Was he so wrong to expect her to leave her life in England and make a new life with him and Raphael in Spain? After the time they had spent together in the Port of Vigo last spring, Leandro did not think that he had imagined the powerful connection that had radiated so compellingly between them. When he had let Isabella go without even giving her his cell phone number, he had had much cause to regret his overly cautious action. And all that time after she had left she had been pregnant with his child and he had not known it …Regret and pain locked his throat when he considered how she had managed on her own and how betrayed she must have felt when the film company would not even pass on her messages to him. He should not be surprised that any vestiges of past affection had probably been obliterated under the circumstances.
Yet he could not help craving her attention like a drug he could not give up. Last night he had slept little. How could a man sleep when he was plagued by daydreams and fantasies of a woman who fulfilled every criteria of feminine perfection that Leandro could imagine? The softly provocative kisses he had received from her delectable lips in that hotel room eighteen months ago—as well as the memory of the arousing little sounds she had made in the throes of making love—were a seductive torment to him even now in the cold light of morning.
Impatiently he pushed to his feet, driving his hands into the slim pockets of his jeans as once again the hot, drugging heat that flooded his body at the thought of Isabella made it impossible to sit or relax at all. As his edgy, preoccupied gaze swept the newly tidy room that his friend’s housekeeper had restored in the early hours whilst Leandro had been working he had to console himself with the fact that at least tomorrow he would have the chance to be alone with Isabella and Raphael in his own house. And once his baby son was fed and settled for the night, then he would waste no more time in making relations between himself and his beautiful amante far sweeter and more agreeable than they were at present. And living with him and sharing some of the material and cultural advantages of his world and seeing how much that environment must benefit their son, Isabella would soon forget her worries that she might be jeopardising Raphael’s happiness and quickly agree to becoming Leandro’s wife …
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY arrived at Leandro’s house in Madrid some time in the early evening when dusk was approaching. Not knowing his personal tastes at all, Isabella was struck by the quiet, unpretentious beauty of the stone-built farmhouse—known as a finca in Spanish, as Leandro had informed her—situated far away from the hub of the main town in rural splendour. Its edifice glowed cloud-white in the fading light of day and as they drove up in the car Leandro had left at the airport for his return the external lighting automatically came on, illuminating their way. Almost immediately there was something about the place that touched a chord deep inside Isabella. An inexplicable sense of coming home even though she told herself she was just being ridiculous and foolishly, unrealistically hopeful. Deliberately, she put the feeling aside.
She shivered slightly in the cool night air as she stepped out of the car, her senses immediately captivated by the richly resinous scent of the earth, and her blood was irrevocably stirred. She loved this land, she realised. She had grown up loving it because of her wonderful grandfather who had told her so many stories about his homeland that it had almost made Isabella homesick. That was why she had always longed to walk the Camino. Somehow, undertaking such a pilgrimage had brought her even closer to the spirit of her grandfather as well as to the land, and it had also set her on the way to discovering what was her own heart’s desire. Flicking a quick covetous glance at Leandro as he walked round to the boot of the car to see to their luggage—his long-legged stride and broad shoulders in his stylish sports jacket and jeans making her heart race suddenly—Isabella reflected that perhaps it hadn’t been so difficult for her to make the decision to come back to Spain after all.
‘He is asleep?’
‘Yes …he hardly even put up a fight. I think the plane journey and the travelling wore him out.’
‘Sí …I think you are right.’
Immediately detecting the apprehension in her expression that she could not hide, Leandro wondered how Isabella had viewed the fact that he had moved her immediately into the master bedroom—her cases down by his next to the big brass and iron bed that he usually slept in alone. They were going to be man and wife …and he saw no point in delaying the inevitable and making her doubt his intention by giving her a room of her own. Especially not when he had already waited eighteen months to experience the rapturous feeling of her body next to his again.
Raphael’s travelling cot, Leandro had placed next to Isabella’s side of the bed until Constanza—his mother—brought the beautifully carved cradle that he had slept in himself as a baby from her home tomorrow. It had been all he could do to dissuade her from visiting them tonight, such was her eagerness to see her grandson—but thankfully Leandro had been able to convince her that a visit was better left to the following day when Isabella and Raphael were more rested after their journey from London.
‘You look a little tired. Why don’t you come and make yourself at home?’ he suggested, his deceptively cool gaze hiding the clamour of aroused senses inside him that were inevitably charged by the sight of Isabella’s too-provoking beauty. Wearing a simple white linen shirt with light blue denim jeans and a black silver-buckled belt, her long ebony hair left unbounded and her feet fetchingly bare, she would have set the most impervious of male hearts to racing. If he were to point a film camera her way, Leandro had no doubt that that same captivating appeal would absolutely transfix an audience were she to appear on the screen. He knew his trade well enough to know that his instincts were right.
Studying her in silence as she moved across the room to seat herself on a couch draped with a vivid ochre-coloured Andalucian shawl, he could see why most people would naturally assume she was a true native of Spain—a bewitching señorita with eyes as black as treacle and a slow, sweet smile as sinful as ‘Diablo’ himself.
‘This is a great room,’ she commented, her gaze contemplating her surroundings with seeming pleasure.
***
Where should she look first? Isabella’s senses were confounded and captivated by the almost shockingly vivid colours that filled the room—colours that had no business complimenting each other but did. From the truly surprising candyfloss-pink-painted walls, to the mismatched rainbow hues on the chairs and couches and the breathlessly lovely interwoven Indian rugs that covered the generously proportioned stone-flagged floor. It was the unrestrained creation of an artist. Even if she never stepped outside the door and saw where they were, Isabella would instinctively know that she was under the spell of someone whose very soul was steeped in the culture and wilder landscapes of this arresting land. Even the books that crowded Leandro’s bookcases had bright, unrestrained, eye-catching spines that made her long to go over and examine them more closely, to see what treasures the well-thumbed pages were hiding. The result of all this dramatic use of colour and material was a passionate, seductive sensibility that seemed to spill over into everything. It agitated Isabella’s blood as well, making her acutely responsive to almost every single detail about this remarkable man at whose instigation she was here and whose steady commanding gaze drew her attention helplessly back to his as though magnetised.
‘I am glad that you like it, Isabella. This is my favourite home and it is here that we will spend the majority of the time together.’
‘Your favourite?’ she queried.
‘I have other homes in Pontevedra and in Paris where we will sometimes stay. But Madrid is my main base because I endeavour to arrange for most of my work to be here. I think it is important to help the economy by utilising local talent and locations whenever I can. Can I get you something to drink? Some wine, some juice, perhaps? We will eat later. In Madrid we are used to having dinner late …sometimes as late as eleven o’clock at night. Does that bother you?’
‘Not at all. I ate on the plane and I’m not hungry