Luiz arrived back as she was slipping her feet into high patent leather shoes. Her chin-length bob was soft and shiny, her make-up underplayed, and her dress was made of dark purple silk crêpe, with a neckline that scooped down to caress the soft swell of her breasts and skimmed rather than clung to the rest of her curves.
Dramatically simplistic it its design, still the dress did things for her that made his eyes glint beneath the heavy shading of those long lashes he so liked to hide behind.
‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you could do it in the time allocated.’
Caroline just sent him a coldly dismissive look. ‘Is my father awake yet?’
‘It’s almost midnight, Caroline,’ Luiz drawled back lazily. ‘The time people usually go to bed, not think about getting up.’
‘People don’t usually throw parties this late, either,’ she pointed out.
He smiled at the curt censure. ‘I’m an owl.’
‘So is he,’ she countered. ‘Where is he?’
‘In the kitchen playing blackjack with the chef,’ he replied laconically—then, at her look of slack-jawed horror, he grew angry. ‘For goodness’ sake!’ he bit out. ‘It was a joke!’
Some joke, she thought painfully.
Luiz strode forward; a hard hand grabbed one of hers. ‘He’s comfortably ensconced in the main salon enjoying the company of my guests!’ he told her impatiently. ‘Will you lighten up?’
Lighten up? she repeated furiously. She was tired, she was stressed, she had just gone through some of the worst few hours in her entire life—and he was now demanding that she lighten up?
‘If I had a punch worth throwing I would probably hit you,’ she whispered.
With a heavy sigh, Luiz pulled her towards him, and it showed how bad she was feeling that she let him hold her against his chest. ‘He’s fine,’ he assured her huskily. ‘And he will stay fine now that I’m looking after him—I thought you understood that.’
‘He’s an addict, Luiz,’ she stated with heart slaying honesty. ‘They don’t get cured overnight.’
‘I know,’ he said quietly.
‘Does he know?’ she then asked sharply. ‘About this deal you and I have just made?’
‘He knows you are here with me, but that’s about all.’
Which made just one more problem she still had yet to confront, she thought heavily, and moved right out of Luiz’s arms. His eyes narrowed on her weary profile, but he didn’t try to detain her.
Instead he moved back to the door, then stood waiting for her to join him. Caroline did so without uttering another word. As they walked side by side back towards the main salon she thought she could actually feel the vibration of her own body it was so beset by nerve-tingling tension.
‘Do I get to know who any of these people are before I have to meet them?’ she asked without much hope of an answer, since he was very economical with those.
‘Nervous?’ Luiz questioned as they crossed the foyer.
‘Yes,’ she confessed.
‘Then don’t be.’ He sounded eminently confident of that. ‘You are about to meet my family,’ he told her. ‘Not a firing squad.’
His family? ‘But you told me once that you don’t have any family!’ She stared at him in disbelief.
He just smiled another odd smile. ‘I don’t,’ he said, but the sudden cold glitter that struck his eyes sent a chill chasing down her spine.
‘Enigmatic as ever, I note,’ she drawled.
He responded with a different smile. ‘My secret weapon,’ he admitted.
But not his only one, she thought as she felt his hand make contact with the small of her back as the other hand reached out for the door. His touch stung through her like an electric power source, making her spine arch fiercely.
Her reaction made him pause, his features hardening. ‘Just remember who you are and what you are to me when we walk in there,’ he warned very grimly. ‘It is very important to me that you give a good impression of a blissful bride, not a resentful one.’
Refusing to look at him, Caroline said nothing. But her chin dutifully lifted and her expression became smooth as he pushed open the door to the main salon.
The first thing her eyes went to was the green baize table, which she was relieved to see had been deftly covered with a white linen tablecloth on which several bottles of champagne now lay, chilling on a bed of ice. And the croupier, who had been stacking coloured chips earlier, now stood polishing fluted champagne glasses with the innocence of a waiter.
The next thing she allowed her eyes to take in was the room full of people. What she had seen only as a couple of dozen blurred faces the first time around, now became two dozen separate individuals who were, almost without exception, Spanish.