hadn’t said a word to defend herself, but then that had been the idea; a word that broke the gagging injunction would have landed her in jail, a place that Santiago for one would have paid good money to see her end up!
An image of the tear-stained face of the wronged wife in the story drifted into his head, the brave face the woman put on not hiding the emotional devastation that presented a dramatic contrast to the cold composure that Lucy Fitzgerald had displayed under the camera lens.
It had been the sort of story that under normal circumstances Santiago would not have read beyond the first line—but for the timing. The situation of the advertising executive who had resorted to the courts to protect himself from Lucy Fitzgerald had borne an uncanny resemblance to the one he had at the time found himself in, albeit on a lesser scale.
In his case the woman—he barely remembered her name, let alone her face—who had sought to gain financially had been more opportunistic than ruthless, and of course not being married and caring very little what the world thought of him had made him a less vulnerable target than Lucy Fitzgerald’s victim, who, instead of caving in to his mistress’s threat of exposure, had instead sought an injunction to stop her speaking out.
Blackmail was the action of a coward and a woman like Lucy Fitzgerald represented everything Santiago despised. This was why, while the face of his own would-be blackmailer, a woman whom he had never even slept with, had vanished, the composed Madonna-like face that had hidden a dark heart of stone had stuck in his mind—his heavy-lidded glance dropped—as had her body.
You and the rest of the male population!
The silent addition caused his firm, mobile lips to twitch into a self-mocking grimace as his dark gaze continued to slide over the lush curves beneath the simple cotton top and skirt she was wearing. The woman might be poison, but she did have a body that invited, actually demanded, sinful speculation.
Of course she was all too … obvious for his taste, but it was easy now to see why his easily influenced brother had been so smitten, a case of lust not love.
Exert a positive influence!
He choked back a bitter laugh. His uncharacteristic and misguided optimism could not have been more poorly timed. Positive? If Lucy Fitzgerald was even a fraction as bad as her reputation, she was toxic!
Santiago felt a passing stab of nostalgia for the empty-headed, pretty but basically harmless party girls his brother had up to this point needed saving from … not that he had saved him. Up to this point Santiago had not ridden to the rescue, deciding that his brother would learn from experience. This, he reflected soberly, was an entirely different situation; he could not allow his brother to become a victim of this woman.
Had she specifically targeted Ramon?
Santiago, who did not believe in coincidence any more than he believed in fate, considered it likely; he could see how his brother would seem an easy prey to someone like her.
Did Ramon know who she was? Did he know about her history or at least her sanitised version of it where she no doubt became the innocent victim? He had no doubt that she could be very convincing and Ramon was obviously completely bewitched, though why bother raking up your sordid past when your victim had still been a teenager when the story had been big news.
A teenager!
Anger flashed in his deep-set eyes, the fine muscle along his angular jaw quivered and clenched beneath the surface of his golden skin. Not only was she a mercenary, corrupt gold-digger, she was a cradle snatcher. She had to be, what …? Doing the maths in his head, he scowled. Thirty, give or take a year or two?
Though admittedly, he conceded, reining in his mount a few feet from the riverbank, she looked younger, and for once in his life his little brother had not exaggerated. Lucy Fitzgerald was a woman that goddess could legitimately be used to describe. Poison to the core but breathtakingly beautiful, even barefooted and wearing a simple cotton skirt. On anyone else he would have assumed the transparency that revealed the silhouette of her long shapely thighs under direct sunlight was accidental, with this woman he was willing to bet that even her dreams were contrived.
As she remained oblivious to his presence Santiago took the opportunity to study the genuinely goddess-like attributes beneath the thin fabric.
There was plenty to study. She was tall and statuesque with long legs and a figure of iconic hourglass proportions. The woman oozed sex and Santiago felt a stab of annoyance as, independent of his brain, his body reacted with indiscriminate lust to the image.
As he watched she slid a hand under the neck of her top and wriggled to catch the bra strap that had slipped over her shoulder. The innately sexy action made her suddenly less pin-up and more earthily warm, desirable woman—very desirable.
As the sun caught her waist length hair, turning it to spun silver, Santiago realised that if he wanted to save his brother from this witch’s machinations he would have to act swiftly. She was fatally beautiful.
One day Ramon would thank him.
The polished leather of his saddle creaked as he swung his leg over it and leapt lightly to the ground, his booted feet making contact with the stones with a metallic click.
Lucy jumped like a startled deer, instinctive fear showing in her blue eyes as she turned, seeing for a split second the tall, threatening bulk of a male figure outlined against the sun. The correspondingly massive horse beside him was drinking from the stream.
When the man spoke a moment later she had regained control, if not of her banging heart, at least of her expression.
‘Sorry, did I startle you?’
Only half to death, Lucy thought, her eyes widening fractionally in reaction to the sound of his voice. The intruder spoke perfect English. He was not English though, she decided, picking up on the faint foreign inflection in his richly textured voice—a voice that was velvet over gravel.
Low in her belly things shifted slightly in response to the tactile quality in that deep voice. Shading her eyes, she gave a faint smile and moved her head in a negative gesture.
‘I didn’t know anyone … I didn’t hear you.’ She made a conscious effort to erase the frozen mask that her expression had automatically settled into, the same expression that had earned her the ‘ice bitch’ tag. It was a struggle; the defensive action was by now deeply ingrained.
There had been a time when she had been in danger of allowing her experiences to make her hard, cynical and—according to her mother—too scared to live. The worried accusation had shaken Lucy and she had been trying very hard of late not to assume the worst in any given situation.
Caution was another matter and in the circumstances seemed only sensible!
Arm crooked to hold back her hair from her face, she waded towards the riverbank, her gaze fixed on her feet to avoid stumbling on the rocky riverbed.
Reaching dry ground, she climbed the slight incline that brought her level with the stranger and close enough, thanks to the prevailing wind, for her nostrils to twitch in response to the scent of leather and horse. She kept her distant smile in place and tilted her head up to look at him.
It was a lot of tilting. He was extremely tall; broad of shoulder, narrow of hip and long of leg. She had an impression of power, raw and elemental. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes and her smile faded as, minus the direct dazzle, the man’s face became more than a dark blur.
There was definitely nothing blurred about features that looked as though they had been freshly carved in bronze by the hand of an artist more interested in conveying a masculine ideal than reality. The rider’s face, bisected by an aquiline, masterful nose, was long with a broad, intelligent forehead, strong square jaw and high, dramatically chiselled cheekbones. Her gaze drifted to his mouth and paused. It was wide and sculpted, the upper lip firm, the lower sensually full.
It was all jaw-dropping and deep-intake-of-breath stuff. Aware she had been staring and without the faintest clue of how long