Santiago's Command (10 page)

W
HEN
the doctor called a few minutes later Lucy was feeling so wretched that she was not surprised when he said that the bug she had contracted was a particularly virulent strain. In fact, she almost retorted—yes, the Santini Strain!

Lucy, who had been hoping for permission to leave, was dismayed when he announced he wanted her to stay in bed until the next day and after that he would review the situation.

In the event, she did not feel much like getting out of bed. She slept a good deal of the time, waking on one occasion during the early evening to find Gabby perched on the end of her bed.

She knew that Santiago would be furious if he found her there and, as the girl began with, ‘Don’t worry,
Papá
has gone to the hospital to see Uncle Ramon,’ it was pretty obvious that the child had been warned not to visit.

She was saved from having to shoo the child away by the arrival of Josef, who came with one of the rehydration drinks that the doctor had instructed she take through the evening.

He left taking a reluctant Gabby with him.

The next morning Lucy was feeling better and would have welcomed a visit from Gabby to stop her replaying every conversation she had ever had with Santiago in her head
over and over. She had improved on many of her responses and never made others.

When he arrived she was able to assure the doctor that she had spent a comfortable night; there were some things you didn’t tell anyone, even your doctor, and the dreams that she had woken from hot, sweaty and shaking the previous night came under that heading!

After a medical twenty questions he pronounced himself happy for her to go home if she managed a light lunch with no ill effects.

Lucy would have loved to have explored the fascinating building, but she reluctantly passed on the opportunity, keeping to her room to avoid the possibility of running into Santiago, and he did not seek her out—not that she had expected him to. He might have been avoiding her, but it was equally likely that he had forgotten she was there. With this self-pitying reflection she made herself consume a portion of the light lunch that was served on a silver tray.

Another night in this place was not an option.

‘I feel so bad about Lucy.’

His brother looked like death warmed up and in deference to his weakened condition he had not brought up the subject uppermost in his mind, but now that Ramon himself had introduced it Santiago found himself unable to hold back.

‘For God’s sake, Ramon, I know you’re bewitched by the woman and I admit she is … compelling … but—’

Ramon waved the hand attached to an intravenous drip. ‘But I’m not sleeping with her.’

He saw his brother’s expression of disbelief and gave a weak smile.

‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, I would if I could, or rather if
she
would. She isn’t interested in me. I found out about you warning her off and I … The truth is I’m fed up of you trying
to run my life. For God’s sake, Santiago, how am I meant to learn from my mistakes if you never let me make any?

‘I knew you’d got it into your head that poor Lucy is some sort of dangerous femme fatale and I wanted to …’ he took a deep breath, there were some advantages to being at death’s door—his brother couldn’t hit him ‘… teach you a lesson.’ He waited for a reaction and when there wasn’t one added crankily, ‘For God’s sake, say something. I’m dying here.’

‘You’re not sleeping with her?’ If Ramon was not, then he … Santiago’s chest swelled as he released a deep sigh. ‘Good.’

‘That’s it—good?’

Santiago’s lips curved into a slow smile as he bared his white teeth and confirmed softly, ‘Very good.’

Very good that he no longer had to feel jealous of his own brother. That he no longer had to rationalise his determination to keep Ramon out of Lucy’s bed and finally that he no longer had to pretend that Lucy’s bed wasn’t exactly where he, Santiago, wanted to be.

What was not good about the anticipation of enjoying sex with a beautiful, experienced woman? He would satisfy this hunger and get Lucy Fitzgerald out of his system.

A few hours later, staying that extra night was looking like a real possibility. Drumming her fingers on the table top in the small salon she had been seated in to wait for transport, Lucy glanced at her watch.

She was deciding to give it half an hour before she took matters into her own hands and called a taxi when the door opened. She half rose and then sat down heavily, the eager expression on her face fading to one of almost comic horror.

‘I didn’t expect to see you still here.’ Santiago stood there looking down, arrogance and hauteur etched in every angle and plane of his incredible face. ‘I thought nothing short of
a natural disaster would keep you here a second longer …’ That and Josef, who could always be relied on to rise to the occasion. The man, he decided, deserved a raise. He’d said do not let her leave but Josef was more subtle.

Lucy flushed and got to her feet. ‘I’m still waiting for the car,’ she explained in a small stiff voice. ‘Josef said it won’t be long.’ That had been two hours ago.

He elevated a sardonic brow.

‘I’m sorry if I’ve overstayed my welcome …’ She walked towards the door, back ramrod stiff. ‘Sit down.’ He sighed.

Responding to the pressure of the hand on her shoulder, Lucy sank back down into her seat, her breathing coming quicker as she combated the electrical tingle caused by the light contact.

His eyes brushed her face and for a brief moment she saw something in his dark hooded stare that made her stomach lurch, then it was gone—if it had ever been there …? Lucy had started to mistrust her own senses when she was around him.

She concentrated on not panting—pretty much a giveaway as he walked across the room to the bureau, pulling the heavy stopper off a decanter sitting there. He poured a finger of the liquid into a glass and proceeded to toss it off in one swallow, then he reached for the decanter again.

He refilled it before looking directly at her. ‘Is that what I said?’

‘No,’ she conceded, noticing that he looked relaxed … yet those tensed bunched muscles in his neck told a different story. ‘But—’

‘Are you this defensive and prickly with everyone or is it just me?’ He ground the words from between clenched teeth as he covered the bottom of another glass. ‘Do you think I am not capable of saying what I mean?’

She thought of saying she didn’t drink spirits, but decided the stuff might be of some medicinal benefit so after a pause she took the glass he held out to her. She nodded graciously before she held it to her nose and breathed in the fragrance.

‘I’m sure you’re totally capable of …’ She stopped, losing her train of thought as her gaze met his. A comment from a deeply in lust acquaintance popped into her head: ‘God, I can’t look at him without thinking how incredible he’d be in bed.’

At the time Lucy had struggled to imagine what that would be like.

‘I’m … cautious with people,’ she blurted, drawing his curious stare to her face.

She lowered her eyes but continued to watch him over the rim of the glass, thinking,
Not cautious enough with you
.

She should, she realised, have run in the opposite direction the moment she saw this man. Instead she had spent her time inventing reasons to be around him, telling herself she was a victim of circumstance, when in reality she had been a victim of her libido.

So just add me to the list of women that have made fools of themselves to catch the eye of Santiago
.

Cautious
struck him as an interesting choice of word and one that he would never have applied to someone who seemed to act first, think later.

She had lectured him on parenting, stolen a valuable horse without thinking and now, it turned out, been part of a conspiracy to teach him a lesson. ‘So I’m not special.’

If only, she thought as he shrugged off his jacket and draped it around the back of a chair. His innate elegance as always sent a shimmy of sensation down her spine. Her fascination with him—with everything about him—showed no sign of diminishing. If anything it became stronger. He was
like an addictive drug in her bloodstream.
Look but don’t inhale, Lucy
, she told herself,
and never, ever touch!

Lucy followed him with her eyes while he loosed the tie he wore around his neck; she had never imagined she could get pleasure just from looking at a man.

‘I was just catching up with my emails,’ she said, nodding to the machine on the table, adding, ‘Josef said it would be all right. Harriet doesn’t have internet access, and I was hoping to see you,’ she lied.

‘I’m flattered.’ He selected a chair, pulled it a little closer to her and lowered his long lean frame into it with another display of riveting fluid grace.

‘I was hoping you had news of Ramon.’ As their eyes met Lucy had the horrid feeling he could see right through her lie; she felt terrible because she actually hadn’t thought of Ramon once this evening.

‘Second best again.’ He sighed. ‘You know how to put a man in his place.’

The prospect of becoming Lucy’s lover excited him as nothing had in a very long time. She challenged him and not just with her incredible looks. She was the most stunningly beautiful creature he had ever seen, but he had discovered that Lucy had an intellect to match her beauty. All that and the woman ate him up with her hungry eyes … She literally trembled with lust when their hands brushed. All the bloody restraint he had been displaying was killing him.

His concentration was shot to hell; he couldn’t focus on anything; in short he had lost his edge and the cure for his problems was within tantalising reach. He blinked to clear the image of her, magnificent and naked, straddling him, flashing through his head. Lost his edge …? Hell, at times it felt as if he had lost his mind!

While she was obviously not the two-dimensional scarlet woman the media had painted her, she clearly had a past, but
then who didn’t? He did not require every woman he took to bed to be a blameless virgin. In fact had such a female existed such attributes would have immediately put her offlimits, not to mention bored him senseless.

The last thing Santiago was looking for at this stage in his life was a woman who had been waiting for the ‘right man’; he was nobody’s right man.

He had tried denying the existence of this strong attraction—it hadn’t worked. He had tried waiting for it to pass—it hadn’t. That just left working through it … the third was by far the most attractive option.

‘I’ve had an interesting conversation with Ramon.’

Lucy tensed at the seemingly casual comment. Her guilty conscience was making her jumpy—if Ramon had come clean about their fake romance, Santiago would have come in here breathing fire and retribution.

The knowledge made her relax slightly.

‘How is he?’ she asked, matching his casual tone as she sat back in her seat, leaning her elbows on the wooden arms of the chair.

‘They are discharging him at the weekend.’

Her relief was genuine. ‘Great!’

‘So you can take up where you left off with the big romance.’

‘I wouldn’t call it a big romance … exactly …’ she muttered, dodging his gaze and taking another gulp of the brandy—too much too fast. She choked as it hit the back of her throat and settled in a warm glow in the pit of her stomach.

‘No? What would you call it?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ she admitted, sidestepping the issue.

Santiago laced his fingers and, resting his chin on the bridge they made, smiled at her. ‘Try.’ His voice was not smiling; neither were the eyes fixed like lasers on her face.

She slung him an irritated glance, compressed her lips and
crossed one ankle over the other. ‘We’re not in a long-term relationship, all right?’ she snapped without looking at him.

‘And have you ever been—with anyone?’

‘The odds are not exactly stacked in favour of lasting relationships, are they?’ The sad fact did not stop her being a ridiculous optimist and believing that there was someone out there for everyone, just sometimes they missed one another.

The reply would only have displeased a man who was looking for long term and he wasn’t. ‘So you are not looking for anything permanent.’ All good, he told himself.

Show me a woman who says she isn’t and I’ll show you a liar
, she thought. ‘Permanent requires making concessions and I’m not good at that.’

‘So you don’t believe that there is someone out there who will complete you … a soul mate …?’

Was that what his pretty wife had been, his soul mate?

Lucy lifted her gaze, bright smile in place the moment their eyes meshed. Her smile guttered as she searched his face and her eyes widened.

‘You know.’

‘Know what?’

The display of fake ignorance drew a growl from Lucy.

‘Ah,’ he drawled. ‘You are referring to the fact you haven’t actually slept with my brother, that there is no steamy affair.’

In retrospect Santiago could see that he should have guessed the truth sooner, and would have had his judgement not been clouded by sexual jealousy. He had watched them together, seen them flirt and fought a desire to rip them apart. If he’d been thinking straight he might have seen past the window dressing to the lack of chemistry.

Her chin went up. ‘Not yet.’

‘Not ever!’

He acted with bewildering speed and zero warning. One minute he was lounging in the chair several safe feet away,
the next he was right there, pulling her out of her chair and drawing her body up against his hard, lean front.

She opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing when he took her face between his big hands, framing it with his fingers, resting his thumbs in the angle of her jaw as he tipped her face up to his.

The rampant wild hunger in his glowing eyes drew a raw whimper from her aching throat.

His eyes were like a dark flame as they moved across her face. ‘You’re so beautiful.’ His powerful chest lifted in a silent sigh as he shook his head in an attitude of disbelief. ‘I keep looking for a flaw but there isn’t one.’