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‘As much as I’d like to be able to resist you, I don’t think I can.’
Her heart thumped—hard. The thought of Cruz touching her again and seeing right through to where she was most vulnerable was anathema.
She jerked her chin out of his hand. ‘Well, I can resist you enough for both of us.’
He smiled urbanely and stood back, putting out a hand to let her go ahead of him up the stairs and out of the vaults. ‘We’ll see,’ he said with infuriating arrogance as she passed him, and she had to stop herself from running up the stairs, away from his silky threat.
* * *
This was Cruz’s first social appearance back in Seville. His return was triumphant, now he had tripled his family’s fortune and restored the reputation of the once great bank. Now no one would dare say to his face or behind his back the things they’d used to say when his father had been alive.
And yet he could not indulge in a sense of satisfaction. He was too keyed-up after that white-hot explosion of lust in the back of the Jeep, which had proved to him that where Trinity was concerned he had no control over his desires.
His body still throbbed with sexual frustration. And he was distracted by their exchange, and how it had felt to see her with that ring on her finger down in the vaults. It had affected him in a place he hadn’t welcomed. As if it was somehow right that she should wear one of his family’s heirlooms.
Down in that vault it had suddenly been very clear to him that he couldn’t fight his desire for her—so why should he? He might not like himself for his weakness but she was his wife, and the prospect of trying to resist her for the duration of their marriage was patently ridiculous.
But something niggled at him—why wasn’t she using his desire for her as a means to negotiate or manipulate? Instead she’d looked almost haunted when she’d fled up the steps from the vault. She was still pale now, her eyes huge. Irritation prickled across Cruz’s skin. Maybe now that she knew he wanted her she was going to play him in a different way, drive him mad...
‘What is it?’ he asked abruptly. ‘You look paler than a wraith.’
She swallowed, the movement drawing Cruz’s gaze to that long, slender column. Delicate. Vulnerable. Damn her. She was just playing him. He was giving in to his base desires again and—
‘I’m fine. I just... Events like this are intimidating. I never get used to it. I don’t know what to say to these people.’
Cruz’s recriminations stopped dead. If she was acting then she was worthy of an award. He had a vivid flashback to seeing her standing alone in the crowd at that party in his house, the night of the accident, her stunning body barely decent in that scrap of a dress.
Cruz had been too distracted by the rush of blood to his extremities to notice properly. He’d hated her for making him feel as if he was betraying his brother by still feeling attracted to her. But the memory jarred now. Not sitting so well with what he knew of her.
Almost without registering the urge, Cruz took his hand off her elbow and snaked it around her waist, tugging her into his side. It had the effect of muting his desire to a dull roar. She looked up at him, tense under his arm. Something feral within him longed for her to admit to this attraction between them.
‘What are you doing?’
‘We’re married, querida, we need to look it. Just follow my lead. most of the people here are committed egotists, so once you satisfy their urge to talk about themselves they’re happy.’
‘You don’t count yourself in that category?’
Her quick comeback caused Cruz’s mouth to tip up. Suddenly the dry, sterile event wasn’t so...boring. And she had a flush in her face now, which aroused him as much as it sent a tendril of relief to somewhere she shouldn’t be affecting him.
He replied dryly, ‘I find it far more fruitful to allow others to run their mouths off.’
Cruz’s hand rested low on Trinity’s hip and he squeezed it gently.
She tensed again, as someone approached them, and he said, ‘Relax.’
* * *
Relax...
It had been the easiest thing and the hardest thing in the world to melt into his side, as if she was meant to be there. It was a cruel irony that she seemed to fit there so well, her softer body curving into his harder form as if especially made for that purpose.
Cruz hadn’t let her out of his orbit all night. Even when she’d gone to the bathroom as soon as she’d walked back in to the function room his eyes had been the first thing she’d seen, compelling her back to his side like burning beacons.
It had been both disconcerting and exhilarating. In social situations before she’d invariably been left to fend for herself, Rio being done with her once their initial entrance had been made.
Trinity sighed now and finished tucking Matty and Sancho into their beds—she’d come straight here upon their return from the function, all but running away from Cruz, who had been lazily undoing his bow tie and looking utterly sinful.
The boys were spreadeagled, covers askew, pyjamas twisted around their bodies. Overcome with tenderness for these two small orphaned boys, she smoothed back a lock of Sancho’s hair and s
