Lazaro's Revenge

Stop it!

You have to stop thinking like this. You can’t let your imagination do this to you. You’ll just drive yourself crazy.

There were too many unknowns, too many terrifying possibilities. She had to stay calm, had to keep a cool head, as her father used to say. Her father had been a master of cool heads.

She swallowed the lump of panic filling her throat. “Okay. Dinner sounds good.” She’d take this step by step, moment by moment. She’d get through this. One way or another.

He picked up her suitcase and his bag and headed toward the house, leaving her to follow. But she couldn’t follow, not immediately. How could she just go in there, how could she walk into that house on her own accord?

Zoe stood where he’d left her, turned to face the cement pad, felt the night air surround her. The land was flat and open, with only a cluster of trees in the distance. Nothing loomed on the horizon. No mountains. No lights from a town. Just flat, empty space.

The pampas, she whispered to herself, remembering the postcards Daisy had sent her.

The Galvаn estancia was on the pampas, too. Perhaps she was close to Daisy, closer than either of them knew.

She turned back to face the house with the glow of yellow light. What to do now?

He was waiting for her at the door. She started toward him then stopped. She could feel his impatience and it frightened her. What would happen once she entered the house?

He waited another moment before shrugging and disappearing from view. After a long moment Zoe forced herself to continue.

Climbing the front steps, she arrived at the front door. The dark wood door remained open. The man reappeared.

He’d removed his coat and unbuttoned his dark shirt. A muscle in his jaw jumped as her eyes met his. His eyes were lighter than she’d thought, his eyebrows straight and very black, but it was his nose that dominated his face. His nose was bent, beaked in two places. There was a small scar at the bridge, and another scar at the edge of his square chin. His face looked as though it’d been smashed silly a half dozen times.

A street boxer. A thug.

Zoe’s throat constricted. She swallowed hard, terror making her limbs feel like thin splinters of glass.

“You’re coming in then?” he said.

Her throat worked and she dug her fists against her ribs to stop her shaking. It nearly killed her to force sound through her throat. “You don’t care if I stay outside?”

“You can do whatever you want now that you’re here.”

“I can?”

“There’s no phone line here, no outside communication at all. No visitors, no roads, no disturbances, no interruptions. You’re safe.”

Hot tears pricked her eyes and she ground her teeth together. “I’m safe?”

He reached out to touch the side of her neck, just below her jawbone, his fingers trailing across the soft skin left exposed by her turtleneck. “Perfectly safe.”

She quivered and jerked at the hot painful touch. “Is there no one else here?”

“Just an elderly servant, but she doesn’t speak English and won’t bother you.”

He lifted his finger from her neck and she felt as though he’d split her in two. The touch had been light and yet he’d lit a bomb inside her skin, heat exploding in her middle, fire racing through her veins. It was the most shocking touch and she wanted to cry out loud, overwhelmed by the intensity of her response.

“Come inside. You’re tired.”

“I’m afraid.”

His dark head tilted. “Of?”

His deep voice was pitched so low that it throbbed within her, a soft but distinct vibration that left her humming. She hated him, feared him, and yet he was strangely charismatic, too. Of everything that could happen, she wanted to answer, but she didn’t say it. Wouldn’t say it.

He must have read her thoughts because he smiled faintly. “Think of it as an adventure.” Then he moved aside, stepping back to allow her to pass.

An adventure? He must be mad.

Yet his peculiar dark-light eyes held hers, and he waited, neither speaking nor rushing her. He was going to let her choose. He was going to put the next move on her.

What should she do? Stay outside in the darkness, on the endless pampas, or go into the warm yellow glow of the house?

With her heart thudding, she stepped inside.

Lazaro spotted Zoe Collingsworth the moment she stepped from the jet-way at the airport earlier in the afternoon. Young, blond, beautiful, she was the epitome of Argentine beauty. His narrowed gaze had followed her movements as she rummaged in her leather handbag for dark sunglasses.

Her hand had shook as she’d propped the tortoiseshell glasses on her small, straight nose. She could have been a Hollywood starlet. Her sweater’s high funnel neck stopped just short of her chin, accenting her smooth, creamy jaw and the long tumble of golden hair.

Lazaro could see that the men in the airport waiting area were already projecting their fantasies onto her. They saw what they wanted to see, the full breasts beneath the thin black sweater and the very feminine hips in wool trousers the color of rich caramel. They were admiring her hair, too, wondering if the glorious color was natural.

It was natural. Her hair was like her sister Daisy’s, only more golden. In fact, the two of them looked remarkably similar.

Only two years after marrying Count Dante Galvаn, Daisy was already considered a great beauty in Argentina’s elite social circles, but Zoe had a different beauty than Daisy’s…a softer beauty.

Lazaro shut the door to the ranch house but didn’t bother locking it. No point in locks. There was nowhere for Zoe to go.

He watched her now as she took a step into the hall, her blue eyes wide, and apprehensive, the irises more lavender than sapphire. She scanned the interior, as if searching for a hidden door or a secret torture chamber.

“There’s nothing sinister here,” he said calmly. “No knives, guns, whips, chains. Just a simple ranch house.”

Her chin lifted, her full lips trembled, but she pressed them together. “Have you sent a ransom note already?”

“No.”

She blinked, long black lashes sweeping down, brushing the high elegant curve of her cheekbone before looking up again. She was so young. Nearly twelve years younger than he. A lifetime between them.

The age difference should have killed his attraction. It didn’t.

Ever since she’d stepped from the jet-way this afternoon, his gut had ached, his body throbbing. His response to her stunned him. It was such a primitive reaction, so fiercely and purely physical that he felt raw on the inside. Barely controlled.

The desire was there even now and his body tightened yet again, his black wool slacks growing snug, confining.

He felt hungry. Like a prehistoric creature brought back from the dead. Something about her made him crave her, made him feel ravenous. Ruthless.

He wanted to feel her, taste her, possess her. And in a distant part of his brain he knew he would. Someday.