Page 88 of Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride

‘Oh,’ he said, looking much as Caroline must have looked when she’d first walked in the room. ‘Your father has left already?’ he asked.

‘There was a spare seat on a flight to London he didn’t want to miss,’ Luiz informed him. ‘He has business that needs his immediate attention if he wants to be back here in time for our wedding next week.’

Next week? Caroline tensed. Long fingers came to clasp her shoulders in a physical warning for her to watch what she said.

‘I pray you will both survive till then,’ his uncle said sagely. ‘If you are to eat at the castle, Luiz, then make sure you take a food-taster with you. For if Consuela could have her wish it would be to see you six feet under the soil rather than have to watch you take what is left of her life away.’

Caroline didn’t understand a single word of what was being said. Except that she and Luiz were, it seemed, to be married in a week!

‘Don’t worry about your father, child,’ Fidel said smilingly, obviously reading her expression as one of anxiety for her father. ‘He was fighting fit when I saw him this morning. And he will not forget to take his medication again after experiencing the shock he had last night.’

The doctor’s beeper began sounding then, cutting short any more discussion other than for him to step up and give Caroline’s cheek an affectionate peck before turning briskly away with, ‘See you both at the church, God willing!’

Then he was gone, scooting away as abruptly as he had arrived.

‘What did he mean, you need a food-taster?’ she asked in his uncle’s wake. ‘And what castle—what wedding?’

‘The wedding you should have been expecting,’ Luiz drawled. ‘The castle is the one I inherited along with my illustrious title. And the food-tasting quip was a joke—though not a very funny joke, I will admit,’ he conceded.

It hadn’t sounded like a joke to Caroline. In fact it had sounded like a bit of very serious advice! ‘I wish you would tell me what is really going on here,’ she bit out angrily.

‘Feuds and fortunes,’ Luiz replied laconically, and halted any further discussion by leading her out into a corridor that had too many other people walking about to allow for private conversation.

Vito Martinez was standing by the car waiting for them as they came outside. ‘Any messages?’ was Luiz’s instant enquiry as they approached him.

‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ the other man answered with a telling glance in Caroline’s direction.

It niggled her to catch that glance. Just as a lot of other things were now niggling her. ‘You two should think about joining the Secret Service,’ she snapped out tartly, and climbed into the back of the car without waiting for a response.

A few seconds went by before Luiz eventually joined her. Car doors slammed, the engine fired and behind his protective shield of glass Vito Martinez set them all into smooth motion.

‘Vito meant no offence,’ Luiz said quietly.

Caroline twisted her head to show him amethyst eyes turned smoky grey with anger. ‘Tell me, is that Vito the croupier, Vito the waiter, or Vito the chauffeur you are talking about?’ she asked sarcastically.

‘It is Vito my security chief and most trusted employee,’ he replied very levelly, but it was a silken warning to watch her tongue.

Caroline was feeling too fed up with the whole darn situation to watch her tongue. ‘Oh, I see, Mr Versatility, then,’ she mocked. ‘Does that mean he’s the one that pulls out the toenails of your enemies for you in between making sure that sick old men catch flights out of a country you don’t want them to be in?’

‘Vito did not chauffeur your father to the airport; he chauffeured you to the hospital, if you recall.’

‘Ah, he has assistants, then.’ She nodded understandingly.

The steady gaze hardened fractionally. ‘You, I think, are gunning for a fight.’

He was right; she was.

Luiz’s eyes narrowed. ‘Be very—very careful, querida,’ he warned.

‘Stop the car,’ she demanded.

Why she said it Caroline certainly didn’t know—but without hesitation Luiz leant forward and pressed a switch that sent the glass sliding downwards.

‘Stop the car, Vito,’ he commanded. The car came to a smooth halt.

Caroline was out on the side of the road before she’d had a chance to realise she was there. It was crazy. The whole situation was crazy! She didn’t know what she was doing here in Marbella! She didn’t know what she was doing letting Luiz Vazquez control her life! And she certainly didn’t know what she was doing standing here looking out over the Bay of Malaga beneath a burning hot summer sun—shivering like a block of ice!

She heard Luiz’s feet scrape on loose tarmac but didn’t turn around. She felt his closeness when he came to stand behind her but didn’t acknowledge he was there. Her eyes were hurting, and so was her head. And, lower down, that band of steel was encasing her chest again.

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