At the Spaniard's Pleasure (9 page)

In a flurry of introductions Liza met Thomas's wife, Ellen, her brother, Paulo, and his wife, and discovered the two young couples were not couples at all, but the sons and daughters of Thomas and Paulo; she caught the name Marco…he looked vaguely familiar, but the rest of the names were lost.

In the general conversation that followed Liza realised Thomas and Ellen were celebrating their golden wedding. Last night there'd been a dinner at their home in Granada. The dinner Nick had missed… Today a family lunch with Anna and tonight Anna was hosting a party for all their friends and relatives.

‘I want to talk to you,' Liza muttered in a swift aside to Nick as with a hand at her back he led her to her seat at the exquisitely prepared dining table. ‘This is a family lunch and I feel terrible, an interloper…'

But the hand Nick had at her spine slipped around her slender waist, and halted them both. He stared down at her with intent black eyes. ‘You are not an interloper. I told you before, you're a welcome guest.'

‘So you say,' she muttered, ‘but you could have told me…I'm not dressed.'

Nick shrugged a wide shoulder. ‘You look pretty well-covered to me,' he drawled sardonically.

‘That is not the point,' she snapped crossly, but before she could get another word out Nick had pulled out a chair and, with his hand on her shoulder, urged her down onto it.

His dark head bent towards hers, and he said with sibilant
softness, ‘Behave yourself, Liza…nothing must spoil Thomas's day.'

Trust him to think only of the man in the celebration and not Ellen, the wife, the chauvinistic pig… ‘What about…?' His long fingers dug into her shoulder in a none-too-subtle threat.

‘Not now, Liza.' His look flashed her a warning that she could not fail to recognise. ‘Later,' he commanded and sat down on the chair next to her, his hand slipping from her shoulder to land on her thigh beneath the cover of the tablecloth.

Liza tensed in shock at his boldness and her own instant reaction to the long finger that caressed her inner thigh. She knocked his hand away, and glanced warily around, and only then did Liza realise the rest of the company had fallen silent and were watching her and Nick with varying degrees of interest. She wanted to slide under the table with embarrassment.

Surprisingly the lunch was not as bad as Liza had feared; the food was superb, and she might have quite enjoyed the spirited and lively conversation that ensued, except she could not dismiss from her mind the growing suspicion that somehow Nick's reason for bringing her to Spain was not just because of his mother and the instant attraction between them, as she had believed.

Even admitting it had been pure coincidence that Anna had called while Liza was with Nick last night, Nick had deliberately mentioned her presence, knowing his mother would do what she had done and invite her to stay.

Liza had the nasty feeling she was somehow Nick's second choice. His mother had thought he was meeting a Carl Dalk and bringing him back to the party. But Liza couldn't see when Nick had had the time to meet this Dalk chap. Nick had told her he had just come from the airport and then he had spent virtually the whole day with her. Surely in the normal course of conversation he would have mentioned an urgent meeting; instead they had visited a build
ing site for a few minutes. Maybe the two men had had some dangerous, illegal stunt in mind, like bunjee jumping into a volcanic crater in the Timanfaya National Park. According to Anna they were partners in such escapades, and then perhaps Carl Dalk had not turned up.

‘More wine, Liza?'

Liza looked up with a start, her blue eyes searching his handsome face; his expression was bland, his dark eyes revealing nothing. ‘No, thank you,' she said firmly, recognising Nick was very good at hiding his feelings. But how much more was he hiding…?

He had been very insistent she come to the party. He had not actually lied and said his mother was ill, but he knew she had thought that was what he meant. She needed to talk to him, and she needed some answers; something smelt fishy, and it wasn't the steak on her plate. But before she could pursue the subject Uncle Thomas asked her why a lovely girl like her was not married. Which caused great gales of laughter and a sardonic glance from Nick.

‘Because I have never found a man that suits me,' she said with a grin. ‘Until I met you, Thomas, but unfortunately you're taken,' and banished her suspicions to the back of her mind in the laughter that followed.

The wine flowed freely, and when the older couples started reminiscing about the distant past, long before the rest were born, Anna suggested Nick take Liza and his cousins outside and show them his latest addition to the stables, a particularly fine racehorse.

 

Nick was standing, his hand on the halter of the magnificent black stallion, and smiling with obvious pride of ownership as he stroked the sleek, glossy neck. Everyone enthused over the animal.

Man and beast looked magnificent, Liza acknowledged. Two of a kind, superb male specimens. Nick looked so breathtakingly good-looking, devastatingly cool and in control of the animal. Choking back the sudden swell of emo
tion just watching him caused, she tore her gaze away, suddenly afraid he had been controlling her with the same accomplished ease.

She glanced around and a split-second later the colour drained from her face and involuntarily she shivered as she realised exactly where she was. The horse was in the one stall she had never wanted to see again.

Liza lifted appalled eyes just as Nick glanced in her direction, and the brilliant smile on his lean, strong face vanished as their eyes met, his expression suddenly harsh, and all her suspicions resurfaced with a vengeance.

Spinning around, Liza dashed back out of the stable, and for a moment leant against the wall, taking deep, steadying breaths, hating herself for panicking in front of everyone. It seemed in Nick's company she could not help but regress into the besotted child she had once been, and it had to stop. Straightening up, she set off across the cobbled courtyard towards the house. To hell with Nick and his horses, she had had enough of both for the moment.

Nick handed the halter to Marco. ‘You four have a look around. I need to check on something,' he said before he followed Liza out.

Liza had only gone a dozen yards when a strong arm wrapped around her waist and hauled her hard against a taut male body.

‘Where do you think you're going?' Nick demanded roughly.

‘Anywhere away from you,' she shot back defiantly. She had made an enormous mistake. Nick did not need to say anything; it had been there in his face as he had glanced at her. He still thought she was no better than the slut he had accused her of being years ago, and she had compounded the notion by freely coming to Spain with him and succumbing with wild abandonment to his lovemaking. Whatever his reason for wanting her here, she was pretty sure it was not just his stated desire to sleep with her. He could have any woman he wanted, after all.

Nick hauled her around in one powerful arm and marched her towards the back of the house without a word.

‘Let go of me, you great brute,' Liza cried, trying to break free.

‘No.' His dark eyes without a glimmer of expression rested for a moment on her flushed, defiant face. ‘It was insensitive of me, I know, but save the recriminations until we get back to the house,' he advised hardly.

‘Why the hell should I?' Liza was hurting and suspicious and furious with herself for being such a push-over.

A black brow lifted sardonically. ‘Because this is a celebration, remember, fifty years married, and you are not going to cause a scene. Though how any man could stand a woman for fifty years is beyond me,' he bit out cynically.

Hectic colour tinged her face. ‘Me, cause a scene. Your poor mother—'

‘Enough,' Nick exploded. He was not used to having his actions questioned by anyone, and certainly not by a slip of a girl. Acting on impulse, he swung her off her feet and carried her through the kitchen, oblivious to the astonished looks of Manuel and the staff, and didn't stop until he reached her room, and flung her on the bed.

‘Right, Liza, let's have it,' he demanded roughly.

For a stunned moment Liza thought he was referring to sex. Her face paled, and then a swift tide of red suffused her cheeks. ‘Why, you—'

‘My, but you do have a one-track mind…' Nick drawled mockingly, the knowing light in his deep brown eyes telling her he had read her mind.

‘Hardly surprising around the Spanish Stud,' she flung back.

‘Ah, Liza,' he glanced down at her, viewing her angry expression with an indulgent smile, ‘you should not believe everything you read in the gossip columns.' He grinned smugly. ‘Though I didn't hear you complaining this morning—quite the contrary.'

His impregnable confidence in his masculine prowess
made her temper rise to boiling point, and, leaping off the bed, she marched up to him.

‘I am glad you think it is funny.' She poked him in the chest with a finger. ‘You conniving bas—' Her wrist was caught in an iron grip and the insults stuck in her throat.

‘No one talks to me like that.' Nick's hard jawline clenched and glittering black eyes scanned her angry face. ‘Especially not a woman of your kind,' he told her icily.

‘My kind?' Liza repeated, a terrible coldness taking the place of her anger that he could be so callous.

‘You know what I mean, Liza. I was not your first lover and I certainly won't be your last, though if your overreaction is anything to go by your past lovers must have been pretty ineffectual. You were as up for it as I was from the moment we met again. Why the outrage now?' he demanded with a cruelty she would not have thought him capable of. ‘Simply because you found yourself in a stable that held a memory of a past indiscretion?'

Colour tinged her cheeks; she did not need to be reminded of her helpless surrender to his sexual expertise, and certainly not of her juvenile reaction to him years ago. ‘That is a filthy thing to say…but about what I would expect from a man of your morals.' And, blue eyes flashing flames, she stared furiously up into Nick's face. ‘But this isn't about sex,' she said, fighting to retain her temper. ‘There is something going on here that I don't understand. Who the hell is Carl Dalk? Your mother thought you had an urgent meeting with him yesterday, and I can't believe you would lie to your own mother but you told me you had just come from the airport when we met, and you spent the whole day with me. I am not conceited enough to think a man like you would dump an emergency meeting for me.' Once Liza started listing her suspicions she could not stop. ‘Your mother thought this Carl chap was coming back with you.' She fixed angry, assessing eyes on his hard face. ‘And another thing, last night you let me think your mum was
ill, and yet when I met your mum she said she has never felt better in her life. Don't take me for a fool, Nick.'

Nick absorbed her flushed and angry face with arrogant detachment. He had known it was coming but he had hoped to divert her. Liza's mention of Carl was a little too close for comfort. Narrowed dark eyes met brilliant blue and he was impressed—not many people stood up to him or even tried. He supposed he should be flattered that at least Liza did not want to think him capable of lying to his own mother, but what to tell her?

‘Watch it, Liza, your paranoia is showing,' he tried to tease, but she met his attempt at humour with an elegantly elevated brow. She was an intelligent woman and wanted answers, Nick recognised, and humour wasn't going to do it for her.

‘Just answer the question,' Liza demanded.

‘Carl Dalk is an old friend of mine and, contrary to what you assumed, I did speak with him yesterday afternoon, after I left you at your hotel.'

‘Oh.' Liza supposed that was possible, but it didn't strike her as very urgent if he could wait all day to meet the man. ‘Not that much of an emergency, then,' she prompted defensively, beginning to wonder if maybe he was right and she was being paranoid…

‘My, my, Liza, you do have a suspicious mind in that very lovely body. As for Mamma, I told you she was feeling down.' He shrugged a shoulder. ‘You drew your own conclusion.'

‘And you let me!' Liza exclaimed, amazed at the sheer gall of the man. ‘You dragged me a thousand miles to sle…to Spain…' She stuttered to a stop, having almost said
to sleep with me
and stared at him, scanning his strong dark features, the devastating face, looking for some guilt… She found none. Instead to her shame her anger faded beneath the mesmerising effect of his powerful presence. She shook her head; she didn't understand. ‘Why?'

‘First, I don't recall any force involved. You accepted
my mother's invitation, before I told you she had been ill. I just helped reinforce your decision when, like a typical woman, you looked like changing your mind,' Nick contradicted silkily as two strong hands curved around her shoulders. ‘As to the why—because I wanted you; it is that simple.' His dark head lowered, his lips feathering across hers, and she trembled as the pressure of his kiss deepened, the hard heat of his mouth burning on her own.

‘No,' Liza groaned in denial, but couldn't prevent the familiar heat igniting in her traitorous body.

Nick stifled a groan of pent-up desire and ended the kiss. He could not tell her the whole truth, not if he wanted to keep her safe and in his bed, and suddenly he discovered keeping her in his bed was becoming of vital importance to him. The enormity of the thought shocked him.

Defence mechanisms clicking in, Nick stilled then eased away slightly. ‘OK.' Her head was thrown back, her eyes were closed and her cheeks were hot with colour. He couldn't resist so he nuzzled the elegant line of her throat, heard her soft moan and sensed her fluctuating inclinations as expertly as he read the stock market.