One Night With The Enemy. ABBY GREEN

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СКАЧАТЬ had been moments—the memory of which burned him now for his naivety—when he’d believed she’d been uncomfortable in their social milieu, when she’d looked almost sick as her mother pushed her to the fore. He’d sensed that beneath the delicate exterior lurked something much more solid.

      Nic’s mouth firmed. Well, he had first-hand experience of exactly how solid she was beneath that ethereal beauty. As if he needed to be reminded of the kind of person she was. Once she’d challenged his preconceptions of her, but it had all been an act.

      She’d shared her mother’s temptress nature—an earthy sensuality that could ensnare the strongest of men. His heart thumped hard. It had ensnared his father before him, and then, a generation later, him. She’d only been seventeen. Humiliation burned Nic at recalling it, and he couldn’t halt the flood of memories—not so soon after seeing her close up and in the flesh for the first time in years.

      One evening he’d been inspecting the vines which were closest to the Vasquez estate; they always had to be ever vigilant in case of sabotage. That particular evening Nic had been weary and frustrated … weary of his mother’s constant melancholy—never properly diagnosed as the depression it had been—and his father’s caustic cruelty and habitual violence. At the dinner table his father had been drunkenly ranting about how the Vasquez run of success was threatening their sales. Nic had always firmly believed you made your own success, but, constrained by his authoritarian father, he hadn’t been able to implement his own ideas.

      Something had made Nic look up to the small hill which acted as a natural boundary between the two estates, and he’d seen a feminine figure with long black hair astride a huge stallion. Madalena Vasquez. Looking right at him.

      His weariness had morphed instantly into burning irrational anger—at her for making him think about her, wonder about her, when she was forbidden. She also represented the dark and tangled feud which he had never really understood.

      The supercilious image she presented on her horse had only galvanised him further and, giving in to an urge stronger than he’d been able to resist, Nic had spurred his horse to a canter and headed straight for her—only to see her whirl around and disappear.

      He could still taste the urgency thrumming in his blood eight years later—to catch her and see her up close. Never once in their lives had they been allowed to speak to one another. Although he’d seen the way she would look at him from a distance and then glance away with artful shyness.

      Finally he’d caught another glimpse of her, low down over her horse, hair streaming in the wind. She’d been cutting through the landscape like a bullet. With increasing urgency he’d thundered after her. It had been on the very edge of both their estates that he’d eventually seen her riderless horse, tied to a tree. She’d come to a remote part of their land where orchards had been planted. And then he’d seen her standing in a clearing of trees, as if she’d known he’d follow her.

      More mesmerised by her flushed cheeks and that glossy fall of hair than he’d cared to admit, Nic had swung off his horse and come to stand in front of her. His anger had dissolved like snow on a hot stone. The very forbidden nature of what they were doing had infused the air around them.

      ‘Why did you follow me?’ she’d asked suddenly, her voice low and husky.

      Nic had spoken on an unthinking reflex. ‘Perhaps I just wanted to see the Vasquez princess up close.’

      In that instant she went white as a ghost, her eyes like two huge wounded emeralds.

      She backed away and Nic put out his hands, instantly contrite. ‘Wait. Stop. I don’t know why I said that … I’m sorry.’ He took a breath. ‘I followed you because I wanted to … and because I think you wanted me to.’

      She’d flushed pink then, the colour rushing into her cheeks dramatically. Without even being aware of it Nic reached out a hand and touched her cheek, fascinated by the way her emotions showed so clearly, feeling its satiny texture beneath his callused palm. A shudder of pure longing went through him—so strong he nearly shook.

      She stepped back, biting her lip, looking tortured. ‘We shouldn’t be here … If anyone sees us …’

      Nic saw a tremor go through her slender frame, the way her young breasts pushed against the material of her shirt. Jodhpurs encased long, slim thighs.

      He struggled with his control, waves of heat building inside him. She’d speared him with a defiant look then, which confirmed his suspicions that she wasn’t as delicate as she had always appeared—as if her little gallop through the wilderness of their lands hadn’t already told him that.

      ‘I’m not a princess. I’m not like that. I hate being paraded in public like some kind of mannequin. It’s my mother … she wishes I was more like her. They won’t even let me go out riding unsupervised. I have to sneak out when they’re busy …’

      Nic saw her gaze fall to his mouth and her cheeks pinken again. Power and testosterone flooded his body, and he smiled wryly. ‘I spend practically every waking hour on a horse … working in the vineyard.’

      She looked back up at him, but not before torturing him with an innocently hungry look at his mouth.

      ‘That’s all I ever wanted. But when my brother died my father found me helping to pick the grapes one day and sent me inside. He told me that if he ever caught me in the vineyard again he’d take his belt to me.’

      Nic winced and his stomach clenched. He knew only too well what the wrath of a father felt like. Gruffly he said, ‘Your brother died a few years ago, didn’t he?’

      Madalena looked away, swallowing visibly before saying, ‘He died in an accident when they were crushing the grapes. He was only thirteen.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’ And then he asked, a little wistfully, ‘You were close?’

      She looked back, her eyes suspiciously bright. ‘I adored him. Our father was … is … prone to rages. One day I angered him, and he would have hit me but Alvaro stepped in and took it. My father wouldn’t stop hitting him, enraged at being shown up by his own son. He was only eight at the time …’

      Her eyes were swimming with tears. Nic had been the recipient of many a beating in his own time. Acting on an instinct too powerful to resist, he reached out and pulled her to him, enfolding her slim body in his, wrapping his arms around her. The need to comfort her was overwhelming, and completely alien for someone like him who generally held people at arm’s length.

      She was a complete stranger to him in so many ways, but in that moment he felt a deep kinship. After long moments she pulled back, and with the utmost reluctance Nic let her go.

      She said shakily, ‘I should go … they’ll be looking for me …’

      She turned and Nic reached out, gripping her arm with a desperate feeling in his belly. She looked back and he said, ‘Wait … meet me here again tomorrow?’

      The world seemed to stop turning for an infinitesimal moment, and Nic braced himself for a mocking laugh—some indication that he’d completely misread those few moments.

      But Madalena’s cheeks flushed red and she said huskily, ‘I’d like that.’

      They met every day for a week—stolen moments in that secret place where time seemed to be suspended in a bubble and where inhibitions fell away. Nic spoke to СКАЧАТЬ