The Gold Collection: Bedded By A Billionaire: Santiago's Command / The Thorn in His Side / Stranded, Seduced...Pregnant

Tears started in her eyes as an empathic shudder ran through her body … to lose his wife in a senseless accident and to discover her body … A bone-deep chill settled on Lucy as she realised what he must have thought when he found her … Oh, God, to have it all brought back … and I thought he was overreacting!

He was a tough man, but even steel had weaknesses.

The horrid realisation that she had been the catalyst for bringing back heaven knew what sort of nightmarish memories made her feel like an utterly selfish … And it was her fault and why …?

She had known it was wrong and she had done it anyway.

‘But, Papá, I …’ The girl met her father’s eyes and gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘All right, but I was only—’

‘Say goodbye to Miss Fitzgerald, Gabriella.’

‘Goodbye, Miss Fitzgerald,’ she trotted out obediently.

‘Goodbye, Gabby.’ No mystery why Santiago’s parenting skills veered towards the overprotective!

The child threw a half smile at Lucy over her shoulder before she left the room, dragging her feet with exaggerated reluctance.

Lucy half expected him to follow his daughter out, but instead Santiago moved into the room, closing the door behind him.

‘Your wife died …’ Lucy began awkwardly. ‘The circumstances … I didn’t know …’

His shoulders lifted. ‘There is no reason you should know.’ Subtitles were not required to read the silent addition of back off!

‘So you are feeling better?’ His eyes touched the purple smudges beneath her eyes. ‘The lab results on Ramon have confirmed the strain of bug … You have been relatively lucky. They have kept him in to rule out any complications.’

Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘Complications?’

‘Apparently there have been rare cases when the kidneys are affected. It is only a precaution. The doctor will be here to see you shortly. In the meantime just ring the bell.’ He nodded to the old-fashioned arrangement above the bed and Lucy visualised it ringing in the nether regions of the place—she had no intention of using it or of staying in bed.

‘In the meantime I am instructed to tell you to take plenty of fluids.’

It would be a brave person who instructed him to do anything. ‘That’s very … kind of you.’ Kind was not a word she had ever imagined using in relation to this autocratic man but he had been, and she had not exactly been grateful. ‘But totally not necessary. I’m fine. If someone could bring my clothes—’ holding back her hair with one hand, she pulled back the covers ‘—I’ll—’

‘You’re weak as a kitten,’ he said, placing a finger on her chest that sent her back against the pillows. Pulling back the bed covers, he leaned in to tuck them around her, affording Lucy a smell of the soap he had used mingled with the warm male smell of him.

‘You can’t keep me here against my will!’

He nodded his head. ‘True, I can’t, always assuming of course that I would want to.’ His amused glance travelled over her rigid figure, making Lucy painfully aware of how awful she must look … Several steps down from dragged through a hedge was clearly no temptation … not that she wanted to tempt him.

He took a step back and nodded towards the door. ‘Feel free to go back to the finca if you wish.’ Bowing his head, he made a sweeping gesture of invitation.

Suspicious of the easy victory—why the sudden climb down?—she viewed him through narrowed blue eyes and didn’t move.

‘I’m sure Harriet will drag herself out of her own sickbed to look after you.’

‘Harriet!’ In the act of tossing her hair back in defiance, Lucy froze, her beautiful features melting into a horrified mask of dismay. She had not given her friend a single thought.

Though tempted to torment her a little more, he soothed, ‘Do not worry.’ She looked ready to leap out of bed there and then, which would probably result in her collapsing. She looked, he decided, as weak as a day-old chick. ‘Harriet is being taken care of. A man is seeing to the animals and a girl from the village is helping out in the house.’

‘You did that?’

‘Harriet is my tenant. It is my responsibility … Had I known of her accident I would have arranged for help until she was on her feet.’

‘And I wouldn’t have come. We would never have met.’

Santiago contemplated the afternoon sun that was pooling on the dark wood beneath his feet and grunted. ‘In a perfect world,’ he agreed, thinking how much simpler his life had been a few short days ago.

He had said many worse things to her but strangely this hurt more than any of the others. It was not even a rebuke, it was just a rather obvious statement of fact—she had caused him nothing but trouble, had gone out of her way to do so.

‘You’re crying?’ Santiago had always had a cynical attitude to female tears. At best they were irritating, at worst manipulative. His usual response was to walk away or ignore them.

For some reason he found himself able to do neither.

‘No!’ she said, sounding insulted by the suggestion. ‘I’m fine.’ She sniffed, sticking out her chin and looking anything but. ‘And I’m sorry to have been a nuisance and put everyone to so much trouble.’

He shrugged. ‘I think that as my brother poisoned you it was the least we could do.’

Lucy’s eyes went wide as she blurted the question that she couldn’t get out of her head. ‘She wasn’t riding Santana, was she?’

Santiago tensed, his body stiffening before he vented a hard laugh. ‘Magdalena was afraid of horses.’ It turned out that she was more afraid of his bad opinion. ‘All horses. She would not have gone into the same stable as Santana. The mare she was on broke a leg in the fall and had to be put down.’

‘But if she was afraid—?’ She broke off, colouring. ‘Sorry, it’s none of my—’

‘You want to know why my wife was riding if she hated horses?’ His voice was harsh. ‘It is a fair question,’ he conceded with a tight nod of his dark head. ‘She went out riding because I said she should conquer her fears. I told her she should suck it up and stop being pathetic.’

His thoughts flew back to the incident that had preceded the tragedy; over the years he had replayed it innumerable times.

It had been Gabby’s birthday. The previous day he had cleared his calendar to be part of the celebrations, cancelled a series of important meetings and had been feeling pretty smug about taking his paternal responsibilities seriously. Apparently he took his husbandly ones, in light of the subsequent events, much less so.

Magdalena was a great organiser and the party had been a big hit for everyone except his daughter, who had spent the day watching wistfully as her friends clambered on the bouncy castle and sat on the back of the placid Shetland pony while it was led around the garden.

When he had asked her if she wanted a turn she had shook her head. ‘It’s very dangerous. Mamá says I might get hurt.’

When he had carried her onto the bouncy castle her terrified sobs had been so pathetic that he’d had to remove her. He had known then that situation could no longer be ignored.

That evening he had confronted Magdalena, too angry to be tactful or gentle, accusing her of infecting their once-fearless daughter with her own insecurities and fears … He had shouted her down when she had protested that it was her duty to protect her child from danger.

‘Danger! You think a lollipop represents danger,’ he had mocked angrily. ‘I will not have our daughter grow up to be a woman who is afraid of her own shadow.’

‘A woman like me?’

The silence had stretched—they had had this conversation before, or a version of it, many times, and it was at this point where he rushed in to comfort her, but this time he had held back. He had previously told her everything would be all right and the situation had not improved; if anything it had deteriorated.

So Santiago, still angry with himself as much as her for allowing the situation to continue, had hardened his heart to the appeal in her eyes, ignored her quivering lip and said angrily, ‘Yes.’

When they had married Santiago had been convinced that with his support and freed from her parents’ oppressive influence his timid wife would blossom. He had seen himself as the noble hero Magdalena had thought him.

His lip curled into a contemptuous smile. He had thought it would be easy but in those days he had imagined that love could conquer all, that he could mould Magdalena into the woman he had known she could be.