Santiago's Command (4 page)

She let her voice trail away significantly and had the satisfaction of seeing a muscle along his hard jaw clench. She lifted her chin, turning a deaf ear to the voice in her head that
was screaming warnings about playing with fire. Instead of lowering the temperature she raised it several degrees, responding to the anger she saw reflected back at her in the dark surface of his eyes with a slow ‘cat got the cream’ smile.

The guiding hand that then slid to her elbow was not this time light, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of reacting to the biting, bone-crushing grip of his fingers. With Ramon walking on the other side of her, he steered her towards the sweep of stairs that led to the massive porticoed entrance.

Feeling more frogmarched than guided, she lifted the ankle-length hem of her skirt as gracefully as she could and took the first step up.

It’s never too late to run
.

T
HE
door pushed wider and a figure appeared at the top of the stairs. For a moment Lucy thought it was a child, then as she stepped into a shaft of light thrown by one of the spotlights that illuminated the building Lucy realised it was actually a young woman.

She was petite and wand slim, her slender curves almost hidden by the long black fine-knit silk sweater teamed with black leggings she wore. Not a look many could have pulled off, but this girl did!

Ramon, with an exclamation of welcome, pushed past Lucy. ‘Carmella!’

As she watched the two embrace Lucy was very aware of dark eyes watching her like the hawk Santiago reminded her of—it wasn’t just the nose and the hauteur, but the predatory ruthlessness. She schooled her expression into serene neutrality and considered the situation objectively—or as objectively as was possible when your body was humming with an uncomfortable combination of antagonism and a heart-pounding awareness that made her skin prickle. The wretched man set every nerve ending in her body on edge. She longed to put some distance between herself and the weird electrical charge-negative he exuded. God, even her scalp was tingling!

Presumably the presence of the tiny creature with the
slow dark eyes and slender graceful body had been invited as the competition. She was definitely a dramatic contrast, the more so because the young woman wore flat leather pumps as opposed to Lucy’s four-inch spiky heels!

Coming level with the younger woman, Lucy immediately felt big, blowsy and clumsy next to this delicate creature who emerged from Ramon’s embrace looking flustered.

‘Lucy, this is Carmella—she’s like the little sister I never had. What are you doing here, Melly?’

The girl looked towards Santiago, who said smoothly, ‘Does there have to be a reason?’

Conscious of the hand on her elbow, Lucy performed the move she had been mentally rehearsing. It went flawlessly. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ She tossed a look of sparkling insincerity up at the man whose foot she had just ground with four inches of spiky heel. It had to have hurt, but other than a grunt of shocked pain he had sucked it up like a real tough guy.

Santiago acknowledged her apology with a slight tip of his dark head and a white wolfish grin that carried a promise of retribution.

Conscious of a fizz of excitement in place of the more appropriate trepidation, Lucy lowered her gaze.

‘I’m so clumsy,’ she trilled.

Clumsy! A laugh locked in the back of his throat, Santiago sucked in a sharp breath through flared nostrils. The last thing in the world anyone would use to describe this woman would be
clumsy
. Her every move was imbued with a sinuous, sensual, seductive grace. Yes, she might represent everything he loathed and despised, but even with the overkill of hip swinging she was the epitome of grace.

After a struggle Lucy broke her gaze free of his dark, compelling, almost hypnotic stare and, reckless excitement still humming through her body, turned with a smile to the girl.

‘Hello, Carmella.’ From the way the little brunette was looking at Ramon it seemed doubtful that she felt very sisterly towards him. Poor girl, she was clearly crazy about Ramon and his brother could not be unaware of the fact, yet it hadn’t stopped him using her to provide a distraction. He obviously didn’t care whose feelings he trampled so long as he got what he wanted. Lucy’s blood boiled when she thought of all the casualties he must have left in his wake.

Ramon was right: it was about time someone gave him a taste of his own medicine.

‘Carmella is a ballet dancer,’ Ramon said, switching to English as the two broke off their conversation.

‘Back row of the corps de ballet,’ the girl corrected, looking embarrassed by the accolade.

The conversation had taken them through a hallway of epic cavernous proportions. This place was not what anyone would term cosy, but it was impressive. Had the circumstances been different she would have been bombarding her host with questions about the history of this fantastic building.

‘How interesting,’ she said, meaning it. She had had ballet classes herself until it became obvious that she was not built on the right scale.

Santiago, who had been speaking in a softly spoken aside to a dark-suited individual who had silently materialised, murmured, ‘Thank you, Josef,’ before turning back to them. ‘It appears our meal is ready. So, what do you do, Lucy?’

Caught off guard by the addition, Lucy blinked. It took her a second to recover her poise and resist the compulsion to say, ‘Live off impressionable boys.’ Lucy didn’t know how she managed to suppress the words hovering on the tip of her tongue.

‘I manage to keep busy.’

‘And you’re staying at the resort hotel? I just love the spa there,’ Carmella enthused.

‘Isn’t that where you usually get your dinner dates, Ramon?’ Lucy teased, forgetting for one moment her role. ‘Actually, I’m staying with a friend.’ She broke off and swallowed a gasp. The room they had entered had the dimensions of a baronial hall complete with tapestries that were probably priceless on the stone walls; all that was missing was someone playing a lute in the minstrels’ gallery. The candles on the table, heavy with silver and gleaming crystal, had been lit. A person would need a megaphone to speak to a person sitting at the far end of the table.

‘How … cosy,’ she murmured sarcastically.

‘Friend?’ Santiago angled his question towards his brother, not Lucy, pulling out a chair for Lucy at the table and ensuring that several feet of antique oak separated her from Ramon. Not that he would have been surprised if the woman had slithered across the surface to latch onto her prey.

An image flashed into his head of her lying across the table in a silvery pool of her own hair, the slinky red dress pulled up to reveal her long legs, one arm lifted in supplication. He froze the frame before it progressed and deleted it, but not before his temperature had risen by several degrees.

Three pairs of eyes swivelled his way as he cleared his throat; he turned his head sharply to block out the blue. ‘What friend?’

‘Harriet Harris,’ Ramon supplied.

His brother’s expression was openly sceptical as he turned to Lucy, looking at her accusingly from dark brows that had formed an interrogative straight line.

‘The Cambridge don …?’

She would have been amused by the proof of his snobbish prejudice had her normally lively sense of humour survived the trauma of the evening.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said, thinking,
Sorry for stepping out of the box you’ve put me into
. Her scorn increased. Presumably in his world she and women like Harriet occupied separate universes.

‘How do you come to know Harriet Harris?’

‘She was my personal tutor when I was at Cambridge.’

She had the satisfaction of seeing shock he could not conceal chase across his lean features. ‘You were a Cambridge student?’

She nodded, still smiling, counted to ten, but she was unable to hide the growing antagonism that revealed itself in the sparkle in her electric-blue eyes.

‘You graduated?’

He sounded as though discovering that Martians had landed was a lot more probable. At that moment Lucy, who habitually played down her intellect—bad enough being head and shoulders above your contemporaries at school without being a swot—would have happily shoved her certificates down his throat if she had them to hand.

Ramon saved her from replying to this continued interrogation. ‘She came to the rescue to help Harriet.’

‘To the rescue once again,’ he drawled, drawing a puzzled look from his brother. ‘From what does Harriet need rescuing?’ The local community had initially been wary of the Englishwoman who had moved here two years ago. She was still considered eccentric for her alarming multicoloured hair and her devotion to the donkeys she provided a sanctuary for, but she had endeared herself by learning the language and integrating with the local community.

‘She’s broken her leg.’

‘Dios!’
he exclaimed, displaying what, had it been anyone else, Lucy would have considered concern. In his case she attributed his reaction to a pathological need to be in
charge. The man was a total control freak. ‘Why did I not know of this?’

Yes, a control freak of epic proportions!

‘And why did Anton not inform me?’

Lucy didn’t have a clue who Anton was but he had her sympathy. God, working for Santiago Silva would be like working for some feudal warlord … Of course, a very good-looking feudal warlord, she conceded, her eyes drifting over the length of his long greyhound-sleek, lean, hard body and one with very good hygiene—the scent of the cologne he used mingled with warm male showed a tendency to linger in her nostrils. She gave her head a tiny shake and looked away.

‘Is she in hospital?’

His manager dealt with the everyday burden of the estate but Santiago was not an anonymous landlord. He made it his business to know all his tenants and took an active interest in the village, just as his father had done. He took the responsibility that came with his role here seriously and he got a lot from it.

When you worked in finance it was easy to lose sight of the human face behind the columns of clinical figures, but here he saw firsthand how decisions made in a boardroom could affect people’s lives. This was not to say he didn’t get a buzz from what he did, but the estate and the people who lived and worked on it kept him grounded.

Duty
might be an unfashionable word but it was deeply ingrained in Santiago. Even so, the early days had not been easy. When still grieving for his father he had found himself expected to step into his shoes—and they were big shoes to fill. He’d been living with Magdalena in the city when his father died. She had been really supportive and it had seemed natural to ask her to move with him to the
castillo
. He had not anticipated she would take the request for a marriage proposal but after the initial shock he had thought why not?
It would happen eventually. Now he recognised that it might very well not have happened, that had things been different they would have eventually drifted apart.

‘Only for a day. She’s at home now. And don’t blame Anton—when he left for his cousin’s wedding I think maybe I told him I’d tell you when you got back,’ Ramon admitted with a rueful grin.

One sable brow lifted. ‘Maybe?’

‘All right, I said I would, but no harm done,’ he added cheerfully. ‘Lucy is helping Harriet until she gets back on her feet.’

Santiago’s glance slid from his brother to the woman sitting to his left. Was Ramon joking? Did his brother seriously think this woman would do anything that risked chipping her nail varnish? His glance slid automatically to the hand that held the goblet, though she appeared not to have touched the wine it held.

His sneer faded as he registered the fingers curved lightly around the stem. They were long and shapely but the pearly nails were neither long nor painted; they were trimmed short and unvarnished. With a tiny shake of his head he dismissed the incongruity. Short nails did not make her any the less useless when it came to manual labour, and donkeys might be appealing to look at, but they were high-maintenance animals, not to mention deserving of their stubborn reputation.

‘She couldn’t be in better hands,’ Ramon continued.

The words brought an image of his half-brother enjoying the ministrations of those hands, except it wasn’t his brother he was seeing … Santiago stiffened. ‘I doubt very much if Miss Fitzgerald—’

‘Oh, that’s so formal. Please call me Lucy.’ Maintaining the saccharine sweet smile was making her facial muscles ache.

Santiago, who could think of several things he’d like to call her, smiled back.

As their eyes connected black on bright cornflower-blue, clashed and remained sealed Lucy was seized by a determination not to be, on principle, the first one to look away. The effort of following through with her childish self-imposed endurance race brought a faint sheen of moisture to her skin. In the distance she was vaguely aware of Ramon and Carmella’s voices as they laughed and chatted, the sound softer than the sound of the blood that pounded in her ears.

On the other side of the table Ramon knocked over a glass. The sound as the crystal hit the floor was like a pistol shot. It was hard to say which one of them looked away first but all that mattered to Lucy was that the accident had splintered the growing tension. A silent sigh left her parted lips as Lucy squeezed her eyes closed, just glad that she had broken that nerve-shredding contact.

‘Speak English …’ She heard Santiago reproach the young couple who were exchanging laughing comments in Spanish. ‘Lucy will be feeling excluded.’

As if that wasn’t the idea, Lucy thought, opening her eyes and switching to her less than perfect Spanish as she said, ‘No problem. I need the practice.’

She saw a spasm of annoyance move across his face as he turned his accusing stare her way. ‘You speak Spanish?’

Assuming his irritation stemmed from the fact blonde trollops in his world were not allowed to speak any language but avarice, she chose to reply in English.

‘A little.’

‘More than a little. She also speaks French, Italian, German, and … Gaelic …?’ inserted Ramon from across the table.

Lucy nodded, impressed that he had remembered.

‘Not just a pretty face and perfect body …’ he added, with his eyes trained on her bosom. ‘She has brains, too … Do I know how to pick them or do I know how to pick them?’
He smiled sunnily at his brother, inviting his admiration before rising from his chair to give access to the maid who had come to remove the broken glass.

‘Quite the linguist.’

‘My family is quite … cosmopolitan.’ A massive understatement—the Fitzgerald clan was spread across the globe. ‘Actually Ramon is being kind. My Spanish really is pretty basic,’ she admitted in a burst of honesty, forgetting for a moment that her character did not do self-deprecating or honest.

She almost immediately retrieved the situation and invited his anger by dropping her voice a sexy octave. ‘I’m hoping to improve my vocabulary considerably during my stay.’ She produced a close approximation of the look she had used to sell everything from shampoo to insurance as she looked at Ramon from under the sweep of her fluttering lashes, feeling just as silly now as she had back then when the photographers had asked her to smoulder.