Page 19 of The Spaniard's Wedding Revenge

She sat up, tension gathering around her again, instantly on the alert.

‘Enter,’ he said, watching her response as several staff members came in, bearing trays of the food he’d ordered.

Her eyes went wide as he directed them to put the food on the coffee table between them, including cutlery and plates, not to mention a couple of glasses and a bottle of extremely good red wine from his cellar.

‘I told you there would be dinner,’ he murmured as his staff arranged the food and then quietly withdrew.

Leonie had sat forward, her gaze fixed on the food on the table. It was a simple meal—a fresh garden salad and excellent steak, along with some warm, crusty bread and salted butter. All her earlier wariness had dissipated, to be replaced by a different kind of tension.

Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap.

She was hungry.

He became aware that her cheeks were slightly hollow, and her figure, now it wasn’t swamped by that giant hoodie, was very slender. Probably too slender.

No, she wasn’t just hungry—she was starving.

That tightness in his chest grew sharp edges, touching on that dangerous volcanic anger of his. Anger at how this lovely, spirited woman had ended up where she had. On the streets. Left to fend for herself with only a knife.

Left to starve.

Hélène had taken her and disappeared, letting Victor de Riero think she and his daughter were dead, but what had led her to do that? Had de Riero treated them badly? Was there something that had stopped Leonie from seeking him out?

A memory trickled through his consciousness...a small green-eyed boy running into de Riero’s arms in fear...

Fear of you.

Red tinged the edges of Cristiano’s vision and it took a massive effort to shove the rage back down where it had come from, to ignore the memory in his head. He had to do it. There would be no mistakes, not this time.

But her challenging him so continually was dangerous for them both. It roused his long-dormant emotions and that couldn’t happen. Which meant she had to give him the answers he needed. Tonight. Now.

As she reached out towards the food Cristiano shot out a hand and closed his fingers around her narrow wrist. ‘Oh, no,gatita. I’ve given you enough leeway. If you want to eat, you must pay me with some answers first.’

Leonie froze, her heart thudding hard in her ears, panic flooding through her. When his fingers had tightened her free hand had gone instantly to her knife, to pull it out and slash him with it.

‘No,’ he said, very calmly and with so much authority that for some strange reason her panic eased.

Because although his grip was firm, he wasn’t pulling at her. He was only holding her. His fingers burned against her skin like a manacle of fire—except that wasn’t painful, either. Or rather, it wasn’t pain that she felt but a kind of prickling heat that swept up her arm and over the rest of her body.

She felt hypnotised by the sight of his fingers around her wrist. Long, strong and tanned. Competent hands. Not cruel hands.

‘You’d stop me eating just to get what you want?’ she asked hoarsely, not looking at him, staring instead at that warm, long-fingered hand gripping her wrist.

‘No,’ he repeated, in that deep, authoritarian voice. ‘But I’ve given you food and a bed. A job that you’ll be paid for. I haven’t touched you except for twice—once when I grabbed you last night, and once now. I’ve given you my name and told you a few things about me. I have let you into my home.’

He paused, as if he wanted those words to sink in. And, as much as she didn’t want them to, they did.

‘I’m not asking for your date of birth or your passport number, or the number of your bank account. I’m not even asking for your surname. All I want is your first name. It’s a small thing in return for all that, don’t you think? After all, it was you who decided to deface my car, not me.’

Then, much to her shock, he let her go.

Her heart was beating very fast and she could still feel the imprint of his fingertips on her skin. It was as if he’d scorched her, and it made thinking very difficult.

But he was right about one thing. He wasn’t asking for much. And he hadn’t hurt her or been cruel. Hehadgiven her a bed and a job, and now there was food. And he hadn’t withheld his name from her the way she had withheld hers from him.

She didn’t trust him, but giving him this one small thing wouldn’t hurt. After all, there were probably plenty of Leonies around. He couldn’t know that she was Leonie de Riero, the forgotten daughter of Victor de Riero, the rich Spanish magnate, who’d tossed her and her mother out because he’d wanted a son. Or at least that was what her mother had told her.

‘Leonie,’ she said quietly, still staring at her wrist, part of her amazed she didn’t have scorch marks there from his hand. ‘My name is Leonie.’

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