Hot Summer Flings: A Spanish Awakening / The Italian Next Door... / Interview with the Daredevil

‘Rios here.’

Megan slanted an angry glare at his face and held out her hand.

‘Ah, Charles. Yes, she is here with me now,’ Emilio said, ignoring her silent demand, and continued to speak, responding to what her father was saying, his voice oozing almost as much insincerity as his mocking gaze.

‘No, don’t worry, I will take care of her. No need, it is not a problem, Charles.’ A taunting grin in place on his lean face, Emilio turned to evade the hand that tried to snatch the phone from him. He waved an admonishing finger at her face and directed a wolfish smile at her indignant face as he raised his voice and said, ‘It is a total pleasure and no trouble at all. Yes, and Megan sends her love.’

Love was not the emotion stamped on Megan’s face when she attracted the attention of several people within earshot as she yelled, ‘No, I don’t!’

Finally able to grab the phone, Megan snatched it from his hand and lifted it to her own ear, struggling to regain some semblance of control. ‘Dad?’ she said. ‘I don’t need to bother Mr Rios, I’m—I’m … He’s gone,’ she said, directing an accusing look up at Emilio’s dark face.

‘Your father is a busy man.’

‘My father is—’ Megan bit back the unflattering reading of her father’s character and glared up at Emilio.

‘He can relax now he knows you have someone to look after you.’

‘I don’t need anyone to look after me, and my father knows it. He just wants me to be nice to you because you have contacts that he …’ Realising belatedly the extreme indiscretion of her goaded retort, she closed her lips firmly over further tactless disclosures.

Emilio’s lips thinned as his nostrils flared in distaste. Who needed an enemy when you had a father like Charles Armstrong? A man who had never really grasped the fact that a father’s duty to his children was to protect and shield.

Armstrong used anyone, including members of his own family, if it gave him an advantage.

‘Just how nice does he expect you to be to me?’

Megan responded to the comment as if it had been a slap, catching her breath and drawing back. The subsequent blast of fury that sizzled along her nerve endings blinded Megan to the sympathy in Emilio’s dark eyes.

She lifted her chin and glared up at him. ‘My father does not ask me to have sex with men who can be useful to him.’

‘Though he’d not be likely to kick up a fuss if you decided to.’

‘I have sex with men because I want to.’

So far she had not wanted to, but Megan saw no reason to share this information with Emilio Rios; even if she had, she doubted he would have believed her.

Ironic, really—the world thought she was a bit of an iceberg, a reputation she found it comfortable to hide behind, but Emilio Rios thought she was some sort of sex-mad tart.

Two years ago her initial gratitude at being rescued from a situation that had escalated dangerously out of control had changed to wretched misery when he had looked at her with contempt and treated her to a blighting lecture on the dangers of leading men on.

Acting as though she were some sort of sexual predator!

Sexual predator!

At that point Megan hadn’t even had a real boyfriend. The man Emilio had rescued her from had not been her date. He was a lecturer, quite old to her mind, and she had treated his kind offer of a lift home from the graduation party, when the boy who had promised her an early lift home had become drunk and incapable, as just that—kind.

How was she meant to have known that he had been drinking too? She hadn’t had a clue until he had put his foot down through the village, then, after making her extremely uncomfortable with comments loaded with sexual innuendo, instead of taking her to the house where her father was hosting a party for his business partner—all the family were under orders to attend—he’d pulled up on the long tree-lined drive leading up to the house and tried to kiss her.

During the rather undignified tussle that had followed Megan had tried to remain calm, but she had been close to panic when the door had been dragged open to reveal Emilio.

Her relief had been short-lived.

‘So how about me?’

She looked at him blankly as she pushed away the memory of that night. ‘How about you what? ‘

Emilio arched a sardonic brow. ‘Do you want to have sex with me?’

Heat flashed through Megan. She was insulted, she told herself, not excited. She hung on to her temper with difficulty and pretended to consider his insolent question. ‘You got a spare million?’ Word was he had several.

His brows lifted. ‘You value yourself highly.’

Megan flicked the ponytail that lay against her neck and responded with a cool assurance she was about a million miles from feeling. ‘I’m worth it.’

‘Then maybe we could work something out. I’m not averse to paying for quality,’ he drawled.

The sexual tension soared as they stared at one another, neither willing to back down. But before this absurd negotiation went any further a voice cut across the seething silence.

‘Emilio?’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_a0281192-3a39-5d4f-af03-12ddc7132a1a)

MEGAN turned her head. The woman standing there was tiny, barely an inch above five feet. The last time she had seen the petite brunette the older woman had been wearing a ring; today her hand was bare, but nothing else, it seemed, had changed.

Rosanna Rios was still the most beautiful woman she had ever met. Never a hair out of place, she looked like a porcelain ornament with big brown eyes, a rosebud mouth and delicate nose. She had the sort of delicate fragility that aroused the protective instincts in men.

‘I did call, but you were.’ she raised a darkened brow and lifted her enquiring gaze to Emilio as she teased ‘… occupied.’

Megan felt her stomach muscles tighten as she watched Emilio brush the smooth cheek offered him with his lips.

‘I had no idea at all.’ Rosanna turned to smile at Megan, adding with a smile tinged with relief as she turned back to Emilio, ‘I’m glad things are finally working out for you.’

Megan, puzzling over the soft-voiced aside, waited for Emilio to set the record straight. Instead she heard him ask his ex-wife if she was being met.

‘I was.’ Rosanna scanned the crowds, a delicate frown furrowing her smooth brow. ‘But he appears to have been held up.’

‘Can we offer you a lift? ‘

Megan, frowning at the we and the misleading message it sent, watched as Rosanna shook her head. ‘I’ll wait.’

Emilio shrugged and placed a hand lightly between Megan’s shoulder blades, acting as if he hadn’t noticed when she flinched. ‘If you’re sure?’

Megan flashed him a ‘what the hell are you up to?’ look, which he responded to by dropping his head to whisper softly in her ear, ‘I’ll meet your price.’

The mortified colour flew to Megan’s cheeks as she blurted loudly, ‘I wasn’t serious and you know it.’

‘You really shouldn’t make offers you don’t intend to follow through with,’ he chided, adding, ‘Sorry, Rosanna, we’re being rude.’

‘You’re being rude,’ Megan gritted.