Latin Lovers: Passionate Spaniards: The Spaniard's Marriage Demand / Kept by the Spanish Billionaire / The Spanish Doctor's Convenient Bride. Maggie Cox
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damp hair, Isabella stole one final unsatisfactory glance in the mirror before hurrying into the other room to open the door. She hadn’t even had the chance to reapply her make-up. Oh, well …he would just have to accept her as he found her. His hands either side of his lean, jean-clad hips, Leandro’s too engaging smile was akin to the first sigh-inducing lap of hot water in a scented bath, spilling over fatigued and tense limbs after a long day’s work …a pleasure—up until now—virtually unmatched. That pleasure became even more stunningly entrapping when Isabella met his eyes. It was as though his gaze had fired a honey-tipped arrow straight into her breast and now that honey was seeping slowly and inexorably into her blood. She had the strange sensation of having just revealed everything to this disturbing man. Burning heat throbbed through her in a debilitating wave.
‘Hi.’ Her hands fell to her sides to clutch the edges of her shirt—as if she needed something to hold onto to help ground her increasing sense of unreality.
‘My friend Benito tells me that I look like a gypsy you must have found on the road to Santiago. He thinks I have bewitched the nice English girl. What do you think, Isabella?’
‘What do I think?’ Her heart pounded as she surveyed the lazy, contemplative smile that Leandro flicked over her chest before returning in an equally leisurely fashion to her heated face. ‘I think that your friend has a fine imagination …that’s what I think.’ Gypsy, pirate, master storyteller …Leandro Reyes was all those things and more, Isabella thought helplessly.
‘And how about your own imagination, Isabella? How does that work for you?’
Leandro saw the hot colour seep into her face even before he had finished speaking. The woman found it almost impossible to disguise her feelings and right now he was fiercely glad to know that Isabella’s feelings were very much in concordance with his own as far as their fledgling relationship went. He wanted to take her to bed right now …he could barely wait. All the time he had been talking with Benito, all Leandro had really been able to think about was the sweet señorita who was waiting for him upstairs. If she had turned him away tonight he would have been fiercely disappointed and frustrated and it would not have been an easy task to easily put her rejection aside. The realisation merely added to the intense desirous heat that was already gripping him.
‘So?’ He shrugged with pretended nonchalance. ‘I will come inside so that we can discuss the subject further.’
Isabella stood to one side as he passed her. Then she closed the door and watched his tall figure saunter across to the bed and sit down.
CHAPTER THREE
‘SO …YOU like it here? Benito is very proud of this place.’
‘It’s beautiful. I didn’t expect anything quite like this,’ Isabella admitted nervously, glancing round her.
‘He told me to tell you that you enhance it with your own beauty.’ Leandro took her breath away with a raffish grin. ‘But now you must tell me why you are walking the Santiago de Compostela.’ Leaning back on his elbows, he regarded her with nonchalant ease …as if he had relaxation down to an art form. It made Isabella ultra sensitive about her own state of discord with her body. She felt jumpy and apprehensive around him, as if she were contemplating touching burning blue flame. With one penetrating glance, she somehow got the notion that he intuited the very heart of her feelings and she had to admit that unsettled her perhaps more than anything. She shivered. Outside, as if to echo the mounting agitation inside her, the rain lashed loudly at the thickly paned windows as though threatening to come inside. Curling a still damp strand of ebony hair round her fingers, Isabella sent up a silent plea for guidance. Never had she needed it more!
‘I told you …I’m writing a book on why people choose to walk it. My grandfather was quite a devout Catholic and he talked about it so much that I—’
‘Most pilgrims do not walk the Santiago de Compostela for religious reasons—as I am sure you have already found out, Isabella.’ Leandro’s devastating smile contained just the tiniest hint of mockery and she knew at that moment that he intuited much more about her than she was comfortable with. Those clear grey eyes of his would be ruthless in discerning the truth. Her thoughts would be as transparent to him as though he looked upon a still, unrippled lake, right down to the bottom.
‘I needed some inspiration …as well as a new challenge.’
Finally, deciding to express herself without her guard up for once, Isabella let go of her damp tendril of hair and walked across to the window, carefully bypassing the bed on which Leandro had arranged his disturbingly masculine body with such breathtaking ease on top of the gold satin counterpane. ‘I mean, I love my job at the library, but for some reason I started to feel a bit dissatisfied. I suppose I got stuck in a rut. Actually, the sameness of it made me want to scream sometimes! Some people thrive on routine, but I realise I don’t. Life shouldn’t just be a predictable drudge. There should be some adventure, don’t you think?’ She shrugged as the strength of her feelings took impassioned hold and she glanced back at the window in a bid to compose herself. ‘Anyway …I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to do to make things better, but one of the things I did know was that I wanted to write this book. The idea had been there for a long time but frankly I kept talking myself out of it. I thought—I thought people would think I was overreaching myself in some way …you know? Trying to be too clever.’ For ‘people’ read her family and Patrick. ‘I had to make some tough decisions. I broke up with my fiancé and cancelled our wedding. I wasn’t being callous …It would never have worked anyway and I thought if I don’t do this now—the pilgrimage and the book—then I may never again have either the courage or the chance. So here I am. I think I’m walking the Camino to find some courage and inspiration to live a different sort of life …to discover who I really am and what I’m capable of …Do you know what I mean?’
Hearing the self-conscious edge to her voice, Leandro silently applauded her honesty. Such a candid response to his question was quite refreshing when he considered the duplicity of some other women he’d been with. She must have felt very strongly about her need for change to call off her wedding. Considering the highly desirable qualities this woman possessed, as well as her enchanting looks, Leandro concluded that her ex-fiancé must have suffered considerable regret about losing her. Isabella Deluce was a fascinating, indisputably sexy woman, who any man could not fail to be affected by. Uncoiling his body from the bed, he strolled casually across to the window to join her.
‘Isabella …’
Examining the rippling silk that was her rich dark hair, he gently parted some strands with his fingers and softly blew his warm breath onto the back of her neck. He saw her exquisitely sensitive shiver and was fiercely glad that he had brought her here to Benito’s luxurious hotel in the middle of the night where there was little possibility that any paparazzi would be following him. If they did …Benito knew exactly what to do to get rid of them. Now all Leandro aimed to do was to devote himself to Isabella for the whole of the rest of the night without interruption. ‘Every footstep you take on the Camino is taking you back to yourself …your true self,’ he told her. ‘I promise you that. By the time you reach the Cathedral in Santiago at the end of your walking and pass through the famous Door of Glory as millions of pilgrims have done before you, you will have much more clarity of mind and heart.’
Instinctively Isabella knew that Leandro was right and his words definitely raised her spirits. Already, after days and miles of walking, sometimes in silence, sometimes with the companionship of other walkers, and at night as bands of them joined together in various villages dotted across Northern Spain for the nightly pilgrims’ mass, Isabella knew a deeply profound change was taking place inside her. As Leandro had said, most people did not walk the Camino for religious reasons. Undertaking the challenging five-hundred-mile trek on foot walking through vineyards and the ancient kingdoms of Northern Spain in the hot sun, wind and rain certainly gave a person plenty of time to reflect.
Already Isabella knew it would impact upon her life for ever and she hadn’t even completed it yet. But she’d already discovered