The Spaniard's Seduction

‘Not to me,’ she assured him coldly. ‘I just want to get this over with.’

Enrique shook his head. ‘We both know that is not going to happen,’ he replied flatly. ‘You should not have written to my father if you wished to keep your selfish little secret.’

‘I didn’t write to your father,’ Cassandra reminded him fiercely. ‘I wouldn’t do such a thing.’

‘No.’ He conceded the point. ‘I believe that now.’

‘Now?’ Cassandra was appalled. ‘Do you mean you had any doubts?’

Enrique shrugged. ‘I had my reasons.’

‘What reasons?’ Cassandra stared at him, and then comprehension dawned. ‘My God, you did think I’d written the letter, didn’t you? You honestly thought I’d want anything from you! Or your father!’

Enrique didn’t answer her and she was left with the shattering discovery that his opinion of her hadn’t changed one bit. He still thought she was a greedy little gold-digger, who had only latched onto his brother because she’d known what his background was.

Pain, like a knife, sliced through her, and she reached unthinkingly for the handle of the door. In that moment she didn’t consider that they had left the small town of Punta del Lobo behind, that the car was in traffic and that they were moving at approximately sixty kilometres an hour. Her only need was to get as far away from him as possible as quickly as possible, and even the sudden draught of air that her action elicited only made her feel even more giddy and confused.

She didn’t know what might have happened if Enrique hadn’t reacted as he had. At that moment she didn’t care. But, with a muffled oath, he did two things almost simultaneously: his hand shot out and grasped her arm, anchoring her to her seat, and he swung the big car off the winding coast road, bringing it to a shuddering stop on a sand-strewn verge above towering cliffs.

‘Estas loco? Are you mad?’ he demanded, and she realised it was a measure of the shock he’d had that he’d used his own language and not hers. Then, when she turned a white tear-stained face in his direction, his eyes grew dark and tortured. ‘Crazy woman,’ he muttered, his voice thick and unfamiliar, and, switching off the engine, he flung himself out of the car.

He went to stand at the edge of the cliffs, the warm wind that blew up from the ocean flattening the loose-fitting trousers against his strong legs. He didn’t look back at her, he simply stood there, gazing out at the water, raking long fingers through his hair before bringing them to rest at the back of his neck.

Perhaps he was giving her time to regain her composure, Cassandra pondered uneasily, as sanity reasserted itself. But she didn’t think so. Just for a moment there she had glimpsed the real Enrique de Montoya, the passionate man whose feelings couldn’t be so coldly contained beneath a mask of studied politeness, and she suspected he had been as shocked as she was.

Nevertheless, however she felt about him, there was little doubt that he had saved her from serious injury or worse. He’d risked his own life by swerving so recklessly off the highway, taking the car within inches of certain disaster, just to prevent her from doing something which, as he’d said, would have been crazy.

What had she been thinking? She trembled as the full extent of her own stupidity swept over her. What good would it have done to throw herself from the car? What would it have achieved? If she’d been killed—God, the very thought of it set her shaking again—who would have looked after David then? Whose claim on her son would have carried the most weight? She didn’t need to be a psychic to know that in those circumstances her own family would have been fighting a losing battle.

So why hadn’t Enrique let her do it? Or was that what he was doing now? Reproving himself for allowing a God-given opportunity to slip through his fingers? No. However naïve it might make her, she didn’t think that either.

She took a breath and then, pushing open her door, she got out of the car. She steadied herself for a moment, with her hand on the top of her door. Then, closing it again, she walked somewhat unsteadily across to where he was standing. The wind buffeted her, too, sending the tumbled mass of her hair about her face, but she only held it back, her eyes on Enrique’s taut profile.

‘I’m—sorry,’ she said after a moment, but although she knew he’d heard her, he didn’t look her way.

‘Go back to the car.’ The words were flat and expressionless. ‘I will join you in a moment.’

Cassandra caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘You’re right,’ she said, forced to go on. ‘What I did was crazy! I could have killed us both.’

Now Enrique did look at her, but she gained no reassurance from his blank expression. ‘Forget it,’ he told her. ‘I have.’

Cassandra quivered. ‘As you forget everything that doesn’t agree with you?’ she asked tremulously. ‘And everyone?’

Enrique’s features contorted. ‘I have forgotten nothing,’ he assured her harshly, and she shrank from his sudden antagonism.

‘Then how do you live with yourself?’ she was stung to reply, and with a muffled epithet he brushed past her.

‘God knows,’ he muttered in his own language, but she understood him. He headed for the car. ‘Are you coming?’

The bar he took her to was in the next village. A whitewashed building on the road, it was open at the back, spilling its customers out onto a wood-framed deck above a pebbled beach. Further along, a black jetty jutted out into the blue water, and several small fishing smacks and rowing boats were drawn up onto a strip of sand. Old men sat mending their nets, and, judging by the clientele in the bar, this was not a venue for tourists.

Contrary to what Enrique had said earlier, the bartender knew exactly who he was, and it was obvious from the man’s manner that he welcomed his customer. Cassandra guessed, nonetheless, that he was curious about who she was and why Enrique should choose to bring her here, but he knew better than to ask questions. Instead, he escorted them personally to a table on the deck that was shaded by a canvas canopy, and enquired politely what he could get them to drink.

‘Wine?’ suggested Enrique, looking at Cassandra, and at her indifferent nod he ordered two glasses of Rioja. ‘It is served from a barrel here,’ he explained as the man walked away, and Cassandra guessed he was only behaving courteously for the other man’s benefit.

‘What is this place?’ she asked, taking her cue from him, and Enrique glanced towards the jetty before looking at her.

‘San Augustin,’ he said in the same civil tone. ‘I used to come here a lot when I was younger. While I was a student, I worked behind the bar for a while until my father found out.’

‘And stopped you?’ suggested Cassandra unthinkingly, and he nodded.

‘My father said a de Montoya should not—well, it is not important what he said,’ he appended shortly. ‘It is many years now.’

‘Yet the bartender remembers you.’

‘I did not mean it is so many years since I was here,’ he explained. ‘José and I, we know one another quite well.’

Cassandra began to smile and then pulled her lips into a straight line again. She was starting to relax with him and that was not good. She had no doubt it would suit him very well, but she had to remember why he had brought her here and it wasn’t to exchange anecdotes about the past. Well, not that past anyway, she amended, with a sudden spurt of hysteria.

The bartender returned with their wine and a large plate of what she realised were tapas. But not the mass-produced tapas that were available in the bars in Punta del Lobo. Something told her that this was the real thing, the fat juicy olives, spiced with herbs, the batter-dipped prawns, the bite-sized pieces of crisply fried fish bearing little resemblance to what she’d seen so far. They smelled wholesome, too, and in other circumstances the cheese that was oozing out of the paper-thin rolls of ham would have made her mouth water.

‘Is good, señor?’ the man enquired, obviously having heard them speaking in English, and Enrique inclined his head.

‘Muy bien, José,’ he responded in his own language. Very good. ‘Gracias.’

The bartender smiled and went away, and Enrique indicated the food. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘Hardly,’ said Cassandra, reluctantly taking a sip of her wine. She hoped it wasn’t too intoxicating. She’d had nothing to eat that day and her stomach was already bubbling with apprehension. ‘Why did you want to speak to me?’

Enrique hesitated. She noticed he wasn’t interested in the food either and, like her, he seemed quite content to concentrate on his wine. His hands, brown and long-fingered, played with the stem of his glass, and she was mesmerised by their sensitive caress. It reminded her far too acutely of how those fingers had felt gripping her wrist, grasping her arm, stroking her naked flesh…

She took a laboured breath as somewhere nearby a guitar began to play. Its music, poignant at times, at others vibrantly sensual, tugged at her emotions, fanning the flames of memories she desperately wanted to forget. She should not have come here, she thought unsteadily. She was still far too vulnerable where he was concerned.

‘I think you know why we have to talk,’ Enrique said at last, his eyes intent. ‘David is a de Montoya. You had no right to keep that from us.’

Cassandra pursed her lips. ‘You’re sure of that, are you?’

‘What? That he is Antonio’s son? Of course.’

‘What makes you so certain?’

Enrique lay back in his chair, giving her a sardonic look. ‘Cassandra, do not play games with me. We both know that he is the image of his father at that age.’

‘Is he?’

‘Do you wish me to produce a photograph as proof? No, I did not think so. The boy shows his Spanish blood in every way. His eyes, his colouring, his mannerisms. His honesty.’

Cassandra stiffened. ‘His honesty?’ she demanded caustically. ‘Oh, right. You’d know a lot about that.’