Kitabı oku: «Hot Summer Flings: A Spanish Awakening / The Italian Next Door... / Interview with the Daredevil»

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

CHAPTER ONE

EMILIO swallowed his coffee, grimacing at the taste. It had gone cold. Knotting his silk tie with one hand, he finished up the coffee and headed out of the door. A quick glance at his watch confirmed that with luck and good traffic he could make it to the airport to meet Rosanna’s flight and still be at his desk by ten—a very late start for him, but being the boss did have certain privileges.

There were people who considered his life was one long privilege.

Some went further, like the actress he had been meant to escort to a premiere the previous night. She had called him selfish—quite loudly.

Emilio had received the insult with a philosophical smile. Her good opinion meant nothing to him. They had not even slept together yet and he doubted now they would, even though she had rung back later, clearly regretting her outburst, to apologise.

Her efforts to ingratiate herself had left him as unmoved as her earlier tantrum. He actually thought she might have a point—maybe he was selfish. The possibility did not unduly bother him. Was selfishness not the upside of being single and not in a serious relationship?

Upside? Were there any downsides to being in a position where one did not have to consider the wishes of other people? Emilio could not think of any.

In the past he had done his duty and pleased others, namely his father. That unquestioning compliance had resulted in a failed marriage entered into when he was too young, stupid and arrogant to believe he could fail at anything.

On paper his father had been right. He and Rosanna had been the perfect couple, they had a lot in common, they came from the same world, and, most importantly from his father’s point of view, his bride had been good breeding stock from a family who could trace their bloodline back almost as far as his own family.

Emilio slid into the driving seat of his car, his lips twisting into a bitter smile of recollection as he fastened his seat belt.

Luis Rios had been incoherent with outrage when the marriage he had promoted had failed. He had used every threat and bullying tactic in his considerable arsenal and had become frustrated when he saw none made any impression on his son.

His fury had turned to scornful contempt when Emilio had introduced the topic of love, suggesting mildly that the absence of it might be a possible reason for the short life span of the doomed marriage.

The irony in his voice had sailed—predictably—directly over his father’s head.

‘Love?’ his parent had snorted contemptuously. ‘Is that what this is about? Since when were you a romantic? ‘

The question had, Emilio conceded, been legitimate. It was true that his own attitude towards the hype around romantic love had always been at best condescending, at worst contemptuous.

He had continued to feel that way right up to the moment he had found out the hard way that love was not an invention of overactive imaginations, that it was possible to look at a woman and know with every fibre of your being that she was meant to be yours.

The instant was indelibly seared into Emilio’s memory, every individual detail of her breathless late arrival midway through the boring dinner carrying the scent of the warm summer night into the stuffy room with her.

His heart had literally stopped, which was crazy when you considered how many times he had seen her walk into a room previously, but in that moment it had been as if he were seeing her for the first time.

Wary of sliding into self-pitying mode, jaw clenched, Emilio pushed away the image of her face allowing the far less pleasing image of his father’s face to fill the space it left. He no longer attempted to fill the empty space in his heart; he lived with it.

You didn’t lose her, he reminded himself. She was never yours. Because the fact was it was all about timing and his had stunk.

He crunched the gears, wincing at the sound as he heard his father say, ‘If you want love, take a mistress. Take several.’ His father had sounded astonished that such an obvious solution had not occurred to his son.

Emilio could still remember looking at the man who had fathered him and feeling not even filial duty—there had never been affection—but coruscating revulsion that burnt through his veins like acid.

The idea of putting anyone through the humiliation his father had inflicted on his mother had filled Emilio with deep repugnance. Emilio might have entered into a marriage of convenience, but he had always intended to be faithful.

‘Like you did, Papa?’ It had been a tremendous struggle to keep his voice level, but he had not struggled to disguise the anger and disgust he felt.

The older man had been the first to look away, but during that long moment their eyes had met a profound change had taken place in the relationship between father and son.

Luis Rios had never attempted to carry through with any of his threats to disown him, but Emilio would not have cared if he had. Part of him would have relished the challenge of building a life away from the financial empire his great-grandfather had begun and each successive generation had built upon.

It had been shortly after this event that his father had stopped taking any active part in the business, retiring to the stud where he bred racehorses, leaving Emilio free to put in place wide-ranging changes with no opposition. Changes that meant the global financial downturn had left the Rios brand virtually untouched and the envy of many rivals. People had begun to speak enviously of the Rios luck.

That luck appeared to be working in his favour as he drove into what appeared to be the only vacant parking space a full ten minutes before his ex-wife’s flight was due in.

Emilio walked towards the terminal building feeling glad as he passed by a group of vociferous placard-carrying air-traffic controllers that he was not here to catch a flight. The building was filled with anxious and, to varying degrees, angry people who clearly were.

He spared a sympathetic thought for them before his thoughts turned to the reason for his presence. He sighed, wishing he shared Philip’s apparent belief that one word from him would somehow magically remove any obstacle in his friend’s path to romantic fulfillment. Still, some of the things his friend had said had made it seem that there were things that had been left unsaid.

Emilio had not seen Philip Armstrong for almost a year, so it had been a surprise to see his old friend walk into his office yesterday.

Emilio gave a sardonic smile—it had not been the last!

He chose a vantage point where he would see Rosanna and allowed his thoughts to drift back over yesterday’s extraordinary conversation.

‘There is a problem.’

It was not a question. A person did not have to be an expert at reading body language to see that there was something wrong in Philip’s world.

‘I’ve never been happier.’

The gloomy reply made Emilio’s lips twitch. ‘It does not show.’

‘I’ve fallen in love, Emilio.’ If anything, the Englishman’s gloom seemed even more pronounced as he explained the source of his great joy.

‘Congratulations.’

Missing the sardonic inflection, Philip produced a dour ‘Thanks.’ Adding, ‘Oh, I don’t expect you to believe it. I’ve often wondered, you know …?’

‘What have you wondered?’ Emilio asked, mystified but not inclined to take umbrage from the underlying antagonism that had crept into the other man’s manner.

‘Why did you ever get married?’ he said bitterly. ‘It’s not as if you were—’

‘In love?’ Emilio suggested without heat. ‘No, I was not. I am presuming you did not come here to discuss my marriage.’

‘Actually, I did, sort of,’ Philip Armstrong conceded. ‘The thing is, Emilio …’

Emilio repressed his impatience.

‘The thing is, I want to get married,’ the Englishman revealed in a rush.

‘That is surely good news?’

‘I want to marry your wife.’

Emilio was famed for his powers of analytical deduction, but he had not seen this one coming!

‘You’re shocked. I knew you would be,’ his old school friend announced with darkly pessimistic gloom.

‘I am surprised,’ Emilio corrected honestly. ‘But if I was shocked, would it matter? Rosanna has not been my wife for quite some time. You do not require my blessing or my permission.’

‘I know, but the thing is I think she feels guilty about finding happiness.’

‘I think you are imagining things,’ Emilio said, wondering if he ought not at some level to feel a little jealous.

He didn’t. He was still fond of Rosanna, but then that had been the problem: he had been fond of Rosanna just as she had been fond of him. It was one of the many things they had in common, and they had both agreed that mutual respect and common interests were a much stronger foundation for a successful marriage than anything as transitory as romantic love.

Madre di Dios, he really had been that stupid!

The marriage had, of course, been doomed, but Emilio had been spared the painful task of telling Rosanna that there was ‘someone else’. He hadn’t needed to agonise over it, she had taken one look at him and known.

Women’s intuition, or had he been that obvious?

What he had not been spared was the overriding sense of guilt—irrational, some might have said, considering his wife had been already unfaithful to him—that and the nasty taste that came with failure in any form.

It had been drummed into Emilio in his cradle that an integral part of being a Rios was not contemplating failure. It was a lesson he had learnt well. Divorce was not just failure, it was public failure, and that had been tougher to take than his wife’s confession she had slept with someone else months after they had exchanged vows.

Emilio had been a lot more tolerant of her weakness than he had his own, and in his eyes the fact he had not been physically unfaithful did not make him any less culpable.

Before issuing the public statement on the divorce they had told their respective families, to prepare them. His father’s reaction had been predictable and Emilio had been able to view his final ranting condemnation with an air of detached distaste that had clearly incensed his parent further.

What had been far less predictable was the viciously hostile response of Rosanna’s family—that had been a genuine shock to him, but not, quite clearly, to her.

It had come out during the heated exchange that unbeknown to him his father had agreed to pay the blue-blooded but broke Carreras family a large sum of money on the marriage and another equally large sum when the first offspring of that union was born.

Under the impression that her attitude had been similar to his own when they had married, he could now see that his bride’s motivation had been less to do with pragmatism and more to do with coercion and parental pressure.

It certainly explained Rosanna’s initial refusal of a divorce when he had floated it. At the time he had been mystified, but now he realised that she was more afraid of being disowned by her money-grabbing family than living a lie.

It was the reason that, though supporting the official line of mutual decision, amicable divorce, blah … blah, Emilio had not made any effort to deny the rumours that had hinted heavily that his infidelity had caused the rift.

It was not totally a lie and it made things easier on Rosanna, as did the sum he paid the Carreras family out of his own funds.

The media, having created the story, had waited, headlines at the ready, confidently anticipating a lover or lovers to surface once they realised their sordid stories were lucrative. Of course none had because the person he had left his wife for remained oblivious to her role in these events.

Any woman seen with him immediately after the divorce would run the risk of being labelled the other woman, but patience in the circumstances was, he had reasoned, if not a virtue, certainly a necessity if he wanted to protect the reputation of the woman he had fallen for.

So he had waited a decent interval, or almost—there were limits to his patience—before he made any move: six months for the divorce to be finalised and six months for the dust to settle. The only minor problem he’d anticipated that day had been his inexperience at courtship; Emilio knew about seduction but he had never wooed a woman.

The dark irony of it almost drew a laugh from him—almost. It was hard to smile at anything related to the day he had had his heart broken and his pride crushed simultaneously.

In hindsight he was now able to appreciate that the injury to his pride had caused the most damage. He was embarrassed that for a short time he had done the predictable bitter and railing-at-fate thing, but he had reined in those emotions, walled them securely up—a man had to put a time limit on such self-indulgences—and got on with his life.

There had been a certain dark irony in Philip’s comment of, ‘If you could fall in love with someone, I’m sure Rosanna could move on.’

‘With anyone in particular?’

‘God, no, anyone would do.’ Emilio’s laughter brought his attention back to his friend’s face. ‘Sorry,’ he said with a self-conscious grimace. ‘I’ve had a sense of humour bypass. It’s just I know we could be happy, but Rosanna—I think she won’t be able to move on until you’re with someone …’

‘I have hardly spent the last two years living the existence of a monk.’

‘I know that and I’m sure most men would envy you,’ Philip admitted. ‘I did. The thing is, Rosanna thinks that underneath you’re not really that shallow, not that I think you’re shallow.’

‘I’m relieved,’ Emilio responded gravely. ‘So you are asking me to fall in love to make your love life easier. I’m sorry, Philip. I would do a lot for you but—’

‘I know. I don’t know what I expected. The thing is I’m pretty desperate.’ The driven expression shining in his blue eyes was a reflection of that desperation. ‘I’d do anything for Rosanna—cut my hair, for starters.’

The comment drew a laugh from Emilio. ‘I am impressed.’

‘I’m serious. It’s time to settle down. No more wandering the world for me. I’m going to get respectable. If Rosanna wants me to, I’d even go and work for Dad, become a suit, swallow the silver spoon and be the son he always wanted me to be.’

‘Would the opportunity arise?’

‘Are you kidding? Dad would love it if I came crawling back with my tail between my legs. He’s built up his empire to hand it over to his heir.’ He grinned and directed a finger at his own chest. ‘Me.’

‘You are hardly an only child.’

Philip conceded this point with a shrug. ‘I suppose if Janie had been interested in the business the fatted calf might not await me, but she never was and it’s not likely she will be, having become the face of that perfume. It’s real spooky to see your little sister staring at you from magazine covers and advertising boards.’

Emilio dismissed the elder of the Armstrong sisters with a shake of his head. ‘I was thinking of Megan.’

The sight of a familiar figure snapped him back to the present, catching his gaze as he scanned the busy concourse searching for his ex-wife.

He had thought of Megan and now she was here!

Despite the fact she appeared to have dropped a couple of dress sizes—a circumstance he did not totally approve of—and acquired a fashionable gloss to match the new poise in her manner, he knew Megan Armstrong immediately.

Of course he knew her. Emilio, not a man given to exaggeration, believed totally he could have located her blindfolded in a room of a thousand beautiful Englishwomen!

It was enough, he reflected, to make a man believe in fate. Of course, Emilio did not believe in signs or cosmic forces, but he did believe in following his instincts.

If he followed his at that moment it might get them both arrested. A smile that did not soften the predatory glow in his eyes flickered across his face as he thought, It might be worth it.

CHAPTER TWO

‘BUT I need you here tonight!’

Megan was not surprised to hear the aggrieved note tinged with truculence in her boss’s voice.

Charlie Armstrong had not made his millions by allowing little things like air-traffic controllers’ strikes to stand in his way and he expected his staff to display an equally robust response to such obstacles to his wishes, even when that member of staff was his daughter.

Actually, especially when that employee was his daughter!

‘Sorry, Dad.’

‘What use is sorry to me? I need—’

‘But it looks like I’m stuck here,’ Megan inserted, her calm, unruffled tone affording a stark contrast to her father’s haranguing bellow. ‘I’ll book into a hotel here and catch the first flight out tomorrow,’ she promised.

‘And when will that be?’

Megan glanced at the slightly scratched face of the watch that encircled her slim wrist. Not an expensive item but as far as Megan was concerned utterly invaluable, it had belonged to her mother, who had died when she was twelve.

‘It’s a twenty-four-hour strike so 9:00 a.m. tomorrow is the earliest flight.’

‘Nine! No, that is simply not acceptable!’

‘Acceptable or not, Dad, short of sprouting wings I’m grounded, and before you suggest it, the trains and cross-channel ferries are booked up.’

‘By people with foresight.’

Megan resisted the impulse to retort by people who were returning home after the international football tournament, knowing that an excuse, legitimate or not, would not soothe her father when he was in this mood.

She let him vent his displeasure loudly for another few minutes, responding with the occasional monosyllabic murmur of agreement when appropriate while she allowed herself to be carried along by the seething mass of bodies, fellow stranded travellers who were all heading in the same direction, towards the exit.

Getting a taxi was going to be a nightmare. Megan mentally prepared herself for a long wait. Maybe she should simply camp out in the airport overnight?

‘And don’t expect me to fork out for fancy hotels. Being my daughter doesn’t mean you can take advantage of the situation. I expect the same level of commitment from you that I would expect from any of my—’

As she tuned out the lecture she had heard many times before Megan’s attention strayed around the crowded space heaving with a cross-section of humanity.

The air left her lungs in a fractured gasp as recognition jolted through her body with the fizz of an electric shock. ‘Oh, my God!’ she breathed, pressing a hand to her heaving chest.

‘What? What is it?’

Megan squeezed her eyes shut, but still saw the face that had caused her to haemorrhage the composure that had become her trademark.

It was not a face that was easy to banish!

She took a deep breath, looking up in guilty acknowledgement towards the young man who had nearly tripped over her when she had come to a dead halt without warning. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘No problems,’ said the backpacker, losing his air of irritation and producing an engaging smile as he took in her slim figure, gleaming, glossy brown hair and English-rose heart-shaped face. ‘Do you want a hand with that bag? ‘

Megan, who was already drifting away, didn’t register the offer as she glanced back towards the door through which she had seen the tall figure framed, her emotions a mixture of heart-thudding excitement and trepidation.

It was empty.

Had she imagined it? Her glance swung to left and right, moving over the swathe of heads. Emilio Rios was not the sort of man who blended into a crowd.

‘What is it, Megan? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing, Dad, I’m fine,’ she lied, well aware that her reaction to someone who bore a fleeting similarity to someone who probably had forgotten she existed had been, to put it mildly, way over the top.

‘Well, you don’t sound fine!’

It was mortifying. In a matter of seconds she had regressed to the cringingly naïve and self-conscious twenty-one-year-old she had been the last time she had seen him. If her feet had not been nailed to the floor she would have turned and run, exactly the way she had eventually done on that occasion.

Now how crazy was that?

She had not seen the man for almost two years and he had probably forgotten both her and the rather embarrassing circumstances of their last meeting.

All the same, she was glad she had only imagined him.

Megan took evasive action to avoid a baggage trolley being wheeled straight at her before replying to her father’s comment. ‘It was nothing. I just thought I saw someone, that’s all. Look, I’ll have to go now. I’ll ring you later when I’ve booked in somewhere.’

‘Saw who?’

Megan took a deep breath and swallowed, the name emerging huskily from her dry throat. ‘Emilio Rios.’

‘Emilio!’

‘Or someone who looked like him.’ This was Madrid. There were a lot of dark, dramatically handsome men; some were even several inches over six feet. Why assume that man she had seen for a split second had been him? It could have been anyone.

The realisation made some of the tension leave her shoulders.

‘No, it could be him, you know,’ her father mused. ‘He has an office in Madrid.’

It would have been harder to mention a capital where there was not a building bearing the Rios name. Emilio was accounted by some in the financial world to be a genius, by others to be incredibly lucky.

In Megan’s opinion, to be as successful as he was he had to be both, with the added essential ingredient of utter ruthlessness thrown in!

The tension back with bells on, Megan heard her father add, ‘The Rios family estate is nearby, magnificent old place.’ The awe in the voice of a man who lived in a stately pile with more rooms than Megan had ever counted suggested the Rios Estate really was something out of the ordinary.

‘Well, if he was here he’s gone now,’ she said as much for her own benefit as her dad’s.

‘I stayed there once when Luis and I were negotiating a deal. My God, that man was slippery. Did you ever meet Emilio’s father?’

‘I thought he was a bit of a snob, actually.’

‘No, not a snob,’ her father disagreed, sounding irritated by her outspoken appraisal. ‘Just very old-school and immensely proud of his family heritage, and who can blame him? They can trace their history back centuries. You know, this Madrid stopover of yours might not be such a bad thing after all.’

Deeply distrustful of the thoughtful note in her father’s voice, Megan frowned and said warily, ‘You think so?’

‘I’ll ring Emilio.’

A loud announcement on the speaker system drowned out Megan’s wailed protest of, ‘Oh, God, no, don’t do that!’

‘I’ve lost touch since Luis retired. This could be the perfect opportunity to reconnect, and I’m sure Emilio could arrange accommodation for you.’

‘I wouldn’t want to trade on our relationship.’

Ignoring the sarcasm of her retort, Charles mused thoughtfully, ‘The Rios family have strong South American connections, connections that could be very useful if the Ortega deal proves viable. Actually, even if it doesn’t there are—’

Shaking her head, Megan cut her father off mid-flow.

‘No.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, no, I will not butter up Emilio Rios for you.’

‘Did I ask you to?’ her father said, sounding suitably bewildered and hurt by the accusation.

‘Emilio Rios was Philip’s friend, not mine. I don’t even like the man.’ Two years ago he had been well on the way to becoming a carbon copy of his aristocratic, aloof father. By now he had probably become equally stuffy and pretentious.

There was nothing like being lauded as a genius to confirm a person’s belief in his own infallibility, and having beautiful women throw themselves at your feet was not exactly going to encourage humility, she reflected sourly.

‘You used to follow him around like a puppy.’

The reminder brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘I’m not twelve, Dad.’ Actually, she had been thirteen when her brother had brought home his college friend, who had been the most beautiful young man she had ever imagined, let alone laid eyes on.

He had been kind.

Later he had been cruel.

‘And anyway, he definitely doesn’t like me.’ This was not a stab in the dark; it was actually an understatement. Two years on the memory of his blighting scorn no longer had the power to make her feel physically sick. Though she was a little way off laughing at it.

‘Don’t be stupid, Megan. Why would he not like you? I doubt if you even registered on his radar back then.’

Is that meant to make me feel better? Megan wondered.

‘I did have hopes he might have fallen for Janie.’

Why not? Megan thought. Everyone else had, or so it had seemed to her when she had watched, with wistful envy, her beautiful half-sister make male jaws drop wherever she went.

‘But I think that marriage of his was a done deal when they were both in their cradles. But that’s over and it’s different now. You’ve turned into quite an attractive young woman. No Janie, obviously.’

Obviously, Megan thought, and her twisted smile was more philosophical than cynical as she said, ‘You mean I lost twenty pounds.’ There was less of her but suddenly she was a lot more visible, at least to male eyes. ‘Look, Dad, I have to— Hold on, Dad,’ she added, turning in response to the pressure of a hand on her shoulder.

The expression of polite enquiry on her face melted into one of wild-eyed panic as she tilted her face up at the man standing at her shoulder.

He was the reason why she was suddenly not being jostled. People did not jostle Emilio Rios. It wasn’t just his physical presence, which was considerable, it was his aura.

‘You!’ Oh, God, how long had he been standing there? The thought that he had been listening made her feel queasy.

Emilio Rios smiled and Megan’s lips parted. She had no control over the tiny sigh of female appreciation that emerged from her throat. Fortunately the level of noise in the place drowned it out.

The smile did not reach his dark eyes, just deepened the fine lines fanning out from the corners, leaving the gleaming depths intent as without a word he framed her face with his big hands.

A myriad emotions swirling in jumbled psychedelic chaos through her head, Megan stood immobile as she felt the warm brush of his breath against the fluttering pulse at the base of her neck, then the downy softness of her cheek as his dark features blurred out of focus as she struggled to escape the magnetic tug of his unblinking stare.

Logic told her this was not happening, but it was. This wasn’t a dream; it was real. Dreams were not hot; he was. Across the inches barely separating them the heat of his body seeped through the fine creased linen of her jacket.

Say something! Do something?

She did neither, but he did.

Emilio bent his head and covered her mouth with his.

Scream, kick him, bite him, said the voice in her head.

Instead she melted into him, her soft body moulding sinuously against the lean, hard length of him. Her lips parted with a silent sigh, not just allowing but inviting the bold, erotic penetration of his tongue.

Need and enervating lust rolled over her, sweeping her along in its wake as she clung to him, her arms sliding around his middle.