Prisoner Of Passion

She dealt him a disbelieving look. ‘No way.’

‘I insist.’ He was digging a wallet out of his pocket with astonishing alacrity.

‘I said no,’ she reminded him flatly, embarrassed to death by the offer and hurriedly attempting to change the subject. ‘Cold for May, isn’t it?’

‘Take the money!’ he bit out with stinging impatience.

Bella frowned, hunching deeper into her battered jacket, one long, shapely thigh crossed over the other, her fantastic head of hair blowing back from her exotic features in the breeze. ‘What’s the matter with you? I have to wait for the tow-truck’

‘I’ll wait for it,’ he told her harshly.

‘Look, it isn’t my car...’

‘What?’ he raked at her.

‘It belongs to this old man I live with. I only have the use of it,’ Bella explained soothingly.

Narrowed dark eyes rested on her, his beautifully shaped mouth hardening, and she found herself staring at him, noticing the shape of his lips. It was the artist in her, she supposed abstractedly. He would be an interesting study to paint.

‘How old is old?’ Rico da Silva enquired, surprising her.

‘As old as you feel.’ Bella laughed in more like her usual manner. ‘Hector says he feels fifty on a good day, seventy on a bad. I reckon he’s about the lattes.’

‘And what are you?’

‘Twenty-one...’ she checked her watch ‘....and four and a half hours.’

‘Yesterday was your birthday?’

‘Lousy birthday,’ she muttered, more to herself than him. ‘I had to work.’

‘It happens,’ he said in a strained voice.

‘And my boyfriend is two-timing me.’ It just came out. She hadn’t meant to say it. Maybe it was the effect of bravely smiling all evening and keeping her mouth shut with her friends.

‘The pensioner?’ He sounded even more strained.

It was the language barrier, she decided. How on earth could he imagine that she was dating a man old enough to be her grandfather?

‘Not Hector—my boyfriend.’

‘Maybe you should think of another occupation-something that keeps you home at night... although perhaps not,’ he muttered half under his breath.

Had she told him that she was a waitress? She didn’t remember doing so but she must have done. Screening another sleepy yawn, Bella sighed. ‘I don’t mind most of the time, although it’s murder on my feet and it’s very boring. Still, it pays the rent—’

‘He charges you rent?’

‘Of course he does... although not very much.’ She yawned again, politely masking her mouth with a slender hand. ‘He tried to claim for me as a housekeeper but the Inland Revenue weren’t impressed. I’m not really very domestic but he wouldn’t like it if I was. It’s kind of hard to explain Hector to people...’

‘Are you in the habit of telling complete strangers the most intimate details of your life?’ Rico da Silva prompted in a tone of driven fascination.

Bella thought about it and then nodded, although she would have disputed his concept of ‘intimate details’. Friends said, ‘I told you so.’ Strangers just listened and volunteered their own experiences. Not that the male standing next to her would. He was the secretive type, she decided. Still waters ran deep—dark and deep as hell with this one, she thought helplessly.

‘You’re a financier,’ she remarked conversationally, thinking that what was good enough for the gander was good enough for the goose.

‘How the hell do you know that?’ he shot at her forbiddingly.

Bella gave him a startled look. ‘I saw you earlier this evening and a friend told me who you were.’

‘And then all of a sudden you crash into me. Two such coincidences in one night strain my credulity!’ Rico da Silva shot at her.

‘Pretty lousy luck, huh? If I’d done the cards this morning I probably wouldn’t have got out of bed—’

‘“The cards”?’ he echoed.

‘Tarot cards. Though mostly I steer clear of the temptation to tell my own fortune these days. Sometimes I think you’re better not knowing what’s ahead of you.’

‘I do not believe in such a coincidence,’ he stated afresh, staring down at her in a very intimidating fashion. ‘It was your intent to meet me, es verdad?’

‘You’re a very uptight personality.’ Bella shook her vibrant head. ‘And a bit weird, to be frank—’

‘Weird?’ Rico da Silva roared. ‘You think that I am weird?’

She raised her hands. ‘Now just count to ten and back off, buster.’

“‘Buster”?’ he repeated, snatching in a hissing breath.

‘Mr Silver... no, it wasn’t that, was it?’ She sighed.

‘Rico... da... Silva,’ he enunciated very slowly and carefully, as if he were talking to a complete idiot.

‘Yeah, I knew it was something strange. I hate to tell you this but it is a little weird to imagine that a total stranger would crash into you deliberately to meet you,’ Bella told him gently. ‘I mean, I might have been killed.’

From beneath black lashes so long that they cast crescent shadows on his savage cheekbones, he cast her a glimmering glance. ‘I have known women to take tremendous risks to make my acquaintance.’

‘I wonder why?’ she said, and then realised by the sudden, thundering silence that she had said it out loud instead of just thinking it. ‘What I mean is...well, there’s only one way of saying this, Mr da Silver—’

‘Silva!’ he slotted in rawly.

Uptight wasn’t the word for it. This guy lived on the outer edge. On the brink of gently assuring him that he had met some very peculiar women, Bella was silenced briefly by the sight of the tow-truck surging up the street towards them.

‘Talk about service!’ she gasped. ‘I thought we’d be here for hours!’

‘Another half-hour of your relentless, mindless chatter and I would be—’

‘More hyper than you already are? It’s OK. I’m not offended,’ she told him with a smile. ‘You either love me or you hate me. But, for your own sake, get your blood pressure checked and take up something relaxing like gardening. Guys like you drop dead from heart attacks at forty-five.’ Dragging her attention from the darkening colour of his cheekbones and the razor-slash effect of his incredulous gaze, Bella turned to gape at the arrival of a second tow-truck. ‘Gosh... one each!’

With that, she rushed over to the Skoda, belatedly realising that she would need to clear the car out. She was kneeling on the driver’s seat, poking around amongst the rubbish for stray items of clothing, letters, bills, her sketch-pad and pencils, when his voice assailed her again from behind.