*
Luis stared at her, his heart pounding. Walking onto the balcony, he’d flinched. But not because of the glare of sunlight. It was looking at Cristina that had momentarily blinded him. With her auburn hair spilling down over her bare arms, her mouth open in an O of shock, she was easily as beautiful as the view she’d been admiring.
He felt a shot of anger; he wasn’t sure if it was with her or with himself. But he was grateful that she was on the other side of the flagstones, for it took every step towards her for him to compose himself.
Although, to be honest, she looked more stunned than he felt.
Her words confirmed that fact as she said shakily, ‘What are you doing here? Your father—’
‘Isn’t here.’
Her beauty felt like a punch to the face, but he held her gaze, forcing himself to look at her—really look at her—until the pain subsided to a dull ache.
‘They arrive tomorrow. Something came up at the bank, so I offered to come along and hold the fort.’
Cristina stared at him mutely. If that was a joke, it wasn’t funny. But then humour was pretty low on her list of responses right now. Mostly she was in shock at coming face to face with him. And then there was the shock of his beauty.
Her pulse gave a twitch. She was used to beauty—had photographed numerous celebrities. None of them, though, had ever made her heart beat like a metronome. But then none of them had had a clear gold profile that could cut through the dusk of a summer evening.
He took a step towards her, his eyes drifting towards the biscuit in her hand.
‘Making yourself at home, I see,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t get too comfortable. You won’t be staying.’
It took a moment for his words to sink in. Back in Segovia she’d thought he was warning her off, but this was the first t
ime he’d made it clear.
‘I’m pretty sure that’s not up to you,’ she said stiffly.
‘Then you’ve been misinformed—or you have made an assumption based on ignorance, not fact. When I want something to happen, it does.’
‘And let me guess…’ She glared at him. ‘You don’t ask twice.’
She felt a chill slide over her skin as he shook his head, his grey eyes dark with hostility.
‘I don’t ask.’ His gaze drifted dismissively over her face. ‘You’ve had a nice all-expenses-paid trip. And now it’s over.’
Holding on to her temper by a rapidly fraying thread, she raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t work for you, and you have no say in what I do or where I do it. I do what my editor—’
‘Really? Your editor told you to sleep with me?’
His face was cold and harsh.
Cristina gaped at him. Leaning over the balcony, lost in the sound of the waves and the heat of the mid-afternoon sun, she had been expecting a pleasant if slightly formal welcome from Agusto.
But Luis was neither pleasant nor welcoming. Nor did he bear any resemblance to the hard-muscled lover who had pulled her against him time and again during that night in the hotel. Instead he was staring at her in a way that made the solid stone beneath her feet feel flimsy.
‘You surprise me. I’ve met your boss, and Grace Whiteley doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d pimp out her staff.’
‘That’s not I meant and you know it.’ She was almost blindsided with outrage and fury. ‘How dare you suggest that—?’
‘That what? That you seduced me?’
Luis could feel the rage rolling beneath his skin. He’d wanted this opportunity to confront her with what she’d done, and back in Segovia it had all seemed so straightforward, so logical. Without his parents there to intervene he would summon her, punish her, and then dismiss her.
Now that she was here, though, he wanted to teach her another kind of lesson completely. One that had nothing to with logic and reason and everything to do with lust. His eyes wandered over her beautiful face, dropping over her small rounded breasts to the temptingly smooth bare skin of her stomach. And as for dismissing her—
Breathing in sharply, he ignored the longing constricting his groin and dragged his gaze up to meet hers. ‘Please don’t treat me as though I’m stupid. Or naive. You’d be wrong on both counts. And you can stop all the wide-eyed outrage. I read your CV, Ms Shephard. I know exactly how your type operates and you set me up. All that business of spilling my drink…’