The Spaniard's Summer Seduction

He had received his share of gratitude too and with every thank-you his mood seemed to have got darker.

Was she paranoid or was she the focus of his annoyance?

Maybe he was actually hurt but was too macho to admit it. She had got the definite impression when they were falling that he was trying to shield her using his body and his arms, which had circled her like a steel barrier to cushion the impact.

And despite his assurances to the contrary the cuts on his dark face did suggest he hadn’t escaped as lightly as she had. His dark hair was tousled and his shirt was ripped almost off his back, revealing a very distracting expanse of brown chest, well-developed shoulders and flat, muscle-ridged belly, not to mention a hand-sewn label that explained in part his irritation: his shirt was no more off the peg than his body was.

Maybe he blamed her for everything, including the ripped shirt. She thought about the angry kiss—hard not to—her eyes half closing as she remembered the texture of his firm lips, the warmth of his breath…the brief explosion of mind-numbing passion.

It was lucky, really, that everyone had assumed her numbed state was caused by the trauma of the accident. She wanted them to carry on believing this version. For Rafael to even suspect that a kiss that had barely registered on his radar had turned her the next best thing to catatonic would have been too mortifying.

She lifted a hand to her mouth and tilted her head back to catch a glimpse of his beautiful sculpted mouth, and immediately stumbled on the rocky ground where the cars, including Rafael’s, had been parked.

Several pairs of arms reached to catch her but Rafael’s were there first. Ignoring her weak protest, he swung her up into his arms, barely breaking stride.

Reaching his car, he deposited her in the front seat.

‘That was quite unnecessary,’ she said frostily.

‘You are welcome.’ He inclined his dark head, his grey eyes mocking her.

Maggie managed a stiff smile as one of the women placed a blanket over her knees. The man standing beside the woman waited until she had tugged it snugly around Maggie before he leaned into the car and clasped one of Maggie’s hands between both of his and said something in Spanish.

Maggie gave a helpless smile and the old man looked to Rafael.

‘The little boy you went back for was Alfredo’s grandson. He says to tell you that you are an angel sent from God.’

Maggie gave an embarrassed little shrug, then turning her hand to grasp the teak-coloured gnarled fingers that lay on top of hers, she squeezed and smiled saying huskily, ‘I’m glad nobody was hurt.’ She glanced at Rafael, bit her lip and, struggling to control the husky throb of emotion in her voice, said, ‘Tell him what I said, please.’

Rafael’s eyes lingered on her face, moving up in a sweep from the graceful line of her slender neck, the curve of her cheek, the fullness of her lips and her wide-spaced liquid dark eyes. Alfredo’s description seemed apt—she did look like an angel, a sad, sexy angel.

This was a situation where seeing both sides of the argument was not useful. Maggie Ward might have many excellent qualities beyond a kissable mouth and a sinfully sexy body, but he didn’t want to know about them. It confused the issue.

She was a danger to the happiness of two people he cared about. Focus on that, he told himself, and forget about her mouth and her courage. Think of her as a problem to be solved and maybe a pleasurable interlude.

And why not? Why was he beating himself up because he found her attractive? He knew the attraction was reciprocated. He was in danger of letting her innocent aura make him lose sight of the facts. He had not kidnapped her, drugged her or sworn eternal love; she had come of her own free will.

Maggie Ward knew that his intentions were strictly dishonourable and she had come along anyway. She was a young woman who wanted to add the spice of a one-night stand to her trip, so why should he feel as though he was taking advantage?

He had been staring at her so long that it crossed Maggie’s mind that for some inexplicable reason he might be about to refuse her request.

‘Please?’

Responding to the prompt and ignoring the questioning look in her eyes, Rafael translated.

Maggie watched the elderly man’s lined face crease into a wide smile as he listened to Rafael. He turned his attention back to Maggie, said fervently, ‘Angel.’ And pressed something into her hand before bowing out of the car to join the other villagers who had gathered to say goodbye.

‘Watch the door.’

Maggie responded to the abrupt instruction and pulled the blanket closer as Rafael slammed the passenger door with what seemed to her like unnecessary force. There was nothing in his manner to suggest he agreed with the other man’s version of her actions. Now she was sure it wasn’t her imagination—his attitude towards her since the accident had been terse and unfriendly to a degree that could not be due to a spoiled designer shirt.

Any inclination to flirt with her had presumably vanished along with her make-up and hairgrips. He was obviously a man who could not see past dirty faces.

Or maybe his taste didn’t run to angels?

She had no idea why she felt so let down. It wasn’t as if she had been thinking of him as deep and meaningful when she looked at him, though a bit of dust on his face had not lessened his magnetism, she admitted, sliding a covert peek at his dark face.

But then it was hard to think of anything that would.

Slightly embarrassed, she waved back to the crowd that had gathered as the car drew away. As they vanished from view she opened her hand.

‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘I can’t take this.’ The gold medallion resting in her palm was obviously old; the carving was delicate. ‘It must be valuable.’ She held it out towards Rafael.

‘It’s a Saint Christopher.’

‘I know. Take me back. I must return it.’

Rafael did not respond to her urgent request. ‘You can’t do that—it would offend him.’

‘But.’

‘He wanted you to have it.’

‘I’m a stranger,’ she protested.

‘A stranger who saved his grandson’s life, his angel.’ And was she anybody else’s angel? he wondered. Was there a man back home who would not be pleased that she had driven off into the mountains with a stranger?

She wore no ring, but that didn’t mean she was unattached. For some women a man back home did not prevent them indulging in a holiday romance, though for some reason he was struggling to put her in that bracket.

The mockery in his voice brought Maggie’s chin up. Her fingers tightened around the medallion. His cynical sarcasm made her see red. ‘You shouldn’t make fun of him,’ she said fiercely.

‘I wasn’t making fun of him. I couldn’t help but notice you were enjoying the attention.’

This totally unfair scathing evaluation took Maggie’s breath away. ‘And their heirlooms, don’t forget that. I managed to fleece them too.’ She allowed her dark eyes to move contemptuously over his patrician profile before putting the medallion over her head. She freed her tangled hair from the chain. ‘You do know that you are a very unpleasant man, don’t you?’

‘Is that why you let me pick you up?’

Colour scored her pale cheeks. ‘I made a mistake and assumed you couldn’t be as shallow and superficial as you appeared—I was wrong. And you sulk.’

The bitter afterthought drew a startled look from Rafael.

‘I’d be happier having cheated death once today if you kept your eyes on the road.’

‘Sulk?’ Accustomed to hearing the women in his life express rapturous praise, Rafael struggled to swallow this more critical analysis of his character.

On any other occasion his utter astonishment at the accusation might have drawn a smile from Maggie.

‘Well, you’re obviously in a strop over something, but I’d be grateful if you didn’t take it out on me.’

They had passed through the village before reaction hit her. She started to shake. She tugged the blanket closer and made a clinical diagnosis of delayed shock.

‘Are you cold?’ Rafael asked, adjusting the heating.

Biting back a childish, ‘Like you’d care’ she compressed her lips and said coldly, ‘I’m fine.’

‘Then why are you shaking?’

She was bewildered by his continued hostility and accusing manner. Did he think she was acting?

Determined to give him no opportunity to accuse her of being an attention seeker or canvassing the sympathy vote she plastered on a cheery smile.

‘I’m not,’ she denied. ‘I feel fine.’ It was only a very small lie, actually. Other than her shaking hands and the scratches on her arm that were stinging she really didn’t feel too bad, and she would feel a lot better once this man was a distant memory.

She was a very bad liar, though even a good liar, Rafael thought, his eyes flickering briefly in her direction, would have struggled to deny the chattering teeth and milky pallor.

Accustomed to the company of women who did not know the meaning of ‘putting on a brave face,’ he realised that stoicism was an overrated quality. And, far from making a woman low maintenance, all it meant in reality was a man could never relax. He would always be wondering if the bright smile actually hid an inner anguish.

Not that her anguish, inner or otherwise, was anything to do with him.

Sweat broke out like a rash over his upper lip as he relived those moments when he’d thought he wasn’t going to outrun the avalanche of destruction, that he was going to see her lost under half a runaway forest.

‘I suppose you think it was a brave thing to do?’

‘I didn’t think at all,’ she admitted, punching in the hotel number and missing the anger that pulled the skin taut across the sculpted bones of his face.

Rafael could not believe this woman. She was acting as if nothing had happened—surely she realised what danger she had been in.

He realised it.

His entire body went cold every time he realised it. Even now he could feel the fear that had clawed across his skin as he had been forced to stand by, helpless, and watch, unable to stop her until it had almost been too late.

A fine sheen of sweat broke out across the golden skin of his brow when he recalled the moment that he had thought he would not reach her in time.

He was a man who did not indulge in pointless what-if scenarios, and Rafael’s knuckles stood out white on the steering wheel as he found himself unable to stop projecting images, each one more horrific than the last. They all ended the same, with her broken, crushed body, and he would have been at least indirectly responsible.

She wouldn’t have been in a position to be harmed if he had not lured her away from the city. He might not have intended her actual harm, but he definitely hadn’t had her best interests at heart.

If anything had happened to her…? The unaccustomed guilt lay heavy on Rafael’s shoulders.

‘They will probably inscribe that on your headstone.’

The bitterness in his voice drew Maggie’s indignant gaze to his face. ‘There’s no need to take it out on me and I’m not planning on needing one just yet!’

Rafael, his eyes trained on the road ahead as he swerved to avoid a pothole, asked, ‘Don’t take what out on you?’

Maggie compressed her lips, aware that if she said she thought he had switched off the charm offensive and started to be so nasty because his expected one-night stand had turned into something more tedious it would be tantamount to an admission she had been expecting the same outcome this evening.

And you weren’t?

Frowning at the ironic voice in her head, she punched in the hotel number again.

‘You might as well put that phone down.’

Maggie ignored him. ‘I need to leave a message.’ The tour guide would not worry if she missed the optional evening entertainment, but if she didn’t arrive back until the early hours it was possible that they might start to worry. ‘I had plans for this evening.’

‘So did I.’

She flashed him a look and he added, without looking at her, ‘We have no signal here.’

‘I saw you using your phone.’

An expression she struggled to interpret broke the impassive stoniness of his expression. ‘There is no signal this side of the mountain.’

Despite the information, she tried once more before admitting defeat. ‘What time will we reach the city?’ she asked, dropping the phone back in her bag.

In the mirror he caught sight of her pressing her nose to the window like a child. Nothing else about her was childish. Recalling the softness of the warm body he had carried sent an indiscriminate pulse of lust through his body.

‘You will have to delay your plans,’ he informed her shortly. ‘We are not going to the city.’

The abrupt afterthought sank in and Maggie swivelled in her seat. ‘Is that a threat?’

He looked bored and said, ‘A fact.’

‘But I want—’

‘What you want is not factored into my plans. You know the time—it is not practicable to drive into the city. I have a house nearby.’ Beautiful women always thought the world revolved around them and just because she had a reckless streak that made her perform stupidly brave acts did not exclude Maggie Ward from this rule.

‘You said you would see me safely back.’

‘I did not say when.’

‘So when? Next week, next month?’ she enquired with silky sarcasm.

The silence stretched.

‘Are you trying to scare me?’

A raw laugh left Rafael’s throat. ‘Scare?’ How, he wondered, did you scare a woman who had so little regard for her own safety? Under that soft exterior Maggie Ward had a core of steel. ‘Is it working?’

‘In your dreams,’ she snorted. ‘Are you always this rude?’

He turned his head briefly and flashed her a grin that did not reach his steely eyes. ‘Yes.’

Her jaw tightened as she angled a narrow-eyed glare of seething dislike at his profile. ‘You really must be Mr Popularity.’

‘People generally overlook my manners.’

‘You’re not that good-looking,’ she lied, then flushed at the implied compliment.

‘I’m crushed,’ he said, sounding anything but.

‘It shows,’ she retorted, wondering how she could ever have thought this man sensitive and charming—he was a shallow, arrogant chauvinist.

‘But I am that rich.’

This boast drew a scornful snort. ‘I suppose you own this half of the mountain,’ she said, nodding to the towering bleak presence to their left.

‘And the other half and the village and two others actually.’

‘And I’m a duchess. I’m not that gullible, and you’re not that good a liar and as for your…wow!’ Maggie let out a silent whistle, her gaze riveted on the illuminated façade of a stone castle complete with turrets that loomed before them. ‘That is the most incredible hotel I have ever seen!’ she admitted, envying the glamorous people who must stay at a place like that.

Was he planning on staying there?

If so, it was distinctly possible he hadn’t been exaggerating the rich part. Well, that was one problem solved—they would have to part company. A place like that would not let her through the door looking like this.

‘It is not a hotel.’

‘You mean a family still lives there?’ What an anachronism, she thought, in this day and age for one family to occupy so much space, but maybe seeing it sold off to a developer might be a worse crime.

Directing his car through large ornate wrought-iron gates that swished open silently at their approach, Rafael shook his head as he drove down the avenue lined with lime trees.

‘No, just one person.’

‘All that for one person…’ She stopped, the colour receding from her already pale face as the penny finally dropped. ‘It’s yours, isn’t it?’

CHAPTER EIGHT

HE confirmed her suspicion with a tiny nod of his head. ‘You can use the landline to leave that message about your change of plans.’

‘My plans haven’t changed.’ Maggie found herself protesting to his back.

She was presuming they were expected because as his feet hit the gravel people started to appear. Presumably, she thought sourly, to respond to the commands he was issuing—at command issuing he was definitely not an amateur.

Maggie began to struggle with the car door, her spirits slightly buoyed because she realised that all she had to do was ask the hotel to send a taxi out to pick her up.

She wasn’t stranded or reliant on Rafael.

‘Allow me.’

Of course the door opened smoothly for him. Maggie nodded her head in an attitude of cold courtesy. ‘Thank you.’ It was good to feel in control again—you wish.

‘Can you manage or shall I carry you again?’

Was that a joke? Maggie decided she didn’t want to know. She pushed away the memory of being held in his arms and waving a hand in a shooing gesture, snapped crankily, ‘I’ve told you I’m fine.’

Catching sight of her reflection in the wing mirror, she realised that she did not look fine.

The inner masochist in her made Maggie take a second look, she barely repressed a groan.

It wasn’t hard to see why the smouldering Spaniard had stopped smouldering, and who could blame him for going off her big time?

Her hair had returned to its natural curly state; surrounding her face in a dark tangled froth and hanging loose down her back, it made her look scary. As for her face minus all make-up and plus a lot of dirt… She closed her eyes and thought it was just as well the seduction idea was off the menu.

‘We have mirrors inside.’

His tall figure, backlit by the light streaming through the open door, stood there, his arms folded across his exposed chest radiating impatience.

Maggie gave a grimace, embarrassed at being caught out staring at her reflection. ‘I’m coming,’ she huffed, jogging to catch him up.

Rafael watched her approach with a frown. ‘Slow down. There’s no fire.’

Maggie rolled her eyes. ‘Make up your mind!’ It seemed to her that it didn’t really matter what she did—as far as this man was concerned it would be the wrong thing.

The massive metal-banded oak door she followed him through opened directly into what appeared to be an old banqueting hall complete with roaring fire, suits of armour and tapestries on the stone walls.

How many centuries had his family lived here? she thought, wondering what it must be like to trace your roots this far back. Her eyes widened…my God!

She spun around. ‘I’ve forgotten your full name.’

He blinked at the confession. ‘Rafael-Luis Castenadas,’ he revealed, watching her face carefully for a reaction.

There was none. If she had come to search for her mother, he would have thought she would be more than familiar with the name.

‘Ramon will show you where you can use the phone.’

‘You…?’ She was talking to his back. She wrapped her arms around her body, fighting the vulnerable sensation—vulnerable because Rafael Castenadas’s presence did not offer her security.

Quite the contrary was true.

A tall thin man wearing a dark suit and a sombre expression, presumably the Ramon in question, escorted Maggie to a room off an inner hallway. Despite the massive dimensions it was actually quite cosy-looking, with book-lined walls, vibrant-coloured rugs on the polished wood floor and a fire burning in the open fireplace.

To complete the domestic picture a dog of indeterminate parentage lay asleep on one of the large sofas. It opened one eye when Maggie walked in, wagged its tail and went back to sleep.

The thin man nodded towards the phone, and went to leave.

‘No…don’t…’ She dropped her outstretched hand when he turned.

‘Can I help you?’

She gave a sigh of relief. ‘Great, you speak English. I was wondering, where am I exactly…the address, I mean, of here? Does here have a name?’

If he found the request odd he did not show it, and when Maggie struggled to follow his pronunciation of the castillo he produced a notepad and pen from his breast pocket and wrote it down for her.

After her concern that someone might be worried, it appeared no one had noticed her absence! Maggie explained to the person at the other end that she would need a taxi to pick her up. When she gave the address, spelling it out to avoid any mistakes, there was a loud intake of breath the other end, but the hotel agreed it would be no problem.

‘Oh, and how much would it be likely to cost?’

The reply to her afterthought took her breath away. ‘You’re joking.’

The voice the other end assured her that he was not.

Knowing that there was no way her tight holiday budget would run to that sort of money, Maggie thanked him for his trouble but explained that she’d changed her mind.

With a sigh she hung up and sat down beside the dog.

‘So what,’ she asked, burying her face in his fur, ‘do we do now?’

She was still no nearer an answer when fifteen minutes later Rafael walked in.

He made no sound. It was the prickle on the back of her neck that made Maggie turn her head.

She stopped stroking the dog’s ears.

‘How long have you been standing there?’ Nervous tension made her voice sharp.

He had changed and presumably showered, his wet hair was slicked back and he was wearing dark jeans and a white open-necked shirt with no tears. He could have stepped right out of a glossy page advertising…well, actually, advertising anything, because when they said that sex sold they were not wrong.

And every inch of his tall, lean, muscle-packed frame oozed sex, every hollow and plane of his dark face. Maggie’s eyes drifted from the full curve of his sensual upper lip to his hooded glittering gaze and her anxiety levels went off the scale.

She licked her lips nervously and drew her knees up to her chin.

‘Not long.’ He clicked his fingers and the dog lifted his head, his tail thumping loudly against Maggie’s legs.

Rafael said something in Spanish and the dog immediately jumped off the sofa and, tail still wagging, went and sat by his side.

‘He knows he is not allowed on there, but he likes to push the boundaries…and see how far he can go.’

‘Then you click your fingers and bring him to heel.’ He probably used the same method with his women, she thought sourly.

And I bet it works. Imagining the sort of women a man who looked like him and lived in a place like this normally shared his bed with did not improve her mood.

Not that she had any intention of sharing his bed, even if she was invited, which now seemed doubtful. No, her loss of sanity had only been temporary she was now fully in control.

You keep telling yourself that, Maggie.

She was no longer amazed that his initial interest had waned, but she was amazed that he had ever been interested in her in the first place. She had seen the sort of woman she was willing to bet he dated, polished and elegant, not a hair out of place, not a nail chipped and not an extra inch anywhere on her svelte silhouette to ruin the line of her designer clothes.

‘A reward helps,’ he said as the dog took a treat from his fingers before trotting over to the fire and flopping down. ‘It is sometimes hard to work out who has trained who,’ he remarked ruefully.

Maggie, who couldn’t imagine anyone calling him domesticated, shrugged and swept her hair across one shoulder, thinking if he resembled any animal it was a wolf.

‘Sorry about your plans.’ He walked across to a cabinet, pulling out a bottle and two glasses. ‘Tonight did not go as either of us anticipated.’

She laughed. ‘I think you could call that the understatement of the century.’ And she was betting things not going to plan was not something that happened to him often.

He didn’t just have the looks and the animal magnetism, Rafael was also clearly a rich, powerful man, used to getting what he wanted.