hurt to entice this raven-haired beauty with her big dark eyes into having a little conversation with him to help while the time away?
‘The bar owner is busy,’ he offered in flawless Spanish. Then, when she frowned, Leandro quickly deduced she didn’t understand. ‘Are you meeting somebody?’ he asked, switching effortlessly to English.
‘No …I mean …I mean perhaps.’
Twin circles of scarlet added fetching colour to her otherwise pale beauty. So she was a tourist …an English tourist since there was no trace of any other accent in her soft appealing voice. Leandro’s attention was trapped as thoroughly as a lynx caught in a snare.
‘You are unsure if you are meeting someone?’ he asked teasingly.
‘Not exactly …I mean …can I talk to you?’ Lowering her voice, the intriguing young woman came nearer and with her brought the haunting scent of jasmine. There are other things besides talking I would like to do with you, mi ángel … Leandro thought silently, his senses unbelievably stirred as he considered her arrestingly pretty face.
‘I—this is very awkward and I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but …are you Leandro Reyes?’
So …she was not an ‘innocent’ tourist at all! Disappointment bit hard. She was either an opportunist actress looking hopefully for a chance to get into the movies—something that happened with more frequency than Leandro cared to catalogue—or else a reporter. Gut instinct told him it was probably the latter choice. What a pity! If he didn’t dislike journalists with such a vengeance he would have been only too happy to entertain this beautiful young woman all night. As it was, he now saw her presence as a contemptible intrusion into his fiercely guarded privacy. How the hell had she found him here? He did not recognise her from amongst the students at the college he’d spoken at earlier today, so how had she discovered his whereabouts?
‘That is not your concern,’ he replied coolly, the shutters clearly coming down over his sensational silver-grey eyes.
At that moment Isabella could have strangled her own sister. What had Emilia persuaded her to do? She wasn’t the type of person who intruded on anyone’s privacy and even if she recognised someone famous in the street or in public somewhere, she’d be the last person to bother them! Now this Leandro Reyes—this esteemed film director who protected his privacy with a notoriously zealous verve—was looking at her as if she were a fly he would like to swat out of his eye-line!
‘I’m really sorry if I’m bothering you—’ Isabella unconsciously licked her upper lip to stop it from quivering ‘—but I truly meant no offence. I knew this was a bad idea but I’m afraid I acted against my better judgement. I should never have come over to you …please forgive me.’ She turned away, her intention to leave this place as quickly as possible and put the embarrassing memory behind her. When she rang Emilia later on tonight she wasn’t half going to give her a piece of her mind! She must have been insane to even think she might pull off such a thing as garner an interview with this man! She’d seen the disparaging glance he’d swept her with only too clearly. He’d probably been disturbed by unscrupulous journalists and reporters too many times to give them anything but the lash of his tongue—let alone an interview!
‘Wait a moment.’
His voice, throaty and at the same time as richly beguiling as brandy warmed over a flame, halted Isabella in her tracks. ‘What publication do you work for?’
‘I don’t.’
Turning round slowly again, Isabella looped some loose strands from her pony-tail behind her ear. The cool grey eyes of Leandro Reyes were surveying her with suspicion and deep mistrust. Just then Isabella would rather be stranded in the deep snows of Siberia than having to endure his terrifying scrutiny.
‘What do you mean …you don’t?’
‘I mean I’m not a journalist myself. I’m in Spain researching a book I’m writing. And I only came to find you because my sister, who works for a—a women’s magazine in the UK, rang me when she knew I would be here in the Port of Vigo the same time as you, Señor Reyes.’
‘So it is your sister who wants to interview me for her magazine?’
‘That’s right. Once again, I can only offer my apologies for intruding like th—’
‘How did she know that I would be here today? Where did she get her information from?’
How could she tell him that Emilia had overheard a private conversation? It would surely damn both her and her sister in his eyes. Isabella’s desire to escape the scathing cynosure of this disturbing man grew almost unbearable even though she told herself his acute irritation was justified. Right now she should be back at the little hotel she was staying in, closeted in her room making notes from her talks with some of the pilgrims earlier today—not acting like some ill-equipped spy on behalf of her sister! This disturbing and unwanted encounter had totally set her back and it was going to take all her concentration to even write her name, let alone anything more challenging tonight!
‘I’m sorry, but you’d have to talk to my sister about that. Please accept my apologies for disturbing you, Señor Reyes. I told my sister it was a bad idea at the time but she can be very persuasive …unfortunately.’ Grimacing and slightly ashamed that she’d confessed as much, Isabella started to walk away again. Once more, Leandro stopped her in her tracks.
‘So …you are a writer? Are you published?’
‘No …not yet. At the moment I work as a librarian but it’s always been my ambition to write books full time.’
‘And this book you are working on …is it a work of fiction?’
For a moment Isabella was so mesmerised by the hypnotic concentration of this man’s quixotic gaze that thinking was no easy feat. In fact, her thoughts felt like incomprehensible words on a Scrabble board that had been completely muddled up!
‘No …it’s not. I’m—I’m writing about the pilgrims who walk the Camino Way to Santiago de Compostela. My grandfather was Spanish, you see, and he told me so many stories about it that it’s always been my ambition to come here and experience it for myself.’
Leandro found his temper irrevocably easing as he studied the girl in genuine surprise. The Camino de Santiago de Compostela—The Way of Saint James—was very important to him and his family—to all the people in this region of Northern Spain. Many had walked it in their turn and received blessings that they talked about to this day. Perhaps this pretty young woman with her soulful ebony coloured eyes and her milk-and-honey skin was not cut from the same cloth as those ‘kill for a story’ reporters that were sometimes a plague on his industry. Could it not be possible that she had more integrity than that? Leandro wanted to believe so even if his mistrustful nature advised against it. She had to possess some good qualities if she was writing about the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage. Warring within himself to give her the benefit of the doubt, Leandro decided to relent—telling himself that he would find out soon enough if she was the genuine article or not.
‘So …you are walking the Camino yourself?’ he asked intrigued.
‘Yes, I am …but I’ve also been stopping for a day or two at a time to talk to other pilgrims for research for my book and do some writing. I’ve heard some truly inspirational stories so far and I’ve got loads of wonderful material to work with!’ Almost guiltily catching the full
