Summer With Love: The Spanish Consultant

‘I can imagine.’ He ran a hand over his jaw, visibly tense. ‘Katy, you told me you were protected.’

His voice was surprisingly gentle and her heart missed several beats. If she was vulnerable to his macho, dominating male side, she was even more vulnerable to his gentle side. She wished he’d kept it hidden.

She felt the colour touch her cheeks. ‘There really isn’t any reason to talk about this.’

‘Your sister clearly blames me for making you pregnant,’ he pointed out, and she sat down on the edge of the bed because standing suddenly seemed too much like hard work.

‘That’s not true. I told Libby it was my fault.’

He inhaled sharply. ‘I was older than you and more experienced. It was my responsibility but you definitely told me you were protected.’ He stepped forward and hunkered down next to her, his dark gaze fixed on her pale face, his eyes tormented. ‘Have you any idea what it does to me to know that I left you pregnant? You lied to me, querida. Why?’

‘Because I was eighteen and stupid,’ she muttered, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. ‘And desperate.’

He frowned with an unusual lack of comprehension. ‘Desperate?’

‘To go to bed with you.’

She looked away from him, instantly regretting her honesty, but strong fingers caught her chin and forced her to look at him.

Connecting with those stunning dark eyes, she suddenly understood with appalling clarity how she could have made such a serious error of judgement at eighteen. Jago was so staggeringly sexy that exercising common sense would have been as unlikely as a snowstorm in summer.

He said something under his breath in Spanish and then switched to English. ‘I can’t believe I let that happen,’ he muttered, and her eyes slid away from his.

‘I’ve never blamed you.’

‘You should have told me you were pregnant.’

‘I had no idea where you were,’ she pointed out, struggling to control the traitorous reaction of her body. He was so close to her. She curled her fingers into her palms in case she gave in to the temptation to slide them into his silky black hair. ‘And, anyway, you’d rejected me.’

He gave an agonised groan. ‘Don’t remind me. If I’d known …’ His face was unusually pale, the skin stretched taut over his cheekbones. ‘And then you lost the baby. How did you fall? Tell me what happened.’

Shaken by a question that she hadn’t been anticipating, she stared at him. ‘How did you know I fell?’

‘I’m afraid I took advantage of your sister,’ he muttered, and she stood up and moved over to her bedroom window.

He was being too nice to her. The only way she could keep him at a distance was if she reminded herself that he was an uncaring, unfeeling monster who hadn’t trusted her, and it was very hard to do that convincingly when he was working overtime on demonstrating his sensitive side.

She desperately wanted him to leave.

Unfortunately Freddie wasn’t due for another half-hour so there was no hope of a reprieve from that direction.

‘Katy?’ Eyes narrowed, Jago rose to his feet in a fluid movement and she stopped to pick up a towelling robe, which lay discarded on the floor, and draped it over the back of a chair.

Anything to avoid that penetrating gaze. He saw too much.

‘I tripped—it was just one of those things.’

There was a long silence. ‘You tripped?’

She licked her lips, hearing the surprise and disbelief in his tone. ‘That’s right. And now can we change the subject?’ She looked at him and managed something resembling a smile. ‘As you’re always saying, it’s history now and I certainly don’t blame you for the baby.’

His powerful body radiated tension. ‘But you blame me for everything else.’

‘You should have trusted me, Jago,’ she said simply. ‘I was completely in love with you and a man as experienced as you should have seen that I couldn’t see straight enough to focus on another man.’

A muscle moved in his cheek and she watched him dealing with the unfamiliar experience of being in the wrong.

For a man with his pride she knew it would be hard and she certainly wasn’t expecting an apology. Jago had probably never apologised for anything in his life.

‘You have to admit I had reason—’

‘You ignored what you knew about me and judged me on the evidence of someone who had every reason to destroy our relationship,’ she said quietly, holding onto the fact that he’d behaved with such totally predictable male arrogance. Only by remembering that would she be able to keep him at a distance. ‘I still can’t quite believe you did that. And now you have to go, Jago. Freddie will be here any minute.’

‘Call him and cancel.’

He moved towards her with deliberate intent and she found herself backing against the wall of the bedroom.

‘He’s booked a table.’

‘Cancel.’ His eyes dropped to her mouth and she felt her heart rate increase with startling rapidity. ‘You’re not going to marry him, Katy.’

The atmosphere in the room was suddenly charged with tension and she felt frighteningly out of control.

‘I am, I’m—’

‘Call him and end it. We both know you’re not in love with him. So why are you marrying him?’ Because she didn’t want love.

Jago stepped closer still and she felt sensation knife through her pelvis. She was breathlessly aware of him, of the blue-black stubble on his jaw, of the slumberous dark eyes probing hers with relentless intent, of his wide shoulders blocking her escape.

‘You’re dating a Brazilian model,’ she reminded him desperately, and he gave a groan of denial.

‘Not any more.’

Trapped by his ferocious masculinity, she felt the tension in the room rise to an almost unbearable degree.

‘End it,’ he instructed softly, his eyes dropping to her parted lips and clouding hungrily, ‘or stop looking at me like that.’

She couldn’t get the air into her lungs. ‘I’m not looking at you—’

‘Yes, you are.’

Without warning he took her mouth in a kiss so explicit in its intent that her senses went into freefall. With a rough exclamation he hauled her against his powerful body, the sensual onslaught of his kiss creating an excitement so wild that she couldn’t help but respond. Fevered by his touch, she kissed him back, locking her arms around his strong neck, feeling the heat of his body pressing through the thin fabric of her dress.

His breathing fractured, he lifted a hand and tugged roughly at her hair, discarding the clips impatiently until it tumbled in a silken mass over his arm and down her back.

With a groan of satisfaction he sank both hands into the soft waves that he’d released, anchoring her head against the relentless onslaught of his skilled mouth.

‘I love your hair.’ He muttered the words against her mouth, moving his lips over hers, exploring suggestively with his tongue until she went up in flames.