Santiago's Command (12 page)

Reaching out to touch the curve of her cheek, he felt her shiver. A woman had never responded to him the way she did. Smiling, he shook his head. ‘Sleep with …’ He stopped, a look of startled realisation spreading across his face as he caught her drift.

His hand fell away. ‘I have never had to pay for sex, Lucy,’ he said, not sure if he was insulted or amused by her comment.

‘I’m not saying you would have to—obviously you could have anyone you wanted.’

Right now he wanted her—right now.

‘I just thought you might … I read this story once when after the hero’s girlfriend died he only slept with prostitutes
because that way he didn’t think he was being unfaithful to her memory … and I’m babbling, aren’t I?’

Her comments had inadvertently made him think of the expensive parting gifts his secretary gift-wrapped at the end of a relationship, gifts that had not been unappreciated even though the recipients, women successful in their own right, had all been more than capable of buying their own jewels.

Did Lucy have a point?

‘I am not looking for anything permanent, Lucy.’

Her eyes widened. ‘God, no, of course not. I never thought that … you … I … that this was …’

‘Come here and I will show you what I mean.’

There was nothing even faintly cold about the smouldering glow in his eyes. Lucy stopped talking with relief and gazed at him. ‘Oh, yes, please!’

A week later there had been no diary comparing but a lot of sex, although the previous night had been the first time she had stayed over. Not because he had asked her to stay but because she had fallen asleep and woken at five.

It had taken all her willpower to resist Santiago’s very persuasive argument to stay longer, but she had and he had not looked at all happy when she had dragged on her clothes and rushed back to the
finca
, dropping a hasty kiss on his lean cheek as she’d left.

She wasn’t sure why it seemed so important to her for Harriet not to know she had spent the night; it wasn’t as if she were ashamed. After all, having casual sex was not a crime and the older woman was no prude. And Harriet had to have known something was going on with Santiago because, it didn’t matter how discreet you were, in a small community like this there were no secrets.

Even so the older woman had not brought up the subject. Perhaps she’d been waiting for her to do so? Lucy mused.
But what was she meant to say? She was not in a committed relationship. She could not talk about Santiago and say ‘we’; they were not a couple. She had assumed that they were exclusive for the duration of the affair but it had not, she realised, been spelt out.

Should she bring up the subject? she wondered as she walked across the yard to the stable block. The idea of Santiago even thinking about other women while he was with her made her feel sick to the stomach … The thought that he could be with another woman and then come to her … Hand extended towards the stable door, she froze and closed her eyes, shuddering through a wave of intense nausea as her hand closed into a white-knuckled fist that left the imprint of her neatly trimmed nails in the skin of her palm.

The nausea was real; happily the knife she felt plunging in her chest was not … though, God, did it hurt! Lucy lifted her chin. She hardly recognised the emotions she was feeling … Hell, she hardly recognised herself. She took a deep breath and stepped into the shadowy coolness of the stable. She would, she decided, bring the subject up when she saw him.

The intention was forgotten the moment she heard the plaintive cry. She ran down to the end stall. The animal lying there in some distress bore little resemblance to the one some sixth sense had made her fetch in the previous evening from the pasture. Though she was not due, the heavily pregnant jenny had obviously gone into labour early and even to Lucy’s inexpert eye it looked as if things were not going well.

Lucy dropped down beside the animal, making soothing noises and feeling totally useless as she made a cursory examination of the animal before she ran back into the house to ring for the vet. She struggled to maintain her calm in the face of the reply she received from the man’s wife.

‘So when are you expecting him back?’

Lucy, tapping her feet impatiently, gritted her teeth when
the answer proved frustratingly vague. Explaining the situation again, she asked that the vet call back as soon as possible.

‘Whenever that might be,’ she muttered to herself as she set the receiver down. Her hand lifted to her hair, sliding her fingers into the silky mesh. God, what was she meant to do next? If Harriet had been there … but Harriet wasn’t there. A neighbour had taken her for her physio appointment and she wasn’t due back for another hour at least.

An hour could be too long, Lucy thought …

She had punched Santiago’s private mobile number into the phone before she had even consciously registered what she was doing.

‘I don’t know why I’m ringing—you’re probably busy and—’

The pleasure Santiago felt at the sound of her husky musical voice—he had never imagined that a woman’s voice could give him so much pleasure—was swiftly replaced by anxiety as he registered the uncharacteristic panic in Lucy’s tone.

‘I am not busy,’ he said, closing his laptop as he glanced out at the distant helicopter that was at that moment disgorging suited figures, black blobs in the distance. He had flown them in for the meeting he had already cancelled twice because he was working his schedule around his love … sex life.

The mental correction smoothed the indent between his dark brows. A sex life he could handle; a love life was too high maintenance.

The chemistry between them was so strong that he had been confident that the fire would burn itself out quickly, but if anything it was stronger than it had been. And despite the combustible raw quality of their lust she still managed to make him laugh in bed and, even more amazingly, out of bed, but then Lucy was, as he was discovering, an incredibly
smart woman and unlike the other smart women he knew she seemed remarkably undriven.

Lucy swallowed. ‘I don’t know why I’m ringing you,’ she admitted, ‘but I didn’t know who else and you …’ She stopped, thinking,
Whenever I feel bad or am in trouble your voice will make me feel better …
Was that part of being in love?

Her knees sagged and she sat down heavily. Luckily there was a chair there to break her fall.
Oh, God, Lucy, you idiot!

‘I am glad you did. Now take a deep breath and tell me what is wrong.’

Other than the fact I’ve fallen in love with you?
she thought, before taking the suggested deep breath and laying the facts out in a voice that showed a marked tendency to tremble … Her voice never trembled.

How could she be in love with someone she didn’t even like a lot of the time, someone she had originally hated? Admittedly she’d never been indifferent to him, for Santiago was not a man who inspired indifference. Respect, yes, and admiration; she had seen this with her own eyes. And she admired him, not because he was rich or powerful, but because he was a man who wanted to be a good father, a man who cared for his younger brother, a man who set himself impossibly high standards and all the time there was that deep sadness she sensed in him … Would he always pine for his lost wife and feel responsible?

The tension that had been holding every muscle in his body rigid loosed its vicious grip as Santiago listened.

‘A donkey … this is about a donkey?’ A tidal wave of relief washed over him as he banished the images of Lucy in peril that his fertile imagination had conjured.

The suggestion of laughter in his voice brought an angry sparkle to her eyes. ‘Are you laughing at me?’

‘Not laughing, no … I will be there in less than five minutes.’

Lucy put the dead phone down. As always Santiago was not a man who used two words when one would do, but on this occasion she felt his promise had been optimistic.

She had not allowed for his innovation or his access to expensive toys, she realised as she watched a helicopter put down on a flat area several hundred metres from the
finca
.

Santiago, looking devastatingly handsome, dark and exclusive in a silver-grey suit and dark red silk tie, strode across the meadow to join her.

He did not waste time with small talk.

‘Show me the way.’

Inside the stable Santiago took off his jacket, unclipped his watch and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt to reveal his strong hair-roughened forearms before dropping down in the straw beside the animal.

He ran his hands over the animal, speaking in a soft soothing voice.

‘Her name is Bonnie,’ Lucy supplied.

‘As in Bonnie and Clyde?’

Lucy tipped her head in acknowledgement. ‘You look like you know what you’re doing,’ she said, impressed by the competent way he was gently examining the animal.

He lifted his head and delivered a heart-stopping white grin.

‘I’m all you’ve got so let’s hope so,
querida.’
He had seen horses delivered and had helped himself as a boy, but not for years. ‘I’m assuming a horse is much like a donkey. Lucy, I need some water and soap.’

She nodded and went away, coming back a few moments later with what he had requested. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘I’ll let you know. She’s done all the hard work—she just
needs a little help, don’t you, girl? I think I should be able to free the legs manually.’

Taking this as a request to keep out of his way, she took a few paces back as he stripped off his shirt and plunged his hands and forearms into the bucket of water.

Lucy lowered her eyes and stared at her hands. She needed a manicure, she thought, extending her fingers, but not as much as she needed a little self-control. Her lustful appreciation of his beautifully muscled back was wildly inappropriate considering the circumstances.

‘It’s a boy.’

With a gasp Lucy looked up in time to see the new mother nudge her damp baby and begin to clean him as he staggered to his feet.

Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Oh, that’s so beautiful.’

‘Yes, very beautiful.’

Something in his voice made Lucy turn her head. She discovered that Santiago, who was drying his hands on his very expensive jacket, was looking not at the newborn but at her. She felt the warmth bloom in her cheeks as her tummy went into a deep dive.

She brought her lashes down in a protective sweep to hide the emotions she was struggling to contain. ‘You were brilliant. I’m really grateful.’

He tilted his head. ‘I do my best.’

Santiago’s best was in her experience better than perfect.

‘But actually I did little.’

Other than leave a dozen high-powered executives standing watching as he had jumped into the helicopter they had just vacated and ruin a suit in reaction to her plea for help, said the voice in his head.

‘It was very chivalrous.’

The women who had shared his bed, the ones he told upfront that the only female he altered his schedule or put
himself out for was his daughter, might have called it something else.

Santiago’s acknowledgement stopped short of speculating what word his previous lovers might use to describe his actions.

Lucy watched as he pulled on his shirt. On anyone else she might have described the dark ridges along his high cheekbones as a blush but this was Santiago, she reminded herself, dismissing the idea.

‘I’m just glad I came back this morning when I did,’ she said, her brow puckering as she recalled how close she had come to remaining in bed with Santiago. Where he was concerned her willpower went out of the window.

He stopped fastening his shirt and stared at her. Conscious as he did so of the tight knot of smouldering resentment and dissatisfaction that had lingered in the pit of his belly all morning loosening. ‘So you were concerned about the animal—that is why you would not stay.’ He had never had a woman refuse an invitation to remain in his bed, but it was not bruised ego or sexual frustration that had made him unable to dismiss the incident—he had virtually begged. Santiago knew his dissatisfaction went deeper.

Accepting now that the root of the problem was he no longer wanted casual, hard for him to think let alone say, the question remained: if a fling with Lucy did not satisfy him, what would?

This was uncharted territory for Santiago and he wanted to sort out his own feelings before he shared his thoughts with Lucy—bring it into the open and there was no going back. Others had paid for the mistakes he had made in the past and he would not allow that to happen again.

It’s called scared
, mocked the unsympathetic voice in his head.

On the way to his face Lucy’s eyes travelled over the
golden expanse of his deeply muscled chest. Things deep in her pelvis quivered as she fought the urge to touch his skin. ‘I told you.’

‘Did you?’ he husked, lifting a strand of silver pale hair from her cheek and watching her bewitching blue eyes darken before he bent his head to touch his lips to the exposed curve of her neck.

Lucy shivered and clung, pressing her face into the angle of his shoulder. ‘Yes, I explained.’

‘I couldn’t have been listening. It is possible, I think,’ he slurred against her mouth, ‘that I had my mind elsewhere.’

‘I wanted to stay,’ she admitted as she emerged breathless from a deep, drowning kiss. ‘But I …’

He took a deep breath and pulled back from her. ‘I know you have made a commitment to your friend and I respect that.’ That did not mean it didn’t frustrate the hell out of him. ‘But the situation will not always be this way. When the plaster is off and you are a free agent …’

Lucy’s heart rate escalated. ‘Yes …?’ she prompted.

‘Then we will review the situation.’

The anticlimax was intense … She’d anticipated warm and loving and got a bucket of cold and clinical right in the face, and it was all her own fault for allowing herself to harbour unrealistic expectations because she had fallen for him. That was mad but a fact, and trying to convince herself that he felt the same way would be compounding the insanity.

‘Great, I can hardly wait,’ she flung carelessly over her shoulder as she picked up the bucket and stalked away, head high, hoping to prove that she could do cold and clinical, too.