The Spaniard's Pleasure: The Spaniard's Pregnancy Proposal / At the Spaniard's Convenience / Taken: the Spaniard's Virgin

‘I’m supposed to wait here for my painkillers,’ Fleur said, thinking, This is not something I should even be considering.

‘And wait you will. The computers were down for two hours this morning and they’re still catching up on the backlog. And to make matters worse Pharmacy has half its staff off with the flu thing. It’ll probably take them another half-hour at least to get your prescription sorted.’

Having been part, albeit an incidental part, of the rescue it would be nice to see for herself that the victim was all right.

Rationalisation, said the snide voice in her head.

Fleur tilted her chin and said, ‘You’re really kind.’ If Antonio was there…well, that had nothing whatever to do with her decision.

‘Family friend, are you?’ the inquisitive nurse asked as she pressed the lift button for the third floor.

The query brought home to Fleur just how inappropriate her actions were. She might know a little more concerning the details of Antonios’ Rochas’s strained relationship with his daughter, but the bottom line was she was a stranger.

A stranger the patient’s father had kissed.

Fleur chose her words with care, extremely aware that this was the perfect opportunity to smother any foolish rumours before they started circulating.

‘Just a neighbour. I hardly know him.’ What, she wondered, would be the consequences if she were to claim a closer relationship? Mention the fact that her lips were still tingling from his kiss.

‘Sure you are.’

Fleur didn’t respond to the girl’s conspiratorial wink.

‘No, really,’ she said firmly.

The nurse’s face dropped. ‘Really? We thought maybe you and he were…?’

Fleur adopted a droll expression. ‘Yes, that’s really likely, isn’t it?’

The girl’s glance slid over Fleur in her borrowed clothes. ‘We can dream, can’t we?’ The other girl sighed.

Feeling rather deflated that it had been so depressingly easy to convince the nurse that the notion of her and Antonio being an item was ludicrous, she leaned against the wall of the lift and thought, Dream about being Antonio’s lover? Not a good idea.

‘Fifth door on the left—3B,’ supplied her guide with a smile before the lift door closed.

Fleur counted the doors off and then knocked twice. When there was no response, she tentatively pushed the door open and found herself inside a small hallway.

Fleur was relieved the nurses’ station to her left was unoccupied. The moment she opened the door she had realised that this was not a good idea. The man was going to think she was stalking him.

And I’m not…?

She hesitated a fatal moment too long. If she hadn’t she would not have heard the voices. One was high and young, one deep. One more backwards step and she’d have been free.

You still are free, she told herself.

So why then was she walking towards that voice as though someone had tugged the other end of a string and was reeling her in?

Of the four rooms that opened off the area, two appeared unoccupied. One door was open.

From where she stood to one side of the doorway she could see the hospital bed, but its occupant could not see her. As she hesitated a tall figure who had been out of view came to stand beside the bed. He put his hands flat on the edge and bent towards the figure who held an oxygen mask in her hand.

‘You should not upset yourself.’ Antonio took the mask from her fingers and placed it to her face.

His daughter looked almost as pale as the pillows she was propped up against.

Tamara snatched the mask away. ‘Don’t try and pretend you care about me, or that my mother meant anything to you,’ she sneered. ‘What was she—a one-night stand?’

‘I do not do one-night stands.’

Antonio was conscious that he had made the same angry assertion only a couple of weeks earlier. On that occasion it had been in response to his sister’s taunt that he was in no position to discuss relationships because he’d never had one, only a series of one-night stands.

His angry disclaimer had cut no ice with Sophia. He was used to his volatile sister’s cutting ripostes, but this one had stuck in his mind.

‘Your one-night stands may last six months, a year, even, but, believe me, Antonio, they’re not relationships. A relationship requires that you give something of yourself and you don’t even know how.’

‘So did you love her?’

There was a silence.

Antonio watched Tamara’s thin frame stiffen as though anticipating a blow.

An image formed in Antonio’s head: flawless skin, full lips painted red, and eyes that could radiate an innocence their owner had not possessed. It was a lovely face. A face inextricably linked with deceit and humiliation. The deceit had been hers, the humiliation his. And when you were nineteen and in love humiliation could be pretty devastating.

Falling in love with Miranda had been a life-shaping experience for Antonio. She had taught him an important lesson. You could allow your passions to rule you or you could rule them.

Antonio had made his choice.

Where his emotions were concerned he had taught himself to step back, to be objective. Having the women in his life complain that he gave nothing of himself seemed infinitely preferable to Antonio than the alternative.

But there was now a female in his life whom he could not step back from—one he could not be objective about.

He knew exactly what he had to say.

‘I was very much in love with your mother.’

The girl studied his face suspiciously. ‘You were…?’

‘I was, and I can honestly say I have never loved a woman since.’ Loving required trust and Antonio had no intention of trusting a woman again.

For no reason at all he found himself thinking about Fleur, those big, innocent eyes, and he felt tender feelings stir.

Then he thought about her mouth and was instantly locked into a steamy fantasy.

It was only when an attractive nurse in a crisp white uniform bustled in and said something he didn’t hear that Antonio managed to drag his thoughts away from the erotic images dancing in his mind.

Fleur hadn’t stuck around to see how the girl responded to his confession.

As she limped down the corridor her emotions were in turmoil. Antonio the man with the playboy reputation, she could deal with…sort of. Antonio the man who had only ever loved one woman, and lost her…now that was a very different prospect.