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‘I need a drink so badly my throat thinks it’s been cut, and some food inside me would be pleasant, since you effectively ruined dinner last night…’
Then, just to make sure that his next point went home, he bent low enough to bring his eyes into full contact with her darker than black eyes, vulnerable, wishful—sad.
His teeth came together. ‘In other words, sweetheart, what you see here is a man at the end of his rope. So be warned that ignoring me right now is a very—very dangerous thing to do.’
She blinked, she swallowed, and her lips quivered as she took in a small breath. He nodded, held her eyes for a moment longer, and thought about kissing her utterly, totally—punishingly breathless, but then straightened up and took his foot off the bale.
It was then that she saw his ov
ernight bag, dumped on the ground. He watched her look at it, then pull in a breath. ‘Luis—’
‘Anton,’ he corrected, turning his back on her to take an interest in his surroundings. ‘I don’t feel much like Luis right now.’
He could almost hear her lips snapping shut before they opened again.
‘I will not marry you.’
‘Fine.’ He shrugged. ‘Now, show me round this heavy investment I’ve bought into.’
‘Will you listen to me?’
He swung back, everything about him hard like iron. ‘Only when you have something to say that I want to hear.’
‘I don’t need your money any more! Did your mother not tell you?’
‘About my father’s bequest to you?’
‘Father—?’ She stared at him.
Anton returned the look with an inscrutability that said he was not going to play that game. ‘You know that Enrique Ramirez was my father because my mother told you. Now that we have that attempt at yet more deception out of the way, will you show me around—please?’
Please. Cristina looked at this tall, dark, arrogant man, with his beautiful accent and his beautiful manners and the hard crystal eyes that warned her to beware. She felt that oh, so helpless, I do so love you, Luis lump form in her throat, and—
‘I can pay my debts.’ She stuck to her guns, chin up, eyes defiant.
‘You can try,’ he invited with a thin smile. ‘But the moment you so much as attempt to pay me off, I will sell all your debts on to the Alagoas Consortium so fast your head will spin. They will not be so easy to please as I am.’
He would do it too. Cristina could see the cold intent cast like armour on his face.
‘You are not easy to please.’ She sighed wearily, then turned away from him to remove her gloves so she could toss them down onto the bale of hay.
Without looking at him again she walked over to the hand pump beside the barn and set cool water flowing to wash her hands, then pulled the scarf off her head and wet it to use to cool her sweat-sheened face and throat.
If Luis thought he’d had a bad day then he should have lived hers, she thought tiredly. Three ranch hands had walked off the job the moment she’d left for Rio, leaving Pablo alone to do the jobs of four—five, if she counted herself. They had not been paid in months, so how could she complain about them walking away? And when she’d entered the house she’d found Orraca, the housekeeper, on her hands and knees mopping up the kitchen which had flooded due to a burst pipe. Orraca was too old to be on her hands and knees, so Cristina had taken over the mopping while Pablo fixed the leaky pipe. Then she and Pablo had come out here, to start catching up on the jobs that had not been done. Now it was two o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was at its hottest, and all she wanted to do was to take that shower Luis had mentioned, crawl into her bed and sleep…for a hundred years if she could.
A hand came out to take the wet scarf from her. It was stupid for her lips to start quivering, but they did. Luis drenched the scarf again, folded it carefully, then placed it carefully around her neck.
A sob rolled in her throat. ‘Don’t be nice to me,’ she protested, having to blink the tears back.
‘You’d prefer my hands there instead of the scarf?’ he quizzed. ‘Or maybe you would like it better if I just turned round and left again.’
Cristina’s mouth opened but nothing came out. His hands dropped to her shoulders, and it just was not fair that he pulled her close. Before she knew what she was doing two sets of fingers had crept up in between them and were toying with the black ribbon edges of his bowtie, which were dangling either side of the tantalising V of damp skin exposed at his glistening throat.
‘I’m in your blood,’ he murmured huskily. ‘You are in mine. Why keep fighting it?’
Because I have to, she thought, and moved away from him, lifting her chin and taking in a deep breath.
‘Do you want some refreshment?’ she asked then.
