A Stormy Spanish Summer(18)

Aghast, Fliss realised that her imagination had joined in the betrayal and was now supplying her with totally unwanted images of what lay beneath that shirt—right down to providing her with a mental picture of every single powerful muscle his flesh cloaked from the memories her senses had stored after her proximity to him last night.

Only when her gaze reached his throat was Fliss finally able to drag it back down to the shiny polished gleam of his shoes as it quailed at the thought of daring to rest on his mouth, or meet the gaze of those topaz-gold eyes.

She felt slightly breathless, and her senses were quivering—with distaste and dislike, Fliss insisted to herself. Not with awareness or—perish the thought—some horrible and unwanted surge of female desire.

Her heart started pounding far too heavily, the sound drumming inside her own head like a warning call. Her lips had started to burn. She desperately wanted to lick them—to cool them down, to impose the feel of her own tongue against them and wipe away the memory of Vidal’s kiss. So much treachery from her own body. Where had it come from, and why? She tried to think of her father and remind herself of why she was here, dredging up the broken strands of her self-control from the whirlpool into which they had been sucked.

Taking a deep breath, she told Vidal, ‘It’s nearly ten o’clock. I seem to remember that last night you warned me against being late for our appointment with the lawyer—but apparently that same rule does not apply to you.’

He was frowning now, obviously disliking the fact that she had dared to question him. His voice was cool and sharp as he answered. ‘As you say, it’s nearly ten o’clock—but since Señor Gonzales has not yet arrived, so far as I am concerned I am ahead of time.’

‘The lawyer is coming here?’ Fliss demanded, ignoring his attack on her. Her face flamed like that of a child caught out in a social solecism, or a faux pas. Of course a man as aristocratic and as arrogant as Vidal would expect lawyers to attend him—not the other way round.

The loud pealing of a bell echoing through the marble-floored hallway beyond the half-open library door silenced any further comment Fliss might have tried to make.

No doubt feeling that he had triumphed over her, Vidal strode away from her. Fliss could hear him greeting and welcoming another man, whose voice she could also now hear.

‘Coffee in the library, please, Rosa,’ Fliss heard Vidal instructing the housekeeper as the two men approached the open doorway.

She had no real reason to feel apprehensive or even nervous, but she did feel both those emotions, Fliss admitted as Vidal waved the small dark-suited man who must be Señor Gonzales into the library ahead of him, and then introduced him to her.

The lawyer gave her an old-fashioned and formal half-bow, before extending his hand to shake hers.

‘Señor Gonzales will go through the terms of your late father’s will in so far as they relate to you. As was explained to you in the letter I sent, as your father’s executor it is part of my role to carry out his wishes.’

As he led them over to the imposing dark wood desk at one side of the room’s marble fireplace, Fliss recognised that note in Vidal’s voice that said there had been no need for her to come to Spain to hear what had already been reported to her via letter, but Fliss refused to be undermined by it. The lawyer, polite though he had been to her, was bound to be on Vidal’s side, she warned herself, and she would have to be on her guard with both of them.

‘My late father has left me his house. I know that,’ Fliss agreed once they were all seated round the desk. She broke off from what she was saying when a maid came in with the coffee, which had to be poured and handed out to them with due formality before they were alone again.

‘Felipe wanted to make amends to you for the fact that he had not been able to acknowledge you formally and publicly whilst he was alive,’ Señor Gonzales said quietly.

Silently Fliss digested his words.

‘Financially—’

‘Financially I have no need of my father’s inheritance,’ Fliss interrupted him quickly.

She was not going to allow Vidal to think even worse of her than he already did and suggest that it was the financial aspect of her inheritance that had brought her here. The truth was that she would far rather have had a personal letter from her father proclaiming his love for her than any amount of money.

‘Thanks to the generosity of one of my English relatives my mother and I never suffered financially from my father’s rejection of us. My mother’s great aunt did not reject us. She thought enough of us to want to help us. She cared when others did not.’