enough to hide from Luiz the flood of hurt tears that burst into being. His hand snaked out, caught her shoulder, stopping her from walking away.
‘Try to understand,’ he murmured huskily. ‘He saw himself last night for perhaps the first time. He saw the mess he had made of his life—the misery he had made of yours!’
‘So he ran,’ she mocked. ‘How brave of him!’
‘It was for the best, Caroline,’ Luiz insisted. ‘He wants to put his own house in order. Don’t condemn him for at least wanting to try before he can bring himself to face you again.’
‘In that case, let him swing for his own wretched debts!’ she responded in swift and bitter retaliation. ‘Find someone else to marry you, Luiz!’ she flashed. ‘Because I am now taking myself out of it!’
With an angry shrug she tried to free her imprisoned shoulder. All that happened was that the hand turned into a grip of steel.
‘I am still paying for him to put his house in order,’ Luiz inserted with deadly precision.
Caroline sucked in some air, held onto it for as long as she could, then let it go again with such violence that it escaped as a sob. ‘So am I, it seems,’ she whispered then.
‘It is what we agreed,’ Luiz confirmed.
And in her mind’s eye she had an image of her father, running away like a frightened rabbit while Luiz stood viewing his departure from his lofty position in his eagle’s nest, happy to let one tasty meal go because he still had another set cleanly in his sights.
Then she shuddered, and stopped thinking right there, because she just didn’t want to know how she was going to describe herself. But still the apt description of a lamb being led meekly to the slaughter managed to fill her head.
And if cynicism could be measured in fathoms, then Caroline knew she was now plunging the very depths as she made herself turn to face him.
‘Do you ever lose, Luiz?’ she asked him.
His grim mouth flexed on a twist of a smile. ‘Very rarely,’ he answered honestly.
She nodded, and left it at that. After all, what was there left to say? She was here because Luiz wanted her here. Her father had gone because Luiz had wanted him gone.
‘So what happens now?’ she asked eventually, knowing the question told him that she was right back on track—just as Luiz wanted.
‘Now?’ he said curiously, his dark eyes fixed on her beautiful but cold amethyst eyes set in an equally beautiful but coldly composed face. And the twist to his mouth became more pronounced. ‘This is what we do, right here and now,’ he drawled—and with only that outwardly innocent warning he caught her by the chin, pulled her face up towards him then kissed her—hard.
She just hadn’t expected it, so the rush of heat that attacked her nerve-ends had taken tight hold of her before she managed to find the will to pull away. Luiz let her go, but only because he was willing to do so, she was sure of that.
And still smiling that twisted smile, even though he had just used that wretched mouth to kiss her utterly senseless, he tapped one of her burning cheeks with a taunting finger. ‘Now that’s warmed you up nicely,’ he noted smoothly.
She wanted to hit him. He knew she wanted to hit him. Standing there toe to toe, breast-tips to muscle-padded chest, he held her furious eyes with devilishly mocking ones and just dared her to do it!
It was a skin-blistering few moments. Neither moved, neither spoke, neither seemed even to breathe. Tension gnawed and antagonism pulsed—along with a slice of something else that further infuriated her.
Sex was its name. Hot sex, tight sex. Sex that plucked at the angry senses until they sang like an out-of-tune violin. And suddenly she could feel the fine lining of her body begin to ripple in an agonising parody of what happened when he was buried inside her. It wasn’t fair. Her senses had no right to betray her like this! It wasn’t fair that her breasts were stinging, their tender tips tightening into hard, tight, eager nubs against his wretched breastbone.
‘Marriage to you is going to be one hell of an adventure,’ he murmured—and effectively brought her tumbling back down to earth with a resounding bump.
She should have shattered. She would have preferred to shatter rather than have to continue to stand here knowing that he knew exactly—and in detail—what she had been feeling.
‘I hate you,’ she whispered, and spun her back to him with the intention of stalking stiffly away. But her exit was ruined by the sudden appearance of the doctor, Luiz’s uncle Fidel.
‘Oh,’ he said, looking much as Caroline must have looked when she’d first walked in the room. ‘Your father has left already?’ he asked.
‘There was a spare seat on a flight to London he didn’t want to miss,’ Luiz informed him. ‘He has business that needs his immediate attention if he wants to be back here in time for our wedding next week.’
Next week? Caroline tensed. Long fingers came to clasp her shoulders in a physical warning for her to watch what she said.
‘I pray you will both survive till then,’ his uncle said sagely. ‘If you are to eat at the castle, Luiz, then make sure you take a food-taster with you. For if Consuela could have her wish it would be to see you six feet under the soil rather than have to watch you take what is left of her life away.’
Caroline didn’t understand a single word of what was being said. Except that she and Luiz were, it seemed, to be married in a week!
‘Don’t worry about your father, child,’ Fidel said smilingly, obviously reading her expression as one of anxiety for her father. ‘He was fighting fit when I saw him this morning. And he will not forget to take his medication again after experiencing the shock he had last night.’
The doctor’s beeper began sounding then, cutting short any more discussion other than for him to step up and give Caroline’s cheek an affectionate peck before turning briskly away with, ‘See you both at the church, God willing!’
Then he was gone, scooting away as abruptly as he had arrived.
‘What did he mean, you need a food-taster?’ she asked in his uncle’s wake. ‘And what castle—what wedding?’
‘The wedding you should have been expecting,’ Luiz drawled. ‘The castle is the one I inherited along with my illustrious title. And the food-tasting quip was a joke—though not a very funny joke, I will admit,’ he conceded.
It hadn’t sounded like a joke to Caroline. In fact it had sounded like a bit of very serious advice! ‘I wish you would tell me what is really going on here,’ she bit out angrily.
‘Feuds and fortunes,’ Luiz replied laconically, and halted any further discussion by leading her out into a corridor that had too many other people walking about to allow for private conversation.
Vito Martinez was standing by the car waiting for them as they came outside. ‘Any messages?’ was Luiz’s instant enquiry as they approached him.
‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ the other man answered with a telling glance in Caroline’s direction.
It niggled her to catch that glance. Just as a lot of other things were now niggling her. ‘You two should think about joining the Secret Service,’ she snapped out tartly, and climbed into the back of the car without waiting for a response.
A few seconds went by before Luiz eventually joined her. Car doors slammed, the engine fired and behind his protective shield of glass Vito Martinez set them all into smooth motion.
‘Vito meant no offence,’ Luiz said quietly.
Caroline twisted her head to show him amethyst eyes turned smoky grey with anger. ‘Tell me, is that Vito the croupier, Vito the waiter, or Vito the chauffeur you are talking about?’ she asked sarcastically.
‘It