LITMIR.BIZ

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was now officially more sexually experienced than she was.

      ‘I do not work here.’

      Nell, who suddenly realised she still had hold of his arm, regarded him with suspicion. ‘You’re a guest at this hotel?’ She gave a tiny gasp of relief when her fingers finally responded to the message from her brain and let go. The impression of hard, lean strength lingered even when she rubbed her hand against the canvas bag slung around her neck.

      ‘Not a guest, and not a hotel—this is the home of my grandmother, Doña Elena Santoro.’

      The colour faded from her cheeks as Nell turned her head and stared at the vast Castillo d’Oro, a fortified stone edifice—a real castle complete with turrets.

      ‘You live here?’ That explained the superior attitude and the faint air of disdain, the man obviously considered anyone who didn’t own a castle beneath him. Well, she for one was not impressed by inherited wealth.

      She shook her head, not waiting for his confirmation, and said firmly, ‘That doesn’t change anything.’

      ‘I’m not the man you’re looking for. I’ve never met your niece.’

      Frustrated and tired, tears springing to her eyes, Nell, who rarely cried, blinked angrily.

      ‘I don’t believe you!’ She struggled not to, because if he was telling the truth she was no nearer finding Lucy than she had been this morning.

      ‘But I do know the man you’re looking for.’

      Nell looked at him with a mixture of hope and suspicion.

      ‘Come indoors and I’ll explain.’

      ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m not budging from this spot!’ Nell said, folding her arms across her chest.

      ‘Have it your way, but I wouldn’t like to have your epidermis tomorrow.’ He glanced up at the relentlessly blue sky, then back at her face. ‘You have the sort of fair skin that burns.’ A slightly distracted expression drifted across his face as he stared at the pale curve of her throat.

      ‘And freckles,’ Nell murmured with a sigh.

      The comment seemed to wake him from his reverie. Possibly he was feeling the heat too, Nell thought, noticing the bands of high colour that attracted her eye to the slashing contours of his marvellous high cheekbones.

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE dull pain drumming in her temples intensified as Nell watched him stroll back to the castillo not pausing even once to look back. He was so damned sure that she’d follow him the way women had no doubt been following him all his adult life—not that she would be following him in the same sense.

      She would have loved to have the luxury of calling his bluff, but that gesture would have been pretty self-defeating. If he was speaking the truth and he knew who Lucy was with she had no choice but to follow him. And his point about the heat was valid; the protective factor of the moisturiser she had used that morning had to have worn off hours ago.

      The cool inside the stone-walled castle was sheer bliss after the oppressive heat of the Valencian sun. She hurried, her feet echoing on the stone floors, to catch up with him.

      ‘So who is the man?’ Nell asked, trotting to pass him.

      She turned and came to an abrupt halt. He had to follow suit or fall over her. He didn’t do that, but he did get awfully close—close enough for her to receive a pretty hefty jolt as she got too close to the raw sexual aura he projected.

      It passed through her body like an electrical current and was the weirdest and most disturbing thing that had ever happened to her. She pressed a hand to her heaving chest and hoped that he attributed her breathless condition to a lack of fitness combined with the altitude.

      He glanced down, his dark eyes skimming her face. ‘My cousin.’

      Nell opened her mouth to demand more information when he placed a hand on the wall above her head. Nell closed her eyes and edged closer to panic as he leaned into her, his big body curling over her. She held her breath, then released it a moment later as she found herself pushed through a door behind her and into a big, light, airy room.

      ‘Sit down. I’ll order some refreshments.’

      Nell ignored the offer—a pretty pointless defiance considering her knees were literally shaking. ‘Your cousin?’ Was he just trying to wriggle out of it? Send her off on a false trail?

      ‘It fits. He had a holiday job at the hotel you spoke of. I arranged it for him myself.’

      She still wasn’t convinced. ‘What about the name?’

      ‘We were both christened Luiz Felipe. This is not the first time confusion has arisen, but it is the most…amusing.’

      ‘You’re both called Luiz Felipe.’

      ‘I know—an appalling lack of imagination. We were both named after our grandfather, but in the family we call him Felipe usually.’

      ‘So how old is this cousin of yours?’ Nell’s feelings were mixed. While she was obviously relieved that Lucy hadn’t got mixed up with this man—hopefully his cousin was not the similar type of predatory male—it did mean that she still had no idea where Lucy was.

      ‘I’m not sure.’ He arched a brow. ‘Eighteen, nineteen?’

      Nell stared. ‘You’re asking me? Just how many cousins do you have?’

      Luiz leaned his elbow on the mantel of the carved stone fireplace and moved a heavy candlestick with his forefinger. His air of preoccupation incensed Nell.

      ‘I’m sorry if I’m boring you.’

      The acid observation swung Luiz’s attention back to the figure standing there with her hands planted on her slim hips. ‘Sorry.’ He produced a grin that had no hint of apology in it and answered her question. ‘Just the one.’

      ‘And you don’t know how old he is?’

      ‘We are not what you would call close.’

      ‘But he’s your cousin.’ She searched his dark face for any sign he was being facetious and found none. ‘Your family.’

      ‘Families are all different and I think you will find that my attitude to family is one that more people could readily identify with than your own.’

      Nell looked at him, appalled. ‘Don’t you care if your cousin ruins his life?’

      ‘A person learns by their mistakes. Perhaps your niece will learn from hers?’

      The odd inflection in his deep voice that made Nell wonder what his mistakes had been was absent as he added flippantly, ‘And who am I to stand in the way of true love?’

      Nell, her eyes narrowed, did not bother to disguise her utter disgust as she glared at him. ‘Ha. The truth is you don’t give a damn about anyone else. You’re utterly and totally selfish—you’ve no intention of lifting a finger to stop your cousin making the biggest mistake of his life because you’re utterly self-centred.’

      She was midway through accusing him of possessing no family feeling when Ramon’s joke came back to Luiz. The future Mrs Santoro! His lips curled into a wry smile that faded as he recognised the element of truth in Ramon’s joke—a bride would be his grandmother’s most precious birthday present.

      Luiz was inclined initially to reject the crazy, though intriguing, idea forming in his head, because it was so obviously, well…crazy. He could not pinpoint the exact moment that it stopped being crazy but actually almost logical, but suddenly he found himself asking—Why not?

      He would never be able to give his grandmother the wife and heir she longed for him to provide, so wasn’t this an alternative where nobody got hurt? Why shouldn’t he be studying the flushed and angry face of the future Mrs Santoro? It could work.

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