The Blackmailed Bride Read online

  Leaning heavily against the wall, waiting for her breathing to slow, she was alarmed to discover a silly grin on her face-anyone would think she enjoyed exchanging insults with the awful man.

  A few minutes later, when she emerged from the bath­room, she discovered him lounging indolently in a leather easy chair he'd pulled up to the bedside. He got to his feet as she approached and poured a glass of iced water from the full jug that had appeared magically on her bedside table.

  `Plenty of fluids, I believe the doctor said, and maybe the robe is not such a good idea,' he murmured as she climbed back into bed, still muffled in the thick ankle ­length robe she'd pulled on when she'd seen her reflection in the mirrored bathroom wall.

  `You might have told me...' she hissed indignantly.

  `Told you what?' he asked guilelessly.

  As if he didn't know. `That the damned thing was trans­parent!' she choked. Not coy about her body, it wasn't the fact that someone had accidentally got an eyeful...it was who had received it that had made her duck her head under the cold water tap until she could hold her breath no longer.

  `I didn't look.'

  The virtuous announcement wrenched a laugh from Kate's throat-so the man had a sense of humour after all. 'This is no laughing matter,' she retorted sternly.

  `I wasn't laughing,' he reminded her gently.

  Kate decided to anticipate his next inevitable observa­tion. `But I expect you saw enough to know it isn't me in the photos.' There was no way her trim but unremarkable figure could be mistaken for the celestial vision revealed in the grainy photos.

  'Ah the photographs.' He shrugged. `The unusual hair coloring did mislead me initially.' His glance lingered on the freshly dampened strands that clung to her face and dripped wetly down her neck. `But I had already come to the conclusion you were not the model.'

  Of course, the figure in the photos didn't have any scars-how slow am I...? `Pity you didn't catch on before you treated me like some sort of cheap tart!' The memory of his stinging contempt still rankled.

  `I wasn't the only one guilty of jumping to the wrong conclusions,' he reminded her drily.

  As if I could forget Kate thought, shifting uncomfortably as she reviewed with a mental shudder the whole humili­ating incident.

  `I only thought what you wanted me to?' she countered belligerently. `It suited your purposes very well to have me scared stiff of you, didn't it?' she accused astutely.

  `On occasion, a little bit of fear can expedite matters,' he agreed.

  Kate wasn't surprised to see a total lack of remorse in his manner-the man was clearly without principles!

  `However,' he continued seamlessly, `it was obvious from the outset that you are a difficult person to intimi­date...'

  `An expert on intimidation, are you?'

  Far from insulting him, her acid retort only made him look modestly smug: Kate gritted her teeth in frustration; if she hadn't experienced the frightening impact of his raw anger first-hand she wouldn't have believed it was possible to break through that urbane mask. Put him in the witness stand, she brooded darkly, and he'd be every lawyer's nightmare!

  `It didn't take an expert at anything to figure out that you are not the sort of woman who would allow herself to be compromised in that way.'

  Was that a backhanded compliment or an insult too sub­tle for her to figure out? Kate puzzled suspiciously. Her candid gaze, which had frequently in the past unnerved the boldest of adversaries, faltered; only by gathering all her mental resources did she maintain eye contact.

  `I take it,' she replied finally, `you still have them-the photos.'

  `"They are safe,' he confirmed with infuriating caution.

  A frown marred the smooth sweep of her forehead as she fought to retain her shaky composure. `They're mine.' She was unable to prevent the edge of desperation creeping into her belligerent claim.

  His keen eyes scanned her tense, strained features. 'We'll discuss this in the morning when you are rested and hope­fully feeling less feverish,' he announced, in the manner of someone who was accustomed to having his every sugges­tion treated as if it was inscribed in stone. `I'll be in the sitting room, should you require anything; I have some paperwork to attend to. Do not hesitate-'

  `We'll discuss it now!' Kate cut shrilly into his formal declaration; if she fell for this phoney concerned line she'd start forgetting who the enemy was.

  Javier scanned her flushed agitated face thoughtfully. `That is probably not a good idea.'

  `As it happens, I don't give a damn what you consider a good idea,' she revealed. The biting scorn of her delivery was spoiled by the weak little wobble in her voice.

  `As you wish,' he replied, resuming his seat beside the bed. `I'm assuming you were acting as an agent for..whom exactly. ..when you broke into that room? The person in the photos? Your sister`?'

  Kate's tone became increasingly desperate as she sensed herself being pushed into a corner. `I didn't break in; the door was open...' She might as well have saved her breath; brushed aside her feeble protest with a lofty gesture.

  Javier took her lack of denial concerning the identity as confirmation of his suspicions. 'And she was being black­mailed by Gonzalez? He was her lover?'

  Kate released a fractured gasp. `He's not her lover,' she denied. `He tricked her... maybe even-' She stopped, dis­may washing over her as she realised her response had only confirmed Susie's identity. `How did you...?' she began.

  `It hardly required a giant leap to reach these conclu­sions. Listening to your parents' conversation, it was clear ­that your sister is somewhat indulged... The sort of person who would send someone else to do her dirty work.'

  Kate would have given a lot to have denied this scarily accurate assessment.

  `You know nothing about our family situation,' she pro­tested gruffly.

  `True,' he conceded, his eyes fixed on his own long in­terlaced fingers not her face. `But sometimes families are not so very different.' Thee curtain of long dark lashes lifted and Kate briefly saw the shadow of something that looked like deep sorrow; it was there so briefly she couldn't decide if she had imagined it or not.

  `Take the robe off,' he urged, revealing an unexpected smile of extraordinary charm which lightened his sombre, clean-cut features dramatically and left Kate's lungs fight­ing to replace the air she had expelled in one startled gasp. When he chose to display it, he had charisma that was off the scale. `Before you spike a fever once more, for which I will no doubt be blamed.'

  `I am a little tired,' she conceded reluctantly.

  `Bruised, battered and bone-weary would be nearer the mark, I suspect.'

  She should have found this concern coming from the very person she held accountable for her plight a theme for her scorn, but bizarrely she found his consideration and his accented deep tone oddly soothing. Frowning, Kate puzzled over her bizarre response as she slid her arms out of the robe beneath a modestly adjusted duvet.

  Her own actions paled into insignificance beside the truly bizarre thing her suspicious sideways stare then revealed. The amazing sight of Javier Montero rearranging her pil­lows could safely be positioned in the extreme end of bi­zarre-just about where it started nudging surreal!

  He seemed to perform the task most proficiently for a rich playboy.

  `Comfortable?' he asked as she collapsed weakly back against them.

  Kate nodded, her eyelids felt heavy and it was hard to focus on his dark face. `If I told anyone you just did that they'd never believe me...' she observed, unable to stifle a jaw-cracking yawn. `Don't worry, I'm not likely to do so...tell anyone, that is,' she added swiftly, in case he thought him shaking her pillows was something she might want to boast about in future.

  His compelling gaze swept her face-Kate could only imagine what she looked like after the trauma of the eve­ning.

  `I'm not worried,' he revealed enigmatically before leav­ing.

  A sleepily disarmed and confused Kate was just drifting off to sleep in
the quiet of the bedroom when she realised that she still hadn't regained possession of the photographs for Susie.

  'In the morning,' she promised herself out loud.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHEN Kate awoke, the strands of golden light filtering through the wooden shutters had cast a dappled pattern over the wall beside the bed. For a while she lay there, watching the shifting pattern.

  Arm curved above her head, her fingertips brushed across the carved headboard as she stretched languidly; the vast carved bed and fine linen were deliciously decadent. The enervating languor lasted approximately twenty seconds, right up to the point where her memories of the previous night came flooding back.

  Why did it have to happen to me... ?

  Not a person inclined to wallow, she only indulged her self-pitying reflections for a few moments. By the time she turned her head towards the tantalising, nose-twitching smell and had discovered an attractively presented tray set beside the big bed, Kate was in a more pragmatic and pos­itive frame of mind.

  She was going to get Susie's photos back and then get on with the rest of her much-needed holiday, her encounter with Javier Montero completely forgotten. An image of his dark, devastatingly attractive features flashed through her head-well, perhaps not completely, but he would soon be a nasty memory.

  To her surprise Kate discovered she was hungry-very hungry. This had to be a good sign, didn't it?

  A few cautious stretches confirmed that most of the aches and pains from the previous night had gone, and when she rotated her head it thankfully no longer felt as though a miniature percussionist was pounding away inside her skull. Whatever bug had made her feel so awful seemed to have succumbed to her own immune system.

  There was plenty to appease her healthy hunger and on reflection there didn't seem any danger of placing herself any deeper in Javier's debt by accepting this hospitality. As she surveyed the food she tried with only partial success not to wonder about who might have placed her breakfast there while she lay sleeping. Had Javier kept vigil the entire night or had he delegated the task? The latter seemed much more likely.

  Trying to dispel the persistent image in her head of him watching her as she slept, Kate picked up a roll from the selection of breads; it was warm and just asking to be cov­ered with lashings of the golden butter and honey that lay beside it. Her dry mouth watered at the sight of the pot of coffee set beside the comprehensive assortment of fresh fruit. Lifting the cover from the plate, she discovered a plate of fluffy scrambled eggs; with a fork she speared a sliver of smoked salmon from the mound and found it delicious.

  Kate had showered, but was still dressing in the clothes she'd been amazed to discover folded neatly over the back of a chair in the bathroom, when she heard sounds coming from the adjoining room. The clothes fitted very well, but then they would; Kate had only purchased the pale green wrap around skirt and halter neck top the previous week.

  She was sliding her feet into the soft leather open-toed mules also new when there was an extra loud rattle. Either someone was very noisy or they were tactfully let­ting her know she wasn't alone... She decided this ruled out Javier, who hadn't so far shown any sign of possessing either tact or delicacy!

  Despite her conviction that it wasn't him, Kate couldn't help but wish, as she surveyed her pale face in the mirror that her small make-up bag had been included with her other cosmetics. Not that, having been blessed with a creamy, flawless complexion and naturally dark lashes, she wore anything in the summer but a natural-looking lip-gloss and the occasional dusting of eyeshadow.

  Kate would have strongly rebuffed any suggestion that this desire to don face-paint had anything to do with any underlying motive on her part to impress anyone-espe­cially if the anyone in question was Javier Montero. This was about feeling confident and, call her shallow, but like most women a coat of lippy could make her feel more assured, and when dealing with an unknown quantity like Javier Montero she needed all the help she could get!

  She caught sight of her femininely curved behind in the mirror and the defiant set of her shoulders relaxed as a rueful smile spread across her mobile features. Who am I kidding? Of course I'd like to knock him dead; who wouldn't?

  It wasn't going to happen outside her dreams though be­cause, truth told, unlike Susie and similarly blessed fe­males, she simply wasn't endowed with the equipment to impress that way.

  `I hope you didn't lock the bathroom door.'

  Javier must have very acute hearing, she thought, be­cause he had his back turned to her so couldn't have seen her cautiously entering the bedroom.

  He sounded irritated. Not the most auspicious of begin­nings, she thought in dismay. Still, if he was as fed up with her as his broad back suggested-what an extraordinarily expressive anatomy he had, she marvelled, momentarily di­verted by the shape of his broad, splendidly muscled shoul­ders and strong straight spine.

  Though this started off as an innocently innocuous line of thought, somewhere between his trim waist and snaky hips it took a sharp detour into a lot less virtuous territory, anatomically speaking!

  Wrenching free from this downward mental spiral, Kate took a deep breath and began again--distracting anatomical observations strictly banned this time around!

  He must be fed up with her; she'd been nothing but a nuisance to him. It stood to reason that he might feel in­clined to hand over the photos without any fuss just to get shot of her.

  The harsh scowl revealed on his lean, saturnine features as he turned around confirmed her assumption he was not in the best of moods. Standing there, gazing at her critically over long, steepled fingers, she discovered that the man looked much more remote than her overnight mental image of him, and, in a different way, even more threatening than the criminal she had once taken him for.

  Whatever else he was, this man was spectacular, she con­ceded as her heart began to race so frantically it felt as if it might explode from her tight chest any moment. He also had more moods and faces than anyone she'd ever met!

  Kate felt no desire to delve beneath the surface of this obviously complex man; superficial details were causing her enough problems, she decided, averting her gaze from the faint shadow of dark body hair she could see through the classic white shirt tucked into a pair of tailored pale linen trousers he wore this morning. Nothing about his vi­tal, arresting figure suggested he hadn't had an uneventful eight hours sleep.

  No doubt he was one of those tiresome types who could survive indefinitely on cat naps and coffee, whereas she needed her full eight hours to function at all.

  His steely, sweeping scrutiny left her with the vague im­pression that he found her appearance in some way lacking.

  A burst of antagonism made her skin prickle. So what? Since when did it matter to me, she challenged herself, that some man didn't like my outfit? It was plain daft to feel aggrieved; he was entitled to his opinion, just like she was entitled not to give a damn!

  My appearance is probably a bit of a shock, she reflected contemptuously. He probably doesn't appreciate that it takes the glamorous types he wakes up next to ninety per cent of their time to look that way. These women dedicated to looking beautiful had almost certainly spoilt him for or­dinary women like herself.

  Fortunately she had never been attracted to the smoul­dering Southern Mediterranean type.

  He could exploit his sexual magnetism for all it was worth; she wasn't going to be distracted. She had to stay focused! Think more about Susie and less about his stern, sensual mouth.

  Her chin tilted to an aggressive angle that reflected her militant frame of mind she sauntered across the room.

  `If you think this is bad, you should have seen me before the shower!' she snapped with a toss of her head.

  Javier had.

  He over the years had a number of lovers, but he was not in the habit of spending the entire night with them; perhaps that was why her face in repose had fascinated him so much. He judged it possibly wasn't a good idea, con­sidering he
r overt hostility, to share these details with her.

  `Have I done something to offend you?'

  Other than look so damned superior? `I didn't care for your tone.' Kate didn't care for the gleam of amusement in his eyes as he watched her progression across the room, either.

  `You have something against Spanish accents?

  'No, just bossy men of any nationality.' She had no in­tention of revealing that she found his accent extremely attractive; the velvet rasp of his slightly foreign syllables sent forbidden little shivers down her spine.

  `I didn't lock the door...'

  She bent her head forwards and shook out her damp hair, teasing the knots in the silken threads with her fingers and showering his immaculate person with wet droplets. Throwing her head back she intercepted an expression in his eyes that almost made her lose her composure-imag­ined or real, the sensual heat of that fleeting look made her stomach collapse inwards.

  `But if I'd known you were in here I definitely would have!' she boasted huskily.

  One ebony brow arched expressively. He didn't appear impressed by this slightly desperate display of how unin­timidated she was by him but then it was hard to establish indifference when your voice quivered and shook.

  `And if you'd collapsed?'

  Well aware she didn't have a leg to stand on, she re­sponded to this common-sense observation with a disdain­ful toss of her head.

  `As you can see.' She held her arms wide and performed a graceful twirl for his benefit. `I'm fit and well,' she fin­ished triumphantly as her billowing skirts settled back around the long line of her thighs. `Not a wobble in sight,' she lied cheerfully.

  She'd have felt a lot more like smiling if the fact her head was spinning crazily had something to do with the manoeuvre or her weakened condition, but it didn't; it was breathing the same air as this wretched man that turned her into some sort of hormonal junkie!

  `No headache, no ache and pains. In fact I'm absolutely fine.'