Page 70 of Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride

‘I’m coming out,’ she decided immediately, not even considering whether or not his suggestion was a bluff. Past experience of this man’s dangerous streak made her sure that he was quite capable of stripping to the skin then joining her without hesitation.

And she had no wish whatsoever to see Luiz Vazquez strip. Didn’t need to, to know exactly what he looked like naked. Just as he didn’t need to see her remove the black silk bra, stockings and panties to know exactly what was hiding beneath, she added grimly as, with another neat roll, she took herself underwater to swim to the nearest set of steps.

By the time she rose up again Luiz was standing at the edge, waiting with a large white towel stretched out at the ready. Where he had got it from Caroline didn’t know, and found that once again she didn’t really care. It was as if her brain had gone on strike where caring was concerned.

So she climbed up the steps and calmly took the towel from him with a ‘Thank you’ murmured politely, and no hint of anything else in her tone.

He noticed the absence of emotions, of course. ‘You’re being very calm about this,’ he remarked.

Caroline wrapped the towel sarong-wise around her body. ‘I hate and despise you. Will that do?’ she offered, bending to squeeze the excess water out of her hair.

He grimaced. ‘It’s a start. Do you want me to get another towel to

dry your hair with?’

Finger-combing the wet tangles, she tossed back her head to send the chin-length bob flying back from her face. The swim had seen off most of her make-up other than her mascara, which now stood out sooty black in a naturally porcelain-white face.

‘I want nothing from you, Luiz,’ she told him. ‘Because your idea of a favour is to cut off the outstretched hand.’

‘Ah…’ His own hands slid smoothly into the pockets of his black silk evening trousers. ‘The hand I cut off, I have to presume, belonged to you?’

She didn’t want to talk about it, so she turned away. Spying her dress on the chair, she went to pick it up. ‘I’m going to my room,’ she announced, walking towards the pool house door. ‘Goodbye, Luiz,’ she added coldly. ‘I would like to say that it was nice to see you again, but I would be lying, so I won’t bother…’

It would have been the perfect exit line too, if Luiz hadn’t spoiled it. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ he prompted lazily.

She stopped, turned, and frowned at him in puzzlement. He was still standing more or less where she had left him, tall, lean, superbly presented against a backcloth of shimmering blue, and sexily dark and disturbing enough to make any girl’s heart squeeze.

Caroline’s heart gave that terrible little squeeze. And she despised herself for being so susceptible to him, knowing him for what he was.

‘Your purse and your shoes,’ he kindly pointed out to her, and went to collect them from where she had left them, the purse thrown down on the chair, the shoes kicked carelessly beneath.

The shoes he casually held out towards her, dangling them from their straps on long lean fingers. Tight-lipped she took them, but when she went to reach for her purse Luiz slid it smoothly into one of his cream tux pockets.

‘Give it back to me, please,’ she commanded.

But he just offered her a lazy smile. ‘With that prim tone you could be my headmistress,’ he mocked.

‘How would you know?’ she hit back. ‘The way I remember you telling it, you rarely bothered to attend school.’

His soft laugh was appreciative, but his tone held something else entirely when he added, ‘Oh, I’ve known a few stiff-backed, cold-eyed females in my time.’

Which instantly reminded her of all the state institutes he had lived in during his childhood. And her inner eye was suddenly seeing a dark-haired, dark-eyed, lonely little Spanish boy who, even at the tender age of nine, had known exactly what it was like to rely only on himself for survival.

How many confidences had they exchanged during that long hot summer seven years ago? she wondered as a disturbing little ache took up residence in her stomach.

And how much of what he’d told her had been the truth? she then added cynically. And how much merely words calculated to earn her soft-hearted sympathy—while he quietly and calculatedly fleeced her father across a green baize table?

‘What’s the grimace for?’

Huskily intimate, disturbingly close. She blinked, glanced up, found he had shifted his stance slightly and now had a shoulder leaning against the crack between the two doors. It was such an obvious blocking tactic that Caroline was instantly on her guard.

‘My bag please, Luiz,’ she insisted, ignoring his question to hold out the hand from which her shoes now dangled from her own slender fingers.

He in turn ignored both the command and the outstretched hand. ‘Did you know that your eyes go grey when you’re angry?’ he murmured.

Messages began to sting through her blood. Sexual messages. ‘My bag,’ she repeated.

He sent her a spine-tingling smile. ‘And your mouth goes all prim and—’

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