Luiz Santoro.’
A sigh of relief left her dry lips as Nell got shakily to her feet.
The man who had materialised was tall, dark and handsome, though the generic term hardly seemed appropriate considering the unique individuality of his features.
Her glance lingered on his face. The man had a firm, clean-shaven jaw, high forehead, golden skin stretched across strong cheekbones, and a wide sensually sculpted mouth.
As her eyes connected with his hooded, unblinking and slightly impatient stare Nell experienced an odd little jolt that ran like an electric shock all the way down to her toes.
She blinked to break the connection. His eyes really were extraordinary. Set beneath strongly defined black brows, they were deep-set and very dark, almost black, flecked with silver and framed by the only feature that was not aggressively male—long dark curling lashes that any woman would have coveted.
She started to shake her head, only stopping when it made her world spin unpleasantly. ‘You can’t be Luiz Felipe Santoro.’ She’d said it so often that the name was starting to roll off her tongue as if she were a native.
For a start off he was no student or teenager… Had Lucy said he was or had that been an assumption?
And that was the least of it. Her thought processes moved sluggishly as she looked up at him, her critical stare trained on the face of the man whom her niece intended to marry. Actually there was little to criticise on an aesthetic level at least, his face was about as perfect as faces got if you liked a profile that could have come from an ancient Greek statue.
And the rest of him… Nell swallowed, uncomfortable with her visceral response to the rest of him, which was silly. His body was no better than any number of Olympic swimmers she had watched cleave cleanly through the water of a swimming pool.
Of course, they had not been standing mere feet away from her. Other senses like smell—he really did smell exceptionally good in a warm male, musky sort of way—had not been involved.
‘I can’t be?’ The sinfully sexy Spaniard with the autocratic bearing sounded more curious than put out. ‘Why not?’
‘You have to be, what…?’ Her assessing gaze moved up from his toes to the top of his dark gleaming head. All of it appeared to be hard muscle and bone and aggressively male. Her stomach muscles reacted to all that undiluted masculinity and flipped. ‘Thirty?’
‘Thirty-two.’
‘Thirty-two,’ she echoed.
Luiz was wondering why she looked so peculiarly repulsed by the admission when she added, ‘That is disgusting.’
An energising burst of anger put strength back into Nell’s legs as she took a purposeful step towards the Spaniard. Self-satisfaction was not in her experience an attractive trait, and men this good-looking were generally very self-satisfied.
Of course, her experience was limited.
‘You know what I think of men who prey on impressionable young girls?’
‘I feel sure you are going to tell me,’ he drawled laconically.
His flippant attitude incensed Nell further. ‘You think this is some sort of joke? This is a young girl’s future we are talking about. Lucy is too young to get married.’
‘Who is Lucy?’
The blonde pursed her lips and continued to regard him as though he were some sort of depraved monster. The novelty value of being verbally abused was already wearing thin but the pleasure of staring at her heaving bosom would take a lot longer to pall.
The kick of his libido was irrational, but sexual desire did have a habit of bypassing the logic circuits. Fortunately he never had any problem keeping his own carnal instincts on a short leash.
‘Don’t play the innocent with me.’
With those eyes and those lips, she reflected, her eyes lingering on the sensual curve, such an effort would be a waste of time. A mouth like that had nothing to do with innocence and everything to do with decadence. It also suggested he would be a pretty good kisser—not that Nell had any desire to put her theory to the test, but she could see how an inexperienced girl like Lucy might be fatally tempted.
‘Do you even intend to marry her or was that some line to get her into bed?’
‘I do not actually intend to marry anyone.’
A tide of angry colour washed over her already hot fair skin as Nell missed the shadow that passed across his face and just heard the shameless admission.
‘And actually I have never had to promise marriage to get anyone into bed.’
Now that she could believe—the man had all the qualifications to be a serial seducer. ‘So why does Lucy think she’s marrying you?’
‘I really couldn’t say.’
‘Maybe this will refresh your memory,’ she said, extending the shaking hand that held the e-mail to him.
When he made no attempt to take it Nell let her hand drop down.
‘“Dear Aunt Nell—”’ she quoted.
‘You are Aunt Nell?’ She looked like no aunt he had ever met.
Frowning darkly at the interruption, Nell nodded. ‘Yes. “Dear Aunt Nell,”’ she continued, not referring to the transcript—she had read the damned thing so many times since yesterday the contents were burned into her memory.
‘“I arrived here last week. Valencia is beautiful and very hot. I have met the most marvellous man, Luiz Felipe Santoro. He is working at an incredible hotel here called the Hotel San Sebastian. We’re very in love—he’s my soul mate,”’ Nell recited, staring daggers at the Spaniard who had so far not even had the decency to look embarrassed.
‘“I can hardly believe it myself but we’ve decided to get married as soon as possible.”’ At this point Nell’s voice broke and she added bitterly, ‘I suppose you know she’s only on a gap year and has been travelling around Europe for the last six months. She’s got a brilliant future, a scholarship to university…’
He arched a brow and sounded politely interested. ‘No, I didn’t know.’
A growling noise escaped Nell’s throat before she squeezed her eyes shut and finished in a halting monotone. ‘“You’ll love him as much as I do, or almost as much ha ha! I know you’ll know the best way to break it to Mum and Dad. Love and kisses, Lucy.”’
She stuck out her chin, glared up at him and wished she didn’t have such a height disadvantage. ‘Well, what do you have to say now? Are you still denying it? Are you suggesting Lucy made it all up?’
‘I’m impressed.’
Nell’s self-righteous anger tilted over into confusion. He wasn’t acting like a guilty man, but maybe he was one of those sociopaths you read about—the ones who had no moral compass, no values?
‘Impressed
