Hot Nights with a Spaniard: Bedded for the Spaniard's Pleasure / Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride / Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge

However, her rueful smile quickly faded to one of weary resignation as she approached Lionel. ‘How much do you need this time, Lionel?’ she asked heavily.

‘So what did he want?’

Cairo turned from packing the suitcase open on top of her bed, her expression becoming guarded as she looked at Rafe as he leant against the door frame.

She straightened. ‘I really don’t think that’s any of your business, Rafe.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I think you’ll find, Cairo, that I don’t really care what you do or don’t consider my business.’

Rafe had spent the last fifteen minutes beside the pool watching from behind dark sunglasses as Cairo and her ex-husband talked together on the terrace, trying to gauge from their body language exactly what was going on. But Cairo’s ultra-calm demeanour and Bond’s animated one hadn’t really told him an awful lot.

He had expected Cairo to join him and Daisy beside the pool once the other man had got back in his car and left, but instead she had disappeared inside the villa.

To pack, it seemed …

‘Well?’ he prompted impatiently.

Cairo frowned. ‘I’m sorry, Rafe, but I’m not telling you anything—’ She broke off, her eyes widening as Rafe crossed the room in three long strides to stand just inches away from her. She swallowed hard. ‘Shouldn’t you be outside with Daisy?’

‘Daisy’s too excited about going home to swim any more and has gone to her room to dress, instead.’

Cairo had no intention of telling Rafe the reason for Lionel’s visit. It was awkward enough that Lionel had tracked down the reporter from yesterday in order to find out where she was staying with Rafe, without going into the details of their conversation.

‘Shouldn’t you be packing, too, if we’re leaving for the airport in a couple of hours?’ she pointed out, inwardly wishing Rafe wouldn’t stand quite this close to her; his proximity was totally unnerving her!

Rafe shook his head. ‘I find Bond’s visit much more interesting than packing.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes—really,’ Rafe drawled. ‘You made an intriguing comment yesterday evening …’

‘Just the one?’ she came back in mock disappointment. ‘And here I was deceiving myself that I’m much more interesting than that!’

Rafe gave an admiring smile as he appreciated the way Cairo was trying to change the subject. But Rafe had no intention of letting her succeed.

‘Oh, don’t worry, you are extremely interesting,’ he assured her throatily. ‘But you implied last night that it isn’t you Bond is interested in. So if it’s not you, what is it?’

Her smile faded as her gaze became guarded. ‘I really can’t discuss this with you, Rafe—’

‘Oh, but you really can, Cairo,’ Rafe insisted softly, his own gaze compelling.

She shook her head. ‘Not without breaking a confidence, I can’t,’ she told him determinedly.

Rafe’s eyes widened. ‘A confidence with Bond?’ he murmured disbelievingly. ‘You divorced the man three months ago!’ he reminded her.

‘Yes, I did,’ she acknowledged stiffly. ‘But that doesn’t mean I have to actually hate him, does it? Or discuss his private business with someone he regards as—’ She broke off, frowning.

‘“He regards as” …?’

‘Never mind,’ Cairo said hurriedly. ‘Lionel and I may be divorced, but I don’t hate him,’ she insisted.

Rafe grimaced. ‘In my experience that’s what usually happens when two people divorce.’

‘Well, it isn’t true in my case,’ Cairo assured him firmly.

How could she possibly hate Lionel when she still felt so responsible for what had gone wrong between them? She couldn’t. But without telling Rafe the whole sorry story of her marriage, of the fact that she had married Lionel while still in love with him, she couldn’t even begin to explain her feelings of guilt …

‘I can see that,’ Rafe grated harshly. ‘Why bother to divorce him if you’re going to come running every time the man crooks his little finger?’

Her eyes glittered darkly. ‘It isn’t like that!’

‘Then what the hell is it like?’ Rafe demanded incredulously. ‘Last night you gave every impression that meeting Bond again was an ordeal for you, and yet today the two of you seem to have shared a pleasant conversation together!’

Cairo had found meeting Lionel again an ordeal because she had hoped—prayed—that when she ended their marriage, it might finally snap him into doing something about the mess his life had become. Those telephone calls last night, his visit today to ask her for money—yet again—told her that wasn’t the case….

But without revealing everything to Rafe—which she had no intention of doing!—she was never going to persuade him of that. Lionel had managed to hide his gambling addiction from everyone for years, and Cairo certainly couldn’t be the one to betray him now. Not even to convince Rafe that there was nothing between herself and Lionel.

Especially not in order to convince Rafe that there was nothing between herself and Lionel! Last night had shown her all too clearly just how dangerously susceptible she still was to Rafe….

‘I really would prefer it if you stayed out of my life, Rafe.’

‘And what if I would prefer to remain in it?’ he challenged.

‘This is ridiculous—’

‘I agree,’ Rafe interrupted.

Cairo scowled at him. ‘Can we just stop playing word games?’

He raised dark brows. ‘What other sort of games did you have in mind?’

She gave an impatient snort. ‘I’ve never particularly liked playing games of any sort,’ she snapped. ‘Even as a child I was always the one that landed on the snake!’

Rafe gave an appreciative grin. ‘I like you in this feisty mood, Cairo.’

‘I don’t want you to like me, Rafe!’ she insisted as she moved away from him to resume her packing, but not as neatly as she had earlier, instead throwing things haphazardly inside the suitcase.

Rafe continued to look at her through narrowed lids for several long minutes.

She didn’t seem overly upset by Lionel Bond’s visit. More resigned than anything else.

But resigned to what?

CHAPTER TEN

‘HE’s absolutely gorgeous, Margo!’ Cairo told her sister warmly as she stood up to hand baby Simon back into his mother’s arms.

They had left the villa and the South of France without further incident, arriving back in England in the early evening, with a car waiting there for them. Rafe had driven them all to the clinic to visit Margo. The proud father was there, too, of course, Jeff looking and sounding much more relaxed now that the danger was over for both Margo and the baby.