Chapter Two
Cerys pumped her legs , her lungs working overtime as she entered the narrow side street.
She kept her gaze fixed on the man fifteen yards ahead of her, and her bright blue rucksack as it bobbed past the dwindling crowds of people. And tried not to think about álvaro De Montoya’s son—and the forbidding frown on his devastatingly handsome face—when she had sped past his nose.
The rucksack held everything she possessed, including her phone.
Why hadn’t she paid more attention?
Her lungs heaved and her legs began to ache. She darted past a rubbish cart and swung round a corner, gaining ground. Her pack weighed a ton, and the thief was flagging. She could catch him, if she just kept running…
Her mind drifted as adrenaline and panic powered her through the pain.
She hadn’t been thinking at all when he’d swiped her rucksack because she’d been transfixed by Santiago De Montoya—after spotting him on a balcony above the square.
She’d been glued to every aspect of his body language while he was deep in conversation with his girlfriend.
He had looked so tall and striking in the designer suit, his features so harsh and arresting in the light cast by wall sconces—the patrician nose, the stubbled jawline, the high cheekbones and the waves of carefully styled jet-black hair.
But he had also been strangely detached, his stance radiating controlled irritation, while his date—a leggy, poised blonde—had seemed desperate.
The woman had looked heartbroken when they’d appeared together at the building’s exit moments later.
But just as the arriving limo had obscured Cerys’s view she had felt her bag detaching from her shoulders, the straps cut.
‘Stop running! Estùpida! ’ The gruff shout coming from behind Cerys echoed off the walls of the alley.
Just as she was trying to make sense of it— who was calling who stupid —the thief stopped abruptly at the far end of the street and turned to face her.
He was only a few yards ahead now. Sweat dripped off his features. But this close she could see the scars on his face, and the anger in his eyes. And how enormous he was.
Oh, crap!
She skidded to a stop. The running footsteps behind her echoed in the silent alleyway, but were barely audible above her thundering heartbeat.
The thief shouted something in Catalan, then dumped the bag at his feet and tore it open.
‘Stop, that’s mine…’ she shouted as he grabbed her travel wallet and her phone and stuffed them both into his back pocket.
She rushed forward without thinking, determined to stop him, as he began yanking out her clothes and throwing them onto the cobblestones, searching for more valuables.
‘No, not that, please.’ She grabbed his wrist as he lifted out her mother’s journal. This close, she could smell his sweat—acrid, bitter. Fury flashed across his face, before something which felt like a brick slammed into the side of her head.
She shot backwards and landed on her back, dazed—when several shapes appeared, large and blurry, to grab her attacker with a roar of rage.
Her vision cleared, enough to see four people become two, the other man throwing a series of sharp punches. She tried to sit up, her face numb, her bum in agony where she’d hit the paving stones.
Was she dreaming? She had to be, because the man grappling with the thief was the same man she’d watched avidly minutes before.
But as the dull thumps and grunts echoed in the alley—the two men tearing at each other, struggling to land punches—she couldn’t shake the sense of unreality.
Of floating in a strange and painful dream.
What was álvaro’s son doing here? He didn’t look detached any more, his jacket gone, his shirt torn, his face rigid with fury.
He gained the upper hand, wrapping his forearm around the thief’s throat from behind, but then the guy elbowed him hard in the ribs.
He bent over, grunting in pain… The thief scrambled away, pausing to grab the dropped journal as he disappeared into the darkness, his face bleeding.
‘No!’ she cried, lurching onto unsteady feet.
Everything hurt, but she had to get the diary back. She could work for more money, get the travel documents reissued, but the journal was the only connection with her mother she had left.
She tried to run but strong arms banded around her waist from behind, dragging her back against a rock-solid chest.
A musty and compelling mix of laundry detergent and citrus soap and salty sweat filled her aching lungs.
‘I have to get the book,’ she cried in Spanish, struggling against the cast iron hold without success.
‘Stop, it is gone.’ A breathless whisper, low with determination and demand, rasped in her ear. ‘Be still.’ His voice rose with temper and incredulity as she continued to struggle. ‘There is no purpose in being hurt for something you can replace.’
But I can’t replace it .
The thought echoed in her head, even as her strength and panic deserted her until all that was left was dizziness and exhaustion.
Her heavy legs dissolved, her knees buckling, and suddenly she was floating.
An impossibly handsome face hovered above her—reminding her of someone else she was sure she’d never seen in real life before.
The strong, angular features were so striking and forbidding, but also so familiar, the chocolate-brown eyes shadowed with concern and judgement.
The pain surged, her heart contracting in her chest, but with it came the spurt of adrenaline as a word jumped out at her…
Breathtaking. He’s breathtaking.
Her rescuer’s shirt had been torn open, revealing the tanned column of his throat, and she could see the stubble on his jaw, along with the already darkening bruise on his brow.
But as he stared at her, prickling excitement rippled over her skin.
His laboured breathing matched her own. The sensation sank low in her abdomen and surged…
…as if a fireworks display was going off in my belly.
The description exploded in her consciousness, perfectly describing how she felt: disorientated, dismayed, confused and yet vividly, viciously alive.
‘What is your name?’ he demanded.
She shook her head, trying to dispel the phantoms, the rush of nausea and dizziness… And that desperate scalding heat…
It took every last ounce of effort to whisper the name lodged in her brain as she dropped into oblivion.
‘ álvaro…’
* * *
‘She is sleeping now, Your Excellency. Let her rest, but she should be woken every two to three hours for the first twenty-four to check for a concussion.’
Santiago raked his fingers through his hair, while the young medic stuffed the last of his equipment into his bag.
‘Terrific,’ he murmured. The bruise on his brow stung as he cursed his foolish decision to get involved in the first place.
How the hell had his night gone from annoying to catastrophic?
‘Wait!’ he demanded as the young man headed to the door of his apartment. ‘Can you not admit her to hospital?’
He did not need this responsibility. He had to leave tonight, to handle Ana’s latest misadventure. His staff in the city would all be in bed by now so he could hardly wake them to come over and check on his unwanted guest. And something about the girl had a diabolic effect on his usual caution.
Plus, why had she whispered his father’s name before passing out?
The medic smiled. ‘She’s battered and bruised, but there’s no reason to treat this as an emergency, unless you wish to make a private referral.’
No way!
He recoiled at the suggestion. The press already had photographs of him haring off after her. He did not want to feed the story even more—which was why he did not intend to contact the police about the assault and robbery until tomorrow, once he was at the castillo .
‘Is she okay to travel at least?’ he asked, his frustration mounting. ‘I have to drive to Girona tonight.’
The staff at the castillo would have to watch her.
The medic nodded. ‘As long as you make sure to wake her up every two to three hours,’ he repeated, as if Santiago were an imbecile.
Then the young man’s gaze shifted to the painful area on Santiago’s forehead.
‘Are you sure you’re okay to drive?’ he asked.
‘You look a bit battered yourself, Your Excellency.’
Santiago frowned, making the skin around the bruise smart. ‘I’ll survive,’ he said flatly.
The thief had landed a few lucky punches, but he’d been hit a lot harder as a boy, when he had made the mistake of questioning his father’s judgement.
The medic nodded. ‘Have a doctor check her over tomorrow. But bed rest is really the only treatment for concussion.’
Santiago saw the young man out. Then swore under his breath. He’d showered and changed, packed a bag and taken it to his car in the garage while the medic had been checking over the girl. But now he had no choice—he would have to bring her with him.
The thought of carrying her again did not appeal to him in the slightest. Although she was not heavy, the feel of her in his arms when he had brought her back here, while she moaned and dropped in and out of consciousness, had disturbed him.
Almost as much as the whisper of his father’s name on her lips.
The compelling scent of wild flowers had invaded his senses and he couldn’t seem to stop staring at her face—as he toted her the short distance to the apartment building.
She was pretty, nothing more—her full lips somehow a little too large for her gamine face, the bruise on her cheek only increasing the sense of fragile beauty.
But it was the memory of her huge blue-green eyes, her gaze burning with intensity, which had disturbed him the most…
Because her forthright inspection had made him feel transparent, in a way he did not appreciate.
She looked impossibly young—maybe even still a teenager—and was stupidly na?ve, too. Why else would she have run headlong into trouble? Requiring him to break the habit of a lifetime and rescue her.
He stood in the doorway to his bedroom and watched her, curled on the bed, fast asleep—the medic had given her painkillers at least for the bruising.
Tugging his phone out, he texted the castillo ’s housekeeper, María, asking her to prepare a room for the girl, while explaining he would need someone to stay up to watch her.
Then he texted his EA in the Barcelona office.
Mateo would get the message tomorrow. Someone would have to see if her belongings could be retrieved from that back alley.
He’d had to leave the bag and clothes behind—with his arms full of her.
But, given Barcelona’s reputation as the Catalan capital of petty crime, he expected her belongings to be gone by morning.
Tough .
The thief had already taken the items of value. Surely she would have travel insurance to cover the losses. And if she were foolish enough not to, that was not his problem.
Steeling himself, he entered the room and scooped her up from the bed. She stirred in his arms, her luminous eyes opened and seemed to stare into his soul, sending a rush of unwanted reaction through him.
Dammit .
‘ Hola ,’ she said softly.
‘ Hola, ’ he replied.
‘ Gracias. Lo aprecio mucho .’
He wondered what she was thanking him for, but then her cheek pressed into his T-shirt and her eyelids drooped. The trusting, strangely intimate gesture had his heart hammering his ribs.
‘ Ve a dormir ,’ he said, deciding her ability to speak Spanish coherently meant she could not be that concussed.
She sighed, then obeyed his command, dropping back into sleep.
After carting her down to the garage, he buckled her sleeping form into the passenger seat of his convertible. He congratulated himself on a clean getaway as he drove out of the garage and began the night drive to the ancestral estate.
Not so successful was his battle to control the wave of unwanted awareness as the girl’s captivating floral scent filled his car…