Olivia Gates - One Night in... Rio

Except that she had had a baby …

The shadows lightened, highlighting a piece of driftwood in his path. Kicking it aside, he was grateful to avoid it. It would have been easy to mistake it for a clump of seaweed thrown up by the incoming tide.

Then, as he straightened, he saw her. It was still barely light, but there was no mistaking the slim figure etched against a sky lemon-tinged by the rising sun. His teeth clenched, and for a moment he wondered if she was just a figment of his imagination. But, no, she was there, her feet ankle-deep in the frothing water.

She wasn’t aware that she was no longer alone. He’d allowed the SUV to coast the last few yards to where he parked, and the dunes muffled everything but the roar of the ocean. In shorts and a sleeveless vest, she was evidently not expecting to meet anyone. Perfect, he thought firmly. He’d wanted to catch her unprepared.

‘Hi,’ he said when he was near enough to speak without raising his voice, but she started anyway. ‘Thinking of going for a swim?’

Isobel’s hands came together at her waist. ‘No,’ she said quickly, glancing back towards the villa. Then, as if the thought had just occurred to her, ‘Do you live here?’

Alejandro’s lips twisted. ‘No.’

‘So did you stay the night?’

‘Oh, please.’ He swept back his hair with a careless hand, regarding her incredulously. ‘Anita is my mother-in-law, not my lover.’

‘Are you sure she feels the same way?’

The words were out before Isobel could prevent them, and she felt a moment’s panic when his hands clenched into fists at his sides. What did she know about this man really? Despite that distant intimacy, he was as much a stranger to her now as Anita.

And yet …

‘Does it matter?’ His words arrested her troubled thoughts. Amber eyes darkened perceptibly. ‘Are you jealous, cara ?’ His mouth took on a sensual curve. ‘I must admit, it is an eventuality I had not considered.’

‘In your dreams!’

Isobel’s face flushed with colour and her eyes flashed in indignation. And Alejandro felt a frustrating twinge of guilt for making fun of her that way.

With the sun clearing the horizon, he thought how absurdly innocent she looked, her face free of any make-up, her lips parted and trembling. She was wearing pink this morning, and the clinging fabric of her vest exposed her nipples in minute detail. He doubted she was wearing a bra. In fact, he was sure she wasn’t. And against his will—much against his will, he told himself grimly—he felt an unfamiliar hardening between his legs.

She turned now, evidently intent on putting some space between them, but he couldn’t let her go like this. ‘Wait,’ he said, his fingers circling her upper arm as she would have hurried away. ‘We need to talk, Isobella. Or are you going to continue with this pretence that you and I had never met before last evening?’

‘I didn’t start the pretence. You did,’ Isobel countered, looking pointedly at his hand gripping her arm, and then up again into his dark face.

Alejandro frowned. He had to concede that she was right. He had made no attempt to tell Anita about that distant affair, and, although he’d been prepared for their meeting the night before, he hadn’t taken into account how he would really feel when he saw her again.

‘Esta bem,’ he said shortly. ‘All right. But would you have rather brought up the subject of our daughter’s paternity with Anita looking on? I think not. I think you were—how do they say?—shocked out of your mind when you saw me. And not just because of my changed appearance.’

‘You’re wrong!’

Isobel could feel the panic rising inside her. And she didn’t honestly know why. Except that Alejandro’s words threatened to expose her weakness. But Emma was her daughter, not his.

‘Am I?’ Patently he didn’t believe her, and she hastened on.

‘Naturally I was surprised to see you. I had no idea you and Senhora Silveira were related.’

Alejandro’s mouth compressed. ‘Now, that I can believe.’

‘It’s true.’

Isobel drew an unsteady breath. She wasn’t handling this at all well, and it didn’t help that the disturbing contrast between the dark fingers gripping her arm and her pale flesh was causing goose bumps down her spine.

If only she wasn’t so aware of him. If only being this near to him didn’t arouse memories she’d fought hard to forget. He hadn’t cared what happened to her three years ago, she reminded herself. He’d left for Rio, and she’d neither seen nor heard from him since.

Taking another breath, she said stiffly, ‘I came here to do a job, that’s all. My uncle was delighted when Senhora Silveira’s agent contacted him and offered the magazine this interview. He—Apparently he’d interviewed her many years ago, when her first book was published.’

‘So why is he not here?’

‘Because—’ The dawning explanation stunned her. ‘Because Senhora Silveira has supposedly read some of my work. Oh God!’ Her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘You arranged this, didn’t you?’

Alejandro’s mocking gaze neither confirmed nor denied it. Instead, he said, ‘Did it never occur to either of you to question Anita’s decision? She’s a very private person, as your uncle certainly knows. And why, out of all the quality publications in the world, should she choose your uncle’s magazine in which to break her silence?’

Isobel swallowed, trying to come to terms with what he was saying. ‘Um, Sam thought she must have liked the piece he did about her before,’ she said flatly.

‘Que nada!’ Alejandro’s harsh exclamation revealed his contempt. ‘I doubt if Anita even remembers what your uncle wrote about her.’ He shook his head. ‘No man in his position should be that naive!’

‘He’s not naive.’ Isobel was indignant. ‘Too honest, perhaps,’ she added. ‘Something I doubt you know anything about.’

‘And why is that?’

Alejandro’s fingers tightened round her arm, and she had to steel herself not to show any reaction. Did he know he was hurting her? Somehow she doubted it.

‘You set up a totally bogus assignment and then ask me to explain?’ Isobel chose her words carefully. ‘I don’t know what all this is about, but I shall make arrangements to return to London today.’

‘Nao.’

Alejandro’s response was very definite and her nerves tingled apprehensively. He was such a big man, strong and powerful. And, because of her unwilling awareness of him, he was a danger to her in so many ways.

Despite his scar, and the injury that caused him to drag his leg at times, he was still an overwhelmingly attractive man. It wasn’t just his looks, though the muscles that swelled beneath his black tee-shirt and the corded length of his legs in black cargo pants were impressive. It was the hard-edged masculinity he exuded as he spoke to her. He knew what he was doing, and he was on his home ground.

Unknowingly, her eyes had strayed lower than she’d intended, and she unwittingly remembered the tight buttocks she’d once squeezed between her fingers.

Not that she should be thinking of such things now, she chided herself fiercely, refusing to acknowledge the unmistakeable bulge between his legs. But some things couldn’t be forgotten, not when the reality was in front of her.

Oh, God!

He was waiting for her response, and she knew she had to keep her head here. He thought he held all the cards, but she had a few of her own.

‘I wonder what your wife—or your fiancée—would have thought if she’d known what you were doing while you were in London,’ she blurted defensively. ‘I doubt if you told her, or your mother-in-law, that you were sleeping with someone else.’