Page 8 of His Innocent for One Spanish Night

He stood in the semi-darkness, relieved that they were over but doubting himself as to the timing.

Alejandro knew he was—as Mariana had accused him of being—an emotional wasteland. He found life far easier to negotiate without emotions.

He worked hard and he partied harder.

And, while he did both vigorously, it was all with a certain air of dispassion that infuriated his lovers but impressed his associates and his peers.

I don’t care.That was the message behind his dark brown eyes and his indifferent shrugs.

No one was allowed to get too close, and he rarely revealed his innermost thoughts.

His father though, was the opposite.

The news would indeed upset him.

Yet Mariana had spoken as if it might devastate him.

José Romero seemed rather more willing to lie down and die than fight at the moment, and Alejandro certainly didn’t want to add to his malaise.

Alejandro could hear laughter and conversation wafting over from the fine dining restaurant in the main courtyard. He’d have to walk through it to get to his gated residence. But instead of heading for home he made his way to the front of the bodega and entered the rather exclusive Taberna Romero.

‘Hola!’A waitress smiled a welcome, and so did a few customers, but Alejandro just nodded—he was really not in the mood for polite conversation tonight.

The place was often packed, but it was especially so this Sunday night, when there were flamenco performers on stage. Glancing at the set list, he realised it was Eva performing.

The trouble with being at home, Alejandro thought as he slid into a seat in the booth reserved for the Romeros, was that there were rather too many exes.

Eva had been his first lover.

And that had been averylong time ago.

He heard the stamp of boots on the wooden stage and the tempo shifting as the lights dimmed further, but he barely looked up. Too many reminders tonight.

He could recall sitting backstage in Barcelona or Madrid as his mother performed—she’d long since outgrown smaller venues by then. He recalled, too, the accusations by his father when she came home...and then his dreadful depression when she no longer did.

His brother Sebastián and his sister Carmen loathed their mother with a passion, yet Alejandro could see his mother’s side too.

If his father could just have been more accepting and understood her talent, her art...

And flamencowasan art.

He just couldn’t bring himself to watch, so instead of looking at the stage he glanced around thetaberna. It was mainly filled with locals, all looking forward to Eva performing, and there were several of her dance students in attendance.

And then he saw a woman who was definitelynota local.

It wasn’t just her blonde hair that made her stand out, but the way she sat nervously, twiddling her hair, sipping wine, looking so out of place and just plain awkward. Her top was too tight, her hair had either been whipped by the wind or cut with a hand whisk, and he watched as she picked up a shot glass ofpuré de guisantesand sniffed it, as if trying to work out what it was.

She didn’t quite hold her nose, but she knocked it back in one and then pulled such a face that he found he held his breath. Finally she gulped it down with a large sip of wine.

And then shivered.

Like a little dog shaking itself off.

And as her breasts moved her hair did too, and brought a rare smile to his features.

Next she tried to chase an olive with a fork, rather than pick it up with her fingers.

He saw the camera on the table beside her and realised that this was perhaps Emily Jacobs, the English woman who was here to do the photography and design for the new website.

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