feeling foolish for not anticipating this possibility. It was impossible to have secrets when all someone had to do was punch in a name and your life—or a version of it—appeared on a screen.
‘So all this …’ the expressive downward sweep of his hand took in the silk that clung like a second skin to her body ‘… is for Santiago’s benefit, not mine.’
His brother sounded more philosophical than annoyed by this discovery, but Lucy was horrified by the suggestion.
‘Of course not!’ She almost bounced in her seat in her enthusiasm to deny the suggestion. Then as she examined her conscience she added, ‘Well, not in that way.’
‘So what did big brother do to make you so mad? Threaten to have you arrested for corrupting a minor? Have you framed for a felony? Pay you to leave the country?’
Lucy looked away quickly, but not quickly enough.
Ramon’s joking expression vanished. ‘Dio, he did, didn’t he? Santiago tried to pay you off?’
‘He … sort of,’ she admitted, feeling reluctant to tell tales.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Ramon breathed, looking stunned.
‘I understand your brother wanted to protect you. It’s only natural.’ She stopped and thought, Why am I defending the man who is clearly a total control freak?
‘Will you do me a favour, Lucy?’
Lucy quashed her instinct to say anything out of sympathy. ‘That depends,’ she responded warily.
‘Go through with your plan to teach my big brother a lesson.’
For the first time Lucy heard anger in his voice and realised that it was aimed, not at her, but his brother. ‘I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing …’
‘You’re still defending him?’
‘No, of course I’m not,’ she replied indignantly. ‘I think your brother is the most …’ She became aware of Ramon’s expression and stopped.
‘He’s really got under your skin, hasn’t he?’ he observed.
Lucy adopted an amused expression and lied. ‘It takes more than your brother to get under my skin.’
‘You won’t deny that he needs teaching a lesson …?’ She nodded—how could she not? ‘So why not give him a night to remember? Why not? You’re all dressed up and nowhere to go. Please … for me?’ he coaxed. ‘Or if not, for good old-fashioned revenge? I’m tired of Santiago always thinking he knows what is best for me. For once, I’d like him to treat me like a man. I know he means it for the best and I know my mother gives him a hard time and blames him every time I mess up, but it’s humiliating and …’
‘You want to teach him a lesson.’
Ramon nodded. ‘He’s gone too far this time and he’s involved a friend. What’ll he do the next time—lock me in my room? I’d just like to be the one doing the manipulating for once, so he knows what it feels like.’
Lucy sighed. ‘I’m probably going to regret this …’
‘My God, it’s a castle.’ Lucy sat awestruck in her seat as Ramon stood by the open door. ‘Enormous!’ she breathed, staring at the intimidating edifice lit by strategically placed spotlights. ‘As in national monument enormous … is that tower Moorish?’
Ramon cast a negligent look over his shoulder. ‘I think … yeah, it’s big,’ he agreed.
She started to shake her head. ‘I can’t do this.’
Ramon grabbed her arm and hauled her out. ‘No, you’re not going to chicken out now. It was your idea, remember.’
The impetus of his tug made her stagger into his arms. ‘A terrible idea!’ she muttered in his ear, drawing a laugh from Ramon.
‘Are you not going to introduce me to your guest?’
The voice as smooth as silk made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. The only thing that prevented her jumping away from Ramon was the hand in the small of her back.
‘Of course.’
Ramon loosed her but as she pulled away grabbed her hand.
Lucy took a deep breath, the surface of her skin prickling in a weird response to the sound of his voice. ‘Good evening.’ She turned her head as Santiago Silva emerged fully from the shadows.
Her already rapid heart picked up tempo as she struggled to hide her reaction, not that he could be unaccustomed to attracting awed stares.
He was, she admitted, pretty awesome and she was staring.
She struggled to direct her gaze past him, but like a compass point returning north her eyes zeroed back to the tall, rampantly male figure dressed in a beautifully cut dark suit teamed with a white shirt he wore open at the neck. The informality went skin deep; he looked exclusively and every inch the autocratic patrician occupier of a castle.
He inclined his dark head, the courtesy of the gesture doing nothing to disguise the predatory gleam in his hooded eyes.
She was no adrenaline junkie but she imagined it might feel this way to jump out of a plane with nothing but a parachute. Actually maybe not even the parachute, she thought, moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
The nervous action drew his dark gaze to her mouth.
Lucy swallowed and felt a flicker of apprehension. Harriet had warned her that this was not a man to be messed with and she was messing. Was she mad or just …? She swallowed, suddenly identifying the emotion mingled in with the trepidation as excitement … Yes, clearly she was mad!
Santiago recognised the surge of molten anger he felt as he watched them, but refused to acknowledge the accompanying emotion as being related in any way to jealousy. He was not jealous of his brother; he was furious! Furious that Ramon could be so stupid; frustrated that he could not think above waist level; that he could not see past the stunning beauty of the woman in his arms.
He, on the other hand, could compartmentalise, think past the painful level of his arousal. She really was the embodiment of sin, he decided, swallowing hard as his burning glance moved over the undulating curves of her body. She was sheathed in a tight red dress that would probably and legitimately in his opinion be illegal in several countries.
‘Lucy, this is my big brother, Santiago … Santiago, this is Lucy.’
Ramon pushed her forward with a pat on her bottom that under other circumstances Lucy would have objected to, and she found herself taking a stumbling step towards Santiago. Recovering her poise and covering her growing anxiety behind a plastic smile, she took a second, more graceful step, murmuring a good evening and ignoring the voice in her head that was counselling she run in the opposite direction.
Her half-extended hand fell away as Santiago met her midway. Bending down towards her—not something that happened a lot when you were five ten in your bare feet—he planted his hands on her shoulders.
