THE VALQUEZ SEDUCTION(11)

                The half-smile that tilted his mouth had a glint of devilry about it. ‘Where you left them.’

                Her eyes widened in horror. Had he—gulp—stripped her? Stolen her clothes? Was she to be sold into sex slavery? Never to be heard from again? Where was her damn bodyguard when she needed him? She threw Luiz a combative glare, determined not to show how terrified she was. ‘I won’t let you get away with this. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. I have connections that could wipe the floor with you.’

                He had the gall to chuckle. ‘You mean those two travelling companions of yours?’

                Daisy felt her flesh shrink on her bones. Oh, dear Lord. What if Belinda and Kate had been kidnapped as well? Were all three of them to be shipped off to some ghastly foreign hellhole where disgusting men would paw and slaver over them? She could already see the headlines. Three London Infant Teachers: Tragic Victims of International Sex Slave Ring. ‘Wh-what about them?’

                His dark eyes gave nothing away other than amusement. ‘They weren’t the least bit interested in coming to your rescue.’

                She narrowed her gaze to slits. ‘What do you mean?’

                ‘I asked them to fetch you from my suite last night but they refused.’

                Daisy shot him a look of pure venom. ‘I don’t believe you. They would never leave me to fend for myself.’ Hmm, maybe Belinda would. ‘Anyway, how did you contact them? You didn’t have their numbers or names.’

                He inspected his square and buffed nails in a casual manner. ‘I sent a staff member to find them. Apparently they were too busy with their dates to come and collect you.’ He looked at her again and added, ‘Their message to you was—and I quote—“Have fun”.’

                I am so going to kill you, Belinda.

                Daisy huddled further up the bank of pillows under her shroud of luxury sheets. He looked so…so unlike a sexual predator. He was too sophisticated. Too clock-stopping handsome. Why would he have to resort to kidnap when he could crook his little finger and have any woman he wanted? Except you, she thought as she recalled her haughty rejection of him in the bar. She swallowed to clear the ropey knot of part dread, part excitement currently clogging her throat. She had spent the night with one of the world’s most notorious bad boys. How had he changed her mind? And why couldn’t she remember a single second of it? ‘What happened last night?’

                He hooked an ink-black eyebrow upwards. ‘You don’t remember?’

                She frantically hunted through her memory but it was like rifling through a file that hadn’t been organised properly. Nothing made sense. She could only remember watching him for most of the night, feeling annoyed he was never without a partner. He seemed to be flaunting them before her every time she looked at him, doing raunchy dance moves with an array of nubile young women.

                It was nauseating.

                Daisy had staunchly remained a wallflower—her default position—until a compatriot from Ealing had asked her to dance. She hadn’t really wanted to dance with him but she must have changed her mind for she remembered being on the dance floor and at one point cannoning into Luiz. The shockwave of touching his hard male body had sent her senses spinning like a top. His dark eyes had run over her partner in a sizing up look and his top lip had curled as if to say, Is that the best you could do? But after that her memory was a blank.

                She gave him a caustic glare. ‘Why did you bring me here?’

                He sent his gaze over her in a long lazy sweep. ‘You can’t guess?’