Exotic Affairs(127)

Next she had to release the seat belt. Then came the tricky bit, opening the car door and keeping it open while she attempted to scramble out. Her dress snagged on something; she heard it rip and lost her shoes in the struggle. But eventually she landed in a heap on the hard road, then just sat slumped there while she got her breath back.

It was all so quiet, so eerie. She shivered, then suddenly couldn’t stop shivering—though she didn’t think it was because it was that cold up here.

Shock, she presumed. I’m probably shocked. And who wouldn’t be after the ordeal I’ve just had?

The last thought brought a smile to her lips. The smile made her feel better, and she scrambled up on her bare feet and began to take careful stock of the situation.

Felipe obviously needed help; that was her first consideration. But help was either ten miles or so down the mountain or five miles or so back the way they had come. Not much of a choice, really, she mused helplessly. Staying put seemed to make better sense. Someone should have missed her by now, surely?

Never mind merely someone, she then scolded herself. Luiz should have missed her!

It was then that she heard it. It was nothing more at the moment than a very distant growl. But it was a car engine, she recognised, fading in and out as it wound round the mountain.

In sheer relief she simply sank to the ground by the drunken car, folded her now aching head onto her knees and wrapped them in her trembling arms.

It had to be Luiz coming to find her. She didn’t even let herself think that it might be anyone else. In fact, that was the most stupid part of Felipe’s plan of abduction—to actually believe he could just drive away with her without having Luiz hard on his tail. Had he truly believed he would get as far as seduction? The crazy idiot. If she knew Luiz, the road off the mountain towards Los Aminos was probably blocked by now anyway. Felipe would have been stopped before he’d even got started.

The car was coming closer; she could hear the smooth, neat way it was being driven into the bends and corners—could even pick out the gear changes, the braking, the steady increase in speed then the smooth throttling back.

Yet he arrived round the final bend without warning. Odd that, she thought, as she lifted her head and just watched as he brought the strange car to a standstill perhaps ten feet away.

He didn’t get out of the car immediately, either. He just sat there with the headlights trained on her and, she presumed, looked at her looking at him.

Then his door came open. His feet scraped on gravel. And, finally, the full lean length of his body appeared. She couldn’t see his face—well, she could have done if she’d looked at it, but for some unaccountable reason she just didn’t want to.

He walked towards her. Stopped about two feet away and took a look around their remote surroundings. It was so quiet up here you could hear an ant move a leaf. The sky was a navy blue star-studded cloth and the mountains soared like giants standing on guard.

‘Where is he?’ was the first question he asked her, and he did it softly, with no inflexion whatsoever.

‘Unconscious,’ she replied. ‘In the car.’

Luiz nodded. That was all, no further questions. He didn’t even take a look at Felipe. With a flick of his fingers all the other doors flew open on the car he had been driving. Three men got out; one of them was Vito. They came towards them.

‘Deal with him,’ he said.

Caroline felt her blood turn cold. ‘No, Luiz,’ she protested, having visions of poor Felipe being thrown off the edge of the mountain. ‘He’s hurt. He needs help. I…’

Swooping down, he gathered her into his arms and straightened. He began striding back to the car he had arrived in, and Caroline had a ludicrous vision of herself in all her bridal finery, now ripped and soiled, with her pretty lace veil trailing on the dusty ground behind them.

It was only when they reached the open passenger door that she let herself dare look into Luiz’s face. What she saw there brought the first tears to her eyes since the whole ordeal had begun.

‘Don’t,’ she whispered unsteadily. ‘Don’t shut me out.’

He didn’t respond, just placed her in the car then walked round to climb in beside her. The engine fired and then they were moving, continuing down the mountain, because even she could see that it was too narrow here to turn the car around.

As they passed the drunken BMW she saw Vito heaving Felipe out of the car by using sheer brute strength. But he was gentle when he laid him out on the road to check him over. It was faintly reassuring to see that gentleness. Surely men like Vito would not be gentle with a man they were intending to tip over the edge of a mountain, she consoled herself.