About the Author

KIM LAWRENCE was encouraged by her husband to write when the unsocial hours of nursing didn’t look attractive! He told her she could do anything she set her mind to, so Kim tried her hand at writing. Always a keen Mills & Boon reader, it seemed natural for her to write a romance novel – now she can’t imagine doing anything else. She is a keen gardener and cook and enjoys running on the beach with her Jack Russell. Kim lives in Wales.

Santiago’s Command

Kim Lawrence

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-408-97439-1

SANTIAGO’S COMMAND

© 2012 Kim Lawrence

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

‘LUCY Fitzgerald …?’

Santiago, who had been half listening to his brother’s enthusiastic description of the latest woman who was ‘the one’, lifted his head, the indent above his narrowed eyes deepening as he tried to place the name that seemed for some reason strangely familiar.

‘Do I know her?’

At the question his half-brother, who had gone to stand in front of the large gilded mirror above the room’s impressive fireplace, laughed. He took one last complacent look at his reflection, ran a hand over the dark hair he wore collar length and turned back to his brother with a white grin. ‘Oh, if you’d met Lucy you wouldn’t have forgotten,’ he promised confidently. ‘You’ll love her, Santiago.’

‘Not as much as you love you, little brother.’

Ramon, who, unable to resist the lure of his reflection, had swivelled his gaze to cast a critical look at his profile, dragged a hand over his carefully groomed stubble before responding to the jibe with a joking retort: ‘You can always improve upon perfection.’

In reality, Ramon was philosophical that, effort or not, perfect profile or not, he was never going to have what his charismatic brother had and wasted. If not criminal, it was at the very least bad manners to Ramon’s way of thinking to not even appear to notice the women who seemed more than willing to overlook his brother’s imperfect profile—the slight bump in his nose was a permanent reminder of Santiago’s rugby-playing days—as they sought to attract his attention by any, some not exactly subtle, means.

He angled his speculative gaze at the older man seated behind the massive mahogany desk. Despite the fact he wasted opportunities, his brother was no monk, but he was equally by no stretch of the imagination a player.

‘Will you ever marry again, do you think?’ Ramon regretted the unconsidered words the moment they left his lips. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to …’ He gave an awkward shrug. It had been eight years since Magdalena had died and even though he’d been a kid at the time himself Ramon could still remember how awful the dead look in his brother’s eyes had been. Even now a careless mention of Magdalena’s name could bring it back. Not that he didn’t have a constant reminder: little Gabriella was the spitting image of her mother.

Feeling sympathy for Ramon’s obvious discomfort, Santiago pushed away the sense of crushing failure and guilt any thought of his dead wife always evoked and made himself smile.

‘So this Lucy is making you think of marriage …?’ he asked, changing the subject, fully anticipating his brother’s horrified denial. ‘She must be special,’ he drawled.

‘She is …’

Santiago’s brows lifted at the vehemence in his brother’s response.

‘Very special. Marriage …?’ A thunderstruck expression crossed Ramon’s face before he directed a challenging look at his brother and added, ‘Why not?’ Ramon said, looking almost as shocked to hear himself say the words as Santiago felt hearing them.

Repressing a groan and taking comfort from the shock, Santiago struggled not to react to the challenge.

‘Why not?’ he drawled, struggling to keep the bite out of his voice as he added, ‘Let me see … you’re twenty-three and you’ve known this girl how long?’

‘You were twenty-one when you got married.’

Santiago’s dark lashes came down in a concealing mesh as he thought, And look how well that worked out.

Aware that too much opposition would just make his brother dig his heels in, Santiago gave an offhand shrug. Ramon’s enthusiasms frequently cooled as quickly as they surfaced.

‘Maybe I should meet this Lucy …?’

The beginnings of a belligerent gleam faded from his easy-going brother’s eyes. ‘You’ll love her, Santiago, you’ll see, you won’t be able to help yourself. She’s perfect! Totally perfect, a …’ He moved his hands in an expressive curving sweep and gave a sigh. ‘A goddess.’

Santiago raised an amused brow at the reverent declaration and, grimacing slightly, ran his thumb down the pile of correspondence designated personal that had been awaiting him on his return.

‘If you say so.’ His thoughts moving on, he picked up the top envelope and got to his feet, stretching the kinks from his spine as he walked around the big mahogany desk.

‘You know I’ve never met anyone like her before.’

‘This Lucy sounds … exceptional.’ Santiago, who had never encountered a woman who was either perfect or a goddess, humoured Ramon.

‘So you’ve no objection?’

‘Bring her to dinner on Friday?’

‘Seriously? Here?’

Santiago nodded absently as he scrolled down the page he held, squinting to read the neat but microscopic tightly packed writing on it. The message it held was familiar: Ramon, his mother said, had messed up and what, she wanted to know, was he going to do about it?

His head lifted. ‘You didn’t mention you have to retake your second year.’ A fact that his stepmother, without actually saying so, managed to expertly imply was actually Santiago’s fault.

Maybe, he mused, she had a point?

Had the time come for some tough love? While he wanted his brother to enjoy the freedom he had missed out on after their father’s premature death, had he been guilty of over-compensating and being too indulgent and overprotective?

Ramon shrugged. ‘To be honest, marine biology isn’t really what I was expecting.’

Santiago’s jaw tightened as he scanned the younger man’s face with narrowed eyes. ‘Neither, as I recall, was archaeology or, what was it … ecology …?’

‘Environmental science,’ his brother supplied. ‘Now that, believe me, was—’

‘You’re so bright, I just don’t understand how …’ Santiago interrupted, reining in his frustration with difficulty and asking, ‘Did you actually go to any lectures, Ramon?’

‘A couple … yeah, I know, Santiago, but I’m going to buckle down, really I am. Lucy says—’

‘Lucy?’ He saw his brother’s face and added, ‘The goddess. Sorry, I forgot.’

‘A good education, Lucy says, is something that no one can take away from you.’

Santiago blinked. This Lucy didn’t sound like any of the numerous females his brother had hooked up with to date. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting this Lucy.’ Maybe a good woman, someone who thought education was a good thing, was what his brother needed?

The jury was still out but he decided to keep an open mind.

When on her very first day at the finca Harriet’s car had refused to start Lucy had said no problem and walked the mile into town. There had been a problem—not the distance, but the scorching Andalusian midday sun.

A week later Harriet’s car was still sitting propped up on bricks in the yard, awaiting the part the mechanic had had to order, and the tip of Lucy’s nose was still peeling, though the painful redness had subsided and her complexion had regained its normal pale peaches and cream glow.

Today she had not taken up Harriet’s sensible suggestion of a taxi—she loved to walk—but she had chosen a more appropriate time to make the trip and, arriving early, she had managed to buy everything on Harriet’s shopping list while it was still cool enough to enjoy the walk back through truly incredible scenery, but she was taking no chances. Lucy had plastered on the factor thirty and borrowed a shapeless straw sun hat from Harriet.

It was still only ten-thirty when she reached the footbridge across the stream that bordered Harriet’s property, a single-story terracotta-roofed cottage that had the basics and not much else. It was the four acres of scrubby land that had attracted her friend. On retirement Harriet had decided to live her dream and start, to the amazement of her academic ex-work colleagues, a donkey sanctuary in Spain.

When Lucy had said she thought she was being very brave, her old university tutor had retorted she was simply following the example of her favourite ex-student. Lucy, who was not accustomed to being held up as a role model, had not pointed out that her change of lifestyle had not been one of choice, more of necessity.

On impulse she walked down the grassy bank by the bridge and slipped off her sandals. The first initial touch of the icy water against her hot, dusty skin made her gasp. She laughed with pleasure as she felt her way carefully over the smooth stones, wading out until the water reached her calves.

Pulling off the sun hat, she shook free her ash-blonde hair and, head tipped back to the azure sky, she closed her eyes to shut out the sun and sighed. It was bliss!

With a tightening of his thighs against leather and solid flesh Santiago urged the responsive animal out of the protective shadow of the pine trees where they had paused. His strong-boned features set in an austere, contemplative mask, he patted the animal’s neck as it responded to his light touch and walked forward, hooves silent on the boggy patch of ground as they moved towards the fast-flowing stream.

Now he knew why the name had seemed so familiar.

The disguise of sexy angel was good but not that good, not for someone who possessed a once-seen-never-forgotten quality, and Lucy Fitzgerald definitely did!

She was not dressed in the sharp tailored red suit and spiky heels—four years ago that iconic image had been used again and again by the media—but he had no doubt that this was the same woman who had elicited universal condemnation from a morally outraged public.

She hadn’t said a word to defend herself, but then that had been the idea; a word that broke the gagging injunction would have landed her in jail, a place that Santiago for one would have paid good money to see her end up!

An image of the tear-stained face of the wronged wife in the story drifted into his head, the brave face the woman put on not hiding the emotional devastation that presented a dramatic contrast to the cold composure that Lucy Fitzgerald had displayed under the camera lens.

It had been the sort of story that under normal circumstances Santiago would not have read beyond the first line—but for the timing. The situation of the advertising executive who had resorted to the courts to protect himself from Lucy Fitzgerald had borne an uncanny resemblance to the one he had at the time found himself in, albeit on a lesser scale.

In his case the woman—he barely remembered her name, let alone her face—who had sought to gain financially had been more opportunistic than ruthless, and of course not being married and caring very little what the world thought of him had made him a less vulnerable target than Lucy Fitzgerald’s victim, who, instead of caving in to his mistress’s threat of exposure, had instead sought an injunction to stop her speaking out.

Blackmail was the action of a coward and a woman like Lucy Fitzgerald represented everything Santiago despised. This was why, while the face of his own would-be blackmailer, a woman whom he had never even slept with, had vanished, the composed Madonna-like face that had hidden a dark heart of stone had stuck in his mind—his heavy-lidded glance dropped—as had her body.

You and the rest of the male population!

The silent addition caused his firm, mobile lips to twitch into a self-mocking grimace as his dark gaze continued to slide over the lush curves beneath the simple cotton top and skirt she was wearing. The woman might be poison, but she did have a body that invited, actually demanded, sinful speculation.

Of course she was all too … obvious for his taste, but it was easy now to see why his easily influenced brother had been so smitten, a case of lust not love.

Exert a positive influence!

He choked back a bitter laugh. His uncharacteristic and misguided optimism could not have been more poorly timed. Positive? If Lucy Fitzgerald was even a fraction as bad as her reputation, she was toxic!

Santiago felt a passing stab of nostalgia for the empty-headed, pretty but basically harmless party girls his brother had up to this point needed saving from … not that he had saved him. Up to this point Santiago had not ridden to the rescue, deciding that his brother would learn from experience. This, he reflected soberly, was an entirely different situation; he could not allow his brother to become a victim of this woman.

Had she specifically targeted Ramon?

Santiago, who did not believe in coincidence any more than he believed in fate, considered it likely; he could see how his brother would seem an easy prey to someone like her.

Did Ramon know who she was? Did he know about her history or at least her sanitised version of it where she no doubt became the innocent victim? He had no doubt that she could be very convincing and Ramon was obviously completely bewitched, though why bother raking up your sordid past when your victim had still been a teenager when the story had been big news.

A teenager!

Anger flashed in his deep-set eyes, the fine muscle along his angular jaw quivered and clenched beneath the surface of his golden skin. Not only was she a mercenary, corrupt gold-digger, she was a cradle snatcher. She had to be, what …? Doing the maths in his head, he scowled. Thirty, give or take a year or two?

Though admittedly, he conceded, reining in his mount a few feet from the riverbank, she looked younger, and for once in his life his little brother had not exaggerated. Lucy Fitzgerald was a woman that goddess could legitimately be used to describe. Poison to the core but breathtakingly beautiful, even barefooted and wearing a simple cotton skirt. On anyone else he would have assumed the transparency that revealed the silhouette of her long shapely thighs under direct sunlight was accidental, with this woman he was willing to bet that even her dreams were contrived.

As she remained oblivious to his presence Santiago took the opportunity to study the genuinely goddess-like attributes beneath the thin fabric.

There was plenty to study. She was tall and statuesque with long legs and a figure of iconic hourglass proportions. The woman oozed sex and Santiago felt a stab of annoyance as, independent of his brain, his body reacted with indiscriminate lust to the image.

As he watched she slid a hand under the neck of her top and wriggled to catch the bra strap that had slipped over her shoulder. The innately sexy action made her suddenly less pin-up and more earthily warm, desirable woman—very desirable.

As the sun caught her waist length hair, turning it to spun silver, Santiago realised that if he wanted to save his brother from this witch’s machinations he would have to act swiftly. She was fatally beautiful.

One day Ramon would thank him.

The polished leather of his saddle creaked as he swung his leg over it and leapt lightly to the ground, his booted feet making contact with the stones with a metallic click.

Lucy jumped like a startled deer, instinctive fear showing in her blue eyes as she turned, seeing for a split second the tall, threatening bulk of a male figure outlined against the sun. The correspondingly massive horse beside him was drinking from the stream.

When the man spoke a moment later she had regained control, if not of her banging heart, at least of her expression.

‘Sorry, did I startle you?’

Only half to death, Lucy thought, her eyes widening fractionally in reaction to the sound of his voice. The intruder spoke perfect English. He was not English though, she decided, picking up on the faint foreign inflection in his richly textured voice—a voice that was velvet over gravel.

Low in her belly things shifted slightly in response to the tactile quality in that deep voice. Shading her eyes, she gave a faint smile and moved her head in a negative gesture.

‘I didn’t know anyone … I didn’t hear you.’ She made a conscious effort to erase the frozen mask that her expression had automatically settled into, the same expression that had earned her the ‘ice bitch’ tag. It was a struggle; the defensive action was by now deeply ingrained.

There had been a time when she had been in danger of allowing her experiences to make her hard, cynical and—according to her mother—too scared to live. The worried accusation had shaken Lucy and she had been trying very hard of late not to assume the worst in any given situation.

Caution was another matter and in the circumstances seemed only sensible!

Arm crooked to hold back her hair from her face, she waded towards the riverbank, her gaze fixed on her feet to avoid stumbling on the rocky riverbed.

Reaching dry ground, she climbed the slight incline that brought her level with the stranger and close enough, thanks to the prevailing wind, for her nostrils to twitch in response to the scent of leather and horse. She kept her distant smile in place and tilted her head up to look at him.

It was a lot of tilting. He was extremely tall; broad of shoulder, narrow of hip and long of leg. She had an impression of power, raw and elemental. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes and her smile faded as, minus the direct dazzle, the man’s face became more than a dark blur.

There was definitely nothing blurred about features that looked as though they had been freshly carved in bronze by the hand of an artist more interested in conveying a masculine ideal than reality. The rider’s face, bisected by an aquiline, masterful nose, was long with a broad, intelligent forehead, strong square jaw and high, dramatically chiselled cheekbones. Her gaze drifted to his mouth and paused. It was wide and sculpted, the upper lip firm, the lower sensually full.

It was all jaw-dropping and deep-intake-of-breath stuff. Aware she had been staring and without the faintest clue of how long she had been standing there with her mouth unattractively open, she closed it with a snap and felt an embarrassed flush wash over her skin, struggling to maintain eye contact with the deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes that returned her gaze.

She was an expert at hiding her feelings, but this man took impenetrable to another level entirely. His obsidian stare was totally unreadable. His eyes were incredible; framed by thick ebony lashes that were long and spiky, they were densely dark and flecked with silver. They made her think of a starlit night sky.

Starlit skies …? She resisted the temptation to roll her eyes and thought, Lucy, girl you need a sugar hit. Sugar was not what her best friend, Sally—never afraid to call a spade a spade—had said she needed when she had told her she was off to Spain.

‘The fact is, Lucy, principles are great and true love is nice and all—but in fairy tales! How about a compromise while you’re waiting for your prince to climb your ivory tower? Enjoy a bit of head-banging sex with a sexy Spaniard. Let’s face it, you won’t be short of offers … God, if I looked like you …’

Lucy, who knew nothing about head-banging sex except that it wasn’t for her, pushed away the memory of the conversation, but not before her glance slid to the sensual contours of the stranger’s mouth. She found herself almost envying her friend’s pragmatic approach to sex as heat flashed through her in a warm squirmy mess. She cleared her throat but it didn’t stop her voice sounding husky and breathless as she said the first thing that came into her head.

‘How did you know I was English?’

The last time she’d experienced this knee-sagging, heart-thudding sensation the cause had been an earthquake that had made the hotel rock and brought a nearby chandelier crashing to the floor! Was this what people called animal magnetism? Well, whatever it was he had it! And the earthy aura of maleness was not something she would choose to be this close to.

The stranger soothed his horse with a casual pat of his hand on the glossy flank and raised a satiric brow as he allowed his gaze to sweep down her tumbling waist-length hair in an unrealistic but eye-catching pale silvery blonde.

In all the pictures Santiago had seen she had worn her hair in a puritanical elegant chignon that had exposed the swanlike curve of her pale throat and the determined angle of her delicate jaw. Her hairstyle changed, he presumed, depending on what part she was playing, and he could see the tumbling pre-Raphaelite curls appealing to his brother … actually appealing to any man.

‘Your colouring is not exactly local …’

His glance moved over the delicate contours of her face. Up close her pale creamy skin had an almost opalescent sheen, the glow of roses on her smooth cheeks not the result of make-up; astonishingly she wore none. Despite her fair colouring her long curling lashes and arched feathery brows were dark. A purist might say her lush, sensuous lips were too full for her delicate features, but even the harshest critic could have found no room for criticism with her eyes. Wide spaced and slightly slanted, they were an astonishing shade of dramatic blue, the electric colour emphasised by the black rim surrounding the iris.

‘Oh …’ Lucy lifted a hand to her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she gave a rueful smile, receiving in response a midnight stare. His expression was still shuttered but she was conscious of inexplicable hostility in his body language.

Was it personal or was he like this with everyone? Feeling increasingly antagonistic—the man’s people skills could definitely do with some work—Lucy forced a smile as she admitted lightly, ‘I suppose I do stick out a little.’

His dark eyes slid the length of her body.

The studied insolence in his stare brought an angry sparkle to her eyes. She fought the impulse to cover herself with her hands. Forget poor people skills—the man’s horse had better manners than him.

‘And you try so hard to fade into the background.’

A choking sound left her throat. ‘Just what is your problem? I’m not trespassing, you know … but you probably are.’ He had the look of someone who did not recognise boundaries.

‘I am trespassing?’ He looked amused by the suggestion. ‘I am Santiago Silva.’

‘Should I curtsy or bow?’ So this was the man who was literally lord of all he surveyed, including the property that Harriet rented. From what her friend had told her, he was ‘a great guy’. Odd—Harriet was normally a pretty good judge of character.

Placing a hand on a hip, oblivious to the sexually provocative style of her pose, she watched as his firm sensual mouth lifted at the corners in a smile that did not touch his hard eyes—they held the warmth of a diamond chip as he returned her stare.

‘I had no idea we had such a famous—or should that be infamous?—visitor to the area, Miss Fitzgerald.’ He saw her flinch and felt a stab of savage satisfaction as he thought, Gotcha!

CHAPTER TWO

A FAMILIAR cold, clammy fist tightened in the pit of Lucy’s stomach as she felt her expression freeze over. She cursed herself for being surprised that anyone would recognise her here in Spain; like they said, it was a small world and, with the advent of social networking, even smaller.

It didn’t matter how many times she told herself that what total strangers chose to think about her was their problem, not hers, it still hurt, and it made her angry that the stares and contemptuous comments had the power to make her want to crawl away into a corner and hide, which according to some was exactly what she had been doing for four years.

Pride enabled her to lift her chin and train her level stare at his face. She was not going to hide any more; she had done nothing wrong. The gagging injunction was long gone; there was no longer anything stopping her telling her side. Nothing but the stubborn conviction that as the innocent victim she shouldn’t have to explain to anyone; after all, the people that mattered had never believed any of the lies that had been printed about her.

‘If I’d known how warm, charming and welcoming the natives were I would have made it here sooner,’ she said, flashing him a smile of saccharine-sweet insincerity and having the satisfaction of seeing his jaw tighten in annoyance.

‘And how long are you thinking of staying?’

‘Why? Are you planning on running me out of town, sheriff?’ she mocked, adopting a mock-Western drawl.

He responded to her levity with another stony stare. On the receiving end, Lucy found the level of his relentless hostility frankly bewildering.

God, does this man need to get a life!

Her story was old news and even if he believed she was as bad as they had painted her, which in truth was pretty bad, it hardly explained an antipathy that seemed … personal?

‘I shouldn’t joke—you probably can.’

She had the impression that all this man had to do was snap his fingers and the locals would be lining up to be part of a run-her-out-of-town posse, less a form of mob mentality and more mass hypnotism.

She wasn’t seeing much evidence of it but it was clear the man exerted some sort of weird charismatic control locally … either that or there was something in the water. In the time she had been here Lucy had heard the name Santiago Silva with monotonous regularity in the area. You couldn’t buy a loaf of bread without hearing someone sing the praises of this paragon, which, considering he was a banker—a fairly universally despised animal these days—seemed pretty amazing to Lucy.

Their comments had built an image of someone very different from the man standing there looking down his autocratic nose at her. He did not look remotely like the warm, caring person she’d heard described, but he did look every inch the autocratic feudal throwback who expected people to bow and scrape.

‘You have met my brother.’ He arched an ebony brow.

A mystified Lucy began to shake her head, then the penny dropped.

Her eyes widened. ‘Ramon.’ Who had rung the finca just before she left that morning inviting her to dinner at the castillo. Wow, was she glad she’d said no to this opportunity to meet his brother … the sort of social event nightmares were made of if this taster was any indicator! Stiff and starchy now, imagine how he’d look in a tie—besides beautiful. Lucy gave her head a little shake to dispel this image.

It was not so surprising she hadn’t seen the connection straight off; Ramon had none of the autocratic arrogance of his unpleasant brother. He was actually a really sweet boy who had gone out of his way to help when they had been stranded in the clinic car park the day after she arrived. He’d been a hero, administering first aid to Harriet’s ancient car.

Since then he had called twice at the finca, the last time, she recalled with a smile, he had helped her catch one of the donkeys before the vet arrived, falling flat on his face in the dust and dirt at one point and ruining his lovely suit. It was hard to believe he was related to this man.

‘You will not meet him again.’ The comment was delivered in a soft, almost conversational tone that was in stark variance to the menace it conveyed.

Lucy shook her head, genuinely bewildered by the turn this conversation was taking. Was this about her refusing the invitation to dinner at the big house? Had she committed some sort of social faux pas?

The possibility bothered her for Harriet’s sake. Her friend had made a lot of effort to fit in so she felt her way cautiously. ‘I won’t?’

‘No, Miss Fitzgerald, you will not.’

‘Is Ramon going away?’

‘No, you are going away.’

Lucy’s patience snapped. ‘Will you stop being so damned enigmatic and spit it out? Just what are you trying to say?’

He cut across her in a voice that felt like an icy shower. ‘For someone who is clearly a clever woman you have not done your research. Until he is twenty-five, my brother has no access to his trust fund unless I approve it, and I will not. The lifestyle my brother enjoys now is totally at my discretion.’

‘Poor Ramon,’ she said, feeling sorry for Ramon but not totally sure why his brother should think the information was of interest to her.

‘So you will be wasting your time.’

‘My time to waste,’ she responded, still without the faintest idea what this discussion was about.

The flippancy brought his teeth together in a snarling white smile. ‘I suggest you cut your losses and move on to a more profitable … subject.’

Totally at sea now, Lucy shook her head. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ she was forced to admit.

Irritated by this display of innocence, Santiago twisted his expressive mouth in a grimace of fastidious distaste. Sensing his master’s mood, the animal at his side pawed the ground and snorted.

Without thinking Lucy responded, moving forward, her hand outstretched to soothe the animal, only to be blocked by the horse’s tall rider.

‘He does not like strangers.’ His concern was for his mount, not the stupid woman who clearly knew nothing about horses.

‘Just now I’m identifying with him.’

Santiago was tempted to respond to the challenge gleaming in her blue eyes—the colour was so extraordinary it amounted to an assault on the senses. Instead, he made a decision. ‘I want a quick resolution of this situation.’

The solution was not desirable—every cell in his body craved revenge and he was going to reward her but … He breathed a deep sigh, accepting that there were occasions when a man had to do what was necessary as opposed to what was right. He didn’t have to like it though.

‘If you leave immediately I will cover your expenses.’ The resort hotel in the locality was aimed at the high end of the market as it was the only accommodation in the area, barring a couple of rural bed-and-breakfast establishments. He could not imagine the likes of Lucy Fitzgerald roughing it in some rustic retreat—it seemed safe to assume she was a guest at the hotel.

Lucy nodded solemnly and drawled, ‘Generous …’ Then gave a little laugh and angled a quizzical look at his face. ‘But do you think you could give me a clue? I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

He clicked his tongue irritably. ‘Move on, Lucy, you’ve done innocent and you give a first-class performance, but it tends to pall.’

She pulled herself up to her full height. In most company, even without shoes, that gave her an advantage, but not over this man. Ramon’s brother was … Her narrowed glance moved up from his feet—the man was six four easy, possibly more and not an ounce of surplus fat on any of it. He was all hard bone and muscle and enough testosterone to light up the planet.

‘My friends call me Lucy.’

‘Of which you have many, I am sure,’ he cut back smoothly.

Lucy grated her teeth. She had never considered herself a violent person but this man was making her discover new things about herself.

‘Expenses and a one-off payment.’ His lips curled. What was the going rate for a woman like her these days? ‘But only,’ he warned, ‘if you leave immediately.’

‘You want to pay me to leave where exactly?’

‘The country and my brother.’

Lucy breathed in and played back the conversation in her head. She could almost hear the sound of the penny dropping. On the outward breath an explosive of anger dumped bucketloads of neat adrenaline into her bloodstream. Lucy saw red, quite literally, she blinked and, still seeing everything through a shimmering red heat haze, linked her badly shaking hands together.

‘Let me get this straight. You are offering to pay me to stay away from your brother? I’m curious just how much—no, don’t tell me, I might be tempted.’

He did and her eyes widened. ‘Wow, you must really think I’m dangerous!’

A nerve pumped beneath the golden-toned skin of his lean cheek but he didn’t react to her comment. ‘This sum is not negotiable,’ he emphasised. ‘You must walk away—’ He stopped, brows knitting into frustrated lines above his dark eyes. ‘What are you doing?’

She paused and threw a look over her shoulder, sticking out one hip to balance the bag she had slung over the other shoulder. ‘What am I doing?’ She gave a laugh and fixed him with a glittering smile. ‘I would have thought that was obvious, Mr Silva—this is me walking. I like walking but nobody has ever offered to pay me for it except for charity. Give me your number and I’ll give you a bell the next time I do the marathon.’

He looked so astonished that this time her laugh was genuine.

Santiago watched her make her way up the dusty track, an expression of baffled frustration etched on his handsome face. He had pitched his offer high deliberately; he had allowed for the possibility she might try and negotiate the figure up, but her outright refusal had been an option he had not even considered.

With a gritted oath he vaulted into the saddle and turned his horse in the opposite direction to that she had taken.

It was not until his temper had cooled and he had slowed to a canter that it occurred to him that he had no idea what she had been doing there in the middle of nowhere. The only inhabited building within a two-mile radius was the place he had leased to the English academic who had started up, of all things, a donkey sanctuary.

It would be difficult to imagine two women with less in common, so ruling out that left—what …? Could she have been waiting for someone? In that lonely spot … no … unless … she had been meeting someone and they had required privacy?

By the time the horse had reached the castillo gates the conviction that he had stumbled onto a lovers’ tryst, that she had been waiting for his half-brother, had become a firm conviction.

His brother was not behaving rationally. Santiago saw those electric-blue eyes in his head and he felt his anger towards his sibling subside. He doubted Ramon was the only man unable to act rationally around Lucy Fitzgerald, who was unable to see past her smouldering sexuality, the only man willing to ignore the truth in order to possess that body, but fortunately for Ramon he was not one of them.

Did she think she had won?

Beneath him Santana responded to the light kick of encouragement and broke into a gallop; to catch a thief one had to adopt the same ruthless methods they did.

Literally shaking with fury, Lucy made the last stage of her journey in record time. She paused at the finca door to compose herself. As satisfying as it would have been to vent her feelings on the subject of Santiago Silva, the last thing her friend needed right now was the news that her house guest had had a run in with him.

Harriet would feel obligated to defend her and she could not see that going down well with her feudal despot of a landlord, who would, she thought scornfully, quite likely feel perfectly justified evicting anyone who disagreed with him. He was just the type of small-minded bully who enjoyed wielding the power he had inherited!

No, the best thing all around, she realised, was not to mention the incident at all—and why should she? He had no idea that she was staying with Harriet and so long as she stayed out of his way and she didn’t darken his doorstep with her presence—a treat she felt happy to miss out on—unless fate was very unkind she would never have to set eyes on the wretched man again.

Taking comfort from the knowledge, she took a deep breath, pasted on a smile and patted her cheeks. Her eyes widened as she felt the dampness there. God, Santiago Silva had achieved what a media army had failed to do—he had made her cry.

Harriet, normally uncomfortably observant, had not noticed the tear stains, which suggested that her white-faced friend was suffering a lot more than the mild discomfort she claimed after literally hopping out to the stables during Lucy’s absence to check on an elderly donkey.

Lucy banned Harriet from attempting any more stunts and hustled her back to bed for a nap. The other woman looked so much better when she rose later that midway through the next morning Lucy suggested another nap and the older woman did not resist the idea.

Lucy decided to use the time to take hay to animals in the scrubby lower pasture. As she walked through the field buzzing with bees and chirruping crickets she became aware of a distant noise disturbing the quiet. As she distributed the feed to the animals who clustered around her the noise got perceptibly closer until … Lucy started and the animals ran at the sound of a loud crash followed by a silence that seemed horribly ominous.

Recovering her wits, Lucy dropped the hay she was holding and ran in the opposite direction to the agitated braying herd. Seconds later, panting, she reached the rise of the slight incline that hid the dirt track below from view and saw the cause of the explosive sound.

Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh, God!’

One of the modern four-wheel quad bikes was lying at an angle, the front end in a ditch and the back wheels hidden beneath a tangle of scrub that the vehicle had dragged up as it slid off the stony path.

A quick scan revealed no immediate sign of the driver. Had he been thrown clear?

There was no time to speculate. Lucy hit the ground running, scrambling down the rocky incline and raising a cloud of dust from the dry ground. She reached the accident in a matter of seconds, though it felt like a lifetime. There was still no sign of the driver and she couldn’t hear anything, but then it was difficult to hear anything above the thundering of her heart in her ears, even her own fearful cry of—

‘Is there anyone …? Are you all right?’

‘No, I’m not all right. I’m …’ A flood of tearful-sounding Spanish preceded a small grunt that was followed by a deep sigh before the young voice added in flawless, barely accented English, ‘I’m stuck. Give me a pull, will you?’

Lucy saw the small hand—a child’s—appear from beneath the upturned quad bike. She dropped to her knees, her hair brushing the ground as she bent her head to peer underneath. The driver appeared to be a dark-haired young girl.

‘It’s probably not a good idea to move until—’

‘I’ve already moved. I’m not hurt. It’s just my jacket is caught—’ The girl gave a small yelp followed by a heartfelt ‘Finally!’ as she dragged herself out from under the quad bike, emerging beside Lucy looking dusty, in one piece and with nothing but a bloody scrape on the cheek of her heart-shaped face to show for her experience—at least nothing else visible. Lucy remained cautious as the girl, who looked to be around ten or eleven, pulled herself into a sitting position and began to laugh.

‘Wow!’ Her eyes shone with exhilaration, a reaction that made Lucy think, God, I’m getting old. But then, though she’d had her share of her own youthful misadventures, they had had less to do with her being an adrenaline junkie and more to do with her need to please her father and compete with the legendary exploits of her elder siblings.

‘That was quite something.’

‘I’d call it a lucky escape.’ Lucy got to her feet and held out her hand. ‘Look, there’s no reception here but I really think you should see a doctor to get checked out.’

The girl sprang to her feet energetically, ignoring the extended hand. ‘No, I’m fine, I’m …’ She stopped, the animation draining from her face as the condition of the overturned vehicle seemed to hit her for the first time. ‘Is there any way we could get this back on the road, do you think?’

Lucy shook her head in response to the wistful question. ‘I doubt it. I think you should sit down …?’ Before you fall down, she thought, studying the young girl’s pale face.

‘Oh, I am in so much trouble. When my dad sees this he’ll hit the ceiling. I’m not really meant to ride on this thing … but then I’m not really meant to do anything that is any fun. Do you know what it feels like to have someone act as though you can’t even fasten your own shoelace?’

Lucy’s lips twitched. ‘No, I don’t.’ If she’d had a penny for every time her dad had said, ‘Don’t whinge, Lucy, just get on with it,’ she would have been able to retire before she hit ten.

‘That’s why I’m home now, because my dad dragged me away from school. Not that I care. I hate school—he’s the one who’s always saying how important education is.’

Lucy, who thought so, too, adopted a sympathetic expression as the girl paused for breath, but didn’t interrupt as the youthful driver continued in the same if-I-don’t-get-it-off-my-chest-now-I’ll-explode style.

‘And Amelie didn’t even have it!’

‘Have what?’ Lucy, struggling to keep up, asked.

‘Meningitis.’

Lucy’s brows went up. ‘Your school friend has meningitis?’

‘No, she doesn’t have it, I just said so, and she’s not my friend. I have no friends.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘It’s true, and with a father like mine is it any wonder? He wouldn’t let me go on the skiing trip and everyone was going and now, after the head told all the parents that there is no cause for concern, that Amelie didn’t have meningitis at all, it was just a virus, what does he do?’

Lucy shook her head, finding she was genuinely curious to know what this much-maligned but clearly caring parent had done.

‘Does he listen? No …’ she said, pausing in the flow of confidences to turn her bitter gaze on Lucy. ‘He lands his helicopter right there in the middle of the lunch break with everyone watching and whisks me off after giving the head an earful. Can you imagine?’

Lucy, who could, bit her quivering lip. ‘That must have been dramatic.’

‘It was mortifying and now he says I have to go back and there’s only two weeks to the end of term.’

‘What does your mother say?’

‘She’s dead.’ She stopped, her eyes going round as she turned to face the vehicle hurtling at speed down the hill towards them. It came to a halt with a squeal of brakes feet away from them.

I should have known, Lucy thought as the tall, unmistakeable figure of Santiago Silva exploded from the driver’s seat.

He had seen the overturned quad bike from the top of the hill seconds before he saw Gabby. In those seconds he had lived the nightmare that haunted his dreams. For a terrible moment he could feel the weight of his daughter’s lifeless body in his arms the same way he had felt her mother’s—it was his job to keep her safe and he had failed.

Then he saw her, recognised even at a distance the familiar defiant stance, and the guilt and grief were replaced by immense relief, which in its turn was seamlessly swallowed up by a wave of savage anger. An anger that quickly shifted focus when he identified the tall blonde-haired figure beside his daughter.

He should have known that she would be involved!

He approached with long angry strides, looking like some sort of avenging dark angel—the fallen variety. Lucy didn’t blame the kid for looking terrified. She gave the shaking child’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. Really, she should have guessed when the child had started talking casually about helicopters, but she hadn’t. For some reason she hadn’t thought about Santiago Silva as married, let alone a widow, or a father! It was still a struggle to think of him as any of these things, as was maintaining her smile as he approached.

Yesterday she had been conscious that where this man was concerned the veneer of civilisation was pretty thin; right now it was non-existent. He was scary but also, she admitted as she felt a little shiver trace a path down her rigid spine, pretty magnificent!

He swept straight past her, but not before Lucy had felt the icy blast of the glittering stare that dashed over her face.

She watched as he placed his hands on his daughter’s shoulders and squatted until he was at face level with her.

‘Gabby, you …’ Torn between a desire to throttle his wilful daughter and crush her in a bear hug, he took a deep breath. Feeling like a hopelessly inadequate parent, he searched her face and asked brusquely, ‘You are hurt?’

Even Lucy, who was extremely unwilling to assign any normal human emotions to this awful man, could not deny the rough concern in his deep voice was genuine.

‘I’m fine, Papá. She—’ the little girl cast a smile in Lucy’s direction ‘—helped me.’

‘Not really.’

For a moment his burning eyes met hers, then, a muscle along his clean shaven jaw clenching, he turned away, rising to his feet with a graceful fluidity that caused Lucy’s oversensitive stomach to flip.

‘Papá …’

‘Wait in the car, Gabriella.’

With one last look over her shoulder at Lucy, she walked, head down, towards the car.

Without looking to see if his daughter had obeyed, Santiago Silva began to speak into the phone he had pulled from the breast pocket of his open necked shirt.

Lucy’s Spanish was good enough to make out that the conversation was with a doctor who was being requested to meet them at the castillo.

He might be an awful man but he was also obviously a concerned father. ‘She wasn’t unconscious or anything.’

Santiago closed the phone with a click and covered the space between them in two strides.

As he bent his face close to her own Lucy felt the full force of his contempt as he responded in a lethally soft voice, ‘When I require your medical expertise I will ask for it. As for having any contact with my daughter …’ He swallowed, the muscles in his brown throat visibly rippling. ‘Do not attempt to make any contact or you will be sorry.’

Lucy’s sympathy vanished and her anger rushed in to fill the vacuum it left. She didn’t bother asking if that had been a threat—it clearly was.

Fighting the urge to step back, she lifted her chin to a pugnacious angle and enquired coolly, ‘So, the next time I find her trapped under a grown-up toy she is clearly not old enough to get behind the wheel of, I’ll walk by on the other side of the damned road, shall I, Mr Silva? That might be your style, but it isn’t mine.’

‘I know all about your style and I would prefer that members of my family are not contaminated by your toxic influence … but, yes, you did try and help my daughter, so thank you for that at least.’

It was clear that every word of the apology hurt him. ‘Does it occur to you that your daughter wouldn’t feel the need to break the rules if you cut her a bit of slack?’

He stared at her incredulously. ‘You are giving me advice on parenting? So, how many children do you have, Miss Fitzgerald?’

She sucked in a furious breath. Where did this man get off being so superior? ‘Well, if I did have one I’d make damned sure I wasn’t too busy to notice she had driven off on a quad bike!’

The expression that Lucy saw move at the back of his eyes—so bleak it was almost haunted—made her almost regret her taunt, but she stifled the stab of guilt. She’d save her pity for someone who deserved it. He was a bully, used to people sitting and taking what he dished out.

Well, she wasn’t going to take it, not from him, not from anyone.

‘Stay away from my family or I will make you wish you’d never been born.’ Without waiting for her response, he turned and started walking towards the car.

By the time she reached the finca Lucy was so mad she was shaking like someone with a fever.

‘Lucy, my dear, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’ Harriet studied the face of her ex-student with growing concern.

‘Nothing, I’m fine. Don’t get up,’ she added as the older woman struggled to rise from her chair. ‘You should have rested longer. You know what the doctor said about keeping your foot up to stop it swelling again.’

Harriet subsided back into her seat with a frustrated grunt. ‘I’ll stay here if you tell me what’s wrong, Lucy.’

In the middle of pacing agitatedly across the room, Lucy paused, her fists in tight balls at her sides, her face coloured by two bright spots of anger on her smooth cheeks, and gave a high little laugh. ‘Mr Smug Sanctimonious Creep Silva is wrong!’

Harriet looked confused. ‘Ramon!’ she exclaimed. ‘But he seems a sweet boy, if a little full of himself … whatever has he done?’ She had never seen the student she considered one of the brightest young women she had ever taught lose her air of serene calm. Even during the awful press witch hunt she had remained cool and aloof.

‘Ramon …?’ Lucy shook her head impatiently and took up her pacing. ‘It’s not Ramon, it’s his brother,’ she gritted.

‘Santiago? You’ve met him … is he here?’

Lucy gave a grim smile. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve had that pleasure twice now.’ She reached for the phone and punched in the number she had scribbled down on the pad beside it. ‘Ramon …?’ Lucy slowed her agitated breathing and took a deep breath. ‘Dinner tonight …?’

When she told Harriet the full story her old tutor was sympathetic but, to her annoyance, inclined to make excuses for Santiago Silva. ‘He jumped to conclusions and that was wrong.’

‘He virtually called me a tart and now today he flings out his threats!’ Lucy raged. Even thinking about the man made her want to smash things. Nobody had ever got under her skin this way.

‘Why not let me explain the situation to him, Lucy?’

Lucy’s lower lip jutted mutinously. ‘Why should I explain? He’s the one in the wrong.’

‘Gabby is the apple of his eye and very wilful. He’s also very protective of his younger brother. I understand their father died when Ramon was just a boy, and Santiago was very young when he inherited the estancia. Reading between the lines, I get the impression that given half the chance his stepmother fancied herself as the power behind the throne, so to speak, which from what I know of her would have been a disaster,’ Harriet confided. ‘Santiago had to establish his authority from day one. Not easy for a young man, which might have made him a little—’

‘Full of himself?’ Lucy suggested acidly. ‘The man needs teaching a lesson.’ And not, in her opinion, people to make excuses for him just because he was rich and lived in some sort of castle.

‘Oh, dear! You will be careful, won’t you, Lucy? I’ve heard reports that suggested Santiago can be ruthless. I’d not given much credence to them, since successful men tend to engender jealousy and his reputation here is … well, I’ve never heard anyone have a bad word to say. Yet given what you’ve said …?’

Lucy smiled. ‘I’ll be fine.’

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