He looked amused by the suggestion. ‘I am Santiago Silva.’
‘Should I curtsy or bow?’ So this was the man who was literally lord of all he surveyed, including the property that Harriet rented. From what her friend had told her, he was ‘a great guy’. Odd—Harriet was normally a pretty good judge of character.
Placing a hand on a hip, oblivious to the sexually provocative style of her pose, she watched as his firm sensual mouth lifted at the corners in a smile that did not touch his hard eyes—they held the warmth of a diamond chip as he returned her stare.
‘I had no idea we had such a famous—or should that be infamous?—visitor to the area, Miss Fitzgerald.’ He saw her flinch and felt a stab of savage satisfaction as he thought, Gotcha!
CHAPTER TWO
A FAMILIAR cold, clammy fist tightened in the pit of Lucy’s stomach as she felt her expression freeze over. She cursed herself for being surprised that anyone would recognise her here in Spain; like they said, it was a small world and, with the advent of social networking, even smaller.
It didn’t matter how many times she told herself that what total strangers chose to think about her was their problem, not hers, it still hurt, and it made her angry that the stares and contemptuous comments had the power to make her want to crawl away into a corner and hide, which according to some was exactly what she had been doing for four years.
Pride enabled her to lift her chin and train her level stare at his face. She was not going to hide any more; she had done nothing wrong. The gagging injunction was long gone; there was no longer anything stopping her telling her side. Nothing but the stubborn conviction that as the innocent victim she shouldn’t have to explain to anyone; after all, the people that mattered had never believed any of the lies that had been printed about her.
‘If I’d known how warm, charming and welcoming the natives were I would have made it here sooner,’ she said, flashing him a smile of saccharine-sweet insincerity and having the satisfaction of seeing his jaw tighten in annoyance.
‘And how long are you thinking of staying?’
‘Why? Are you planning on running me out of town, sheriff?’ she mocked, adopting a mock-Western drawl.
He responded to her levity with another stony stare. On the receiving end, Lucy found the level of his relentless hostility frankly bewildering.
God, does this man need to get a life!
Her story was old news and even if he believed she was as bad as they had painted her, which in truth was pretty bad, it hardly explained an antipathy that seemed … personal?
‘I shouldn’t joke—you probably can.’
She had the impression that all this man had to do was snap his fingers and the locals would be lining up to be part of a run-her-out-of-town posse, less a form of mob mentality and more mass hypnotism.
She wasn’t seeing much evidence of it but it was clear the man exerted some sort of weird charismatic control locally … either that or there was something in the water. In the time she had been here Lucy had heard the name Santiago Silva with monotonous regularity in the area. You couldn’t buy a loaf of bread without hearing someone sing the praises of this paragon, which, considering he was a banker—a fairly universally despised animal these days—seemed pretty amazing to Lucy.
Their comments had built an image of someone very different from the man standing there looking down his autocratic nose at her. He did not look remotely like the warm, caring person she’d heard described, but he did look every inch the autocratic feudal throwback who expected people to bow and scrape.
‘You have met my brother.’ He arched an ebony brow.
A mystified Lucy began to shake her head, then the penny dropped.
Her eyes widened. ‘Ramon.’ Who had rung the finca just before she left that morning inviting her to dinner at the castillo. Wow, was she glad she’d said no to this opportunity to meet his brother … the sort of social event nightmares were made of if this taster was any indicator! Stiff and starchy now, imagine how he’d look in a tie—besides beautiful. Lucy gave her head a little shake to dispel this image.
It was not so surprising she hadn’t seen the connection straight off; Ramon had none of the autocratic arrogance of his unpleasant brother. He was actually a really sweet boy who had gone out of his way to help when they had been stranded in the clinic car park the day after she arrived. He’d been a hero, administering first aid to Harriet’s ancient car.
Since then he had called twice at the finca, the last time, she recalled with a smile, he had helped her catch one of the donkeys before the vet arrived, falling flat on his face in the dust and dirt at one point and ruining his lovely suit. It was hard to believe he was related to this man.
‘You will not meet him again.’ The comment was delivered in a soft, almost conversational tone that was in stark variance to the menace it conveyed.
Lucy shook her head, genuinely bewildered by the turn this conversation was taking. Was this about her refusing the invitation to dinner at the big house? Had she committed some sort of social faux pas?
The possibility bothered her for Harriet’s sake. Her friend had made a lot of effort to fit in so she felt her way cautiously. ‘I won’t?’
‘No, Miss Fitzgerald, you will not.’
‘Is Ramon going away?’
‘No, you are going away.’
Lucy’s patience snapped. ‘Will you stop being so damned enigmatic and spit it out? Just what are you trying to say?’
He cut across her in a voice that felt like an icy shower. ‘For someone who is clearly a clever woman you have not done your research. Until he is twenty-five, my brother has no access to his trust fund unless I approve it, and I will not. The lifestyle my brother enjoys now is totally at my discretion.’
‘Poor Ramon,’ she said, feeling sorry for Ramon but not totally sure why his brother should think the information was of interest to her.
‘So you will be wasting your time.’
‘My time to waste,’ she responded, still without the faintest idea what this discussion was about.
The flippancy brought his teeth together in a snarling white smile. ‘I suggest you cut your losses and move on to a more profitable … subject.’
Totally at sea now, Lucy shook her head. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ she was forced to admit.
Irritated by this display of innocence, Santiago twisted his expressive mouth in a grimace of fastidious distaste. Sensing his master’s mood, the animal at his side pawed the ground and snorted.
Without thinking Lucy responded, moving forward, her hand outstretched to soothe the animal, only to be blocked by the horse’s tall rider.
‘He does not like strangers.’ His concern was for his mount, not the stupid woman who clearly knew nothing about horses.
‘Just now I’m identifying with him.’
Santiago was tempted to respond to the challenge gleaming in her blue eyes—the colour was so extraordinary it amounted to an assault on the senses. Instead, he made a decision. ‘I want a quick resolution of this situation.’
The solution was not desirable—every cell in his body craved revenge and he was going to reward her but … He breathed a deep sigh, accepting that there were occasions when a man had to do what was necessary as opposed to what was right. He didn’t have to like it though.
‘If you leave immediately I will cover your expenses.’ The resort hotel in the locality was aimed at the high end of the market as it was the only accommodation in the area, barring a couple of rural bed-and-breakfast establishments. He could not imagine