Santiago's Command (5 page)

‘And Ramon is such a good teacher.’

It wasn’t just the open provocation, it was the fact that he was not immune to the effects of her husky purr that fanned his smouldering anger into full-blown flames.

Her glance swivelled sideways in response to the sound of a cut-glass goblet coming down with a crash on the table. Catching the edge of Santiago’s thunderous glare, she thought,
You haven’t lost it, Lucy
.

‘So are you,
querida.’
Across the table Ramon picked up the cue, fixed his eyes on her bosom and added throatily, ‘I’m learning a lot from you.’

For a moment Lucy was in danger of slipping out of character. She bit her quivering lower lip and brought her eyelids down to hide the laughter sparkling in her eyes. Ramon was getting into his role a little too enthusiastically. If he didn’t watch himself his brother was going to smell a rat. She somehow doubted he’d see the funny side.

Was there a funny side?

She reached for her glass and drained the contents. If anyone noticed her burning cheeks she could blame the alcohol, for heartless seductresses did not blush.

‘It’s always a pleasure to teach a willing pupil.’

Worried that this might be over the top, too, she slid a surreptitious glance towards the man sitting beside her. He was totally still … still as in ‘a volcano about to explode’ still. She needn’t have worried, he seemed only too happy to believe she was a total trollop.

‘So do you have a big family, Lucy?’

Lucy smiled. Carmella seemed blissfully ignorant of the undercurrents swirling around the table. ‘Vast. I have nine siblings—my father had three wives.’ Her own mother was his last.

‘Presumably not all at once.’

Lucy clenched her teeth and bridled at the amused contempt in Santiago’s voice. The man was the most smug, self-satisfied creep she had ever met. Plan or no plan, while she was willing to stomach his insults and digs when she was the target she would not tolerate him insulting her family, who had rallied around protectively when she’d needed them.

It was true that when he was alive Lucy had had her share of disagreements with her father, culminating in the massive argument that had ended with her leaving home rather than follow the course in life he had chosen for her.

Determined to show she could make it alone, Lucy had started modelling, her intention being to make enough to fund her degree. She hadn’t anticipated for one moment that she would have the sort of incredible success she had enjoyed … though actually the world of modelling had never been one she enjoyed, however much she’d loved the freedom making that sort of money gave her.

It still did. Her father had been right about one thing—she
had inherited his financial acumen, though not the buzz he spoke of that came when you had nailed a deal. The investments she had made at the time had weathered the global downturn and enabled her to live comfortably off the income.

The thing that mattered was that when she had needed him her dad had been there, as had all her family, and she wasn’t about to sit by and let this man look down his nose at them.

‘And do you share your father’s attitude to marriage?’

‘According to my mother I’m very like him.’ She shrugged and, dropping her role of seductress, added with quiet dignity, ‘I can’t see it myself, but I really hope I share both my parents’ values.’

Did he look taken aback by her reply? It would seem she had imagined it because when he replied it was with that now familiar nasty smile that made her fingers itch with an uncharacteristic desire to slap his smug face.

‘I’m sure they are both proud of you.’

Clearly there was more to Lucy Fitzgerald than met the eye. He’d been so confident removing her from Ramon’s life would be easy that he hadn’t even bothered spending five minutes researching the details of the scandal—a fundamental error. His mistake was that he’d been treating this problem differently from those he encountered in his business dealings—he’d made the error of letting it become personal.

If she had weaknesses beyond greed, he would discover them, though of course it was inevitable that greed would be her downfall.

He suddenly saw the headline under a photo of her shielding her eyes from flashes as a man helped her into a blacked-out limo, and experienced a eureka moment.

‘Your father is Patrick Fitzgerald!’

The accusation drew a grunt of amazement from Ramon, who forgot his besotted act as he stared at his brother. ‘You
didn’t know?’ He suddenly grinned and taunted, ‘I thought you knew everything.’

‘Who is Patrick Fitzgerald?’ Carmella asked.

Ramon laughed. ‘Melly doesn’t read books, do you, angel? Just celebrity magazines.’

The girl kicked him under the table and he laughed, snatching away her plate that held a bread roll, teasing, ‘Careful, you might put on an ounce looking at it. Seriously, Lucy’s dad had a finger in many pies—he was a bit of a legend actually—but he was about the most powerful publisher on the planet … He was—’ He glanced towards Lucy.

‘My dad died last year,’ she explained to Carmella. ‘He’d been retired for a while.’

Santiago continued to feel annoyed with himself for not making the connection sooner. He had not met the man, but Ramon was right—in financial circles he had been pretty much a legend, a man who had started the publishing house that had become the biggest and most successful in the world and still remained in the hands of the same family today.

He felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for Fitzgerald, who had been known to guard his privacy jealously. It must have been hell for him to see his daughter publicly humiliated and her sordid secrets shared with the world, and of course it was always the parents’ fault—a universally accepted premise that every parent was conscious of.

Santiago had lost count of the sleepless nights he had spent second-guessing his parenting decisions and Gabriella was not even in her teens yet. As a man who could afford to indulge his own child, Santiago knew only too well the pitfalls that were out there for a father who did not want his love of his child to ruin her.

If the results were anything to go by, Patrick Fitzgerald had fallen into every pitfall there was. If the man had still been around he might have rung him to ask him how he
brought up his daughter so that he could do the exact opposite.

God knew what motivated a woman like Lucy Fitzgerald, but apparently it wasn’t money after all. His eyes drifted in her direction just as the maid who had been making a discreet exit with her dustpan paused by Lucy’s chair.

‘Oh, I am so sorry, miss … your lovely dress. I’ll …’

Lucy glanced without interest at the splash of blood stains on her dress and rose to her feet. ‘Forget the dress—your hand!’ She removed the dustpan from the girl’s hand, put it down on her seat and took the injured hand in her own. ‘Your poor hand.’

She grabbed a clean napkin from the table and pressed it to the small laceration still oozing a little blood on the girl’s palm.

‘No, miss, I’m fine, just clumsy.’

‘You’re not fine …’

Santiago found himself the focus of an accusing icy blue stare that could not have been more condemning had he taken a knife and cut the girl himself.

‘It must have hurt like mad and she didn’t say a word.’ The girl’s silence was obviously a symptom of an atmosphere of oppression in the workplace, she decided.

She turned back to the girl, the frost in her eyes warming to concern. ‘Look … sorry, I don’t know your name?’

‘Sabina.’

‘Well, Sabina, I think your hand needs cleaning—there might be some shreds of glass in it—and it needs dressing.’

The girl looked confused and Lucy turned to her fellow diners with an expression of exasperation. ‘Will someone help me out here?’ Her Spanish did not stretch to a translation.

It was Santiago who reacted first. Pushing aside his chair, he moved across to the timid-looking maid and spoke to her
in Spanish. Lucy listened, unable to follow the rapid flow of words, noticing how different his voice sounded when he spoke to the girl, how kind and gentle.

Whatever he said made the girl smile and look less terrified. Across the table Ramon added something that drew a weak laugh from her.

Lucy was still holding the napkin to the wound but the girl was staring with starry-eyed devotion up at Santiago. Lucy bit her lip and looked away. Was there a female on the planet who didn’t think he walked on water? She thought,
Am I the only person who sees him for what he is?

‘You can let go now, Miss Fitzgerald.’

Lucy started as the sound of Santiago’s deep voice jolted her out of her brooding reverie.

‘Josef will take over from here.’

‘What? Oh, yes, of course.’ She nodded to the sober suited solemn-faced man standing at her side and removed her hand from the makeshift dressing. ‘You need to apply pressure.’

‘Josef is more than capable, Miss Fitzgerald.’ Santiago’s dismissive glance swept across her face before he turned back to the girl, his manner changing as he spoke to her softly before she was led from the room by the older man.

‘Perhaps you would like to clean up, Miss Fitzgerald?’

She glanced down to hide her hot cheeks, mortified as her body reacted with dramatic tingling awareness to the critical clinical stare directed at the smears of blood on the upper slopes of her breasts.

She could see his point, a little blood could go a long way and the smears did look awful.

‘And obviously you will send me a bill for the cleaning.’

Actually he was just realising that nothing about this woman was obvious.

She had had an expensive dress ruined and, obviously, spoilt, self-absorbed materialist that she was, there should
have been tantrums. But no, what did she do? Go all Mother Teresa on him! And he’d seen her face—her concern was either genuine or she was the best actress he had ever seen.

So maybe she was not all bad, but her redemption was not his business. Saving his brother was.

For Lucy the faint sneer in his voice was the last straw. She could almost hear the sound of her control snapping as she turned on him, eyes blazing, bosom heaving.

‘I can pay my own bills. Do you think I give a damn about the dress? I …’ She stopped, horrified to feel the prick of tears behind her eyelids. ‘I’ll go wash up!’ she blurted, making a dash for the door.

O
UTSIDE
the room Lucy had composed herself enough to ask for directions to the bathroom when she was approached by a staff member in the bewildering baronial hallway.

In the decadently appointed bathroom she had been directed to, Lucy stood with her hands under the running water, waiting for the desire to cry her eyes out to subside.

Finally feeling marginally more composed, she looked at her reflection in the mirror above the marble washbasin. The lighting above it emphasised the waxy pallor of her oval face; she didn’t even have her bag with her to make running repairs to her make-up.

With a deep troubled sigh she set about sponging the smears of blood from her skin and clothes.

Reluctant to leave the marble lined sanctuary, Lucy stood with her back against the cool wall. She shook her head, still totally bewildered. She had no idea what had been going on in there, didn’t have a clue why she had blown up that way.

Her efforts to analyse what had happened and why were hindered by the fact that every time she felt an answer to the puzzle was in reach, the image of his dark face and sleek body rose in her head, effectively blanking everything else.

What is your problem Lucy?
He was
meant
to think she cared more about dresses than people, that had been the idea, so why had she reacted that way?

She had no idea how long she had been standing there before there was a tentative tap on the door. It was followed by a voice calling her name.

‘I just wondered—are you all right, Lucy?’

Lucy straightened her shoulders, took a deep sustaining breath and opened the door. An anxious-looking Ramon, who was standing directly behind it, took a step back.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, forcing a smile as she emerged. ‘Sorry about that but I’ve never liked the sight of even a speck of blood.’ She stopped and shook her head and looked at him with eyes dark with emotion. ‘I’m fine with blood, Ramon, but not your brother. I can’t do this … over the years I’ve developed a thick skin but somehow he manages … I’m tired of being judged,’ she finished with a weary sigh.

Ramon shook his head and looked remorseful as he enfolded her in a comforting bear hug. ‘God, no, it’s me. I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. It’s my problem, not yours, and to be honest I wasn’t expecting Santiago to be quite so …’ His hands slid down her arms and stayed there.

Standing in the loose circle of his arms, Lucy gave a shrug. ‘And you thought I could take it? I thought so, too,’ she admitted. ‘I really don’t care what your brother thinks of me,’ she hastened to assure Ramon. ‘But this stopped being my idea of a fun evening when he started making snide remarks about my family.’

‘I understand,’ Ramon said.

Lucy was wondering a little uneasily about the inflection in his voice when he reached out and touched her forehead. ‘God, you’re going to have a bruise there,’ he said, touching the discoloured area that was developing on her forehead. ‘You really took a bang.’

Santiago stood in the minstrels’ gallery, his unblinking stare trained on the couple below, tension vibrating in every taut
fibre of his lean body as he listened to the buzz of their soft voices, unable to make out the words, but you didn’t need words to see the intimacy in the way they stood close together.

When his brother touched her face tenderly he turned, biting back a harsh gasp as he felt something kick hard and low in his belly.

‘I’ll try and stay in character,’ Lucy promised Ramon. ‘But after tonight that’s it.’

She returned to the dining room with some trepidation, but the rest of meal passed relatively uneventfully. Their host showed little inclination to make conversation other than a few passing asides to Carmella, which should have been a good thing but turned out not to be.

Lucy was painfully conscious of his eyes following her and spent the entire meal waiting for him to pounce, so tense that every bone in her body ached with it.

And of course she did what she always did when she was nervous: she babbled like an idiot until the sound of her own bright chattering voice was giving even her a headache. Afterwards she didn’t have a clue what she had been talking about, which was probably a good thing.

Santiago excused himself before coffee was served and Lucy used his absence to make her own hurried exit. Outside, it was a beautiful night. She released a long sigh and breathed in the fresh night air almost dizzy with relief that the ordeal was over.

Just behind her she was conscious of Ramon pausing to speak to the man who had emerged from the house but the effort of translating what they were saying was beyond her.

She was struggling to think anything beyond the fact that she was escaping from this place and that hateful man; she wanted to forget the entire evening had ever happened.

And she would—tomorrow she would go back to doing what she had actually come here to do. God knew why she had ever got involved. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been insulted before, but she had never lowered herself to her persecutor’s level; she had always maintained her silence and the moral high ground.

Anyway this was not her battle, it was Ramon’s. If he had issues with his brother he could sort them out himself. ‘Wait in the car.’

Lucy automatically extended a hand to catch the keys he threw her. ‘What?’

‘Phone call. It’s urgent and no one can find Santiago. I’ll be back in a minute,’ Ramon promised, following the sober-suited man back indoors.

No one knows where he is
. She glanced back at the building; golden light spilled from the windows making her think of eyes watching her.

‘Seriously paranoid, Lucy.’ Her laugh had a hollow sound as she turned her back on the building, unable to shake the feeling that the man they couldn’t find was in one of those windows watching her.

She shivered and told herself it was the chill in the evening air. Despite this she did not follow Ramon’s suggestion and take shelter in the car. Instead Lucy wandered away from the brooding presence of the sombre fortified house.

She had walked some way across the manicured lawn when she found herself drawn towards the sound of water and discovered, not the pond she had expected, but a river.

She walked out onto the wooden bridge and, leaning her arms on the rail, gazed down into the dark water. Her expression was pensive as her thoughts drifted, the memories of the evening revolving in her head. If not the worst night of her life, it had been right up there.

On the plus side—her brow puckered as she struggled
to come up with one, other than the fact the night was over and if she ever saw Santiago Silva again she would leg it in the opposite direction. She was hanging up her scarlet-woman hat.

Trailing a hand towards the water, she leaned farther over the rail, following a leaf caught on the current, running to the opposite side as it disappeared from view to follow its progress.

Santiago, who had followed her from outside the house, watched as she leaned forward. The lust that lay coiled in his belly morphed into alarm as she leaned so far over the rail that she appeared in danger of toppling in. This woman seemed oddly drawn to water and bridges.

‘If you’re planning on jumping in don’t expect me to leap in and save you.’

Lucy started as if shot, took a hasty step backwards and found herself staring at Santiago. He was looking mean, moody and, if she was honest, totally magnificent in the moonlight.

She took a deep breath and lifted her chin as he stepped onto the bridge.

‘Relax, I don’t need saving. I’m not on the lookout for a white knight.’ Which was just as well as he definitely did not meet the criteria … all that dark brooding stuff made him far more likely to be the bad boy.

‘That wasn’t an offer.’

‘And it so happens I swim like a fish.’ She felt no guilt for playing up her ability.

‘Just as well, given your affinity for water. I keep finding you knee deep.’

She extended a leg, displaying a dry and slightly muddied shoe. ‘I wasn’t paddling, but I’m a Pisces so maybe that’s it, and I wasn’t going to jump.’

‘No …?’

‘You sound disappointed.’

His grin flashed and faded as his dark glance slid down her body. Lucy was disgusted with herself for being unable to control the flash of heat that engulfed her body. Dear God, all the man had to do was look at her and she started acting like some sort of hormonal teenager.

‘If I throw you into the water will you sprout a tail and swim away?’ It was true, she did look like a particularly sultry mermaid in that dress with the cloud of silvery hair, a siren capable of luring men to their deaths.

And her intended victim was Ramon. His brother’s life might not be in danger but his heart was, and he would save Ramon from this woman’s clutches by whatever means possible.

And if money was not a lure he would have to think of something that was … and if it required that he used himself as bait it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

You’re a saint, Santiago
, admired the sardonic voice in his head.

Lucy inhaled and straightened her shoulders. Her fingers tightened on the wooden rail, her defiant pose perilously fragile as he walked towards her. It was utterly mystifying how a man as big as him could move so silently, like some big jungle cat stalking his prey.

The analogy sent a shiver sliding down her spine as she watched him approach, the golden-toned skin of his throat and face very dark in contrast to the dazzling white of his shirt.

You didn’t have to like the man to be utterly riveted by the way he moved and nobody could fail to be aware—in an objective way—of the aura of raw, earthy sensuality he exuded.

Lucy bit her lip and felt her shaky composure develop a few more cracks as he paused, his hand on the rail, a few feet away from her. She looked at his fingers only inches away
from her own and tightened her grip, easing her hand back surreptitiously. She had a nasty feeling that if he touched her even lightly those cracks she was aware of would split wide apart.

‘Do I make you nervous, Lucy?’ he asked, staring at the blue veined pulse point that was throbbing at the base of her throat.

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

When he responded to the breathless accusation with a slow smile that said he knew exactly how his presence made her feel, her heart hammered against her ribs. She found herself hating him more than ever. It was weird but she had never felt this sort of violent animosity towards anyone, not even Denis Mulville, who had made her a hate figure out of sheer spite.

‘Do you always lurk like that?’ She pressed a hand to her breastbone, hating the fact she still sounded breathless because, yes, he made her nervous … not excited, because that would be stupid.

‘I’m not lurking. It is my habit to take a walk before I go to bed.’

‘Then don’t let me stop you.’

‘From walking or going to bed?’

‘You followed me, didn’t you …?’ Lucy felt pretty stupid for not seeing the obvious and smelling a set up. ‘You planned …’ she moved her hands in an expressive fluttering motion and fixed him with a blue accusing glare ‘… this.’

‘Such piercing insight,’ he drawled, drawing a hissing sound of rage from between her clenched teeth. ‘I did warn you what would happen if you came near my family.’

‘So how is Gabby?’

‘Back in school.’ Gabby had assumed the day-early return was part of her punishment and Santiago had seen no reason to disabuse her of this notion. At least she was safely
out of reach, though he doubted that his daughter would have found the scent of this woman’s perfume quite so disturbing.

Sure, Santiago, you’re so ‘disturbed’ that you can’t think above the waist. Admit it like a man—you want her so bad you can taste it
.

‘Lucy’s changed her mind—she’s coming!’ had been the words that had greeted him on his return that morning, making it pretty conclusive that his threats had backfired big time and Lucy Fitzgerald had lost no time calling his bluff—only he didn’t bluff, as she would find out.

‘I thought we could have a private little talk …’ Not this little talk—Santiago was annoyed with himself for losing focus.

‘We don’t have anything to talk about and, for the record, I don’t like being played. How did you know—’ She stopped, feeling stupid. ‘There wasn’t an important call, was there?’

‘Of course there was a call … and I imagine it will take a good thirty minutes.’

‘Imagine or know!’

He met her angry glare with a lazy, insolent smile. ‘What’s the problem, Lucy—you can dish it out but can’t take it?’

Her chin went up at the challenge. ‘Dish it out?’ she echoed, her blue gaze falling from his. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she denied, thinking,
He knows …
The realisation that he had seen through their act was, she realised, almost a relief. She expelled a long sigh—no more pouting! With all the sexy stuff she hadn’t felt like herself all evening—’herself’ being cool, blonde and in control.

This evening she’d been blonde and continually on the edge of losing any semblance of control. This man pressed all her buttons and made her feel the victim’s rage she had thought she had conquered long ago.

She felt a twang of guilt, which turned into pity for Ramon—she could not imagine his brother seeing this as a bit of harmless fun.

‘I am presuming that the overacting this evening was for my benefit?’ An image of her stroking his brother’s arm, a relatively innocent action if it had been anyone but this woman, drifted into his head and he snarled, ‘Ever heard of subtlety?’

Lucy’s head lifted and she read the contempt and anger etched in the sculpted lines of his hard-boned face.

‘I presume this was to drive up the price.’

Her eyes widened—so he didn’t know.

He saw her reaction and gave a thin smile. ‘Another language you speak fluently … money.’

It occurred to Lucy as she sucked in a breath that she had played her part a bit too well—he was looking at her with a level of loathing that she struggled to be objective about.

‘And did it work?’ she wondered, hiding the stab of irrational hurt that threatened to make her well up behind her amused smile. The opinion of a self-righteous jerk, she reminded herself, was no reason to feel bad. In fact the time to worry was when a man like him started approving of you.