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‘The bar owner is busy,’ he offered in flawless Spanish. Then, when she frowned, Leandro quickly deduced she didn’t understand. ‘Are you meeting somebody?’ he asked, switching effortlessly to English.

‘No …I mean …I mean perhaps.’

Twin circles of scarlet added fetching colour to her otherwise pale beauty. So she was a tourist …an English tourist since there was no trace of any other accent in her soft appealing voice. Leandro’s attention was trapped as thoroughly as a lynx caught in a snare.

‘You are unsure if you are meeting someone?’ he asked teasingly.

‘Not exactly …I mean …can I talk to you?’ Lowering her voice, the intriguing young woman came nearer and with her brought the haunting scent of jasmine. There are other things besides talking I would like to do with you, mi ángel … Leandro thought silently, his senses unbelievably stirred as he considered her arrestingly pretty face.

‘I—this is very awkward and I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but …are you Leandro Reyes?’

So …she was not an ‘innocent’ tourist at all! Disappointment bit hard. She was either an opportunist actress looking hopefully for a chance to get into the movies—something that happened with more frequency than Leandro cared to catalogue—or else a reporter. Gut instinct told him it was probably the latter choice. What a pity! If he didn’t dislike journalists with such a vengeance he would have been only too happy to entertain this beautiful young woman all night. As it was, he now saw her presence as a contemptible intrusion into his fiercely guarded privacy. How the hell had she found him here? He did not recognise her from amongst the students at the college he’d spoken at earlier today, so how had she discovered his whereabouts?

‘That is not your concern,’ he replied coolly, the shutters clearly coming down over his sensational silver-grey eyes.

At that moment Isabella could have strangled her own sister. What had Emilia persuaded her to do? She wasn’t the type of person who intruded on anyone’s privacy and even if she recognised someone famous in the street or in public somewhere, she’d be the last person to bother them! Now this Leandro Reyes—this esteemed film director who protected his privacy with a notoriously zealous verve—was looking at her as if she were a fly he would like to swat out of his eye-line!

‘I’m really sorry if I’m bothering you—’ Isabella unconsciously licked her upper lip to stop it from quivering ‘—but I truly meant no offence. I knew this was a bad idea but I’m afraid I acted against my better judgement. I should never have come over to you …please forgive me.’ She turned away, her intention to leave this place as quickly as possible and put the embarrassing memory behind her. When she rang Emilia later on tonight she wasn’t half going to give her a piece of her mind! She must have been insane to even think she might pull off such a thing as garner an interview with this man! She’d seen the disparaging glance he’d swept her with only too clearly. He’d probably been disturbed by unscrupulous journalists and reporters too many times to give them anything but the lash of his tongue—let alone an interview!

‘Wait a moment.’

His voice, throaty and at the same time as richly beguiling as brandy warmed over a flame, halted Isabella in her tracks. ‘What publication do you work for?’

‘I don’t.’

Turning round slowly again, Isabella looped some loose strands from her pony-tail behind her ear. The cool grey eyes of Leandro Reyes were surveying her with suspicion and deep mistrust. Just then Isabella would rather be stranded in the deep snows of Siberia than having to endure his terrifying scrutiny.

‘What do you mean …you don’t?’

‘I mean I’m not a journalist myself. I’m in Spain researching a book I’m writing. And I only came to find you because my sister, who works for a—a women’s magazine in the UK, rang me when she knew I would be here in the Port of Vigo the same time as you, Señor Reyes.’

‘So it is your sister who wants to interview me for her magazine?’

‘That’s right. Once again, I can only offer my apologies for intruding like th—’

‘How did she know that I would be here today? Where did she get her information from?’

How could she tell him that Emilia had overheard a private conversation? It would surely damn both her and her sister in his eyes. Isabella’s desire to escape the scathing cynosure of this disturbing man grew almost unbearable even though she told herself his acute irritation was justified. Right now she should be back at the little hotel she was staying in, closeted in her room making notes from her talks with some of the pilgrims earlier today—not acting like some ill-equipped spy on behalf of her sister! This disturbing and unwanted encounter had totally set her back and it was going to take all her concentration to even write her name, let alone anything more challenging tonight!

‘I’m sorry, but you’d have to talk to my sister about that. Please accept my apologies for disturbing you, Señor Reyes. I told my sister it was a bad idea at the time but she can be very persuasive …unfortunately.’ Grimacing and slightly ashamed that she’d confessed as much, Isabella started to walk away again. Once more, Leandro stopped her in her tracks.

‘So …you are a writer? Are you published?’

‘No …not yet. At the moment I work as a librarian but it’s always been my ambition to write books full time.’

‘And this book you are working on …is it a work of fiction?’

For a moment Isabella was so mesmerised by the hypnotic concentration of this man’s quixotic gaze that thinking was no easy feat. In fact, her thoughts felt like incomprehensible words on a Scrabble board that had been completely muddled up!

‘No …it’s not. I’m—I’m writing about the pilgrims who walk the Camino Way to Santiago de Compostela. My grandfather was Spanish, you see, and he told me so many stories about it that it’s always been my ambition to come here and experience it for myself.’

Leandro found his temper irrevocably easing as he studied the girl in genuine surprise. The Camino de Santiago de Compostela—The Way of Saint James—was very important to him and his family—to all the people in this region of Northern Spain. Many had walked it in their turn and received blessings that they talked about to this day. Perhaps this pretty young woman with her soulful ebony coloured eyes and her milk-and-honey skin was not cut from the same cloth as those ‘kill for a story’ reporters that were sometimes a plague on his industry. Could it not be possible that she had more integrity than that? Leandro wanted to believe so even if his mistrustful nature advised against it. She had to possess some good qualities if she was writing about the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage. Warring within himself to give her the benefit of the doubt, Leandro decided to relent—telling himself that he would find out soon enough if she was the genuine article or not.

‘So …you are walking the Camino yourself?’ he asked intrigued.

‘Yes, I am …but I’ve also been stopping for a day or two at a time to talk to other pilgrims for research for my book and do some writing. I’ve heard some truly inspirational stories so far and I’ve got loads of wonderful material to work with!’ Almost guiltily catching the full force of his piercing examining gaze, Isabella bore his investigation with mounting trepidation, then let loose a sigh. ‘Anyway …I should go and leave you in peace. I have plenty of notes to write up and I must get on. I’m very pleased to have met you, Señor Reyes.’

‘If that is true, then you should not be in such a hurry to leave …no?’ He pushed the legs of the wooden chair opposite him at the table with one booted foot so that they scraped along the terracotta floor tiles towards her, making Isabella jump. Her cheeks flooded with heat and Leandro smiled at her with a lazily confident air that said he knew she would not think of refusing his invitation to stay. But inside Isabella was torn. Now that she’d got what she’d wanted—or what Emilia had wanted—the whole scenario had left her with a bad taste in her mouth and all she wanted to do was go back to the hotel and look over her notes. She also had a long day’s walking ahead of her tomorrow and it was probably wiser to just get some rest.

‘I …I’m sorry but I have to go.’

Emilia would kill her for blowing such an opportunity to talk to the enigmatic director but that was just too bad. She wouldn’t impose on this man one second longer than she could help it, Isabella decided.

‘What is your name?’ Leandro asked her, seeing her sudden indecision.

‘Isabella Deluce.’

‘Isabella? Like our famous queen …Well, Isabella …’ The way his tongue rolled the syllables of her name made it sound like the most shockingly intimate caress and she shivered almost violently. ‘I will talk to you about the Camino and the pilgrimage, but my private and professional life are strictly out of bounds …Is that clear?’

Swallowing down her shock at his words, Isabella smoothed her hand nervously down the front of her jeans. ‘Yes, of course …but you’d really talk to me about the Camino?’

‘I have said so, have I not?’

Leandro’s mercurial eyes skimmed down Isabella’s body in her white cotton shirt and light blue jeans and lingered for a moment on the long, shapely legs that she had inadvertently drawn his attention to with her restless hand. He lifted his gaze back up to her flushed and lovely face with its arresting little dimple in her chin with undeniable satisfaction.

‘Now come and sit down,’ he ordered huskily, his tone allowing no opportunity for dissent. ‘We will talk about the Camino and you can tell me some of your impressions so far. Have you eaten yet?’

‘No …but I can easily get something when I return to my hotel.’

‘Then please join me …I have already ordered some seafood and Señor Varez, the owner of the bar, will no doubt provide me with far too much to eat alone. I think we must also have some wine …I have found in my experience that wine definitely assists the conversation to flow.’

When Isabella still hesitated to take the chair Leandro proffered, his lips split into a wide provocative grin.

‘Do not look so alarmed, pretty Isabella …I may look quite the pirate with my long hair and unshaven jaw, but I assure you that I do not intend to throw you over my shoulder and take you back to my cabin to ravish you …unless of course you have a secret desire that I do just that!’

CHAPTER TWO

ISABELLA found herself lowering her body into the sturdy wooden chair opposite Leandro with her limbs trembling—a small riot going on inside her at the fact that he had made such a disturbingly unexpected and risqué comment. Glancing into his now twinkling grey eyes and the surprising dimples either side of his sensual mouth, she remembered her sister’s comment about him …

He’s six foot one of pure trained muscle with dark hair and eyes the colour of polished slate.

Now she saw that even that description didn’t do him justice. He was absolutely right. He did look a bit like a pirate—but a modern-day, rather bohemian one than his perhaps coarser counterpart from another century. And in spite of his casual clothing and long shoulder-length hair—indicative perhaps of a somewhat bohemian sensibility—Leandro Reyes also had an air of authority about him that said you’d be wrong to assume his morals or values were equally ‘unconventional’.

Now that he’d insisted she stay and Isabella was actually going to have a conversation with him, she wished hard that she knew more about him. Her knowledge of his films or any of his other achievements was scant and that vaguely embarrassed her—even though Emilia had sprung this whole event upon her out of the blue. Isabella loved going to the movies and her leaning was definitely more towards the kind of thought-provoking films that directors like Leandro were famous for, but she’d never actually seen one of his films as far as she could recall. Like her beloved grandfather, Isabella’s first love was books and, though it might have been a disappointment to them, it had been no surprise to her family when she’d opted to train as a librarian instead of something that carried a bit more professional kudos. And now, even though Isabella aspired to be an author, they clearly viewed this pursuit as a bit of a ‘fool’s mission’ as well as being certain that she wouldn’t make any money out of it.

‘Now I have made you blush!’ Leandro teased, clearly enjoying her apparent discomfort at his playfully taunting words. ‘Have I embarrassed you, pretty Isabella?’

‘No, Señor Reyes.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, yes …a little. I think I would just prefer our talk to be concentrated on the pilgrimage, if you don’t mind.’ Wanting desperately to divert his teasing because it would be the most disturbing distraction from his storytelling, Isabella tried to assume a more comfortable position in her chair. She also didn’t want him to imagine that she was one of those easily flattered women who would welcome and even encourage his flirtatious remarks.