an odd smile. ‘Is that what you think?’
‘It’s what I know,’ she insisted—even now, seven years on, still able to feel the bitterness of learning that eating away at her.
His dark head came down, making her stiffen and tingle when he brought his lips into contact with her ear. ‘Then how can you bear to have me touch you?’ he whispered in soft, moist, sensual derision—and dropped his fingers from her cheek to place them over her breast where the thin fabric of her dress did nothing to disguise her instant response to him.
With a jerk she stepped sideways and right out of his reach, hating herself and despising him so much that she could barely cope with what was now tumbling about inside her.
Luiz said nothing, but then he really didn’t need to—which was the real humiliation as he simply opened the door she was no longer guarding and stepped through it.
Left alone, it was all she could do just to sink weakly into the nearest chair. Instantly she felt something beneath her, and reached down and plucked out both her bag and her bra. The flimsy piece of black silk dangled like a taunt from her trembling fingers, reminding her why it wasn’t on her body.
It was still slightly damp. On another thought she got up and walked over to the bed, where Luiz had dropped his discarded jacket. The moment she picked it up the clean scent of him began to completely surround her. Her eyes were still glazed but her other senses were working just fine, she noted grimly. For touching this jacket was like touching Luiz. Smelling him, feeling him, wanting him—wanting him…
The jacket, like her bra, was damp, which was obviously why Luiz had changed it for another one. Damp around the pocket, where he’d stuffed her bra, damp around the shoulders from when he’d placed it around hers.
A sigh whispered from her that was so bleak and hopeless she was glad there was no one around to hear it. Seven weeks loving him, she thought sadly. Seven years hating him. And probably only seven seconds back in his presence and she had been fighting a losing battle against the way he could make her feel.
It was awful, like coming face to face with her own darkest secret. For hate was merely the other side of love. Weren’t the romantics always saying that?
Which left her with what to comfort herself? she wondered as she dropped all three items on the bed and turned her back on them. She didn’t know—didn’t think she wanted to know.
The clothes he had told her she would find in the cupboards happened to be her own clothes, which brought home even harder the amount of calculation he had put into all of this. He had been very sure of himself, very positive that she would end up here with him, one way or another.
In fact everything she had brought to Marbella with her was now residing in this room. Except for her father, she added—then instantly began to worry about him, maybe wandering about this villa like a loose cannon searching for some explosive excitement.
The prospect had her hurrying to change. She spent less than five minutes in the well-equipped bathroom, showering away the effects of her swim and then hurriedly blowdrying her hair before she applied a quick, light covering of make-up and went to decide what she was going to wear.
Luiz arrived back as she was slipping her feet into high patent leather shoes. Her chin-length bob was soft and shiny, her make-up underplayed, and her dress was made of dark purple silk creˆpe, with a neckline that scooped down to caress the soft swell of her breasts and skimmed rather than clung to the rest of her curves.
Dramatically simplistic it its design, still the dress did things for her that made his eyes glint beneath the heavy shading of those long lashes he so liked to hide behind.
‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you could do it in the time allocated.’
Caroline just sent him a coldly dismissive look. ‘Is my father awake yet?’
‘It’s almost midnight, Caroline,’ Luiz drawled back lazily. ‘The time people usually go to bed, not think about getting up.’
‘People don’t usually throw parties this late, either,’ she pointed out.
He smiled at the curt censure. ‘I’m an owl.’ ‘So is he,’ she countered. ‘Where is he?’
‘In the kitchen playing blackjack with the chef,’ he replied laconically—then, at her look of slack-jawed horror, he grew angry. ‘For goodness’ sake!’ he bit out. ‘It was a joke!’
Some joke, she thought painfully.
Luiz strode forward; a hard hand grabbed one of hers. ‘He’s comfortably ensconced in the main salon enjoying the company of my guests!’ he told her impatiently. ‘Will you lighten up?’
Lighten up? she repeated furiously. She was tired, she was stressed, she had just gone through some of the worst few hours in her entire life—and he was now demanding that she lighten up?
‘If I had a punch worth throwing I would probably hit you,’ she whispered.
With a heavy sigh, Luiz pulled her towards him, and it showed how bad she was feeling that she let him hold her against his chest. ‘He’s fine,’ he assured her huskily. ‘And he will stay fine now that I’m looking after him—I thought you understood that.’
‘He’s an addict, Luiz,’ she stated with heart slaying honesty. ‘They don’t get cured overnight.’
‘I know,’ he said quietly.
‘Does he know?’ she then asked sharply. ‘About this deal you and I have just made?’
‘He knows you are here with me, but that’s about all.’
Which made just one more problem she still had yet to confront, she thought heavily, and moved right out of Luiz’s arms. His eyes narrowed on her weary profile, but he didn’t try to detain her.
Instead he moved back to the door, then stood waiting for her to join him. Caroline did so without uttering another word. As they walked side by side back towards the main salon she thought she could actually feel the vibration of her own body it was so beset by nerve-tingling tension.
‘Do I get to know who any of these people are before I have to meet them?’ she asked without much hope of an answer, since he was very economical with those.
‘Nervous?’ Luiz questioned as they crossed the foyer.
‘Yes,’ she confessed.
‘Then don’t be.’ He sounded eminently confident of that. ‘You are about to meet my family,’ he told her. ‘Not a firing squad.’
His family? ‘But you told me once that you don’t have any family!’ She stared at him in disbelief.
He just smiled another odd smile. ‘I don’t,’ he said, but the sudden cold glitter that struck his eyes sent a chill chasing down her spine.
‘Enigmatic as ever, I note,’ she drawled.
He responded with a different smile. ‘My secret weapon,’ he admitted.
But not his only one, she thought as she felt his hand make contact with the small of her back as the other hand reached out for the door. His touch stung through her like an electric power source, making her spine arch fiercely.
Her reaction made him pause, his features hardening. ‘Just remember who you are and what you are to me when we walk in there,’ he warned very grimly. ‘It is very important to me that you give a good impression of a blissful bride, not a resentful one.’
Refusing to look at him, Caroline said nothing. But her chin dutifully lifted and her expression became smooth as he pushed open the door to the main salon.
The first thing her eyes went to was the green baize table, which she was relieved to see had been deftly covered with a white linen tablecloth on which several bottles of champagne now lay, chilling on a bed of ice. And the croupier, who had been