blinked rapidly to hold back the tears, not sure if they were tears of sorrow or pure rage.
She shook her head in disbelief, and stared at Raul as though she had never seen him before. 'How could you take the word of an old fiancée you have not seen for years against mine?'
