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‘I thought you wanted to get out of here.’
‘I do—but only…’
‘Only if you can do it legally…’
The mockery in his eyes and his tone was open now. And never before had she wanted so desperately to throw off her careful, conventional personality, cast caution to the wind and just go with what life offered her. Being careful had led to her engagement to Gavin and look where that had landed her. She shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if she hadn’t seen sense…
What life offered her now was the chance to escape with this man, this Diablo. She should grab at it with both hands. But even as she opened her mouth to do just that Carlos had tossed his helmet towards her so that she only just caught it, managing to grab it before it hit the ground at her feet.
‘Here—will that suit, señorita?’
The exasperation in his voice was making her see this situation from his point of view, and with that came a strong sense of the absurd. What must he have thought when he had come speeding down the road and seen her—a vision in white silk and lace, in jewelled slippers that were rapidly approaching the consistency of damp tissue paper? She’d chosen those slippers so that she didn’t tower over Gavin, she recalled. There would be no such need with Carlos—he must be—what—five inches—more?—taller than her five feet eight.
‘But,’ Carlos continued, a hint of amusement lightening his tone, ‘there is no way that helmet is going to fit over that…’ He gestured towards the ornate hairstyle, the veil held in place by a delicate tiara.
‘I know—so please…’
Meeting his eyes was a big mistake. With that new warmth in them, it only threatened to set off her thudding pulse all over again. Her heart kicked so hard in her chest that she felt sure he must see it under the fine silk, the delicate lace. And the rush of heat along her veins meant that her throat had dried painfully and somehow she couldn’t swallow to relieve it.
‘Do—do you think that you could help? Can you unfasten this thing?’
She lifted a hand to tug at the securely pinned veil.
‘What am I—a lady’s maid?’ he muttered, but there was no harshness in his tone. And that disturbing gleam still burned in his eyes as he came closer.
‘Just pull them out—get rid of them. If you can rip my dress to pieces then surely you can deal with some hairpins.’
A sudden shocking thrill shot through her at the thought of Carlos really ripping her dress to pieces, not just tearing off the flared skirt, and she could feel hot colour flood her face in response.
‘Por supuesto… Let me see.’
She didn’t know if it was to hold her still or to soothe her, ease away the nervous mood that was making every muscle taut with impatience, but unexpectedly he lifted a hand to her face. Softly, almost delicately, he cupped her cheek, curving his hard palm over the soft skin as he angled her head to one side, turning it so that it caught the best of what dull grey light there was.
And that action seemed to freeze her where she stood. In a day of shocks, confusion and bewilderment, the effect of that light, gentle touch was the most mind-blowing of all. It was warm and soothing, easing the restless stinging in her nerves and making her feel as if she were melting from the inside out. She wanted to turn her face into his hand, rest her cheek more firmly against his palm and just let the feelings of tension seep away.
She expected that those big hands would fumble with the task before him. That at least he would tug at some of the pins, twisting them free. She knew that she would have done that herself, particularly if she was impatient to have the job done as she sensed that he was. He might have himself carefully under control but there was a tautness in the long powerful body next to hers that communicated the fight he was having to do so. She recognised it from the tension in her own body.
What was it he had said? That he had just taken off, leaving everything behind. Leaving what behind? And where? That accent didn’t belong here on the moors of the north of England. And the tanned olive skin, the polished jet hair marked him out as someone as alien to this landscape as if some sleek, powerful jaguar had suddenly stalked the mist soaked hills. Just the thought made her gasp in reaction.
‘Qué?’
Carlos had caught the tiny indrawn breath, pausing in this task, the deep green eyes going sharply to her face and locking with her widened grey ones.
‘Am I hurting you?’
‘Oh, no. No.’
‘Hurting’ was not the word for what was happening to her. She only knew that all the nerves in her stomach were tangling into tight, uncomfortable knots, and the stinging sense of tension might have ebbed away but only to be replaced by a new hot, tingling sensation, running like electricity over her skin. A yearning that was uncoiling deep inside and that made her want to reach out to this man. Be closer to him. She wanted more of that touch. More of him.
‘I want to get out of here.’
With you. She only dared let the words echo inside her head; too afraid, too unsure to actually let them out into the air. She didn’t know what she would be unleashing if she did.
‘So let’s do this…’
Carlos’s eyes locked with hers, lingering for a darkly revealing moment, before he bent his head again, turned his attention back to the task in hand. And it seemed that with each pin that was eased from her hair, tossed with the tiniest sound of metal hitting tarmac onto the road, something in her mood, her body, her whole life lightened and eased. She felt the knots untangling from her nerves, the tension leaving her muscles so that she could stand taller, straighter, easier. Something of the horror and the pain that had slashed at her soul seeped away, filling her with a new sense of anticipation and hope.
‘So, your wedding—just why did you run out on it? What did this guy do to you?’
She didn’t know if he was asking to distract her from the time it was taking to free her from the veil or because he really wanted to know but because she couldn’t see his face and, more importantly, he couldn’t see hers, she found it surprisingly easy to answer him.
‘Why did I turn round and get out of these as fast as I could, never looking back?’ she asked, trying to bring her chin up in defiance, adopt an I-couldn’t-care-less attitude that she felt might not be fully convincing.
‘You have to admit it’s not the usual way these things go. Normally by this time the bride and groom would be…’
‘Gazing into each other’s eyes as they made their loving vows? So are you feeling sorry for my poor, deserted groom, now that his wife-to-be has run out on him? Well, don’t—he’ll be more than happy having hot, passionate sex with my chief bridesmaid—that is if he hasn’t already exhausted himself shagging her on the bed we were supposed to have shared tonight.’
‘The bastard did that?’
A blazing sense of outrage was like a wildfire in Carlos’s voice and his hands tightened in her hair, twisting sharply so that she caught back a cry of pain. But in the same moment that she felt the small discomfort in her scalp, she also knew a sudden rush of relief mixed with a surprising bubble of unexpected delight. He cared enough to be angry at what Gavin had done. His outrage was like a balm to the wounds she’d carried with her from the Hall. Some of them at least.
‘I walked in on him—on them—while they were hard at it. I walked out again pretty damn fast,’ she added with brittle flippancy. ‘I don’t think they saw me—they were… totally absorbed. I managed to get out of the place without anyone seeing me and after that I just ran and never looked back.’
Until she had reached the road across the moor and, too tired and too cold and miserable to go any further in her stupid wedding finery, she had stopped on the verge and tried to hitch a ride.
She wasn’t going to tell him the rest. She couldn’t yet even bear to look at those other words for herself and take in just what Gavin had said. She hadn’t even been a woman to him—not a real person, just a source of a future income.
‘I’d like to deal with this snake. No man should treat a woman that way. You should let me take you back there.’
‘And do what?’ Martha challenged, finding the disgust in his voice almost too much to bear. ‘Storm into the Hall, all guns blazing, and challenge him to a duel? No, thanks! That way everyone would know exactly why I’d pulled out of the wedding—just how badly humiliated I’d been—instead of just thinking I’d got cold feet at the last moment.’
A raw, bitter laugh bubbled up in her throat, almost choking her. She’d had pretty cold feet by the time he’d found her. She could swear that it was only now that they were fully thawed out.
‘Which actually was the truth. And I’d much rather that Gavin think that I’d walked out on him before I found out how he’d been spending the hours before our wedding. He’ll never know for sure whether I caught him with his pants down or not—’
And would never have the cruel satisfaction of knowing that she’d heard herself described as someone he would have to lie back and think of the money when he slept with her.
‘That’s definitely the way I prefer it. Besides I can fight my own battles, thank you. I’ve been doing it for long enough.’
‘How so? What about your family?’
‘I don’t have one. I never knew my father—he ran out on my mother as soon as he knew she was pregnant, so it was always just the two of us. Three years ago, Mum was diagnosed with liver cancer—she died last summer.’
And it had been in the aftermath of that loss that on an uncharacteristic impulse she had bought the winning lottery ticket that had changed her future. If only she could have done that earlier so that she could have made her mother’s last months more comfortable. If only she hadn’t spent those years isolated as her mother’s carer so that she had no experience of life and men that might have helped her realise just what Gavin was up to, see past the pretty lies he told her.
‘I’m sorry.’
His words were kind, as was his tone, but Martha still found that they made her tense in nervous apprehension. If he made a move towards her, if he touched her, perhaps tried to take her into his arms to express his sympathy, then she would shatter, go to pieces, and she had no idea how she would ever put herself back together again.
But perhaps something of her mood communicated itself to the man at her side. The sympathy she’d feared—dreaded—didn’t come. Instead Carlos tossed one last pin away, completed his task and straightened up. The tiara dangled from one set of strong fingers, the veil clenched in the other hand. He held them out to her.
‘There.’
With the new sensations buzzing inside her it felt almost as if she had been set free, released from something that was more than just the restrictions of the wedding finery. She’d hit the lowest point just hours before. And if that was the lowest point in her life then surely the only way was up.
‘Now I can move on—leave it all behind me. You know, I’m not running away but going forward—getting away from what would have been a terrible mistake, starting again.’
She moved forward to take hold of them. But the new lightening of her mood pushed her feet further than she had anticipated, the lift in her spirits making her almost dance towards him. And suddenly she was on tiptoe, leaning forwards, reaching up to plant an impulsive kiss on the lean plane of his cheek.
‘Thank you!’
And that was when everything changed. When it seemed as if the world stood still, the countryside freezing around her in the same moment that her breath stopped in her lungs. The birds in the trees stopped singing, the wind stilled in the branches, dropping into sudden silence. The skin of his face was cold and damp against her mouth, the taste of his skin suddenly intense and smoky against her tongue. She was frozen where she stood, looking up into his eyes so that she saw the sudden darkness in them, the way that the irises had expanded until there was only the tiniest line of deep green at the rim.
She read what was coming in those eyes. Read it and welcomed it, her heart kicking sharply against her ribcage as she held her breath. She didn’t have to wait long. His arms came round her, warm and tight, strong as steel bands, lifting her even further off the tarmac and crushing her firmly against the powerful toned shape of his chest. His head came down fast, his mouth coming over her own, hot and hard, demanding and powerful. Her lips were crushed, parting slightly on a gasp of shocked response as she gave herself up to the pressure of that kiss.
She had never known anything like it, she recognised hazily, struggling to bring her thoughts under any sort of control. Never experienced a kiss—or a response—like this at any other time in her life. She had kissed, of course. Kissed and been kissed, but it had never been anything like this. And the caresses she had exchanged with Gavin had been like tepid water when compared with this deluge of red-hot lava swamping her, taking her control, her senses and her ability to think at all rationally with it. Her heart was pounding, her head whirling.
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