Santiago's Command (15 page)

‘I am not your friend and I am the man you should be thanking. If one is going to be knocked out cold in a public place I think it is always far less humiliating if the person striking the blow is a man, not a woman …’ His austere expression melded into a tender smile that took Lucy’s breath away as it was directed at her.

‘Yes, I know,
querida
, that you can handle it, but I think possibly he does not. And a man likes to feel needed.’ He felt her tremble and pulled her in closer to his side, fitting her curves into his angles. His voice dropped to a low threatening rumble as he pitched the addition for the other man’s ears only. ‘If you do not close your filthy mouth I will close it for you.’

‘You can’t talk to me like that,’ he blustered. Pale except for the twin spots of colour on his fleshy cheeks, Denis’s face glistened unhealthily with a layer of sweat.

Santiago arched a sardonic brow. ‘But as you see I can. To clarify matters, because I have no wish to continue this conversation any longer than necessary, that is not a threat or even a promise, but simply a fact.’

He turned from the older man, who was opening and closing his mouth like a fish coming up for air, and turned to Lucy, his manner altering again dramatically.

‘The private jet is on standby. We have, I think, a wedding to go to …’ He nodded towards the unhappy-looking woman and said curtly, ‘Madam, you have my sympathy.’ Before, a hand in the small of her back, he guided Lucy away.

‘Good girl,’ he said without looking at her, adding as she began to turn her head, ‘Don’t look back.’ For the first time in a long time Santiago wasn’t. His eyes were fixed firmly on the future. ‘Just smile.’

‘I wasn’t going to look back and I don’t feel like smiling.’ She felt like throwing up.

‘Well, you should feel like smiling. You just faced your private demon and spat in his face. You came out on top, Lucy.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I did, didn’t I? Where are we going?’

‘Pay attention, Lucy … private jet?’

‘But you weren’t serious?’ It had been a nice touch and she was grateful that he had played along. ‘What I don’t understand is how you got to be here just when you did.’

‘I’d like to claim psychic powers but actually it was luck and of course a few speeding fines.’

He stopped, turning her around to face him. ‘Why do you think I’m here, Lucy?’ he asked quietly.

Her heart skipped several beats as the rest of the room, the noise, the crowds, all vanished. There was just Santiago and his warm wonderful smile, his expressive eyes saying things that she could not allow herself to believe.

‘Don’t look at me like that.’

Santiago rolled his eyes. ‘Are they handing out double firsts to idiots at Cambridge these days? For an intelligent woman, Lucy Fitzgerald, you can be monumentally stupid at times.’ His hands tightened around her forearms and the mockery faded from his eyes. ‘You’re shaking like a leaf.’ He swore through clenched teeth and gritted savagely, ‘I knew I should have throttled the little bastard.’

She flickered a look up through her lashes at his clenched profile. ‘It’s not him, it’s you.’

Santiago swung back to her, a look of shock stamped on his dark features. Frowning, he hooked a finger under her chin, drawing her face up to him.

She was too shell-shocked to think of a lie. ‘You make me shake when you touch me.’ She winced, half expecting to see his eyes light up with sardonic mockery. They did light up—they blazed, but with a male predatory satisfaction that sent her sensitive stomach into a dive. ‘I can’t help … Ouch!’ she yelped as a passer-by slammed a heavy case into the backs of her knees.

‘Sorry!’

Santiago snarled something rude under his breath and sent a murderous glare towards the retreating figure.

‘Calm down, it was an accident and no harm done. I’m fine.’

Santiago’s dark expression softened into a rueful smile as his glance settled on her upturned face. ‘I am not,’ he admitted. ‘This place, it is impossible …’ He stopped, shook his head and, taking her hand in his, said firmly, ‘We will continue this conversation when we are in the air.’

‘There is really a plane on standby?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does that mean you are coming to the wedding with me?’

‘Am I still invited?’

She struggled against a smile as she imagined the reactions of her family, who had been trying to hook her up with a man for years. They might just break out into spontaneous applause. ‘Oh, yes, you are still invited.’

‘Then what are you waiting for? It is considered bad manners to arrive late and upstage the bride.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that. Miranda is beautiful,’ Lucy delivered,
breathless as she trotted to keep up with Santiago’s long-legged stride.

The comment drew a laugh from Santiago. ‘And you of course are speaking as someone who is a little homely and plain.’ At his most dry, he shook his head. ‘Taking humility a little too far. Lucy, you are the most beautiful woman in any room at any time.’

The tribute made Lucy stumble and cast an uncertain look at Santiago’s lean, autocratic profile. ‘I doubt if Gianni would think so.’

‘I think so,’ he ground out forcefully.

Opening the door to the VIP area, he stood to one side and captured her wide sapphire gaze as she walked past him like a sleepwalker. Helpless to fight the knife thrust of sexual hunger, Santiago shot out an arm just as she had entered the room, then, pulling her back towards him and standing in the doorway, planted a the kiss on her parted lips so hard it bent her body in a graceful back arch.

Then as if nothing had happened he pulled her upright. Her world was spinning, people were staring, and who could blame them? Santiago was straightening his tie as though he had not just ravished her in public … Shaking off the daze, she touched her lips, feeling well and truly ravished but also indignant that he had made such a public spectacle of her.

‘Please do not distract me, Lucy, we are on the clock here.’

Lucy’s jaw hit her chest. ‘Me distract
you
—’ she began, but he was dragging her in his wake and she had a struggle catching her breath, let alone talking.

As soon as the jet lifted off Santiago unclipped his seat belt and stretched his long legs in front of him.

‘Now, that conversation we put on hold.’

Lucy regarded him, her sapphire stare steady but wary. She tugged at the open neck of her shirt … Santiago anywhere
made her feel breathless. In the confined space of the admittedly luxurious aircraft cabin his brooding presence was pretty much overwhelming.

‘Why did you not wait for me? I asked for fifteen minutes.’

‘I assumed …’

He arched a sardonic brow. ‘You assumed?’

‘I assumed there was no point. I didn’t think you meant it … I thought …’ She threw up her hands in frustration and ran her tongue across the outline of her dry lips. ‘There didn’t seem much point waiting when you were obviously going to say no.’

‘Obviously.’

The sarcastic drawl brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘Well, how was I to know?’

‘Possibly by doing me the courtesy of waiting.’

‘All right, I’m sorry I didn’t wait but I didn’t think you’d say yes.’

‘Then why did you ask me?’

Her eyes fell from his. ‘Family weddings when you’re an almost-thirty-year-old woman who doesn’t have a partner can be pretty dire, people looking sympathetic or worse, trying to get you off with their nephew or brother or recently divorced best friend.’ The lie came easier because it was essentially true even though it had nothing whatever to do with her reason for asking him.

‘So you invited me to stop you looking like a sad loser? You really know how to make a man feel special, Lucy,’ he drawled.

She lowered her gaze and sucked in a deep breath, looking at her fingers clenching and unclenching in her lap. ‘All right, I invited you because it’s what you do if you have a boyfriend …’ Even saying it made her feel ridiculous. She left a space for his laugh and when it didn’t come she added, ‘I know you’re not my boyfriend but we do have …’
Sex, all
we have is sex. You’re making a fool of yourself, Lucy
. But he was here—that had to mean something … didn’t it? ‘I suppose I wanted more.’

‘So do I.’

Her eyes flew to his handsome face. ‘You want more?’ she repeated, feeling her way cautiously. ‘More sex or …?’

‘I have no problem with more sex,’ he conceded with a flash of his hard wolfish grin that sent a corresponding stab of lust humming through her body. ‘However that is not what I meant.’ He looked serious now. His muscular shoulders lifted in a shrug but his grave eyes remained fixed on her face. ‘This surprises you?’

‘Yes, I thought … It always seemed that you avoided being seen in public with me. I mean, I know my reputation is pretty toxic and—’ Her voice broke and she bit her lip. ‘So it is pretty understandable.’

Santiago had sat there, his body tense, his face set in a mask as he listened, fighting the urge to interrupt, but the little crack in her voice snapped his restraint.

‘Por Dios!’
He surged to his feet, looking even taller and more commanding than normal in the limited confines of the luxurious cabin. ‘Yes, I did avoid taking you out.’ The admission made her wince. ‘But it was not shame that made me avoid public places …’ He shook his head, his expression reflecting his disbelief that she could think such a thing as he dropped into the seat beside her. ‘Not shame, just selfishness. The time we had together was so limited. You spent more time with the damned donkeys than me. When we were together I did not want to share you with other people.’

Shaken as much by the raw intensity spilling from him as what he had said, Lucy, who had been bright red as he spoke, was deathly pale as she stared at him, her wide blue eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

Unable to fight the need to touch her any longer, he turned
in his seat, drawing her hands into his lap. Turning them over, he rubbed his thumb across the small calluses on her palms. The light contact sent the muscles low in her pelvis into quivering spasms.

‘You walk into a room and you light it up.’ The husky throb of his voice made her tremble. ‘People are drawn to you—your warmth, your beauty, your genuine interest in them.
Por Dios
, ashamed?’ He gave a raw laugh, the pretence of control gone as he stared into her face. ‘I know that when you are beside me I am the envy of all men.’

Tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes and she sniffed, dragging her hand from his to dab them, pushing the tendrils of hair back from her face and tucking them behind her ears with trembling fingers.

‘I am not an easy man to live with …’

He was asking her to live with him!

‘But you are a strong woman.’

‘Is that a polite way of saying stubborn and hard-headed?’

‘It is a way of saying not like Magdalena.’

Lucy swallowed at the blunt pronouncement, her eyes filling. She felt the raw pain reflected in his tortured expression in the depths of her soul.

‘And you won’t let me get away with bullying you.’

Unable to bear the self-loathing in his voice, Lucy laid a finger on his lips. ‘Please don’t say such things,’ she begged. ‘I hate it and it’s not true. Magdalena had problems that were not of your making and her death was an accident,’ she told him fiercely. ‘A cruel random act of fate.’

She could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe her. He would always, she realised, carry the guilt, though with time and maybe with help from someone … The well of love inside her rose up so intense that she could hardly breathe—she wanted to be that someone there for him.

Santiago’s chest swelled as he looked into the fierce blue
eyes raised to his. They swam with tears she struggled to hold back as he framed her beautiful face with his big hands.

‘Did you really think I would ever let you leave me?’

The emotion in his voice made the fist of longing lodged in her chest grow heavier. She had never known that love could feel like a physical thing … that it was even possible to love someone so much it hurt.

‘I would be a madman and, besides, Gabby would never forgive me. She is already imagining the impression you will make on the other girls when you arrive on parents’ night.’

‘Oh, God, I’m sorry!’ Being in a relationship that extended outside the bedroom was one thing, but she could only imagine how the commitment-phobic Santiago would have reacted to his daughter marrying him off.

His brow furrowed. The way Lucy’s mind worked remained a mystery he doubted he would ever solve. ‘Sorry?’

‘I’ll have a word with her if it helps. Young girls often fantasise.’ Older girls, too.

‘You think it fantastical that my daughter thinks of you as a mother?’ he asked, sounding strange.

Lucy struggled to read his expression. ‘I think it’s lovely of her,’ she admitted huskily. ‘And I’d like to be a friend to her but—look, I know this is none of my business, but maybe—’

‘None of your business? Of course it is your business!’ He slapped his hand down hard on his chest and gritted, ‘I am your business. And Gabby, she has friends, she has a father—she needs a mother. I was hoping to be able to tell her that she will have one …?’

It took a few seconds for her to register what he had said. Lucy went ice cold. ‘Is that a proposal?’

Outrage made her voice quiver and shake. Not the response he had anticipated or hoped for.

‘Is that a no?’

‘You’re asking me to marry you to give your daughter a mother! Too right it’s a no!’ she yelled back, furious, because with the cold-blooded proposal he had trampled all over her precious dreams. ‘When I marry I want a man who—’ She bit her trembling lip and scrunched her eyes closed, forcing tears from the corners. ‘I want a marriage that gives me more than a ring. I’d prefer a fling than a cosmetic, convenient arrangement.’

‘Fling! What are you talking about? I’m not asking you to marry me because of Gabby. I’m asking you to marry me because I love you!’ he bellowed.

Her eyes flew open. Paper pale, she dabbed the stray tears from her cheeks. ‘You love me?’ she whispered, thinking if volume was any indicator he did. She was amazed no one had come running to see what was happening but she assumed they had been instructed to leave them alone. She didn’t imagine many people who worked for Santiago ignored his instructions.