A Spanish Awakening (14 page)

M
EGAN
sat hunched forward, wrapped in a blanket of silent misery all the way to the airport. It seemed to take hours because, despite the hour, the early morning traffic was heavy and they got snarled up several times.

The taxi driver apologised in heavily accented broken English for the delays and reiterated his promise that he would get her to the airport on time to catch her flight.

Clearly misinterpreting the reason for his passenger’s tension, he reeled off a list of statistics he had clearly memorised for such occasions that demonstrated flying was the safest form of transport.

Normally Megan would have tried to respond to his friendly overtures using her basic Spanish. It only seemed good manners to her to attempt to use the language when you were in a country. This time she didn’t. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth she would start crying.

A hysterically weeping woman might not come under the heading of security threat, but she was not willing to take the gamble and risk being barred from the flight.

So she smiled and nodded instead and wondered again what Emilio would do when he woke up and found her gone.

Had he listened to his father’s message?

She closed her eyes, hearing again the diatribe recorded on the answer machine.

The first half had been in Spanish, but as she had returned from the kitchen, her glass of water in hand, the speaker had slid unconsciously into English, a language he was equally fluent in, at least when it came to curses, which had liberally peppered his comments.

She had tried hard not to hear, even going so far as to hum softly to herself as she hurried through the room to drown out the sound of the voice she had identified as belonging to Luis Rios.

Emilio’s father was clearly furious.

Then she had heard her father’s name and stopped.

‘Charles Armstrong was on to me half an hour ago. It turns out he gets the early edition of the damned British tabloids. Of course
he
was more than happy with the connection and shamelessly hinting at marriage plans—the man is deluded, but that is no reason to offend him. He can be useful to you and he does have influence in certain circles.

‘What were you thinking of? You kiss the girl in an airport terminal packed with people with mobile phones, of course you end up on the front page. I’ve no doubt at all it will be all over the Internet. I can only hope there is nothing more incriminating out there.

‘My son and a girl who is the daughter of some cleaner.
Por Dios,
what were you thinking of? If you’re going to get involved with one of the Armstrong girls, did you have to make it the bastard? The other at least has some sort of pedigree. What have I told you? Bad blood will out! Well, I insist that it ends now. If not I will have no compunction in disinheriting you.’

The diatribe had continued, but by that point Megan had heard enough. She had dragged on her clothes, pausing
only to take one last look at Emilio’s sleeping face before she had left the building and hailed a cab.

Would he be angry or secretly relieved when he found she was gone and read her note?

She had her answer to the depressing question a lot sooner than she anticipated.

Having paid off the driver, she was walking towards the terminal building when a shadow fell across her. She automatically turned her head, just in time to see a tall figure clad in a black biker leather jacket remove his helmet.

‘We cannot carry on meeting like this,
querida
.’

The sound of his soft accented drawl hit Megan with the impact of a thunderclap. Shock held her immobile. Totally paralysed, she gazed up blankly at the tall, rampantly male figure exuding masculinity from every pore and thought, He can’t be here.

Logically he could not be here; she had left him sleeping. Was she hallucinating, or had she lost her mind?

Dragging a hand across his tousled dark hair, Emilio bared his teeth in a smile that left his dark eyes angry and cold as he stepped directly into her path, removing his designer shades as he did so, to pin her with a stare with the same penetrating quality as surgical steel.

People were staring, not because he was doing anything, just because he was Emilio—he was really here.

‘You … here … I don’t … How?’ Megan stammered, barely able to hear her own voice above the pounding of her overstressed heart. ‘Note … My note, it …’ Frustrated by her inability to form a sentence, she stopped trying and lapsed into miserable silence.

Emilio arched a brow and took her arm, sliding the bag she carried from her shoulder. ‘I always said if I ever found a woman who travels light I would not let her go.’

Her gaze made a slow journey up the long, lean length
of him. She released a fractured sighing gasp. He looked like a walking advert for mean, lean and dangerous—a leather-clad fallen angel.

‘You have a motorbike?’

‘It allows me more flexibility than a car does.’

Megan lifted a hand to her spinning head. ‘I feel—not good.’

As he subjected her face to a searching, unsympathetic scrutiny Emilio felt his anger fall away and protective instincts rush in to fill the vacuum. She looked so incredibly fragile, the ribbons of soft colour along her cheekbones only accentuating her ghostly pallor, it physically hurt him to see her distress.

‘You’re not going to faint.’

Her outrage stirred in response to this typically heartless statement. ‘Serve you right if I dropped dead at your feet.’

‘That’s more like it,’ he approved, taking her elbow.

Megan, still in shock, responded to the pressure without thinking.

There was a time lag before she realised they were walking in the wrong direction. She directed a worried gaze up at his stern profile.

‘My flight, it’s …?’

Emilio carried on walking.

‘Emilio.’ She stopped dead. Short of dragging her, which she did not put past him, he would have to listen to her now.

He flashed an impatient look down at her before continuing to scan the rows of parked cars in the distance.

Watching him, Megan was conscious of details she had previously missed, like the pallor of his normally vibranttoned olive skin and the lines of tension bracketing his mouth.

She pushed her disquiet aside, telling herself that all those things could be simply a result of sleep deprivation rather than anything more sinister, and goodness knew he had had very little last night. Cheeks flushed, she lowered her eyes and gritted her teeth as she forcibly expelled the erotic images from her head.

Better to worry about herself. If anyone was capable of looking after himself, it was Emilio.

‘The car should be here,’ he announced after consulting the metal-banded watch on his wrist.

She avoided the obvious question. ‘Look, Emilio, I don’t know how or why you’re here but I left a note. I should be at check-in and—’

‘I know you left a note.’ A muscle clenched along his jaw. ‘You have delightful manners, and excellent handwriting, but neither are the reason I spent the last twenty-four hours in bed with you.’

The earthy disclosure sent a slam of desire through Megan’s body. Lowering her eyes in the vain hope of disguising her reaction, she heard him say, ‘I fully intended to spend the next twenty-four in much the same manner.’

This time there was absolutely no question of hiding her reaction.

She moaned a weak, ‘Oh, God, Emilio!’ And lifted her passion-glazed golden gaze to his. ‘You can’t say things like that to me.’

‘Why?’ He angled a satiric brow and smiled down into her face. ‘It’s true. Are you trying to tell me you don’t want to go to bed with me? ‘

Megan flushed to the roots of her hair and cast an agonised look over her shoulder. Emilio had made no attempt to lower his voice and they were now attracting a great deal of attention.

‘Will you lower your voice?’ she hissed. ‘People can
hear you.’ And some enterprising person might snap a photo again.

Anger flashed across his face. ‘Pity you cannot.’ He might not have
said
the words, but he had told her in every other way possible that he loved her.

He had stripped his soul bare, broken the ingrained habit of a lifetime and lowered his defences to let her in, making himself vulnerable in the process.

She had frustrated his plans to make a formal declaration—a formality as far as he was concerned—by falling asleep in his arms after their last exhausting session of wild lovemaking.

To wake up and find her gone had been the low point of the last twenty-four emotionally turbulent hours. He had thrown on his clothes in a blind fury, fully intending when he picked up the ringing phone on his way to the door to slam it down.

Then he had heard his father’s querulous voice saying, ‘You haven’t responded to my message.’

He had slammed the phone down then and listened to the message. What he heard confirmed his suspicions and explained pretty much why she had left, but where?

If in doubt it was Emilio’s habit to follow his first instincts—he headed for the airport. He was confident that his motorbike and his knowledge of the city would considerably cut down on the journey time. The only problem being he had no idea how much of a head start Megan had on him.

He had actually been there less than five minutes before he saw her. His initial relief was followed by an equally intense rush of blind anger. How could she think that his father’s threats meant anything to him? That he gave a damn who her mother was?

∗ ∗∗

‘Do I have to spell everything out for you?’ he growled. ‘Come,’ he added, taking her elbow again, this time in a firm grip.

‘My flight.’

He ignored her.

Megan struggled to inject a little common sense into the proceedings. ‘Emilio, you can’t kidnap me in broad daylight.’

‘Kidnap implies coercion. You want to come with me,’ he asserted confidently.

She bit her trembling lip and swallowed the lump of self-pity lodged in her throat. Was she destined to become one of those bitter people railing at the deal fate had dealt them?

She lifted her chin. ‘A person cannot always have what they want.’ Compared to others she had a lot: her health, friends, a good job.

But not Emilio!

Under the circumstances it was hard to feel suitably grateful.

Without warning Emilio halted, oblivious to the other people on the congested pavement. He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her face up to him.

‘But you want to stay with me?’

Emilio, a stranger to insecurity, despised himself for voicing the question, but he couldn’t help himself.

The lie stayed locked in her throat. Instead Megan found herself nodding, her misted gaze missing the triumph that blazed bright in his eyes at her admission.

‘It’s been lovely.’

‘Lovely?
’ Not the first word or even the last that sprang to his mind when he thought of the last twenty-four hours.

‘I’ve really enjoyed myself, but duty calls. I have to
get back. Perhaps I could visit some time?’ Oh, God, I’m babbling.

‘On a friends-with-benefits basis?’ He vented a hard laugh. ‘Shall we check our diaries?’ The mockery in his voice was savage as he shook his head and added, ‘I think not,
querida.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I meant …’ She passed a hand across her eyes and admitted, ‘I have no idea what I meant. Why did you have to come?’ she wailed, past caring by this point if she attracted attention. ‘Why couldn’t you just let me go without a fuss?’

‘I made that mistake once.’

Before she could question this cryptic statement or wonder about the odd, driven expression on his face, Emilio spotted what he had been looking for in the distance and changed direction.

‘Come!’

Literally swept along, she had no time to think about resisting his imperious command; she was too busy trying to keep up with his long-legged pace.

She was panting by the time they reached the long, low, gleaming limousine.

‘This is yours? ‘

He nodded.

‘But what about your motorcycle?’

‘It is hard to have a conversation while wearing a helmet.’ He threw his own into the back seat and spoke to the uniformed driver who had emerged from the driver’s seat when they appeared.

After exchanging words with Emilio in Spanish, he nodded courteously to Megan as he opened the rear passenger door and stood to one side.

Megan did not respond to the unspoken invitation. She
turned instead to Emilio, who stood there visibly oozing impatience at the delay.

‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘I talk, you listen, whatever.’

Unprepared for his hands-on approach to the situation, Megan let out a soft shriek of protest as he scooped her up and placed her bodily inside the vehicle.

Ignoring both her shriek and the lucky punch she landed on his shoulder, Emilio slid in beside her and calmly indicated to the driver that they were ready to leave.

‘I’m not ready!’

Her shrill protest went ignored by both men.

Megan smoothed down her skirt and turned in her seat to level a furious look at his impassive face.

‘This is ludicrous. What do you hope to achieve by kidnapping me?’

‘We have already established it is not kidnap, and as for what I hope to achieve—I suppose a degree of sanity.’ His dark eyes skimmed her face as he sighed and admitted, ‘It might be a long time before I let you out of my sight.’ He would be afraid of closing his eyes for fear of her vanishing while he slept.

‘Very funny.’

‘I was not attempting to amuse you.’

‘Has it occurred to you that someone might have snapped that little scene back there?’ she asked him, nodding over her shoulder.

Emilio settled back in his seat and, taking advantage of the space offered by their luxurious transport, he stretched his long legs out in front of him and unzipped his leather jacket.

‘Like yesterday morning, you mean.’

Megan stiffened, guilty colour flooding her pale face.
He knew she’d listened in and was probably furious about the invasion of his privacy.

‘It wasn’t deliberate. I didn’t mean to listen to the message,’ she told him earnestly. ‘I was just going to get a drink of water when the answer machine kicked in. I was coming back to bed and then I heard Dad’s name. I thought there might be a problem at home.’