His Suitable Bride(98)

Then Julia had told them of a friend of hers who was looking for work. They’d met her and known immediately that she was the one. Rowan much preferred to hire someone local, and Isandro had seemed to agree.

The car was drawing to a smooth halt outside a huge, impressive Moorish building. Rowan tried to hide her awe, feeling gauche. Isandro followed her look.

‘This is the Palacio de Don Pedro. It rivals the Alhambra in Granada in its preservation of drawings and carvings.’

He stepped out of the car and Rowan saw his hand stretch in to take hers. She had a moment of remembering other occasions like this, how attentive he’d been to her, making her feel secure, at ease. Emotion rose and she struggled to quell it. She took a deep breath and tried to emerge gracefully, taking his hand.

Once standing with him at the start of a red carpet, she registered the flashing bulbs of the paparazzi, numerous milling crowds, stunningly beautiful women bedecked in the finest fashions and jewels. Handsome men. But none as handsome as the man by her side. She felt momentarily stunned, in awe and fear of the obvious exclusiveness of the event.

The ball was taking place in the spectacular Salón de Embajadores. Rowan was mesmerised by the ceiling, which was a wooden dome with thousands of star patterns. She was so entranced that she gaped. When she looked down again she caught a couple of women looking at her and laughing slightly behind their hands. Her face burned crimson as the memory came back of overhearing those poisonous women in the bathroom in London. But, she reassured herself, she was different now, stronger.

‘Who are they? Do you know them?’

Rowan heard Isandro’s voice close to her ear and fought the urge to move her stricken eyes. She shook her head. ‘No. I was taken aback by the ceiling, and I’m afraid I must have shown a little too much awe than is appropriate for such a gathering.’

He slanted a probing look down at her. Rowan looked away and took a sip of her champagne. It slid down her throat like a fizzy starburst. There were so many sensations that kept taking her unawares.

Isandro took a closer look at the women Rowan had been looking at and his heart sank. One of them was Mercedes Lopez. He hadn’t been entirely honest with Rowan in his reasons for wanting to bring her along. Although it was serving him to have her here, to reaffirm his respectability after she’d made a mockery of their marriage, it was also to deter the advances of the other woman—and he could see Mercedes bearing down on them now.

They’d been lovers some years before he’d married Rowan, and with the recent notable absence of his wife she’d been agitating to resume the affair. Isandro had hoped that having Rowan by his side might send her a message. He couldn’t say what it was about her that turned him off so completely now, when before she’d appealed to him, but something just did.

Unconsciously he pulled Rowan closer, and could feel her stiffen in response. It made him angry and he looked down at her, but she was looking at the other woman with wide eyes. Unaccountably, he felt protective.

Mercedes spoke in rapid and intimate Spanish as soon as she reached them, putting her arms around Isandro’s neck and taking total liberties with the traditional warmth of a normal Spanish greeting. Her kisses on both cheeks lingered for far too long. And far too close to his mouth. She was beautiful, thought Rowan. And undeniably she must be his lover, for there was a wealth of intimacy that couldn’t be manufactured in the woman’s every sinuous movement.

She was very seductive. Tall, dark and slim. Flashing brown heavily kohled eyes, her perfect breasts moving and swaying with her dress as she gestured. Lush hips and a tiny waist.

Rowan’s rising and very fledgling euphoria at being in such a beautiful place with Isandro was about to burst like a cheap balloon. She was transported back in time. The gauche outcast again. But she wouldn’t feel sorry for herself. This was all a game, and she would play it as if her life depended on it. When they were divorced Isandro could do as he pleased, but right now they were married. And, God help her poor battered heart, the jealousy rising within her was about to explode.

She inserted herself expertly between Isandro and the other woman. She could feel his initial shock and held her breath momentarily. And then let it out as she felt him take her lead, moving behind her and bringing both arms around her waist so that she lay against him.

Rowan held out a hand and spoke in clipped upper-class English. ‘How do you do? I’m Rowan—Isandro’s wife. I don’t believe we’ve met before?’

The other woman had to take a step backwards. A fleeting glower transformed her perfect features before it was gone. Rowan almost felt sorry for her.