CHAPTER SIX
TRINITY WAS RUNNING down the long, dark corridors of the Castillo. The stern faces of all those ancestors were staring down at her, each one silently judging her. The footsteps behind her were getting closer...her heart was in her throat, thumping so hard she could hardly breathe...
There was an open door on the left. She ducked in and slammed the door shut, chest heaving, sweat prickling on her skin. And then she heard it. The sound of breathing in the room...
Terror kept her frozen in place, her back to the door as the breathing got closer and closer. And then out of the gloom appeared a face. A very familiar, starkly beautiful face. Amber eyes hard. Stern. Angry. Hot.
Hands reached for her and Trinity knew she should try to escape. But suddenly she wasn’t scared any more. She was excited... And instead of running she threw herself into Cruz’s arms...
The disturbing dream still lingered, and Trinity shivered in the bright morning sunlight of another beautiful day. She didn’t have to be a psychologist to figure out where it had come from. When Cruz had kissed her after that angry exchange in his study at first she’d resisted, but then something had changed...and when he’d touched her again she’d responded against her best intentions.
All the man had to do was touch her, look at her, and she wanted him. And with each touch and kiss it was getting harder to resist... She’d finally had the sense to pull back and step away last night, but it had taken every last shred of control she had.
Shakily she’d said, ‘I didn’t come here for this.’
‘So you say,’ Cruz had answered, with infuriating insouciance, looking as if he hadn’t just kissed her so hard she could barely see straight. It had been particularly galling, because just moments before he’d demonstrated that once again any attempt to defend herself or tell the truth would be met with stubborn resistance.
A sense of futility made her ache inside. How could she continue like this? With Cruz blatantly refusing to listen to her? Maybe this was how he’d drive her away...by stonewalling her at every turn...
Matty shouted, ‘Mummy, look! Unkel Cooz!’
Sancho jumped up, clapping his hands. ‘Play, play!’
Trinity tensed all over as a long shadow fell over where she was sitting cross-legged in the grass; the boys were playing nearby. With the utmost reluctance she looked up, shading her eyes against Cruz’s sheer masculine beauty as much as against the sun. Matty and Sancho—not scared of him at all any more—had grabbed a leg each, looking up at their new hero.
He lifted both boys up into his arms with an easy grace that annoyed her intensely. The fact that he was dressed down, in faded jeans and a dark polo shirt that strained across his chest muscles, was something she tried desperately not to notice. But it was hard when his biceps were bulging enticingly, reminding her of how it felt when they were wrapped around her.
She stood up, feeling at a disadvantage.
Cruz said, ‘I came to tell you that I’ve been invited to another function this evening. We’ll leave at seven.’
His autocratic tone sliced right into her, as did the scary prospect of countless more evenings like the previous one, when she’d reveal herself more and more. When he might touch her again.
She folded her arms and said coolly, ‘I’m not going out this evening.’
The boys were squirming in Cruz’s arms, growing bored already, and when he put them down they scampered off to the nearby sandpit. Trinity saw how his eyes followed them for a moment, making sure they were all right, and his concern made her feel warm inside until she clamped down on the sensation. This man evoked too much within her.
He looked back at her. ‘I don’t recall you being offered a choice.’
Irritation spiked at her reaction as much as to his tone. ‘I’m not just some employee you can order around. It would be nice if you could pretend you’re polite enough to ask if I’d like to come.’
‘You’re my wife,’ Cruz offered tersely.
Something poignant gripped Trinity—if she was his wife for real then presumably they’d have a discussion about this sort of thing... She might agree to go because he’d tell her he’d be bored, or that he’d miss her if she didn’t. The thought of that kind of domesticity made a treacherous shard of longing go through her before she could stop it.
Where had that illicit fantasy come from? One of the reasons she’d agreed to marry Rio—apart from her concern for the boys—was because after years of being an outsider in other people’s homes as a foster child it had been easier to contemplate a marriage of convenience than to dare dream that she might one day have a real family of her own...
The prospect of Cruz ever seeing that deeply inside her made her go clammy all over.
Her arms tightened. ‘I’m not going out this evening because I think the boys are coming down with something and I want to observe them for twenty-four hours to make sure they’re okay. Sancho still isn’t over his bug completely.’
Cruz glanced at the boys and back to her. ‘They look fine to me.’
‘They were off their food at breakfast, which isn’t like them.’
‘Mrs Jordan can watch them, and call us if she’s worried.’
Exasperated, Trinity unfolded her arms and put her hands on her hips. ‘You don’t get it, do you? I’m worried about them, and even if it’s only a niggle then I will put them first. I am the one they need if they’re not feeling well.’