The Spaniard's Seduction

‘You’ll make friends wherever we go.’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Of course you will.’

‘But—’

‘But what?’

David shook his head, apparently deciding he’d argued long enough. ‘Nothing,’ he muttered, and then looked considerably relieved when Horst Kaufman and his parents stopped at their table.

The German family had been having breakfast on the terrace and now they all smiled down at David and his mother.

‘Good morning, Mrs de Montoya,’ said Franz Kaufman cheerfully. ‘It is another lovely day, yes?’

‘Oh—yes.’ Cassandra managed a polite smile in return. Then, noticing their more formal clothes, ‘Are you going off for the day?’

‘Yes. We are going to Ortegar, where we believe there is a leisure facility for the children.’ It was Frau Kaufman who answered, and Cassandra couldn’t help but admire their grasp of her language. ‘A water park and such. We wondered if you would permit David to come with us?’

‘Oh.’

Cassandra was nonplussed. She hardly knew the Kaufmans and the idea of allowing David to go off with them for the day was not something she would normally countenance. But, she reminded herself, she was going to spend the day trying to change their hotel arrangements, and going off with Horst and his family might be just what her son needed to put all thoughts of the de Montoyas out of his head.

‘Can I, Mum? Can I?’

David was clearly enthusiastic, and, putting her own doubts aside, Cassandra lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture. ‘I— I don’t know what to say.’

‘We would take great care of him, of course,’ put in Franz Kaufman heartily, patting David on the shoulder. ‘And as he and Horst get along together so well…’

‘We do. We do.’

David gazed at her with wide appealing eyes, and deciding that anything was better than having him dragging after her all day, making his feelings felt, Cassandra sighed.

‘Well, all right,’ she agreed, earning a whoop from both children. ‘Um—where did you say you were going?’

‘Ortegar,’ said Frau Kaufman at once, and Cassandra frowned.

‘Ortegar?’ she said. ‘Where is that exactly?’

‘It is along the coast. Near Cadiz,’ answered Franz a little impatiently. ‘Maybe twenty miles from here, that is all.’

And probably twenty miles nearer Tuarega, thought Cassandra, moistening her lips. She knew that because she had scanned the map very thoroughly before agreeing to David’s choice of destination.

Her heartbeat quickened. David’s choice of destination, she realised unsteadily. Goodness, how long had her son been planning to write to his grandfather?

‘I’ll go and get ready,’ said David eagerly, and she wondered if he suspected what she was thinking. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ murmured Cassandra, getting up from her chair and giving the Kaufmans another polite smile. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’

‘We will be waiting out front.’ Franz Kaufman nodded his approval, and Cassandra was left with the uneasy feeling that she had been out-manoeuvred by her son again.

David had already bundled a towel and his swimming trunks into his backpack by the time she reached their room. He had evidently raced up the stairs and she tried not to wonder if he was desperate to get away.

‘Do you need any money?’ she asked, picking up a discarded tee shirt from the floor, but David only shook his head and edged towards the door.

‘I’ve got four hundred pesetas. That’s enough,’ he said quickly, and his mother stared at him.

‘That’s less than two pounds,’ she exclaimed. ‘You don’t know how much it will cost to get into the leisure park.’

‘You can pay Herr Kaufman when we get back,’ said David impatiently. ‘Come on, Mum. They’re waiting for me.’

Not that urgently, thought Cassandra unhappily, but she had given her word. ‘All right,’ she said, accepting his dutiful peck on her cheek. ‘Be good.’

‘I will.’ David headed out of the door with a triumphant grin on his face. ‘See you later.’

Sanchia’s red sports car was just pulling up outside the palacio when Enrique came out of the building. Sanchia herself, tall and dark and exotically beautiful, emerged from the vehicle, smoothing down the narrow skirt of the green linen suit that barely skimmed her knees.

Once his brother’s fiancé, Sanchia had swiftly recovered from that fiasco. Within a year, she had married a distant relative of the Spanish royal family, and when her elderly husband died leaving her a wealthy widow, she had immediately transferred her affections to her late fiancé’s brother, making Enrique wonder if that hadn’t been her objective all along.

But perhaps he was being conceited, he thought now. Sanchia had been heartbroken when Antonio had married an Englishwoman and had then been killed almost before the ink on the marriage licence was dry. She had turned to him then, but he hadn’t imagined that her plea for his affection had been anything more than a natural response to the circumstances she’d found herself in. After all, Sanchia’s family had never had a lot of money and it must have been quite a blow when her wealthy fiancé abandoned her less than three months before their wedding.

In any event, Enrique had made it quite plain then that he was not interested in taking up where his brother had left off. He liked Sanchia well enough, he always had, but the idea of taking her to bed because his brother had let her down was anathema to him. He had been grieving, too, and not just because his brother was dead. He had let Antonio down, and he’d found it hard to live with himself at that time.

Now, things were different. Sanchia had been married and widowed, and he himself was that much older and more willing to accept that life could all too easily deal you a rotten hand. The relationship he had with Sanchia these days suited both of them. He doubted he would ever get married, despite what his father had had to say about it, and, although Sanchia might hope that he’d change his mind, she was not, and never could be, the only woman in his life.

Which was probably why he felt such an unexpected surge of impatience at her appearance this morning. His thoughts were focused on what he planned to do today and Sanchia could play no part in that.

She, of course, knew nothing of the events of yesterday. Even though there’d been a message from her waiting on his answering machine when he’d got back last night, he hadn’t returned her call, which probably explained her arrival now.

‘Querido!’ she exclaimed, her use of the Spanish word for ‘darling’ sounding warm and intimate on her tongue. She reached up to kiss him, pouting when her lips only brushed his cheek, before surveying his casual appearance with some disappointment. ‘You are going out? I was hoping we might spend the day together.’

‘I am sorry.’ Enrique was aware that his navy tee shirt and cargo trousers were not his usual attire, but they were less likely to attract attention in a holiday resort than the three-piece suit he’d worn the day before. ‘I have got—some business to attend to.’

‘Dressed like this?’ Sanchia twined her fingers into the leather cord that he’d tied at his waist. ‘I cannot see you visiting one of your clients in a tee shirt.’

‘Did I say I was going to visit one of my clients?’ asked Enrique rather more curtly than he had intended. He disentangled her fingers from the cord and stepped back from her. ‘It is a personal matter,’ he appended, feeling obliged to give her some sort of explanation. ‘Really. I have got to go.’

‘Is it another woman?’ she demanded, and just for a moment he felt a surge of resentment that she should feel she had the right to question his actions.

But then common sense reasserted itself. Why shouldn’t she feel she had some rights where he was concerned? They had been seeing one another for months, after all.

‘Not in the way you mean,’ he assured her, his thin smile hardly a reassurance. Then, belatedly, ‘Perhaps I can ring you later?’

Sanchia’s lips tightened. ‘You are not going to tell me where you are going?’

‘No.’ There was no ambivalence on that score.

Her mouth trembled now. ‘Enrique…’