Counterfeit Bride

She hunched a shoulder irritably, and turned to stare out of the window, hearing him laugh softly.

‘I am glad your travel sickness has not troubled you today,’ he said after a pause. ‘Perhaps before the trip is over I may also he able to persuade you to remove your glasses.’

Still with her back turned, she said calmly, ‘That is quite impossible.’

‘We shall see,’ he said softly, and she turned and looked at him sharply, only to find he was once more immersed in his papers.

They ate lunch in a hilltop restaurant overlooking a lake. Nicola ate fish, probably caught from the same lake, she thought, and incredibly fresh and delicately flavoured. Ramón ate little, but he drank wine, staring broodingly into the depths of his glass.

She had expected that he would instruct Lopez to stop at a motel again before the siesta hour, but he did not do so. Instead the car sped on through the heat-shimmered landscape, and eventually, lulled by the motion, Nicola dozed.

She awoke eventually with a slight start, aware that she had been dreaming, but not sure what the dreams were about. Until she turned her head slightly, and then she remembered.

In his corner of the car, he was asleep, his lean body totally relaxed. Nicola felt herself draw a deep shaken breath as the memory of her dreams whispered enticingly to her mind. He had discarded his jacket, and his brown shirt was half unbuttoned, showing the dark shadow of hair on his bronzed body. The shirt fitted closely, revealing not an ounce of spare flesh round his midriff or flat stomach.

Nicola moistened dry lips with the tip of her tongue, conscious of a pang of self-disgust. She had never stared obsessively at a man like this, not even Ewan whom she had loved. Still loved, she thought.

She looked back at him slowly, reluctantly. He wasn’t her idea of a rancher, she thought. His shoulders were broad, but his body seemed too finely boned. Her eyes drifted downwards over the long legs and strongly muscled thighs—the result, she supposed, of long days in the saddle. Yet his hands were a mystery, not calloused and rough as she would have imagined, but square-palmed with long sensitive fingers.

She caught back a sigh, as her eyes returned to his face, then gasped huskily as she realised too late that he was awake and watching her.

She sat motionless, thanking heavens for the dark glasses which masked any betrayal there might be in her eyes, but her breathing was flurried, and she saw his eyes slide down her body to her breasts, tautly outlined inside her dress, the nipples hard and swollen against the softly clinging fabric. She saw the dark eyes narrow as they assimilated this shaming evidence of her arousal.

He said softly, ‘You overwhelm me, querida. Shall I tell Lopez to drive further into the hills and lose himself for an hour or two?’

She felt the hot rush of colour into her face. She wanted to die.

She said icily, ‘You are insulting, señor.’

‘I thought I was being practical.’

‘Your vile suggestions are an outrage!’ she accused, her voice shaking.

‘Of course.’ He smiled slightly. ‘What a lot you will have to tell Don Luis—when you meet him.’

‘You can even think of him?’

‘I have been thinking of him a great deal,’ he said coolly. ‘And always with you, naked and more than willing in his arms, querida. A disturbing vision, believe me.’

Her lips parted, then closed again helplessly. Nicola couldn’t think of a single word to say, but she knew she had to say something, for Teresita’s sake. Although there was no way Teresita would have ever got into this situation, she realised despairingly. She couldn’t really believe that she herself had done such a thing.

She said haughtily, ‘Please do not speak to me again, Don Ramón.’

It was weak, but it was the best she could manage. She turned her back on him resolutely and stared out of the window, totally unseeing, praying that the blush which seemed to be eating her alive would soon subside.

She couldn’t think what was wrong with her. She wasn’t completely unsophisticated. He’d made a verbal pass, that was all. It wasn’t the end of the world. It had happened to her before, and she’d demolished the perpetrator without a second thought. She was Nicola Tarrant, the Snow Queen, who could cut a too ardent male down with a scornful look. She had never fluttered or flustered in her life, and especially not over the past year. And it wasn’t enough to tell herself that her outrage was assumed, part of the role she was playing. She was shaken to the core, and she knew it.

When the car finally stopped, she almost stumbled out of it, barely aware that they were at yet another motel, but smaller this time and far less luxurious. She knew that Lopez was watching her curiously, and tried desperately to pull herself together and act normally.

Ramón came to her side. ‘Will you have dinner with me?’ His voice sounded constrained.

She avoided his gaze. ‘No—I have a headache. I’ll ask for some food to be sent to my room.’

‘As you please.’ He made no attempt to detain her, and she fled. Safe in her room, she made no attempt to order any food, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to swallow as much as a morsel. She undressed and showered and lay down on top of the bed, staring into the gathering darkness, her whirling thoughts refusing to cohere into any recognisable pattern.

There was one rock to hang on to in her sea of confusion—that tomorrow they would be in Monterrey, and this whole stupid, dangerous masquerade would be over. She should never have embarked on it in the first place, she knew, and she could only pray that she would emerge from it relatively unscathed.

Just let me get through tomorrow, she thought, and then it will be all right. I’ll be able to take up the rest of my life, and forget this madness. I’ll be free.

She kept repeating the word ‘free’ as if it was a soothing mantra, and eventually it had the effect she wanted and the darkness of night and the shadows of sleep settled on her almost simultaneously.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_4207ed29-56a3-5717-a795-9375ff7c12dc)

IT was a maid knocking on the door which woke her eventually. She sat up, pushing her hair back from her face, to find to her horror that it was broad daylight.

‘Señorita, your car is waiting,’ she was reminded, and heard the woman move away.

She glanced at her watch and groaned. She had overslept badly. She dressed rapidly, and almost crammed the loathsome wig on to her hair. She smothered a curse as she adjusted it. She had wanted to meet Ramón in the clear light of day, looking well-groomed and in control of the situation, and instead she was going to appear late, harassed and looking like something the cat had dragged in.

She grabbed her bag and left precipitately, aware that a porter was waiting in the corridor to fetch her cases.

As she emerged from the reception area into the sunshine, she made herself slow down and take deep, steadying breaths, as she saw the waiting car. Lopez was standing beside it, looking anxiously towards the entrance, but when he saw her he smiled in relief and opened the back door.

Nicola, steeling herself, climbed in. But the other seat was unoccupied. She twisted round, looking out of the rear window, but she could only see Lopez supervising the bestowal of her luggage in the boot. When he took his place in the driving seat, she leaned forward.

‘Where is Don Ramón?’

He turned. ‘I am to give you this, señorita.’ He handed her an envelope, then closed the glass partition between them.

Nicola opened the envelope and extracted the single sheet it contained.

‘I regret that urgent business commitments take me from your side,’ the writing, marching arrogantly across the page, informed her. ‘I wish you a safe journey, and a pleasant reunion with your novio.’ It was signed with an unintelligible squiggle.

Nicola read it several times, relief warring with an odd disappointment. So she would never see him again. On the other hand, it meant she only had Lopez to shake off when they reached Monterrey, and that had to be welcome news.

She read the terse words once again, then folded the note and stowed it in her bag, biting her lip.

Later, making sure that Lopez’ whole attention was concentrated on the road ahead, she reached into her bag and drew out the itinerary for her trip. There was an airport at Monterrey, and she would have to find out whether there were direct flights from there to Merida. There had been no time to finalise every detail before she left Mexico City. Teresita had seen to it that she had enough money for any eventuality, firmly cutting across her protests.

‘You are doing this for my sake, Nicky. It must cost you nothing,’ she had said.

In retrospect her words seemed ironic to Nicola now, but she dismissed that trend of thought from her mind, and began reading the brochures for her trip, trying to recapture her earlier excitement at the prospect. But it wasn’t easy. The names, the jungle temples no longer seemed to work the same potent magic with her as they had done. Nicola sighed and replaced them in her bag, arranging the crush-proof blue sundress she was going to change into on top of the papers.

She yawned, feeling earlier tensions beginning to seep away. Her little adventure was almost over, and she could begin to relax. Her sleep last night had been fitful, which probably explained her failure to wake this morning. She put her feet up on the seat, and relaxed. Next stop Monterrey, she thought.

It was the car slowing which woke her at last. She struggled to sit upright, putting an apprehensive hand up to touch the wig. She was stiff, and her mouth was dry, as if she had slept for several hours, but surely it couldn’t be true.

She expected to see suburbs at least, and signs of an industrial complex, but there wasn’t the least indication they were approaching a city. On the contrary, it seemed as if they were in the middle of nowhere. There were vestiges of habitation—a few shacks, and a tin-roofed cantina. And the road had altered too. They were no longer on a broad public highway but on a single track dirt road.