Afterwards they lay in a heap of tangled limbs and sweat-slicked skin and shuddering senses. He could feel the thunder of her heartbeat and the quiver of her lips against his throat.
‘Well, that was worth the six-year wait,’ he murmured eventually.
‘Don’t talk,’ she said, and he grimaced.
Maybe she was right. Talking was bound to spoil everything. Rolling onto his back, he took her with him so she lay along his length with their bodies still joined and no desire on either side to separate.
Her hair was stuck to his face and he reached up to brush it away, then gently rearranged her into a more comfortable position, with her cheek in the damp, cushioning crook of his shoulder and her boneless legs resting along the sides of his.
He was sated, he realised, then thought, Strange, that. Because the feeling had nothing to do with the sex but with this—having Cristina lying on top of him like a warm, sleek, sleepy cat.
Reaching for one of her hands, he lifted it to his mouth and began idly tasting each slender finger while he attempted to work out why he was feeling like this.
Cristina, on the other hand, was trying to work out how she’d break it to him that marriage was out of the question, no matter what slant he wanted to put on what they had just done.
Why did he need a wife, anyway?
Or a baby?
The thought of the latter addition made her start to tense up. He instantly soothed her with the featherlight brush of his fingers down the length of her spine.
Luis was always like this after making love, she remembered. Wide awake, but relaxed, content to keep her this close. Any minute now he would start to instigate a second loving. She knew it because she could feel him inside her, still a bold, probing force, even though he was not quite fully erect. And this time it would be slow, more deeply intense and sensually exploring.
Did she let it happen? Did she give in and steal just one more escape from reality before she told him that his deal was not going to happen?
‘You told me you still love me,’ he remarked idly.
‘I did not!’ she denied, lifting her head up from his shoulder so that she could glare that denial into his impassive face.
He was so beautiful her heart turned over. His slumbrous eyelids lowered as he sucked her index finger into his mouth and wrapped his tongue right around it, then began a slow mimic of a different act that set him hardening and swelling inside her.
Her soft gasping quiver had him releasing the finger.
‘You did,’ he insisted, then reached up and brought her mouth down on his before she could answer. A few seconds later and she had forgotten what they were talking about as it all began again in a slow deep mutual loving—just as she had predicted.
Just this one more time, Cristina told herself as she let him take her over.
Back in London, Maria Ferreira Scott-Lee was standing by her dressing table. In her hand she held a small package from Estes & Associates, Advocates of Law, Rio de Janeiro. The package had arrived the same day that her son had flown out to Brazil. Inside it was a jewel box and a letter. The jewel box held an exquisite, priceless diamond-encrusted emerald ring. The letter was personal—deeply personal—handwritten by Enrique himself.
Don’t mess with what you do not yet understand, Maria, Enrique had written as a warning footnote. Our son will marry the widow of Vaasco Ordoniz and you will forget that you ever knew that name if you value our son’s love for you.
But she could not forget Vaasco Ordoniz. She could not forget that Anton would have been Vaasco’s son if Enrique had not got in the way.
Ah, the tangles life could throw at you, she thought on a sigh that had her lowering herself onto the dressing stool. Enrique was the most handsome man she had ever encountered. Meeting him at Vaasco’s ranch had turned into the ruin of her life. Betrothed to Vaasco, in love with Vaasco, she had still fallen for Enrique’s charm and into his bed. When she’d fallen pregnant with Enrique’s child she’d had to tell Vaasco. It was natural that he’d thrown her out of his life.
‘Back to the gutter where you belong,’ he’d said.
Sebastian had come to her rescue. It had been Sebastian who flew her back to Rio and eventually brought her to England with him. Dear Sebastian, who had been in Brazil to buy horses from Vaasco. He’d come back with a brokenhearted, shamed and pregnant woman instead.
Now here was life making a tangling full circle, and the Ordoniz name was haunting her again. Who was this woman? How did Enrique know about her? Why had he sent their son to her? Who was playing a game with whom?
She was young, Kinsella Lane said. Vaasco had been a very wealthy man. He had trained horses for the polo field as a hobby, not to earn a living. Who was this—person who would marry an old man if she was not some kind of cynical fortune-hunter? And, having managed to inherit Vaasco’s money, was she looking to get her hands on Anton’s money as well?
Maria looked down at the ring box sitting on her dressing table, then at the words in Enrique’s note.
For you, Maria, in sincerest gratitude for the son you gave me and as a token of my regret for the life you had taken away from you on my account. Our son grew in my image. He deserves to know this. He deserves his share in my inheritance. Vaasco turned out badly. One day you will perhaps thank me for saving you from him. Think on that when you meet his widow. She is not what she seems and deserves your pity.
‘I pity no one who means to hurt my son,’ she murmured.
Maria’s son wasn’t hurting. He was sleeping the sleep of the thoroughly sated.
Lying beside him, Cristina watched him—just watched, as she’d used to love watching Luis sleep. He had a way of sprawling on his front across three-quarters of the bed, leaving her one quarter to curl herself into. She never minded. When he awoke, her quarter would become his quarter too, leaving the rest of the bed to grow cool.
Or it would if she intended to be here when he awoke. She had already delayed her departure for much longer than she should have.
But for now—for a few more precious seconds—she was content to reacquaint herself with the way his hair flopped over his forehead and how his face wore the relaxed expression of sleep.
Her tummy muscles quivered, her heart squeezing out a tight, painful ache. He was beautiful, her Luis. Passionate, demanding, insatiable—and the low-down pulse of just how insatiable still played its pleasure across the sensitive muscles where she loved to feel Luis most.
How had she lived six years without being with him?
How was she going to manage without him all over again?