One Night in... Rio: The Brazilian Millionaire's Love-Child / Virgin Mistress, Scandalous Love-Child / The Surgeon's Runaway Bride. Anne Mather

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СКАЧАТЬ to dry her hair with the towel, but it was still curling wildly about her shoulders. She looked distracted, but amazingly sexy, and Alejandro felt his body respond.

      She hadn’t noticed him yet. She was too intent on picking up the filmy stockings from the bed and sitting down to roll them up her slender legs. But something, a sudden intake of breath on his part perhaps, caused her to glance in his direction.

      With one leg raised so that he could plainly see the honey-gold curls escaping from the crotch of her panties, she was irresistibly appealing and, despite her gasp of outrage, Alejandro moved slowly into the room.

      ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Isobel could barely get the words past her lips, and, tugging off her stockings, she rolled them into a ball and flung them angrily in his direction. ‘Get out of here!’ she exclaimed, her voice rising half in panic, half in indignation. ‘I—I asked you to wait in the other room.’

      ‘As I recall, you did not make any—como se diz?—any stipulation, nao, as to where you wanted me to stay,’ Alejandro contradicted her, huskily catching the ball of black silk in one hand and raising it to his face. ‘Mmm, they smell of you,’ he went on as she rose from the bed to face him. ‘Do not be angry, cara. You are a beautiful woman. Do not be ashamed of your body.’

      ‘I’m not ashamed!’ Isobel caught her breath. ‘But, if that’s supposed to be some sort of apology, I don’t accept it. You have no right to come here, uninvited, and behave as if I should be flattered.’

      ‘It was not an apology,’ inserted Alejandro mildly, dropping the stockings onto the floor and looking down at her with light, disturbing eyes. ‘I was merely speaking the truth, querida. Do not blame me for that.’

      ‘Oh, right.’ Isobel glanced about her wildly, looking for something—her dressing gown, perhaps—to cover her semi-nakedness. But she’d taken her robe into the bathroom, and the trousers and sleeveless wrap-tank she’d been planning to wear offered little in the way of protection. ‘And I suppose if I were a Brazilian girl you’d behave in exactly the same way?’

      Alejandro’s lips thinned. Despite recent events, he couldn’t deny that there was no way Miranda’s mother would have allowed him to enter her daughter’s bedroom, even if he’d wanted to. Despite the new freedoms the twenty-first century had brought, women of good family clung to the old ways. Oh, that wasn’t to say that young people didn’t rebel. He was sure Miranda had done things her mother knew nothing about. But on the surface anyway the old customs applied, and he was honest enough to admit he’d want it no other way.

      The silence between them stretched, and when he didn’t answer her her lips twisted in contempt. ‘I didn’t think so,’ she said, turning her back on him. ‘Now, will you please get out of here?’

      Alejandro’s hands balled into fists, the urge to grip her shoulders and pull her back against him almost overwhelming. From this angle, he was offered only a glimpse of her breasts, but the narrow curve of her waist and the delectable swell of her hips were irresistible. And the rounded cheeks of her bottom protruding from the black lace of her panties sent a hot rush of blood into his groin.

      He wanted her, he acknowledged grimly. Wanted to bury his burning sex inside her and expunge all the stress and frustration he’d felt since he first kissed her in the welcoming heat of her body.

      But he couldn’t do it.

      He mustn’t do it.

      For God’s sake, he wasn’t an animal. And she wasn’t some cheap whore he could seduce and leave without a backward glance. He respected her too much for that. And, for that reason, he had to get himself out of here before his own needs and the indisputable temptation she represented overcame his good sense

      And then, as he was backing towards the door, she turned her head and looked at him. Blue eyes, as clear and lucid as a summer sky, met his tormented gaze. Eyes that softened and gentled as he looked at her, lips parting to allow the provocative tip of her tongue to appear between her teeth.

      She held his gaze for long, disturbing moments, and then she said a little breathlessly, ‘Your—your jacket’s hanging on the stand in the hall. You—you might have seen it when you came in.’

      In actual fact, Alejandro had been aware of nothing but Isobel when he’d entered the apartment, but he acknowledged now that there probably had been some coats hanging in the hall.

      ‘Certo,’ he said, a faintly mocking expression marring his dark features. Right. But what had he expected? he asked himself bitterly. That she might change her mind and beg him to stay? ‘Obrigado.’ Thanks.

      Isobel managed a slight smile over her shoulder, but her teeth came together and trapped her tongue before she could say anything else. He’d already shown her what he really thought about her. His silent admission that he wouldn’t treat a Brazilian girl with the same lack of respect that he’d shown her proved it. Just because she was tempted to throw caution to the winds and let him make love to her—something she suspected they both wanted—she had to remember that was not a sensible option.

      Alejandro had reached the bedroom door now, and before he stepped out of her sight he gave a slight bow of his head. ‘It has been a pleasure knowing you, Isobella,’ he remarked, not without some irony. ‘Adeus, cara. I hope you have a good life.’

      As Isobel digested the finality of his words, he disappeared into the living room, and she waited breathlessly for the outer door to open and close. He was going, she thought, aware of her own mixed feelings about it. He had to go. But she didn’t really want him to.

      The silence was deafening, and her mood swung from ambivalence about his departure to an anxious curiosity as to why he hadn’t left. She would have heard the door, she assured herself. Which meant he was still in the apartment. But why? What was he doing?

      She had to find out and, snatching up the shirt she’d discarded when she’d gone for her shower, she pulled it on and wrapped the folds around her. It only skimmed her thighs, but at least it was a little less revealing than her underwear.

      Alejandro was in the living room. Because her apartment was on the sixth floor, she hadn’t drawn the curtains, and he was standing at the window staring out at the lights of the city.

      He’d put on the jacket he’d been wearing when he’d arrived at the apartment, and she could see how wet and creased it was. Even so, that didn’t explain why he was still here, and with a tentative clearing of her throat she said, ‘Is something wrong?’

      Alejandro swung round, his hands at his throat, and she realised he’d been fastening his collar and tie. She’d been too premature, she realised. She should have given him more time. As it was, she felt a fool for intruding.

      ‘You have an interesting view,’ he said, his hands dropping to his sides. ‘My apologies. I realise I am overstaying my welcome.’

      Isobel’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. ‘Your—your coat’s soaking,’ she said at last, unable to think of anything else, and Alejandro’s lips twisted.

      ‘Esta chovendo,’he said, and then, collecting himself, ‘It is raining, cara.’ He spread his arms. ‘When it rains, I get wet.’

      Isobel pressed her lips together. ‘You could—you could wear your other jacket,’ she pointed out, and Alejandro’s lips tilted.

      ‘So СКАЧАТЬ