minutes.’
Elise took time to change into silk trousers and a matching top, then ran a brush through her hair. A quick slash of pink restored colour to her lips.
Her expression was vaguely pensive as she joined Alejandro in the dining-room, and she spooned her soup with little real appetite and merely picked at the tender beef with its accompanying vegetables.
‘Not hungry?’
Elise looked at him carefully, examining the strong bone-structure, the assemblage of muscle and skin that moulded his features into compelling attractiveness.
Before the accident she would not have had the least compunction about beginning an argument with him. Not only that, she would have delighted in doing battle, exulting when she succeeded in rousing his temper. It was madness, because she could never win against him.
Now she seemed hell-bent on following a similar path. His brand of caring during their time together at Palm Beach, his tender affection, had wreaked havoc with her emotional heart. Worse, it had destroyed the very core of her resentment.
‘No,’ she answered at last, pushing her plate to one side.
‘Have some fruit.’
Elise looked at the selection Ana had placed in the bowl, then shook her head. She reached for her glass, miscalculated, and water pooled across the table.
‘Oh, hell,’ she said shakily as she collected a napkin and began mopping up the excess. What was wrong with her, for heaven’s sake?
‘Leave it.’
She rose to her feet. ‘I’ll get another napkin.’
‘Leave it, Elise,’ Alejandro commanded silkily. Stupid tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked furiously in an effort to prevent them from spilling over. Any second now she’d make a fool of herself, and that would never do.
She moved from the table and had taken three steps when a hand closed over her arm.
‘Let me go. Please,’ she begged in bleak despair, hating the degree of vulnerability evident as he tilted her chin.
‘When you tell me what is disturbing you.’
She closed her eyes against the sight of him, then slowly opened them again. ‘I didn’t deliberately stay in the city in order to cause you concern.’
‘I wasn’t aware I implied that you had.’ He cupped her face between both hands and brushed a thumb-pad across one cheek.
Dear heaven, why did she feel so acutely sensitive where he was concerned? A few days ago she wouldn’t have thought it possible that she would find it imperative to offer him any explanation or proffer an apology. Now she was doing both.
However, soul-searching wouldn’t achieve anything, for there was no easy resolution.
‘Thanks for the car,’ she managed unevenly, and glimpsed his faint smile as he watched the fleeting emotions chase across her expressive features.
‘What good manners you have, mi mujer,’ he drawled. ‘I shall look forward to a more—passionate shall we say?—expression of your gratitude.’
It took considerable effort to keep the pain from her voice. ‘Payment in sexual favours?’ she queried, and saw his eyes darken.
‘You little fool,’ Alejandro responded with deadly softness as his mouth fastened over hers in a kiss that was meant to punish.
A silent cry of impassioned entreaty remained locked in her throat, and it seemed an age before he lifted his head.
His eyes speared hers, and she became trapped beneath the degree of latent sensuality evident, a primeval recognition that had everything to do with the senses.
Her mouth quivered, its soft curves faintly swollen from the ruthless force of his own, and she cried out a single negation as he swept her effortlessly into his arms.
In the bedroom he let her slide down to her feet, and she wanted to vent her rage against his deliberate seduction as he gently cupped her face.
Eyes that were impossibly slumberous held her own captive, and helpless frustration welled up inside her as she became caught up in mesmerised fascination.
Did he know how difficult it was for her to accept the traitorous desire she experienced in his arms? The breath seemed to catch in her throat, and her eyes clung to his, bright with anger, yet intensely vulnerable.
A hand slid beneath her hair, urging her close as his lips trailed across her forehead, then moved slowly down one cheek to settle at the corner of her mouth, teasing, gentle, and incredibly erotic as he conducted a sensual tasting that made her ache for more.
Beneath his sensual mastery a deep flame flared into vibrant life, and she gave herself up totally to the delights of unbridled ardency.
Elise made no protest when he set about freeing her clothes and his own, and her body arched of its own accord as his mouth began a supplicating path over every inch of her body.
She was barely conscious of the tiny sounds emerging from her throat as she began to plead with him, wanting, needing his total possession.
When at last he gave it, she cried out, welcoming his mouth on hers with hungry passion as acute sensation spiralled towards a mutual climax that explored the heights of primitive satiation.
Sexual ecstasy at its zenith, she accepted drowsily a long time later as she drifted towards sleep.
ELISE revelled in her independence, and chose to take the Mercedes out each day.
On one occasion she visited the ward where she had worked at the Royal Children’s Hospital, after which she drove by the old brick house she had shared for years with her father.
It looked different, she reflected with a tinge of sadness. The small front garden no longer existed, the curtains had been changed, and the door was now painted a brilliant green.
Was it only nine months since her world had been turned upside-down? In some ways it seemed much longer than that.
It was impossible not to ponder what her future might hold, and that of her unborn child. She wanted…What did she want? Alejandro’s love? Was it such an impossible dream?
The blast of a car horn interrupted her thoughts, and she set the Mercedes moving away from a street that no longer held a place in her life.
Lunch, she decided, feeling suddenly hungry, after which she would head towards Double Bay to browse among the many boutiques. She might even visit a beauty salon and indulge in a facial. Then she could look for a suitable gown to wear to an important end-of-year function to be held the following evening in an inner-city hotel.
After an extensive search she discovered exactly what she wanted, added matching evening shoes and bag, and tried not to blench as she signed the credit slip.
Alejandro’s appreciation of her choice was plainly evident as she bore his appraisal mere minutes before they were due to leave the house the next evening.
‘I won’t be able to let you out of my sight,’ he drawled, and she proffered a teasing smile.
‘Likewise.’
‘Indeed?’
His eyes held latent passion, and something she dared not define. A tiny flame flared deep within and flowed through her body. ‘Shall we leave?’
‘So many beautiful women,’ Elise murmured as they entered the hotel ballroom some thirty minutes later. ‘Wearing a fortune in clothes and jewellery in a personal quest to outshine one another.’
Alejandro cast her an amused glance