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

She thought of saying she didn’t drink spirits, but decided the stuff might be of some medicinal benefit so after a pause she took the glass he held out to her. She nodded graciously before she held it to her nose and breathed in the fragrance.

‘I’m sure you’re totally capable of …’ She stopped, losing her train of thought as her gaze met his. A comment from a deeply in lust acquaintance popped into her head: ‘God, I can’t look at him without thinking how incredible he’d be in bed.’

At the time Lucy had struggled to imagine what that would be like.

‘I’m … cautious with people,’ she blurted, drawing his curious stare to her face.

She lowered her eyes but continued to watch him over the rim of the glass, thinking, Not cautious enough with you.

She should, she realised, have run in the opposite direction the moment she saw this man. Instead she had spent her time inventing reasons to be around him, telling herself she was a victim of circumstance, when in reality she had been a victim of her libido.

So just add me to the list of women that have made fools of themselves to catch the eye of Santiago.

Cautious struck him as an interesting choice of word and one that he would never have applied to someone who seemed to act first, think later.

She had lectured him on parenting, stolen a valuable horse without thinking and now, it turned out, been part of a conspiracy to teach him a lesson. ‘So I’m not special.’

If only, she thought as he shrugged off his jacket and draped it around the back of a chair. His innate elegance as always sent a shimmy of sensation down her spine. Her fascination with him—with everything about him—showed no sign of diminishing. If anything it became stronger. He was like an addictive drug in her bloodstream. Look but don’t inhale, Lucy, she told herself, and never, ever touch!

Lucy followed him with her eyes while he loosed the tie he wore around his neck; she had never imagined she could get pleasure just from looking at a man.

‘I was just catching up with my emails,’ she said, nodding to the machine on the table, adding, ‘Josef said it would be all right. Harriet doesn’t have internet access, and I was hoping to see you,’ she lied.

‘I’m flattered.’ He selected a chair, pulled it a little closer to her and lowered his long lean frame into it with another display of riveting fluid grace.

‘I was hoping you had news of Ramon.’ As their eyes met Lucy had the horrid feeling he could see right through her lie; she felt terrible because she actually hadn’t thought of Ramon once this evening.

‘Second best again.’ He sighed. ‘You know how to put a man in his place.’

The prospect of becoming Lucy’s lover excited him as nothing had in a very long time. She challenged him and not just with her incredible looks. She was the most stunningly beautiful creature he had ever seen, but he had discovered that Lucy had an intellect to match her beauty. All that and the woman ate him up with her hungry eyes … She literally trembled with lust when their hands brushed. All the bloody restraint he had been displaying was killing him.

His concentration was shot to hell; he couldn’t focus on anything; in short he had lost his edge and the cure for his problems was within tantalising reach. He blinked to clear the image of her, magnificent and naked, straddling him, flashing through his head. Lost his edge …? Hell, at times it felt as if he had lost his mind!

While she was obviously not the two-dimensional scarlet woman the media had painted her, she clearly had a past, but then who didn’t? He did not require every woman he took to bed to be a blameless virgin. In fact had such a female existed such attributes would have immediately put her offlimits, not to mention bored him senseless.

The last thing Santiago was looking for at this stage in his life was a woman who had been waiting for the ‘right man’; he was nobody’s right man.

He had tried denying the existence of this strong attraction—it hadn’t worked. He had tried waiting for it to pass—it hadn’t. That just left working through it … the third was by far the most attractive option.

‘I’ve had an interesting conversation with Ramon.’

Lucy tensed at the seemingly casual comment. Her guilty conscience was making her jumpy—if Ramon had come clean about their fake romance, Santiago would have come in here breathing fire and retribution.

The knowledge made her relax slightly.

‘How is he?’ she asked, matching his casual tone as she sat back in her seat, leaning her elbows on the wooden arms of the chair.

‘They are discharging him at the weekend.’

Her relief was genuine. ‘Great!’

‘So you can take up where you left off with the big romance.’

‘I wouldn’t call it a big romance … exactly …’ she muttered, dodging his gaze and taking another gulp of the brandy—too much too fast. She choked as it hit the back of her throat and settled in a warm glow in the pit of her stomach.

‘No? What would you call it?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ she admitted, sidestepping the issue.

Santiago laced his fingers and, resting his chin on the bridge they made, smiled at her. ‘Try.’ His voice was not smiling; neither were the eyes fixed like lasers on her face.

She slung him an irritated glance, compressed her lips and crossed one ankle over the other. ‘We’re not in a long-term relationship, all right?’ she snapped without looking at him.

‘And have you ever been—with anyone?’

‘The odds are not exactly stacked in favour of lasting relationships, are they?’ The sad fact did not stop her being a ridiculous optimist and believing that there was someone out there for everyone, just sometimes they missed one another.

The reply would only have displeased a man who was looking for long term and he wasn’t. ‘So you are not looking for anything permanent.’ All good, he told himself.

Show me a woman who says she isn’t and I’ll show you a liar, she thought. ‘Permanent requires making concessions and I’m not good at that.’

‘So you don’t believe that there is someone out there who will complete you … a soul mate …?’

Was that what his pretty wife had been, his soul mate?

Lucy lifted her gaze, bright smile in place the moment their eyes meshed. Her smile guttered as she searched his face and her eyes widened.

‘You know.’

‘Know what?’

The display of fake ignorance drew a growl from Lucy.

‘Ah,’ he drawled. ‘You are referring to the fact you haven’t actually slept with my brother, that there is no steamy affair.’

In retrospect Santiago could see that he should have guessed the truth sooner, and would have had his judgement not been clouded by sexual jealousy. He had watched them together, seen them flirt and fought a desire to rip them apart. If he’d been thinking straight he might have seen past the window dressing to the lack of chemistry.

Her chin went up. ‘Not yet.’

‘Not ever!’

He acted with bewildering speed and zero warning. One minute he was lounging in the chair several safe feet away, the next he was right there, pulling her out of her chair and drawing her body up against his hard, lean front.

She opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing when he took her face between his big hands, framing it with his fingers, resting his thumbs in the angle of her jaw as he tipped her face up to his.

The rampant wild hunger in his glowing eyes drew a raw whimper from her aching throat.

His eyes were like a dark flame as they moved across her face. ‘You’re so beautiful.’ His powerful chest lifted in a silent sigh as he shook his head in an attitude of disbelief. ‘I keep looking for a flaw but there isn’t one.’