been in every British newspaper—the first showing Annabelle as a blonde, smiling fourteen-year-old with rosy cheeks, the second showing her with a monster’s swollen face, her eyes like slits, a savage red whip slash peeling back her skin?
Annabelle searched Stefano’s expression with hard eyes. But only a smile curved his sensual mouth as he looked back at her.
She exhaled with a flare of her nostrils. Good. He didn’t know about her past. As juicy and notorious as the Wolfe family scandal had once been, the world had moved on. People had forgotten.
But not Annabelle. She would never forget. She still had scars to prove it. On her body. On her face. Beneath her carefully applied makeup and long blond bangs, the vestige of the violent red scar from her father’s whip would always remain.
Tilting his head, Stefano frowned down at her. “You do not care for compliments.”
“Why do you say that?” she evaded.
“You look almost … angry.”
“It’s fine.” He was far too observant. Annabelle smoothed imaginary crumbs off her light-gray suit, then looked up. “But you should know I am well aware of your reputation. I do not intend to be another notch in your bedpost. You are wasting your compliments on me.”
His dark eyes gleamed. “No compliment on a pretty woman is ever wasted. And you are more than pretty. You are … belleza.”
“You’re wasting your time, Casanova,” she said sharply. “I am quite impossible to seduce.”
His gaze deepened with interest, as if she’d just offered him an irresistible challenge. A few strands of his chin-length black hair escaped the leather tie at the nape of his neck, falling forward to frame the brilliance of his dark eyes.
“So I have heard.”
Pulling the heavy camera bag up higher on her shoulder, she muttered, “Afonso Moreira told me you’d be like this.”
“Ah. My Portuguese rival.” He lifted a sardonic eyebrow. “What else did he say?”
“He said you’re a playboy who steals women’s hearts, along with their virtue. He said I should lock my door.”
As she looked up at him, white sunlight lit his black hair like a halo. He looked like a dark angel as his eyes became like endless pools of night.
“Moreira is right,” he said quietly.
Her mouth fell open. She hadn’t expected that reply in a million years. “He—he is?”
“Sí.” His sensual lips curved upward. “That’s exactly the kind of man I am.”
Annabelle’s heart pounded in her throat as she stared up into his darkly handsome face. She was dimly aware of the warm wind against her skin, loosening her chignon, blowing blond tendrils across her cheek. For an instant, she was lost in the swirling darkness of his gaze.
His eyes weren’t black as she’d first thought. They were a multitude of colors as infinite as Spanish earth, obsidian and sable, coffee and burnt sienna. Full of warmth. Full of life.
He reached his hand toward her cheek, his fingers a millimeter from her skin, so close she could almost feel the warmth of his fingertips.
Annabelle felt her heart slow, then stop. She was only dimly aware of her feet turning in the dusty courtyard, ready to bolt back to her truck, back to London.
Stefano frowned, his forehead furrowed as he stared down at her. Abruptly, he pulled away, dropping his hand.
“Yes, you are a beauty, Miss Wolfe,” he said almost casually. “No doubt many men find you attractive. But I …”
His voice trailed off.
Annabelle’s lips parted. “But you … don’t?”
Stefano gave her a half-lidded smile. “Let’s just say you’re not my usual type.”
His words should have come as a relief to her. Instead, they felt strangely like a rejection, a low dull hurt she hadn’t expected. She pressed her lips together. “Oh. Good.”
“So you see,” he said quietly, looking down at her, “you have no reason to be afraid of me.”
Annabelle looked up at him, horrified. Had he seen her fear? Had he known she’d been briefly tempted to run away—from Santo Castillo, from her assignment, from him—like some terrified virgin?
But that was exactly how he made her feel. Every inch the terrified virgin she was.
But her job and reputation were on the line. Straightening her shoulders, she tossed her head and lied, “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Bien.” He moved closer, his eyes locked with hers as he whispered, “I promise you have no need to lock your door.”
Feeling like a fool, she looked away, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. She’d been so sure that the notorious playboy would try to seduce her. But she wasn’t his type. She was apparently the one woman on earth who left him cold.
While Annabelle felt differently. She felt … warm. More than warm. She felt hot every time he looked at her. Just being near him made her skin flush pink and her core melt.
For the first time in Annabelle’s life, she felt a physical shock of awareness. Of attraction. Of. desire.
And he wasn’t even trying to seduce her.
Funny. Either Stefano Cortez didn’t realize the effect he had on women, or he didn’t care. Either way, no wonder he’d left a trail of broken hearts in his wake.
“You must let me help you.” Reaching around her, Stefano opened the back of her truck. He pulled out her suitcase and duffel bag, then looked at all the photography equipment behind it. “I’ll come back for the rest.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“It is to me.” He lifted her heavy suitcase on his shoulder, then casually added her duffel bag on top, as if the weight were nothing. “Follow me to your bedroom, señorita.”
Balancing both bags easily on his shoulder, he started walking toward the whitewashed house on the other side of the courtyard.
Follow me to your bedroom.
Staring after him, Annabelle shivered. She tugged her camera bag up higher on her shoulder, wishing—not for the first time—that she were truly the ice queen that everyone believed her to be. Because she traveled the world for her career, people thought she was fearless. The truth was that when she wasn’t behind her camera lens, she felt vulnerable. Afraid. Unable to trust anyone. And always so alone.
Annabelle took a deep breath. She could hear the leaves of the shadowy trees waving in the hot wind above her. Her assignment would be over in a week and she’d never have to see Stefano Cortez again. One week with him. How hard could it be?
She watched the way he moved, his long, leonine
