Exotic Affairs(99)

She wanted to hit him. He knew she wanted to hit him. Standing there toe to toe, breast-tips to muscle-padded chest, he held her furious eyes with devilishly mocking ones and just dared her to do it!

It was a skin-blistering few moments. Neither moved, neither spoke, neither seemed even to breathe. Tension gnawed and antagonism pulsed—along with a slice of something else that further infuriated her.

Sex was its name. Hot sex, tight sex. Sex that plucked at the angry senses until they sang like an out-of-tune violin. And suddenly she could feel the fine lining of her body begin to ripple in an agonising parody of what happened when he was buried inside her. It wasn’t fair. Her senses had no right to betray her like this! It wasn’t fair that her breasts were stinging, their tender tips tightening into hard, tight, eager nubs against his wretched breastbone.

‘Marriage to you is going to be one hell of an adventure,’ he murmured—and effectively brought her tumbling back down to earth with a resounding bump.

She should have shattered. She would have preferred to shatter rather than have to continue to stand here knowing that he knew exactly—and in detail—what she had been feeling.

‘I hate you,’ she whispered, and spun her back to him with the intention of stalking stiffly away. But her exit was ruined by the sudden appearance of the doctor, Luiz’s uncle Fidel.

‘Oh,’ he said, looking much as Caroline must have looked when she’d first walked in the room. ‘Your father has left already?’ he asked.

‘There was a spare seat on a flight to London he didn’t want to miss,’ Luiz informed him. ‘He has business that needs his immediate attention if he wants to be back here in time for our wedding next week.’

Next week? Caroline tensed. Long fingers came to clasp her shoulders in a physical warning for her to watch what she said.

‘I pray you will both survive till then,’ his uncle said sagely. ‘If you are to eat at the castle, Luiz, then make sure you take a food-taster with you. For if Consuela could have her wish it would be to see you six feet under the soil rather than have to watch you take what is left of her life away.’

Caroline didn’t understand a single word of what was being said. Except that she and Luiz were, it seemed, to be married in a week!

‘Don’t worry about your father, child,’ Fidel said smilingly, obviously reading her expression as one of anxiety for her father. ‘He was fighting fit when I saw him this morning. And he will not forget to take his medication again after experiencing the shock he had last night.’

The doctor’s beeper began sounding then, cutting short any more discussion other than for him to step up and give Caroline’s cheek an affectionate peck before turning briskly away with, ‘See you both at the church, God willing!’

Then he was gone, scooting away as abruptly as he had arrived.

‘What did he mean, you need a food-taster?’ she asked in his uncle’s wake. ‘And what castle—what wedding?’

‘The wedding you should have been expecting,’ Luiz drawled. ‘The castle is the one I inherited along with my illustrious title. And the food-tasting quip was a joke—though not a very funny joke, I will admit,’ he conceded.

It hadn’t sounded like a joke to Caroline. In fact it had sounded like a bit of very serious advice! ‘I wish you would tell me what is really going on here,’ she bit out angrily.

‘Feuds and fortunes,’ Luiz replied laconically, and halted any further discussion by leading her out into a corridor that had too many other people walking about to allow for private conversation.

Vito Martinez was standing by the car waiting for them as they came outside. ‘Any messages?’ was Luiz’s instant enquiry as they approached him.

‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ the other man answered with a telling glance in Caroline’s direction.

It niggled her to catch that glance. Just as a lot of other things were now niggling her. ‘You two should think about joining the Secret Service,’ she snapped out tartly, and climbed into the back of the car without waiting for a response.

A few seconds went by before Luiz eventually joined her. Car doors slammed, the engine fired and behind his protective shield of glass Vito Martinez set them all into smooth motion.

‘Vito meant no offence,’ Luiz said quietly.

Caroline twisted her head to show him amethyst eyes turned smoky grey with anger. ‘Tell me, is that Vito the croupier, Vito the waiter, or Vito the chauffeur you are talking about?’ she asked sarcastically.

‘It is Vito my security chief and most trusted employee,’ he replied very levelly, but it was a silken warning to watch her tongue.