Isabella.
Only one man had ever called her that. Had ever added the extra syllable to her name. To make it easier, he had always claimed, for his Spanish tongue.
Only one man had pronounced the four syllables in quite that lilting way, turning her name into a form of poetry that twisted in her heart with the bitterness of memory.
Only one man had ever spoken to her with quite that accent. But this could not be him. That man had left her life two years before, vowing never, ever to return. He was thousands of miles away, in another country, another world.
He could not be here!
‘Buenas tardes, mi mujer,’ that taunting, terrifyingly familiar voice continued, pushing her into whirling round, eyes wide, fearful of who she might see.
‘Luis!’
It was a choking cry of stunned disbelief and horror as she took in the lean, powerful height of him, the forceful width of chest and shoulders, under the black jacket and jeans, the dark, glossy hair and brilliant, gleaming eyes, and she took a couple of hasty steps backwards in an instinctive urge to flight.
‘L-Luis? Is that you?’
The tall, dark man took another couple of steps forward, moving right into the pool of light shed by a street lamp. And Isabelle knew with a terrible sense of inevitability that there was no chance of escape. No hope that she had made a mistake.
The two years since she had seen him had changed him little. He had matured in that time, obviously, and now, at thirty, he was a man in his prime. He had filled out, any lingering awkwardness of youth being replaced by powerful muscles and a dignified control that gave every movement an elegant restraint, like the approach of a prowling hunting cat.
‘Good evening, querida.’
The rich, deep voice seemed to curl around her senses like warm smoke, making her nerves prickle just under the delicate surface of her skin. With her ears accustomed to the flat vowels of the Yorkshire accent, his intonation seemed even more exotic and foreign than ever, making her feel as if some alien and dangerous visitor had just intruded into her happy and secure way of life.
‘What a pleasure it is to see you again,’ he drawled, his smile a flicker of pure menace, teeth very white against the tanned skin of his face.
‘Now that I really doubt!’
Isabelle was gradually regaining some degree of control over her reactions. Okay, so her heart was pounding in double-quick time, her breath coming in a distinctly uneven pattern, but she was determined not to let him see that.
‘I don’t think that pleasure would be the right word.’
‘Well, then, you would be wrong, mi angel,’ Luis drawled in a voice as smooth as silk. ‘You would be completely wrong.’
As he spoke he let his darkened gaze drift downwards, over the shock-whitened skin of her cheeks, past the fine lines of her throat, to the creamy flesh of her breasts exposed by the low-cut neckline of her velvet gown. The slight curves were pushed upwards and forwards by the tight lacing and the bones in the bodice, so that they were enhanced and displayed in a way she had never really minded before but now found positively uncomfortable.
‘Pleasure is exactly the right word.’
‘For you perhaps, but not for me!’
Instinctively she gathered the folds of her cloak around her, enveloping herself from head to toe, just in time to conceal the sudden rush of blood to her skin that washed her pallor with a tinge of pink, betraying her inner turmoil. And what made matters infinitely worse was the knowledge that it wasn’t only embarrassment that made her feel this way.
In spite of every effort to control it, her frantic struggles to push
down the unwanted feelings, her heart still raced in excitement, a betraying pulse throbbing at the base of her neck. This man had always had this unsettling effect on her. And if she had hoped that an absence of years would have reduced the impact of that tall, muscular body, those lethal good looks, then she was bitterly disappointed.
If anything, the effect was even stronger because she hadn’t seen him in so long.
‘I thought that you never, ever wanted to see me again. At least, that was what you said the last time I saw you.’
The time that he had flung his wedding ring in her face and told her that the shop they had bought it from might actually take it back.
‘If you’re lucky,’ he had spat at her, his bitterly scathing tone seeming to flay several layers of skin from her vulnerable body, ‘you might even get a full refund. After all, it hasn’t been on my finger long enough to show any wear and tear. Barely long enough to consummate our union—but that was quite long enough for you to grow tired and bored and look for new amusements.’
Then she had been too stunned, too devastated, to fight him. She hadn’t been able to find the words to convince him he was wrong and to call him back. Now all the pain, the horror of that moment came flooding back, putting a biting bitterness into her tone as she faced him with what she hoped looked like confidence.
‘I had hoped that you’d meant it—that you planned to stay away for good.’