Kitabı oku: «Kept At The Argentine's Command»
Lulu was the only wallflower maid of honour in the history of wedding receptions. But perhaps it was for the best. Lulu wasn’t even sure she was going to be able to stand up for the first dance.
‘Lulu.’ Alejandro was beside her, extending his hand.
She wanted to slap it. She also wanted to grab hold of it like a lifeline. She gripped him. Dug her nails in a little.
The moment his arm came around her his hand settled at her waist. With his other hand in hers she felt all the fury and hurt and confusion rise up inside her, making it impossible for her to speak.
Alejandro had none of those problems. ‘I know you’re angry with me, Lulu, but we need to talk in private. ‘
She suddenly wanted to cry. Very much.
‘Anything you have to say to me you can say here.’
His hand tightened at her waist and Lulu wondered, crazily, if he might pick her up and throw her over his shoulder and haul her out of there. But why would he do that? She wasn’t Gigi. She wasn’t intrinsically loveable. Her limitations meant she wasn’t going to have a normal life.
‘The condom broke.’
For a moment Lulu was too busy swimming in self-pity to pay much attention, and when she did she didn’t have a clue why he was saying this to her. Why had he said ‘condom’ in the middle of the wedding waltz?
The. Condom. Broke.
The words broke across her mind’s eye as if they’d been lit up in fireworks across a night sky.
LUCY ELLIS creates over-the-top couples who spar and canoodle in glamorous places. If it doesn’t read like a cross between a dozen old fairy tales you half know and a 1930s romantic comedy it’s not a Lucy Ellis story. Come and read a rambling exposition on her books at lucy-ellis.com and drop her a line.
Kept at the
Argentine’s
Command
Lucy Ellis
MILLS & BOON
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For my dear dad, who is 80 this year. May he see many more stories to come.
Contents
Cover
Introduction
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Extract
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
ALEJANDRO NOTICED HER on boarding because she was easily the sweetest view on offer: a drop of honey on a dull day.
A slightly built girl, sitting with her long slender legs crossed at the knee, her head was bent as she read, causing her mop of artfully arranged blue-black curls, cut short at the back and longer towards the front, to topple forward around her face. She wore the highly feminised clothes of an earlier era in a way he recognised was a fashion statement.
As he made his way down the aisle towards his seat she lifted her eyes from her e-reader and they locked with his.
Those curls, he discovered, framed delicate features. She had a short upturned nose, big dark brown eyes and a mouth like a red rosebud. Her eyes widened, but there was nothing inviting in the way she looked at him. In fact her gaze dropped skittishly away. She reminded him of one of his fillies at home on the estancia, toeing the ground for some attention and then shying away.
He didn’t mind shy—he could work with it fine.
Sure enough, her gaze swung upwards again, back for another look, a little bolder this time, and her lavish rosebud of a mouth quivered with the beginnings of a smile.
He returned her smile—the barest tilt of his mouth, because he was out of practice with the gesture. She responded by blushing and ducking her eyes back to the little screen.
He was hooked.
He was also barely in his seat before she gestured for assistance from a flight attendant. He watched in bemused interest as for the next twenty minutes Brown Eyes kept the cabin crew on their toes with a steady stream of what appeared to be trivial requests. Glasses of water, a cushion, a blanket... It was only when she began whispering furiously to the by now harassed female flight attendant that the points she’d scored with him for being pretty to look at flew out of the window.
‘No, I really cannot move!’ Her raised voice—demanding and shrill, despite the sexy French accent—had Alejandro putting down his tablet.
When the flustered flight attendant came up the aisle he leaned out and asked what the problem was.
‘An elderly gentleman is finding it difficult to make the trip to the facilities, sir,’ she explained, ‘and we were hoping to relocate him to a closer seat.’
She didn’t mention the intransigent Brown Eyes. But she was hard to miss.
Alejandro grabbed his jacket and reached up to the overhead locker.
‘Not a problem,’ he said, flashing the flight attendant a smile. She blushed.
Re-seated further towards the rear of the plane, he reopened his tablet, forgot about the brunette and gave his attention to the screen.
The morning papers on his tablet didn’t offer much encouragement about his destination.
When one of Russia’s richest oligarchs tied the knot with a sprightly red-haired ex-showgirl in a Scottish castle it was news, and from what Alejandro had heard from the groom himself the press had already set up shop in the surrounding town and area for long-lens shots of the ‘who’s who’ guest list.
Being one of the ‘who’s who’ himself, he’d decided not to make a splash entering the country. In Alejandro’s opinion, if you didn’t want the attention, you shouldn’t act as if you were somebody who needed it. Which meant he was flying commercial and driving the four-hour trip from Edinburgh to the coast a day early. The route would reportedly take him through some picturesque countryside, and he intended to cruise into Dunlosie under the radar.
Still, the hullaballoo he was surely headed for didn’t inspire encouragement that this was going to be anything other than a weekend to endure.
Impatiently Alejandro tossed aside his tablet and angled his wide-shouldered frame out of his seat. He’d never been able to sit still for long.
And that was when a little cough sounded to his left and he looked down.
It was Brown Eyes.
She’d taken a few trips up and down the aisle to the ‘facilities’. Either she had a little bladder problem or, more likely, she was looking for some attention.
He surveyed her coolly. Possibly not the attention she wanted.
With each trip up the aisle her step had become more rolling and he suspected she was a little drunk.
She was also considerably tall for a woman. He took a look down and found the culprits: a pair of very high-heeled turquoise shoes, ridiculously encumbered by ribbons that frothed around her trim ankles.
She in turn was gazing up at him, all brown eyes and carefully cultivated curls. Irritatingly, she was as pretty as ever.
‘Pardon, m’sieur.’
Her voice sounded a little slurred. Definitely drinking.
Unimpressed, he murmured, ‘Maybe you should go easy on the free liquor, señorita, and do us all a favour.’
She blinked. ‘Pardonnez-moi?’
‘You heard me.’
For a moment she seemed to be utterly lost for words. Then she screwed up her nose and stamped her foot.
It took a great deal of his self-control not to smile.
‘Why don’t you move out of the way instead of bullying people?’ she demanded, her French accent doing an excellent job on the precise English she used.
He ran his gaze insolently from the top of her shiny curls to the ribbons cascading over her pointy shoes and back to everything in between.
The in between was rather sweetly distributed...
She backed up a bit, but he wasn’t letting her get away scot-free.
‘You’re quite a piece of work, aren’t you, chica?’ he drawled.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘There are fourteen people in First Class today,’ he spelt out. ‘Your name isn’t written on the plane and the cabin crew aren’t your personal galley slaves. How about cutting us all some slack?’
Her eyes fell away from his. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she mumbled. ‘Now, move, why don’t you?’
It was all he needed. ‘Make me.’
Her chin came up and her rosebud of a mouth dropped open.
He was slightly surprised himself. He didn’t, as a rule, hassle women. Especially silly little girls who needed to grow up.
For a moment he thought those big brown eyes were going to fill with ready tears. She certainly seemed on the brink of something.
So he moved.
Just.
She made a very French ‘ouf’ sound of disapproval, averted her face and stalked back to her seat. Once more in charge of herself. Self-interest on two legs.
Only then she ruined it with an almost furtive look back over her shoulder, as if to make sure he wasn’t following her.
The first finger of doubt touched his shoulder.
He’d made a few hard conclusions drawn from not much.
But life had taught him to pay attention to what people told you by their actions, not their words.
She had barely reached her seat when he heard her give a soft cry.
Alejandro turned—fast.
‘Non, leave those things alone!’
He relaxed, a little surprised at his own reflexes when he didn’t even like the woman. She was back to making everyone’s life a misery.
She followed this up with a hushed volley of what sounded like furious French, but she was speaking so fast it was hard to tell. And all of it was directed at the poor steward, who was tidying up the clutter she had accumulated around her.
Heads emerged into the aisle.
Alejandro swung back into his seat and checked his phone. He was done with her.
There was a message from the groom.
Change in plans. Do me a favour and pick up a bridesmaid on your way in. Answers to Lulu Lachaille. Exiting Flight 338 at Gate Four. She’s precious cargo. If you lose her, Gigi will cut off my balls and call off the wedding.
Alejandro briefly considered texting back no, even as he kissed his peaceful drive goodbye. Weddings were his worst nightmare. Spending four hours in a car with a chatty little bridesmaid didn’t exactly float his boat.
Although the bridal party was bound to be stocked with leggy showgirls, so it might not be that bad...
Dios.
He stuck his head out into the aisle, only to find that the French Miss was leaning out too.
She had the open, hopeful expression of a cartoon princess awaiting aid from one of her magical creatures.
Then she saw him, and her expression darkened and her eyes diminished to dark cat-like slits.
As if on cue a flight attendant appeared at her side, with still water and what appeared to be some form of medication.
A headache? It just got better and better.
He flipped open the attachment Khaled had sent him, but a part of him already knew what he was going to see.
He didn’t know whether to laugh or groan.
A dark-eyed angel gazed seriously up at him from the screen.
She was really quite something.
He angled a resigned glance down the aisle. The only problem was—she was also her.
CHAPTER TWO
MAKE ME?
Trotting across the plane’s bridge, Lulu fumed. It was at the forefront of her mind to make a complaint to the airline.
Women should be free to fly the skies unmolested by hulking great brutes who thought they occupied the high moral ground.
Although she guessed he did.
She guessed he didn’t think much of her because she hadn’t given up her seat.
Lulu’s heart plummeted.
She’d seen the looks on the other passengers’ faces and knew they all felt the same way, but what could she have done?
The cabin crew had been apprised of her condition and had been considerate with all of her requests. Only one of them clearly hadn’t got the memo regarding her flying issues, and when she’d been asked to move to another seat her feet had turned to lead.
Just the idea of shifting everything, when she’d created a safe little space for herself around her seat, had been too overwhelming. She might as well have been asked to leap from the plane!
By the time she was waiting at the luggage carousel Lulu was no longer fuming but feeling utterly wretched.
What kind of a person didn’t give up their seat to a sick, elderly man?
Perhaps she should have heeded her mother’s advice and brought someone with her? Lulu worried. Then none of this would have happened.
But how was she to have anything like a normal life if she always had to take people along with her? She was a full-grown woman—not an invalid! She could do better than this. She stood up straighter. She could try harder...
She was trying harder.
Ever since she had tried to break up her best friend’s relationship six months ago she’d been actively trying to do better.
She’d found a different therapist from the one her parents had arranged and got a proper diagnosis. At least she knew now that her actions with Gigi had been motivated by separation anxiety and were a symptom of her illness.
But it would have been too easy to use her condition as an excuse for her behaviour—lying to bring Gigi back home just so she could feel safer, and in the process trying to steal her best friend’s joy with a man who’d proved to be the best thing that had ever happened to her. Who did something like that? A boxed-in, desperate person, that was who—and she didn’t want to be that person any more.
That was why she was in the process of turning her entire life upside down.
She had signed up for a course in costume design and she now had ambitions for a life beyond the cabaret.
It had been that single act which had given her the necessary self-confidence to imagine she could undertake this flight on her own.
But all her preparations for taking the flight hadn’t factored in a big, macho stranger, cornering her in the aisle on her way back from the facilities, where most of the contents of her stomach had gone down the toilet.
‘A piece of work’, he’d called her. As if she were defective—something she’d worked hard with her therapist to convince herself she wasn’t.
Lulu realised her hand was shaking as she pointed out her luggage to the nice airport attendant who had volunteered to help her.
That was something that man from the plane could have been—helpful rather than being horrible to her.
Oh, forget him, she told herself briskly. He’s probably forgotten all about you!
To be honest, as she made her way out into Arrivals with her stick-and-stop trolley, she was feeling a bit desperate, and was looking forward to seeing her fellow bridesmaids, Susie and Trixie. They at least would provide a buffer against the rest of the world.
Right now Lulu didn’t think she could face anything more challenging.
Only ten minutes later she was still scanning the crowd anxiously and wondering if she was even going to get to the castle before Gigi said I do.
She had her phone out to track down the other girls when she was nudged by a new influx of people streaming around her and jostled backwards into a warm, hard body. Incredibly hard. Masculine, judging by the size, the solidity and the weight of the strong hands that settled around her shoulders to steady her.
He said something and Lulu froze.
She recognised that voice.
Dieu, it was the bully from the plane.
Run—run!
But her legs had gone to water. As much as she reminded herself that hostile men didn’t scare her any more—she had rights...she was protected under the law—she still felt incredibly vulnerable. And she hated that feeling. She was trying so hard to be strong.
Which didn’t explain why she’d fastened her gaze on his wide sensual mouth, noticing the shadow along his jaw where he’d clearly shaved this morning and would probably need to shave again later. He was very masculine.
Lulu reminded herself that she didn’t like masculine men. She didn’t like the way they pushed and shoved and shouldered their way through the world and got away with things through intimidation. They made her nervous. Only this man didn’t exactly make her nervous—he made her something else.
It was the something else she was struggling with now, even knowing what a bully he was.
He was also gorgeously tall and broad-shouldered, with a stunning face—all cheekbones and sensuous mouth and golden-brown eyes that looked magnetic against the olive tint of his skin.
His tousled chestnut-brown hair was so thick and silky-looking her fingers just itched to touch it. She made fists of her hands.
She didn’t like him, and he was looking at her as if he didn’t like her very much either.
Good, it was mutual. The not liking, that was.
So what if he looked like...? Well, he looked like Gary Cooper. In his rakish early career, when he’d picked up and slept with every starlet who wasn’t nailed down.
Not Gregory Peck, though. Gregory Peck was reliable and stalwart and...decent. He would never insult a woman.
Stop staring at him. Stop comparing him to Golden Age Hollywood movie stars.
‘Buenas tardes, señorita,’ he said, in a voice that made him sound as if he was making an indecent proposal to her. ‘I believe you’re looking for me.’
Lulu automatically repressed the responsive curl of smoke in her lower belly raised by the sound of his deep and sexy Spanish accent.
No, no, no—he would be lighting no fires in her valley.
She drew herself up. ‘I certainly am not.’
Alejandro was tempted to shrug and walk away, and let the little princesita discover the hard way that he wasn’t trying to pick her up. But in the end he had a duty to perform for a friend and she was it.
She continued to regard him as if he would spring at her, so he extended his hand.
‘Alejandro du Crozier.’
She looked at his hand as if he’d pulled a gun on her.
‘Please leave me alone,’ she said, a touch furtively, and turned a rigid shoulder on him.
‘I’m not trying to pick you up, señorita.’ He tried again with what he considered was remarkable patience.
Her narrow back told him what she thought about that claim.
‘You clearly didn’t get the message. Lulu,’ he added dryly.
The use of her name had the intended effect. She peered at him cautiously over her shoulder, reminding Alejandro absurdly of a timid creature sticking its head out of a hole.
‘H-how do you know my name?’
He folded his arms.
‘I’m your ride,’ he said flatly.
‘My ride?’
As soon as she said it Lulu felt herself go red.
She didn’t have a dirty mind—truly she didn’t. She was always the last one to get the blue jokes that ran like quicksilver around the dressing room before shows at L’Oiseau Bleu, the Parisian cabaret where she danced in the chorus, but right now something seemed to have gone wrong with her. It had something to do with the way he looked at her—as if he knew exactly how she looked in her underwear.
Earlier he’d looked at her as if she was a bug he’d wanted to squash. Better to think about being the bug.
To her embarrassment she stepped back and almost tripped over her hand luggage. His hand shot out and grasped her elbow, saving her from a fall.
‘Careful, bella,’ he said, his warm breath brushing the top of her ear.
Her knees went to jelly.
She tried to tug herself free, confused. ‘Will you let me pass?’
‘Señorita,’ he said, holding her in place, ‘I am Alejandro du Crozier, and I will be driving you to the wedding.’
Her eyes flew to his. He knew about the wedding? That meant he was a guest too.
‘But Susie and Trixie are driving me to the wedding.’ As soon as she said it she realised those plans had possibly changed.
‘I know nothing of these women. I only know of you.’ His expression said that this wasn’t making his day.
Which was fine, Lulu decided. That made two of them. She gave another tug and he let go.
‘I don’t make a habit of going off with strange men, Mr—Mr—’
He pulled out his phone and held it up in front of her. She peered at the message on the screen and then looked at him in mute astonishment.
‘Khaled sent you?’
He gave that question the look it deserved. But he didn’t have to stand so close, did he? And he didn’t have to look at her mouth as if there was something about it that interested him. She most definitely didn’t have anything to interest him.
Weirdly, her heart was hammering.
His amber eyes, lushly lashed, met hers with a splintering intensity.
‘Unless you’re interested in walking, chica, I suggest you come with me now.’
He didn’t give her a chance to object. He was walking away. He clearly expected her to follow him.
Lulu stared after him.
He was the rudest man.
She found herself struggling one-handed with her stick-and-stop trolley, her hand luggage banging painfully against her leg.
She most certainly was not travelling with him in a car for three or four hours.
She would find a taxi.
She would entrust her person and her luggage to a man she had paid to do the task—not one who thought he was doing her a big favour.
Money was a woman’s greatest ally and protection. She knew it to be so. Without money her mother had been unable to escape her violent father.
Even now, with her mother blissfully married to another man, Lulu pushed her to keep her own bank account and manage her own money. Money gave you options. Lulu lifted her chin. Right now her own personal bank account gave her the ability to pay her way to Dunlosie Castle.
But when she emerged from the building it was into an overcast Edinburgh day. There was a light rain falling and Lulu stopped to retrieve her umbrella, opening it against the elements and peering about. She spotted the cab rank but there was a queue.
All right, sometimes those options a woman had weren’t optimal, but there was no help for it.
She pushed resolutely in that direction, aware that her pretty harlequin seamed stockings were receiving tiny splashes of dirty water with each step from the washback beneath the wheels of her trolley. The fact that she felt depleted from withstanding her own anxieties in the air for the last couple of hours wasn’t helping. Lulu wanted nothing more than to be warm and comfortable inside a car, with her shoes off, watching this bad weather through a windscreen.
Maybe she’d been a little hasty...
Which was when she saw the lovingly restored red vintage Jaguar.
The passenger side window came rolling down.
‘Get in,’ he instructed.
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