A Spanish Affair

Georgie was still mentally reeling from the confrontation of the last few minutes, and a full ten seconds went by before she could say, her voice suitably cutting, ‘I wasn’t aware I was expected to go on site this morning, if you remember, so, no, I haven’t any other shoes with me.’

‘There’s your wellies in the back of my car,’ Robert put in helpfully. ‘You remember we put all our boots in there when we took the kids down to the river for that walk at the weekend?’

Her brother probably had no idea why she glared at him the way she did, Georgie reflected, as she said, ‘Thank you, Robert,’ in a very flat voice. She was going to look just great, wasn’t she? Expensive silk jade-green blouse, elegant skirt and great hefty black wellington boots. Wonderful. And that…that swine sitting there so complacently with his hateful grey eyes looking her up and down was to blame for this, and he was enjoying every minute of her discomfiture. She didn’t have to look at him to know that; it was radiating out from the lean male figure in waves.

As it happened, by the time Georgie jumped out of Robert’s old car at the site of the proposed new estate she wasn’t thinking about her appearance.

Newbottle Meadow, as the site had always been called by all the children thereabouts, was old farmland and still surrounded by grazing cattle in the far distance. When Georgie had first come to live with her brother and his wife the area had been virtually country, but the swiftly encroaching urban advance had swallowed hundreds of acres and now Newbottle Meadow was on the edge of the town. But as yet it was still unspoilt and beautiful.

Georgie stood gazing at the rolling meadowland filled with pink-topped grasses and buttercups and butterflies and she wanted to cry. According to Robert, Matt de Capistrano had had the foresight to buy the land a decade ago when it had still officially been farmland. After several appeals he had managed to persuade the powers-that-be to grant his application for housing—as he had known would happen eventually—thereby guaranteeing a thousandfold profit as relatively inexpensive agricultural land became prime development ground. And then with the yuppie-style estate he was proposing to build…

Philistine! Georgie gulped in the mild May sunshine which turned the buttercups to luminescent gold and the grasses to pink feathers, and forced back the tears pricking the backs of her eyes. Badgers lived here, along with rabbits and foxes and butterflies galore. She and her friends had spent many happy hours marching out of the town to the meadow where they had camped for days on end and had a whale of a time. And now it was all going to be ripped up—mutilated—for filthy lucre. But it would be the saving of Robert’s firm and ultimately her brother himself. The blow of losing his business as well as his wife would have been horrific.

Georgie bit hard on her lip as she turned to see Matt de Capistrano’s red Lamborghini—obviously the Mercedes and the chauffeur were having a day off!—glide to a silky-smooth stop a few yards away. She had to think of Robert and the children in all of this, she told herself fiercely. Her ideals, the unspoilt meadow and all the wildlife, weren’t as important as David and Annie and Robert.

‘You could turn milk sour with that face.’

‘What?’ She was so startled by the softly drawled insult as Matt reached her side that she literally gaped at him.

‘Forget Mains and Jenson; the decision has been made,’ Matt said quietly, his eyes roaming to Robert, who had joined the other men waiting for them in the middle of the acres of meadowland.

‘I wasn’t thinking about George and Walter,’ she returned without thinking.

‘No?’ He eyed her disbelievingly.

‘No.”

“Then what?’ he asked softly, turning to look into her heart-shaped face. ‘Why the ferocious glare and wishing me six foot under?’

‘I wasn’t—’ She stopped abruptly in the middle of the denial. Maybe she had been at that. But he would never understand in a million years, besides which she would be cutting off her nose—or Robert’s nose—to spite her face if she did or said anything to stop Robert securing this contract. Matt de Capistrano would simply use another builder and the estate would become reality anyway. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she finished weakly.

‘Georgie.’ Before she could object he had turned her round, his hand lifting her chin as he looked down into the green of her eyes. ‘Tell me. I’m a big boy. I can take it.’

It was the mockery that did it. He was laughing at her again and Georgie stiffened, her eyes slanting green fire as she fairly spat, ‘You’re going to spoil this beautiful land, desecrate it, and you just don’t care, do you? You’ve got no soul.’

For a moment he just stared at her in amazement, and she observed—with a shred of satisfaction in all the pain and embarrassment—that she had managed to shock him. ‘What?’ he growled quietly.

‘I used to play here as a child, camp out with my friends and have fun,’ she said tightly. ‘And this land is still one of the few places hereabouts which is truly wild and beautiful. People come here to breathe, don’t you see? And you are going to destroy it, along with all the wildlife and the beauty—’

‘People have been allowed to come here because I didn’t stop them,’ he said impatiently. ‘I could have fenced it off but I didn’t.’

‘Because it was too much trouble,’ she shot back quickly.

‘For crying out loud!’ He stared at her with very real incredulity. ‘Is there no end to my crimes where you are concerned? Don’t you want Robert to build this estate?’

‘Of course I do.’ She stared at him angrily. ‘And I don’t. Of course I don’t! How could I when I look at all this and think that in a few months it will be covered with bulldozers and dirt and pretty little houses for people who think the latest designer label and a Mercedes are all that matters in life? But I don’t want Robert to lose his chance of making good; I love him and he’s worked so hard and been through so much. So of course I want him to have the contract.’

He shut his eyes for a moment in a way that said far more than any words could have done, and she resented him furiously for the unspoken criticism and the guilt it engendered. She was being ridiculous, illogical and totally unreasonable, but she couldn’t help it. She just couldn’t help it. This meadowland had healed something deep inside her in the terrible aftermath of her parents’ death. The peace, the tranquillity, the overriding continuing of life here had meant so much. And now it was all going to be swept away.

It had welcomed her after the Glen episode in her life too, reaching out to her with comforting fingers as she had walked the childhood paths and let her fingers brush through grasses and wild flowers that had had an endless consistency about them in a world that had suddenly been turned upside down.

‘I’m sorry.’ Suddenly all the anger had seeped away and she felt she had shrunk down to a child again. ‘This isn’t your fault, not altogether.’

He said something in Spanish that she was sure was uncomplimentary, then said in English, ‘Thank you, Georgie. That makes me feel a whole lot better,’ in tones of deep and biting sarcasm.

‘You won’t take the contract from Robert because you are angry with me?’ she asked anxiously.

His mouth tightened still more and now the hand under her chin became a vice as he looked down into the emerald orbs staring up at him. ‘I think I like it better when you are aware you are insulting me,’ he said very softly.

Under the thin silk shirt she could see a dark shadow and guessed his chest was covered with body hair. He would probably be hairy all over. Somehow it went with the intoxicating male perfume of him, the overall alienness of Matt de Capistrano that was threatening and exciting at the same time. And she didn’t want to be threatened or excited. She just wanted… What? She didn’t know what she wanted any more.

‘Georgie?’

She heard Robert calling through the buzzing in her ears as the warm hand under her chin held her for a second more, his gaze stroking over her bewildered face. And then he let her go, stepping away from her as he called in an unforgivably controlled voice, ‘We are just coming, Robert. Georgie has been reminiscing about her childhood up here. It must have been fun.’

Philistine!

CHAPTER THREE

GEORGIE felt it wise to keep a very low profile during the rest of the morning, quietly taking notes on all that was said as she plodded after the men in her flapping wellington boots. She made sure she had no eye contact at all with Matt, even when he spoke directly to her as she found herself walking with him to the parked cars. ‘Thank you, Georgie, that’s your job here done for today,’ he said easily. ‘We are going to grab a spot of lunch before we finish off this afternoon. Would you care to join us?’

‘I don’t think so.’ She looked somewhere in the middle of his tanned throat as she said quietly, ‘I’ve things to do back at the office.’ The last thing, the very last thing in all the world she wanted to do was to sit in a social atmosphere and make small talk with Matt de Capistrano.

‘But surely you will have to eat?’ he persisted softly.

‘I’ve brought sandwiches which I’ll eat at my desk.’

‘How industrious of you.’

Sarcastic swine! ‘Not really,’ she answered tightly. ‘I want to telephone a few places and set up the arrangements for Robert’s children’s birthday party. It’s been pretty busy over the last few weeks and it’s only just dawned on us they’ll be eight in two weeks’ time. We want to make their birthday as special as we can for them.’

He nodded as she forced herself to meet the grey eyes at last. ‘What are you planning?’ he asked, as though he were really interested.

Which she was sure he wasn’t, Georgie thought cynically. Why would a multi-millionaire like Matt de Capistrano care about two eight-year-olds’ birthday party? ‘A hall somewhere with a bouncy castle and so on,’ she answered dismissively.

‘Ah, yes, the bouncy castle.’ He looked down at her, his piercing eyes glittering pewter in the sunshine. ‘My nephews and nieces enjoy these things too.’

He was an uncle? Ridiculously she was absolutely amazed. Somehow she couldn’t picture him as anything other than a cold business tycoon, but of course he would have a family. Robert had mentioned in passing some days ago that Matt de Capistrano was not married, but that didn’t stop him being a son or a brother. She brought her racing thoughts under control and said quietly, ‘Children are the same everywhere.’

‘So it would seem.’ He looked at her for a second more before turning to glance at Robert in the distance, who was still deep in conversation with the chief architect. ‘I will take you back to the office while the others finish off here and meet them at the pub,’ he said expressionlessly.

‘No.’ It was too quick and too instinctive and they both recognised it. Georgie felt her cheeks begin to burn and said feverishly, ‘I mean, I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble and Robert won’t mind. Or, better still, I could take his car and he can go with you—’

‘It is no trouble, Georgie.’ The words themselves were nothing; the manner in which they were said told her all too clearly she had annoyed him again and he was now determined to have his own way. As usual.

Could she refuse to ride with him? Georgie’s eyes flickered to Robert’s animated face and her brother’s excitement was the answer. No, she couldn’t. ‘If you’re sure you don’t mind,’ she said weakly, striving to act as if this was a perfectly normal conversation instead of one as potentially explosive as a loaded gun.

‘Not at all.’ He bent close enough for her to scent his male warmth as he said softly but perfectly seriously, ‘The pleasure will be all mine.’ And he allowed just a long enough pause before he added, ‘As we both know.’

This time Georgie couldn’t think of a single thing to say, and so she stood meekly at his side as he called to Robert and informed him he would see them all at the White Knight after he had taken Georgie back to the office. Her eyes moved to the red Lamborghini crouching at the side of the road. She had never ridden in a Lamborghini before; in fact she hadn’t seen one this close up before either. Perhaps at a different time with a different driver the experience would be one to be savoured, but the car was too like its master to be anything else but acutely disturbing.

It was even more overwhelming when she found herself in the passenger seat and Matt shut the door gently behind her. She felt as though she was cocooned in leather and metal—which she supposed she was—and the car was so low she felt she was sitting on a level with the ground. However, those sensations were nothing to the ones which seized her senses once Matt slid in beside her.

The riot in her stomach was flushing her face, she just knew it was, but she couldn’t do a thing about it, and when Matt turned to her and said quietly, but with a throb of amusement in his voice, ‘Would you like to take those off?’ as he nodded at her boots which were almost reaching her chin she stiffened tensely. How like him to point out she looked ridiculous, she told herself silently. He couldn’t have made it more clear he found her totally unattractive. But that was fine; in fact it was great. Really great. Because that was exactly how she viewed him.

‘No.’ She forced herself to glance haughtily his way and then wished with all her heart she hadn’t. He was much, much too close.

‘I can come round and slip them off for you if it’s difficult with that tight skirt?’ he offered helpfully.

Georgie felt more trapped than ever. ‘No, I’m fine,’ she said tightly, staring resolutely out of the windscreen.

‘Georgie, it is the middle of the day and I am giving you a lift back to the office,’ he said evenly. ‘Can’t you let yourself relax in my company for just a minute or two? I promise you I have no intention of diverting to a deserted lane somewhere and having my wicked way with you, even if you do view me as a cross between the Marquis de Sade and Adolf Hitler.’

Shocked into looking at him again, she said quickly, ‘I didn’t think you were and of course I don’t think you’re like either of those two men!’

‘No?’ It reeked of disbelief.

‘No.’ This was awful, terrible. She should never have got into this car.

He raised his eyebrows at her but then to her intense relief he turned, starting the engine, which purred into life with instant obedience.

She turned back to the windscreen, but not before she had noticed the lingering amusement curling the hard mouth. He was obviously enjoying her discomfiture and, more to show him she was completely in control of herself than anything else, Georgie said primly, ‘This is a very nice car.’

‘Nice?’ He reacted as though she had said something unforgivable. ‘Georgie, family saloons are nice, along with sweet old maiden aunts and visits to the zoo and a whole host of other unremarkable things in this world of ours. A Lamborghini—’ he paused just long enough to make his point ‘—is not in that category.’

She’d annoyed him. Good. It felt great to have got under that inch-thick skin. ‘Well, that’s how I see it,’ she said sweetly. ‘A car is just a car, after all, a lump of metal to get you quickly from A to B. A functional necessity.’

‘I’m not even going to reply to that.’

She saw him glance down at the leather steering wheel and the beautiful dashboard as though to reassure himself that his pride and joy was still as fabulous as he thought it was, and she repressed a smile. Okay, she was probably being mean but, as he’d said earlier, he was a big boy; he could take it. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,’ she lied quietly.

‘Sure you are.’ The husky, smoky voice caught at her nerve-ends and she allowed herself another brief peek at the hard profile. He had rolled the sleeves of his shirt up at some point during the morning and his muscled arms, liberally covered with a dusting of black silky hair, swam into view. His shirt collar was open and several buttons undone and his shoulders were very broad. His body had an aggressive, top-heavy maleness that was impossible for any female to ignore.

The incredible car, the man driving it so effortlessly, the bright May sunshine slanting through the trees lining the road down which they were travelling—it was all the stuff dreams were made of, Georgie thought to herself a touch hysterically. He was altogether larger than life, Matt de Capistrano, and he was totally unaware of it.

‘Are both the Mercedes and this car yours?’ she asked carefully after a full minute had crept by in a screaming silence that had become more uncomfortable second by second.

‘Would that be a further nail in my coffin?’

The very English phrase, spoken in the dark accented voice and without a glance at her, caused Georgie to stiffen slightly. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said flatly.

‘I think you do,’ he returned just as flatly.

‘Now, look—’ Whatever she had been about to say ended in a squeak as he pulled the car into the side of the road and cut the engine. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked nervously.

‘I want to look at you while I talk to you,’ he said softly, ‘that is all, so do not panic, little English mouse.’

‘Mouse?’ He couldn’t have said anything worse, and then, as she jerked to face him and saw the smile twisting the firm lips, she knew he was teasing her.

And then the smile faded as he said, ‘I think we need to get a few things out into the open, Georgie.’

‘Do we?’ She didn’t think so. She really didn’t think so. And certainly not here, in this sumptuous car with him about an inch away and with nowhere to run to. She should never have antagonised him, she acknowledged much too late.

‘You look on me as the enemy and this is not the case at all,’ Matt said softly. ‘If your brother fails, I fail. If he makes good, it’s good news for me too.’

The hostility which had flared into life the minute she had set eyes on him, and which showed no signs of abating, was nothing to do with Robert and all to do with her, Georgie thought as she stared into the metallic grey eyes narrowed against the sunlight. But she could hardly say that, could she? So instead she managed fairly calmly, ‘I think that’s stretching credulity a little far. This business is everything Robert has; your interest here is just a tiny drop in the vast ocean of your business empire. It would hardly dent your coffers if this whole project went belly up.’

‘I have never had a business venture go “belly up”, as you so charmingly put it, and I do not intend for your brother’s to be the first,’ Matt returned smoothly. ‘Besides which…’

He paused, and Georgie said, ‘Yes?’

‘Besides which, you underestimate his assets,’ Matt said quietly.

‘I can assure you I do not,’ Georgie objected. ‘Robert has no secrets from me and—’

‘I wasn’t talking about financial assets, Georgie.’

‘Then what?’ She stared at him, her clear sea-green eyes reflecting her bewilderment.

He had stretched one arm along the back of her seat as he turned to face her after switching off the engine, and she was so aware of every little inch of him that she was as tense as piano wire. It wasn’t that she expected him to jump on her—Robert had told her it was common knowledge Matt de Capistrano had women, beautiful, gorgeous women, chasing after him all the time and that he could afford to pick and choose—more that she didn’t trust herself around him. She seemed destined to meet him head-on and usually ended up making a fool of herself in the process. He was such an unsettling individual.

‘What do you mean?’ she repeated after a moment or two when he continued to look at her, his eyes with their strange dark-silver hue holding her own until everything else around them was lost in the intensity of his gaze.

‘He has you.’ It was soft and silky, and Georgie floundered.

‘Me?’ She tried for a laugh to lighten what had become a painfully protracted conversation but it turned into more of a squeak.

‘Yes, you.’ He wasn’t touching her, in fact he hadn’t moved a muscle, but suddenly he had taken her into an intimacy that was absorbing and Georgie found herself thinking, If he can make me feel like this, here, in the middle of the day and without any desire on his part, what on earth is he like with those women he does desire? No wonder they flock round him. As a lover he must be pure dynamite.

And that shocked her into saying, ‘Sometimes I’m more of a liability than an asset, as you well know,’ her voice over-bright.

‘I know nothing of the sort. How can honesty and idealism be viewed in that way?’ he returned quietly.

She wished he would stop looking at her. She wished he would start the car again. She wished she had never agreed to have this lift with him in the first place! ‘You don’t agree with me about Newbottle Meadow for a start.’ She forced an aggressiveness she didn’t really feel as an instinctive protection against her body’s response to his closeness.

‘I don’t have to agree with you to admire certain qualities inherent in your make-up,’ he returned softly.

‘No, I suppose not,’ she agreed faintly, deciding if she went along with him he would be satisfied he had made his point—whatever that was—and they could be on their way again.

He gave her a hard look. ‘Don’t patronise me, Georgie.’

‘Patronise you?’ She bristled instantly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of patronising you!’

The frown beetling his eyebrows faded into a quizzical ruffle. ‘But you enjoy challenging me, don’t you?’ he murmured in a softly provoking voice that stiffened Georgie’s back. ‘Do you know why you like doing that?’ he added in a tone that stated quite clearly he knew exactly what motivated her.

Because you are an egotistical, unfeeling, condescending—

He interrupted her thoughts, his voice silky smooth. ‘Because you are sexually attracted to me and you’re fighting it in a manner as old as time,’ he stated with unforgivable coolness.

For a moment she couldn’t believe he had actually said what she thought he had said, and then she shut her mouth, which had fallen open, before opening it again to snap, ‘It might be hard for you to accept, Mr de Capistrano, but not every female you look at feels the need to swoon at your feet!’ as she glared at him hotly.

‘I can accept that perfectly well,’ he returned easily, ‘but I’m talking about you, not anyone else.’ His expression was totally impassive, which made their conversation even more incredible in Georgie’s eyes. The colossal ego of the man, she thought wildly. ‘And I know I’m right because I feel the same way; I want you more than I’ve wanted a woman in a long time. For however long it lasted it would be good between us.’

Georgie fumbled with the door handle. ‘I’m not listening to this rubbish a second longer,’ she ground out through clenched teeth, more to stop her voice shaking than anything else.

‘You are going to look slightly…unusual walking through town with your present attire, are you not?’ Matt asked evenly as he glanced at the acres of rubber adorning her feet. ‘And there is no need to be embarrassed, Georgie. You want me, I want you—it is the most natural thing in the world. There’s even a rumour it’s what makes it go round. It doesn’t have to be complicated.’

The amusement in the dark face was the last straw. She turned on him like a small green-eyed cat, her eyes spitting sparks as she shouted, ‘You are actually daring to proposition me? In cold blood?’

‘Oh, is that what the matter is?’ His expression was hard to read now but she thought it was cynicism twisting the ruthless mouth. ‘You wanted a bouquet of red roses and promises of undying love and for everness? Sorry, but I don’t believe in either.’

‘I didn’t want anything!’

‘Then why are you so upset?’ he asked reasonably. ‘You could just tell me I’ve got it wrong without the melodrama, surely? It’s not the most dreadful thing in the world to be told you are desirable by a member of the opposite sex.’