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

The question seemed serious. She stared at him and then to lessen the intensity of the moment she summoned a smile. ‘If you have a spare five minutes I might actually take you up on that invitation. But seriously…’

He cut across her. ‘I was being serious.’

Her eyes fell from his. His intensity was unsettling; actually, he was unsettling.

She gave a strained little laugh. ‘I’m sure you’re not really interested…’

‘I asked, didn’t I?’

‘I work in a city casualty unit. I’m a nurse.’

‘A nurse?’

She tilted her head to one side and studied his face. ‘You sound surprised.’

‘I am,’ he admitted, though now he thought about it he could see her in the role. ‘The last time I was in a casualty department in England my nurse was a rugby player called Tomas. I’m feeling cheated.’

The glow in his eyes made her dizzy and excited.

‘So its not just last night—you spend your time saving lives.’

Maggie gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘It’s not normally so dramatic and there is no danger involved, except of course when a drunk decides to take a swing.’

Rafael tensed. ‘At you?’

Maggie who couldn’t stop staring at the muscles clenching and unclenching beside his mouth, nodded. ‘It has been known,’ she admitted, blinking as he loosed a stream of fluid, angry-sounding Spanish. ‘Don’t worry,’ she added, patting the clenched hand that lay nearest her and saying cheerily, ‘I can take care of myself and I have very quick reflexes.’

‘What sort of world are we living in when a nurse takes being assaulted for granted? Madre di Dio, your family allow this?’ he grated incredulously.

‘It’s not really a question of allowing, is it? I’m over eighteen… I’m over twenty-one, and I’ve never been assaulted. It happens, but not to me.’

‘But it could. Well, I,’ he announced autocratically, ‘would not permit it.’

‘Well, I’m glad I’m not your sister.’

‘So am I, but I have no sister.’

‘Your father and mother?’ she asked, wondering about this man whom she was alone with and realising he had told her nothing about himself. She had slept with a stranger and she had agreed to stay with him.

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘Both dead.’

The pragmatic statement did not invite sympathy but Maggie’s tender heart ached. ‘I can’t imagine what that would be like.’ A shadow crossed her face as she imagined a life that did not contain her family.

‘So you have a family…?’ Having pushed the Angelina question to the back of his mind, he did not enjoy the topic being front and centre where he could not ignore it.

She reached into her bag and pulled a family snapshot she always carried from her wallet. She held out her hand and offered it to him.

Maggie frowned as she watched an expression of astonishment wash over his dark face. He was looking at the snapshot as if it were an alien.

‘Is something wrong? You don’t have to—’ She began to withdraw her hand but he caught her wrist.

‘No, nothing’s wrong,’ he promised, taking the photo, not because he actually felt any interest but because he knew it would have injured her feelings if he had refused.

Feelings were entirely new territory for him and he saw no urgent need to explore this development.

‘I’m more used to being offered bills for designer shoes.’

Her brow furrowed in confusion at the comment. ‘Why? Do you have a business interest?’

He regarded her in much the same way she imagined he might had she just announced that she believed in Santa Claus.

‘No, I have girlfriends with expensive tastes who like me to pick up the tab.’ He did not begrudge the expense, he considered himself a generous lover.

The plural was not wasted on Maggie.

Good God, where is your pride, Maggie?

I’m sleeping with a man who, not only does not promise something as basic as exclusivity, he probably doesn’t understand the meaning of the word.

‘If you ever pay for my shoes I will feed them to you.’

He stared. ‘You don’t like shoes?’

‘You may not mind women who sleep with you for your money, but I mind being mistaken for one.’ She pinned him with a wrathful glare and yelled, ‘I’m sleeping with you for the sex! On a temporary basis, obviously.’

‘Obviously, and I promise not to offend you with shoes, though I would like to point out that I like to think it is not just my money they sleep with me for.’

Maggie’s eyes narrowed. She knew they didn’t and she hated them all with a vengeance. ‘You really do love yourself!’

His lashes lifted from his cheek and he levelled a direct look into her eyes. ‘Love is not something I encourage.’

Maggie blinked. The warning was unmistakeable. Then before she could respond to it he began to study the snapshot, saying, ‘Those are your brothers?’ The young men in the slightly out of focus snapshot were both blond and broad-shouldered and duplicates of their father. All three men towered over their sister, and the woman in the wheelchair.

She nodded, wishing she had remembered sooner that this was not the most flattering photo she had ever appeared in. ‘I still had my braces then.’

‘Which accounts for the lack of a smile? The woman in the wheelchair…your mother?’

‘Yes.’ Maggie did not want to go into details, but added, ‘But she’s not in the wheelchair any more—at least, not all the time.’

‘Your brothers are not much like you.’

Maggie grinned. Talking about her family made this abnormal situation seem less surreal. ‘You mean because they’re six feet four or because they’re blond?’ she suggested, raising a hand to her dark hair and grimacing as she realised it had come free of the ponytail and now hung loose in a tangled skein down her back.

‘Your colouring is very… Mediterranean?’ His glance moved across the glowing contours of her face. Her skin was flawless and had a peachy sheen that was almost opalescent. The idea of carrying her back to bed became more urgent than eating breakfast.

Maggie’s eyes fell evasively, her long lashes brushing the soft curve of her smooth high cheekbones, but not before Rafael had seen the emotion flicker across her face.

‘Actually, I wouldn’t look like Ben and Sam. I’m adopted.’