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

He shook his head. ‘This isn’t like you, Cairo—’

‘I thought we had agreed that you don’t really know me!’ she scorned. ‘Last chance, Rafe,’ she added. ‘A once-in-a-lifetime offer!’ Her eyes glittered.

Not with anger, but with tears, Rafe recognized with horror.

Cairo knew she was almost at breaking point. That much more of this conversation and she was going to end up blubbering like a complete idiot. Which was ridiculous. She was a twenty-eight-year-old recently divorced woman, for goodness’ sake; most women in her position would have been only too happy to be offered a night of uncomplicated sex with Rafe Montero!

Except Cairo wasn’t ‘most women’ and, loving Rafe as she now knew she still did, it wouldn’t be just uncomplicated sex to her, either….

‘Time’s up, I’m afraid,’ she announced with faux brightness as Rafe still made no response to her offer. ‘You had your chance and you—’ She broke off suddenly as Rafe stepped forward to wrap his arms about her and hold her against him with a gentleness that was completely her undoing.

A sob caught at the back of Cairo’s throat as she allowed her head to drop forward onto Rafe’s shoulder and the tears began to fall hotly down her cheeks. Then his arms tightened about her as she began to cry in earnest.

‘I’m sorry, Cairo,’ he groaned into her hair. ‘I am so sorry!’

Rafe’s apology—for what exactly …?—just made her cry all the harder, deep, racking tears that she hadn’t allowed to fall during the last ten months. Probably because she had known that once she started she wouldn’t be able to stop!

The tears fell like a river now, completely drenching the front of Rafe’s shirt as he continued to hold her.

She cried for the loss of Rafe eight years ago.

She cried for her years of being married to Lionel.

She cried for the end of that marriage.

She cried for the loneliness that was so deep inside her it threatened to completely overwhelm her.

But finally there were no more tears left, and instead Cairo became aware of exactly where she was—and in whose arms she was crying.

Rafe Montero’s.

The man who had so cruelly broken her heart eight years ago, and had so unwittingly—uncaringly?—shaped those intervening years….

She began to extricate herself from his arms, brushing the tears from her cheeks as she straightened, her gaze avoiding his as she pushed her hair back behind her ears. ‘Well, that was a little—embarrassing, wasn’t it?’ She gave a broken laugh, frowning as she saw the lip gloss smeared across the front of Rafe’s now very damp white shirt. ‘I’m sorry about that.’ She brushed ineffectually at the smear before stepping back. ‘If it doesn’t come out in the wash let me know and I’ll replace the shirt—’

‘Cairo.’

‘It’s silk, right?’ Cairo continued. ‘Although you’ll have to tell me your size, I’m afraid—’

‘Cairo.’

‘I’ve never been very good at guessing a man’s shirt size. I remember I once—’

‘Cairo, just stop, will you?’ Rafe cut in forcefully, a dark scowl on his brow.

Her gaze was guarded as she looked up at him, her eyes red and puffy from the tears she had cried, her cheeks blotchy and her nose slightly red for the same reason.

She had never looked more beautiful to Rafe….

After an interminable pause, she finally murmured warily, ‘Unless it’s escaped your notice, Rafe, I have stopped now.’

He gave a rueful smile. ‘I noticed.’

She frowned slightly. ‘And …?’

‘You really do need to eat this evening, so how about we pick up a Chinese takeaway on the way back to your apartment?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s the least I can do after behaving so badly I made you miss dinner,’ he added persuasively as her eyes widened. ‘We can make it a Chinese takeaway for one, if that’s what you would prefer?’ he offered as Cairo continued to look at him suspiciously.

‘If we make it a meal for two, what happens afterwards?’

Rafe’s mouth tightened. ‘Afterwards I’ll leave,’ he said curtly. ‘Hell, Cairo, just because I don’t have someone in my life at the moment doesn’t mean I spend my every waking hour trying to devise ways of getting you into bed!’ he added as she still hesitated.

Well, not his every waking hour … but Rafe had to admit—to himself, at least!—that he hadn’t thought of too much else since arriving at the villa two days ago and finding Cairo there, and it had got even worse since their stormy lovemaking the previous evening.

‘I didn’t imagine that you did,’ she said dryly.

He quirked dark brows. ‘No?’

‘No!’

‘Okay, then,’ Rafe said. ‘So do we get Chinese food for one or two?’

She needed her head examined, Cairo knew, to even be thinking of prolonging this evening with Rafe. And yet she was thinking about it….

No doubt the two of them would end up arguing again before the evening was over. They seemed to do little else nowadays. And yet Cairo still felt a certain reluctance to say a final goodbye to him….

‘Two,’ she decided at last. ‘I’ll probably have cause to regret that, too, but—’

‘You never did know quite when to stop talking,’ Rafe remarked as they began to walk back to the car.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I’m already starting to regret it—’

‘Please just get in the car, Cairo,’ he instructed as he opened the passenger door for her, having no intention of arguing with her again before they had eaten.

No doubt it would be another matter afterwards!

‘So you’re going back to work, after all? And in the theatre?’ Rafe couldn’t hide his surprise as the two of them sat on the carpeted floor in the sitting-room of Cairo’s apartment using chopsticks to eat the Chinese food directly from the cartons, and finishing off the bottle of red wine Cairo had opened earlier.

Cairo had suggested warming plates and laying the table, but Rafe had vetoed the idea, opting for this less formal way of dining once Cairo had changed into comfortable worn jeans and a green cashmere sweater so that she could sit cross-legged on the floor.

‘I start rehearsals in a little under two weeks and open in three.’ Cairo nodded as she reached over to pick up a prawn.

Rafe found himself watching as she lifted the chopsticks and deftly popped the food into her mouth, her lips bare of gloss—well, they would be, as most of it was still on his shirt!

He had always loved Cairo’s mouth. The fullness of her lips. The way they tilted slightly at the corners. Their pouting softness when he kissed them….

‘I’m really looking forward to it,’ she added, before licking the sauce from those delectable lips.

Rafe dragged his gaze away, aware that it was only the way he was also sitting cross-legged on the carpet that prevented Cairo from seeing his purely physical response to the provocation that was her mouth.