Page 90 of Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride

‘Sí,’ he said again. ‘Tío Fidel is a very shrewd man,’ he allowed. ‘He is also the only member of my family that you can safely trust,’ he then added, more seriously. ‘It will be wise of you, querida, to mark that I said that…’

CHAPTER SEVEN

MARK it, he’d said…

But twenty-four hours later it was Luiz who seemed to be marking what he’d said, Caroline noted, as the closer they got to Cordoba, the more uptight he became.

Sitting beside him, she stared at the forever-changing vista beyond the car window and wondered what it was that was eating into him today. He should be happy, she mused testily. After all, he’d got himself one very meek and obedient passenger here, who hadn’t put up a single protest against his arrogant take-over of her life—well, not since her performance out on the Marbella road yesterday, anyway.

But then she hadn’t been given the opportunity to protest about anything else, she reminded herself. Because as soon as he’d delivered her back to his villa Luiz had shot off again with his security chief, and she hadn’t set eyes on him until he’d come to collect her for this journey this morning.

And he had arrived dressed for travelling, in a lightweight black linen suit and white shirt, looking almost as uptight as he did right now!

‘Are you ready? Is that your case? Do you think we can go, then?’ Terse to the point of rudeness, he had barely given her chance to reply. And other than for a quick down and away glance at the dusky mauve skinny top and cream tailored skirt she had chosen to wear for the journey, not once had he allowed himself to make full eye contact with her.

Because he’d known that to do so would give her an invitation to start speaking her mind again. Something Luiz obviously didn’t want. Something Luiz obviously still didn’t want, since he’d maintained that barrier throughout the whole time they had been travelling.

Maybe he was afraid she was going to start demanding to know where he had spent last night, she mused with an acidity that stung in her blood. Because he certainly hadn’t spent it with her, in his own bed. And he might be refusing to look at her, but she had certainly looked at him enough to notice the signs of a man who hadn’t got much sleep!

She had, she recalled smugly. She’d slept like a baby and hadn’t even missed him until she’d woken up this morning to find the place beside her was still as smooth as it had been when she’d fallen asleep!

Liar, a tiny voice in her head said. You woke several times and worried because he wasn’t there. You missed him too! Which makes the lie all that more pathetic!

‘Damn,’ Luiz muttered, bringing the car to a sudden stop. ‘I think we just missed the turning…’

Slamming the car into reverse gear, he began driving them back the way they had just come, past a junction sporting a road sign indicating that a place called Los Aminos was off to the left.

He stopped the car again, uttered an irritated sigh and reached for the glove compartment to extract a road map, which he then spread out across the steering wheel and began to frown at.

Caroline frowned too. ‘Don’t you know where we’re going?’

‘No,’ he replied.

Blunt and gruff, it didn’t really encourage more questioning. But she was confused. It didn’t seem likely, knowing his gift of near photo-perfect memory, that he could have actually got them lost!

‘How often have you made this journey?’ she asked, condescension feathering her tone.

A long index finger was following the wavy red line that cut a path through from Marbella to Cordoba. A sudden vision of that same finger tracing circles around her navel sent an injection of heat directly to her thighs. It was shameful. She despised herself.

‘I haven’t,’ Luiz said.

It took a moment for her to take that answer in. Then she noticed that the finger had stopped at a road junction. This road junction, Caroline supposed, glancing up at the sign, then back at the map to see that indeed the finger was touching this precise point on the map.

‘You mean you haven’t done it from Marbella before?’ she finally decided.

The finger began moving again, mesmerising her when she knew she shouldn’t let it, as it traced a line off to the left that went skirting around Cordoba.

‘I meant I have not been there—period,’ he clarified, bringing the finger to a stop at a tiny dot on the map that bore the name Valle de los Angeles.

The remark came as such a surprise that it had her turning in her seat to stare at his grimly taut profile. ‘Why not?’ she demanded.

He didn’t answer. Instead he began neatly folding up the map again, and just let the silence fill with the same tension they had been travelling with before he’d lost his sense of direction.

‘Luiz?’ she prompted.

‘Because I knew I wouldn’t be welcome, okay?’ he launched at her tightly.

‘But it belongs to you!’ she exclaimed.

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