Santiago's Command Page 2

  Caution was another matter and in the circumstances seemed only sensible!

  Arm crooked to hold back her hair from her face, she waded towards the riverbank, her gaze fixed on her feet to avoid stumbling on the rocky riverbed.

  Reaching dry ground, she climbed the slight incline that brought her level with the stranger and close enough, thanks to the prevailing wind, for her nostrils to twitch in response to the scent of leather and horse. She kept her distant smile in place and tilted her head up to look at him.

  It was a lot of tilting. He was extremely tall; broad of shoulder, narrow of hip and long of leg. She had an impression of power, raw and elemental. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes and her smile faded as, minus the direct dazzle, the man’s face became more than a dark blur.

  There was definitely nothing blurred about features that looked as though they had been freshly carved in bronze by the hand of an artist more interested in conveying a masculine ideal than reality. The rider’s face, bisected by an aquiline, masterful nose, was long with a broad, intelligent forehead, strong square jaw and high, dramatically chiselled cheekbones. Her gaze drifted to his mouth and paused. It was wide and sculpted, the upper lip firm, the lower sensually full.

  It was all jaw-dropping and deep-intake-of-breath stuff. Aware she had been staring and without the faintest clue of how long she had been standing there with her mouth unattractively open, she closed it with a snap and felt an embarrassed flush wash over her skin, struggling to maintain eye contact with the deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes that returned her gaze.

  She was an expert at hiding her feelings, but this man took impenetrable to another level entirely. His obsidian stare was totally unreadable. His eyes were incredible; framed by thick ebony lashes that were long and spiky, they were densely dark and flecked with silver. They made her think of a starlit night sky.

  Starlit skies …? She resisted the temptation to roll her eyes and thought, Lucy, girl you need a sugar hit. Sugar was not what her best friend, Sally—never afraid to call a spade a spade—had said she needed when she had told her she was off to Spain.

  ‘The fact is, Lucy, principles are great and true love is nice and all—but in fairy tales! How about a compromise while you’re waiting for your prince to climb your ivory tower? Enjoy a bit of head-banging sex with a sexy Spaniard. Let’s face it, you won’t be short of offers … God, if I looked like you …’

  Lucy, who knew nothing about head-banging sex except that it wasn’t for her, pushed away the memory of the conversation, but not before her glance slid to the sensual contours of the stranger’s mouth. She found herself almost envying her friend’s pragmatic approach to sex as heat flashed through her in a warm squirmy mess. She cleared her throat but it didn’t stop her voice sounding husky and breathless as she said the first thing that came into her head.

  ‘How did you know I was English?’

  The last time she’d experienced this knee-sagging, heart-thudding sensation the cause had been an earthquake that had made the hotel rock and brought a nearby chandelier crashing to the floor! Was this what people called animal magnetism? Well, whatever it was he had it! And the earthy aura of maleness was not something she would choose to be this close to.

  The stranger soothed his horse with a casual pat of his hand on the glossy flank and raised a satiric brow as he allowed his gaze to sweep down her tumbling waist-length hair in an unrealistic but eye-catching pale silvery blonde.

  In all the pictures Santiago had seen she had worn her hair in a puritanical elegant chignon that had exposed the swanlike curve of her pale throat and the determined angle of her delicate jaw. Her hairstyle changed, he presumed, depending on what part she was playing, and he could see the tumbling pre-Raphaelite curls appealing to his brother … actually appealing to any man.

  ‘Your colouring is not exactly local …’

  His glance moved over the delicate contours of her face. Up close her pale creamy skin had an almost opalescent sheen, the glow of roses on her smooth cheeks not the result of make-up; astonishingly she wore none. Despite her fair colouring her long curling lashes and arched feathery brows were dark. A purist might say her lush, sensuous lips were too full for her delicate features, but even the harshest critic could have found no room for criticism with her eyes. Wide spaced and slightly slanted, they were an astonishing shade of dramatic blue, the electric colour emphasised by the black rim surrounding the iris.

  ‘Oh …’ Lucy lifted a hand to her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she gave a rueful smile, receiving in response a midnight stare. His expression was still shuttered but she was conscious of inexplicable hostility in his body language.

  Was it personal or was he like this with everyone? Feeling increasingly antagonistic—the man’s people skills could definitely do with some work—Lucy forced a smile as she admitted lightly, ‘I suppose I do stick out a little.’

  His dark eyes slid the length of her body.

  The studied insolence in his stare brought an angry sparkle to her eyes. She fought the impulse to cover herself with her hands. Forget poor people skills—the man’s horse had better manners than him.

  ‘And you try so hard to fade into the background.’

  A choking sound left her throat. ‘Just what is your problem? I’m not trespassing, you know … but you probably are.’ He had the look of someone who did not recognise boundaries.

  ‘I am trespassing?’ He looked amused by the suggestion. ‘I am Santiago Silva.’

  ‘Should I curtsy or bow?’ So this was the man who was literally lord of all he surveyed, including the property that Harriet rented. From what her friend had told her, he was ‘a great guy’. Odd—Harriet was normally a pretty good judge of character.

  Placing a hand on a hip, oblivious to the sexually provocative style of her pose, she watched as his firm sensual mouth lifted at the corners in a smile that did not touch his hard eyes—they held the warmth of a diamond chip as he returned her stare.

  ‘I had no idea we had such a famous—or should that be infamous?—visitor to the area, Miss Fitzgerald.’ He saw her flinch and felt a stab of savage satisfaction as he thought, Gotcha!

  CHAPTER TWO

  A FAMILIAR cold, clammy fist tightened in the pit of Lucy’s stomach as she felt her expression freeze over. She cursed herself for being surprised that anyone would recognise her here in Spain; like they said, it was a small world and, with the advent of social networking, even smaller.

  It didn’t matter how many times she told herself that what total strangers chose to think about her was their problem, not hers, it still hurt, and it made her angry that the stares and contemptuous comments had the power to make her want to crawl away into a corner and hide, which according to some was exactly what she had been doing for four years.

  Pride enabled her to lift her chin and train her level stare at his face. She was not going to hide any more; she had done nothing wrong. The gagging injunction was long gone; there was no longer anything stopping her telling her side. Nothing but the stubborn conviction that as the innocent victim she shouldn’t have to explain to anyone; after all, the people that mattered had never believed any of the lies that had been printed about her.

  ‘If I’d known how warm, charming and welcoming the natives were I would have made it here sooner,’ she said, flashing him a smile of saccharine-sweet insincerity and having the satisfaction of seeing his jaw tighten in annoyance.

  ‘And how long are you thinking of staying?’

  ‘Why? Are you planning on running me out of town, sheriff?’ she mocked, adopting a mock-Western drawl.

  He responded to her levity with another stony stare. On the receiving end, Lucy found the level of his relentless hostility frankly bewildering.

  God, does this man need to get a life!

  Her story was old news and even if he believed she was as bad as they had painted her, which in truth was pretty bad, it hardly explained an antipathy that seemed … personal?
/>
  ‘I shouldn’t joke—you probably can.’

  She had the impression that all this man had to do was snap his fingers and the locals would be lining up to be part of a run-her-out-of-town posse, less a form of mob mentality and more mass hypnotism.

  She wasn’t seeing much evidence of it but it was clear the man exerted some sort of weird charismatic control locally … either that or there was something in the water. In the time she had been here Lucy had heard the name Santiago Silva with monotonous regularity in the area. You couldn’t buy a loaf of bread without hearing someone sing the praises of this paragon, which, considering he was a banker—a fairly universally despised animal these days—seemed pretty amazing to Lucy.

  Their comments had built an image of someone very different from the man standing there looking down his autocratic nose at her. He did not look remotely like the warm, caring person she’d heard described, but he did look every inch the autocratic feudal throwback who expected people to bow and scrape.

  ‘You have met my brother.’ He arched an ebony brow.

  A mystified Lucy began to shake her head, then the penny dropped.

  Her eyes widened. ‘Ramon.’ Who had rung the finca just before she left that morning inviting her to dinner at the castillo. Wow, was she glad she’d said no to this opportunity to meet his brother … the sort of social event nightmares were made of if this taster was any indicator! Stiff and starchy now, imagine how he’d look in a tie—besides beautiful. Lucy gave her head a little shake to dispel this image.

  It was not so surprising she hadn’t seen the connection straight off; Ramon had none of the autocratic arrogance of his unpleasant brother. He was actually a really sweet boy who had gone out of his way to help when they had been stranded in the clinic car park the day after she arrived. He’d been a hero, administering first aid to Harriet’s ancient car.

  Since then he had called twice at the finca, the last time, she recalled with a smile, he had helped her catch one of the donkeys before the vet arrived, falling flat on his face in the dust and dirt at one point and ruining his lovely suit. It was hard to believe he was related to this man.

  ‘You will not meet him again.’ The comment was delivered in a soft, almost conversational tone that was in stark variance to the menace it conveyed.

  Lucy shook her head, genuinely bewildered by the turn this conversation was taking. Was this about her refusing the invitation to dinner at the big house? Had she committed some sort of social faux pas?

  The possibility bothered her for Harriet’s sake. Her friend had made a lot of effort to fit in so she felt her way cautiously. ‘I won’t?’

  ‘No, Miss Fitzgerald, you will not.’

  ‘Is Ramon going away?’

  ‘No, you are going away.’

  Lucy’s patience snapped. ‘Will you stop being so damned enigmatic and spit it out? Just what are you trying to say?’

  He cut across her in a voice that felt like an icy shower. ‘For someone who is clearly a clever woman you have not done your research. Until he is twenty-five, my brother has no access to his trust fund unless I approve it, and I will not. The lifestyle my brother enjoys now is totally at my discretion.’

  ‘Poor Ramon,’ she said, feeling sorry for Ramon but not totally sure why his brother should think the information was of interest to her.

  ‘So you will be wasting your time.’

  ‘My time to waste,’ she responded, still without the faintest idea what this discussion was about.

  The flippancy brought his teeth together in a snarling white smile. ‘I suggest you cut your losses and move on to a more profitable … subject.’

  Totally at sea now, Lucy shook her head. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ she was forced to admit.

  Irritated by this display of innocence, Santiago twisted his expressive mouth in a grimace of fastidious distaste. Sensing his master’s mood, the animal at his side pawed the ground and snorted.

  Without thinking Lucy responded, moving forward, her hand outstretched to soothe the animal, only to be blocked by the horse’s tall rider.

  ‘He does not like strangers.’ His concern was for his mount, not the stupid woman who clearly knew nothing about horses.

  ‘Just now I’m identifying with him.’

  Santiago was tempted to respond to the challenge gleaming in her blue eyes—the colour was so extraordinary it amounted to an assault on the senses. Instead, he made a decision. ‘I want a quick resolution of this situation.’

  The solution was not desirable—every cell in his body craved revenge and he was going to reward her but … He breathed a deep sigh, accepting that there were occasions when a man had to do what was necessary as opposed to what was right. He didn’t have to like it though.

  ‘If you leave immediately I will cover your expenses.’ The resort hotel in the locality was aimed at the high end of the market as it was the only accommodation in the area, barring a couple of rural bed-and-breakfast establishments. He could not imagine the likes of Lucy Fitzgerald roughing it in some rustic retreat—it seemed safe to assume she was a guest at the hotel.

  Lucy nodded solemnly and drawled, ‘Generous …’ Then gave a little laugh and angled a quizzical look at his face. ‘But do you think you could give me a clue? I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

  He clicked his tongue irritably. ‘Move on, Lucy, you’ve done innocent and you give a first-class performance, but it tends to pall.’

  She pulled herself up to her full height. In most company, even without shoes, that gave her an advantage, but not over this man. Ramon’s brother was … Her narrowed glance moved up from his feet—the man was six four easy, possibly more and not an ounce of surplus fat on any of it. He was all hard bone and muscle and enough testosterone to light up the planet.

  ‘My friends call me Lucy.’

  ‘Of which you have many, I am sure,’ he cut back smoothly.

  Lucy grated her teeth. She had never considered herself a violent person but this man was making her discover new things about herself.

  ‘Expenses and a one-off payment.’ His lips curled. What was the going rate for a woman like her these days? ‘But only,’ he warned, ‘if you leave immediately.’

  ‘You want to pay me to leave where exactly?’

  ‘The country and my brother.’

  Lucy breathed in and played back the conversation in her head. She could almost hear the sound of the penny dropping. On the outward breath an explosive of anger dumped bucketloads of neat adrenaline into her bloodstream. Lucy saw red, quite literally, she blinked and, still seeing everything through a shimmering red heat haze, linked her badly shaking hands together.

  ‘Let me get this straight. You are offering to pay me to stay away from your brother? I’m curious just how much—no, don’t tell me, I might be tempted.’

  He did and her eyes widened. ‘Wow, you must really think I’m dangerous!’

  A nerve pumped beneath the golden-toned skin of his lean cheek but he didn’t react to her comment. ‘This sum is not negotiable,’ he emphasised. ‘You must walk away—’ He stopped, brows knitting into frustrated lines above his dark eyes. ‘What are you doing?’

  She paused and threw a look over her shoulder, sticking out one hip to balance the bag she had slung over the other shoulder. ‘What am I doing?’ She gave a laugh and fixed him with a glittering smile. ‘I would have thought that was obvious, Mr Silva—this is me walking. I like walking but nobody has ever offered to pay me for it except for charity. Give me your number and I’ll give you a bell the next time I do the marathon.’

  He looked so astonished that this time her laugh was genuine.

  Santiago watched her make her way up the dusty track, an expression of baffled frustration etched on his handsome face. He had pitched his offer high deliberately; he had allowed for the possibility she might try and negotiate the figure up, but her outright refusal had been an option he had not even
considered.

  With a gritted oath he vaulted into the saddle and turned his horse in the opposite direction to that she had taken.

  It was not until his temper had cooled and he had slowed to a canter that it occurred to him that he had no idea what she had been doing there in the middle of nowhere. The only inhabited building within a two-mile radius was the place he had leased to the English academic who had started up, of all things, a donkey sanctuary.

  It would be difficult to imagine two women with less in common, so ruling out that left—what …? Could she have been waiting for someone? In that lonely spot … no … unless … she had been meeting someone and they had required privacy?

  By the time the horse had reached the castillo gates the conviction that he had stumbled onto a lovers’ tryst, that she had been waiting for his half-brother, had become a firm conviction.

  His brother was not behaving rationally. Santiago saw those electric-blue eyes in his head and he felt his anger towards his sibling subside. He doubted Ramon was the only man unable to act rationally around Lucy Fitzgerald, who was unable to see past her smouldering sexuality, the only man willing to ignore the truth in order to possess that body, but fortunately for Ramon he was not one of them.

  Did she think she had won?

  Beneath him Santana responded to the light kick of encouragement and broke into a gallop; to catch a thief one had to adopt the same ruthless methods they did.

  Literally shaking with fury, Lucy made the last stage of her journey in record time. She paused at the finca door to compose herself. As satisfying as it would have been to vent her feelings on the subject of Santiago Silva, the last thing her friend needed right now was the news that her house guest had had a run in with him.

  Harriet would feel obligated to defend her and she could not see that going down well with her feudal despot of a landlord, who would, she thought scornfully, quite likely feel perfectly justified evicting anyone who disagreed with him. He was just the type of small-minded bully who enjoyed wielding the power he had inherited!