Carole Mortimer - Bedded for the Spaniard's Pleasure

This wasn’t real, she recognised achingly as she stared down at him in the moonlight. This madness with Rafe, the two of them being intimate like this, it wasn’t real. It never had been.

Not eight years ago. And not now either.

“Cairo…?” Rafe questioned huskily, as he obviously felt her withdrawal.

This wasn’t real , she told herself again as she began to tremble in reaction. She shook her head. “We can’t ever do this again, Rafe.” Her voice broke emotionally.

“Why the hell not?” He rasped his disappointment.

“I— We just can’t!” Cairo cried, not even knowing how she was going to escape from this with dignity.

Minutes ago she had been in ecstasy, totally lost to reason, but now she could see this for exactly what it was. A purely physical attraction—at least on Rafe’s part. Cairo was very much afraid that for her—as it had been eight years ago—it was something totally different.

She stared at Rafe, at his dark beauty, her eyes widening with horror as she realised that despite everything she was still in love with him.

Had she ever really stopped loving him?

Carole Mortimerwas born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and forty books for Harlequin Mills and Boon. Carole has four sons— Matthew, Joshua, Timothy and Peter—and a bearded collie called Merlyn. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Look out for Carole’s first Historical Romance novel, set in the glamorous world of high society Regency England, out next month. One gorgeous rake, one poor plain Jane, one scandalous affair—don’t miss out!

BY

CAROLE MORTIMER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

‘CAN I help— You!’ Cairo’s pleasant query broke off in a gasp, and she came to a startled halt in the driveway as she easily recognized the man stepping out of the car a short distance away.

No!

This couldn’t be!

This man could not be here, of all places!

Cairo had been lazing beside the pool, sunbathing, when she’d seen the silver car slowly moving up the winding, narrow road with access only to this villa in the South of France. She had already been on her feet and pulling on a thigh-length black T-shirt over her bikini when she’d heard the car stop outside. Forcing down her irritation at this intrusion, she had hurried towards the driveway to tell the driver that they had obviously lost their way.

But nothing—nothing!—could have prepared her for the man who now stood beside the car, sunglasses pushed up into the dark silkiness of his hair, as he looked across the car’s bonnet at her through narrowed lids.

If she was surprised to see him, then he looked no more pleased to see her, his mouth tightening grimly even as he lifted a hand to move the sunglasses back into place over those eyes of sky-blue.

‘Cairo,’ he greeted her with a terse nod of his head.

Cairo couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. In fact, this whole situation felt completely unreal!

‘Cat got your tongue, Cairo?’ he taunted in his huskily familiar transatlantic drawl, dark brows quirked above those sunglasses. ‘Or maybe it’s just been so long that you don’t remember me?’ he taunted.

Not remember him…?

Of course Cairo remembered him!

It might be eight years since she had so much as set eyes on this man, but what women ever—truthfully!—forgot her very first lover? No, Cairo had never completely forgotten Raphael Antonio Miguel Montero. How could she have, when Rafe Montero was the half-American, half- Spanish A-list actor who had been known all over the world for the last fifteen years, and mor e recently as director of the Oscar-winning film Work of Art ?

He regarded her coldly now. ‘Do you really have nothing to say to me, Cairo?’

‘I said all that I needed to say to you the last time we met!’ she snapped, even as she desperately tried to make sense of the fact that Rafe was here at all, at this remote villa situated in the hills above the picturesque town of Grasse.

Rafe grimaced as he moved to the back of the car. ‘It’s been so long I’ve forgotten,’ he drawled before lifting up the boot of the car to begin taking bags from inside and placing them beside him on the driveway.

Cairo could only stand and stare at the man who had once filled her twenty-year-old heart, as well as her bed.

Now aged in his late thirties, if anything Rafe was even more devastatingly—sinfully!—handsome than he had been eight years ago. He was well over six feet tall, his dark hair was brushed back from his face, the natural swarthiness of the skin he had inherited from his Spanish father adding density to those mesmerizing sky-blue eyes set in a ruggedly chiselled face. His long aquiline nose and curved lips were set above a square jaw that had what most women called either a cleft or a dimple in its centre—but all agreed was sexy as hell. And the black polo shirt and faded denims he wore emphasized the muscled width of his shoulders, tapered waist and lean powerful thighs above long, long legs.

Cairo shook her head. All of this was very well, but none of it explained what he was doing here, taking luggage from the boot of his car! ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He straightened. ‘Moving in, of course. Grab a bag, hmm, Cairo?’ He slung the bag containing his laptop over his shoulder and picked up the two small suitcases, leaving only a holdall sitting on the driveway.

‘Grab a—? Rafe , you can’t just— What do you mean, you’re moving in ?’ she repeated incredulously.

‘Exactly what I said.’ He shrugged those broad shoulders as he strode towards her.

Cairo instinctively took a step back. ‘I— But— You can’t!’

‘Why can’t I?’ he asked calmly.

‘Because—because—’

‘Stop babbling, Cairo, and bring the bag in.’ He didn’t so much as pause in those long strides that were rapidly taking him towards the villa.

Towards Cairo’s haven of tranquillity after months, years, of never knowing a moment’s peace. A peace that Rafe Montero had destroyed the moment he got out of his car!

She hurried to catch up with him and then struggled to match her strides to his much longer ones. ‘Rafe, what are you doing here?’

‘I could ask you the same question,’ he countered without so much as glancing at her. ‘Where are Margo and Jeff?’

‘They aren’t here,’ she replied.

Although Cairo was beginning to wish they were—her sister and her husband might have some explanation as to what Rafe Montero was doing here at their holiday villa!

‘No?’ He arched those dark brows again. ‘Have they gone out for the day or just shopping locally?’