‘Anyway …I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to do to make things better, but one of the things I did know was that I wanted to write this book. The idea had been there for a long time but frankly I kept talking myself out of it. I thought—I thought people would think I was overreaching myself in some way …you know? Trying to be too clever.’ For ‘people’ read her family and Patrick. ‘I had to make some tough decisions. I broke up with my fiancé and cancelled our wedding. I wasn’t being callous …It would never have worked anyway and I thought if I don’t do this now—the pilgrimage and the book—then I may never again have either the courage or the chance. So here I am. I think I’m walking the Camino to find some courage and inspiration to live a different sort of life …to discover who I really am and what I’m capable of …Do you know what I mean?’
Hearing the self-conscious edge to her voice, Leandro silently applauded her honesty. Such a candid response to his question was quite refreshing when he considered the duplicity of some other women he’d been with. She must have felt very strongly about her need for change to call off her wedding. Considering the highly desirable qualities this woman possessed, as well as her enchanting looks, Leandro concluded that her ex-fiancé must have suffered considerable regret about losing her. Isabella Deluce was a fascinating, indisputably sexy woman, who any man could not fail to be affected by. Uncoiling his body from the bed, he strolled casually across to the window to join her.
‘Isabella …’
Examining the rippling silk that was her rich dark hair, he gently parted some strands with his fingers and softly blew his warm breath onto the back of her neck. He saw her exquisitely sensitive shiver and was fiercely glad that he had brought her here to Benito’s luxurious hotel in the middle of the night where there was little possibility that any paparazzi would be following him. If they did …Benito knew exactly what to do to get rid of them. Now all Leandro aimed to do was to devote himself to Isabella for the whole of the rest of the night without interruption. ‘Every footstep you take on the Camino is taking you back to yourself …your true self,’ he told her. ‘I promise you that. By the time you reach the Cathedral in Santiago at the end of your walking and pass through the famous Door of Glory as millions of pilgrims have done before you, you will have much more clarity of mind and heart.’
Instinctively Isabella knew that Leandro was right and his words definitely raised her spirits. Already, after days and miles of walking, sometimes in silence, sometimes with the companionship of other walkers, and at night as bands of them joined together in various villages dotted across Northern Spain for the nightly pilgrims’ mass, Isabella knew a deeply profound change was taking place inside her. As Leandro had said, most people did not walk the Camino for religious reasons. Undertaking the challenging five-hundred-mile trek on foot walking through vineyards and the ancient kingdoms of Northern Spain in the hot sun, wind and rain certainly gave a person plenty of time to reflect.
Already Isabella knew it would impact upon her life for ever and she hadn’t even completed it yet. But she’d already discovered on the way that there was so much more to Isabella Deluce than just being a dutiful daughter and a good librarian. She had cut loose from a fiancé who secretly mocked the true meaning of love and was bereft of any feeling of loyalty towards her whatsoever, and had also turned her back on the advice of a family who saw only pitfalls ahead in making the decisions she had. Isabella had relinquished these things to find herself in a part of Spain that was so far away from the frantic tourism of the Costas that it was almost like another country entirely. A part of the country that endured disparate extremes of weather—the rain pounding down on the red clay of the mesas one minute and the baking sun turning the earth into a veritable oven in the next. It couldn’t fail to arouse a sense of wonder and mystery in the soul of anyone who surrendered to its magic.
If that wasn’t enough, now with Leandro she found herself surrendering to magic of a different kind …His teasing breath feathering the back of her neck was a sweet melting heat that rippled over Isabella’s senses like a sensual summer breeze. Leandro Reyes was blessed with the kind of sizzling sexual allure that would induce a clarion call of longing in any woman whose gaze happened to collide with his. Even the air around him seemed to be charged with his deeply affecting presence.
‘You smell of the wild flowers in the mountains.’
‘Do I?’
She turned round to gaze into his fascinating silver-grey eyes, feeling his melting glance bathe her in sensuous moonlight. His lashes were astonishingly luxurious considering they belonged to a man so masculine, and with startling realisation Isabella silently and nervously acknowledged the burning haze of desire that was shockingly directed towards her. ‘I’ve spent days and days walking in nature.’ She offered him a wry smile. ‘Maybe some of it’s rubbed off on me?’
Her smile slowly dissipated in the disquieting absence of his reply. Instead, her body silently shook with the need for him to touch her. Isabella knew his taste now and because she knew it, she craved it. In that moment it was hard to envisage anything that would excite and please her more. She was getting used to expecting the miraculous on this journey; the heavens answered her prayer. She’d hardly taken her next breath when Leandro started to run his hands slowly down the outside of her arms, bringing her trembling form into disturbingly close contact with his own. ‘You are one of nature’s exquisite mysteries too, Isabella. You remind me of the most rare of beautiful wild flowers …of the delight of spring after a long, harsh winter. And you stir in me a heat so powerful, it is like the burning sun that scorches the mesas …’
‘I do?’ Her voice descended to a whisper.
‘Sí …you do. I want to seduce you, Isabella …very much …and I have waited too long already.’
Bending his dark head towards her, Leandro touched his mouth to hers. Isabella’s startled gasp was swept away on a blissful wave of unutterable delight as he kissed her. His lips tasted faintly of Albarino wine and dark Brazilian coffee, and right then she could not have envisaged a more arousing combination of flavours—deliciously heightened by the unmatchable essence of the man himself. The ravishingly hot sweep of his tongue was a sensation she wanted to revisit again and again and again …There would never be such a thing as ‘too much’ where Leandro was concerned.
Unable to restrain her own need, Isabella groaned hungrily into his mouth as he cupped the back of her head to bring her closer still and followed the curve of her spine with his free hand, straight down to her bottom. Squeezing and kneading her flesh, Leandro provocatively aligned her hips with his own, then moved them teasingly apart again—repeating the action with even more deliberate and devastating precision until Isabella seriously feared for her sanity if he were to continue with such a sexy little game for much longer. She wanted him inside her …her body demanded it. Even as the thought made her cheeks burn, her hips had seemingly softened in preparation for his lovemaking. Her breasts had grown heavy and she felt shivery and weak all over—a completely intense reaction that was quite unlike anything she’d ever experienced with any other man before.
There was the devil’s own smile on Leandro’s mesmerising face as his lips broke contact with hers and Isabella left her hands either side of his taut lean middle so that she wouldn’t lose her balance, because there was a real danger that she would. Words deserted her but she held his melting, knowing smile with a steady answering gaze even as her heart quietly pounded.
‘I want to make love to you all night …Do you know that? Even then, I seriously doubt whether that will satisfy my need to possess you!’ Threading his fingers through her hair, Leandro focused on her with laser-like concentration.
Overwhelmed by his attention, Isabella clamped her teeth down self-consciously on her lip. Her heart was now beating with hypnotic rhythm inside her chest. ‘By rights I should really be getting
