Page 16 of Midnight Surrender to the Spaniard

Anna gave a vague nod, but it faded, and she found herself answering more honestly than she’d intended. ‘I used to be...’ She felt the threat of tears when she thought of how it once had been. ‘Not now.’

She could have amended her words and said that Willow was now her family, and she considered Emily to be a sister of sorts, but she couldn’t do that without crying and she refused to do that.

Or she could have qualified what she’d said and say that they would be close again if she would just apologise for her behaviour and repent, voice regret... But to do so would mean she’d have to declare that she regretted Willow, and she would not do that.

Damn! She was going to cry.

She reached for her glass of champagne, or a napkin, or for her bag—perhaps she’d make a dash to the ladies’—but her fingers met his hand instead.

‘Dance?’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We have to keep this party going.’

‘You take your duties very seriously.’

‘I do,’ he said, as he pulled her to her feet and onto the dance floor. They swayed politely, his hand holding one of hers, the other on her waist. ‘Tomorrow I will get back to telling my brother what a fool he is.’

‘You’d have preferred he married Mariana?’

‘Of course. A sensible marriage that would have made good business sense. None of this love nonsense.’

‘So why don’t you marry Mariana, if it makes such good business sense?’

‘I would never tie myself to one person,’ he told her. ‘Also, Mariana would expect children.’

A change in the music halted their conversation. There was more clapping and stamping, and a lot more shouts of‘Olé!’that should have sent her scuttling back to her seat, and yet it no longer mattered that she couldn’t dance, because his fluid movements made up for it.

There was serious music being made, and for the first time in her life Anna was being partnered by a man who could seriously move. He even dipped her, and then, when the music calmed again, to a slower tempo, he pulled her in close.

‘See?’ he said as he held her.

‘See what?’ Anna asked, wondering if in her daze she’d missed something he’d said.

‘We move well together.’

‘I think that’s all you.’

‘How are the heels?’ he asked.

Why did he make her smile so much? ‘Agony.’

‘Lean on me, then,’ he said, pulling her in even closer.

Her head was close to his chest now, and his hand was a little higher on her waist, and for Anna it felt as if he had located her dimmer switch and was slowly cranking it up and up. The energy that had been crackling away since she saw him at the airport was starting to spark and ignite now.

Then he lowered his head so that his deep voice was solely for her.‘“If the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten...”’

Her mind felt misty, his words taking a moment to appear in the haze of being held by him and the low throb of his voice.

She did her best to sound unaffected and raised her head to meet his eyes. ‘Did you just make that up yourself?’

‘Yes,’ he said, and then smiled to tell her he was fibbing. ‘No, it was Zhuangzi.’

‘I like that,’ Anna said, hoping she could remember the quote and then resting her head on his chest. He smelt divine—of bergamot and citrus and, yes, smoke too.

Then she felt the slight stroke of his hand on her ribs.

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