AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I can’t afford to pay you back,’ she admitted tensely. ‘Not at the moment, anyway.’
‘Have I asked for payment?’
‘But you will want paying,’ she chipped in, wishing her breathing would steady.
He swung around to face her again, fingering his stubble-darkened chin. ‘Perhaps we could operate a barter system.’
The thought of how that roughened face would feel against her pink-flushed skin was disturbing…distracting… ‘I won’t be pushed into parting with any land before I am ready—’
‘Stop jumping to conclusions, Annalisa. How do you know it’s your land I’m talking about?’
‘What else could it be?’ The look he gave her threw her stimulated senses into turmoil. ‘How can I possibly know what you’re talking about when you can’t be bothered to attend the meetings we arranged?’ Her glance bounced off his eyes and landed on his lips.
‘That was unfortunate, and I apologise. A family matter required my immediate attention. Family always comes before business as far as I am concerned, Annalisa. Margarita needed me—’ He shrugged.
As an ice-cold hand grabbed her spine Annalisa’s eyes flickered slightly—the only sign that she’d recognised his need to remind her that he had a wife.
‘I promise you that I will definitely attend the next meeting.’
She managed a stiff nod.
A discreet tap on the door distracted them both.
‘Come,’ he called imperiously.
Rodriguez advanced a few steps into the room. ‘You have a visitor, Señor Perez.’ He glanced at Annalisa, then walked up to Ramon and whispered something in his ear.
Ramon’s face hardened briefly. Turning to her again, he sighed. ‘Forgive me, Annalisa. I’m afraid I shall have to continue this conversation some other time.’
‘About the roof—’
‘Let my men finish the job now they have started,’ he suggested. ‘We’ll arrange payment the next time we meet. I assure you that my terms will be fair.’ He cast her a long, assessing look from slanting umber eyes. ‘The main thing is that you are safe and dry. I don’t want you on my conscience.’
Annalisa kept her face neutral, but her heart was still reeling from his humiliating reminder about Margarita. As far as she could see Ramon Perez was singularly unburdened by conscience. ‘Until our next meeting, Señor Perez.’
‘Ramon,’ he reminded her with a courteous dip of his head.
‘Señor Perez,’ Annalisa returned stiffly. And, sticking her chin in the air, she marched out of the room.
As she was crossing the hall Annalisa saw someone follow Rodriguez into the room where she had just left Ramon. There was something about the way the woman carried herself that reminded Annalisa of Señora Fuego Montoya. Even the snatch of a beautifully modulated voice was exactly as she had imagined it. Turning impulsively, she was sure she was right. But what was her father’s widow doing with Ramon? Were they hatching something together? If so, it wouldn’t just be a piece of beach that was up for grabs…it would be the whole estate!
As she ran down the front steps she weighed the evidence. Ramon had made sure she was heavily in debt to him. He missed meetings rather than commit to a deal. Could that be because he knew he could get for free what he allegedly wanted to buy? Was he simply playing for time? He was certainly unscrupulous enough. He knew she was drawn to him, a married man, yet did nothing to discourage her. In fact, she was sure now that he relished those times when he breached her outward composure. And as for Señora Fuego Montoya—her stepmother…?
Just forming the word in her mind made her feel doubly vulnerable. Of course there would be resentment for a stepdaughter she had never met. A stepdaughter who had inherited vast tracts of land right over her head. It all made a horrible kind of sense. The son of her late father’s business partner forming an unholy alliance with her father’s widow…
Even the sight of her new red-pantiled roof failed to console her as she pulled into the yard at the finca. But she had to admit that the workmen had done an excellent job. Everything was neat and tidy, with not a hint of rubble to suggest the disruption there had been earlier. It was a quality job…but quality had its price.
She would cool her emotions with a quick swim. Hurrying into the house, Annalisa grabbed a bikini out of her bedroom drawer and quickly got changed. But even as she stripped off the Armani suit her stress levels increased. That had cost a fortune. Then there was the underwear, the silk blouse, and the first outfit from Margarita… She groaned. Ramon had reeled her in like a dazed fish. She would be paying off her debts to the Crianza Perez family for the rest of her life the way things were going.
