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

Lucy decided to use the time to take hay to animals in the scrubby lower pasture. As she walked through the field buzzing with bees and chirruping crickets she became aware of a distant noise disturbing the quiet. As she distributed the feed to the animals who clustered around her the noise got perceptibly closer until … Lucy started and the animals ran at the sound of a loud crash followed by a silence that seemed horribly ominous.

Recovering her wits, Lucy dropped the hay she was holding and ran in the opposite direction to the agitated braying herd. Seconds later, panting, she reached the rise of the slight incline that hid the dirt track below from view and saw the cause of the explosive sound.

Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh, God!’

One of the modern four-wheel quad bikes was lying at an angle, the front end in a ditch and the back wheels hidden beneath a tangle of scrub that the vehicle had dragged up as it slid off the stony path.

A quick scan revealed no immediate sign of the driver. Had he been thrown clear?

There was no time to speculate. Lucy hit the ground running, scrambling down the rocky incline and raising a cloud of dust from the dry ground. She reached the accident in a matter of seconds, though it felt like a lifetime. There was still no sign of the driver and she couldn’t hear anything, but then it was difficult to hear anything above the thundering of her heart in her ears, even her own fearful cry of—

‘Is there anyone …? Are you all right?’

‘No, I’m not all right. I’m …’ A flood of tearful-sounding Spanish preceded a small grunt that was followed by a deep sigh before the young voice added in flawless, barely accented English, ‘I’m stuck. Give me a pull, will you?’

Lucy saw the small hand—a child’s—appear from beneath the upturned quad bike. She dropped to her knees, her hair brushing the ground as she bent her head to peer underneath. The driver appeared to be a dark-haired young girl.

‘It’s probably not a good idea to move until—’

‘I’ve already moved. I’m not hurt. It’s just my jacket is caught—’ The girl gave a small yelp followed by a heartfelt ‘Finally!’ as she dragged herself out from under the quad bike, emerging beside Lucy looking dusty, in one piece and with nothing but a bloody scrape on the cheek of her heart-shaped face to show for her experience—at least nothing else visible. Lucy remained cautious as the girl, who looked to be around ten or eleven, pulled herself into a sitting position and began to laugh.

‘Wow!’ Her eyes shone with exhilaration, a reaction that made Lucy think, God, I’m getting old. But then, though she’d had her share of her own youthful misadventures, they had had less to do with her being an adrenaline junkie and more to do with her need to please her father and compete with the legendary exploits of her elder siblings.

‘That was quite something.’

‘I’d call it a lucky escape.’ Lucy got to her feet and held out her hand. ‘Look, there’s no reception here but I really think you should see a doctor to get checked out.’

The girl sprang to her feet energetically, ignoring the extended hand. ‘No, I’m fine, I’m …’ She stopped, the animation draining from her face as the condition of the overturned vehicle seemed to hit her for the first time. ‘Is there any way we could get this back on the road, do you think?’

Lucy shook her head in response to the wistful question. ‘I doubt it. I think you should sit down …?’ Before you fall down, she thought, studying the young girl’s pale face.

‘Oh, I am in so much trouble. When my dad sees this he’ll hit the ceiling. I’m not really meant to ride on this thing … but then I’m not really meant to do anything that is any fun. Do you know what it feels like to have someone act as though you can’t even fasten your own shoelace?’

Lucy’s lips twitched. ‘No, I don’t.’ If she’d had a penny for every time her dad had said, ‘Don’t whinge, Lucy, just get on with it,’ she would have been able to retire before she hit ten.

‘That’s why I’m home now, because my dad dragged me away from school. Not that I care. I hate school—he’s the one who’s always saying how important education is.’

Lucy, who thought so, too, adopted a sympathetic expression as the girl paused for breath, but didn’t interrupt as the youthful driver continued in the same if-I-don’t-get-it-off-my-chest-now-I’ll-explode style.

‘And Amelie didn’t even have it!’

‘Have what?’ Lucy, struggling to keep up, asked.

‘Meningitis.’

Lucy’s brows went up. ‘Your school friend has meningitis?’

‘No, she doesn’t have it, I just said so, and she’s not my friend. I have no friends.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘It’s true, and with a father like mine is it any wonder? He wouldn’t let me go on the skiing trip and everyone was going and now, after the head told all the parents that there is no cause for concern, that Amelie didn’t have meningitis at all, it was just a virus, what does he do?’

Lucy shook her head, finding she was genuinely curious to know what this much-maligned but clearly caring parent had done.

‘Does he listen? No …’ she said, pausing in the flow of confidences to turn her bitter gaze on Lucy. ‘He lands his helicopter right there in the middle of the lunch break with everyone watching and whisks me off after giving the head an earful. Can you imagine?’

Lucy, who could, bit her quivering lip. ‘That must have been dramatic.’

‘It was mortifying and now he says I have to go back and there’s only two weeks to the end of term.’

‘What does your mother say?’

‘She’s dead.’ She stopped, her eyes going round as she turned to face the vehicle hurtling at speed down the hill towards them. It came to a halt with a squeal of brakes feet away from them.

I should have known, Lucy thought as the tall, unmistakeable figure of Santiago Silva exploded from the driver’s seat.

He had seen the overturned quad bike from the top of the hill seconds before he saw Gabby. In those seconds he had lived the nightmare that haunted his dreams. For a terrible moment he could feel the weight of his daughter’s lifeless body in his arms the same way he had felt her mother’s—it was his job to keep her safe and he had failed.

Then he saw her, recognised even at a distance the familiar defiant stance, and the guilt and grief were replaced by immense relief, which in its turn was seamlessly swallowed up by a wave of savage anger. An anger that quickly shifted focus when he identified the tall blonde-haired figure beside his daughter.

He should have known that she would be involved!

He approached with long angry strides, looking like some sort of avenging dark angel—the fallen variety. Lucy didn’t blame the kid for looking terrified. She gave the shaking child’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. Really, she should have guessed when the child had started talking casually about helicopters, but she hadn’t. For some reason she hadn’t thought about Santiago Silva as married, let alone a widow, or a father! It was still a struggle to think of him as any of these things, as was maintaining her smile as he approached.

Yesterday she had been conscious that where this man was concerned the veneer of civilisation was pretty thin; right now it was non-existent. He was scary but also, she admitted as she felt a little shiver trace a path down her rigid spine, pretty magnificent!

He swept straight past her, but not before Lucy had felt the icy blast of the glittering stare that dashed over her face.

She watched as he placed his hands on his daughter’s shoulders and squatted until he was at face level with her.

‘Gabby, you …’ Torn between a desire to throttle his wilful daughter and crush her in a bear hug, he took a deep breath. Feeling like a hopelessly inadequate parent, he searched her face and asked brusquely, ‘You are hurt?’

Even Lucy, who was extremely unwilling to assign any normal human emotions to this awful man, could not deny the rough concern in his deep voice was genuine.

‘I’m fine, Papá. She—’ the little girl cast a smile in Lucy’s direction ‘—helped me.’

‘Not really.’

For a moment his burning eyes met hers, then, a muscle along his clean shaven jaw clenching, he turned away, rising to his feet with a graceful fluidity that caused Lucy’s oversensitive stomach to flip.

‘Papá …’

‘Wait in the car, Gabriella.’

With one last look over her shoulder at Lucy, she walked, head down, towards the car.

Without looking to see if his daughter had obeyed, Santiago Silva began to speak into the phone he had pulled from the breast pocket of his open necked shirt.