Santiago's Command

‘Environmental science,’ his brother supplied. ‘Now that, believe me, was—’

‘You’re so bright, I just don’t understand how …’ Santiago interrupted, reining in his frustration with difficulty and asking, ‘Did you actually go to any lectures, Ramon?’

‘A couple … yeah, I know, Santiago, but I’m going to buckle down, really I am. Lucy says—’

‘Lucy?’ He saw his brother’s face and added, ‘The goddess. Sorry, I forgot.’

‘A good education, Lucy says, is something that no one can take away from you.’

Santiago blinked. This Lucy didn’t sound like any of the numerous females his brother had hooked up with to date. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting this Lucy.’ Maybe a good woman, someone who thought education was a good thing, was what his brother needed?

The jury was still out but he decided to keep an open mind.

When on her very first day at the finca Harriet’s car had refused to start Lucy had said no problem and walked the mile into town. There had been a problem—not the distance, but the scorching Andalusian midday sun.

A week later Harriet’s car was still sitting propped up on bricks in the yard, awaiting the part the mechanic had had to order, and the tip of Lucy’s nose was still peeling, though the painful redness had subsided and her complexion had regained its normal pale peaches and cream glow.

Today she had not taken up Harriet’s sensible suggestion of a taxi—she loved to walk—but she had chosen a more appropriate time to make the trip and, arriving early, she had managed to buy everything on Harriet’s shopping list while it was still cool enough to enjoy the walk back through truly incredible scenery, but she was taking no chances. Lucy had plastered on the factor thirty and borrowed a shapeless straw sun hat from Harriet.

It was still only ten-thirty when she reached the footbridge across the stream that bordered Harriet’s property, a single-story terracotta-roofed cottage that had the basics and not much else. It was the four acres of scrubby land that had attracted her friend. On retirement Harriet had decided to live her dream and start, to the amazement of her academic ex-work colleagues, a donkey sanctuary in Spain.

When Lucy had said she thought she was being very brave, her old university tutor had retorted she was simply following the example of her favourite ex-student. Lucy, who was not accustomed to being held up as a role model, had not pointed out that her change of lifestyle had not been one of choice, more of necessity.

On impulse she walked down the grassy bank by the bridge and slipped off her sandals. The first initial touch of the icy water against her hot, dusty skin made her gasp. She laughed with pleasure as she felt her way carefully over the smooth stones, wading out until the water reached her calves.

Pulling off the sun hat, she shook free her ash-blonde hair and, head tipped back to the azure sky, she closed her eyes to shut out the sun and sighed. It was bliss!

With a tightening of his thighs against leather and solid flesh Santiago urged the responsive animal out of the protective shadow of the pine trees where they had paused. His strong-boned features set in an austere, contemplative mask, he patted the animal’s neck as it responded to his light touch and walked forward, hooves silent on the boggy patch of ground as they moved towards the fast-flowing stream.

Now he knew why the name had seemed so familiar.

The disguise of sexy angel was good but not that good, not for someone who possessed a once-seen-never-forgotten quality, and Lucy Fitzgerald definitely did!

She was not dressed in the sharp tailored red suit and spiky heels—four years ago that iconic image had been used again and again by the media—but he had no doubt that this was the same woman who had elicited universal condemnation from a morally outraged public.

She hadn’t said a word to defend herself, but then that had been the idea; a word that broke the gagging injunction would have landed her in jail, a place that Santiago for one would have paid good money to see her end up!

An image of the tear-stained face of the wronged wife in the story drifted into his head, the brave face the woman put on not hiding the emotional devastation that presented a dramatic contrast to the cold composure that Lucy Fitzgerald had displayed under the camera lens.

It had been the sort of story that under normal circumstances Santiago would not have read beyond the first line—but for the timing. The situation of the advertising executive who had resorted to the courts to protect himself from Lucy Fitzgerald had borne an uncanny resemblance to the one he had at the time found himself in, albeit on a lesser scale.

In his case the woman—he barely remembered her name, let alone her face—who had sought to gain financially had been more opportunistic than ruthless, and of course not being married and caring very little what the world thought of him had made him a less vulnerable target than Lucy Fitzgerald’s victim, who, instead of caving in to his mistress’s threat of exposure, had instead sought an injunction to stop her speaking out.

Blackmail was the action of a coward and a woman like Lucy Fitzgerald represented everything Santiago despised. This was why, while the face of his own would-be blackmailer, a woman whom he had never even slept with, had vanished, the composed Madonna-like face that had hidden a dark heart of stone had stuck in his mind—his heavy-lidded glance dropped—as had her body.

You and the rest of the male population!

The silent addition caused his firm, mobile lips to twitch into a self-mocking grimace as his dark gaze continued to slide over the lush curves beneath the simple cotton top and skirt she was wearing. The woman might be poison, but she did have a body that invited, actually demanded, sinful speculation.

Of course she was all too … obvious for his taste, but it was easy now to see why his easily influenced brother had been so smitten, a case of lust not love.

Exert a positive influence!

He choked back a bitter laugh. His uncharacteristic and misguided optimism could not have been more poorly timed. Positive? If Lucy Fitzgerald was even a fraction as bad as her reputation, she was toxic!

Santiago felt a passing stab of nostalgia for the empty-headed, pretty but basically harmless party girls his brother had up to this point needed saving from … not that he had saved him. Up to this point Santiago had not ridden to the rescue, deciding that his brother would learn from experience. This, he reflected soberly, was an entirely different situation; he could not allow his brother to become a victim of this woman.

Had she specifically targeted Ramon?

Santiago, who did not believe in coincidence any more than he believed in fate, considered it likely; he could see how his brother would seem an easy prey to someone like her.

Did Ramon know who she was? Did he know about her history or at least her sanitised version of it where she no doubt became the innocent victim? He had no doubt that she could be very convincing and Ramon was obviously completely bewitched, though why bother raking up your sordid past when your victim had still been a teenager when the story had been big news.

A teenager!

Anger flashed in his deep-set eyes, the fine muscle along his angular jaw quivered and clenched beneath the surface of his golden skin. Not only was she a mercenary, corrupt gold-digger, she was a cradle snatcher. She had to be, what …? Doing the maths in his head, he scowled. Thirty, give or take a year or two?

Though admittedly, he conceded, reining in his mount a few feet from the riverbank, she looked younger, and for once in his life his little brother had not exaggerated. Lucy Fitzgerald was a woman that goddess could legitimately be used to describe. Poison to the core but breathtakingly beautiful, even barefooted and wearing a simple cotton skirt. On anyone else he would have assumed the transparency that revealed the silhouette of her long shapely thighs under direct sunlight was accidental, with this woman he was willing to bet that even her dreams were contrived.

As she remained oblivious to his presence Santiago took the opportunity to study the genuinely goddess-like attributes beneath the thin fabric.

There was plenty to study. She was tall and statuesque with long legs and a figure of iconic hourglass proportions. The woman oozed sex and Santiago felt a stab of annoyance as, independent of his brain, his body reacted with indiscriminate lust to the image.

As he watched she slid a hand under the neck of her top and wriggled to catch the bra strap that had slipped over her shoulder. The innately sexy action made her suddenly less pin-up and more earthily warm, desirable woman—very desirable.

As the sun caught her waist length hair, turning it to spun silver, Santiago realised that if he wanted to save his brother from this witch’s machinations he would have to act swiftly. She was fatally beautiful.

One day Ramon would thank him.

The polished leather of his saddle creaked as he swung his leg over it and leapt lightly to the ground, his booted feet making contact with the stones with a metallic click.

Lucy jumped like a startled deer, instinctive fear showing in her blue eyes as she turned, seeing for a split second the tall, threatening bulk of a male figure outlined against the sun. The correspondingly massive horse beside him was drinking from the stream.

When the man spoke a moment later she had regained control, if not of her banging heart, at least of her expression.

‘Sorry, did I startle you?’

Only half to death, Lucy thought, her eyes widening fractionally in reaction to the sound of his voice. The intruder spoke perfect English. He was not English though, she decided, picking up on the faint foreign inflection in his richly textured voice—a voice that was velvet over gravel.

Low in her belly things shifted slightly in response to the tactile quality in that deep voice. Shading her eyes, she gave a faint smile and moved her head in a negative gesture.

‘I didn’t know anyone … I didn’t hear you.’ She made a conscious effort to erase the frozen mask that her expression had automatically settled into, the same expression that had earned her the ‘ice bitch’ tag. It was a struggle; the defensive action was by now deeply ingrained.

There had been a time when she had been in danger of allowing her experiences to make her hard, cynical and—according to her mother—too scared to live. The worried accusation had shaken Lucy and she had been trying very hard of late not to assume the worst in any given situation.

Caution was another matter and in the circumstances seemed only sensible!

Arm crooked to hold back her hair from her face, she waded towards the riverbank, her gaze fixed on her feet to avoid stumbling on the rocky riverbed.