I could provide the protection they needed and that there were many other soldiers like me who were fit and ready for the next challenge.’ But not Sergio. The first bullet that had hit him had gone straight into his heart.
‘Do you get the same fulfilment you got from the army?’
‘It’s a different kind of fulfilment.’ Even though he’d thrown all his energy into it, he could never have guessed how successful his business would be. He had more money than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes, was on the speed dial of the world’s most powerful people, but knew that given the choice of swapping his riches for a return to his army days he would discard his worldly goods without a second thought.
‘Don’t you ever wish for a normal life?’ she whispered in the silence.
‘What’s your definition of a normal life?’
‘One that’s not completely nomadic.’
‘No.’ Yet as he spoke his rebuttal he found his mind meandering for the first time ever to a real home with an ebony-haired beauty...
He pushed the thought away. A normal, regular life was not for him.
‘That’s enough talk. We’ve an early start. Get some sleep.’
‘But—’
‘I mean it. No more conversation.’
But he knew the chances of his getting any sleep were slim, not when he was certain that beneath her oversized T-shirt Francesca lay naked.
He closed his eyes and willed his mind not to think of her naked.
Dios, this was torture. He ached to join her in that bed.
In his head he counted out the reasons why he needed to stay exactly where he was.
One. She was his client.
Two. She was grieving.
‘It’s not even ten o’clock. I’m not tired. I never go to bed this early.’
Just the sound of her voice was enough to make Felipe’s loins tighten.
‘Read your book,’ he said through gritted teeth.
There was another long period of silence but he sensed a shift in the atmosphere, a change in her mood.
‘“Read your book, stop talking, go to sleep”,’ she mimicked suddenly. ‘It’s one step forward and two steps back with you, isn’t it? One minute you’re opening up and talking to me like a normal human being, the next you act like you’re trying to forget my existence. Do you treat all your clients like this?’
He smothered a groan at the hurt echoing in her voice. ‘Like what?’
‘Like they’re an encumbrance to be endured. Sometimes it feels that you don’t even like me.’
He clenched his jaw. What did she want him to say? Mere liking had nothing to do with his feelings for her.
‘It’s different with my other clients.’ He’d never struggled with professional detachment before. He’d never wanted to rip any of their clothes off.
‘So it’s true!’ As quick as a flash she threw her covers off and jumped off the bed. ‘You don’t like me. I thought it was the attraction between us you hated.’ She stormed into her dressing room and slammed her hand against the switch, bathing the room in fresh light. ‘I didn’t realise the problem was that you actively dislike me.’
‘I don’t...’ But his words fell from his lips when she pulled her T-shirt off. Even with the distance between them, he could see her clearly, from the divine weighty breasts with their dark aureoles to the soft womanly hair between her legs.
Oh, dear heaven...
Francesca was heaven. A taste of paradise wrapped up in beautiful, womanly form.
But then she grabbed the dress she’d been wearing earlier and he understood what she was doing.
Springing to his feet, he strode over and blocked the doorway of her dressing room. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘For a drink. Anywhere away from you.’
Fire blazed from her eyes, her whole body vibrating with anger. And, Dios, no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t stop his eyes from devouring her, naked before him, not an ounce of embarrassment in her returning fury.
Then she tilted her chin and pulled the dress over her head. The delectable curves disappeared as she smoothed the dress down and tugged her trapped hair free. As it tumbled down her back he couldn’t help but fantasise what it would feel like to have that hair tumble over him in all its silken glory.
‘Get out of my way,’ she said coldly.
‘No.’
Slowly, her fiery gaze holding his, she stepped to him. When she was close enough for his senses to be hit with her scent, she put her wrists together and held them out to him. ‘If you’re intending to treat me as a prisoner you might as well tie me up because that’s the only way you’re going to stop me leaving this room.’
Electricity shot between them, so real he could almost hear the crackle. It heated him too, tiny jolts bouncing on his skin, his heart thrumming...
His hand rose by its own volition, his fingers stretching towards her.
A throb of need burst through him, so powerful he had to dig his feet into the floor to stop from hauling her into his arms.
‘You are not leaving this suite.’ His speech was long, drawn out, ragged.
‘I’m not staying with someone who can barely look at me and gets irritated every time I open my mouth.’
Without him knowing how it happened, his fingers closed around the delicate wrists. A moment later he’d pulled her to him so their bodies were flush, her breasts pressed against his chest.
‘I don’t dislike you,’ he ground out, gazing down at the spitting eyes, the luminous skin, the lips that begged to be kissed... ‘Don’t you see that? I like you too much.’
For long, long moments they did nothing but stare at each other until the anger that blazed so brightly in her eyes softened to blaze with something that struck straight into his loins.
Francesca stared helplessly at the man who had her in a grip so tight she could never break free yet which elicited not the slightest amount of pain.
The humiliation that had washed over her like a cold shower at the realisation she’d been longing for a man who hated her vanished as awareness filled her in its stead, awareness of his heat, of being held against this dangerously masculine man her body craved.
She had no conscious reckoning of the change in him, of how the fury deepened into something so dark and molten her chest filled, of the deepening of his breaths as he continued to gaze down at her...
‘I can’t hear your voice without becoming
