Mistress of La Rioja

But Miranda hadn’t been stupid. She’d been head-strong and impetuous sometimes, but she definitely hadn’t been stupid.

Unless this man beside her, who drove the car so expertly through the darkened Spanish countryside— unless he had made her life such a misery that she hadn’t cared about common sense and personal safety.

She shook her head. There was absolutely no justification for Miranda going off with a drink-driver. Whatever the state of her marriage, she had always been free to walk away from it.

She shot a side-glance at the darkly angled profile. Or had she? What if Miranda had tried to walk away, taking Teodoro with her? Couldn’t and wouldn’t Luis have used his power and his influence to try to stop her?

She turned her head and pressed her cheek against the coolness of the window and looked out, only half taking in the wild beauty of the silhouetted landscape beyond.

The air was violet-dark and huge stars spotted the sky with splodges of silver. They looked so much bigger and brighter than the stars back in England, and her home seemed suddenly a long way away. And then she remembered. She had responsibilities, too.

Through sheer effort of will she reached down in her briefcase to retrieve her mobile phone.

‘Will this work out here?’ she questioned.

His eyes narrowed as they briefly glanced over at the little technological toy. ‘That depends on what type it is.’ He shrugged. ‘But I have another you can use, if yours can’t get a signal.’

‘You have a mobile phone? Here? In the car?’

His mouth twisted into a grim smile. ‘Did you imagine that I communicate by bush telegraph? You will find every modern comfort, even here in La Rioja, Sophie.’

And yet his words seemed to mock the reality of his presence. ‘Modern comfort,’ he had said, when with his dark and brooding looks he seemed to represent the very opposite of all that was modern.

He watched as she punched out a string of numbers. ‘Is your call so very important that it cannot wait until we reach the hacienda?’ he questioned softly.

‘I have to let someone know that I arrived safely.’

‘A man, I suppose?’

‘Actually, yes. It is a man.’ Not that it was any of his business, but let him draw his own conclusions, which he very probably would. And obviously if it was a man then she must be sleeping with him!

The connection was made. ‘Liam? Hi, it’s me!’

Beside her, Luis stared into the abyss of the road ahead, wondering if she shared the same sexual freedom as her cousin. His gaze wandered unseen to her legs, and he was unprepared for the sudden buck of jealousy at the thought of those slender, pale limbs wrapped around the body of another.

He reminded himself that he knew women like these—with their blonde hair and their big blue eyes and their gym-toned bodies. The bodies of women but with the minds of men. They acted as men had been acting for years…they saw something they wanted and they went all out to get it.

And she had wanted him once, before she had discovered that he was to marry her cousin, just as he had wanted her—a wanting like no other. A thunderbolt which had struck him and left him aching and dazed in its wake. And it had taken her as well, he had seen that for himself, as unmistakable as the long shadows cast by the sun.

He listened in unashamedly to her conversation as the car ate up the lonely miles.

‘No, I’m in the car now. With Luis.’ A pause. ‘Not really, no.’ Another pause and then she glanced at her watch. ‘It’s just gone nine. No, that’s OK. Yeah, I know, but I can’t really talk now. Yes. OK. Thanks, Liam. I hope so, too. OK, I’ll do that. I’ll call you on Saturday.’

She cut the connection and put the phone back in the glove box.

‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly.

There was a soft, dangerous pause as he saw her cross one slim, pale leg over the other. ‘Does he hunger for you already, Sophie?’ he asked silkily, and the blood began to pound in his head.

She couldn’t believe her ears. It was such an outrageous thing to say that for a moment Sophie was left speechless.

‘I beg your pardon?’

He gave a half-smile in the darkness. So beautiful and so unintentionally sensual, and yet she could turn her voice to frost when it suited her.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘Liam is my business partner.’

‘Ah.’

Something dark and sensual conveyed danger in that simple word, and Sophie felt her heart race with something more than fear. ‘Is—is there going to be anyone else staying at the hacienda?’

He heard the tremor in her voice and it amused him, even while it frustrated and tempted him. Was it him she wasn’t sure she trusted? Or herself? Did she want him still?

‘You mean apart from Teodoro?’ he questioned casually.

‘You know I do.’

‘One of the women from the village comes in to help with meals. And Pirro, who is my cook and gardener, lives in the hacienda with Salvadora, his wife. She is Teodoro’s ninera—as she was mine before, when I was a child.’

‘Since…when?’ asked Sophie, thinking that Salvadora must be getting on a bit if she used to look after Luis. ‘Since before Miranda died?’

‘Oh, long before that,’ he murmured evasively. ‘My son is devoted to her. You will see that for yourself.’

A wave of indignation washed over her, and something far more primitive followed on its heels. Had Miranda effectively been elbowed out of the way? she wondered. The Englishwoman pushed aside for the mummy-substitute—a fellow Spaniard who could teach Teodoro the language and traditions of his father?

Well, not for much longer, vowed Sophie. Somehow she would teach him something of his mother’s heritage. She scrabbled around again in her handbag, this time for a hairbrush.

His mouth curved. ‘There is no one here to impress with your beauty, mia querida,’ he drawled. Apart from him. Because when she lifted her head like that he could see the long, pure line of her neck and the perfect curve of her breasts.

‘That was not my intention.’ She carefully brushed out the fine, honey-coloured hair, which felt all sticky through the many hours of travelling. ‘I merely wanted to make myself presentable on my arrival.’ She could see distant lights. ‘Are we almost there?’

‘Yes, we are just about to pass through the vineyards.’

She looked out of the window again. The famous La Camara vineyards. The largest and most impressive in the region, with grapes yielding a rich harvest which was turned into exquisite wines exported the world over.

She had once drunk La Camara Rioja herself, at a very smart dinner party in London where the host had brought the fine wine out with a reverent air and everyone had sipped it with avid and awed appreciation.

All except for Sophie. She had managed no more than a couple of mouthfuls, feeling that the stuff might choke her as she remembered the proud, arrogant face and the mocking black eyes.

‘You aren’t drinking, Sophie?’ the host had commented.

It would have been a real party-stopper if she had explained that she was related by marriage to the owner of the vineyard, a man who made her blood sing and her temper flare in equal measure whenever she thought about him.

And she didn’t want to think about him.

Muffling a little gulp, she sat back in the seat and closed her eyes.

Luis glanced over at her, frowning a little as he saw the tension which tightened her shoulders, wondering if she was about to cry, and instinctively his voice gentled. ‘Did you eat on the plane?’