sleeveless shirt in a matching cool stone colour that accentuated the warm olive tones of his skin instead of the beat-up shorts and vest tops she was used to seeing him in.
The sports car growled to a halt, parked illegally outside the sort of jeweller’s where the atmosphere would be too rarefied for ordinary mortals to breathe in, and Diego removed his arm from the back of the driver’s seat and exited.
He had obviously smartened himself up for his meeting with them at the hotel and he looked good enough to eat, the darling! Like them, he was half an hour early. The classy female must have given him a lift. She was probably resident at the hotel where he worked, had recognised him as the waiter who serviced the table she regularly used and had picked him up.
The explanations flashed with comforting swiftness through her mind, though the phrase ‘picked him up’ did have uncomfortable connotations, thanks to Ben.
About to call his name, wave to attract his attention, she was morbidly glad she hadn’t when he strolled round to the other side of the car, opened the door at the driver’s side and helped the glamorous creature out, holding her hands. And not letting them go.
She was gorgeous. In spiky high heels, she was three inches short of his six-one, the hem of her silky black dress way above her knees, the costly fabric clinging to every curve of her eye-popping body, her bare arms glinting with, it seemed, half a ton of gold bracelets.
Jewelled hands slid from his fingers and snaked up to cup his face as he leaned towards her, saying something, his lips curved in the teasing smile Lisa knew all too well. Her heart stopped beating as the woman leaned right into him, bestowing kisses on one lean hard cheek and then the other before tipping her glossy head back, laughing up at him then leading him by the hand into the exclusive interior of the jeweller’s shop.
As her heart crashed back into action Lisa went hot all over, then cold. Icy cold. Her breathing erratic, she felt giddy. There had to be a perfectly feasible explanation for what she had just witnessed. Anything else was unthinkable. Her dazed brain tried to find one.
Instead it spitefully reminded her that classy customers didn’t go around kissing their waiters unless there was a high degree of intimacy between them. Then it made her recall her disbelief and disappointment when, the day before, he’d told her he wouldn’t be able to see her that morning.
‘Things to do,’ he’d said, ‘but we’ll be meeting up in the evening.’
If she’d been a couple of years younger she would have thrown a tantrum. As it was, she’d been very adult about being deprived of his company on what he thought was her last day in Spain. She had meant to surprise him when she returned after she’d persuaded her father that she was going to spend her entire gap year holed up in Marbella. So she’d merely nodded, ‘See you then,’ as if not seeing him during the day didn’t bother her.
Did ‘Things to do’, mean finding her replacement? If so, he’d hit the jackpot!
She shivered, swallowing down the sick feeling inside her, hating herself for thinking such a thing was possible. She rubbed a clammy hand over her forehead. It was all Ben’s fault. He had put the idea of charismatic, handsome young Spaniards sucking up to wealthy lone female holiday-makers for what they could get out of them into her head.
‘Practising being a statue?’ Sophie slipped an arm under hers. ‘You should have seen that suit! It was gorgeous but Ben said black wouldn’t suit me and I’d have to live and sleep in it for fifty years to get my money’s worth!’
‘Typical boring accountant!’ Lisa sniped, still annoyed with him for making her doubt—if only for a moment—her darling, adorable Diego.
‘Now you know you don’t mean that,’ Sophie scolded mildly as they slowly, arm in arm, approached the wide flight of steps that led up to the hotel foyer. ‘You know he can’t help being practical any more than you can help being a dreamer. And cheer up, do. Such a long face! I can’t wait to meet your Diego. It looks like he’s serious about you if he wants to see me and Ben—your minders—on your last night in Spain!’ She gave Lisa’s arm a tiny, reassuring squeeze. ‘I’ve told Ben not to say a word out of place; you know how protective he is of you. And I told him Diego probably wants to ask his permission—in the absence of your father—to visit you in England.’
Or to get a free slap-up meal and plenty to drink as a final perk. Lisa hated the disloyal thought that sprang into her head just as much as she hated her inability to prevent it forming. And loathed Ben for putting it there in the first place. She ousted it firmly. Diego wasn’t into fancy food and wines. He’d always come provisioned with a picnic lunch on their days together. Crusty bread, olives, fruit and bottled water. Simple, cheap and wholesome.
‘We’re a bit early,’ Ben commented as he caught up with them on the steps, eyeing the impressive smoked glass revolving doors.
‘So?’ Sophie shrugged. ‘So we sit in the foyer, cool down and people watch.’ She pushed through the doors and Lisa followed, wishing the dragging minutes away, desperate to ask Diego what he’d been doing with that devastatingly beautiful woman, why he’d let her kiss him, why they’d disappeared into that jeweller’s together. Desperate to hear an entirely acceptable explanation.
And time, perversely, seemed to pass even more slowly in the air-conditioned space. All cool marble floors and stately columns, chandeliers and hushed opulence. Seated in matching pale jade-green upholstered chairs around a low table, Lisa had her back to the main area but Sophie was avidly scanning the languid comings and goings of the wealthy patrons.
‘Now, how’s that for an invitation!’ Sophie giggled. ‘Over there, by Reception—turn round and take a look. It’s his lucky day!’
Lisa obliged. Anything to pass time, to stop her friends from wondering what was wrong with her, why she was wearing what they’d teasingly describe as her Tragic Face.
Diego and that woman!
Lisa shuddered with disbelief and a pain that wrapped icy fingers round her heart. What she was seeing wiped out every beautiful moment of the last weeks. Her eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away. One of his hands rested on the sexy curve of her black-silk-clad hip while the other flipped the lid of a small jeweller’s box closed and slotted it into his pocket. A gold signet ring to match the watch she had bought him? Had the fabulous dark-haired woman already kitted him out with the classy casuals he was wearing?
Stretching up on her high spiky heels, the owner of the scarlet sports car reached up to whisper in his ear. Whatever she said made him grin, that wide slashing grin that said he was happy. She knew it so well!
A slender gold-dripping arm was lifted, beringed fingers dangling a room key in invitation, just before she turned and swayed away towards the bank of lifts, sexual confidence in every movement of those endless legs and delectable body. Diego watched her, still grinning, then turned and sauntered over to Reception.
‘Steamy, or what?’ Sophie hissed and Lisa had to summon every ounce of will-power to make her face blank as she turned back to face the others.
Ben kept glancing impatiently at his watch and Lisa said, trying not to sound as if her world had just fallen into ugly little pieces, ‘Let’s go and find a drink; I’m sick of sitting here.’
She shot to her feet to stall any protests from Sophie who was clearly enjoying her people watching session. And Ben followed suit but insisted on finding the disco bar, even though Lisa was convinced that Diego wouldn’t turn up. Why would he,
