Page 104 of Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride

‘Why the need of a bodyguard?’ she demanded, the moment they were alone again. ‘Am I in some kind of danger I should know about?’

‘No,’ Luiz denied. ‘Not while I’m still breathing at any rate.’

‘So you’re the one who’s in danger,’ she therefore concluded.

‘Nobody is in danger!’ he denied.

‘Then why the bodyguard?’ she repeated stubbornly.

‘Escort,’ he corrected. ‘He was sent to escort you up here simply to make a point, okay? ‘

No, it wasn’t okay. And her face told Luiz that. ‘All right,’ he sighed out heavily. ‘Felipe would like to stop the wedding from taking place,’ he said. ‘That much is patently obvious. But how far he would go to stop it I am not entirely sure. So I am protecting my weak spots.’

‘And I am a weak spot.’

Suddenly his laziest grin appeared. ‘Oh, a very weak spot,’ he murmured seductively, and began to pace suggestively towards her.

‘Don’t you dare!’ she protested, putting out a hand to ward him off. ‘Not here in this house! Not until we are married!’ she added, chin up, amethyst eyes challenging. ‘I will have your respect el conde!’ she insisted when he took another step towards her.

He stopped. She had to fight to keep her disappointment from showing. Luiz grinned again, because he saw it anyway. ‘If I touched you now, you would go up in smoke,’ he challenged softly.

‘If you touched me now, I probably would,’ she ruefully agreed.

‘Then I won’t,’ he assured her.

‘Oh,’ she said, and didn’t even try to hide her disappointment this time.

‘Protocol,’ he explained. ‘Thanks for reminding me that in this house I must respect all bridal traditions.’

If Caroline was aware that she had changed a lot in the last twenty-four hours, then she was also aware that Luiz had changed too. Gone was a lot of the stiff tension he had brought with them into the valley, and what she saw now was a wonderfully charming, lazily relaxed and very sensually motivated man—in private anyway.

It was that recognition that sent her walking into his arms. ‘Just one chaste kiss, then,’ she offered invitingly, and snaked even closer to him when his arms slid caressingly about her.

‘Chaste?’ he mocked.

‘Mmm,’ she said. But there was nothing chaste in the way they stood there amongst a sea of unopened packages for long, very unsatisfying minutes.

‘I have to go,’ Luiz groaned out reluctantly.

Go? ‘Go where?’ she demanded.

‘Work,’ he said, glancing at his watch. And suddenly he was the frustratingly brisk and businesslike Luiz. ‘I have things to do before our wedding. And I need to get out of the valley before it grows too dark to fly…’

‘But we’ve only just arrived!’

‘Don’t blame me!’ he countered at her look of dismay. ‘You’re the one who has put my schedule back twenty-four hours! A deliciously welcome twenty-four hours, I will admit,’ he added ruefully. ‘But now I have to play catch-up. So you won’t see me again until we meet at the church.’

‘Luiz!’ she cried out as he walked off to the door. ‘W-what about your weak spot?’ she reminded him anxiously.

‘Vito is staying.’ It seemed to say it all. ‘Anything you want or are worried about, you go to him.’

‘Because he owes you his life and therefore will do anything for you?’

That stopped him. He turned to stare at her in surprise. ‘You managed to get him to tell you that?’ He sounded truly shocked. ‘Well, that’s a first,’ he drawled.

‘What did you do?’ she asked. ‘Haul him out of the razor fight that put all those marks on his face?’

‘No,’ he denied, and suddenly he wasn’t smiling. ‘I hauled him out of prison and gave him a life. And that wasn’t kind, Caroline,’ he told her grimly.

---