Under the Spaniard's Lock and Key

‘Alfonso doesn’t,’ she said wistfully.

Rafael might have said that Alfonso wasn’t perfect, but he knew it would be a waste of breath. To his wife he was.

‘It doesn’t seem right I’m this happy. I wonder if she’s happy, my little girl. I wonder sometimes…’

‘Better not to,’ Rafael advised tersely. ‘Why think about what you can’t have?’ He had wasted many nights wanting his mother back, but he was no longer ten and he knew better.

CHAPTER THREE

MAGGIE WANDERED THROUGH the winding streets just soaking up the atmosphere. She had a whole afternoon to do her own thing before she needed to be back at the hotel for what the tour guide had enthusiastically described as an ‘authentic paella experience.’

Attendance was optional but he’d told her it was highly recommended.

Having paused for a glass of wine at a pavement café, she pulled the map from her shoulder bag. The tour guide had declared the street market a must for any visitor to the city in search of authentic Spain and, according to her map, it was really close.

Half an hour later and totally lost in a maze of alleys Maggie decided to admit defeat. With the clock ticking and the tour guide’s instruction to be back at the hotel by seven if she planned to join the group for dinner, she finally decided to head straight for the cathedral.

Maggie was just beginning to think that she would miss out on seeing that too when she spotted the distinctive spire of the cathedral directly ahead.

Standing on the pavement, sweat trickling down her back—the day had been hot; the evening was sultry without a breath of breeze to offer relief—she waited for a lull in the steady stream of traffic. It quickly became clear there was none. Not that this seemed to bother other people, who just stepped confidently into the road weaving their way through the traffic to an accompaniment of horns, yells from drivers and rude gestures to the opposite side of the congested road.

Before she could think better of the idea she stepped out.

The security outside the hotel was tight; the media had been kept away, only a couple of approved photographers had been permitted access, though unfortunately Rafael’s departure coincided with their arrival.

‘Since when were you camera shy, Rafael? I’d heard you are very photogenic. I think your face and reputation keep half the scandal rags in business.’

Rafael reacted to his elderly uncle’s cackle of laughter with a sardonic smile.

‘I suppose I was slightly naive to think that my family at least would give me the benefit of the doubt.’ Rafael liked women, he liked sex, but if he had bedded as many beautiful women as the press liked to suggest he doubted he would have the strength to get out of bed.

‘You were never naive, Rafael—not even when you were a baby like those two…I remember your baptism like it was yesterday,’ his uncle reminisced. ‘You bawled your head off all through and your father kept saying, “Elena, do something,” and she did, though I doubt if Felipe had an affair in mind.’ He angled a look that held more curiosity than apology at his tall great-nephew’s face as he added, ‘No offence intended.’

The muscles along Rafael’s strong jaw tightened, but his expression did not change as he promised, ‘None taken.’

‘Her mistake was confessing. Honesty is not the best policy, especially when dealing with people like your father. How old were you when he…?’

‘Threw her out? Ten.’

Old enough to feel angry and betrayed. An image flashed into his head and he felt nothing as he watched his ten-year-old self begging his mother to take him with her and shouting when she tearfully sobbed she couldn’t.

‘It was a tragedy she died so young.’

Before he ever had a chance to retract the things he had yelled at her as she left.

Not insensible to the sensitivity of the subject, Fernando slid a glance at Rafael’s stony profile before observing, ‘There are worse things in life than being considered a sex god.’

‘A hard reputation to live up to.’

The comment drew a laugh from the older man. ‘Modesty,’ he mocked. ‘That’s not like you, Rafael.’

‘You think I need a lesson in humility?’ Meekness was to his mind an overrated virtue, he had never turned the other cheek in his life and he wasn’t about to start any time soon. In his world displaying any weakness was fatal.

‘You care what I think?’ Fernando stopped dead, his attention straying across the road. ‘Now that is what I call a remarkably good-looking woman…she reminds me of someone…Rafael…?’

It was not hard to identify the object of his relative’s admiration. She stood poised uncertainly on the edge of the pavement watching for a gap in the heavy traffic that moved through the congested street.

A little above medium height, she had a natural poise and elegance that made her stand out from the crowd even wearing standard-issue faded denims and a loose cotton tee shirt that hinted at the lush curves of her breasts, the natural attribute he suspected had first drawn his reprobate great uncle’s attention.

As his glance moved upwards to her face she stepped backwards as a scooter mounted the pavement. As she lifted a hand to throw the ponytail that had flopped forward over her shoulder her head turned and he saw her face for the first time.

The breath left his body as Rafael froze, feeling as if someone had just landed a punch in his solar plexus.

‘Over there…I think she’s trying to cross the road. You see her?’

‘I see her.’

‘Now that is what this party lacked—a few pretty faces to look at.’

‘Not pretty,’ Rafael contradicted.

His elderly relative looked outraged. ‘Not pretty? What is wrong with you? Don’t tell me you like your women like sticks. A woman should be soft and—’

‘Beautiful,’ Rafael corrected, cutting across his great-uncle’s list of womanly attributes.

As his brain emerged from its temporary paralysis his eyes remained trained on the slim figure, but it was not the brunette’s face or her indisputably womanly figure that held his stunned gaze.

He glanced briefly at his great-uncle, who played the forgetful old man card when it suited him but was anything but; the last thing Rafael needed at this moment was Fernando to realise why the girl looked familiar to him.

He was surprised he hadn’t already.

The sooner he got him safely away from this potentially explosive scene, the better.

Rafael dragged his eyes off the brunette. Still aware of her in the periphery of his vision, and aware he was not the only one aware of her—this was a woman accustomed to male attention—he offered his great-uncle a supportive arm, nodding to the driver who held the door open as Fernando took his place in the car.

The car moved off and Rafael was able to focus all his attention on the brunette.

She was obviously heading for the hotel. If she walked in now he could imagine the reaction and there were photographers to record the moment for posterity and every tabloid on the planet!

An illegitimate love child reunited with her mother while the unsuspecting husband and social elite looked on. My God, the girl had to have engineered the moment for maximum embarrassment—not that her motivation or her feelings were what he needed to concentrate on now, he told himself, blocking out this line of speculation.

This was about damage limitation. Let Angelina have this day at least before disaster in the shape of this girl arrived.

He couldn’t let her go into the hotel.

So how did he stop her?

He found himself wistfully contemplating a less civilised and much simpler age when he could have simply slung her over his shoulder.

This not being an option, he had to repress his natural instincts and opt for more subtle methods. As he sifted through the possibilities he was very aware that no matter what action he chose, he could not give this situation a happy outcome.

The story had everything: sex, money and a beautiful woman—or in this case two!

If she walked through those doors now he could imagine the reaction to that face and tomorrow’s headlines. He couldn’t allow it to happen.

Rafael tried to narrow his focus to the here and now. It was a struggle: he had a mind wired to asking why…where; a question mark was a challenge to him.

As he walked towards the road his mind was working fast as he sifted through the possibilities. What was she doing here?

Coincidence did not even make it to the list.

Rafael did not believe in coincidence any more than he believed in the Easter bunny or the general decency of his fellow man…or in this case woman. He did believe in protecting the people he cared about.

His silver grey eyes narrowed. The brunette, her hair and other things bouncing gently, had begun crossing the road towards the hotel entrance, confirming all his worst suspicions.

He felt something kick low in his stomach—anger, he told himself—as he watched the gentle sway of her hips in the tight jeans she wore.

Of course there were decent and genuinely good people—people like Angelina. He liked to think he was not without the odd scruple, but this woman was not one of life’s innocents.

It always amazed Rafael how that vulnerable minority managed to get through life with their ideals and their lives intact while most people were out for what they could get regardless of the people they trampled over in their pursuit of whatever ambition drove them.

What was driving Angelina’s daughter?

Greed, revenge…possibly a combination?

A child genuinely wishing to discover a parent would hardly choose a public occasion to do so.

Then as he watched she stepped off the pavement. Dios, he might not have to worry about scandal—the girl was a traffic statistic waiting to happen!

It was pure luck that she reached his side of the road before disaster struck—or almost. He watched as she jumped in response to the blast of a scooter horn as it whizzed past her, lost her footing and began to fall back into the moving traffic.

CHAPTER FOUR

MAGGIE lifted her head, a smile of gratitude ready to thank the person who had leant a steadying hand and pulled her onto the safety of the pavement.

‘Thank you…’ The words and the smile died a death as she found herself looking into the lean face of her saviour.

The sound of the traffic retreated somewhere into the recesses of her shell-shocked brain. She was looking into the dark face of the most beautiful man she had ever seen or even imagined.

She was too startled to disguise her reaction. Maggie’s gaze travelled in wide-eyed appreciation over his strongly sculpted features.

This was not a face anyone would forget in a hurry.

As a child Maggie remembered wondering what her mum had meant when she spoke of someone’s ‘beautiful bones.’

He was what she meant.

The genetic gene pool had been very generous to this tall Spaniard, who had been gifted cheekbones sharp enough to cut yourself on, a strong aquiline nose and a firm, angular jaw.

His unlined brow was broad and intelligent and he possessed the most striking eyes she had ever seen—pale icy grey, almost silver, the striking colour intensified by the dark ring around the iris, they were fringed by incredibly long spiky lashes that were as dark as his strongly delineated ebony brows.

But it was his mouth that Maggie couldn’t take her eyes off. Was it the hint of cruelty she saw in the sensual curve of his sculpted lips that tugged so strongly at her senses and made the aura he projected so overtly sensual and masculine?

Close your mouth, Maggie, you’re drooling.

In an effort to respond to the ironic voice in her head, she gave herself a mental shake.

It didn’t help. Her head remained a swirl of impressions and her nerve endings continued to thrum, sending shivers across the surface of her overheated skin.

She’d had too much sun, Maggie decided, shading her eyes as she struggled to find an explanation for being struck dumb and foolish at the same moment—an explanation that did not involve being in the presence of a six-feet-four black-haired Mediterranean male who looked like a fallen angel who worked out!

The fine lines around his marvellous eyes deepened as he looked down with concern into her face.

‘Are you all right? There is someone you’d like me to call, perhaps?’

Oh, my God, even his voice was sexy! Deep and slightly gravelly, his cultured voice contained a faint and attractive foreign inflection.

‘I…I…’ She gulped, then he smiled and she thought, Wow!

Get a grip, girl. So you were smiled at by a good-looking man—there is no need to act as though you’ve just been released from a convent.

‘You’ve had a shock. You’re shaking…’ Rafael pushed aside an intrusive flicker of genuine concern. Save it, he told himself, for Angelina and her marriage.

Besides, in his expert opinion this was about sex, not the sun or a blow to the head. He was not the only one to feel the sexual charge in the air. This was not a thing he could have anticipated, but Rafael knew that such things were easier to work with than fight against—not, obviously, to the extent that he followed the advice of the loud voice telling him that what he really wanted was to know what she would taste like when he kissed her!

Though had the circumstances been different, who knew…?

The comment drew Maggie’s gaze to the fingers still curved around her upper arm. She made no attempt to break the contact; in fact she was conscious of a strange reluctance to do so.

She could feel the warmth in his long brown fingers through the thin fabric of her cotton top and sense the strength in them…in the man himself.

Her eyes lifted and the impression of strength she picked up from the light contact intensified. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and athletically built—he was both lean and hard.

He projected an undiluted force-field of raw masculinity. It was utterly overwhelming and…seductive?

The latter question made Maggie’s eyes widen with shock. Curbing the imaginative dialogue in her head, she began to pull her arm away, then stopped as she encountered the flash of concern in his silver grey eyes.

She swallowed past the sudden emotional thickness in her throat and blinked as her eyelids prickled. She looked away, embarrassed by her emotional response to this cursory show of concern.

‘I’m fine…oh!’ Maggie grunted as a passerby bumped into her. ‘Sorry…’

‘You are sorry?’ Her rescuer mumbled something under his breath and directed a glare of such autocratic outrage at the retreating back of the clumsy culprit that Maggie would not have been surprised to see the burly figure disintegrate into a pile of dust.

‘You’re very kind.’

Her low-pitched voice with the husky timbre came as a surprise—not an unpleasant one. ‘You’re English?’

Had he needed confirmation, this would have been it. He knew that Angelina had been shipped to England to have her baby.

She had not gone into details, but he could only imagine that the experience of being sent away from family and friends at such a time must have been a terrifying ordeal for a sixteen-year-old.

Maggie saw the flicker of expression move at the back of his incredible eyes and interpreted it as surprise. She had seen a lot of that when people realised she was not Spanish. There had been several occasions on this trip when unable to respond when, someone spoke to her in Spanish, she had had to explain that she was English.

It was difficult not to think about her genetic heritage when for the first time in her life her colouring made her blend in, not stand out.

She lifted a hand to smooth her tousled hair, a frown settling on her brow as she blinked to clear the unbidden image of Simon’s excited expression when he had revealed that the firm he had employed to investigate her background without telling her had discovered her real mother did not have, as his own mother had suspected, Romany blood, but was in fact a member of one of Spain’s oldest families.

‘Like Mother said, it explains your temperament and your colouring, doesn’t it, sweetheart? The way I see it,’ he had mused, ‘if this family are willing to acknowledge you it would do us no harm at all. Obviously we have to approach them sensitively…’

Sensitive—he actually said sensitive and with no trace of irony. ‘You told your mother about this?’

Simon had remained oblivious to the danger in her voice and stilted manner. ‘It was her idea.’

He had not appeared to notice her flinch as he’d smiled indulgently before announcing confidently, ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

Maggie had been pretty sure Simon hadn’t or he wouldn’t have been standing that close to her clenched fists.

She could remember clearly staring up at his handsome face, and thinking, I’ve never actually seen you before.

She was engaged to a man who didn’t know her at all, a man who under the caring exterior he liked to cultivate, was utterly and totally self-centred.

‘You’re thinking how did the daughter of a Spanish aristocrat come to be adopted by an ordinary English couple.’

Maggie had recovered her voice in time to silence any further revelations and assure Simon that she had no interest in her birth mother or a family who were strangers to her, and neither did she have an interest in marrying him.

It had taken some time to convince Simon that she wasn’t joking, but when he had realised he had been furious, revealing a side to his nature that she had never glimpsed previously.

Maggie flicked her ponytail firmly over her shoulder and equally firmly pushed away the memories.

She had moved on and in a rather unpredictable way, she thought, directing a bold direct stare at the face of the dark, devastatingly handsome Spaniard. Communication was not a problem; he spoke perfect English.

The problem was her inability to stop staring at him or speculate on how good his non-verbal communication skills were.

‘You are here with your family?’ He arched an ebony brow, his eyes travelling up from her toes to her glossy head.

She shook her head, feeling ridiculously tongue-tied and unable to shake the crazy conviction he could read her thoughts.

Rafael arched a dark slanted brow. ‘Boyfriend…?’

Maggie rubbed the finger that had recently sported her engagement ring. ‘No’

Rafael’s sharp gaze noted the action and he filed it away for future reference. She was young to be divorced, but he did not discount the possibility.

‘I’m here alone. On holiday.’ Nice move, Maggie—you’ve just told a total stranger that you’re a vulnerable target. ‘With friends,’ she added quickly as her natural caution kicked in.

‘You are alone with friends?’

She flushed and gave a self-conscious laugh and struggled not to look guilty. Her inability to lie without blushing remained a constant source of irritation. ‘I’m with a group of friends,’ she lied.

The corners of his sensual mouth lifted as he arched an ebony brow. ‘Public place and I’m totally harmless,’ he drawled, displaying an uncomfortable ability to read her mind as he stood there looking about as far removed from harmless as a wolf. She tilted her head back to look into his face and qualified further—of the big and bad variety.

‘I’m sure you are,’ she lied politely, adding, ‘Excuse me,’ as she fished her phone from her pocket and scanned last night’s text from her mum with an expression of interest.

For some women, of course, the bad part would have been a plus, but she had never been drawn to danger. Danger was for women who could live in the moment, and men like him were for women who did not worry about how it would feel the next day.

Maggie had never been swept away by the moment, she had never said to hell with tomorrow and she didn’t see the attraction of dangerous men any more than she felt the urge to walk along a crumbling cliff edge because the view was nice.

She studied her companion’s dark lean face and couldn’t deny that the view was very nice…The skin on her scalp tingled as her glance drifted to his mouth and she corrected her assessment. This man was many things but nice wasn’t one of them!

Uncomfortably conscious of the flash of heat that washed over her skin, she pressed her hands to her stomach where a flock of butterflies were rioting and lowered her eyes back to her phone.

‘Bad news?’ he asked, not fooled by the little pantomime but playing dumb and for time.

His thoughts raced.

He needed to warn Angelina and give her the opportunity to tell Alfonso. He owed her that much, as he was the one who had encouraged her in her lie of omission to her husband in the first place.

That one had really come back to bite him, he reflected grimly. The next time he got asked for advice he would politely refuse.

This girl might, for all he knew, be an expert liar, but there were some things that you couldn’t control and she was genuinely shaken. Whatever the cause it seemed logical to take advantage of it before she fully recovered her wits.

All he had to do was figure out in the next thirty seconds how to get her some place that wasn’t here without breaking any laws…If it involved kissing that would be a plus, he reflected as his heated glance shifted to the full sexy curve.

‘Not really…I just missed them.’

‘Your many friends.’

Fascinated, he watched the colour rush over her cheeks.

She nodded, not meeting his eyes, but lifted her chin defiantly. ‘We’re meeting up back at the hotel,’ she told him creatively before glancing at her watch and exclaiming, ‘It’s that time already!’

To her dismay the tall Spaniard did not take the hint; he just carried on looking at her. Looking hard. She lowered her own gaze. The unblinking regard was unsettling on more levels than she wanted to admit, let alone examine.

Maybe the novelty of a man noticing she existed had spooked her. Wincing at the self-pitying direction of her thoughts, she shook her head and laughed.

Rafael raised an enquiring brow. ‘Something is funny?’

‘Not funny—sad,’ she admitted, hoping the enigmatic response would shut him up.

As he watched her soft lips curve into a determinedly cheerful smile that did nothing to banish the despondent shadow from her luminous eyes he felt feelings stir. Refusing to recognise them as concern—definitely not empathy—he reminded himself that his concern belonged with the mother and her threatened marriage, not the daughter.

He was attracted to the daughter—inconvenient, but not a problem. He had never had a problem keeping his libido on a leash. He couldn’t allow himself to look at her and think of her as a beautiful woman because she was business and sex and business did not mix.

He had to look at her and think, Disaster waiting to happen.

While he could not stop the disaster unfolding, he could control the timing to minimise the impact and give Angelina time to tell her husband that she had a past and that that past had come calling.

There was a problem. Just one? mocked the voice in his skull. Every time he tried to focus on his strategy his train of thought got hijacked and he found himself thinking about her mouth.

He puzzled over this growing obsession.

It wasn’t even as if she were as beautiful as Angelina. The resemblance was startling, but she was not, as he had first thought, a duplicate copy. Her face was heart-shaped and her nose, though delicate, was tip-tilted, her mouth was…

His thoughts slowed as his eyes drifted to that full, generous curve.

Her mouth, he admitted, was a problem.

He wanted to kiss her. The weakness angered him.

‘Sad?’

Maggie shook her head. ‘Just a private joke.’ It was joke when she realised that she had allowed Simon to systematically undermine her confidence and make her feel that her wants and needs were always secondary to his.