A Spanish Awakening. KIM LAWRENCE
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‘I’m relieved,’ Emilio responded gravely. ‘So you are asking me to fall in love to make your love life easier. I’m sorry, Philip. I would do a lot for you but—’
‘I know. I don’t know what I expected. The thing is I’m pretty desperate.’ The driven expression shining in his blue eyes was a reflection of that desperation. ‘I’d do anything for Rosanna—cut my hair, for starters.’
The comment drew a laugh from Emilio. ‘I am impressed.’
‘I’m serious. It’s time to settle down. No more wandering the world for me. I’m going to get respectable. If Rosanna wants me to, I’d even go and work for Dad, become a suit, swallow the silver spoon and be the son he always wanted me to be.’
‘Would the opportunity arise?’
‘Are you kidding? Dad would love it if I came crawling back with my tail between my legs. He’s built up his empire to hand it over to his heir.’ He grinned and directed a finger at his own chest. ‘Me.’
‘You are hardly an only child.’
Philip conceded this point with a shrug. ‘I suppose if Janie had been interested in the business the fatted calf might not await me, but she never was and it’s not likely she will be, having become the face of that perfume. It’s real spooky to see your little sister staring at you from magazine covers and advertising boards.’
Emilio dismissed the elder of the Armstrong sisters with a shake of his head. ‘I was thinking of Megan.’
The sight of a familiar figure snapped him back to the present, catching his gaze as he scanned the busy concourse searching for his ex-wife.
He had thought of Megan and now she was here!
Despite the fact she appeared to have dropped a couple of dress sizes—a circumstance he did not totally approve of—and acquired a fashionable gloss to match the new poise in her manner, he knew Megan Armstrong immediately.
Of course he knew her. Emilio, not a man given to exaggeration, believed totally he could have located her blindfolded in a room of a thousand beautiful Englishwomen!
It was enough, he reflected, to make a man believe in fate. Of course, Emilio did not believe in signs or cosmic forces, but he did believe in following his instincts.
If he followed his at that moment it might get them both arrested. A smile that did not soften the predatory glow in his eyes flickered across his face as he thought, It might be worth it.
CHAPTER TWO
‘BUT I need you here tonight!’
Megan was not surprised to hear the aggrieved note tinged with truculence in her boss’s voice.
Charlie Armstrong had not made his millions by allowing little things like air-traffic controllers’ strikes to stand in his way and he expected his staff to display an equally robust response to such obstacles to his wishes, even when that member of staff was his daughter.
Actually, especially when that employee was his daughter!
‘Sorry, Dad.’
‘What use is sorry to me? I need—’
‘But it looks like I’m stuck here,’ Megan inserted, her calm, unruffled tone affording a stark contrast to her father’s haranguing bellow. ‘I’ll book into a hotel here and catch the first flight out tomorrow,’ she promised.
‘And when will that be?’
Megan glanced at the slightly scratched face of the watch that encircled her slim wrist. Not an expensive item but as far as Megan was concerned utterly invaluable, it had belonged to her mother, who had died when she was twelve.
‘It’s a twenty-four-hour strike so 9:00 a.m. tomorrow is the earliest flight.’
‘Nine! No, that is simply not acceptable!’
‘Acceptable or not, Dad, short of sprouting wings I’m grounded, and before you suggest it, the trains and cross-channel ferries are booked up.’
‘By people with foresight.’
Megan resisted the impulse to retort by people who were returning home after the international football tournament, knowing that an excuse, legitimate or not, would not soothe her father when he was in this mood.
She let him vent his displeasure loudly for another few minutes, responding with the occasional monosyllabic murmur of agreement when appropriate while she allowed herself to be carried along by the seething mass of bodies, fellow stranded travellers who were all heading in the same direction, towards the exit.
Getting a taxi was going to be a nightmare. Megan mentally prepared herself for a long wait. Maybe she should simply camp out in the airport overnight?
‘And don’t expect me to fork out for fancy hotels. Being my daughter doesn’t mean you can take advantage of the situation. I expect the same level of commitment from you that I would expect from any of my—’
As she tuned out the lecture she had heard many times before Megan’s attention strayed around the crowded space heaving with a cross-section of humanity.
The air left her lungs in a fractured gasp as recognition jolted through her body with the fizz of an electric shock. ‘Oh, my God!’ she breathed, pressing a hand to her heaving chest.
‘What? What is it?’
Megan squeezed her eyes shut, but still saw the face that had caused her to haemorrhage the composure that had become her trademark.
It was not a face that was easy to banish!
She took a deep breath, looking up in guilty acknowledgement towards the young man who had nearly tripped over her when she had come to a dead halt without warning. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘No problems,’ said the backpacker, losing his air of irritation and producing an engaging smile as he took in her slim figure, gleaming, glossy brown hair and English-rose heart-shaped face. ‘Do you want a hand with that bag? ‘
Megan, who was already drifting away, didn’t register the offer as she glanced back towards the door through which she had seen the tall figure framed, her emotions a mixture of heart-thudding excitement and trepidation.
It was empty.
Had she imagined it? Her glance swung to left and right, moving over the swathe of heads. Emilio Rios was not the sort of man who blended into a crowd.
‘What is it, Megan? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing, Dad, I’m fine,’ she lied, well aware that her reaction to someone who bore a fleeting similarity to someone who probably had forgotten she existed had been, to put it mildly, way over the top.
‘Well, you don’t sound fine!’
It was mortifying. In a matter of seconds she had regressed to the cringingly naïve and self-conscious twenty-one-year-old she had been the last time she had seen him. If her feet had not been nailed to the floor she would have turned and run, exactly the way she had eventually done on that occasion.
Now how crazy was that?
She had not seen the man for almost two years and he had probably forgotten both her and the rather embarrassing circumstances of their last meeting.
All the same, she was glad she had only imagined him.
Megan took evasive action to avoid a baggage trolley being wheeled straight at her before replying to her father’s comment. ‘It was nothing. I just thought I saw someone, that’s all. Look, I’ll have to go now. I’ll ring you later when I’ve booked in somewhere.’
‘Saw who?’
Megan took a deep breath and swallowed, the name emerging huskily from her dry throat. ‘Emilio Rios.’
‘Emilio!’