Clearing her throat, she said brightly, ‘No it’s a great time, Mum. I’m just on the boat now. On my way to the island.’
‘How long does the ferry take?’
Her spine stiffened, her mother’s innocent question catching her off-guard.
She hadn’t lied—didn’t lie, full-stop, not even about stupid, insignificant things. As far as she was concerned it was better to say nothing than to lie, and over the years she’d got really good at deflecting or misunderstanding anything that got too close to the bone.
So, no she hadn’t lied, but she’d been reluctant to hint at the Osorios’ insane wealth. With her history of messing up, she’d been scared of jinxing herself. But, knowing how excited her mother would be, she couldn’t resist pressing the phone against her face, and whispering, ‘It’s their island, actually, and I’m not on a ferry. I’m on their motorboat.’
‘A motorboat and a private island.’ Her mother laughed. ‘Oh, darling, it sounds like something from a film.’ She hesitated. ‘And will you be staying with the family?’
‘Yes, they have a house there.’ Actually Agusto had called it a fortress, but had he been speaking literally? ‘I can’t send you any pictures, though, Mum.’
‘Of course not. I wouldn’t—’
Cristina’s phone buzzed. She frowned. Someone was trying to ring her.
She glanced at the screen, her eyes narrowing.
Unknown number. Damn! Agusto had given her his private number but she hadn’t had a chance to put it into her phone yet. Fumbling with her bag, she tried to find the notepad where she’d written it down.
‘Mum, I’m going to have to go. I’ve got another call—’
‘Oh, of course. Well, I’ll hang up, then. Bye, darling, bye…’
Tucking the phone under her chin, Cristina cleared her throat.
‘Cristina Shephard.’
But there was only silence. She cursed silently. She must have just missed it.
‘Ms Shephard?’
Turning, her mind still on the mystery caller, she saw that it was one of the crew.
‘We’re just about to dock now. If you could stay seated until I return?’
Nodding, she managed a quick, tight smile.
Should she call back? No, she wouldn’t—not now. It would only distract her, and she needed to concentrate. Besides, if it was important they’d ring back, wouldn’t they?
Stepping onto a short wooden jetty, she felt a flicker of anticipation ripple over her skin. She could taste the salt in the air, and as a slight breeze lifted her hair she couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
Another limousine was waiting for her—only it was not the sort that could be rented out by the hour. Judging by the coat of arms on the door, it was the family’s own private car. Settling back against the soft leather seating, she felt almost giddy with excitement. It was like being Cinderella.
Or maybe not Cinderella, she thought a moment later. There would be no fairy godmother or glass slipper to help her achieve her happy-ever-after. It was up to her to make this work.
Which was fine. She had the talent and the determination, so what could possibly stand in her way?
Turning her head, she gazed eagerly out of the window. For such a small island, there was quite a mix of landscapes. Inland, green hills covered with grass blended into dust-brown olive groves, like paint on a palette, while along the coastline clumps of pine trees ended in vertiginous drops down to the water. As the road twisted upwards she could see that the cobalt blue sea splashed foam up onto both shining dark rocks and sand the colour of clotted cream.
There was a tiny church on one of the smaller hills, and some rustic-looking cottages—and then suddenly, as the car slid round a corner, she saw it.
Her mouth dropped open.
It really was a fortress.
Gazing up at the castellated stone walls, she felt her heartbeat accelerate.
It was huge. The Osorios’ beautiful home in Segovia seemed modest in comparison, but even the fortress was dwarfed by the six-sided tower that rose up from the centre of the building.
Feeling almost hollow with shock and envy, she was vaguely aware of the limousine stopping, and then she was stepping out of the air-conditioned cool into heat and sunlight. A middle-aged woman wearing a cream linen dress greeted her with a smile.
‘Ms Shephard? Welcome to Fortaleza de Moya. My name is Pilar, and I’m in charge of housekeeping. I’ll be taking care of you during your stay.’
Reining in her nerves, Cristina smiled. ‘Thank you. It’s lovely to meet you.’
She glanced across at her shabby luggage, but before she had a chance to move Pilar stepped towards her.
‘Javier will take your bags to your room. I’m sure you want to freshen up after your long journey, but Señor Osorio was hoping you’d have a coffee with him first.’
Cristina held her gaze. It was difficult not to be intimidated by the opulence and glamour of the Osorios’ world and their cool, crystalline confidence. Particularly when she dressed so casually.
But remembering Luis’s cool dissection of her CV, she felt a rush of defiance. Now, more than anything, she wanted to get started. To prove that she could hold her own with these people.
Lifting her chin, she smiled. ‘What a lovely idea. I could do with a coffee.’
She followed the other woman through a series of gorgeous, glamorous rooms out onto a stone balcony overlooking the sea. Coffee and some petit-fours were arranged on a marble-topped table, and after Pilar had left she picked up a small crescent-shaped biscuit and nibbled it—more for something to do than because she was hungry.
There was a slight breeze and, leaning forward against the balustrade, she drew up her mass of hair, enjoying the sensation of cool air on the warm skin of her neck.
Hearing footsteps behind her, she let her hair fall. Reminding herself to call him by his first name, she turned, smiling warmly.
‘It’s a beautiful view, Agusto. You must be so happy to see it—’ she began.
But her words dried to dust in her mouth. For it wasn’t Agusto standing there. It was his son, Luis, and he was looking anything but happy.
*
Luis stared at her, his heart pounding. Walking onto the balcony, he’d flinched. But not because of the glare of sunlight. It was looking at Cristina that had momentarily blinded him. With her auburn hair spilling down over her bare arms, her mouth open in an O of shock, she was easily as beautiful as the view she’d been admiring.
He felt a shot of anger; he wasn’t sure if it was with her or with himself. But he was grateful that she was on the other side of the flagstones, for it took every step towards her for him to compose himself.
Although, to be honest, she looked more stunned than he felt.
Her words confirmed that fact as she said shakily, ‘What are you doing here? Your father—’
‘Isn’t here.’
Her beauty felt like a punch to the face, but he held her gaze, forcing himself to look at her—really look at her—until the pain subsided to a dull ache.
‘They arrive tomorrow. Something came up at the bank, so I offered to come along and hold the fort.’
Cristina stared at him mutely. If that was a joke, it wasn’t funny. But then humour was pretty low on her list of responses right now. Mostly she was in shock at coming face to face with him. And then there was the shock of his beauty.
Her pulse gave a twitch. She was used to beauty—had photographed numerous celebrities. None of them, though, had ever made her heart beat like a metronome. But then none of them had had a clear gold profile that could cut through the dusk of a summer evening.
He took a step towards her, his eyes drifting towards the biscuit in her hand.
‘Making yourself at home, I see,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t get too comfortable. You won’t be staying.’
It took a moment for his words to sink in. Back in Segovia she’d thought he was warning her off, but this was the first t
ime he’d made it clear.
‘I’m pretty sure that’s not up to you,’ she said stiffly.
‘Then you’ve been misinformed—or you have made an assumption based on ignorance, not fact. When I want something to happen, it does.’
‘And let me guess…’ She glared at him. ‘You don’t ask twice.’
She felt a chill slide over her skin as he shook his head, his grey eyes dark with hostility.
‘I don’t ask.’ His gaze drifted dismissively over her face. ‘You’ve had a nice all-expenses-paid trip. And now it’s over.’
Holding on to her temper by a rapidly fraying thread, she raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t work for you, and you have no say in what I do or where I do it. I do what my editor—’
‘Really? Your editor told you to sleep with me?’
His face was cold and harsh.
Cristina gaped at him. Leaning over the balcony, lost in the sound of the waves and the heat of the mid-afternoon sun, she had been expecting a pleasant if slightly formal welcome from Agusto.
But Luis was neither pleasant nor welcoming. Nor did he bear any resemblance to the hard-muscled lover who had pulled her against him time and again during that night in the hotel. Instead he was staring at her in a way that made the solid stone beneath her feet feel flimsy.
‘You surprise me. I’ve met your boss, and Grace Whiteley doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d pimp out her staff.’
‘That’s not I meant and you know it.’ She was almost blindsided with outrage and fury. ‘How dare you suggest that—?’
‘That what? That you seduced me?’
Luis could feel the rage rolling beneath his skin. He’d wanted this opportunity to confront her with what she’d done, and back in Segovia it had all seemed so straightforward, so logical. Without his parents there to intervene he would summon her, punish her, and then dismiss her.
Now that she was here, though, he wanted to teach her another kind of lesson completely. One that had nothing to with logic and reason and everything to do with lust. His eyes wandered over her beautiful face, dropping over her small rounded breasts to the temptingly smooth bare skin of her stomach. And as for dismissing her—
Breathing in sharply, he ignored the longing constricting his groin and dragged his gaze up to meet hers. ‘Please don’t treat me as though I’m stupid. Or naive. You’d be wrong on both counts. And you can stop all the wide-eyed outrage. I read your CV, Ms Shephard. I know exactly how your type operates and you set me up. All that business of spilling my drink…’
His mouth curled, contempt flaring in his eyes.
‘I should have known something was up when you fixed my bike.’ He shook his head. ‘You only knew how to fix it because you’d broken it.’
And that expression on her face when she’d turned and looked back at him—it hadn’t been doubt but relief. Relief that he was still there. His skin prickled with shame. Still there, fool that he had been, not struggling or fighting, just watching and waiting for her to reel him in.
Cristina stared at him in confusion. Her mind was completely empty, spotless—bare like a blank piece of paper. But it wasn’t just his words that had robbed her of the power of thought. She just couldn’t match the cold-eyed stranger in front of her with the man who had made love to her with such passion and intensity.
With an effort, she tried to marshal her brain into some kind of order. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Luis stared at her coldly. She was a good actress. Really good. The shaking hands were a particularly nice touch. He might have been tempted to believe her had he not been stung so badly before.
Five years ago he had been young, naive and insecure. The reporter back then had been older than him, pretty and persuasive, and he’d been flattered—
Until the moment when he’d woken up and heard her talking to her colleague.
His stomach quivered, dread pooling low down as he remembered how it had felt—not just the shock of discovering who she was, but the creeping recollection of what he’d said to her. Even now it still had the power to wake him some nights, sweating and yet cold, breathing heavily in the darkness.
A storm was building in his chest, and he knew his feelings must be showing on his face, but he didn’t care. The proficiency of her performance only served to feed his anger.
‘I told you not to treat me like an idiot. You might have fooled me once with those eyes, that mouth, but I learn from my mistakes—and you are a mistake I’ve no intention of repeating.’
Cristina felt familiar panic twist her stomach.
Meeting Luis with his parents had been a shock. But that had been all about his lies. This—here, now—was about his contempt. Her throat tightened, misery, dark and impenetrable, crowding out the breath in her lungs as his words ricocheted inside her head.
A mistake.
Suddenly it wasn’t Luis’s voice she could hear but her father’s, and the words were those he had spoken to her eight years ago in a hotel foyer in London.
Her mouth felt bone-dry, and for a moment she thought she was going to throw up.
A week ago Luis had turned her body into a quivering mass of desire, his gaze, his touch, his kiss had made her feel as if she was the only woman in the world for him. Now, though, it was as if he could see inside her. See that she was a fake, a failure, with no place in the world—especially his world.
Watching the colour drain from her face, Luis felt something crack inside him.
She looked stunned—sick, even—and the fact that he was the one who had upset her made his heart beat painfully hard. He was never brutal—not even in business, and especially not to women.
But Cristina had lied to him. She’d let him believe that she wanted him, when all she’d really wanted had been to get the inside story on his family.
His mouth thinned. She didn’t deserve gentleness or mercy.
He took a step closer. ‘You lied to me. You knew who I was and you deliberately set out to seduce me. You followed me into that bar and then you made damn sure I noticed you. Hell, you even walked into me so that I’d spill my drink.’
That wasn’t what had happened, she thought, striving to stay calm as a swirl of anger and frustration rose up inside her.
‘Is that right, Lucho?’ she snapped. ‘You see, the way I remember it, you walked into me. Oh, and remind me again—which one of us was using a false name?’
Luis could barely contain his rage. It wasn’t a false name. It was his childhood nickname. Even now his mother still used it sometimes, and Bas had always called him Lucho.
At the thought of his brother, the last thin thread of his temper snapped.
His eyes narrowed. ‘You know, you’re wasting your talents, Ms Shephard. You should really be on the other side of the camera. Or is that what this is all really about? You selling some kiss and tell story to the newspapers?’
Cristina stepped forward, her hands curling into fists, frustration arrowing through her blood. ‘For the last time—I didn’t know who you were—’
‘And I didn’t know who you were.’ His eyes met hers, dark grey with contempt and retribution. ‘But I do now. I know exactly who and what you are. You’re a cold-hearted, self-serving parasite.’
She could hardly breathe. ‘And you’re a phony. A fake. A fraud. Sneaking around, playing at being a biker, when really you’re a CEO—’
‘I was not sneaking.’
‘Oh, really?’ she snarled. ‘Is that why your mother thought you flew in that morning? Why your father has no idea you ride a motorbike?’
A solid, choking anger filled his lungs. ‘This is between you and I. It has nothing to do with my parents.’
‘You’re right. It did have nothing to do with your parents. Or my editor. It was just us.’
Just us.
The words spun out of her mouth, whirling between them like sparks—bright, luminous, impossible to ignore.
They were inches apart.
&
nbsp; Luis could feel his body responding to her words, to the darkness of her pupils, to her mouth tipped up towards his—
Somewhere in the house a door slammed, and they both jumped.
Cristina stared past him, concentrating on the horizon. She felt weightless; as if the pulse beating between her thighs was all that remained of her body. It had been so hard not to reach out and touch him. But she hadn’t, and soon he wouldn’t be here to tempt her.
‘And now it’s over,’ she said quickly, turning to face him. ‘Look, I’m just here to work. So why don’t you go back to California and let me get on with my job?’
Luis stared at her in silence. He was still reeling from what had just happened. His pulse shuddered. What had nearly just happened—and would have done if that door hadn’t slammed, and brought him to his senses.
Senses that clearly needed to step up a level.
Stepping past her, he picked up the coffee pot and carefully filled two cups. ‘Interesting hypothesis. But I’m not going back to California. Coffee?’
He held out a cup, and she shook her head. ‘But you said—’
‘Something I didn’t mean, Ms Shephard. How does it feel to be on the receiving end of that for once?’
His eyes locked onto hers.
‘I don’t trust you. I certainly don’t trust you in my home with my parents. So while you’re here I’m going to be here too. And every day I’m going to be watching you, waiting for you to mess up, and when you do I’m going to ruin you. But until that moment you’re stuck with me.’
Staring past her, he gazed coolly at the sunset.
‘You know your way out, don’t you?’
CHAPTER FOUR
LEANING FORWARD, CRISTINA grabbed a handful of grass and hauled herself over a small outcrop of rock. The hill had looked quite gentle from a distance, but up close she had quickly realised that, like a lot things in life, its appearance was deceptive.
Surrender to the Ruthless Billionaire Page 5
