The Spaniard's Summer Seduction: Under the Spaniard's Lock and Key / The Secret Spanish Love-Child / Surrender to Her Spanish Husband

Maggie had never seen the normally restrained Simon so angry before, and the trigger to him losing it totally had of all things been a throwaway comment in the heat of the moment, because he didn’t have the faintest idea why she was angry. ‘I don’t think you even like women!’

‘Who have you been listening to? I am not gay!’

Before Maggie had been able to assure him she hadn’t meant that at all he had grabbed her arm and wrenched her towards him, lowered his face to her and snarled, ‘If you spread lies like that I’ll…’

Startled by his aggressive reaction, Maggie had frozen with shock, but had not lowered her gaze from his menacing glare. She knew from past experience it was a mistake to show fear to bullies. And Simon was a bully.

Why had she not known that before?

Anger had come to her rescue; her chin had come up and she had asked with cold disdain, ‘You’ll what, Simon?’

The ruddy colour rising up his neck had reached his cheeks, darkening the skin to magenta as he’d glared at her in furious frustration. ‘I… I’ll…’

Pretending not to notice the fingers tightening painfully around her wrist, she had cut across him. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I touched a raw nerve, but your sexuality is not a subject that interests me.’

Simon had looked at the ring she held out to him and released her arm.

She had dropped it into his palm, walked away and not looked back.

Maggie threw the newspaper into the back seat and fastened her belt with a click. Her chin lifted. Being sensible had got her nothing but humiliation; it was time for a bit of recklessness.

But maybe not this much, she thought half an hour later as they seemed to finally arrive at their destination. The village cut into the hillside was small, in a matter of moments they had driven through.

Keeping her voice carefully casual, Maggie turned her head in time to see the village lights disappear as the road began to climb steeply and asked, ‘Aren’t we stopping?’

Maggie recognised the extreme vulnerability of her position; she was in a car miles from anywhere with a man who could, for all she knew, be a homicidal maniac and nobody knew where she was.

She should be seriously scared, so why wasn’t she?

‘Relax, Maggie, I’m quite harmless.’

She looked at his profile and thought, If you were I wouldn’t be here. It was a bit late to recognise that it was the danger he represented that had drawn her here.

He was her rebellion against the self-imposed rules she had lived her life by.

‘Relax—you will enjoy yourself, you know.’ She looked at him with big wary eyes and he expelled a sigh. ‘That was not a threat, you know, and you can take your hand off the door—it’s locked.’

‘Why didn’t we stop in the village?’

‘Because,’ he said, pulling the car onto a patch of rocky ground beside a number of other vehicles, ‘the villagers are all here.’ He released the central lock. ‘You are sorry now that you came?’

Maggie, her lips curved in a happy smile, shook her head. ‘No.’ When he’d said the village was here he had not been exaggerating; the area of flat ground fringed by trees was full of people.

She felt his eyes on her and turned her head.

Her own smile faded as their glances connected and locked. The raw hunger in his deep-set eyes made her breath quicken and her stomach muscles quiver receptively.

For a moment their glances clung until Maggie, her heart beating hard, allowed her lashes to fall in a concealing veil.

The heavy thrum of her pounding blood in her ears was deafening. Confused, excited and scared by the strength of her reaction she ran ahead, anxious to distance herself from him and her feelings.

She used the moment to gather her calm around her like a comfort blanket—she wasn’t comforted but after a little deep breathing she was able to speak without babbling anything stupid like, ‘You’re beautiful,’ when he reached her side.

The tremors that hit her body intermittently she could do little about, so she jammed her hands in the pockets of her jeans, blissfully unaware that while the first-aid measure hid her shaking hands it also pulled the denim tight across her bottom, riveting Rafael’s eyes on the feminine flare of her hips.

‘This is incredible,’ she said, not feigning her enthusiasm as she looked around the mountainside clearing. ‘However did you find this place?’

Eyes shining, Maggie stared at the scene, drinking it in: the flickering flames of the open fires, smoke in the night, the strings of fairy lights in the tall pines twinkling above the heads of the people of all ages sitting at the rustic tables, eating, drinking, laughing and some dancing to the music supplied by an accordion player.

The smell of the food cooking in the giant pots filled the air and mingled with the wood smoke, the scent of damp grass, and the wild thyme crushed underfoot.

‘Rafael.’ The man who greeted her companion stared at Maggie with open curiosity before smiling and making a comment in his native tongue.

The men spoke for a moment before Rafael turned back to Maggie. ‘I did not find it,’ he said, responding to her previous question. ‘I was brought up not far from here.’

‘A country boy!’

He arched a dark brow as he placed his fingers under her elbow to guide her to a seat at one of the long trestle tables. ‘That surprises you?’

Considering his aura of sophistication it did, but she had to admit he did seem very relaxed and at home in the surroundings and, judging by the number of people who greeted him with warmth and familiarity, he had not forgotten his roots.

She smiled as people moved to make way for them; Rafael told her to save him a seat while he left to bring her back food.

Maggie sat quietly drinking in the sights and smells, trying to commit this very special moment to memory, she was pretty sure that by the morning it would all seem like a dream.

Rafael returned carrying two plates of steaming paella and, setting one before her, pulled a stray chair to the table and straddled it.

Maggie speared a prawn with her fork and put it in her mouth. She gasped. ‘That is incredible!’ and refilled her fork.

Her plate was half empty when she realised that Rafael was spending more time watching her than eating himself.

She lifted her eyes to his face and once again he responded to a question before she had framed it. ‘I like watching you eat. It is rare to see a woman who enjoys her food.’

‘Well, I’d enjoy it more if you weren’t watching every mouthful,’ she admitted frankly.

Maggie tapped her foot as the fiddler struck up a fresh tune. The man on the accordion finished off his glass of wine before he joined in too. There was a ripple of clapping as people flocked onto the makeshift dance floor. This was clearly a popular choice.

‘They all look as if they’re having a good time.’

The wistful note in her voice was not lost on Rafael, who was starting to find her undisguised enthusiasm for everything wearing. Every time she looked at him with wide trusting eyes he experienced a need to justify his actions to himself that he did not enjoy.

He knew he was doing the right thing.

So why, asked the voice in his head, do you feel like such a lowlife?

‘The paella is very lovely.’

Of course it was.