His Suitable Bride(156)

It was impossible. The man was mad—he had to be.

‘No way! It’s just not happening!’

‘And why not, hmm?’ Santos shot back. ‘Why is that so impossible?’

‘Because—because you don’t know me. I don’t know you.’

‘I know that I like what I see and I believe that you do too.’

‘Well, yes …’

The answer was snatched from her lips before she had time to consider just how foolish she was being in admitting it. The look of dark satisfaction that crossed his face, burning in his eyes, curling the corners of his sensual mouth, made her blood run both hot and cold in exactly the same moment so that she trembled as if she was in the grip of some dangerous fever.

I like what I see. Had he really said that about her? After years of living in Natalie’s shadow, of hearing her sister described as the beautiful one, the one who had men buzzing round her like bees around a honey pot, it shook her rigid that a man like Santos would actually express his feelings so bluntly. But it was a huge jump from that to saying that he wanted to marry her!

‘So you must see.’

‘No. No, I see nothing because there is nothing to see. Nothing at all! How can there be when we have said nothing—admitted nothing—but that we like the look of—that we fancy each other? How can that mean anything? How can you claim anything so ridiculous, so preposterous, as to say that you—you’ve …?’

She couldn’t say it, no matter how many times she opened her mouth and tried to force her tongue to form the words, she couldn’t bring herself to echo the wildly impossible declaration that he had made just moments before.

Santos, however, had no such problem.

‘That I’ll take you as my wife? Why not? I never wanted your sister as I want you.’

‘But you …’ Alexa began but then the realisation of just what he had said sank into her numbed brain. ‘Is that the truth?’

‘Why should I lie to you, belleza?’

Santos’s tone was suddenly soft. His gaze still held hers as he spoke, his eyes so deep and clear that she felt they were like a still, smooth pool in which she risked drowning, going in over her head completely.

Alexa wished that she could look away, but she found it impossible to drag her gaze from that mesmerising stare of his, the look that seemed to search right to the depths of her soul and know exactly what was hidden there.

‘But …’

Her head was spinning, the room seeming to blur around her.

‘But how can you know that? You haven’t even kissed me …’

Santos pushed both hands through the gleaming darkness of his hair in a gesture that could have been taken as showing that he was relaxing, easing some of the tension that held his long body taut. But his eyes said exactly the opposite. They were as cold and sharp, as predatory as ever.

‘That is something that is soon remedied.’

To her horror he crossed the room, skirting the table with a lithe, elegant movement, coming towards her with his intent clear on his face.

‘No …’

Alexa’s hands came up as if to ward off danger, and immediately she started backing away, taking hasty steps away from him. But the truth was that she knew that what she feared deep inside wasn’t really Santos but herself. The memory of those moments in the garden was burned into her mind, and she knew she would never forget how she had felt when he leaned towards her and she had been so sure that he was going to kiss her.

If her heart had picked up a beat then, now it was thudding so hard that her blood pulsed like a thunderstorm inside her head, pounding at her temples until she was unable to think. She had wanted that kiss so much and it had stung so badly when he had withheld it at the last minute. And he had known the way she was feeling, she was positive of that.

So now he knew what he was doing as he came towards her with that look in his eye, his gaze fixed on her mouth. And she was afraid of herself, not for herself. She was afraid of her own reaction, of the way she might respond to him if he kissed her. If she felt this way already, then how much more might she feel if … when …?

So, ‘No!’ she said again, more urgently this time, moving backwards all the while, not looking where she was putting her feet because she did not dare to take her eyes from his face, seeing the way it was hard and set, tight with determination and resolve. ‘No, Santos—I—Oh!’

The exclamation was forced from her in shock as the backs of her legs hit something—the side of the bed, from the feel of it. Knocked off balance and unable to stay upright, she suddenly plonked down onto the quilt, all the breath escaping from her lungs in a rush so that she gasped out loud as she landed.