The Spaniard's Seduction

by Anne Mather

  ‘And I have?’

  Her words provoked him. He was attempting to convince her that his motives were genuine, and all she was doing was trying to pick a fight.

  ‘Haven’t you?’ she countered now, her voice low and scornful. ‘Why don’t you go back to your guests, Enrique? Whatever you say, Señora de Romero obviously considers she has some prior claim to your affections and I wouldn’t like her to suspect that there was anything between us. Except contempt, of course.’

  ‘Maldita sea! Damn you!’ The words were wrung from him in spite of himself. It was hardly a surprise to learn that she had noticed Sanchia’s proprietary attitude towards him but he resented the indifference she displayed. ‘There is nothing between Sanchia and myself. Nothing!’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Patently she didn’t believe him, and Enrique’s patience grew close to breaking point. In the name of God, he thought, didn’t she realise he had feelings? That when he was with her, he couldn’t think about anyone else, let alone admit to a previous liaison?

  ‘It’s the truth,’ he said, grasping her shoulder with his free hand and forcing her to face him. ‘Bien, perhaps we did turn to one another in the past, but it did not mean anything to either of us.’

  ‘Like when you slept with me? That didn’t mean anything to you either, did it?’ she asked through suddenly tight lips, and he groaned aloud at the chasm he’d inadvertently dug for himself.

  ‘Not like that, no.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Her eyes were glistening in the muted illumination from a dozen shaded wall-lights and for a moment he thought she was exulting in her victory. But then he realised that the shimmering between her burnished lashes was caused by tears and with an exclamation of remorse he gathered her into his arms.

  ‘Querida mia,’ he breathed unsteadily against her lips. Then, capturing her mouth with his, he pushed his tongue greedily into the moist yielding cavern that opened up for him. ‘Te deseo—I want you,’ he found himself confessing as he had said once before. ‘Tocame, cariña! Touch me! Dejame— Let me—’

  He sensed she wanted to resist him. The tears were now spilling down her cheeks. But although her hands came to grip his wrists, as if she would push him away from her, her lips told a different story. When he drew back to take a breath, she made a protesting little sound and sought his mouth again, twining her tongue with his and pressing her slim frame against him.

  Enrique swayed back against the wall behind him, uncaring of the chill that shivered his spine. He took her with him, his hands sliding possessively from her shoulders to her hips, caressing the inch of skin that bared her navel. He didn’t care that she must be able to feel the hard thrust of his arousal. As he rubbed himself against her he was speculating on the very real possibility that he might have to have her here, in the galería, with all the disapproving faces of his ancestors looking down at them. He’d never felt such desire for any woman except Cassandra, and the knowledge that she had been his brother’s wife was like a knife that tore him apart.

  His mouth captured hers again and he sucked on her lips, drawing a moan of intense pleasure from deep inside him. She ought to have been his, he thought frustratedly, as the ache between his legs grew ever more insistent. She was his; he wanted her. And if his penance was that he should have recognised that fact sooner, then he was more than ready to pay the price.

  His mouth moved from hers, along the silken curve of her cheek and jawline to the scented hollow of her throat. He slid the strap of the sequinned vest aside to taste the luscious skin of her neck, knowing as he did so that he wanted to bite her, to devour her, to make her his woman, his beloved, his amante…

  ‘Enrique,’ she whispered weakly, but it was hardly a protest. Even when he parted her skirt with his thigh and slipped his fingers into the soft folds, she didn’t object. Beneath the hem of her lacy panties, which were all she was wearing under the skirt, a pulse beat against his fingers. Damp curls guarded the quivering core of her womanhood, and when he pressed between, he found her wet and ready for him. ‘My God, Enrique,’ she gulped. ‘What are you doing to me?’

  ‘I think you know what you are doing to me, querida,’ he countered breathlessly, his lungs labouring for air as his fingertips probed the slick honeycomb of muscles he’d found. He couldn’t prevent a groan of satisfaction. ‘Dios, Cassandra, I should never have let you marry Antonio. You were mine before you were his. David should have been my son. Mine! How could I have been such a fool as to let you go?’

  He heard her catch her breath, felt the sudden shudder that rippled over her body and for a moment he thought it was a response to his stroking fingers. But then, with an agonised cry, she tore herself away from him.

  ‘Don’t say that!’ she said on a choking breath. ‘Don’t dare pretend that what passed between us was anything more than a brutal attempt on your part to break us—Antonio and me—to break us up!’

  Enrique muffled an oath. ‘You do not understand,’ he said roughly, pushing himself away from the wall and making a futile attempt to capture her again. ‘Cassandra, listen to me. Why do you think I left for Spain before the wedding? Because I could not bear to see you with him! As God is my witness, I have not been able to think of you and he together without it tearing me apart.’

  Cassandra shook her head, staring at him with wide disbelieving eyes, her cheeks still stained with the tears she had shed earlier. ‘Oh, you’re good, I’ll give you that,’ she said bitterly. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d almost be prepared to believe that you mean what you say.’

  ‘I do mean it,’ protested Enrique harshly. ‘Dios, Cassandra, it is the truth. Ever since I found out about David, I have suffered the pains of Hades! If I had only realised what I had, what I was losing, you would have been my wife! David would have been my son!’

  ‘He is your son.’

  The words were spoken so softly, barely audibly in fact, that Enrique thought for a moment that he had imagined them. Yet he was so wired by his emotions he knew he would have heard a pin drop.

  He swallowed. ‘What did you say?’

  Cassandra trembled, and he could tell from her expression that she was already regretting her impulsiveness. ‘Nothing,’ she said now, her eyes wide and apprehensive. ‘I made a mistake.’ She glanced fearfully about her. ‘I—I have to go—’

  ‘Not yet.’ Enrique moved with more speed than he would have thought he was capable of a moment ago and stepped into her path, barring her way. His eyes narrowed incredulously, his desire for her being stifled by raw disbelief. ‘What do you mean by saying something like that? David is Antonio’s child.’ He took a steadying breath. ‘He must be.’

  ‘Must he?’ Cassandra hesitated, but then it seemed she’d decided to bluff it out. She held up her head with a touching air of dignity. ‘Yes, you’re probably right.’

  Her vulnerability tore at him, but he refused to allow himself to be distracted by the anxiety he could see in her eyes. In God’s name, why was she lying? Did she believe David was his son or not?

  ‘Why would you say a thing like that?’ he demanded, the harshness of his tone belying the uncertainty he was feeling. ‘Dammit, Cassandra, are you playing with me? Do you not think I have suffered enough for that one mistake?’

  ‘You’ve suffered?’ Her voice broke and she struggled to control herself. ‘Oh, Enrique, you have no idea what it means to feel pain. I—I was a virgin when you made love to me,’ she reminded him tremulously. ‘Did it never occur to you that there might be consequences for what you did?’

  Enrique stared at her. ‘You are saying he is my son?’ He was staggered. ‘But how do you know that? What proof do you have?’

  ‘Proof?’ Cassandra gazed at him pityingly. ‘I don’t need any proof,’ she told him painfully. ‘You know what happened as well as I do. Antonio died on the day we were married. Thank God, he never had the chance to—to discover what you’d done.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

&n
bsp; DAVID came into Cassandra’s bedroom the next morning with a sullen expression marring his good-looking features. For one awful moment, his mother wondered if Enrique had been talking to him about what had happened the night before, but David’s first words were reassuring.

  ‘Tio Enrique’s gone,’ he muttered, slouching moodily about her room for a few minutes before subsiding onto the end of her bed. ‘Carlos says he doesn’t know when he’ll be back. Do you think he’s sick of us? Do you think he’s hoping we’ll be gone before he comes home?’

  Cassandra refrained from pointing out that Tuarega was not strictly Enrique’s home. It would be his one day, and telling David that his uncle—his father—had a house further up the valley was not wise. He might well decide to go and see if Enrique was there and she had enough to worry about without fretting about her son’s whereabouts, too.

  She still couldn’t quite believe what she’d done. She’d hardly slept, and she’d been lying here for the past few hours trying to understand why she’d been so stupid. Now, hearing that Enrique had left the palacio, she knew she ought to feel grateful. He was giving her time to come to terms with the situation, she thought tensely. Or would Enrique be so considerate? Might it not be the case that he had gone away because he didn’t believe her? Perhaps he thought she had some idea of using her son to her advantage. By saying he was his son and not Antonio’s, she had obviously strengthened David’s claim to be Julio de Montoya’s heir.

  She felt sick. Surely he couldn’t think she was as mercenary as that? She hadn’t wanted to come here. She’d wanted nothing from the de Montoyas. But, whichever way she looked at it, she had given Enrique unwarranted power over her; over both of them. Dared she wait and see what he chose to do with it?

  And this was all because she hadn’t been able to control her hormones, she thought bitterly. Because Enrique had kissed her and stroked her, and brought her to the brink of orgasm with his caressing hands, she’d been deluded into thinking that what they were sharing was real, was honest, that it meant the same to him as it did to her.

  God, what a fool she’d been!

  Enrique had wanted her. He’d wanted to have sex with her, but that was all. All evening, he’d watched her with his dark, hooded eyes, mentally undressing her with his sensual glances. Glances that had brought the hot blood coursing to the surface of her skin and caused liquid heat to pool between her thighs.

  How had she known what he was thinking? Because, however much he might resent the fact, he was attracted to her. Physically attracted, she amended. He had desired to bury his hard flesh within hers. And it might have come to that if she hadn’t been so reckless; if she hadn’t opened her mouth and confessed the secret she’d been guarding all these years.

  ‘Do you know where he’s gone?’ asked David suddenly, misinterpreting her silence, and Cassandra realised she was in danger of allowing him to see that something was wrong.

  ‘Why would I?’ she countered, propping herself up on her elbows and pushing the heavy weight of her hair out of her eyes. She forced a smile. ‘Have you had breakfast?’

  ‘I thought he might have said something last night,’ persisted David, not interested in her attempt to change the subject, and Cassandra’s lips parted.

  ‘Last—night?’

  Her voice faltered but David didn’t appear to notice her hesitation. ‘You had dinner with him and his friends, didn’t you?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘He must have said something.’

  ‘Not about going away,’ said Cassandra, throwing back the sheet and sliding her legs out of bed with more determination than enthusiasm.

  In fact, Enrique had said nothing after her assertion that she and Antonio had never consummated their marriage. After one stunned look in her direction, he’d turned and walked away, and she’d been left with the cold conviction that she had destroyed any chance of them ever forgiving one another for the past.

  ‘I bet he’s gone away with that woman,’ grumbled David now, getting up from the bed and dragging his feet across to the open balcony doors. ‘Is he going to marry her, do you think?’ He hunched his shoulders and rested his arms on the balcony rail, his back to the room. ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Why?’ Cassandra couldn’t prevent the question and David turned to give her an old-fashioned look. ‘What?’ she protested. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh, Mum!’ David gave her a pitying look. ‘Don’t you see? If Tio Enrique marries someone else, he won’t care about us any more. He’ll have a wife, maybe a family. We’ll just be the poor relations.’

  Cassandra swallowed. ‘If he marries someone else?’ she echoed faintly. ‘I didn’t know he’d been married.’

  ‘He hasn’t,’ exclaimed David impatiently. ‘I meant, instead of you. Surely you’ve thought about it, too?’

  ‘Thought about what?’ Cassandra refused to put words to what he was suggesting.

  ‘About marrying Tio Enrique,’ replied her son at once. ‘It’s the ideal solution. Dad’s dead and you don’t have anyone else. We could be a real family. You and me and—’

  ‘No!’ The word was strangled and Cassandra gazed at him with horrified eyes. He was truly his father’s child, she thought bleakly. He didn’t hesitate. He went straight for the jugular. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she protested. ‘I—Enrique de Montoya would never marry me!’

  The fact that she’d entertained such a thought herself last night when he’d been making love to her was not something she cared to share with him. Not that or what had come after. Remembering the way Enrique had looked at her before he strode away, she wondered if she was a fool in thinking he’d ever want to speak to her again.

  ‘Why not?’ David wasn’t prepared to give up that easily. He came back into the room. He caught his mother’s cold hands in his, pulling her up from the bed and gazing at her as if he’d just solved the secret of the universe. ‘You’re young. You’re quite pretty, even if you are nearly thirty.’ He made thirty sound like middle age. ‘You need someone to—to look after you.’

  ‘No, David.’

  He scowled, and then flung her hands away from him. ‘You always say that,’ he exclaimed unfairly. ‘Whatever I want to do, you always have a better idea.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Cassandra was defensive.

  ‘Yes, it is.’ He pushed his hands into the pockets of his baggy shorts. ‘You didn’t want to come here, did you? And if you’d known I’d written that letter to Grandpapa, you’d have stopped me from sending it, too.’

  Cassandra sighed. ‘David, you don’t understand—’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he muttered sulkily. ‘You like it here. I know you do. All right, maybe Grandmama wasn’t very friendly, but you can’t blame her.’

  ‘Can’t I?’ Cassandra’s voice was faint with dismay.

  ‘No.’ David sniffed. ‘I mean, what did you expect? They didn’t even know they had a grandson.’

  Cassandra’s lips parted. ‘How do you know that?’ she asked, sure Enrique must have told him, but David was nothing if not honest.

  ‘It was Juan, actually,’ he said, having the grace to look slightly discomfited now. ‘He told me.’

  ‘Juan?’ Cassandra shook her head in bewilderment. She’d never imagined that their affairs might be common knowledge among the estate staff. But she supposed she should have known better. She steeled herself for the worst. ‘So what did he tell you?’

  David hunched his shoulders. ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘David!’

  He hesitated. ‘He said that no one at Tuarega had known that Señor Antonio had a son. He—he said that if they had, Grandpapa would have—would have brought me to live with him.’

  ‘Did he?’ Cassandra found she was trembling and she wrapped her arms about her midriff, hugging herself tightly. ‘And what was your response to that?’

  David shrugged. ‘I don’t remember.’ His mother stared at him, but this time he refused to budge. ‘I don’t,’ he
insisted defensively. ‘I—I thought at first that he must have made a mistake.’

  Cassandra moistened her lips. ‘And when did you decide he hadn’t?’

  ‘I guess I just worked it out for myself,’ muttered David unhappily. ‘I think Tio Enrique would have come to see us if he’d known. Why wouldn’t he? Juan says that family is really important to the de Montoyas. And we are family.’

  ‘You are,’ said Cassandra flatly, unable to continue with this. Her worst fears had been realised. Not only did David believe he knew who he was, but he blamed her for his estrangement from his father’s family. Oh, he hadn’t said so, not in so many words. But it was just a matter of time and then…

  ‘You’re family, too,’ protested David, suddenly seeming to realise that this wasn’t going at all the way he’d expected. ‘Mum!’ This as she turned away and began taking clean underwear out of a drawer, preparatory to taking her morning shower. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. But, honestly, I really think you’ve got this all wrong.’

  ‘Do you?’ With fresh shorts and a sleeveless tanktop draped over her arm, Cassandra paused in the doorway to the bathroom. ‘Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, of course. But David, believe me, Enrique de Montoya isn’t interested in me. In you, yes. As you say, you’re—family. As far as I’m concerned the de Montoyas made it very clear ten years ago that they wanted nothing to do with me. Right?’

  ‘But they didn’t know about me,’ exclaimed David, following her across the room, and Cassandra gave him a disbelieving look.

  ‘Do you think that makes a difference?’ she demanded, and once again, he looked shamefaced.

  ‘I—don’t know.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t,’ said Cassandra tightly, and unable to hide her feelings any longer, she did the unthinkable and slammed the door in his face.

  ‘Mum!’

  David was hurt. He wasn’t used to being treated this way, but Cassandra didn’t give in to his pleas. With the lock secured and her shoulders pressed against the door for good measure, she gave in to the emotions that had been threatening for the past few hours. Ignoring her son’s agitated rattling of the handle, she allowed the hot tears to stream unchecked down her cheeks, and not until David had given up and gone away did she make any attempt to do what she’d come into the bathroom for.