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And Aliciahadlooked. She’d looked until her tummy had been in knots and she’d wanted things that made no sense to her. Her mouth went dry as memories flooded her, memories that left her flushed with warm, moist heat between her legs as Graciano approached, his uniquely masculine fragrance reaching her nostrils and sending her pulse tripping.
‘Hungry?’
‘Yes,’ she said truthfully.
His eyes met hers and something sparked in her bloodstream. She swallowed hard, looking away.
‘Please, have a seat.’ Such civility, but she felt the hum between them, the intensity of his words. As she moved to a seat, he pulled it back for her. She sat, and his hands glanced her shoulders briefly—the softest caress, but enough to lift her flesh with goosebumps.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, as he came to sit opposite her.
She opened her mouth to say something, but a moment later, footsteps heralded the arrival of a slender woman with greying hair and a crinkled face.
‘Isabella.’ Graciano dipped his head in acknowledgement. The older woman’s grin was one of easy affection.
‘It is nice to see you back, sir.’
‘It’s nice to be back. Isabella, this is a colleague of mine. Miss Griffiths.’
Alicia’s skin prickled for a different reason now: dislike. She heard it in the way he rumbled the syllables of her surname—her father’s surname—and felt all his enmity barrelling towards her.
‘Alicia,’ she responded with a taut smile of her own.
‘Alicia,’ Isabella repeated. ‘It is a pleasure to welcome you here. Would you like some wine to start?’
Terrible idea. Wine would only loosen her already non-existent inhibitions. ‘I—’ But at the same time, her nerves were frayed beyond bearing. One glass might help her get through the night without dissolving into a jumble of anxiety at Graciano’s feet. ‘Yes, wine would be lovely, thank you.’
‘A bottle of the Rioja,’ he said, smiling, and her heart tripped over itself, so pleased—so surprised—to see that on his features.
Isabella nodded and disappeared through a pair of timber doors.
‘I thought you said we were completely alone.’
His eyes zeroed in on hers, and she shivered as their connection sparked inside her bloodstream, his smile shifting into an appraising expression. ‘Disappointed?’
She couldn’t admit that, even to herself. ‘Relieved, in fact.’
The quirk of his lips showed he didn’t believe her. ‘There is a skeleton crew on the island. Isabella is my housekeeper.’
‘Does she live here?’ Alicia gestured to the mansion that surrounded them.
‘You might have noticed cabins across the island as you flew over?’
‘I presumed they were for guests.’
‘Some are. Some are for my permanent staff.’
‘How many are there?’
‘Eighteen cabins.’
‘I meant staff.’
‘Four. Isabella, my chef Juanita, a gardener, Rodrigo, and Luis, who runs security.’
The same security who’d made it impossible to contact him all those years ago, when she’d wanted to tell him about the daughter they shared.
Isabella returned at that moment, and beside her stood a young woman, perhaps nineteen or twenty. She blushed when she looked at Graciano, and Alicia pitied her. She knew the power of the man opposite her. What woman would be able to resist his charms?
