was, and against all her hopes and expectations her stomach flipped over when he finally walked into the room and closed the heavy panelled door behind him.
He was wearing a straight-brimmed black hat tipped forward over his eyes and the black denim of his shirt and jeans was covered in the dust of the campos. He brought the evocative scent of leather and maleness and white heat into the musty room that she knew from her long, lonely months spent here was never used, except as a repository for unwanted furniture.
She had never tried to pretend that he wasn’t the most shatteringly fantastic-looking man she had ever seen, because that would have been pointless. But hoping she looked in control, like a woman who had taken a long hard look at her life, edited out all the bad bits—in which he featured as the central character—and got on with her life, she dismissed the impact he made.
Reminding herself that looks counted for nothing if they hid a hard, unloving heart, she rose to her feet. Five feet five inches of severely groomed adult woman, supported by three-inch spindly heels, was a match for any man, even if he was six feet something of steel-hard muscle and twelve years her senior.
‘They told me you were here,’ Roman imparted in the husky, sexily accented voice that, despite everything, still had the power to send shivers careering up and down her spine. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’ He removed his hat, and sent it languidly spinning across the room to land on a dour-looking table beneath one of the shuttered windows, revealing slightly overlong soft hair, as dark as the wing of a raven, and smoky charcoal-grey eyes that told her he wasn’t sorry at all.
Roman had never considered her feelings when they’d lived together. There was no reason on earth why he should do so now.
‘So, what brings you?’ He tilted his head in enquiry, his ruthless, sensual mouth unsmiling, his dark eyes cold. ‘A year away, working in a second-rate dress shop in a little town that no one has ever heard of, living in a tiny, squalid flat above the premises, has made you wake up to the fact that you’re far better off with your husband? Is that it?’
His long legs were straddled, his thumbs hooked into the waistband of his jeans, his unforgettable features blanking out whatever thoughts were passing through his cold, cruel mind.
She didn’t want to look at him, but couldn’t avoid it without appearing to be a coward or, worse, shifty, as if she had something despicable to hide. And the burn of inner heat that pulsed so violently through her veins was anger, nothing else.
Anger at his sarcastic denigration of her work, her home, the bitter knowledge that he must have kept tabs on her over the past twelve months without her being aware of it.
Not willing to waste breath on telling him that the boutique she ran with Cindy was thriving, that the flat above the premises might be small but was light years away from being squalid, she made her features as cool and unreadable as his and told him, ‘I came because Roy’s in trouble and he needs me.’
‘Now, I wonder why that fails to surprise me.’ The words were drawled, casually sardonic, but a flicker of some dark emotion over his harshly beautiful features and the thinning of his aristocratic nostrils told her she had somehow hit a nerve.
She narrowed her tawny eyes at him, waiting for some further reaction, something she might be able to use to her advantage. And when none came, and there was nothing but the thick, uncomfortable silence, she returned to the straight-backed heavily carved chair and lowered herself into its unforgiving embrace.
Slowly, she crossed her long silk-clad legs and watched him watching the unconsciously elegant, vaguely provocative movement; she realised with a tiny shock that made her breath catch in her lungs that his brooding eyes had taken in the way her narrow skirt had ridden way above her knees and quite definitely liked what they saw.
Sex. She would not let herself think about that.
She said levelly, refusing to let him see how nervous she had suddenly become, ‘I understand how angry you must be with Roy. I feel exactly the same. What he did was nothing short of disgraceful.’
‘Then for once in our lives, mi esposa, we are in agreement.’
Smooth, cool, even very faintly amused, his riposte didn’t help. Twisting her fingers together, she pulled in a breath. ‘But sending him to prison wouldn’t help; you must see that. It would blight the rest of his life—he is only twenty-four…and do remember the hallowed Fernandez name.’
A bite in her voice there. She hadn’t been able to help it. Pride in their exalted ancestry, the ownership of vast tracts of land supporting vines, cattle, wheat and olives, their place in society as members of one of the old sherry families, had been the favourite, seemingly endless topic of conversation between Don˜a Elvira and the aunts. Indulged in, she had no doubt at all about it, to reinforce their opinion that she was nowhere near good enough to be the wife of the heir to the kingdom!
‘You are suggesting that his crime goes unpunished?’
Roman was moving now, with the indolent grace that was so characteristic of him, his wide hard shoulders relaxed, his lean body tapering down to flat, narrow hips and endless legs. He opened the louvres, letting the harsh light flood the room. Probably the better to see her, she thought tiredly.
He stood with his back to the windows, his face shadowed. Enigmatic. So what else was new? She had never been able to tell what he was thinking.
But that didn’t matter. He was nothing to her now. She had walked out on their empty marriage a year ago and after another year she could begin divorce proceedings. All she cared about was helping her brother out of this mess and then getting back to England.
‘If you don’t bring charges against him, I’ll take him back home with me—that could be a condition.’ She offered the solution she had been turning over in her mind ever since Roy had phoned her. ‘Leaving Spain permanently would be punishment enough. He loves this country.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Roman replied implacably. ‘What he loves about Spain is being connected by your marriage to one of the wealthiest families in Andalusia. It makes him feel important.’
Cynic! Cassie swallowed the instinctive accusation. Why waste her time and her breath on stating the obvious? He had married her for purely cynical reasons and nothing had changed.
Grimly, she refused to let memories eat away at the poise she had gathered during her year away from her unloving husband and his incurably snobbish family. She was over whatever it was that she had once felt for him and was making a life for herself where she was respected and liked, and where no one tried to make her feel inferior.
She straightened her already rigid shoulders, mentally crossed her fingers, and played her ace. ‘Do you really want that sort of blot on the revered family name? Somehow, I don’t think so. Imagine the gossip when it becomes known that Roman Fernandez’s brother-in-law is behind bars.’
He moved into her line of vision, standing over her, his height, his breadth, the power of him suddenly and unwelcomingly intimidating.
‘The sympathy would all be with my family for its association with yours. We would be seen as upholding the rule of law, no matter what the cost. Quite noble, you must agree.’ He smiled, but his eyes were still cold and hard. ‘You will have to do better than that.’
Cassie muffled a sigh and reined back the urge to slap that beautiful, arrogant face. There was no point in appealing to his better nature. Still less point in trying to
