Kept At The Argentine's Command
Lucy Ellis
Stranded and seduced!Lulu Lachaille’s secret agoraphobia won’t stop her from attending her best friend’s big day. She feels utterly out of her depth, but that isn’t the reason her heart is pounding…Cynical best man, Argentinian polo god Alejandro du Crozier, he hates weddings… until he gets inconveniently stranded in the Scottish Highlands with the alluring maid-of-honour!The temptation inexperienced Lulu presents is too much for Alejandro to refuse. But du Crozier is determined to keep Lulu under his command, so whisks her away to Buenos Ares until he is sure that their recklessness hasn’t left lasting consequences…
Lulu was the only wallflower maid of honour in the history of wedding receptions. But perhaps it was for the best. Lulu wasn’t even sure she was going to be able to stand up for the first dance.
‘Lulu.’ Alejandro was beside her, extending his hand.
She wanted to slap it. She also wanted to grab hold of it like a lifeline. She gripped him. Dug her nails in a little.
The moment his arm came around her his hand settled at her waist. With his other hand in hers she felt all the fury and hurt and confusion rise up inside her, making it impossible for her to speak.
Alejandro had none of those problems. ‘I know you’re angry with me, Lulu, but we need to talk in private. ‘
She suddenly wanted to cry. Very much.
‘Anything you have to say to me you can say here.’
His hand tightened at her waist and Lulu wondered, crazily, if he might pick her up and throw her over his shoulder and haul her out of there. But why would he do that? She wasn’t Gigi. She wasn’t intrinsically loveable. Her limitations meant she wasn’t going to have a normal life.
‘The condom broke.’
For a moment Lulu was too busy swimming in self-pity to pay much attention, and when she did she didn’t have a clue why he was saying this to her. Why had he said ‘condom’ in the middle of the wedding waltz?
The. Condom. Broke.
The words broke across her mind’s eye as if they’d been lit up in fireworks across a night sky.
LUCY ELLIS creates over-the-top couples who spar and canoodle in glamorous places. If it doesn’t read like a cross between a dozen old fairy tales you half know and a 1930s romantic comedy it’s not a Lucy Ellis story. Come and read a rambling exposition on her books at lucy-ellis.com (http://lucy-ellis.com) and drop her a line.
Kept at the
Argentine’s
Command
Lucy Ellis
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my dear dad, who is 80 this year. May he see many more stories to come.
Contents
Cover (#ub682ddb2-acae-51c5-b201-a607a64a7ac0)
Introduction (#u6db9868d-fbbd-576a-a265-d72fa9dc5b44)
About the Author (#u80d2bf20-9ade-5cf0-97e9-bb52ffa57266)
Title Page (#ue1b06f83-0b26-5b72-b3ea-d109967a2a8e)
Dedication (#u64d96698-1c23-5f09-afb8-7b6c7864d59b)
CHAPTER ONE (#uff5fd2f2-4c19-51cf-a65c-f026cb630263)
CHAPTER TWO (#u62d1b139-2bce-52d1-b9ba-98f5a377722a)
CHAPTER THREE (#ub31e9b8b-61c4-547f-b468-78877e1dbf55)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ua2dd6952-90fd-5c00-afdf-2b01b6a6ac95)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u22ef9639-46e8-5374-b9ab-40c8469aef6f)
CHAPTER SIX (#ua7abcf81-00a4-5902-92f2-ff9e3d41f4ab)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_f8ad2e60-df4f-5042-a705-ad0c33b474ed)
ALEJANDRO NOTICED HER on boarding because she was easily the sweetest view on offer: a drop of honey on a dull day.
A slightly built girl, sitting with her long slender legs crossed at the knee, her head was bent as she read, causing her mop of artfully arranged blue-black curls, cut short at the back and longer towards the front, to topple forward around her face. She wore the highly feminised clothes of an earlier era in a way he recognised was a fashion statement.
As he made his way down the aisle towards his seat she lifted her eyes from her e-reader and they locked with his.
Those curls, he discovered, framed delicate features. She had a short upturned nose, big dark brown eyes and a mouth like a red rosebud. Her eyes widened, but there was nothing inviting in the way she looked at him. In fact her gaze dropped skittishly away. She reminded him of one of his fillies at home on the estancia, toeing the ground for some attention and then shying away.
He didn’t mind shy—he could work with it fine.
Sure enough, her gaze swung upwards again, back for another look, a little bolder this time, and her lavish rosebud of a mouth quivered with the beginnings of a smile.
He returned her smile—the barest tilt of his mouth, because he was out of practice with the gesture. She responded by blushing and ducking her eyes back to the little screen.
He was hooked.
He was also barely in his seat before she gestured for assistance from a flight attendant. He watched in bemused interest as for the next twenty minutes Brown Eyes kept the cabin crew on their toes with a steady stream of what appeared to be trivial requests. Glasses of water, a cushion, a blanket... It was only when she began whispering furiously to the by now harassed female flight attendant that the points she’d scored with him for being pretty to look at flew out of the window.
‘No, I really cannot move!’ Her raised voice—demanding and shrill, despite the sexy French accent—had Alejandro putting down his tablet.
When the flustered flight attendant came up the aisle he leaned out and asked what the problem was.
‘An elderly gentleman is finding it difficult to make the trip to the facilities, sir,’ she explained, ‘and we were hoping to relocate him to a closer seat.’
She didn’t mention the intransigent Brown Eyes. But she was hard to miss.
Alejandro grabbed his jacket and reached up to the overhead locker.
‘Not a problem,’ he said, flashing the flight attendant a smile. She blushed.
Re-seated further towards the rear of the plane, he reopened his tablet, forgot about the brunette and gave his attention to the screen.
The morning papers on his tablet didn’t offer much encouragement about his destination.
When one of Russia’s richest oligarchs tied the knot with a sprightly red-haired ex-showgirl in a Scottish castle it was news, and from what Alejandro had heard from the groom himself the press had already set up shop in the surrounding town and area for long-lens shots of the ‘who’s who’ guest list.
Being one of the ‘who’s who’ himself, he’d decided not to make a splash entering the country. In Alejandro’s opinion, if you didn’t want the attention, you shouldn’t act as if you were somebody who needed it. Which meant he was flying commercial and driving the four-hour trip from Edinburgh to the coast a day early. The route would reportedly take him through some picturesque countryside, and he intended to cruise into Dunlosie under the radar.
Still, the hullaballoo he was surely headed for didn’t inspire encouragement that this was going to be anything other than a weekend to endure.
Impatiently Alejandro tossed aside his tablet and angled his wide-shouldered frame out of his seat. He’d never been able to sit still for long.
And that was when a little cough sounded to his left and he looked down.
It was Brown Eyes.
She’d taken a few trips up and down the aisle to the ‘facilities’. Either she had a little bladder problem or, more likely, she was looking for some attention.
He surveyed her coolly. Possibly not the attention she wanted.
With each trip up the aisle her step had become more rolling and he suspected she was a little drunk.
She was also considerably tall for a woman. He took a look down and found the culprits: a pair of very high-heeled turquoise shoes, ridiculously encumbered by ribbons that frothed around her trim ankles.
She in turn was gazing up at him, all brown eyes and carefully cultivated curls. Irritatingly, she was as pretty as ever.
‘Pardon, m’sieur.’
Her voice sounded a little slurred. Definitely drinking.
Unimpressed, he murmured, ‘Maybe you should go easy on the free liquor, señorita, and do us all a favour.’
She blinked. ‘Pardonnez-moi?’
‘You heard me.’
For a moment she seemed to be utterly lost for words. Then she screwed up her nose and stamped her foot.
It took a great deal of his self-control not to smile.
‘Why don’t you move out of the way instead of bullying people?’ she demanded, her French accent doing an excellent job on the precise English she used.
He ran his gaze insolently from the top of her shiny curls to the ribbons cascading over her pointy shoes and back to everything in between.
The in between was rather sweetly distributed...
She backed up a bit, but he wasn’t letting her get away scot-free.
‘You’re quite a piece of work, aren’t you, chica?’ he drawled.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘There are fourteen people in First Class today,’ he spelt out. ‘Your name isn’t written on the plane and the cabin crew aren’t your personal galley slaves. How about cutting us all some slack?’
Her eyes fell away from his. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she mumbled. ‘Now, move, why don’t you?’
It was all he needed. ‘Make me.’
Her chin came up and her rosebud of a mouth dropped open.
He was slightly surprised himself. He didn’t, as a rule, hassle women. Especially silly little girls who needed to grow up.
For a moment he thought those big brown eyes were going to fill with ready tears. She certainly seemed on the brink of something.
So he moved.
Just.
She made a very French ‘ouf’ sound of disapproval, averted her face and stalked back to her seat. Once more in charge of herself. Self-interest on two legs.
Only then she ruined it with an almost furtive look back over her shoulder, as if to make sure he wasn’t following her.
The first finger of doubt touched his shoulder.
He’d made a few hard conclusions drawn from not much.
But life had taught him to pay attention to what people told you by their actions, not their words.
She had barely reached her seat when he heard her give a soft cry.
Alejandro turned—fast.
‘Non, leave those things alone!’
He relaxed, a little surprised at his own reflexes when he didn’t even like the woman. She was back to making everyone’s life a misery.
She followed this up with a hushed volley of what sounded like furious French, but she was speaking so fast it was hard to tell. And all of it was directed at the poor steward, who was tidying up the clutter she had accumulated around her.
Heads emerged into the aisle.
Alejandro swung back into his seat and checked his phone. He was done with her.
There was a message from the groom.
Change in plans. Do me a favour and pick up a bridesmaid on your way in. Answers to Lulu Lachaille. Exiting Flight 338 at Gate Four. She’s precious cargo. If you lose her, Gigi will cut off my balls and call off the wedding.
Alejandro briefly considered texting back no, even as he kissed his peaceful drive goodbye. Weddings were his worst nightmare. Spending four hours in a car with a chatty little bridesmaid didn’t exactly float his boat.
Although the bridal party was bound to be stocked with leggy showgirls, so it might not be that bad...
Dios.
He stuck his head out into the aisle, only to find that the French Miss was leaning out too.
She had the open, hopeful expression of a cartoon princess awaiting aid from one of her magical creatures.
Then she saw him, and her expression darkened and her eyes diminished to dark cat-like slits.
As if on cue a flight attendant appeared at her side, with still water and what appeared to be some form of medication.
A headache? It just got better and better.
He flipped open the attachment Khaled had sent him, but a part of him already knew what he was going to see.
He didn’t know whether to laugh or groan.
A dark-eyed angel gazed seriously up at him from the screen.
She was really quite something.
He angled a resigned glance down the aisle. The only problem was—she was also her.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_3deab798-46af-5f9f-8ff7-61630b804d2d)
MAKE ME?
Trotting across the plane’s bridge, Lulu fumed. It was at the forefront of her mind to make a complaint to the airline.
Women should be free to fly the skies unmolested by hulking great brutes who thought they occupied the high moral ground.
Although she guessed he did.
She guessed he didn’t think much of her because she hadn’t given up her seat.
Lulu’s heart plummeted.
She’d seen the looks on the other passengers’ faces and knew they all felt the same way, but what could she have done?
The cabin crew had been apprised of her condition and had been considerate with all of her requests. Only one of them clearly hadn’t got the memo regarding her flying issues, and when she’d been asked to move to another seat her feet had turned to lead.
Just the idea of shifting everything, when she’d created a safe little space for herself around her seat, had been too overwhelming. She might as well have been asked to leap from the plane!
By the time she was waiting at the luggage carousel Lulu was no longer fuming but feeling utterly wretched.
What kind of a person didn’t give up their seat to a sick, elderly man?
Perhaps she should have heeded her mother’s advice and brought someone with her? Lulu worried. Then none of this would have happened.
But how was she to have anything like a normal life if she always had to take people along with her? She was a full-grown woman—not an invalid! She could do better than this. She stood up straighter. She could try harder...
She was trying harder.
Ever since she had tried to break up her best friend’s relationship six months ago she’d been actively trying to do better.
She’d found a different therapist from the one her parents had arranged and got a proper diagnosis. At least she knew now that her actions with Gigi had been motivated by separation anxiety and were a symptom of her illness.
But it would have been too easy to use her condition as an excuse for her behaviour—lying to bring Gigi back home just so she could feel safer, and in the process trying to steal her best friend’s joy with a man who’d proved to be the best thing that had ever happened to her. Who did something like that? A boxed-in, desperate person, that was who—and she didn’t want to be that person any more.
That was why she was in the process of turning her entire life upside down.
She had signed up for a course in costume design and she now had ambitions for a life beyond the cabaret.
It had been that single act which had given her the necessary self-confidence to imagine she could undertake this flight on her own.
But all her preparations for taking the flight hadn’t factored in a big, macho stranger, cornering her in the aisle on her way back from the facilities, where most of the contents of her stomach had gone down the toilet.
‘A piece of work’, he’d called her. As if she were defective—something she’d worked hard with her therapist to convince herself she wasn’t.
Lulu realised her hand was shaking as she pointed out her luggage to the nice airport attendant who had volunteered to help her.
That was something that man from the plane could have been—helpful rather than being horrible to her.
Oh, forget him, she told herself briskly. He’s probably forgotten all about you!
To be honest, as she made her way out into Arrivals with her stick-and-stop trolley, she was feeling a bit desperate, and was looking forward to seeing her fellow bridesmaids, Susie and Trixie. They at least would provide a buffer against the rest of the world.
Right now Lulu didn’t think she could face anything more challenging.
Only ten minutes later she was still scanning the crowd anxiously and wondering if she was even going to get to the castle before Gigi said I do.
She had her phone out to track down the other girls when she was nudged by a new influx of people streaming around her and jostled backwards into a warm, hard body. Incredibly hard. Masculine, judging by the size, the solidity and the weight of the strong hands that settled around her shoulders to steady her.
He said something and Lulu froze.
She recognised that voice.
Dieu, it was the bully from the plane.
Run—run!
But her legs had gone to water. As much as she reminded herself that hostile men didn’t scare her any more—she had rights...she was protected under the law—she still felt incredibly vulnerable. And she hated that feeling. She was trying so hard to be strong.
Which didn’t explain why she’d fastened her gaze on his wide sensual mouth, noticing the shadow along his jaw where he’d clearly shaved this morning and would probably need to shave again later. He was very masculine.
Lulu reminded herself that she didn’t like masculine men. She didn’t like the way they pushed and shoved and shouldered their way through the world and got away with things through intimidation. They made her nervous. Only this man didn’t exactly make her nervous—he made her something else.
It was the something else she was struggling with now, even knowing what a bully he was.
He was also gorgeously tall and broad-shouldered, with a stunning face—all cheekbones and sensuous mouth and golden-brown eyes that looked magnetic against the olive tint of his skin.
His tousled chestnut-brown hair was so thick and silky-looking her fingers just itched to touch it. She made fists of her hands.
She didn’t like him, and he was looking at her as if he didn’t like her very much either.
Good, it was mutual. The not liking, that was.
So what if he looked like...? Well, he looked like Gary Cooper. In his rakish early career, when he’d picked up and slept with every starlet who wasn’t nailed down.
Not Gregory Peck, though. Gregory Peck was reliable and stalwart and...decent. He would never insult a woman.
Stop staring at him. Stop comparing him to Golden Age Hollywood movie stars.
‘Buenas tardes, señorita,’ he said, in a voice that made him sound as if he was making an indecent proposal to her. ‘I believe you’re looking for me.’
Lulu automatically repressed the responsive curl of smoke in her lower belly raised by the sound of his deep and sexy Spanish accent.
No, no, no—he would be lighting no fires in her valley.
She drew herself up. ‘I certainly am not.’
Alejandro was tempted to shrug and walk away, and let the little princesita discover the hard way that he wasn’t trying to pick her up. But in the end he had a duty to perform for a friend and she was it.
She continued to regard him as if he would spring at her, so he extended his hand.
‘Alejandro du Crozier.’
She looked at his hand as if he’d pulled a gun on her.
‘Please leave me alone,’ she said, a touch furtively, and turned a rigid shoulder on him.
‘I’m not trying to pick you up, señorita.’ He tried again with what he considered was remarkable patience.
Her narrow back told him what she thought about that claim.
‘You clearly didn’t get the message. Lulu,’ he added dryly.
The use of her name had the intended effect. She peered at him cautiously over her shoulder, reminding Alejandro absurdly of a timid creature sticking its head out of a hole.
‘H-how do you know my name?’
He folded his arms.
‘I’m your ride,’ he said flatly.
‘My ride?’
As soon as she said it Lulu felt herself go red.
She didn’t have a dirty mind—truly she didn’t. She was always the last one to get the blue jokes that ran like quicksilver around the dressing room before shows at L’Oiseau Bleu, the Parisian cabaret where she danced in the chorus, but right now something seemed to have gone wrong with her. It had something to do with the way he looked at her—as if he knew exactly how she looked in her underwear.
Earlier he’d looked at her as if she was a bug he’d wanted to squash. Better to think about being the bug.
To her embarrassment she stepped back and almost tripped over her hand luggage. His hand shot out and grasped her elbow, saving her from a fall.
‘Careful, bella,’ he said, his warm breath brushing the top of her ear.
Her knees went to jelly.
She tried to tug herself free, confused. ‘Will you let me pass?’
‘Señorita,’ he said, holding her in place, ‘I am Alejandro du Crozier, and I will be driving you to the wedding.’
Her eyes flew to his. He knew about the wedding? That meant he was a guest too.
‘But Susie and Trixie are driving me to the wedding.’ As soon as she said it she realised those plans had possibly changed.
‘I know nothing of these women. I only know of you.’ His expression said that this wasn’t making his day.
Which was fine, Lulu decided. That made two of them. She gave another tug and he let go.
‘I don’t make a habit of going off with strange men, Mr—Mr—’
He pulled out his phone and held it up in front of her. She peered at the message on the screen and then looked at him in mute astonishment.
‘Khaled sent you?’
He gave that question the look it deserved. But he didn’t have to stand so close, did he? And he didn’t have to look at her mouth as if there was something about it that interested him. She most definitely didn’t have anything to interest him.
Weirdly, her heart was hammering.
His amber eyes, lushly lashed, met hers with a splintering intensity.
‘Unless you’re interested in walking, chica, I suggest you come with me now.’
He didn’t give her a chance to object. He was walking away. He clearly expected her to follow him.
Lulu stared after him.
He was the rudest man.
She found herself struggling one-handed with her stick-and-stop trolley, her hand luggage banging painfully against her leg.
She most certainly was not travelling with him in a car for three or four hours.
She would find a taxi.
She would entrust her person and her luggage to a man she had paid to do the task—not one who thought he was doing her a big favour.
Money was a woman’s greatest ally and protection. She knew it to be so. Without money her mother had been unable to escape her violent father.
Even now, with her mother blissfully married to another man, Lulu pushed her to keep her own bank account and manage her own money. Money gave you options. Lulu lifted her chin. Right now her own personal bank account gave her the ability to pay her way to Dunlosie Castle.
But when she emerged from the building it was into an overcast Edinburgh day. There was a light rain falling and Lulu stopped to retrieve her umbrella, opening it against the elements and peering about. She spotted the cab rank but there was a queue.
All right, sometimes those options a woman had weren’t optimal, but there was no help for it.
She pushed resolutely in that direction, aware that her pretty harlequin seamed stockings were receiving tiny splashes of dirty water with each step from the washback beneath the wheels of her trolley. The fact that she felt depleted from withstanding her own anxieties in the air for the last couple of hours wasn’t helping. Lulu wanted nothing more than to be warm and comfortable inside a car, with her shoes off, watching this bad weather through a windscreen.
Maybe she’d been a little hasty...
Which was when she saw the lovingly restored red vintage Jaguar.
The passenger side window came rolling down.
‘Get in,’ he instructed.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_c7810b53-3e87-5263-8183-666eb5a59a36)
LULU KNEW SHE had a decision to make.
She lifted her umbrella to take another look at the queue. Then she looked at her ‘ride’.
Hot and sexy and far too full of himself—and he had looked at her as if she was a bug.
Her pride pushed to the fore. She was not climbing into a car with a man who didn’t even have the decency to open the door for her. And what about her luggage?
Lulu was tempted in that moment to phone her parents, who would be arriving at the castle tonight. But how would that look? And she couldn’t lean on Gigi this weekend of all weekends.
She gasped as another splash of muddy water, this time from passing pedestrians, hit her shoes and saw the mud now attached to her sadly limp blue ribbons. Her pride wavered.
Dieu, she knew she’d regret this.
She grabbed her trolley and pushed it towards the back end of the car.
It was really completely unfair, but frankly she’d be a fool if she passed this up.
She stood there. In the rain. Waiting.
He took his time.
Lulu narrowed her eyes on his languid stroll around to the boot, all shoulders and confident attitude, looking infinitely rugged and male and capable.
But she knew differently. Knew how a sturdy exterior could mask all kinds of weaknesses and flaws.
She’d bet this man had plenty. For one thing, he didn’t like women. The things he’d said to her on the plane... The way he’d curled his lip at her shoes... She’d seen the way he’d looked at them. He had no idea how secure these shoes made her feel. She stamped one of them, because he was making her wait deliberately.
‘Open the boot, would you?’
He looked her up and down. She wasn’t going to apologise for her rudeness. He needed to know she was onto him.
All the same, she took a shuffling step backwards.
She drew herself up, happily over six feet in her shoes, but still gallingly forced to tip up her chin to look him in the eye.
With a half-smile, as if he knew what she was doing, he unlocked the boot, and Lulu was mollified—and a little relieved—when without a word he began hauling her luggage inside.
He handled the matching powder-blue cases as if they weighed nothing. The problem was he was tossing them into the boot as if he was shifting hay bales.
Lulu made a sound of dismay, but from the look he gave her she was a little afraid he might haul her in there too if she said something.
It was only when he looked about to launch her carpet bag after the cases that she jumped and threw herself bodily in front of him to prevent certain shattering.
‘Doux Jésus, stop!’
He held off, but the look on his face told her he was unimpressed—which was pretty rich, given he was the one destroying her property!
‘It contains the crystal I’ve brought as a wedding gift. For Gigi—and Khaled,’ she added, grudgingly.
‘Crystal?’
‘Goblets...tableware. Crystal.’
He continued to stare at her, as if she’d announced she was giving them a horse and cart.
Lulu inhaled a breath. She held out her arms. ‘Give that to me.’
He complied, but she wasn’t expecting him to step right up to her. She was suddenly more aware of him than ever, and inhaled his aftershave—something woodsy that mingled with the scent of his own skin. It was attractively male in a way she wasn’t used to.
Confused and flustered, Lulu looked up.
She encountered his firm chin and the sensuous line of his mouth, which only made her feel more unsettled.
He had a faint frown on his face and she suspected she mirrored it.
She turned her back on him to lodge the bag carefully between two cases to prevent it being bounced around.
Rude, ignorant, appalling, macho jerk.
He waited until she’d stepped back to lower the boot. She waited patiently by the passenger door with her umbrella. But he abruptly headed for the driver’s side of the car.
‘The “macho jerk” wants you to get in the car,’ he said flatly as he yanked open his door.
Lulu realised two things in that moment. One, she’d spoken her thoughts aloud, and, two, he wasn’t going to open her door.
Given he had all her luggage now locked up inside his car, she didn’t have much choice, but she cursed herself for her weakness. She should have waited for a cab.
As if to remind her why she’d made her choice, the rain began to pelt harder.
Why is this happening to me?
She closed her umbrella and opened the door herself.
‘Try not to drip on the upholstery,’ he shot at her as she lodged her furled umbrella at her feet.
Distinctly queasy with the added tension, Lulu looked around in desperation. Where did he expect her to put it?
‘Here.’ He took it from her hand and laid it on the coat he’d tossed on the back seat.
Alejandro then turned back to discover that instead of buckling herself in she had shoved the door open further, so that the rain had begun to slant in.
His temper snapped. ‘Close that damn door!’
She looked for a moment as if she was going to jump right out of the car.
And then she leaned forward and began to dry retch miserably into the gutter.
He wrenched open his door and cut around the car to find her bent double.
He hunkered down. The face she lifted was bone-white. This she couldn’t fake. She clearly wasn’t well, and he suspected he’d got some things wrong. He produced a handkerchief to blot her mouth and soak up the tears that were sliding down her cheeks.
If she’d been hoping for some sympathy it was effective. The big glistening eyes, the silent tears, how fragile she suddenly looked beneath her showy outfit—as if she was trying to shrink into invisibility within it...
He put his hands around her shoulders to help her back into the car and out of the rain, but her response took him off guard. Her arms shot out and she instantly had them wrapped around his neck as tenaciously as a strangling vine.
He was enveloped in the scent of her, and he wondered for a second if this was her clumsy attempt at a pass. Only the feel of her rapid heartbeat told him she was scared. It was like holding a small nervous bird to his chest—as if what she was feeling was too big for her slight body. And yet what had she to be scared of?
She was overwrought—that was all, he told himself, and possibly a little the worse for wear from her in-flight tippling.
A better question was how had he come to be the only man in Scotland who was saddled with the job of delivering a vodka-wilted bridesmaid to their shared destination?
It had to be vodka, because he couldn’t smell any alcohol on her. All he smelt were those cottage violets—and something warmer and real that was just her.
He tentatively rubbed her back, as he would one of the young kids on the estancia who had taken a fall from a horse and had the wind knocked out of them, and tried to ignore the fact that she was an incredibly appealing full-grown female with her breasts pushed up against his chest.
‘I don’t think I’ll be sick again,’ she confided miserably.
She hadn’t actually done anything other than spit up a little bile, but he didn’t doubt her suffering. She looked more miserable than a human being should.
‘Please don’t tell anybody about this,’ she said in a muffled voice against his neck.
It was a strange request, but she was obviously serious about it.
He cleared his throat. ‘Come on, let’s strap you in. Are you all right to travel?’
She nodded, allowing him to help her.
He went around to the boot to grab a bottle of water from the chiller. He yanked the screw lid off for her and when he offered it to her she took a few grateful sips.
‘Okay now?’ he asked gruffly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said huskily, swallowing deeply and refusing to meet his eyes. ‘It won’t happen again.’
He drove the keys into the ignition.
‘Do you want to stop for coffee? Get something in your stomach?’
She shuddered. ‘I can’t think of anything worse.’
‘It might sober you up.’
Her eyes flashed his way in confusion. ‘I am sober.’
He gave her an old-fashioned look.
‘I am not drunk. I have not been drinking.’
‘You can deny it if you want, querida. It doesn’t change the fact you were stumbling all over that flight, your words were a little slurry and you’ve just been sick.’
She looked at him in horror, her knuckles white around the bottle. ‘I wasn’t— That’s you— I mean, nobody else thought that—’
Lulu tried to control her shaking because it wasn’t helping her case.
‘Maybe I should just find a taxi,’ she said, deeply humiliated, and distressed as she sloshed some of the water on her skirt. Although getting out of this car was the last thing she felt up to doing. ‘This isn’t working for me and it’s clearly not working for you.’
‘Look,’ he said, keeping the car idling while he took the bottle from her hands, lidded it and tossed it onto the back seat. ‘In my experience nobody likes to be confronted with their behaviour while under the influence. You had a few drinks on the flight...they didn’t agree with you. I’m not judging.’
‘Yes, you are judging,’ she burst out unhappily. ‘And nobody thought I was drunk.’
‘No, probably not—they were too busy thinking what a pain in the arse you were to fly with.’
Her chin wobbled. ‘Do you get something out of insulting me?’
‘Sí, it takes the edge off.’
She stared at him. He’d silenced her. Good. The truth was she still looked very pale, and he didn’t want to argue with her any more.
‘If you must know,’ she said, clearly unable or unwilling to let this go, ‘I had some analgesics on the plane on an empty stomach and they disagreed with me. They’re to blame.’
Alejandro was ready to dismiss this out of hand, only then he remembered the medication he’d seen delivered to her.
‘Well, that was stupid,’ he said.
He ignored the wounded look on her face. She could save it. He’d been manipulated by women who made this one look like a rank amateur. Besides, he wasn’t playing Sir Galahad to her fair maiden. Been there, done that—had the divorce papers to prove it. The problem was she was already getting to him.
He swung the car out into the traffic. ‘Almost as stupid as not giving up your seat on the flight,’ he reiterated.
Lulu realised she was cornered. How on earth did she answer that?
‘It’s not your business,’ she muttered, looking away.
There was no way she could tell him that whatever had been in her stomach had ended up in the plane toilet, because that was going to lead to more questions.
Questions with answers that had nothing whatsoever to do with him.
It was her private business. Her mother had drummed that into her years ago.
‘If you weren’t drunk there’s nowhere to hide, querida. I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. But you behaved like a spoilt brat. Forgive me if I choose to treat you like one.’
Lulu wanted to die of shame.
‘You’re an awful man,’ she muttered, ‘I hope we have nothing to do with each other this weekend at the castle.’
‘Sweetheart, you took the words out of my mouth.’
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_34d46bce-99f1-54d8-a3c0-306fdbcfa164)
THEY STOPPED TO fuel up the car after a couple of hours on the road. Lulu wound down her window and saw a newspaper headline behind the glass of the service station window: Celebrity Wedding. Oligarch Brings in Private Army of Security.
It was a little daunting to realise she was heading into all that.
The other daunting reality was striding back towards the car. His superbly fit and powerful frame was gloved in an understated but clearly expensive set of dark trousers and a navy shirt. Like a man who went on secret missions with the armed forces and climbed walls without ropes, just using his weapon of a body as all the equipment he required.
Lulu looked away.
Ah, oui, this was her new little problem. She had discovered now she felt physically better that she was responding to that Latin machismo thing some women went a little silly over. She might not have a boyfriend as such, but she did have hormones.
She really needed to make a big effort to curb her imagination.
People were looking his way as he approached the car. So maybe she wasn’t the only one. She had to admit he had the impervious aura of confidence that belonged to someone for whom the small stuff of life was taken care of. She imagined Alejandro du Crozier rarely fuelled up his own car, although he’d taken care of it easily enough.
She had watched him do it through the side mirror—watched him sticking the petrol gun into the tank. There was something about a man’s broad forearm, a chunk of watch, a powerful wrist and a strong hand gripping the nozzle that put all sorts of erotic images into a woman’s head.
Admittedly they were images mostly gleaned from books she’d read. Her personal notebook of erotic experiences was fairly limited.
Alejandro tossed a wrapped sandwich onto her lap as he eased in beside her and turned the engine over.
‘Ham salad. It’s not much, but it should tide you over until we reach Dunlosie.’
Lulu wondered if this was him thawing towards her. Whatever it was, it was a thoughtful gesture. ‘Thank you,’ she said uncertainly, and busied herself with unwrapping her sandwich.
She could feel his eyes on her.
‘Would you like half?’ she offered.
Alejandro had bought the sandwich with an eye to her turning up her pert little nose at plastic-wrapped food. His preconceptions took a solid hit.
‘I had a king’s breakfast,’ he said shortly. ‘Eat up.’
Lulu gave an internal sigh. So much for the thaw.
Half an hour up the road, Alejandro flipped his phone onto speaker.
A male voice began to speak in Spanish, and Alejandro replied in the same language.
Lulu found herself transfixed by the deep, mellifluous quality of his voice as he spoke his own language. Then a Scot’s voice came on the line.
‘We’re pleased to have you here in Edinburgh, Mr du Crozier. Congratulations on captaining South America to that win in Palermo. It warms a Scotsman’s heart to see the English floundering on a field.’
Lulu’s head snapped around at that. What was this?
Alejandro chuckled. ‘No problem at all,’ he said easily in his smooth, deep voice. ‘It was a good match.’
Lulu felt as if she’d had the rug pulled out from under her. Where had this come from? The smile, the ease, the charm?
‘We will be sending our principal to you tomorrow, at your convenience and we’ll give you an aerial viewing of the property. Will it be just you, Mr du Crozier?’
‘Possibly one other.’ Alejandro glanced her way. ‘Two o’clock looks good.’
As he ended the call Lulu told herself not to make any enquiries—she would only look nosey.
‘I’m looking at property while I’m here,’ he said, his eyes on the road. ‘I’m thinking of investing in a golf course. It’s on a picturesque strip of land along the coast near Dunlosie.’
He didn’t look like a golfer. Although she suspected those broad shoulders and strong arms could hit a golf ball to the moon and back.
‘Do you play golf professionally?’ she ventured. When he raised an eyebrow she added hurriedly, so that she didn’t look stupid, ‘That man said something about you captaining a team?’
He smiled slightly. ‘Polo. I captained South America.’ He was watching her as if gauging her reaction. ‘It received some press coverage.’
Vaguely his name stirred a memory. She rather thought she ought to know it.
‘I have a little fame, Lulu.’
He must have read her frown.
‘Ah, oui.’
She tried not to look curious or impressed, or as if she cared. He was smiling to himself, and she wanted to tell him she didn’t care if he was famous, or who he knew. It wasn’t as if she was angling to spend any time with him when they reached the castle. She wasn’t interested in him. He was just transport.
She leaned forward and rummaged in her bag.
It was almost a relief to have her phone in her hand and something to concentrate on other than the magnetism of the man beside her.
He flicked on the sound system.
‘Is that necessary?’
Alejandro spared her a glance. ‘It passes the time.’
‘I’m trying to do some work.’
‘Games on your phone?’
‘Wedding plans. See.’ She held it up but he kept his eye on the wet road.
‘Isn’t that the bride and groom’s prerogative?’
‘I’m maid of honour,’ she said proudly. ‘I have responsibilities.’
Alejandro thumped the wheel with the heel of his hand.
‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded.
‘Santa Maria,’ he said under his breath, and after a moment began to chuckle.
‘What’s so funny?’
When he kept laughing her expression took on a look of bafflement, and for a moment she looked very young and decidedly adorable.
He didn’t want her to look adorable. He took another look. Definitely adorable. No wonder she had entitlement issues. He doubted there was a man alive who could resist those big brown eyes or her air of fragility.
It would bother him. If he was considering taking this anywhere. But since the day he had learned he’d inherited everything, in the form of the estancia and all the debts his father had collected, and gained nothing but his mother’s endless demands for more money, his wife’s desire for freedom and the everlasting dissatisfaction of his disinherited sisters he’d carried around the feeling that he’d let them all down.
Fragile women required a lot more than he was able to give.
‘I want to know why you’re laughing at me,’ she insisted.
‘I’m going to kill him.’
‘Kill who? What are you talking about?’
‘Fate. The universe. Khaled Kitaev.’
‘You’re not making any sense.’
‘I’m padrino de boda, querida.’
She had a blank look on her face that made him want to spin this out a little longer, because watching her lose a little of that tight composure was almost worth the hassle.
He relented and filled her in. ‘Best man.’
She dropped her device and it slithered through her satin skirt and thumped at her feet.
‘You can’t be!’
‘I am.’
‘But we don’t like each other.’ She clamped her mouth shut, as if she couldn’t believe that had just slipped out.
No, maybe not, but he’d just discovered he did like her. She might be spoiled and self-centred, but he lived in a world where most women fell at his feet.
Lulu Lachaille would fall, if he applied the right pressure here and there, but she wasn’t going to trip herself up.
She might just be what he was looking for this weekend after all.
Distraction from the spectacle that was a wedding, where everybody mouthed belief in fidelity and love ever after but nobody in his world practised it.
Although he had to admit Khaled and Gigi did seem to be that rarest of unions—a couple who genuinely liked one another.
And he liked Gigi’s little friend, with her pretty curls and her rosebud pout and her French girl’s way of looking as if she was bored and it was his job to entertain her.
‘I wouldn’t say I don’t like you,’ he said, checking out her pretty knees, just visible under the froth of her netted underskirt. Her hands went there immediately, smoothing it down.
‘Not in that way,’ she said crossly. ‘I don’t want you to like me that way at all. I mean in a platonic sense. In a maid of honour and best man duty sense.’
‘Now I’m a duty? Careful, querida, you’ll damage my ego.’
‘I doubt that,’ she said repressively.
He grinned.
She looked decidedly flummoxed.
‘You’ll need to make an effort, then,’ she blurted out almost defensively.
‘I intend to.’
Lulu tried to ignore the fact that she felt hot all over. Was he flirting with her?
‘I’m serious. You’ll have to be polite to me so people don’t notice anything’s wrong.’
But something is wrong, thought Lulu, checking him out surreptitiously. Why did he have that sexy half-smile sitting at the corner of his mouth? He kept looking at her and she didn’t want him to look at her. It made her feel most unlike herself.
‘The best man has duties with the maid of honour,’ she persevered staunchly, feeling as if she was drowning in something and holding on to talk of the wedding as a life buoy.
‘Sí, I believe he does.’
Not those kind of duties. The thought just appeared in her head. It should have embarrassed her, and her heart was racing crazily, but a big part of her was actually enjoying the attention.
Alejandro du Crozier was flirting with her and she wasn’t diving for the nearest manhole to escape.
Probably because she knew she wouldn’t be seeing him again after this weekend.
It wasn’t as if he was going to ask her out. This was just a straightforward few hours in a car together, and then there was the weekend... Maybe it would be okay just to pretend for a few hours that she was normal and he was...interested?
That was when the car gave a bit of a lurch, and the sound of rubber dragging on the road had Lulu gripping her seat.
Alejandro said something filthy in Spanish even as he braked, and all the heat that had been building between them dissipated with the reality of the car coming to a stop at the side of the road.
Lulu forgot how much she’d been enjoying herself as her old friend panic set in and she looked around wildly. ‘What’s going on? Why are we stopping?’
There was no way she was getting out here, in the middle of nowhere!
‘It’s a flat. The back left tyre is shot.’
At least it wasn’t electrical. Lulu slumped a little in her seat. She could stay where she was, safe and sound, and it wouldn’t take too long. She could manage this. But she needed to dial down the panic. She cast about for something to pin her focus to in the car and remembered her phone.
In the silence that followed she glanced up, only to find he was watching her. She really didn’t want him to notice how nervous she was. ‘Well, fix it,’ she said defensively, before returning her attention to the screen.
Fix it?
Alejandro cut the engine and eased back in his seat to take a good look at what exactly he had on his hands.
One hundred and thirty pounds, at a guess, of Paris-bred entitlement—and he damn well wasn’t her mechanic. His gaze dwelt on her soft, petulant mouth. Although there was something he wouldn’t mind fixing.
He reached across, plucked her phone from her hands and tossed it onto the back seat.
Time to take the edge off his distracting sexual interest in her.
Lulu gave him a puzzled look. He’d sort that out for her too.
He leaned in.
Her eyes widened, her breath came short, but she didn’t exactly push him away as he slid his fingers through the astonishingly silky weight of curls behind her head and fitted his mouth with practised ease to hers.
Her muffled yelp gave him the opportunity to invade her warm mouth. He had planned to make this quick. He didn’t linger where he wasn’t wanted. Only Lulu wasn’t struggling, and she made no attempt to push him away. Instead her hands unfolded over his shoulders and then, almost tentatively, she was kissing him back.
He let her.
This wasn’t about proving a point any more.
Her hand stroked gently against his shoulder as she moved her mouth sensuously against his.
She was seducing him. And it was working. His body was suddenly as hard as a pick axe.
Which was inconvenient, given neither of them could do anything about it right now, in a broken-down car on the side of a quiet Scottish road.
Sí, not one of his smarter moves.
He began to think about leaping into ice holes in Reykjavik, of losing to a lesser team, about the very real possibility that a photo of him making out like a teenager with this girl might all too easily end up on the internet.
But what should have killed his desire stone-dead was the wave of tenderness that came over him as she drew away and hid her face in his neck in a gesture of embarrassment that oddly, crazily, had a rush of male protectiveness surging up from nowhere.
He found himself stroking the back of her neck, the urge to be affectionate with her amazingly strong.
Fragile, he told himself again. She’s fragile.
Lulu was aware that Alejandro was moving away from her and she had nowhere to hide. One minute she’d been trying to control her panic, the next she’d been tipped into something she hadn’t had a lot of in her twenty-three years—the feel, the scent, the excitement of a man kissing her. And not just any man. This man. This very masculine man, who knew exactly what he was doing.
Her heart had slammed against her chest as his mouth had slid against hers. It had been the most invigorating experience of her life.
She waited for him to say something, because for the life of her she had nothing. Zero.
‘All fixed now,’ he said, dropping the words into her lap as if he’d tossed her his hotel room key.
It wasn’t his words but the deliberation with which he wielded them that had her gaze flying to meet his. And then his meaning became clear.
Fixed? Lulu floundered with the concept. He’d done it on purpose? He hadn’t been carried away like her at all?
Mon Dieu, what a little fool she was.
Her heart was still galloping like a wild horse, and now it picked up pace for all the wrong reasons.
She was aware of him watching her from beneath hooded eyes...aware that he now knew a great deal more about her than he had minutes ago. More than any man knew, to her deep embarrassment. And he’d set her up. He’d done it to humiliate her.
Her hand shot out but he caught it before she found her target. ‘No slapping, mi belleza.’
Alejandro watched the struggle on her face and, as much as he welcomed the status quo between them being lodged once more in place, he knew he’d acted like a bastard.
And that was when he heard it. The rumble.
His attention moved across to the side rear-vision mirror and he saw what was coming.
Lulu wrenched her wrist out of his hold and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand to give him the message. ‘You’re never to do that again.’
‘Fine.’ He kept his eye on what was coming.
‘There’s a name for men who force themselves on unwilling women.’ She addressed him directly, unbuckling her belt.
That had his attention.
‘I didn’t use any force, querida.’ He was frowning at her. ‘You were with me the whole way. It’s called chemistry.’
‘I know what it’s called.’ She opened her door.
‘Where the hell are you going?’ he growled, not liking her spin on this.
‘Somewhere far away from you.’ Which was when she gave a shriek and slammed the door shut again.
Around them a sea of black-faced sheep surged, like something out of a biblical plague. The car rocked slightly with the force.
‘I probably should have mentioned that,’ Alejandro drawled, winding down his window. ‘We’ve got company.’
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_9f6786cb-c70c-5148-b889-ea5bdff5685f)
I’M GOING TO DIE.
Lulu went stiff as a board as all around her the road just seemed to fill up with sheep.
‘Welcome to Scotland,’ said Alejandro, propping one arm casually on the door, as if floating in a sea of sheep happened regularly in Argentina.
A whimper had buried itself at the base of her throat, and she just knew that if she opened her mouth it would come out and humiliate her. But, really, how much worse could it get?
She had to speak. To make something happen.
‘Drive, why don’t you?’ she hissed at him a little desperately.
‘Where?’ He gestured at the woolly tide. ‘This is Scotland, chica. Here we give way to sheep.’
Lulu didn’t know if this was true or just more of him tormenting her. She suspected a little of both.
‘Besides,’ he added, ‘the back tyre’s shot.’
Forget the tyre! She was shot. Her mouth pulsed from his kiss and her body felt oddly light, but that might be shock setting in. Because those big, woolly mammoths with their black faces were turning her tummy to cold liquid and her pulse was going so fast she thought she might pass out.
This was worse than a two-hour flight from Paris to Edinburgh, or letting a man she had only known for a few hours at most plant a kiss on her.
This was her worst nightmare.
Because she couldn’t escape. And the knowledge that she was only inches away from a full meltdown in front of this man was probably the only thing keeping her upright and frozen in her seat.
She knew she should never have got in this car with him.
She had no more control over her anxieties than she’d possessed this morning before the flight, when she’d knelt over the porcelain bowl at home in her flat and lost her breakfast.
Dieu, what if she was sick again? In this car? He wouldn’t be kind. There wasn’t a kind bone in his body.
There was a click, and Lulu realised he’d opened his door.
‘What are you doing?’ she almost shrieked.
He looked surprised by her vehemence. ‘I’m going to have a word with the farmer,’ he said mildly. ‘It’s a damn sight better than sitting here. Come on.’
‘No!’ She clutched hold of his arm.
‘Or we could stay here and neck like a couple of teenagers,’ he said dryly.
Lulu let him go in a flash, and discovered she really was between a rock and a hard place.
‘Come on,’ he said more patiently. ‘Stretch your legs.’
Lulu flailed around for a reason not to—any reason. ‘I don’t like sheep. They’re smelly, and—’ she cast about for something...anything ‘—and I’ll wreck my shoes.’
He gave her a look that in all honesty she knew her comments deserved and her toes curled under inside said shoes. The last of the confident, take-on-the-world Lulu died inside her. The Lulu who had sprung to life in his arms and kissed him back barely had time to take flight. She was back to being useless.
What made it worse was that he shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him either way, which she guessed it didn’t.
‘Suit yourself, chica.’ He swung open his door and Lulu realised he was serious.
He was also back to calling her chica.
Lulu watched in tense dismay as he took off in easy strides down the road, all shoulders and masculine confidence, shouting out something to the two men driving the sheep. Obviously magic words, given they waited for him and then stood around conversing with him like old friends.
She sat forward, her nose almost to the glass, wondering what on earth they had to say to one another that was causing such a friendly, animated discussion. When he spoke to her all he did was rile her and growl. Or kiss her. Lulu hesitantly touched her mouth and swore she could still feel tingling.
A loud, long bleat sounded over her right shoulder and Lulu almost shot through the roof, any thoughts of kissing him shattering into a thousand pieces.
To her relief he came strolling back to the car. He leaned in.
‘Some of the connections are probably loose, I could fix it but it might happen again. Tell you what, I’ll give road assistance a call and organize another car. There’s a pub just down the road. We can wander down and wait for them there.’
Lulu knew this was the moment a normal, sensible woman would confess her problem. She would explain why there was no way she could get out, due to her difficulties, and they would come up with a solution together.
Only there wasn’t really a solution, was there? And right now she wasn’t a sensible woman. She was in the grip of a building panic attack.
Lulu heard herself say, ‘I have no intention of going anywhere.’
He straightened up, and for a long, awful moment Lulu thought he was going to turn around and leave her here.
Please don’t abandon me.
The words were forced up from deep inside her, where a small frightened girl was still cowering.
Then she realised he was walking away, and an awful cold feeling began to invade her limbs, only for him to stop at the front of the car.
‘Pop the hood,’ he called to her.
Lulu scrambled to obey him, jamming her middle with the gearstick but hardly noticing. He would never know how grateful she was that he wasn’t going anywhere, and she knew she was safe as long as she stayed in the car.
All she needed now was to keep her adrenal glands from overshooting the mark.
She fumbled in her bag for her handkerchief, soaked in lavender, peppermint and rosemary oil, and held it to her nose with one hand as she attached the earbuds to her mp3 player and pushed them into her ears with the other.
She shut her eyes and willed the meditation track she’d been listening to throughout the flight to drop her back into her own little world, where nothing could harm her.
Alejandro checked the connections and then opened the back door to grab a hand towel from the storage space under the front seat.
The little French princess was plugged into her music, a handkerchief at her nose to block out the odour of the sheep...the farmer...of anything that offended her delicate sensibilities. Which probably included him.
There’s a name for men who force themselves on unwilling women.
Bull.
He shut the rear door with a slam.
Lulu pulled the earbuds out and looked around with a start. She transferred her attention to the raised bonnet.
Which was when it occurred to her that he was at the wrong end of the car.
The sheep appeared to have moved on. Carefully she edged open the door and, when it felt safe, stepped out onto the road. Nothing happened. The ground didn’t tilt under her, and there was nothing but the smell of fresh grass and sheep manure and peat. She inhaled. It wasn’t bad.
Alejandro saw the flash of turquoise skirts disappear to the rear of the car. The boot came up.
He lowered the bonnet and came around to find Lulu wrestling the spare tyre out of the wheel well.
‘Should I ask what you’re doing?’
She ignored him, yanking at the tyre with both hands, moving it to the rim of the boot and then bouncing it onto the ground.
With a little lift of her chin she rolled it around to lean it against the side of the car.
‘I suppose a better question is do you know what you’re doing?’ he asked, his voice taking on a note of real amusement.
In answer, she retrieved the canvas bag tucked to the side of the wheel well, untied it and produced the wheel brace like a trophy, together with the jack and jack handle, which she laid out on the ground.
Alejandro gave her a grudging nod of respect and Lulu felt a small surge of confidence.
There was very little she had to thank her deadbeat dad for, but the fact that she could change a tyre, fix a leaky tap and unclog the drains in a bathroom were all down to a childhood when she hadn’t had a choice. Maman hadn’t been able to afford help—they’d had to do everything themselves.
‘You might want to take those shoes off first, querida,’ he suggested.
She gave that the disdainful look that comment deserved. ‘I’m an ex-ballerina. After pointes four-inch heels are nothing.’
Still, it was a bit of a wrestle to get the hubcap off and keep her balance, so he might have had a point, but once she had it free she used the wheel brace to loosen the nuts. She crouched down in a puff of satin and tulle underskirts and positioned the jack under the car.
She was aware that Alejandro was leaning over her for a closer look. Determined to do a good job, she began turning the jack handle and the car lifted with a slow creak.
When the wheel was clear of the ground she clasped it on either side and pulled.
The weight of it had her staggering backwards, and she gave an ‘ouf’ as Alejandro caught and steadied her.
Lulu had the oddest sensation that she would have liked to stay there, with his big solid body sheltering her and his hands sending all sorts of messages to parts of her she had grown used to ignoring.
‘That’s enough,’ he said in his deep voice. ‘I’ll finish this.’
For a moment Lulu had an altogether different image in her mind from the one she beheld as he let her go, stepped in and lifted the spare tyre with enviable ease, swiftly replacing all the wheel nuts with the brace and winding the jack in a reverse position to lower the car to the ground.
He’s turned me into a nymphomaniac, she thought. Who knew what he did to women who already liked sex?
He tightened the nuts and shoved the hubcap back into place, replaced the old wheel in the boot, along with the tools, and slammed down the lid.
Lulu had her hand out.
‘Give me the keys,’ she said.
Alejandro knew where this was going, but it was no skin off his nose. He handed them over.
She marched around to the driver’s seat, casting him a pointed look over the roof of the car. ‘Well, get in.’
He grinned and eased his muscled frame in beside her.
Violets. The scent was hot in his nostrils now. They flared appreciably.
She didn’t look like the girl he’d picked up this morning. Her dark curls were ruffled in a halo around a face that was reddened either from the wind or exertion or just sheer temper. Her dark eyes shone and her skirt was sadly crumpled. There was a grease stain on her top. But, with her jacket neatly folded on the back seat, she was showing off two neat little scoops of bosom above the tight neckline of her top.
He noticed that her shoes, now caked in mud, had been discarded in the passenger footwell and she had a look of fierce concentration on her face.
She looked exactly the way she had when he’d kissed her, wild and beautiful, and it sharpened his hunger for her.
She pulled out onto the road and took off.
‘You might want to watch your speed,’ he observed, unable to take his eyes off her.
‘You might want to tell me why you thought it was fine to leave me locked in a car in the middle of nowhere.’
‘You weren’t locked in, and I went to find out what we needed to know.’ He eyed her stained clothing. ‘What I can’t work out is why you put on that little show back there about not getting out of the car—’
‘None of your business.’
‘When you’re so clearly capable.’
She glanced at him, a little dumbfounded, then looked back at the road. He was glad she was concentrating on the road.
‘Yes, I am. Capable.’
‘Do you know where we’re going, querida?’
She changed gear and pushed those wild curls out of her eyes in a defiant gesture. ‘Of course I do.’
He noted the sign to Inverary as it flashed past. His gaze dropped to those twin scoops, rising and falling gently above her neckline, to the sensual pout of her lower lip above that jaunty little chin.
She looked so pleased with herself he decided not to inform her that they were going the wrong way. He was in no hurry to get to the castle, to be bored to death by talk of for ever and happy-ever-after. No... He settled back comfortably, folded his arms across his chest and pretended to close his eyes. He was going to let this run a little longer, and then, when she’d run out of steam and learned her lesson, he’d think about taking this chemistry between them to its natural conclusion.
* * *
Lulu peered out at the passing countryside. According to her map, shouldn’t they be approaching the motorway by now? It was growing dark, and it was raining, and she didn’t have a clue where they were.
The ribbon of road had grown narrower and it was impossible to read the signs. The headlights on the car lit up only the road ahead, making everything that lay outside it seem menacing and vaguely supernatural.
Lulu liked the countryside—in the daylight, and from the confines of a car, and preferably not stopping. But she was going to have to pull over. The fuel tank was bobbing close to empty.
She brought the car to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Then reached over and touched Alejandro’s impressive shoulder.
He felt warm and reassuringly powerful beneath her hand.
He didn’t stir.
She gave him a more definite push. ‘Mr du Crozier.’
No response.
‘Alejandro!’
Thick sable lashes lifted and his eyes gleamed speculatively over her in the same way the headlights lit up the road ahead. He was looking at her as if she were naked, which was disconcerting enough, and Lulu had a sudden, completely outrageous thought that he hadn’t been sleeping at all.
‘We appear to be lost,’ she said unwillingly.
‘You don’t say?’
His voice was husky, but not with sleep. Lulu swallowed.
There was something very intimate about their proximity, as if the darkness outside and the quiet within had made the space between them somehow more personal.
Lulu licked her lips. ‘I don’t know where we are.’
‘Fortunate, isn’t it,’ he said in that low, taunting voice, ‘that I do?’
He undid his seatbelt and opened the car door.
‘I’m driving,’ he said unnecessarily.
Lulu released the breath she hadn’t known she was holding and, rather than stepping outside, scrambled nimbly over the gearbox and tucked her skirts around her in the passenger seat.
Alejandro took the wheel and swung the car back out onto the road.
‘How do you know?’ she demanded.
‘I saw the last sign. We’re just outside Inverness.’
Relief swamped her. Then she frowned. ‘But you were asleep.’
‘Let’s just say I’m not a heavy sleeper, querida,’ he responded with a glint in his eyes.
She knew it! Impossible man. But her heart was pounding a little, and she found herself watching him and waiting to see what he’d do next.
Alejandro had them on the motorway within ten short minutes. Lulu discovered she was feeling a little out of sorts now her adventure was over.
She tried to envisage the weekend ahead on her own, and it was so depressing that in her head she found herself shaping sentences she didn’t know if she had the guts to go through with, let alone ask.
I’m on my own this weekend...you’re on your own. I’m maid of honour...you’re best man. Doesn’t it make sense if we pair up? Maybe you could kiss me again?
And that was when a huge gust of wind buffeted the car and all the available light left in the sky dwindled to nothing and the rain came down.
Alejandro slowed them to a crawl, along with the two or three other vehicles on the road.
‘Kilantree...’ she read from the sign ahead under the spray of their headlights. ‘One mile. Is Kilantree near Dunlosie Castle?’ she asked.
‘Not near enough.’
To her surprise, Alejandro eased the car into the turn-off lane.
‘What are you doing?’
‘It’s dark, it’s raining, and I don’t know these roads. We won’t make Dunlosie tonight.’
‘What does that mean?’
Although all of a sudden she did know, and for the first time in years having her routine destroyed didn’t bring on feelings of anxiety. Quite the contrary...
‘We’re spending the night here.’
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_e94ecb4a-0e12-58be-957f-174c4edb835e)
THE DIRECTIONS THEY’D received at the pub in Kilantree’s main street took them just out of town and up a long steep drive to Mrs Bailey’s B&B. The place proved to be a fairly substantial cottage. The eponymous Mrs Bailey appeared in dressing gown and slippers.
‘Well, now, bring the lassie in—you’ll be blown away out there. How are you, m’dear? You look pale as a ghost! We’ve got one of those, but I’m sure it won’t bother you tonight.’
‘Ghost?’
Lulu’s eyes sought his. She didn’t look amused.
Alejandro was aware that her small hand had slipped into his.
‘It brings the tourists in, no doubt?’ he commented, and Mrs Bailey laughed.
‘Aye, it does—but that’s not to say it doesn’t exist. Come up these stairs. You don’t mind carrying your own luggage, do you? My husband is already in bed. He has a four a.m. start with the sheep.’
Lulu’s expression said, More sheep?
Alejandro suppressed a smile. He had to duck at the top of the stairs. The ceilings were low and age permeated the very beams of the place.
The older woman opened a door on a bedroom so snug the double bed itself and a chest of drawers took up most of the room.
There was an unlit fireplace that their landlady began fussing with.
‘We’ll have you warm in no time. I’ll bring ye up some dinner in a half-hour, if that suits. The bathroom is at the end of the hall and there are fresh towels.’
Lulu’s mouth had fallen open. ‘I am not sharing this room with you,’ she hissed as Mrs Bailey closed the door.
He was ready for this. ‘It’s fine, querida, I trust you.’
She rolled her eyes, but he noticed her gaze was expectant. He wasn’t going to be making the first move this time. He needed this to be very clearly her decision.
‘You should have explained the situation to her.’
He folded his arms.
‘There’s only one bed!’
‘Sí, it looks comfortable.’
It was her turn to fold her arms.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to sleep on the floor,’ she said.
They both looked at the stretch of floorboards between them.
‘No,’ he said.
She flushed.
‘Maybe you can sleep in the chair,’ she suggested, as if she was being helpful.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘How about we toss a coin for it?’
She opened her mouth, and then at the expression on his face shut it.
He pulled a coin from his back pocket. ‘Heads or tails?’
‘Heads.’
He flipped the coin, slid his hand away. ‘Tails. I’ll give you a blanket.’
He could feel her eyes boring into him as he set about improving Mrs Bailey’s attempt at a fire. He was half minded just to scoop her off her feet and put her mind at rest. He had no intention of sleeping alone.
‘I need my things,’ she said, her voice a little loud given he was right there.
He shoved one of the logs deeper into the smouldering ash.
‘Are you going to do the right thing or make me go outside again?’
‘I’ll be a gentleman,’ he said, straightening up to find her watching him owlishly, ‘and get them.’
She backed up as he headed out. Timid as a dormouse.
‘The little blue case will be enough,’ she called after him when he was halfway down the hall. ‘And don’t shake it about.’
* * *
Alejandro was coming inside with the blue case he wasn’t supposed to shake when he met Mrs Bailey at the bottom of the stairs.
‘I’ll include a bottle of brandy with your dinner, laddie. Your wife looks like she needs a little warming up.’
Alejandro nodded a brief thanks, but knew the only thing warming up Lulu would be him.
If he’d been a less confident man he might have taken pause when Lulu met him at the top of the stairs, uttered an unconvincing ‘Merci beaucoup,’ snatched her suitcase and, with a suspicious look at him, as if he were a villainous seducer, fled for the bathroom at the end of the hall, slamming the door.
But confidence had never been his problem, and Alejandro grinned and went back downstairs to find out about their meal.
When he returned, carrying a wooden tray, Lulu was rummaging around in her suitcase. She looked up, her big brown eyes doing that uncertain thing again, but that was before she noticed the bottle under his arm and the two glasses wedged between his blunt fingers.
She leapt to her feet. ‘That’s my wedding crystal!’
‘Sí.’ He shrugged. ‘We’ll rinse them and they’ll never know.’
‘I’ll know!’
‘We can eat on the floor,’ he said, ignoring her outburst, and settled the tray on the hearth. Then he took a better look at her new outfit. It was wool, full-length, and buttoned up to her neck. ‘Whose grandmother did you steal that from?’
Lulu’s face fell as she glanced down at her dressing gown. ‘I heard that the Scottish nights are cold because of the North Sea,’ she said seriously.
‘The North Sea?’
‘Out there.’ She waved her hand vaguely at the wall.
By Alejandro’s calculations she was pointing inland, or at a stretch of the Atlantic.
He didn’t like her dressing gown, Lulu thought, tugging uneasily at the sleeves. But it was practical, and that was what mattered.
Lulu noticed his hair was wet from the rain, and that he’d brought the scent of the wild outdoors in on his clothes. Her senses stirred. More than stirred. He’d braved the elements for her. She shouldn’t find that sexy...but she did. Her gaze went a little helplessly to the stretch of damp fabric across his upper body, the swell of muscle, the hard male bones.
‘Are you going to eat?’
Lulu realised she’d just been standing there all this time, and that he’d caught her checking him out.
Flustered, she made a production of sitting down on the rug and surveying their dinner. It was stew and dumplings. The kind of food she would have been careful around if she hadn’t been on a break.
‘What’s that?’ she asked rather desperately as he uncorked the bottle.
‘It’s one of the bottles of burgundy I brought over for Khaled and Gigi. They won’t miss one.’
Lulu held out her hand and examined the old faded label. ‘1945?’ she said.
‘It was produced at the end of World War II—I sourced a handful of bottles through Christie’s.’
‘You bought wine at an auction?’
‘Why not?’
‘Wasn’t it a little expensive?’
He angled a speculative look her way that set all the hormones in her body aquiver. ‘Just a little.’
‘This feels so wasteful,’ Lulu half whispered as she watched him expertly decant the blood-dark wine into goblets. ‘I’m sure Mrs Bailey’s stew isn’t up to the standards of a forty-five burgundy.’
‘Good wine improves everything,’ he told her, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the wine.
She found herself checking to see that none of her buttons had come undone.
Non, all accounted for. To settle her nerves Lulu concentrated on sipping her wine. It slid down like heaven, and she gave a soft sigh of approval and looked over at him—only to discover he hadn’t touched his. He was watching her, and she was instantly back in the car with him, his hand at the back of her head, his mouth making all kinds of magic with hers, leaving her breathless and flustered all over again.
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