‘I hate you.’
‘I know.’ Raul dipped his head and nipped her earlobe. ‘Imagine how incredible it will be … all that hate fuelling all that lust.’
Sensation filled Charley, every crevice of her coming alive at his touch, and at the whisper of his breath on her skin.
Two years without this …
Somehow she managed to pull her hands free from his grasp, fully intending to use them as weapons to push him off. Instead, working of their own accord, they hooked around his neck to pull him in for her hungry lips to connect with his. She had no sane comprehension of what she was doing. Instinct was taking over to seize what her body so desperately wanted.
In that instant any sort of rationality dissolved from her mind.
In a mesh of lips and tongues they came together, devouring each other, her fingers digging into his scalp, one of his hands sweeping up her back and nestling into her hair, clasping her head tightly.
His taste filled her and his warm breath merged with her own, sending deeper darts of need into her. Every part of her was aching for his touch, his kiss, his caress …
MICHELLE SMART’s love affair with books started when she was a baby, when she would cuddle them in her cot. A voracious reader of all genres, she found her love of romance established when she stumbled across her first Mills & Boon® book at the age of twelve. She’s been reading (and writing) them ever since. Michelle lives in Northamptonshire with her husband and two young Smarties.
The Perfect
Cazorla Wife
Michelle Smart
This book is dedicated to Pippa, my wonderful editor.
Thank you for everything you do— I couldn’t do any of this without you.
Contents
THE MOONLIGHT THAT poured over the mountaintop hotel gave it an ethereal, mysterious quality. From one perspective it looked enticing, welcoming. From Charley’s perspective, the shadows it cast spelled danger. The moonlight shouldn’t be silver. It should be red.
But this was no time for imagined threats. She was here for one purpose and one purpose only.
Taking a fortifying deep breath, she waited for the barrier to rise then drove through and parked in the main car park. No valet approached to whisk her Fiat 500 off to the secure parking area filled with Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis and the like.
Ambient music greeted her in the sprawling lobby where hotel guests were lounging around in their finery sipping on pre-and post-dinner drinks. She didn’t make eye contact with anyone, intent on slipping through to the function room at the back.
The closer her steps took her, the louder the thuds of her heart grew. By the time she reached the door, the beats inside her were so loud the ambient music was completely drowned out.
A barrel of a man materialised, preventing her entry into the room.
‘Your invitation, please,’ he said, holding out his hand.
‘My husband arrived earlier,’ she answered in hesitant Spanish. She’d lived in the country for over five years but only in recent months did she feel she’d got an actual grip on the language. She still kept her phrasebook in her handbag just in case. ‘He left word that I would be getting here late,’ she lied.
‘Your husband?’
Charley reached into her silver clutch bag, removed her passport and handed it over. ‘Raul Cazorla.’ She imagined how her soon-to-be ex-husband would react if he were in this situation and tried to channel some of his arrogance. She held her phone up. ‘Would you like me to call him so he can come and verify who I am?’
She could see the guard debating what to do. No doubt he had taken Raul’s invitation himself. No doubt he had clocked the flame-haired lingerie model on his arm too.
Thinking of that lingerie model...
A host of bitter feelings curdled in Charley’s belly, just as they had two weeks ago when the first picture of the happy couple had been spread on the cover of one of Spain’s high-end glossies. Raul had looked like the cat who’d licked the bowl dry of all the cream, which Charley supposed wasn’t all that surprising. Physically, Jessica was perfect.
She doubted the model was his first lover since she’d left, just the first he’d publicly acknowledged.
Who he saw was none of her business, she reminded herself. In a few short weeks their divorce would be finalised. He would be a free agent.
She inhaled deeply and narrowed her