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But his frankness and the speed of his apology had already struck a reassuring note with Suzy. Clearly, Ruy had faults and baggage just as she did, a little voice piped up inside her head, and he was strong enough to admit those facts. He had helped her, had dealt with Percy and was still fully committed to ensuring that she stayed safe. Yes, Ruy had also said stuff he shouldn’t have said and made assumptions that he was not entitled to make, but if he was willing to explain she decided she would listen even if it was only out of curiosity. Stiff with nervous tension, she dropped down on the edge of a sofa and studied him with caution.
Ruy was currently engaged in buttoning the shirt he had put on with his jeans. He had been bare-chested when he repelled Percy, the shirt fluttering loose. He was now covering that broad slice of bronzed muscular torso. As a little spark of heat awakened low in her belly, she turned pink and swiftly averted her attention from him. ‘Eight years ago, you must have been quite young,’ she remarked uncomfortably.
‘I was twenty-two,’ Ruy admitted flatly. ‘I took a woman home from a club one evening. She was a virgin and afterwards she spooked me by announcing that she had always known that we would make a wonderful couple. I had never met her before and, at that age, I was more into one-night stands than anything else. Regrettably, she decided that that one night constituted a relationship and she turned into a stalker, who caused me a lot of trouble and unhappiness.’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Suzy groaned in surprise and sympathy at his explanation.
‘So perhaps you can now understand why I forgot my manners for a moment with you and dived straight into mistrust. What happened with that woman did a lot of damage to my life. Since then I have generally been much more careful about the women I take as lovers and they have, until now, always been more mature and experienced.’
‘I think the lady’s problems had very little to do with her lack of sexual experience.’
‘You’re right, but that lack was the only thing that made her different from her predecessors. I’m afraid discovering your innocence unleashed my worst memories.’
‘I can understand that...now that I know about your past,’ Suzy extended, wanting to ask him more about his stalking experience, but, sensing that he had shared as much as he felt comfortable sharing with her, she reluctantly suppressed her curiosity.
‘Now go upstairs and put your boots on. We’re going to the police station,’ Ruy informed her.
‘Right now?’ she gasped.
‘No better time.’
Apprehensive at the prospect of reporting Percy to the police, Suzy got to her feet, ruefully amused that she had left her boots upstairs and had been running around in her socks without realising it. Putting on her boots, she came down again clutching her bag and tossing it into the car that Ruy stood beside.
‘You’ll feel relieved when it’s done,’ he assured her confidently.
Some time later Suzy emerged from the police station, answering the urbane solicitor, Ellis Johnson’s query about the nearest good hotel. The imaginary weight she had felt on her chest had lifted and, for the first time in several days, she felt a little more like herself again. Ruy planted a light hand to her slender spine to urge her back into his vehicle while Ellis headed for his own car. She knew that she had to go back home with Ruy to fill out the paperwork for the non-molestation order with Ellis. The recollection of Percy forcing his way into Ruy’s house still had the power to make her blood run cold. She registered that it would take time for her to stop feeling jumpy and feel safe again.
‘Will you consider signing a non-disclosure agreement with Ellis at the same time?’ Ruy enquired without warning. ‘With a view to modelling for me? I know you’re probably not in the right mood to contemplate anything extra and understandably you may feel that you can’t trust me now.’
Without even thinking about it, Suzy lifted her hand to rest it soothingly down on a long powerful thigh in disagreement. ‘No. I don’t feel that way. You were very honest with me and I appreciate that but, after all the strife and hassle I’ve brought into your life, I can’t believe that you still want to paint me.’
‘That hasn’t changed.’
‘OK, then,’ Suzy breathed. ‘But I’m not sure about going to Spain yet...although the thought of the locals piling into the pub just to stare at me and speculate about what happened with Percy makes me cringe.’
‘Someone somewhere will talk. They won’t have to speculate for long,’ Ruy forecast. ‘As to Spain, I haven’t been very professional in my approach, but I can assure you that I’m not about to put pressure on you to continue our liaison.’
‘Not sure I can make the same promise,’ Suzy confided without thinking through what she was admitting, because she was thinking that that word, ‘liaison’, had a certain sensual buzz on his lips and lent their brief encounter a distinct sophistication.
Ruy flashed her a startled glance from glittering dark golden eyes and then threw back his handsome head and laughed out loud with appreciation. ‘Suzy...where have you been all my life?’
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ Suzy muttered, her face burning, only then lifting her hand off his thigh where it had lingered. Somewhere deep down inside her she felt extraordinarily comfortable and relaxed with Ruy and she was mortified, particularly after he had declared that sex meant nothing to him.
And she completely understood that attitude if he’d had the amount of practice she suspected. Sex was neither new nor particularly tempting for him. It was an activity he had taken for granted and freely enjoyed, most probably with women who were a great deal more beautiful and sensually talented than she was. For her their encounter had been a major event but it was highly unlikely that it had been equally exciting for him. Why else would he be telling her that he would be putting no further pressure on her to repeat the experience? And why had she said what she had? She had been joking, trying to lighten her embarrassment at the topic being discussed, but that particular joke had backfired on her. Surely, he wouldn’t think that she had meant that seriously?
Back at the house Ellis Johnson explained the non-disclosure agreement to her in fine detail. Signing the document would prevent her from ever speaking or writing about anything relating to Ruy, or indeed posting photos of him or his work, but it didn’t strike her as an onerous promise to make because she had never been much given to gossip or social media. In any case she was fairly certain that, once Ruy had painted her, he would have no further interest in her and, by the sound of it, he spent most of his time in Spain. He would melt back out of her life as quickly as he had entered it, she reasoned ruefully, wondering why that should be a deflating thought. Perhaps prior to meeting Ruy, and even prior to Percy, she had allowed her life to become too boring and predictable.
‘If I could just get my bag out of your car I can go home now,’ she told Ruy as Ellis stood up to leave.
‘You have to stay for lunch. You still haven’t eaten...and your father was planning to call in here to see you this afternoon,’ Ruy imparted while Ellis stared at her and then at Ruy as though he was fascinated by the exchange.
‘Dad’s coming here?’ Suzy said in surprise.
‘When you go through a traumatic event you have to sit down and catch your breath after it,’ Ruy informed her. ‘Now it’s time to rest and relax...’
Her green eyes widened. ‘Is it professional for you to still be telling me what to do?’ she enquired.
Ruy shrugged, impervious to insult. ‘I have more common sense than you do, querida.’
