One Night In Collection

by Various Authors

  “But I should have known. For ten years I’ve had reports on you, the kind of girl you were growing up to be. I shouldn’t have been so quick to believe the worst.” He looked at her and added in a voice so quiet that she had to read his lips in the firelight, “I owe you an apology.”

  His words were halting, hesitant, as if spoken in a language he barely remembered from his childhood.

  She stared at him in shock, wondering if it was the first time he’d ever apologized to anyone.

  “What was it you said?” he muttered. “That I crush innocent people to get what I want?” He looked down at her with a sudden ferocity in his eyes. “Is that why you gave me your virginity? Did I force you somehow?”

  “No!” No matter how much she wanted to escape, no matter how much she needed to find the secret tunnel, she couldn’t let either of them believe that. “I wanted you. You’re the first man I ever really wanted. And I don’t regret it. I don’t regret it for a second.”

  At her words, the hard line between his brows slowly melted away.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. He kissed her on the temple. It was a gentle kiss, pure, and somehow it affected her more than all the fiery, passionate embraces that had gone before. “I will make it up to you, Tamsin, all the wrongs I’ve done you. For the rest of your time here, I will treat you like a princess. Like a goddess.”

  He kissed her again, caressing her cheek and stroking her hair. For long moments, he held her in the flickering firelight, her head cuddled against his shoulder. Without moving her head, she glanced up at him.

  His eyes were closed, but there was a small smile still on his lips. He didn’t look like the grim brigand of the desert. He looked boyish, relaxed.

  He looked like a man she could love.

  Oh, no, she thought. Love Marcos? She couldn’t let that happen. It would already be difficult enough to leave him after what she’d just experienced in his arms. Surely she wasn’t stupid enough to allow herself to fall in love with him? No!

  No woman ever forgets her first lover, she told herself. That’s all.

  She had to find the secret tunnel and leave. Tonight. She had no choice. She’d put it off long enough.

  “You … you said this was once an old Moorish castle?”

  “Yes.” His voice was contented, sleepy.

  “What’s the oldest part of the room?”

  “Hard to say. It’s been expanded and rebuilt for hundreds of years. That wall is probably the oldest.” Blinking, he nodded towards the side of the room near the old fireplace, which had heavily ornamented wood panels. “Why, querida?”

  For the first time he spoke the endearment sincerely, without a single trace of irony. The tenderness in his voice made her heart ache.

  “I’ve always been interested in architecture,” she said over the lump in her throat. “You know that. You’ve seen my transcripts.” There was one design in particular that drew her attention. A large oval, bedecked with geometric designs and tiny birds. That could be a door, she thought.

  She started to rise from the bed.

  His hand on her arm tightened. “Where are you going?”

  “To look.”

  “Stay here,” he said, pulling her close. “Stay and sleep with me.”

  “I need a nightgown,” she improvised.

  He pressed his naked body against her own. “I like what you’re wearing now.”

  So did she, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now but finding the secret tunnel and saving her sister. “But what if the servants were to see me like this?”

  “It would be their luckiest day on earth and they would bless the heaven that gave them such a vision.”

  “Nelida already thinks I’m a tramp.”

  “A mistaken opinion that will change, I assure you. She will come to respect you as I do.”

  “Not if she sees me loitering naked in the hallway, she won’t. She’d have me strung up by the neck as a warning to other would-be tarts.”

  “Bien,” he said with a mock sigh. “I see that I am outgunned. I’ll get your nightgown, milady.”

  The instant Marcos left the room, she leapt from the bed. She had only seconds before he would return. She ran her fingers along the edge of the panel in the wall. It was a door! Hidden to one side, behind a lamp, she found an old lock. But where was the key?

  She looked wildly around the room. His desk! She ran to the desk and threw open the drawers. Any moment now, he’d return. If he caught her digging through his belongings, the jig would be up, as Daisy would say.

  She heard a door slam down the hall. Her fingers felt a ring of keys, including one oddly shaped skeleton key. She heard his footsteps returning. Leaving the keys in his desk, she threw herself back into bed the very moment the door opened. She closed her eyes, pretending to be half-asleep as he climbed back into bed.

  He lightly stroked her hair. When she looked up at him, he tucked the nightgown against her breasts.

  “I haven’t been surprised by anyone in a long, long time,” he said softly. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you give me your virginity after the way I treated you?”

  “I told you. You were irresistible.” She continued to smile, but inside she felt weary. Just the thought of leaving him was already killing her.

  He laughed, and the sound was so open and trusting that it made her throat hurt. “Irresistible, eh?”

  “Sí.” She gave him her best approximation of an impish smile.

  “Aha. So you do speak Spanish.” He returned her grin. “I wish you’d trust me with the rest of your secrets, Tamsin. I know you think you can’t, but you can. Your brother and Aziz are the ones I want to hurt. Not you. Whatever hold they have over you, let me help. Let me protect you.”

  It was so tempting to tell him everything. How wonderful it would be to simply trust Marcos to protect them, to save her young sister and release them both from Sheldon and Aziz’s power. Tamsin would be free to live the rest of her life however she wanted. Free to spend the rest of her nights in Marcos’s bed.

  There can be no future relationship between us.

  I intend to destroy your fiancé and your family, and you’re going to help me do it.

  “Marcos, I’m too tired to talk,” she said, pulling the nightgown over her head. “It’s been such an eventful day. I just want to go to sleep.”

  With a sigh, he caressed her hair with his hand. “Bien, querida. Tomorrow.”

  Lying next to her in bed, he held her close. She closed her eyes, pretending to sleep. After a long while, she heard his breathing change. Opening her eyes, she watched him sleep in the dying firelight.

  Darkly handsome, with a chiseled profile and a deep shadow along his jawline, he looked different to her now. He slumbered like a boy, with a soft smile on his lips.

  Her heart in her throat, she crept out of his arms and went to his desk. She took the skeleton key out of the drawer and went to the lock on the wall. The key fit perfectly, unlocking the hidden door. It swung open without a squeak.

  Fate, she thought, feeling sick. She’d been selfishly hoping the key wouldn’t work. Or that it would make so much noise in the lock that Marcos would wake up, sweep her back into his arms, and she’d have no choice but to stay.

  But Aziz was waiting for her. And so was Nicole. Were Sheldon and Camilla feeding her? Keeping her warm? Telling her every day how much they loved her?

  She doubted it.

  Tamsin had had one selfish, glorious night. It would have to be enough. From now on, her sister would come first.

  With one last regretful glance at Marcos, she took a deep breath and crept barefoot into the cold, musty darkness of the tunnel.

  Marcos woke up alone in bed.

  His bedroom was dark. It was still so early that no birds were singing.

  He could smell her scent on his pillows, his sheets. He stretched his arms, yawning. He felt so good. Even though it was technically still night, he’
d already had the best sleep he’d had in ages. Lazily, he stretched his arm across Tamsin’s pillow. Where was she? he wondered. In the bathroom? Downstairs, hunting for an early breakfast?

  He wished she would hurry back. He was hungry too, and not for food. Her lingering scent was like an aphrodisiac. Dawn hadn’t broken over the horizon and he felt as excited as a boy on Christmas morning.

  Tamsin had given him her virginity.

  He still couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t thought there was such purity and innocence left in the world. It was a gift, one he’d neither expected or deserved. Even the prospect of taunting Aziz and Sheldon paled next to the delicious idea of staying in bed with Tamsin all day.

  Pulling her pillow against his chest, he waited for her to return.

  Twenty minutes later, his smile had faded to a glower.

  Climbing out of bed, he looked in his expansive bathroom, then crossed the hall to call her name. His voice echoed against the walls of her empty, darkened bedroom.

  The first cold trickle of fear cascaded down his neck.

  She could be trying—unsuccessfully—to flirt with his guards, he told himself. She could even be roaming the halls, looking for a way out. Any of that was fine. After all, she’d just slept with him. She hadn’t promised she’d stay.

  But she couldn’t still be trying to escape. Could she? No. Not Tamsin. She wouldn’t give one man her virginity and then rush to marry a different man the next morning.

  Would she?

  Besides—he shook the thought out of his head— even if last night hadn’t meant anything to her and she still wanted to escape, there was no possible way she could.

  Pulling on a T-shirt and jeans, he did a quick search of the main castle hallways. He spoke to his night guards, but they hadn’t seen her.

  By now his hands clenched with escalating rage and fury. He woke up Reyes and everyone else in the house. If he had to be awake and searching for her then, damn it, so did they. He ordered them to begin a thorough, methodical search that he already knew would be useless.

  She was gone.

  She’d tricked him.

  All the time he’d thought he was seducing her, she’d really been seducing him. She’d coldly traded him her virginity like a commodity and while he’d slumbered like a trusting, contented fool, believing he’d found an angel, she’d disappeared from the castle like a ghost.

  He stormed back to her bedroom. Cursing under his breath, he started digging through the wardrobe, looking for an explanation. Looking for a clue she might have left behind. All her clothes were still hanging in her closet. Her bed was perfectly made. There was nothing anywhere to hint how she …

  Then he saw the glint of his mobile phone, hidden beneath the table by her window.

  Snatching it up, he found the last number she’d dialed and swore loudly.

  When he’d found her here last night, she’d been soaking wet, surprised and panicked by his sudden intrusion. He’d known something was wrong, had known her explanation about a failed escape attempt was a lie, but he’d ignored it. He’d thought he could seduce her into telling him the truth.

  Now the truth was smacking him across the face. She had found his phone on the roof and climbed out into the wind and rain to get it.

  Marcos had lost her, had lost everything, for one night of pleasure. He’d destroyed everything because he’d been so damned eager to get her into bed. And Tamsin, in sacrificing her virginity, had proved to be a more coldly ruthless competitor than he’d ever imagined possible.

  He hadn’t been wrong about her when he’d believed her to be a heartless coquette and calculating harlot. That was exactly what she was. She’d used her virginity against him, and now he felt like the one who’d lost his last vestige of innocence and hope. He’d fallen for her scam like some green eighteen-year-old boy.

  But how had she escaped?

  Taking the phone, he stomped back to his bedroom as his mind went furiously from one possibility to another. He trusted his men with his life. None of them would have let her go. None would have fallen asleep on duty. There was no way she could have climbed down the sheer rock of the castle. Was she truly a magical creature who could just disappear?

  His eyes fell upon the wood panels of his bedroom wall. The geometric designs were barely visible in the gray shadows of the morning, but for some reason it drew his attention.

  The old tunnel?

  He went straight to his desk, but couldn’t find the key. With growing apprehension, he tested the door. It fell open, unlocked. Just inside the tunnel, he saw the key in the scattered dust of the floor—exactly where she’d left it.

  The curse that exploded from his mouth was loud enough to be heard across the castle. How had she known? How could she possibly have known? He stormed down the hall, yanking on his shoes as he walked.

  Nelida must have told her. He’d known the old woman disapproved of him taking lovers—she adamantly believed it was time he settled down and started a family—but he’d never thought she’d work against him this way.

  “You’re fired,” he growled when he passed her in the hall.

  “It’s better this way, Marcosito,” she replied serenely, not believing his threat for a second. “You don’t need a trampy woman in your life. Get married. Find a good wife.”

  Grinding his teeth, he found Reyes in the foyer.

  “Señor?” Reyes answered promptly.

  “Stop looking inside the castle. She’s gone,” he snapped. “Organize the men to search the countryside.”

  Before the man could reply, Marcos strode away. His only hope was to find Tamsin before Aziz did. Dawn was just a blood-red smudge on the horizon as he roared down the hill in his red Ferrari. On a hunch, he turned left on the slender winding road to the nearest village, El Puerto de las Estrellas.

  Please, he thought. Please.

  He was too tense to be angry. Too tightly wound to be furious. He just had to find her. He would find her. He hadn’t planned this for twenty years to fail now. He hadn’t made love to her last night, hadn’t slept in her arms, just to see her become Aziz’s wife.

  He drove around the corner and, like a miracle, he saw Tamsin running out of the shadowy trees on the western edge of his vineyard. She was still wearing the white nightgown from last night and her red hair was flying free behind her. She was headed straight towards the village on the seaside cliff.

  Gunning his Ferrari, he roared up on the road in front of her, blocking her path. He stopped his car in the middle of the road and jumped out.

  With a stifled scream, she turned and ran back through the long, even rows of his vineyard. Grimly, he pursued her. With every step, the memory of how she’d tricked him, how she’d betrayed him, pulsed through his blood. Everything she’d said, everything she’d done, was a lie. He’d known he couldn’t trust her. And yet, while he’d been humbly asking her forgiveness and promising to treat her like a princess, she’d been slyly angling for the secret door.

  “Stop!” he shouted.

  But she kept running, zigging and zagging across the rows, crawling under the full branches of the heavy Palomino grapes. He saw a trace of red left in her footprints across the sparkling dew of the white, chalky albariza soil. Her feet were bleeding, he realized. She was barefoot.

  This enraged him even more. How had a mere girl, armed with nothing more than beauty and courage, managed to escape his power, his guards, his technology?

  “¡Pare!” he roared again, but she just gave him a glance like a terrified deer and ran for the cool, dark orange grove on the edge of the vines.

  She was barefoot, but she was fast. Clenching his fists, he cursed aloud and quickened his pace. He broke into a run before he finally caught up with her in a thicket of tall, overgrown trees. As he grabbed her shoulder, he was so furious he could barely control his rage.

  “What do I have to do?” he demanded. “Lock you up and throw away the key?”

  “Try it! I’ll still escape!” She w
hirled around, panting. Her full breasts, barely covered by the thin white cotton, rose and fell with every quick breath. Her cheeks were rosy and her blue eyes glittered with fury. “You can’t hold me!”

  Even in the darkness and chill of early dawn, he could see her taut nipples through the thin fabric. “Why are you so determined to marry Aziz?”

  “Perhaps I miss his touch after spending so much time with a man like you—ah!”

  He’d pushed her against an orange tree, slamming his body against hers. Several oranges rained down from the branches on to the earth. “A man like me? What kind of man am I?”

  “You’re as bad as the others,” she gasped, and he could feel the softness of her curves against him, driving him wild with every breath. “You don’t care if you hurt people, so long as you get what you want. If you had any kind of heart, you’d let me go!”

  “Heart?” he snapped. “You traded me your virginity on a silver platter. You seduced me in order to escape, making me think I could trust you, you cold-hearted, mercenary little liar—”

  “I had no choice!” she cried, even as he saw her eyes lower to his mouth. “You forced me—”

  Forced her? That was the last straw. “Call it what you like,” he ground out. “I’m a selfish bastard who seduced you against your will. I took your virginity. I took my pleasure. And I intend to do it as often as I please.”

  He lowered his lips to hers in a punishing embrace.

  He felt her gasp beneath his touch. Helplessly, she pushed against him, but he was too strong for her. She tried to keep her mouth closed, but he forced her lips open, pushing his tongue brutally between her teeth.

  Suddenly, she relaxed in his arms. Small hands that had been battering against his chest clenched his shoulders as a low moan rose from deep within her. The kiss matured into a long, passionate caress as he ran his hands along her waist, her hips, and finally her backside. He was lifting her against the tree and had already pulled her nightgown up to her thighs when he remembered that they were near the road, hidden only by the small copse of orange trees. Aziz and his thugs were likely nearby, looking for them.

  What was it about this girl that made him lose his mind?