Kitabı oxu: «One Night in Madrid: Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife / The Spaniard's Defiant Virgin / The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride»

One night in MADRID

Spanish Billionaire,

Innocent Wife

KATE WALKER

The Spaniard’s

Defiant Virgin

JENNIE LUCAS

The Spanish Duke’s

Virgin Bride

CHANTELLE SHAW

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Spanish Billionaire,

Innocent Wife

KATE WALKER

About the Author

KATE WALKER was born in Nottinghamshire, but as she grew up in Yorkshire she has always felt that her roots are there. She met her husband at university and originally worked as a children’s librarian, but after the birth of her son she returned to her old childhood love of writing. When she’s not working, she divides her time between her family, their three cats and her interests of embroidery, antiques, film and theatre and, of course, reading. You can visit Kate at www.kate walker.com

Don’t miss Kate’s exciting new novels in March and October 2011 from Mills & Boon® Modern™.

CHAPTER ONE

THE hands on the clock didn’t seem to have moved even once in all the time that she had been sitting here. Alannah could have sworn that every time she glanced up at the big white circle that hung on the green-painted wall opposite the big hand and the little hand were in exactly the same position as they had been the last time she had looked, making a mockery of the audible sound of the minutes ticking away.

She felt as if she had been here all afternoon—almost all her life. And yet time hardly seemed to have moved on from the moment she had arrived and taken her place in the rather worn armchair in the middle of the room.

From here she could watch the door. She could see the approach of anyone coming near through the clouded pane of glass, and be ready if the door should open and the man she was expecting appeared.

The man she was expecting? Dreading would be more like it, Alannah admitted to herself, green eyes clouding rapidly.

She shook her head so that the red-gold swathe of her hair tossed along her shoulders, straggling strands escaping from the black elasticated band into which she had confined it before leaving home that morning, and rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes in a vain attempt to drive away the weariness and apprehension that clutched at her.

She knew she looked pale and wan. The stress and sorrow of the past few days had drained every last drop of pink from her cheeks, tears had dimmed the brightness of her eyes and the set of her fine features reflected the strain of the nightmare week she had just endured. The jeans she had pulled on together with a plain black long-sleeved T-shirt, her mind too battered to even think of anything else, did nothing for her appearance. It took even more colour from her skin and left it looking lifeless and washed out. And she hadn’t had either the time or the inclination to add any artificial colour with a touch of make-up before she had left her flat. The need to know that her mother was settled at her aunt’s house, heavily sedated because of the shock, had been much more important than any personal grooming.

Still, what did that matter? The man she was here to see wouldn’t give a damn about her appearance or how she was dressed. He wouldn’t want to see her here in the first place and he’d be even less happy about it when he heard what she had to say.

‘Of course, Mr Marcín …’

A sudden bustle in the corridor beyond the door alerted her, the sound of the all-too-familiar name confirming her suspicions. Not that she’d needed them confirmed. Whenever and wherever Raul Marcín appeared, it seemed that instantly everything was bustle and activity. Even the air around him appeared enlivened, stirring and swirling in a way that left other more ordinary humans catching their breath in the suddenly rarefied atmosphere.

Once she had been part of that atmosphere, carried along on the tidal wave of energy and power that Don Raul Esteban Marquez Marcín created as he strode through life, arrogant dark head held high, golden eyes blazing. But not any more. Not since she had fled that world and all it brought with it.

And she was well out of it.

It was a world of power and money, yes—but there had also been cold deceit and even icier manipulation. Don Raul Marcín took what he wanted from people—from women—and used them to fulfil his own desires, without a thought for their feelings. He’d done that to her. And he would have discarded her too, she had no doubt. He would have tossed her aside when the purpose she had served was finished—done with. But luckily for her vulnerable heart, and before the foolish emotions she had allowed herself to feel had become so deeply embedded in her spirit that she could have had no hope of ever tearing them out, she had discovered the truth about their relationship. And that truth had set her free. Making her run as far and as fast as she could, never looking back, and never wanting to see Raul Marcín ever again.

Which was how she would have wanted it to stay. Except that now she had no choice. None at all. She had to face Raul Marcín once again. Face him and tell him things she had no doubt that he did not want to hear.

‘If you would just wait in here …’

A hand pushed open the door, bringing with it, Alannah would have sworn, a rush of swirling air, and a male voice murmured a word of thanks, although with an edge of impatience on the sound.

Immediately Alannah found that her hands had gone to smooth her hair, straighten her top, and with a mutter of annoyance and reproach she forced them still again. She didn’t want him thinking that she wanted to improve her appearance for him; or believing that she was in the least concerned what he would think of her. Once that might have mattered to her; once she might have wanted more than all the world that he would look at her and smile, desire flaring in his eyes—but that had been in the past. Now desire was the last thing she wanted him to feel, so it didn’t matter a damn if she was as scruffy and unkempt as some street urchin in a small village on his family’s vast estate.

‘I’ll get that sorted out straight away.’

‘Gracias,’ that voice said again, sending shivers of recognition down Alannah’s spine. She wasn’t going to let herself feel anything. Not now. Not after all that had happened.

She heard him come into the room, felt his presence in the atmosphere, but still didn’t dare bring herself to lift up her head and actually look at him. The sudden quiver of awareness that flashed through her body twisted in nerves that were already stretched, turned her natural apprehension into something that was close to a physical pain. It took all her strength to subdue it so that she could only stare at the floor, focusing her gaze on the green and grey pattern of the slightly worn carpet at her feet. ‘Perdón!’

He had become aware of her silent presence at the far side of the room and out of the corner of her eye she noticed how the tall, lean body stilled, stiffened. She couldn’t see his face but there was a quality in his stillness, in that worrying silence, that told her his expression was changing, turning from polite greeting to realisation, to awareness. To …

‘Alannah?’

Oh, dear God, but she had forgotten the way his use of her name affected her. That husky accent, the way that just the sound of his voice seemed to coil around her like warm, scented smoke, making her heart clench painfully.

‘Alannah?’

She had to look at him now. She had no option. It was either that or let him guess just how much he affected her, and that was something she really didn’t want him to know.

If she was honest, she’d been taken by surprise at it herself. She’d told herself that she could do this. That she could meet him, face him, tell him what he had to know and then go on her way, back to her life, the life she had built since she’d left him, all over again. She was away from him, she was free and nothing could change that. She was never going back.

But just the softly accented sound of her name on his lips had threatened that conviction disturbingly. She didn’t know what it meant, but she was sure as she could be of one thing: she didn’t want him to know about it.

‘Hello, Raul.’

Trite and inane as it was, it was all that she could manage. And now she had to look at him. It was either that or make it obvious that she was holding back deliberately, that she was trying to do anything but look into his face.

So she lifted her head, forced her drooping eyelids wide open and met his bronze stare head-on.

He was bigger than she remembered. Or, rather, she had forgotten how tall, how strong and imposing he was. And it seemed that the passage of time had only added to the impact he made simply by walking into a room. She couldn’t help wishing that she was not sitting down. The armchair was low and squat, making her feel uncomfortably vulnerable as Raul towered over her, overwhelming and ominously threatening.

In the two years since she had seen him, time had turned him from a young man into a dynamic, mature male. His powerful frame had become tauter, stronger, tightening muscles and enhancing his forceful stature. And nowhere were the effects of time on his bone structure more pronounced than in his face. The already lean shape, the high, slanting cheekbones were emphasised by the passage of time that had etched a few lines around his eyes and mouth. His brows seemed darker, thicker, and on either side of the straight slash of a nose his bronze eyes burned like molten gold, fiercely intent on her face.

Unlike her, he was immaculately dressed, the perfectly tailored lines of the elegant steel-grey suit he wore with a crisp white shirt clinging to those honed muscles, broad shoulders and narrow hips as if they had been moulded onto him. That suit and the pristine shirt were so much Don Raul Marcín, she reflected bitterly. So much the Raul she had known in the past. A man she had rarely seen in anything other than those tailored suits, almost never anything casual and relaxed. And his mind-set was the same. Always focused, always business, always working, making money. And when he wasn’t working then his attention was on the one other thing that mattered to him—the dukedom of Marquez Marcín and all the land they owned.

‘Buenas tardes Alannah.’ It came stiffly, curtly, with an arrogant inclination of his head, barely acknowledging her and sending stinging pricks of indignation skittering over her skin.

Long time, no see. The flippant words hovered on her tongue but she caught them back, swallowing them down hard, knowing they were not in the least appropriate—nor would they be welcome.

‘What are you doing here?’

The harsh demand in his tone drove all other thoughts from her mind, pushing her to her feet in a rush, her hands on the arms of the chair for support.

‘The same as you, I presume. This is a hospital.’

‘But I …’

The dawn of understanding in those burning eyes eased the sear of them over her skin, making her swallow again as her throat closed up in response to the sight.

‘Someone is ill?’ It came grimly, sharply. ‘One of your family.’ ‘My brother,’ Alannah managed, nodding almost fiercely for fear that he might see what was in her eyes; the tears she was having to blink back hard. She would have to come to the truth soon enough but who could blame her if she needed a little time to draw breath, to prepare herself? Find the courage to go on?

And especially when it was this man she had to tell.

‘Is it bad?’

Another change of expression almost defeated her, sweeping away all the strength she had gained. His look of sympathy, of understanding, seemed genuine, so much so that it knocked her sideways, emotionally and physically. She actually staggered where she stood for a moment, uncertain fingers clutching at the chair for support. He looked as if he really cared—though she knew it was only a polite mask, assumed by social necessity. And one that would soon be wiped straight off those handsome features when she explained everything further.

‘Bad enough.’

The worst, she should say. But how could she tell him that when admitting what had happened brought with it so many other admissions, so many other complications?

‘I’m sorry.’

Raul said it automatically and even though he knew that it sounded cold and distant, his voice harsh, abrupt, he didn’t have the energy or the concentration to change it. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel sympathy for her sick brother, but at this foul end of a long, foul day Alannah was the last person he needed to see right now. The last person he wanted to see now or at any other time.

When she had walked out of his life twenty-five months before, he had been glad to see her go. More than glad. If he had never seen her again, it would have been too soon. He had let her get under his skin in a way that no other woman had ever done before or since. In fact he had come close to wanting to spend his life with her. He had even gone so far as to ask her to marry him.

But when he’d proposed she had laughed in his face.

‘Why on earth would I want to marry you?’ she’d said, her voice showing the scorn that was so clear in the coldness of her eyes, the mocking smile on her lips. ‘That’s not what I’m in this relationship for. It was fun—and the fact that you’re so rich is great. But if you’re thinking of anything permanent, forget it! That’s just not going to happen.’

And that was when she had told him that she had already met someone else. The wound to his pride still burned like an open sore and her presence here like this had only wrenched away the scar that covered it. Seeing Alannah was the only thing that could make him forget just for a second exactly why he was here at all.

And that he didn’t want to forget. If he could have made it that it had never happened then he would, but that was impossible. If he forgot, if he put it out of his mind for a moment, then, inevitably, at some point he had to go through the agony of remembering all over again.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, knowing that, even through the black fury and the hatred of her that had filled his mind since she had walked away from him, if she was going through one quarter of what he was feeling then it was only human to feel sympathy for another person caught in the same horror.

‘Thank you.’ She sounded almost as unfocused as he felt, but then that was only to be expected if her brother was very ill.

It explained the way she looked, he told himself, his numbed and bruised mind finally registering more about her than the unwanted fact that she was Alannah Redfern, the woman he had never wanted in his life again.

And now that he had become aware of just how she looked, now that his eyes had fixed on her face, he found that he couldn’t look away; couldn’t drag his eyes from hers.

She looked like a pale reflection of herself, he realised dazedly. It was as if someone had painted her in diluted pastel water colours or left a photograph out in the sunshine until it faded, all the brightness leaching away to leave just a negative of what had been there before.

Whenever a memory of Alannah had slid into his mind—and they had done just occasionally, maldito sea, in spite of his determined efforts to lock them out, then those memories had been of colour and life, of a vividly toned and animated face, a wide smile and flashing green eyes.

But now even those eyes seemed faded. The brilliant green that he recalled was dulled to the colour of the sea on a bleak winter’s day. Her skin, which had always had the creamy pallor of her Celtic ancestry, was now ashen almost to the point of less transparency where it was stretched tight across the fine bones of her face.

She had lost weight too, he would swear. The lush curves he remembered so well—too well—were lush no longer. Instead she looked finer drawn, almost fragile—and were the long lashes that fringed those almond-shaped eyes spiked by. tears?

Tears in a place like this, in a hospital intensive-care ward, were bad news, and with his own terrible revelation still so raw in his mind and his heart he knew that the shadows in her eyes, the lack of colour in her face, were probably mirrored in his.

‘Alannah?’

If the look of sympathy earlier had almost destroyed her, then this change in his voice, his expression, took the ground right from under her feet in a second. It was just what she most needed, and yet what she had most been dreading. It was what the weakness deep inside longed for, this note of concern and support, and yet she knew she could never reach for it, never allow herself to lean against his strength, let herself accept his help. Because if she did then she still had to tell him the whole truth. And she knew that if she had once known the feel of that support, even for a second, then it would tear her apart to lose it all over again.

And so she forced herself away from the temptation that had reached out to enclose her, pulling herself away, taking back the two small steps she had taken towards him without even being aware of having moved. She felt the withdrawal in every inch of her, the terrible wrench in her heart as well as her body, and it made her legs tremble beneath her, threatening to give way as she made herself move away instead of towards him and make it look as if she had been heading towards the drinks tray instead.

‘Would you like some coffee? It’s pretty foul but …’

What was she saying? Offering him coffee one minute and then telling him how foul it was the next! She sounded like … She didn’t know what she sounded like, only that the way she was rattling on gave away just how nervous she was feeling and that could only alert Raul to the fact that something was very wrong.

And if he started asking questions.

The nerves in her stomach twisted sharply and painfully, making her heart jump into a rapid uneven beat.

‘… coffee, gracias.’

At least that was what she thought Raul said but the words were blurred by the pounding of the blood through her veins, sounding like thunder inside her head. And somehow she found that she just couldn’t stop talking, no matter how much she wanted to. It was as if, having found a way to remove the gag that had kept her lips tight closed except for the barest minimum of forced speech, she had also ripped away the restraint on her tongue so that the words were just tumbling out in a rush without giving her time to think whether they were really what she wanted to say or not.

‘They try to make this place comfortable, make it feel a bit homely, for the families and friends who are visiting—or waiting for news—but of course that’s not really possible, is it? I mean, who would want to be at home in the families’ room of an intensive-care ward?’

The plastic cup she held under the spout of the insulated coffee-pot shook unnervingly in the uncertain grip of a barely controlled hand and she clenched it tighter, only to crush and crack the brittle material.

‘Damn, damn, damn!’

Painfully aware of the way that Raul was watching her, of the tall, dark, silently vigilant spectator who stood just behind her, golden eyes intent on every move she made, she tossed aside the broken cup, not caring that it went nowhere near the grey-painted metal bin, and reached for another.

‘And who could ever, ever be comfortable here? I mean—’

She broke off on a cry of shock and frustration as the too hard pressure on the lid of the coffee-pot forced the hot liquid out at such a rate that it filled the cup in seconds, coming to the rim and pouring over before she had a chance to stop it.

‘Oh, damn it!’

She knew she should put it down, tried desperately to find a space on the metal tray to do so, but the bitter tears that had been burning at the backs of her eyes now flooded them totally, blurring her vision so that there was no way she could see what to do. If she tried she might miss the tray altogether and so she stood frozen, helplessly unable to decide which way to move.

‘Alannah …’

Raul’s voice was surprisingly soft and two large, long-fingered hands reached round in front of her. One clamped over her wrist, stilling her and holding her there, while the other eased the sloppy mess of the coffee-filled plastic cup from her now nerveless grip and set it down firmly and securely on the table top. The heat of his body surrounded her, the slightly musky scent of his skin tantalising her senses, and she knew that if she took so much as half a step backwards she would end up hard up against him, feeling the wall of his muscled frame at her back.

‘Now,’ he said, the beautifully accented voice rasping slightly on the word, ‘are you going to tell me just what all this is about?’

‘You wanted coffee …’

Did her voice reveal to him, as much as it did to her, just how close to the edge she was? How could he not catch the way it was rough around the edges, as if her control over her words was coming unravelled and all control slipping from her grasp?

‘I did not want coffee—I have drunk enough of the stuff to float a battleship. And I most definitely do not want any of that …’

The hand that had held the plastic cup waved in a gesture of supreme contempt to where it now stood, still filled to the brim with unappealing-looking and rapidly cooling stewed dark coffee.

‘But you said …?’

A new wave of panic swept over her as the words and the gesture pulled away her much needed defence of being able to do something—anything—other than actually look him in the face—and, worse, let him see into hers and find the dark secrets she wasn’t yet ready to reveal to him.

Had he really said ‘No coffee’ and she had been so intent on running away from him, mentally at least, that she had let herself hear the opposite, taking it as the excuse she wanted?

‘No coffee.’ she managed, having to force her tongue to work.

‘No coffee,’ Raul echoed emphatically, and the warmth of his breath against her cheek made her shiver in sharp reaction to just how close he was.

She felt as if her skin was afflicted by stinging pins and needles of awareness, prickling all over, lifting every tiny hair on her flesh. Loss and misery were a bitter taste in her mouth, combining brutally with the cruel knowledge that just two years ago, if circumstances such as these had arisen, then Raul would have been the first person she would have turned to, the one she would have known—or at least believed—would be there for her, to help her, support her, lend her his strength, mental and physical, to see her through.

And she would have gone into his arms like a bird seeking its nest, flying straight into their security, thinking that there she would be safe, it would be like coming home, and feeling she could stay there for ever. But harsh reality had taught her that that sense of safety had been false, unbelievable, a total delusion. The truth was that that sanctuary had been, emotionally, the worst place she could have been. The real world, with all its sorrow and bitterness, was still better. ‘And now …’

Still caught up in her own unhappy thoughts, Alannah had no power to resist as the hand that held her wrist tightened, spinning her round to face Raul.

And she was even closer than she had thought. Facing this way, she was almost up against his chest, her nose level with the top button on his shirt, her eyes looking straight at the smooth, bronzed skin of his throat, seeing the way the muscles tensed and released as he swallowed.

‘Now you will tell me just what all this is about.’

‘All—?’

The words were choked off, the breath snatched from Alannah’s lungs as Raul pushed long brown fingers under her chin and lifted it so that her eyes were now forced to meet the burn of his as they bored down into her.

‘And before you say “All what?” and tell me that there is nothing wrong, then you should know that I will not believe you.’

How had he known so precisely what she had been about to say? Was he a mind-reader now?

‘Why not?’

For a second as his head lowered she thought that he was actually going to touch her, that he might rest his forehead against hers as he had used to do as a gesture of easy affection when they had been together. The thought made her heart clench in panic, her pulse thudding frantically. But he paused just inches away from actual contact and instead clamped his hands over her shoulders, holding her tightly so that she could have no hope of moving away.

‘Because I know you and the way you behave.’

‘You haven’t seen me for two years!’

‘Two years is not so long a time—and with someone like you, I would never forget.’

Never forget … So how did she take that?

If her mind were clearer then she might have been able to interpret just how Raul had actually said the words but her thoughts were still buzzing in despair and confusion and she hadn’t had a chance to grab at the moment before it was gone again and all she was aware of was the burning stare of those deep-set eyes into her face.

And Raul didn’t give her any time to think further.

‘I know that however much you try to hide it you are in pieces inside. You are walking and talking like a robot—but un robot would at least make some sort of sense and you are making none. And these …’

A hard fingertip brushed lightly over the shadows she knew were under her eyes, traced the lines that stress and sorrow had etched on her face.

‘These give too much away. So what is it, Alannah? What has happened to Chris?’

In a series of shocks, it was another she didn’t expect. Her head went back in surprise, eyes opening wide.

‘Chris … You remember my brother’s name?’

‘I remember everything,’ Raul told her in a voice that shivered all the way down her spine, taking another bit more of her hard-won control with it as it went. ‘So now are you going to tell me what has happened? What exactly is wrong with Chris?’

Trapped like a rabbit in the headlights by the burn of those amazing eyes, Alannah felt her grip on what was happening slip and evaporate, leaving her shaking and distraught, a feeling that was worsened by the way that Raul’s hands tightened on her shoulders, hard fingers digging into the soft skin under the black T-shirt.

‘Tell me,’ he said and it was a command, one she knew she disobeyed at her peril. Only the truth would satisfy him and he would know if she told him anything less than that.

‘Chris …’

She hunted for a way to say it—but what way was there other than the hard, cold fact that she had been trying to absorb, to accept, to cope with for the past twenty-four hours?

‘My brother—Chris’s gone … he’s dead.’

And as she said that final, dreadful word the last shattered remnants of her control broke completely and the tears that shock had forced back, leaving her unable to mourn, totally overwhelmed her. With no fight left in her, no strength at all, she gave herself up to the misery and the aching, dragging sobs that could not be held back.

Blinded by the tears, she could feel Raul’s strong arms come round her, gathering her close, holding her tight, and in the blackness and despair of her loss she had no way of knowing if his gesture was the most wonderful, most welcome thing on earth or if it was the worst, the most dangerous thing that could have happened to her.

She only knew that under her tear-soaked cheeks, against the sudden weakness of her body, there was now the strength and support she needed and so she buried her wet face in the fine material of Raul’s jacket and wept her heart out.

CHAPTER TWO

HE SHOULD never have touched her, Raul told himself furiously as he stared out at the lights of the houses flashing past his car as it sped through the darkened streets. He should never, ever have touched her! He should have known just where it would lead.

Maldito sea—what sort of a fool was he? He should have known.

He had let himself believe that two years was a long time. Told himself that in the two dozen months since he had last seen her, since she had walked out of his life without a backward glance, that he had been able to forget her—put her right out of his mind.

Forget her! Hah!

‘What?’

Without realising it, he had let the short snarl of bitter laughter escape from his lips as a real sound and the woman slumped beside him on the back seat of the powerful car stirred briefly from the silence into which she had lapsed after the total outpouring of grief and lifted her head to look at him, her eyes just pools of shadow in a white face.

‘Nada—nothing …’ He waved a hand dismissively and she subsided back into silence, head down, preoccupied by her own thoughts.

What was he doing here with her? How had he managed to end up escorting her home like this when he already knew that he had made one of the biggest mistakes of his life in taking her in his arms in the first place? His fingers still stung from where he had touched her skin, the scent of her hair, her body was still in his nostrils in a way that reminded him painfully of the long, burning nights of sexual frustration that he had endured in the weeks after she had left him. Nights that had driven him to seek the company of another woman, any woman, only to find that being with anyone else made the feeling worse, piling dissatisfaction on dissatisfaction until he had felt he would go up in flames because of it.

It was the last thing he should be feeling right now. The last thing he even wanted to think about and yet one touch had put him right back there in the thrall of it. One touch, one moment with her in his arms and it was as if she had never been away.

But what the hell else could he have done? When she had gone to pieces in front of him like that—practically thrown herself into his arms—only a brute would have turned away from her.

Especially when he knew only too damn well just what she was going through, the rawness of grief, the sense of total disbelief that prevented any sort of acceptance.

Lorena.

The beloved name slashed into his thoughts like a stab of pain, making him close his lids sharply against the burn at the backs of his eyes. The thought of the moment that he had had to identify his sister’s body, lying cold and still, was a memory that he knew he would never be able to erase.

And with that moment etched so brutally on his mind, and knowing that Alannah was going through something of the same thing, how could he have turned away?

‘Thank you for taking me home.’

Having emerged from her withdrawn silence at last, Alannah seemed determined to make herself continue the conversation. Raul could hear the effort she was making to speak in the stiffness of her words, the flat, monotone delivery.

‘It’s very kind of you.’

Another brusque gesture waved away her words.

‘No es nada,’ he returned, finding it impossible to pitch his voice at anything other than a growl, and he watched her pull her jacket tighter round herself as if she was cold.

‘I could have caught the bus.’

Now it was her voice that had a distinct chill to it. Every last trace of the woman who had wept in his arms had vanished and in her place was a cool, collected and totally distant female. He could practically feel the ice forming in the car as she spoke. Probably, like him, she was now deeply regretting that she had ever given in to the weak impulse to cry on his shoulder. He need be under no delusion that it meant anything. She had been on the edge of breaking down from the moment he had walked into the room, and he had been the only person there. He had no doubt that if there had been anyone else she could possibly have chosen then she would. ‘In this weather?’

This time his gesture indicated the driving rain that was lashing against the car windows, the swish of the hard-working wipers and the splash of tyres through puddles almost drowning his words.

‘You would have been drenched before you even made it to the bus stop. Besides, Carlos was waiting to drive me into town anyway and, as we found, we have to go past your flat to reach my hotel.’

And he was not at all prepared to leave her alone on a night like this and in the state she was in. She might have stopped crying, those appallingly harsh, wrenching sobs subsiding slowly into a ragged, gasping near-silence, but her slim body had still been shaking in his arms, her eyes swimming with tears.

‘I’ve done it before.’

‘I’m sure you have but with my car available there was no need for you to do it tonight.’

He wondered what she would have done if he had told her that he knew exactly what she was feeling. That he was going through the same hateful experience himself and because of that he’d known he couldn’t let her face even the short journey alone.

When a sudden vicious memory of just why he was using her company to keep the darkness from his own thoughts, why he needed her presence to fill the emptiness he was feeling forced itself past the temporary barrier he had tried to erect in his mind, he shook his head roughly, needing to drive away the desperately unwanted images.

‘I could have managed!’

Alannah’s tone told him that she had seen the abrupt movement and misinterpreted the reason for it.

‘I’m not always a wreck like this! I can usually cope—it’s just that tonight things—got on top of me.’

‘Believe me, I understand. But was there no one else who could have been there with you? Your mother perhaps?’

‘My mother is in a far worse state than I am.’

Her voice was low and she was staring out of the window, assuming an intense interest in the passing cars as she spoke.

‘It goes against everything in nature for a mother to hear of the death of her child and she has barely recovered from losing my father. She’s in pieces—can’t sleep … won’t eat.’

She shook her head, her mouth twisting, fighting, he knew, against more tears.

‘The only way she can cope is with the help of the sedatives the doctor prescribed. At least they knocked her out tonight. But she can’t manage anything practical. Everything that has to be done is up to me.’

There was a terrible, raw edge on that last sentence, one Raul recognised only too well. The memory of how she had looked in that hospital room, so lost and alone, with no one there to help her, no support, no company, sent a wave of cold anger running through him.

‘So where the hell was he?’

That brought her head up, shadowed eyes meeting his sharply.

‘Where was—who?’

‘The man in your life …’

The man she had left him for.

‘Your lover—your boyfriend—whatever you call him.’ ‘Oh …’

Realisation dawned slowly on Alannah’s numbed brain. He was talking about the man she had claimed to be leaving him for. A man who had never existed and still didn’t. A man she had totally invented, and she had never met anyone with even half a chance of turning that claim into a reality. How could she have let a new man into her life when she had never fully recovered from the old one?

She’d tried. Since she’d found out just what he really wanted from her and been forced to recognise that her dreams of being loved and cherished to the end of her days were just that—dreams and delusions—she had tried to turn her life around and move on without the happy future with Raul Marcín in it.

But she hadn’t succeeded. The few dates she’d been on had been miserable failures, no man seemed to spark even a flicker of the interest and excitement Raul had been able to create just by existing. So just lately she had determined to concentrate on her career and put all thoughts of a romantic life out of her mind. She would have liked to put all thoughts of Raul out of her head too, but her older brother’s own new-found romance had made that impossible. And now the tragic conclusion of that fledgling love affair had brought Raul himself back into her life. The slashing anguish of that thought made her flinch in pain. Would she ever be able to think of Chris again without this terrible rush of agony, the burn of tears?

‘Well, at least you’re not coming up with some excuse for him.’

Raul had misinterpreted the reason for her silence, thinking it was because of his question about her supposed new partner.

‘There’s no need for an excuse.’ She flung the words at him before she had time to think if they were wise or not.

‘No? If you were mine, I would not leave you to handle all this on your own. I would be at your side, every moment of the day.’

‘But I’m not yours, am I, Raul?’

And she never had been his, not truly his. Not in the way she had most wanted, most longed to be. Of course he had seen her as his. In his mind she had been his woman, his possession, to do with as he pleased. Because no thought of love had ever entered his mind, he had never considered that she might need more than the little he was prepared to offer her.

She couldn’t allow herself to think of how much it would mean to have a man like him, powerful, determined and so capable, by her side in these dark, desperate days. A man who would help her, support her. Whose strength would be used for her good, to ease her path as much as he could. There was no point in even letting herself dream of it. That man would never be Raul and he would never be there for her, her actions two years before had made sure of that. It was even more foolish, even more soul-destroying to allow the thought that perhaps as her husband he might have taken on that supporting role. But he would never have been the husband she had dreamed of having.

And the savage truth was that if she had married him then this weekend’s tragedy would never have happened and she would never have been in this desperate need of support from anyone.

‘And not everyone is a millionaire who can be where he wants to be for as long as he wants to be at the drop of a hat.’ Memory made her voice bitter. ‘Someone who doesn’t have to worry about taking time off work or leaving other commitments …’

The sudden sharp reminder by her conscience of just why Raul was here now, why he had had to drop everything and come to England had her choking off her words and swallowing them down in a rush. She was supposed to have told him the truth about what had happened. That was why she had been waiting for him at the hospital. She had been there to tell him; to make sure that he knew before he found out in any other way. She had to be the one who explained things to him.

But instead she had messed everything up. When she had tried to talk about Chris she had just broken down, gone to pieces, and everything that needed to be said had been left unspoken.

And she could hardly tell him now. Not here, in the darkness of the car, with his chauffeur in the driving seat and the glass panel between him and his passengers in the back partly open so that he would hear every word she said.

‘So he is at work, this new man of yours?’

She couldn’t answer that, not without lying, and so she hedged her bets, sticking instead to a round-about answer that she prayed would satisfy him without actually coming out with the truth.

‘New? It’s been two years.’

‘So long … and yet you wear no ring.’

It was dropped softly, almost lightly into the silence and Alannah was surprised to find that her instinctive response was to clamp her right hand down on top of her left, pushing the ringless finger out of sight. She didn’t know why she reacted in that way, only that some note in Raul’s voice had suddenly made a sensation like the slither of something cold and nasty slide down her spine, so that she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

‘There’s no need for that.’

Again she dodged round a real answer. There was no need for a ring—but because there was no other man, new or not, in her life.

‘Oh, I see—so was that my mistake?’

‘Mistake?’ Alannah blinked in confusion. Raul Marcín never admitted to mistakes.

‘My approach was too conventional? You should have said that you weren’t interested in marriage.’

‘I wasn’t interested in marriage to you!’

How she wished it was as convincing as she made it sound. The bitter truth was that she had thought that her heart would burst with joy when he had proposed. It had simply never occurred to her innocent, naïve twenty-one-year-old self that this devastating, sexy man could actually want to marry her for any reason other than that he had been as head-over-heels in love with her as she was with him.

It had truly never occurred to her that a sophisticated man of the world like Raul might have other, more pragmatic reasons for wanting to marry her. Reasons for which her innocence, sexually at least, and her family background were much more important than any feelings she might have.

‘It really was just as well we split up when we did,’ she said hastily, as much to distract herself from her own foolish thoughts as to fill the awkward silence that had fallen between them. ‘After all, what is it they say about repenting at leisure?’

‘But that saying is usually preceded by the line “Marry in haste",’ Raul drawled mockingly. ‘We never actually got that far.’

‘And for that we ought to be thankful. If we had got married, it would have been a disaster.’

‘You think so?’ A sceptical note on the question caught on a raw edge on her nerves.

‘Very definitely,’ she stated emphatically. ‘Don’t you agree?’

His sudden silence, his total stillness was unnerving.

Turning to him in confusion, she caught a look she couldn’t begin to interpret in his eyes, flashing on and off, on and off as the streetlights caught them and then moved on.

In spite of herself, her heart gave a sudden rough kick inside her chest, making her blood throb in her veins.

He would only have to move a couple of inches, she told herself hazily. He would only have to turn in his seat, just so, and he would be facing her, his head directly above hers. And with her face turned up towards him as it was, then he would just have to lower that proud dark head in order to crush her lips in the kiss he so obviously wanted to take from her. The kiss that the gleam in his eyes, the softening of the beautiful, hard mouth promised.

And the kiss she so wanted from him.

The realisation was like a blow landing on her ribcage, making her catch her breath in shock and confusion.

She wanted Raul to kiss her. Wanted it so much that it was like a scream in her head. But a scream of need that warred in the same instant with an equally desperate scream of denial and warning. This didn’t make any sort of sense. It was not only stupid, but it was also dangerous as hell. She should be running miles away from Raul, as far and as fast as she could. Not sitting here, imagining, waiting—yearning …

‘Raul …’ she said, trying desperately to make it sound like a warning, as offputting as possible. But she had so little control over her tongue that instead it came out on a sensual husk, enticing and provocative when she was trying for exactly the opposite.

‘Alannah …’ Raul murmured and his tone echoed hers almost exactly, the gravelly purr seeming to coil around her head like perfumed smoke until she felt as if her senses were swimming from just breathing in. And what breath she managed seemed to catch in her throat so that her lips parted on a small, faintly gasping sigh as she fought for control.

Those gleaming eyes were fixed on her and she saw the faint twitch of his mouth into a tiny smile before he sobered again. Staring intently at her partly open mouth. And she could only watch, frozen as his dark head tilted slightly to one side, lowered …

And stopped dead as the car drew in to the side of the road and pulled up, coming to a smooth halt right outside the main door to the building where her flat was. A comment from the driver—something on the lines of ‘We’re here’ in Spanish, Alannah presumed—broke into the taut, heated silence that gripped the two of them as the engine slowed, stilled.

And still Raul didn’t move. Still he kept his hooded gaze fixed on her lips, so fiercely intent that she could almost feel its burn along the delicate skin of her mouth, drying them, drying her throat until the sensation became totally unbearable and she had to slick her tongue over her lips to ease the parched discomfort there.

And almost groaned aloud—but whether in relief or disappointment she was unable to say—when she saw how the tiny, brief movement shattered the mesmeric mood. Raul’s head came up again, his eyes clashed with hers just for a moment, then glanced away again, looking out into the rain-swept street.

‘My stop, I think,’ Alannah managed, her voice coming and going on the words like a badly tuned radio. ‘This is where I get out.’

If she expected any response, she didn’t get one. Instead Raul leaned across her and pushed open the door, letting in a waft of cold, wet air as he did so, then sat back, obviously expecting her to take herself off, out of the car, and as speedily as possible if his closed, withdrawn expression was anything to go by.

‘Thank you for the lift.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He made it sound the exact opposite.

The abrupt change from fiercely intent sensuality to cold distance was so disconcerting that Alannah actually felt herself shaking, unable to quite get a grip on herself. She had been so sure … and yet now his mood was so totally different that she was forced to wonder if she had been imagining things, deluding herself completely.

She couldn’t get out fast enough, pushing awkwardly and inelegantly out of the car. It was only as she set foot on the pavement, buffeted uncomfortably by the force of the wind and the rain, her short jacket no protection against the inclement weather, that she suddenly remembered in a devastating rush just why she had met up with Raul at all. Why she had been at the hospital in the first place.

She had been there to tell him everything—the whole truth about the terrible accident that had claimed Chris’s life—and she hadn’t even begun to say anything. She had let the time in the car slide away from her, caught in her memories of the past, in anything and everything other than what she should have been thinking of.

What she should have told him.

What she still had to tell him.

She couldn’t let someone else break the truth to him; couldn’t let him find out in any other way. There was only one person who could tell him everything that had happened—and it was her duty to make sure he got the right story. It was the last thing she could do for her brother—the only way to preserve Chris’s memory.

But there was no way she could turn round now and tell him. What was she to do? Get back in the car and say—‘Hang on, I’ve got something to tell you’? Or say it baldly and bluntly standing here like this, leaning in at the door, where the driver and possibly anyone passing by might also be able to hear.

She couldn’t do that to him. Not even to Señor Heartless Raul Marcín. In these circumstances she owed him a bit more than that.

And so she drew on all her strength, took a deep, calming breath, and bent down to lean in at the car door again.

‘We don’t have to leave it like this, do we? Would you like to come inside—for coffee?’

She knew the form of her words was a mistake even as they left her tongue but she only knew how bad an error she had made when she heard them fall into the silence of the night, sounding horribly light considering the impetus behind them. She felt even worse when she saw the way that Raul’s face changed, his eyes narrowing in his shadowed face, his mouth thinning out to just a hard, cold line.

‘Coffee?’ he said, making the word sound like a curse, as if the drink was a totally alien substance to him.

‘Well, you never got a drink in the hospital.’ she managed jerkily, seeing no change in that distant expression, no lightening of the darkness of his eyes.

He was going to refuse; she knew it in her heart. He was just a second away from lifting a hand to dismiss her, snapping an order at Carlos to drive on, before pulling the door shut right in her face. And if he did that then she had no way of getting in touch with him again. After all, that was why she had been waiting at the hospital in the first place.

‘Please …’ she said hastily. ‘It needn’t be for long. I just want to thank you.’

‘No thanks are necessary.’

But then just for a moment he hesitated, looked deep into her eyes. And the narrow-eyed assessment in his gaze made her flinch back away from it as if from some dangerous, poison-tipped arrow. Just what was going through that cold, calculating mind of his?

Then abruptly he leaned forward in his seat, directing some terse command in Spanish to the driver, who glanced at him once, briefly, then nodded.

‘What …?’ Alannah began then froze as she saw one strong, tanned hand move to unclip his seat belt and toss it aside.

‘Half an hour,’ he said curtly, flicking a glance at the slim gold watch on his wrist, and then away again. ‘Be here at nine,’ he told Carlos, the emphatic use of English deliberate, Alannah felt, to get the point home to her. ‘And don’t be late.’

Could he make it any plainer that he had little time to spare for her, and that he wanted to be away from here as quickly as possible? Alannah asked herself. But at least he was coming. Once they were alone in her flat, in privacy, she would tell him what she had to say as quickly as possible. At least then, with what she felt was her duty done, she would be able to relax.

And Raul would go out of her life again and leave her in peace.

Which was what she wanted most in all the world, she told herself, refusing to let her mind even acknowledge the way that the words suddenly had a disturbingly hollow ring inside her head.

For now, she had enough to cope with just considering what was ahead of her and the prospect of facing the apocalyptic storm that would erupt when Raul knew the truth.

If she could get through the next thirty minutes then her life would be her own again.

CHAPTER THREE

THIRTY minutes and he was out of here, Raul told himself as the lift that was taking them to Alannah’s flat sped upwards towards the fifth floor. Less than thirty. He had told Carlos to be back exactly thirty minutes after he had left the car and already more than a couple of those had passed.

Not enough in Raul’s opinion. The sooner he got this—whatever this was—over and done with and was on his way again, the better.

The truth was that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing here at all. If he had any sense he would have stayed in the car and ignored Alannah’s invitation but tonight it seemed that all sense had deserted him, left behind in the headlong rush from Spain after the first phone call alerting him to the news of the accident.

At first he’d thought that the car had come to a halt just in time to stop him from doing something very stupid. The temptation to kiss Alannah, to feel the softness of her lips, taste the intimate flavour of her mouth, had almost overcome him. Another couple of seconds and he would have been lost in the sensual temptation of that upturned face, the soft swell of her lips, the sweet scent of her skin so close to him in the back of the car. So the feel of the vehicle drawing to a halt and Carlos’s announcement that they had arrived had come at just the right moment.

But then she’d turned on her way out of the car and looked back inside. Already the steady downpour of the rain had soaked into her hair, making it hang around her face in dripping strands, and drawing attention once more to how pale she was, how huge and dark her eyes appeared above the almost colourless cheeks. He remembered how slender she’d felt in his arms, how fragile, and when she’d suddenly offered him coffee he had found that the instant refusal that had risen to his lips had shrivelled there, unspoken, in the face of the look in those big green eyes.

In that moment he’d thought he understood just why she had asked him to come in with her. He felt he knew just what was in her mind because the same dark feeling, the same dread of being alone with his thoughts was the one that shadowed his own existence.

Because what was waiting for him when he got to the hotel? An empty, soulless room. A mini-bar that in the mood he was in would be far too tempting—but raiding it would not be in the least bit sensible. And he still wasn’t sure that he should leave Alannah on her own. She had calmed down since that emotional breakdown back at the hospital, but she was still barely holding herself together. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in the tremor of her voice. And knowing the dark, dragging ache of loss that was always there, he could imagine how she was feeling in spite of her obvious efforts to cover it up.

And so he had gone with her, determined to see her to her flat, to drink that damn cup of coffee. He would delay—for her and for himself—the moment of being alone, the time when the darkness closed around him all over again, hold it back for just thirty minutes, and then leave again. It would still be waiting for him when he came out. Nothing in the world could change that.

‘You still live in the same apartment?’

Courtesy insisted that he say something. It was either that or stare at her in stony silence all the way up to her flat.

‘The same building.’ Alannah was clearly making as much effort as him to make conversation. ‘The same floor, in fact. But not the same flat.’

Her tone was low, coolly distant and withdrawn. It was the voice of a stranger, someone he did not know. There was not a trace in it of the ardent, passionate girl he had once known or even of the sweet innocent he had first met. The sweet innocent he had believed she was when they had first met, he corrected himself harshly. He had only seen what he wanted to see and had been pretty quickly disillusioned.

At twenty-one, and fresh from university, she had just been looking for a holiday fling. Mission accomplished, she had moved on to someone else.

‘A bigger flat became vacant last year, so I grabbed at it.’

‘Room for two.’

‘What?’

A puzzled frown drew her arched brows together.

‘Your new man,’ Raul explained. ‘I assume you wanted to move in together.’

‘Oh—no, nothing like that.’

A wave of her hand dismissed the man in her life of as little importance as he had been.

‘I had a promotion at work and the flat came empty in the same month. I’d always wanted more space, so it seemed the perfect opportunity.’

The lift came to a halt as she spoke, metal door sliding open, and she walked out into the corridor.

‘That used to be where I lived …’

Another wave of her hand indicated a door to her left.

‘But now I’m down here …’

If she expected a response she didn’t get one, other than a quick, inarticulate sound that might have been agreement. From the moment that she had turned to walk away from him, Raul had found that his attention was momentarily distracted. Following Alannah down the blue-carpeted corridor towards the door of her apartment was a sensual experience strong enough to draw his attention completely. The fall of her red-gold hair mirrored the straight line of her back in contrast to the rounded curves of her hips. Long, slender legs in the tight-fitting jeans added to the delight.

He welcomed the sensations, the warmth that flooded his body. It was something to fill the black, empty spaces that seemed to have invaded his heart and his mind ever since he had answered the phone in the middle of the night and heard the news about Lorena’s accident. From that moment he felt as if he had been barely moving, speaking, functioning. Even the discovery of Alannah’s presence in the hospital room had hardly touched him.

Even when he had held her as she sobbed in his arms, he had felt as if his head was flooded with dark, icy water so that he couldn’t feel, couldn’t think. He had responded as he would do to any human being who was in pain and distress, and in the same way he had offered her a lift to her flat, taken her out to the car. Because it was the only thing that he could do.

But then there had come that moment in the car, in the darkness of the night, when, looking down into her upturned face as he saw it in the light of the street lamps as they flashed by, he had seen not just another human being but a woman. A living, breathing, beautiful woman.

And that was when he had first felt the stirring of something else, something warmer, something more like a feeling. Something that made him feel as if the black, icy water that filled his thoughts might actually be shot through with tiny rays of light, warming it faintly. But that was when the car had come to a halt, bringing him back to the reality of a cold, dark, wet night in England instead of the warmth of the sun he had left behind in Spain, reminding him of why he was here. And it had brought all the emptiness rushing back.

And when she had got out of the car, paused to look back in, he had seen the same emptiness in her face. And he had known that at least he shared this with her. They might never be close again—hell, they had never truly been close—but right here, tonight, they shared this terrible sense of loss. That was when he had decided that for just half an hour, thirty short minutes, they could hold back the darkness together and then go on their way, like ships that passed in the night. ‘Come in …’

Lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t been aware of the fact that Alannah had opened the door and was now standing with it wide open, waiting for him to walk into her flat.

In an almost colourless face, the deep green eyes were like dark, mossy pools, bottomless and unfathomable, and the pallor of her skin was heightened by the rich fall of her hair, darkened by the rain outside. The same rain that had made the black T-shirt cling to the firm swell of her breasts under the damp cotton.

‘You should get out of those wet clothes,’ he said, hearing his voice rasp on the words as the bleakness of his thoughts showed in his speech.

He saw the shock that widened her eyes, the deep green flaring suddenly, gold burning in the darkness, and carefully adjusted his tone a degree or two.

‘Or at least dry your hair.’

‘I’m fine.’

As if to prove it she tossed back the damp strands of her hair and shrugged out of her jacket, dropping it on a nearby chair before heading across the room to where a door stood open into the kitchen.

‘And I should make you that coffee.’

Raul’s dismissal in his native Spanish was terse and to the point. There was a tension about her slender body that reminded him of a suspicion that had flashed through his mind in the moment she had first invited him in. She was edgy and uneasy, her mood communicating that there was more to this than met the eye. She didn’t really think that he believed she had brought him up here for coffee?

Just coffee wouldn’t put the ragged edge to her voice, make some unreadable emotion darken her eyes.

But she was obviously going to ignore him as she turned and headed through the door into the kitchen.

‘Bathroom,’ he said sharply, making her stop so abruptly that it was almost as if she had been expecting him to speak.

But obviously not what he had said, he realised as she frowned faintly in some confusion.

‘Where is your bathroom?’ he repeated.

‘Oh—down the corridor …’ She pointed in the right direction. ‘First door on the left.’

It took him just moments to stride down the corridor, enter the bathroom and snatch up the towel that was hanging on a rail against the wall. With the soft white cotton dangling from his fingers, he was back in the kitchen while she was still filling the kettle at the tap.

‘Here …’

With one hand he removed the still dripping kettle from her grip and set it down on the worktop. With the other, he draped the towel over her head and began to gently blot the soaking strands of her hair.

Alannah froze. Every inch of her slim frame became stiff with tension and rejection.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded from under the towel.

‘I should have thought that was obvious. I’m drying your hair.’ ‘Then stop!’

It came from between gritted teeth, venom in every word. Enough to freeze his hands, still holding the towel.

‘I never asked you to do that—or anything like it. I said I was fine.’

‘You don’t look fine—’

‘I’m fine—so take your hands off me.’

‘Sure!’

Raul’s tone was clipped and hard. He dropped the towel on the floor and took a step backwards, hands coming up between them, bronzed fingers splayed wide in what looked like a defensive gesture.

But the expression in his eyes made a nonsense of any thought of defensiveness. There was nothing wary or unsure in the gaze that clashed with her. Instead a cold anger turned those burning bronze eyes translucent and challenge blazed out of them, defying her to take this further.

‘But in the terms of strict accuracy, my hands were never on you. So it seems that you, Alannah querida, are exaggerating just a little. More than a little.’

‘I’m …’ Alannah began but Raul ignored her attempt to protest, or apologise—she wasn’t quite sure which—and when he ploughed straight on, talking right over what she had been about to say, she found she was grateful that she hadn’t got so far as the apology.

‘If I had touched you then you might have something to complain about. Or if I’d kissed you …’

Alannah saw his intent in those devastating eyes, saw the way his head tilted, his gaze going to her partly open mouth.

‘You wouldn’t …’

She wanted to run—to get away—but even as the thought came into her mind she knew that he had got there first. Any chance of escape was cut off as one strong hand came down on the edge of the sink on either side of her body, enclosing her, trapping her and holding her unable to move.

He was so close—too close—and all the disturbing, worrying sensations that had sprung to life in the car now flared through her again but this time more sharply, more intensely, making her shift uncomfortably in the confined space of his imprisoning arms. But that only brought her up close against their warmth, their strength, and the hard, lean length of his body in front of her. Her heart was racing, sending blood pounding through her veins, and the sound of it was like thunder inside her head.

He was going to kiss her, she could be in no doubt at all about that. It was there in the smokiness of his gaze, the total stillness of his powerful body. He was going to kiss her and this time there would be no sudden stopping of the car, no announcement from Carlos to distract him from his purpose.

Nervously she slicked her tongue over dry lips, waited, watched as his handsome face came nearer.

And stared in disbelief as this time he was the one who called a halt, the slow movement stopping, his dark head moving in a gesture of denial.

‘I think not,’ he said harshly and spun on his heel, turning to march out of the door, leaving her staring blankly after him, wondering just what she had done to change his mind.

Was it some small reaction she couldn’t control? Had he seen something in her face? What—just what had stopped him, changing his mood and driving him away from her like that?

‘Raul …’

She tried for his name but the sound died in her mouth, shrivelling on her tongue. And she was only talking to his back, the long, straight line of his spine, the proud set of his dark head that was all she could see as he walked away from her. If he heard her at all then he made no sign.

And to Alannah’s shaken consternation that made her feel terrible, stunned and bewildered, shaking in reaction, and with her legs suddenly unsteady beneath her.

He might as well have kissed her; she was reacting as if he had. If he had actually wrenched her into his arms, plundered her mouth with his, ravaged her senses, he could not have made her feel any worse than she did now—or did she mean that she might actually have felt better? Shaking her head bemusedly, Alannah admitted to herself that she didn’t know. She only knew that she was trembling with reaction to just the closeness, the burn of the heat from his body along her senses. Her skin had prickled as if under assault from sensual pins and needles, her nerves twisting tight in anticipation of his kiss and then there had been the terrible sense of let-down when it hadn’t happened.

Let-down.

Even in her own thoughts, the word sounded wrong.

She had spent the last two years putting her time with Raul Marcín behind her, determined to forget about it, get him out of her life for good. She didn’t want to remember him, didn’t want to be with him, didn’t want him to have any part in her life, she told herself as she grabbed at the kettle again and shoved it fiercely under the tap. She could only feel thankful that Raul was no longer in the room to see the way that her jerky, clumsy movements betrayed her, giving away the unsettled way she was feeling, the conflict that was raging inside her.

‘Oh, no—no!’ The words slipped from Alannah’s lips, hidden under the rush of water as she turned on the tap to fill the kettle. ‘No—it can’t be this way!’

But she had loved him once and what was it that they said—that you never forgot your first love? She had adored him, fallen hopelessly, helplessly, irredeemably in love with him in the space of a heartbeat and she had put her own foolish, vulnerable, naïve and innocent heart into his hands and his keeping, only to have him crush it brutally, tearing it into pieces. But at the same time, in the way that long ago dinosaurs left their footprints etched into stone, so he had left his mark on her and her senses, her memories, had responded to his touch, his closeness at the most basic, most primitive level of awareness.

She made a terrible, a stupid mistake in the hospital when, weak and despairing, she had flung herself into his arms and sobbed out her misery on his shoulder. She’d allowed herself to know, just for a very short time, the dangerous, the forbidden comfort of having his arms around her, his strength supporting her, the lean power of his body close to hers. And doing that had weakened her defences, opened cracks in the armour she had built up around herself so that something about Raul could get through to her and stab at her cruelly, leaving her more vulnerable to him than she had been before.

So when he’d tried to dry her hair she’d reacted—overreacted—like a scalded wildcat, turning on him hissing and spitting, so that she had only herself to blame for his cold anger, the way he had walked out on her. And by being overly defensive she had given away too much of the vulnerability she was really feeling.

But not again, she determined as she slammed the lid onto the kettle before banging it down on the stove; never, ever again.

‘If that is for the damned coffee you seem so insistent on, then I have to say yet again that I really do not want one.’

Raul had appeared in the doorway again, big, dark and dangerous-looking, a disturbing scowl on his face.

‘Then what do you want?’

His broad shoulders lifted in an expressive shrug, but even though the gesture seemed to dismiss her question as irrelevant something new flared in the deep bronze pools of his eyes. Something that sent a shiver of apprehension skittering down her spine as she realised that her uneasiness had caught on his nerves and what she saw in his gaze was coldly burning suspicion.

‘You tell me—after all, you were the one who invited me in. And coffee was your excuse for doing so.’

‘It wasn’t an excuse …’

The knowledge of why she had really invited him into her flat, the worry that she still hadn’t dared to broach the subject, made her voice croak in a way that she knew sounded as if she had something to hide.

‘No?’ Raul questioned harshly. ‘Then why am I here? Because you will not convince me that coffee was uppermost in your mind.’

‘Not uppermost,’ Alannah conceded but then she saw the way that his head went back, his eyes narrowing, and her throat closed up sharply, preventing her from going any further.

‘Sí?’ Raul questioned sharply. ‘So if the coffee was not the most important thing—then what was? Tell me why I am here—why you invited me to your flat in the first place.’

Pushing a hand into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a slim black mobile phone and held it up between them.

‘And tell me the truth or I will call Carlos and tell him to come now …’

His thumb moved, hovered over the speed-dial button.

‘No—wait …’

She couldn’t let him go, not until she had told him the truth that he had demanded—the truth about Chris and the accident and. But how could she tell him without carefully leading up to it? She couldn’t just blurt it all out, throw it in his face without any lead-in or preparation. That was why she had made such a fuss about the coffee.

But where could she start? How could she tell him when she knew already just what his reaction would be?

She should start with Chris … but just the thought of the name of her adored younger brother made her mind freeze in pain, unable to frame a single word but Chris.

‘Alannah …’

She had waited too long, her thoughts preoccupied by her worries, and Raul was growing impatient, his use of her name a low growl of warning. As she forced herself to focus she saw his thumb move again, threatening to press the button.

‘No—please wait!’

To her intense relief he hesitated, stopped the movement, his thumb barely a centimetre above the surface of his phone. The bronze eyes he turned on her seemed to burn over her skin, searing away a fine layer and leaving her feeling raw and exposed, desperately apprehensive.

‘Then tell me.’

‘I will—I promise. But not here. Not like this. Why don’t we go and sit down? We’d be more comfortable in the living room.’

But comfortable for how long? She had to tell him now; had to get it out in the open or he would walk out before she managed it. But she didn’t dare to think of what would happen after she’d told him. Deep in the pit of her stomach all the nerves twisted into tight, cruel knots of trepidation until she felt that she might almost be sick.

‘I need to be comfortable for this?’

That note of suspicion had deepened, darkened, intensifying all her fears just to hear it.

‘It would be more—more civilised. Look, just give me a minute to get a drink, a glass of water—you might not want one but I do. And then I’ll—then we can talk.’

For an uncomfortable second she thought he was going to refuse. The cynical, sceptical glance he turned on her face made her stomach muscles tighten in apprehension. But then, just when she thought he wouldn’t, he inclined his dark head in agreement.

‘OK,’ he said as he turned and walked back into the living room. ‘I will wait—but only a minute. I am not a patient man and I want to know just what the hell is going on.’

Left behind, Alannah snatched up a glass and shoved it under the tap, splashing cold water into it until it spilled over, flooding down the sides and over her fingers. Wrenching off the tap with one hand, she lifted the drink to her mouth and took several long, thirsty gulps of the cool liquid then lifted it to her forehead, rolling the wet glass above her eyebrows in an effort to calm herself down, ease the tension that was already tight as a steel band around her skull.

She had to get a grip on herself. She had to go in there and talk to him as calmly as possible—tell him everything that had happened and then.

She winced inside as she anticipated Raul’s probable reaction, the dark thunderstorm that would probably break right over her head as soon as she finished speaking. But it had to be done—and soon too. Thirty minutes, he had said, and they had already used up more than half of those. If she didn’t hurry then Carlos would turn up again and she would be unable to say what she had to say in front of him.

Putting the glass down on the worktop, she drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders.

She was going to do this —now.

She was barely inside the other room when the sight that met her eyes drove all the breath from her body in a shocked rush. Raul was waiting for her, but it wasn’t just the sight of him standing there, big and dark and disturbingly formidable, feet planted firmly on the woven rug before the gas fire, that shook her world. It was the picture frame he held in his hand, head bent, hooded eyes intent on the image in the photograph it held.

And the look on his face twisted her heart in her chest. She knew that look and she knew exactly what it meant. But the real problem was that she knew that what she was about to say could only make things so much worse.