Mistress of La Rioja

‘Now, I did say I didn’t want to be disturbed, Narell,’ she joked in mock-stern tone, knowing full well that Narell was the best assistant in the world, so maybe it was important. It had better be!

But Narell’s voice sounded strained. ‘I’m afraid that this man wouldn’t take no for an answer. He insisted he speak to you.’

Sophie pulled a face.

‘Insisted, did he?’ she mused aloud. ‘I’m not sure I like men who insist! Who is it?’

‘It’s…it’s…’ Narell cleared her throat, as if she couldn’t quite believe the name she was saying. ‘It’s Don Luis de la Camara.’

Luis.

Luis!

Sophie gripped the desk as if holding on to it for dear life. How mad, how crazy—that just the mention of his name was enough to bring her out into a cold sweat.

She felt excitement. Gut-wrenching and stomach-melting excitement. And then, hard on the heels of excitement came guilt. She felt its icy heat pin-pricking at her brow.

Just what was it about Luis de la Camara? She knew what kind of man he was. Shallow and sexy and completely out of bounds, and yet here she was now, calm and rational Sophie—Sophie who was supposed to be excited at the thought of dating Oliver— only now her heart was racing like a speeding train as she stared at the phone. Oliver was forgotten, and in his place exploded the dark presence of the most formidable man she had ever met.

But she pulled herself together, wondering why the arrogant Spaniard was ringing her here, at work, and demanding to speak to her, no less!

Ruing the day that her cousin had ever married him, Sophie gave a reluctant nod. ‘OK, Narell. You can put him through.’

‘Right.’

There was a momentary pause and then Sophie heard the unmistakable voice of Luis de la Camara, pouring like rich, sensual honey down through the intercom, and despite her good intentions she felt the slow wash of awareness creeping colour across her pale cheeks. He’s married, she reminded herself, and he’s married to your cousin. A man you despise, remember?

But animosity was an acquired skill she had learned along the way. She had had to teach herself to hate him. Far better to hate a man than to admit that he excited you in a way which was as frightening as it was inappropriate. And how could you feel anything other than hate for a man who could look at a woman with pure, undiluted lust in his eyes—just days before he was due to be married to her cousin?

‘Soph-ie?’

He said her name as no one else did. The slight lilt to the voice, the faintest idiomatic Spanish accent which could send goosebumps all over your skin. She hastily clicked the switch down and grabbed the receiver—the last thing she wanted was the amplification of those dark, richly accented tones filling her office.

‘This is she,’ she answered crisply. She put her pen down. ‘Well, this is certainly a surprise, Luis.’ And how was that for understatement?

‘Yes.’

His voice sounded unfamiliar. Heavy. Hard. Burdened. And Sophie suddenly felt some ghastly premonition shiver its way over her skin as logic replaced her first instinctive reaction to hearing him. Her voice rose in fright. ‘What’s happened? Why are you ringing me at work?’

There was a moment of silence which only increased her foreboding, because Sophie had never heard Luis hesitate before. Indecision was not on his agenda. Some men were never at a loss for words and de la Camara was a prime example.

‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Are you sitting down?’

‘Yes! Luis, for God’s sake—tell me!’

In another world, another country away, Luis flinched. There was no easy way to say it, nothing he could do to ease the painful words. ‘It’s Miranda,’ he began slowly. ‘I am afraid to have to tell you, Sophie, that there has been a terrible accident. Your cousin…she has been killed. Murio en un accidente de coche,’ he finished on a note of disbelief, as if only repeating the words in his native tongue could make him believe the terrible truth himself.

A cry was torn from Sophie’s throat, so that she sounded like a wounded animal. ‘No!’

‘It is true,’ he said.

‘She’s dead? Miranda is dead?’ she questioned, as if, even now, he still had the opportunity to deny it. To make it go away.

‘Sì. I am sorry, Soph-ie. So very sorry.’

Buffeting against the sick feeling in her stomach, the words punched their way home.

Dead! Miranda dead? ‘But she can’t be dead!’ Sophie whimpered. How could a beautiful woman of twenty-five be no more? ‘Say it isn’t true, Luis.’

‘Do you not think that if I could I would?’ he said, and his deep voice sounded almost gentle as he carried on with the grim story. ‘She died in a car crash earlier today.’

‘No.’ She shuddered, and closed her eyes.

Until an even more horrific scenario reared its terrifying head and they snapped open again. ‘What about Teodoro?’ she cried, her heart clenching with fear as she thought about her adorable little nephew. ‘He—he wasn’t with her, was he?’

‘In the early hours of the morning?’ he questioned heavily. ‘No, Sophie, he was not with her. My son was tucked up in bed, safely asleep.’

‘Oh, thank God!’ she breathed, and, just as a great wave of grief pierced her like a dagger, so did his words imprint themselves on her consciousness.

If Teodoro was tucked up safely in bed, then what was Miranda doing out in the early hours of the morning—and how come Luis had not been injured? Unless…unless he had been injured. ‘Were you hurt yourself, Luis?’ she questioned unsteadily.

In the fan-cooled air of the vast hacienda, Luis’s hard, dark features set themselves into bleak and unforgiving lines. ‘I was not in the car,’ he said roughly.

Though her thoughts were fragmented by the enormity of what he had told her, Sophie frowned in confusion. Why not? she wondered. Why was Miranda travelling in the early hours without her family?

Her fingers clenched themselves into a tight little fist. The whys and the wheres and the hows were not appropriate—not now, not when the cold practicalities of death must be dealt with in as sympathetic a way as possible.

And Luis must be grieving—he must be. Despite the ups and downs of a marriage which Sophie knew had definitely not been made in heaven. His wife— the mother of his son—had met a tragically early end, and, no matter what had gone on before, Luis’s world had imploded.

Her own feelings about him didn’t count—not at a time like this. He was owed her condolences and not her hostility.

‘I’m…I’m so sorry,’ she said stiffly.

‘Thank you,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘I rang to tell you the news myself rather than having the police contact you. And to enquire whether you wish me to ring your grandmother…’

His words reminded her of the awful task which lay ahead—of telling her elderly and now frail grandmother what had happened. Sophie drew in a painful breath, thankful that her cousin’s parents had been spared the ordeal of learning the fate of their beautiful daughter. For wasn’t the premature death of a child the most terrible bereavement of all—even if they had treated Miranda with a kind of absent carelessness?

Miranda’s parents had been nomads at heart, inveterate travellers who had journeyed to all four corners of the earth, greedily seeking out new experiences, never growing tired of the adventure of the unexplored. Until one day when their light aircraft had plummeted out of the sky and into the unforgiving mountains. Miranda had been just seventeen at the time, and soon after that, she had begun to live as though there were no tomorrow.

And now there never would be, not for her.

‘No.’ Biting back her tears, Sophie slowly let the word out. ‘I will tell my grandmother myself, in person. It’ll be easier…’ She swallowed. She wouldn’t break down in front of him, she wouldn’t. ‘Less painful, coming from me.’ And try somehow to contact her own parents, who were having their own holiday of a lifetime, ensconced in luxury on some vast, ocean-going liner.

‘You’re sure?’ he questioned.

‘Yes.’