The Spanish Billionaire's Mistress

‘I make money. I won’t deny it. How would I stay in business, pay the wages of the people who work with me, otherwise? But as for your other assumptions—frankly, they stink.’

‘They do?’

His voice was faintly amused now, and he was looking at her in a whole different way. She wasn’t sure if she liked it any better. Her thundering heart told her it was dangerous. ‘Look, Rico, if you’re not the person I should be speaking to about the dancing, then perhaps you could find me someone who will listen to what I have to say.’

‘And allow you to trample over my privacy? I don’t think so.’

‘Your privacy? I wasn’t aware that my programme was going to be made around you.’

His look was cynical. ‘It’s time you went back to your film crew, Ms Chapman.’

‘Are you asking me to leave?’

‘It’s getting dark—I’d hate for you to lose your way.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll go. Just as soon as I finish my business here.’

‘You have finished your business here.’

‘Why are you so touchy about my being here? I’m not doing you any harm!’

‘People have a right to space.’

‘And this is yours?’ Zoë gestured around.

‘If you like. I don’t have to explain myself to you.’

‘Correct,’ Zoë said, standing up to face him. ‘But I wasn’t aware that there were any private estates up here in the mountains. I’ve got as much right to be here as you have. And, for your information, I have never had a single complaint from a guest on my show. I treat everyone with respect.’

He shifted position and smiled. It was not a friendly smile. It was a ‘don’t mess with me’ smile.

‘I give you my word,’ Zoë insisted. ‘Nothing in my programme will invade your privacy—’

His short bark of laughter ran right through her, and his derision made her cheeks flame red.

‘You really believe that?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘Then you’re dreaming.’

‘Perhaps if you’d allow me to explain how everything works—’

‘You still couldn’t come up with anything to reassure me.’

This was her most challenging project yet. But she had never failed before. Not once. No one had ever refused to take part in one of her programmes, and she wasn’t going to let Rico Cortes start a trend.

‘Have the effects of that drink worn off yet?’

He couldn’t wait to get rid of her, Zoë guessed. ‘Yes, they have.’ Hard luck. She was firing on all cylinders now.

He turned away. Evidently as far as Rico was concerned their discussion had come to an end. He couldn’t have cared less about her programme—he just didn’t want her blood on his hands when she tumbled over a cliff after drinking the local hooch at his precious flamenco camp. ‘We haven’t finished talking yet!’ she shouted after him.

‘I have.’

As he turned to stare at her Zoë wondered if he could sense the heat building up in her. His slow smile answered that question, and she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not when he walked back towards her. ‘Please, let me reassure you. I don’t pose a threat to you or to anyone else here. I’m just trying to—’

‘Find out more about flamenco?’

‘That’s right.’

As their eyes met and locked Zoë shivered inwardly. Rico was exactly the type of man she had vowed to avoid. ‘It’s getting late.’ She looked hopefully at the sky. ‘Perhaps you are right. This isn’t the time—’

‘Don’t let me drive you away,’ he sneered.

She was painfully aware of his physical strength, but then something distracted her. A broken chord was played with great skill on a guitar, so soft it was barely discernible above the laughter and chatter—but this was what she had come for. Silence fell, and everyone turned towards a small wooden stage. Lit by torchlight, it had been erected on the edge of the cliff, where it could catch the slightest breeze from the valley.

‘Since you’re here, I suppose you might as well stay for the performance.’

Rico’s invitation held little grace, but she wasn’t about to turn it down.

He cut a path through the crowd, and Zoë followed him towards the front of the stage. She could see the man with the guitar now, seated on a stool at one corner of the stage, his head bowed in concentration as he embraced the guitar like a lover. Then an older woman walked out of the audience and went to join him. Resting her hands on her knees to help her make the steep ascent up the wooden steps to the stage, she looked her age, but when she straightened up Zoë saw an incredible transformation take place.

Giving the audience an imperious stare, the woman snatched up her long black skirt in one hand and, raising the other towards the sky, she stamped her foot once, hard.

A fierce energy filled the air as the woman began her performance. Zoë had no idea that Rico was watching her. She was aware of nothing outside the dance.

‘Did you feel it?’ he murmured, close to her face, as the woman finished and the crowd went wild.

‘Did I feel what?’ she said, moving closer so he could hear.

‘Duende.’

As he murmured the word she looked at his mouth. ‘Duende.’ Zoë tasted the word on her own lips. It sounded earthy and forbidden, like Rico Cortes. She sensed that both had something primal and very dangerous at their core.

‘You wanted real flamenco,’ he said, drawing Zoë back to the purpose of her visit. ‘Well, this is real flamenco. This is wild, impassioned art at its most extreme. Are you ready for that, Zoë Chapman?’

She heard the doubt in his voice. Perhaps he saw her as a dried-up husk, incapable of feeling passion of any sort—and why not? He wouldn’t be the first man to think that. ‘I’m just really grateful to have this chance to see flamenco at its best.’

‘You don’t see flamenco. You feel it.’

‘I know that now.’ He thought of her as a tourist out for a cheap thrill, Zoë realised. But she was a long way from the tourist trail here. She was a long way from her old life too— the old Zoë Chapman would have backed off without a fight, but there was no chance of that now. She knew what she could achieve, with or without a man at her side. And she hadn’t come to Spain to be insulted. She had come to make a programme, a good programme. She wasn’t going to let Rico Cortes distract her from that goal. ‘Can you explain this word duende to me?’

‘You’ll know it when you feel it.’

‘What—like an itch?’

‘Like an orgasm.’