AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Says the man who thinks he knows everything. Why am I not surprised?’ Suzy tossed back, flushing when she noticed Ellis still staring as he departed.
‘If you do decide to come to Spain to accompany me to my brother’s wedding, I will need to know everything about you,’ Ruy admitted over lunch. ‘Your birthday, likes and dislikes, everything a fiancé would be expected to know.’
‘If I decide to go, I’ll draw up a cheat sheet for you and you would need to do the same for me,’ she pointed out. ‘I’m good at memorising stuff.’
‘Why did you choose to stay in the village at the pub instead of moving somewhere that would have offered you more options?’
‘Dad needed me. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. My life’s always been like that. I’ve learned to deal.’
‘Your father adores you,’ Ruy incised. ‘He would hate to know how you really feel.’
‘It’s always been Dad and I against the world...it’s all I know. He has often suggested that I go off travelling or try working somewhere else, but I persuaded him that I was a home bird. I don’t want him to feel guilty about it. How much did you tell him about Percy?’
‘That’s your department. I glossed over the nastier elements, played ignorant. I don’t think your father needs to know that Brenton was blackmailing you right under his nose, but I do think he suspects that you were only marrying the man to help him.’
Suzy gave him a grateful look. ‘Thanks. That was tactful.’
Her father wrapped her into a tight hug as soon as he arrived and studied her with tears shining in his searching gaze. Ruy went into his studio to leave them in peace to talk.
‘I can come home now,’ Suzy told the older man.
Roger Madderton frowned. ‘I thought you were staying on here, because people are asking a lot of nosy questions and—’
‘Don’t you need help at the pub?’
‘I’m managing fine.’ He reminded her that he had hired Flora to cover for her. ‘If you’d married Percy, you’d have been gone for good and as it is now, with that loan off my back, I can afford to pay for any help I need.’
Her father was also keen to share exciting news for the future with her. A stately home a few miles away was opening up to the public for the first time and he reckoned that the pub would gain custom from tourists. ‘Ruy knew about it, of course. He’s very much on the ball when it comes to business,’ he opined with a slow admiring shake of his head. ‘Taking yourself off to Spain with him for a week is a brilliant idea. You deserve a break after what Percy has put you through.’
‘Ruy told you about Spain?’ Suzy gasped in surprise.
‘Getting away is exactly what you need and if he wants to paint you sitting under an orange tree or some such weird arty thing, let him do it...no skin off your nose!’ The older man chuckled, his amusement at such an ambition unconcealed.
Registering that her father had no knowledge of the pretend fiancée role that Ruy wanted her to accept, Suzy smiled without committing herself. It hurt a little that her father wasn’t gasping to bring her home, but then that was partly because he knew how much she would cringe at receiving pitying looks and awkward questions from their customers. What astonished her, however, was his faith in Ruy.
‘You like him...why?’ she asked baldly as the older man was leaving.
‘He stepped up for you when you needed it—it wasn’t his problem but that didn’t matter to him. He did what was right. I respect that in a man,’ Roger Madderton replied, and then turned to go back to his car.
Suzy knocked on the studio door, opening it when Ruy called out.
‘How did you make my father your biggest fan?’ she asked softly.
Tossing aside his sketchbook, Ruy lifted a broad shoulder in a fluid shrug of dismissal. He knew that the truth would be tasteless. Her father had been worn down with worry about the pub and losing that fear had given him a new lease of life. ‘Although he’s furious that you were hurt, he’s very relieved that you’re not marrying Brenton.’
‘He’s not the only one of us relieved,’ Suzy conceded, spiralling curls of copper falling across her pale cheek, her green eyes reflective, her skin translucent in the stark daylight, her lips a plump and rosy contrast.
Tensing, Ruy glanced away, suppressing his response to her because it was destroying his concentration. No model had ever had that effect on him before. But then, until Suzy, his relationship with his models had been strictly business and devoid of any sexual element. Why was it different with her? Why couldn’t he retain his detachment with her? He had assumed that sex would remove much of her mysterious allure, although that was not why he had ended up in bed with her.
No, he had ended up in bed with her because hunger had overpowered restraint and passion had silenced every logical reservation. That had never happened to Ruy before and such a weakness, such an inability to withstand temptation, disturbed the legendary even temperament that he cherished. It was even more daunting that in spite of acknowledging the folly of a sexual connection with his model he still only had to look at Suzy to want her afresh. And this was the woman he was choosing to take home with him? The very first woman who would learn that Ruy Valiente was also V, the famous portrait painter, who scrupulously conserved his anonymity? He crushed the thought in favour of focussing on what was most important to him.
‘Will you come to Spain with me?’ Ruy pressed softly.
Suzy wondered if Ruy had always had that innate ESP that told him the optimum moment to pose a thorny question. She studied him, her gaze lingering on the black spiky lashes framing his stunning eyes, the angle of a hard cheekbone in sunlight, the sensual curve of his moulded lips. He was beautiful but it was the sheer driving force of will behind that façade that worried her the most. He hadn’t been joking when he said that when he wanted something he went all out to get it. He never, it seemed, forgot his objective for an instant. It was a decidedly unnerving trait, but her father’s opinion of him had eased her misgivings and even made her feel a little foolish for backing nervously away from Ruy and his proposition.
‘Yes, I’ll accompany you,’ she stated. ‘I’ll start my list of cheat-sheet questions today.’
‘You’ll also be trying on wedding gowns for me this afternoon.’
