Summer With Love: The Spanish Consultant

Stunned by the news, Jago masked his expression, determined to elicit all the facts. ‘She was in hospital?’

‘Of course.’ Libby frowned, as if surprised that he should ask such a strange question. ‘It was such a bad fall they were really worried about her.’

Jago was battling with the shock of discovering that Katy had been pregnant when he’d left her and had then lost the baby. He was utterly appalled by the notion that he’d somehow failed to protect her. And confused. How could she have become pregnant?

His hard jaw clenched. Had her father known she was pregnant? And why had she fallen?

His brain was still scanning through a variety of equally distasteful scenarios when the door opened and Katy walked into the room.

Dressed for an evening out, she looked incredibly beautiful in a silky black dress and he felt his body tighten in the most basic of male responses. He adored her curves. Like most men, his preference was for women to be shaped like women rather than sticks, and Katy was every inch a woman. The only thing that was wrong with her appearance was her hair.

His mouth tightened as he saw how carefully she’d styled her hair, twisting it and taming it until it lay subdued on top of her head.

She had fabulous hair. Left loose, it fell like a sleek gold curtain almost to her waist and he’d spent hours smoothing his fingers through it, enjoying its amazing scent and texture. But she’d only ever worn it loose when he’d forced the issue. The rest of the time she’d twisted it into submission on the top of her head.

It was the style she always wore for her parents and he hated it. It was restrained, dignified and repressed. All the things that she thought she ought to be. How many times had he ripped the pins out of her hair when they’d been together?

It was as if she was locking an important part of herself away.

He wondered briefly if her fiancé knew what she was really like underneath that elegant, contained exterior and then almost growled with anger at the thought of another man touching her.

She was his.

She’d always been his.

The thought made him catch his breath.

‘Jago!’ Her startled gaze slid between him and her sister and Libby pulled an apologetic face and backed towards the kitchen.

‘Sorry, he forced his way in.’ She glared at Jago and then looked pointedly at her sister. ‘I’ll be making coffee if you need me.’

‘Libby—wait!’ Katy’s plea was ignored and the kitchen door closed firmly behind Libby.

Jago derived some comfort from the fact that Katy hadn’t wanted to be left alone with him.

She didn’t trust herself.

It gave him a primitive type of male satisfaction to note the way her soft lips parted and her pupils dilated when she looked at him.

He gave a soft smile and stepped towards her.

Katy’s eyes locked on Jago’s powerful frame and she felt a rush of panic.

He’d come after her.

And hadn’t she guessed that he would? Ever since her thoughtless, unguarded comment spoken in the heat of the moment, she’d known that he wouldn’t let it go.

His dark gaze locked on hers with the deadly accuracy of a heat-seeking weapon and she felt something unravel deep within her stomach.

It appalled her that he could still make her feel this way. All right, so he was gorgeous, but he was also the man who’d thought her capable of sleeping with two men at the same time. They clearly didn’t share the same moral values. How could she still find him even remotely attractive?

But she did. One look at his hard mouth made her skin tingle and her breasts ache.

She felt hot all over.

Shocked by the depth of her reaction, drowning in her elemental response to him, Katy sucked in a breath and tried to apply logic to the situation.

Of course she found him attractive. What woman wouldn’t? Jago Rodriguez was as sexy as sin. Her reaction didn’t mean anything. It was something she could control.

Furiously denying what she was feeling, she reminded herself that she was marrying Freddie in two months’ time, and if a tiny voice pointed out that Jago could arouse a response at a distance of metres that Freddie couldn’t match even when they were touching, then she chose to ignore it.

There was no way she’d be so foolish as to resume a relationship with Jago again.

Whatever she felt for him, she couldn’t be with a man who didn’t trust her. And Jago hadn’t trusted her.

Having reminded herself firmly of that fact, she tried to match his attitude of cool indifference. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Finishing our conversation.’ His eyes rested on her mouth with blatant fascination and then slid down her body, his intense scrutiny making her relieved that she was wearing a very modest silk dress. At least he couldn’t see what she was feeling.

Or could he?

‘The conversation was finished, Jago.’

‘I don’t think so. We’d just reached the part where you were telling me about the baby.’

She was shaken into silence by his smooth declaration and panic clawed at her stomach. ‘I didn’t say—’

‘It was more what you left unsaid,’ he finished softly, stepping closer to her. ‘Finish the story, Katy.’

She turned and fled towards her bedroom but he was right behind her, closing the door and isolating them together in the confines of the cosy room. Instantly she realised her mistake.

The large, elegant hallway was impersonal whereas everything about her bedroom was soft and intimate. Personal.

The last place in the world she’d have chosen to be alone with Jago.

In the hallway of her apartment she hadn’t found him particularly intimidating, but in her bedroom she couldn’t help but be aware of his superior height and strength. He dominated the room, overwhelmingly male and unshakably confident. And he was looking for answers.

‘When did you find out that you were pregnant?’

‘After you left.’ What was the point in denying what he clearly knew? She walked over the far end of her bedroom, wondering how a room that she normally regarded as a sanctuary could suddenly seem so claustrophobic.

He frowned. ‘You didn’t find out until after I left?’

She swallowed. ‘I suspected …’

‘But you didn’t say anything?’

‘I panicked.’