Mistress of La Rioja

‘It will be…hard,’ he said, but his voice was un-characteristically soft now, soft as butter. ‘She is an old woman now.’

She steeled herself not to react to that murmuring voice, because it was vital that she remained impervious to Luis de la Camara—for all their sakes. ‘It is thoughtful of you to care.’

Did she mock him with that cool, unfathomable tone of hers? ‘Of course. She is family, Sophie—what did you expect?’

What did she expect? She didn’t know, and she wondered how he could ask her a question like that at a time like this.

She hadn’t expected her beloved Miranda to die so needlessly, or for her nephew to grow up without a mother, so far away from the land of her birth.

Teo.

Just the thought of him focused Sophie’s grief into energy and resolution. ‘Wh-when is the funeral?’

‘On Monday.’

Which gave her three days.

‘I’ll be there. I’ll fly out on Sunday.’

And, to Luis’s appalled horror, he felt the stirring of triumph and the impossible ache of knowing that soon he would see her once more, and he cursed the body which betrayed him so completely. ‘Contact my home or my office to let me know the times of your flight,’ he said tightly. ‘You will have to fly to Madrid and then take a connection on to Pamplona. I will arrange to have a car pick you up at the airport. Have you got that?’

‘Thank you,’ she said, thinking how in control he sounded, until she remembered that he was in control—always—and that, whatever happened, it was Luis de la Camara who was calling the shots.

‘Adios, Sophie,’ he drawled softly.

With a shaking hand, Sophie let the phone fall down into its cradle, and at the harsh finality of the sound reaction set in at last. She stared blankly at the wall in front of her, her mind spinning with disbelief as she thought of Miranda.

Her poor cousin—dying alone in a strange, foreign country! Poor, sweet Miranda—envied by so many women, solely because she was married to a man so universally desired. A man whose child she had borne, whose money she had enjoyed, but whose heart had always been tantalisingly locked away from her.

A man, moreover, whose black eyes glittered with such stark sexual promise that Sophie could not imagine that he would have been able to remain faithful for even the first year of marriage.

After all, she had ignored the unmistakable invitation she had read there, but that was because she loved Miranda. She doubted whether other women would have such scrupulous morals where Luis de la Camara was concerned.

And now a little baby would now have to grow up without a mother.

Sophie’s gaze was drawn to the silver-framed photo which stood in pride of place on her desk and she picked it up and studied it.

It showed Teodoro and it had been taken just before his first birthday, only a few short weeks ago. He was an adorable child, but Teodoro’s looks owed very little to her cousin’s exquisite blonde beauty. Instead his face was stamped with the magnificent dominance of his father’s colouring, and as she stared at it the image of his hard and handsome face came flooding back into her mind with bitter clarity.

Gleaming black eyes, fringed with sinfully thick lashes and hair which was as dark as the moonless night she had first met him. When she had virtually bumped into him in the deli at the end of her road and he had stopped dead, stared at her intensely, as if he knew her from somewhere, as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

And the feeling had been mutual. When just for a moment her heart had leapt with a wild and unexpected joy. And an unmistakable lust which had set up a slow, sweet aching.

The kind of thing which wasn’t supposed to happen to sensible city girls who were cool and calm in matters of the heart.

Was it possible to fall in love in a split-second? she remembered helplessly thinking as she gazed at the proud, aristocratic features she seemed to have spent her whole life waiting for.

She’d seen his eyes darken, the heated flare of awareness which moved along the angular curve of his high cheekbones. His lush lips had unconsciously parted and she’d seen a thoroughly instinctive movement as his tongue flicked through to moisten them, and outrageously she had imagined that tongue on her body…in her body…

She had never been looked at with quite such insolent and arrogant appraisal before. He wants me, she’d thought, with the warm flooding of awareness. And I want him, too. She had found herself wondering whether she would be able to resist him if he touched her, while at the same time asking if she had completely taken leave of her senses.

And then Miranda had appeared, carrying a bottle of champagne, her mouth falling open in surprise. ‘Sophie! Good heavens!’ she exclaimed, and glanced up at him, not seeming to notice the brittle tension in the air which surrounded them. ‘What an amazing coincidence! We were just on our way to see you, weren’t we, darling?’

Darling?

With a jolt which went deeper than disappointment, Sophie registered dully that Miranda was possessively touching the arm of the tall, dark man with the glittering eyes and the softly gleaming lips. And the champagne…

‘Are you—are you celebrating something?’ she questioned with a sinking heart as she quickly realised exactly what they must be celebrating.

‘We sure are! Sophie—I’d like to introduce you to Don Luis de la Camara,’ Miranda announced proudly and then smiled up into the dark, shuttered face. ‘Luis—this is my cousin, Sophie Mills.’

‘Your cousin?’ he questioned with a frown, and his voice was as rich and dark as bitter chocolate. The predatory look had disappeared in an instant, and Sophie had seen the rueful shrug which replaced it, knowing that Don Luis de la Camara would never look at her in that way again. As the cousin of his wife-to-be, she was much too close to home to play around with. But a man who looked like that just days before his wedding would play around. Sophie recognised that with a blinding certainty and she hated him for it.

‘Well, we spent all our holidays together—so we’re more like sisters, really!’ Miranda smiled her wide, infectious smile. ‘Sophie—we’re getting married! Isn’t it wonderful? Luis has asked me to marry him!’

Sophie shuddered as she remembered the jealousy which had ripped through her. To be jealous of your own cousin! But she had forced a smile and hugged Miranda and given Luis her hand, all too aware of the warm tingle as their flesh touched. And he had bent and raised her fingertips to his mouth, in an old-fashioned and courtly style—faithful to the manner of the Spanish aristocrat he was, his black eyes seeming to mock and to tantalise her in tandem.

They had gone back to her flat and drunk champagne and chinked glasses and toasted the future. But while Miranda had fizzed with life the Spaniard had sat watchfully, choosing his words with care, looking so right and yet so wrong in Sophie’s flat and her world. Because he was Miranda’s, she had reminded herself. Miranda’s.

With an effort she pushed away the disturbing memories and forced herself back to the present. Concentrating on the image of the child in the photo instead of the potent sexuality of his father.

At least Teodoro’s face still had the softness of innocence and she could see little of the indomitable nature which so defined Luis.

She wondered what would happen to Teodoro now—whether his mother’s memory would be allowed to fade until it was so distant that it was almost forgotten. Sophie bit her lip. What chance would he have of learning about his mother and the land of his mother’s birth?

And suddenly a sense of duty dulled some of the raw edge of sorrow. Luis shall not take him from us entirely, she vowed. I will fight for the opportunity to get to know him as if he were my own! And he will know me, too. With a trembling hand, she buzzed through to Narell to ask her to book her flight to Spain.

And then she washed her face, dragged a comb through her hair and called Liam Hollingsworth into the office, who took one look at her and started.

‘What the hell have you been doing to yourself?’ he demanded. ‘Are you OK?’

Her voice still trembling slightly, she said, ‘Not really, no.’

‘For God’s sake, Sophie—what’s the matter? What’s happened to you?’

She framed the unbelievable words. ‘It’s my cousin, Miranda,’ she told him. ‘She’s been…killed in an accident. I’ve…I’ve got to go and break the news to my grandmother—’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘And th-then fly on to Spain to the funeral.’

‘Oh, honey!’ He was round her side of the desk in an instant, staring down at her with a look of dazed concern on his face as she began to cry. ‘Honey!’

‘Oh, Liam!’ she sobbed.

‘Come here,’ he said gently, and put his arms around her.

She allowed herself to cry a little more, but after a couple of moments she broke away and went to stand by the window, staring out at a world which no longer looked the same place. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ she said dully.