The Spaniard's Pleasure: The Spaniard's Pregnancy Proposal / At the Spaniard's Convenience / Taken: the Spaniard's Virgin

All I have to do, she told herself, is not make a big thing of it and breathe…yes, breathing was important.

His head lifted.

‘Right, I consider myself kissed. Can we get on?’

‘Kissed…?’ he echoed, his blue eyes glittering with amusement and a lot of other things that she didn’t want to put a name to. ‘You haven’t been kissed, querida,’ he drawled.

Then before she had a chance to react he lowered his mouth to hers.

His warm lips moved against her mouth. She tried to signal her disapproval by not reacting, but there was a raw hunger in the skilful, sensuous friction that she couldn’t resist.

Didn’t want to resist.

His mouth lifted fractionally and Fleur gave a fractured moan before he claimed her parted lips again. This time the hunger he had leashed slipped a notch.

As if he had all the time in the world Antonio slid his tongue deep into the warm, intimate crevices of her mouth. Tasting her and letting her taste him.

As bright lights exploded behind her closed eyelids Fleur moaned into his mouth and kissed him back, winding her arms around his neck, her fingers trailing in the dark strands that curled at his nape.

He said something indistinct against her mouth and lifted his mouth. Leaning back into his seat, he sat there staring straight ahead and breathing hard.

At some point between him unwinding her hands from around his neck and fastening his seat belt her brain started functioning again.

Well, I suppose that now I have been kissed.

She lifted a shaky hand to her tender lips and swallowed past the constriction in her aching throat. Oh, yes, there was no doubt about it—she had been kissed!

And what a kiss.

Antonio turned the key in the ignition, nothing in his manner suggesting that he had just kissed her until she forgot her own name. And he still hadn’t said a word.

Resentment mingled with the cocktail of confusion, shame and excitement that was already swirling in Fleur’s veins as she watched him.

As if it had never happened!

Kissing me probably registered somewhere below combing his hair on his scale of the totally forgettable, she decided wrathfully.

And I, stupid idiot that I am, will be left comparing every kiss I ever receive with that one.

Before releasing the handbrake he swivelled his glance her way. ‘Happy Birthday.’

For a brief moment their eyes clung. The searing heat in his sent a shocking rush of heat through Fleur’s body. Knowing that he hadn’t wanted that kiss to stop any more than she had was not the salve to her pride she had imagined it would be.

Being the victim of a helpless passion was one thing. It was frustrating, sure, and horribly embarrassing, but it was safe. Knowing that the object of her desire for some inexplicable reason wanted her right back…now that scared her witless!

About a quarter of a mile down the road they hit the outskirts of the town and almost immediately the hospital came into view.

If anyone had told her yesterday that she would be weak with relief to see a hospital Fleur would have laughed in their face. Yesterday, she thought, flashing a look of seething dislike at the man beside her, she had not met Antonio Rochas.

Chapter Seven

FLEUR sat in an alcove off the waiting room feeling invisible. They had told her that the painkillers the doctor had insisted on prescribing would be up from the pharmacy directly. She glanced at the clock on the wall and saw she had been there for almost thirty minutes. Maybe they were taking the scenic route.

She looked around at the steady stream of humanity bustling past her all with a purpose, but none of their purposes involved helping her get out of here. Had they forgotten she was there?

Almost immediately she felt guilty for being so impatient. It wasn’t that she resented having to wait her turn, and the treatment she had received had been excellent, it was just the place made her want to crawl out of her skin.

Somehow she couldn’t imagine anyone forgetting Antonio Rochas was here. Her brow furrowed as she gave an exasperated sigh. For someone who had decided that she was going to blank him, his convoluted family problems and his wretched kiss from her mind totally, she had been thinking about him a lot.

Still, at least it stopped her thinking about the hospital smell. She picked up a newspaper someone had left on the seat beside her and began to skim through the pages, although she wasn’t actually able to concentrate on the stories.

The elderly woman opposite waved her stick to get Fleur’s attention. ‘What does my horoscope say, dear?’

Fleur smiled and turned to the appropriate page. ‘What star sign are you?’

‘Virgo.’

‘Me too,’ Fleur said. ‘Let’s see,’ she said, stabbing the appropriate column with a finger. ‘It says here that “an unexpected meeting will have life-changing consequences.”’ She stopped reading and heaved a sigh. Even the stars were conspiring against her, it would seem! Not that she believed that sort of stuff. A person made their own destiny irrespective of whether Jupiter was rising in Capricorn or whatever. All the same, that was spooky. ‘I don’t have my reading glasses with me—would you like the paper?’

At this rate, next I’ll be seeing him in the tea leaves!

The grey-haired figure smiled her gratitude as Fleur limped across. ‘So young to have problems with your eyesight,’ she said, accepting the folded newspaper.

‘It runs in the family,’ Fleur improvised shamelessly.

‘And such pretty eyes too.’

Did Antonio think her eyes were pretty?

‘Stop that, Fleur!’ she told herself severely.

‘Pardon, dear?’ the old lady said.

Fleur shook her head and limped back to her place and, with nothing much else to do, her thoughts drifted. Inevitably they drifted in the direction of a tall dark Spaniard. She had no doubt that the fact she had walked, or rather limped, into the place at his side had a lot to do with her being attended to so swiftly.

Just as she was considering the shallowness in human nature that made people respond to a famous face that way the nurse who had attended to her while her leg was sutured walked past.

‘Still here?’ she said looking sympathetic.

Fleur nodded.

‘I was wondering,’ she began tentatively, ‘do you know how Tamara Rochas…’ She stopped and gave a rueful grimace. ‘Sorry, I expect you can’t discuss patients with nonrelatives.’ And as a completely disinterested party I ought not to be asking.

‘Well, you’re not exactly a stranger, are you?’ The girl smiled.

Fleur, not quite sure how to respond, shrugged and said cautiously, ‘Not exactly.’

‘If you like,’ offered the cheerful nurse, ‘I’ll show you to her room. It’s on my way to the canteen.’