The Spaniard's Woman - Contemporary Romance (13 page)

There was no time to dwell upon it now, however. They found Dylan in his room, investigating a box of old toys he had discovered under the bed.

‘What have you got there poppet?’ Rhianna asked quizzically.

‘My old toys,’ Gabriel sounded surprised. ‘I haven’t seen them in years.’

Rhianna looked down at the assortment of things, some of them very battered from their previous existence. There were several engines, a sailboat, a collection of toy soldiers and some rather patched stuffed toys; the usual things that little boys loved and she wondered ruefully why the thought of Gabriel as a little boy seemed so unlikely. Was it because there seemed to be nothing playful about him now? Gabriel was all about strength and power and a driving masculinity that could be breathtaking in its forcefulness. The idea that he had once been as small as Dylan was intriguing.

‘It’s time to go down to lunch sweetie pie. You can play with these later.’

Dylan immediately held out his arms to be picked up again but this time Gabriel was the one who scooped him up. ‘You are so big you should be carrying your mama,’ he told Dylan with mock severity, an idea that made the little boy giggle with delight.

Isobel had arranged luncheon in the formal dining room, an enormous room dominated by a long table that could have comfortably sat twenty people. The solemn decor was emphasized by the heavy wooden furniture and the velvet and brocade of the couches and drapes. Rhianna caught the sardonic look Gabriel cast towards his mother who was seated on the right hand side of the table, next to the end, a position, which presumably belonged to Gabriel as head of the household. Obviously Isobel was keen to impress upon Rhianna the nature of the family she had dared to try and enter. The Ortegas were an old Catalonian family. The message was perfectly clear; you may have produced a son for the household, but you cannot hope to match us in birth and ancestry.

If only she knew
, Rhianna thought wearily,
just how reluctant I am to be here..
.

‘Realmente Madre
, why are we eating in
here
?’ Liani, who had met them in the hall and was following right behind demanded, obviously surprised. ‘We never have lunch in here.’

Her mother gave her a quelling look. ‘You are late, Liani. Take your place at the table. Next to your brother.’ she added pointedly.

Gabriel intervened immediately. ‘Rhianna will sit next to me and Dylan next to her,
Madre
. As it should be.’ There was an implacable note in his voice.

Isobel Ortega’s lips thinned but she said nothing, merely inclining her head to indicate that she would accede to her son’s wishes.

It was a far from comfortable meal. Liani chatted on cheerfully, taking pains to talk to Dylan who, now that he was feeling more settled, had lost a great deal of his shyness and chattered back. Gabriel and his mother, however, were doing nothing to ensure that the conversation flowed smoothly. In fact, Gabriel seemed somewhat withdrawn, a frown in the back of his eyes as he ate. The food was delicious, a selection of salads, seafood paella, meatballs in a delicious sauce and cold omelet, cut into wedges. Rhianna had no appetite and ate sparingly, conscious of the accessing blue eyes of the woman sitting opposite her.

‘Well, Rhianna,’ Isobel finally spoke. ‘What do you think of my son’s house?’

‘It’s beautiful.’ Rhianna said immediately.

‘It is,’ Senora Ortega agreed, ‘Ortegas have lived in this house for nearly three hundred years. It carries a long and noble history.’ There was no mistaking the pride in Isobel’s voice, the same pride that had been reflected in Gabriel’s earlier when he said much the same thing.

‘That’s very impressive. It must give you a wonderful sense of belonging.’ Rhianna replied carefully.

Isobel turned vivid blue eyes towards Rhianna. She must have been a very beautiful young woman, Rhianna realized, because she was still very attractive although she was probably in her late fifties. ‘So tell me about your family?’ Isobel inquired. ‘Your mother and your father, what do they do?’

‘I hardly think that Rhianna needs to go into her family’s credentials over the dinner table.’ Gabriel said, an edge to his voice.

Isobel shrugged. ‘I was merely making conversation, my son.’

Rhianna smiled at the woman. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have much family to speak of. My parents are dead. My father died when I was only a baby and my mother when I was fourteen.’

‘I see,’ Isobel murmured. ‘So you are all alone in the world?’

‘Rhianna is very far from being alone in the world,’ Gabriel intervened firmly. ‘She has me to take care of her.’ Rhianna saw Isobel’s face tighten, obviously from happy to hear her son make such a declaration. Gabriel glanced at Rhianna’s plate and frowned. ‘You have hardly touched your food.’

‘I’m not very hungry,’ she murmured. The atmosphere of tension around the dinner table had made sure of that. If Isobel Ortega was so set against her presence, this visit was going to even worse than she’d imagined. Gabriel might run the Ortega estate but his mother would have been running his household for years. She might cede her position to a woman such as Ana, who she had probably approved of but any other female would be considered an intruder unless they came with a marriage certificate and a pedigree. It wouldn’t have entered Isobel’s head that Rhianna had even less desire to be here than Isobel had of having her and Rhianna wondered how long Gabriel intended for her and Dylan to stay. Faced with this example of family camaraderie, her old villa in Girona was looking very attractive.

Liani turned to Rhianna eagerly. ‘Can I show Dylan around? I would like to take him to see the horses.’ She grinned at the boy. ‘You would like your
Tia
Liani to show you her horses, wouldn’t you Dylan?’

Dylan had obviously taken a shine to his new relative in a big way because he nodded enthusiastically. ‘Horses!’

Rhianna felt a flutter of uncertainty. ‘You’ll watch him won’t you? He’s not used to animals.’

Liani laughed. ‘
Absolutament
, with both of my eyes, I promise you. And it will give you a break,
si
?’

‘Thank you, I’m sure Dylan would love it.’ No matter how withdrawn Isobel Ortega seemed to be, Liani certainly didn’t seem to share her views. The young woman was open and friendly and Rhianna figured that now was as good a time as any for Dylan to start to bond with his new family. It was the reason they were here, after all.

‘An excellent idea,’ Gabriel agreed, throwing his napkin on the table. ‘And in the mean time, I shall show Rhianna her new home.’ He gave his mother an enigmatic look, ‘If you will excuse us
Madre
?’

Isobel looked far from pleased by the abrupt dissolution of her lunch party. ‘You must do as you see fit, Gabriel.’ The disapproving undertone to her voice was not lost on Rhianna. She rose and smiled at Isobel.

‘Lunch was delicious, thank you.’

‘I shall tell Ofelia you enjoyed it.’

Gabriel slipped a hand around Rhianna’s arm, guiding her from the room. She could still feel the tension in his body, a low thrum of pent up emotion and she wondered what, exactly, Isobel had said that had thrown her son into such a grim mood. One thing was now quite certain to her; Rhianna could not stay at the
Castilla
. Big as the place was, there would be no avoiding Isobel Ortega and Rhianna had no intention of spending the next few weeks living beneath a cloud of disapproval. She would stay for a couple of days, so that Dylan could truly see the home of his father, and then she would ask that Gabriel take her to some realtors so that she could find her own accommodation. It wasn’t as if this was a permanent arrangement anyway. Gabriel had made it quite clear that morning that he considered their relationship a business arrangement and as such, Rhianna considered events should be open to some renegotiation. She had agreed to this trip to Spain, had agreed that he should have unlimited access to Dylan. What she had
not
agreed to was sharing herself as well as her son and the sooner she made him understand that, the better.

Gabriel had had it all his own way up until now.

But he would have to realize that, at some time, Rhianna wanted a say in her own life.

Chapter Ten

‘Where are we going?’ Rhianna demanded breathlessly, pausing to push her hair back.

They had been climbing up this hill for nearly twenty minutes now, Gabriel leading the way. Rhianna was regretting the fact that she hadn’t changed her clothes but she’d thought that when Gabriel had told her he wanted to show her his home, it would have been the villa and the gardens. Instead, he had led her out through a gate in the wall which had led up to a rough stone path and they had been scrambling up it ever since.

‘You shall see,’ he called back, not sounding in the least bit out of breath.

Rhianna grimaced but continued doggedly on. As it turned out, however, they hadn’t had much further to go. The hill leveled out abruptly and Rhianna stopped and stared around her in surprise. They had arrived on a kind of rocky plateau. At some stage somebody had put a stone bench here, tucked down against a rough, man-made wall of clay and sand, probably constructed so that anybody sitting here could escape the wind. There was only a gentle breeze today but Rhianna had lived by the sea before and she knew how relentless it could be. She turned to look behind her and gave a soft gasp at the sight below. From up here the water was intensely blue, curving away across the horizon in a gentle arc. But that wasn’t what caught her attention. From this vantage point,
Castilla Por El Mar
was clearly laid out, the villa and its gardens picturesque below them.

‘I came here a lot as a child,’ Gabriel observed, ‘I gives you a... what would you say? A bird’s eye view of my home.’

‘It’s incredible!’ Rhianna said with complete sincerity.

‘And very private,’ he replied quietly. ‘Come and sit with me.’

Rhianna cast him a wary look but went towards the bench, which turned out to be warm from the sun. ‘Liani is lovely,’ Rhianna began tentatively.

‘I did not bring you up here to discuss my sister.’ Gabriel muttered roughly and his fingers twined restlessly through her hair, sliding through the long, silky length of it, ‘I wanted to show you my home. But when you stand there, looking at me like that... I find that the only thing I want is you. It drives me to distraction, this need to touch you!’

Rhianna trembled at the note in his voice and the intensity of the hunger on his face. It would be so easy to simply give in to him, to let that hunger take her away but she had been here before and knew that once she surrendered to his kiss, every good intention she had would crumble to dust. ‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I don’t want to make love with you.’

It was as if he didn’t hear her. ‘We are alone here and finally, I have you to myself. Do you understand what it is like for me, having you so close and yet not touching you? I want only one thing right now,
mi
Rhianna, and that is to make love to you.’

Rhianna closed her eyes because when he spoke like that she wanted exactly the same thing; Gabriel’s body, all over her own, touching her,
claiming her
... And that was the problem. The moment he touched her she really would belong to him all over again. ‘I don’t want to do this any more.’

Gabriel looked at her and everything, his desire, the urgency of his need, were there to see in his face. ‘Come here.’

‘No!’ Rhianna took a deep breath. ‘How many more times must I say this to you? I came to Spain so that Dylan could see his father’s home but you have no right to continue to insist that I sleep with you.’

Gabriel was silent for a long moment. When he spoke his voice was low and harsh. ‘Do you think I
want
to feel this way?’ he demanded savagely. ‘To have no control with a woman... it makes a fool of a man. From the moment I saw you again I knew that my desire for you was as strong as it had ever been.’ Gabriel drew a deep, shuddering breath, ‘I insist that we sleep together because I cannot tolerate the thought of you lying with another man. When you are in my bed there is no room for anybody else inside your head. Just me.’

Rhianna stared at him, astonished by the raw emotion she saw on his face. She had always considered Gabriel a man who kept his feelings under tight control but there was a kind of naked hunger there that was almost frightening in its ferocity. He reached out and rubbed his thumb over the fullness of her bottom lip, the movement slow and sensuous. ‘I have no intention of becoming involved with any other man.’ Rhianna told him unevenly, his touch making her breathless. ‘Why should I? It’s just that so much has happened in the past couple of weeks. I need time to work out where I’m going.’

‘You are going nowhere,’ he whispered, closing the distance between them. ‘Not without me by your side...’

His lips were hard and demanding, igniting fires within her that could only be quenched by his body, and Rhianna opened for him, allowing him access into the sweet, willing warmth of her mouth, just as she always would because his touch broke down whatever fragile barriers she might try to build between them. It was a long, slow kiss that seemed to continue on forever and she felt herself melting, becoming pliant beneath the drugging warmth of his mouth as it worked its erotic magic. Time and space contracted to nothing more than one, seductive kiss.

The spell was broken when Gabriel raised his head, breathing deeply. When Rhianna opened her eyes he was looking over her shoulder, expression suddenly intent. ‘It seems I cannot find the right place
or
the right moment,’ he admitted unevenly. A glance down at Rhianna, whose green eyes were still glazed with desire, brought a grimace of frustration. He had not intended to make love to here, only to show her his home from the best possible vantage point but she had looked so incredibly lovely that, as usual, he had been unable to resist touching her. She seemed to exert an irresistible pull on him and he found himself with no choice but to kiss that full, tempting mouth.

Had it always been this way, he wondered, watching the delicate color tint her skin as Rhianna realized, yet again, just how easily she had fallen to him. He had always found her beautiful, from the first time he had seen her dancing on the streets of Girona, incredibly young, heartbreakingly innocent. And their intense year long affair had been utterly absorbing, so much so that he had decided he must end it with her when the time had come to marry because the idea of leaving her at night to return to another woman had been impossible. He had never forgotten her, however. Her image had remained with him through his brief marriage with Ana and in the intervening years afterwards. Discovering that she was living with Grady O’Farrell had been a blow but he had every intention of ensuring that she forgot all about the man, or any other man who might have held a place in her heart, or her bed, in the years they had been apart.

Rhianna might have some ridiculous idea about keeping their relationship platonic but he knew that the idea was absurd. Rhianna was his, body and soul, and in time she would come to realize the truth of that.

Rhianna drew in a breath as reality hit hard and the world swung back into position. It wasn’t until she heard voices and saw the couple approaching up the hill that she realized
why
she had been granted a reprieve and she cursed herself inwardly. ‘Damn you Gabriel Ortega!’ she whispered fiercely, ‘why can’t you just leave me alone?’

‘Why do you surrender whenever I touch you?’ he retaliated softly. ‘Your body gives you away every time.’

‘Those people are coming up here,’ Rhianna said anxiously. ‘If you hadn’t heard them -’

‘Then they would have discovered a man making love to a very beautiful woman.’ Gabriel supplied coolly. ‘This is not, perhaps, the most intelligent place to seduce you. Next time I will be sure that we are slightly less... exposed.’

Next time
... Rhianna gave him a heated look. ‘You don’t listen to a word I say, do you? What makes you think there’s going to
be
a next time,’ she snapped, straightened her clothing with trembling fingers and trying to ignore the small back flip in anticipation the thought of ‘next time’ produced.

‘A challenge?’ he murmured, returning her glance with one that was equally as heated, although it was naked lust that fired his eyes. ‘Do you think that is wise, Rhianna?’

There was no opportunity to respond because the pair that had been approaching had spotted them and had quickened their pace. They were a middle-aged couple, casually expensively in their matching lightweight tracksuits. Both recognized Gabriel immediately.

‘Gabriel, como es bueno verle!’
The man exclaimed in surprised.

‘Jorge,’ Gabriel greeted him easily in English, ‘and Marita. It is good to see you both. Rhianna, this is Jorge and Marita Corvas.’

The couple exchanged a look. ‘But I heard you were away.’ Jorge Corvas observed in English.

‘As you see, I have returned.’ Gabriel murmured. There was nothing in his voice that suggested he found this meeting to be anything other than a pleasant surprise, but Rhianna had the impression he was not at all delighted to have meet the Corvas.

‘And... Rhianna?’ Marita Corvas, plump and avid, was eying Rhianna with blatant curiosity. ‘You are a visitor to Spain?’

‘I certain am,’ Rhianna responded. ‘You’re both out for a walk?’

‘We like to walk and it’s such a wonderful afternoon,’ Marita agreed. ‘When did you arrive in Spain? There is a great deal to see, as I’m sure Gabriel has told you. Are you staying at the villa? Dear Isobel will be delighted to have a guest; she does so love to entertain. I saw her yesterday, actually, but she did not mention that you were returning. What a naughty lady she is for I would have come by to say hello.’ English might not be Marita Corvas’ first language but she seemed to have mastered it remarkably well, words rattling off her tongue at a great rate.

Next to her, Gabriel continued to smile, his expression amiable. It was perfectly obvious, from the curious looks that were being given, that the Corvas were dying to know who, exactly, Rhianna was but Gabriel didn’t seem at all inclined to tell them. ‘Of course it would be delightful to see you; I’m sure my mother will arrange dinner or a luncheon very soon and then you can bring me up to date on everything that has been happening locally. And now, if you will excuse us, we must return. We have only just arrived this morning and we still have much to do.’ Gabriel slipped a firm arm around Rhianna’s waist and began guiding her towards the path.

The Corvas seemed disappointed that they were going. ‘We shall come by. Perhaps tomorrow,’ Jorge called heartily.

‘Be sure to say
hola
to your mother from us!’ Marita added. Gabriel raised a hand in farewell but he didn’t stop.

‘Neighbors of yours?’ Rhianna inquired curiously.

‘Their villa lies on the other side of the hill,’ Gabriel told her briefly. ‘Technically, they are trespassing on Ortega land but unfortunately you can no longer throw trespassers into the sea.’ He sounded like he regretted the fact. ‘Not if they happen to be friends of the family.’

She cast a quick look up at him. His arm was still around her waist, helping to guide her down the incline and she had to tilt her head back to look at his face. ‘You don’t like them?’

‘Not particularly. More than that, I do not like the way they make everybody’s business their own. By the end of the day everybody within a twenty mile radius will know that there is a strange woman staying at the villa.’

Rhianna’s steps slowed. ‘So?’ she demanded. ‘Why should it matter?’

He gave her an impatient look. ‘I like my affairs to remain my own.’

‘And you would be uncomfortable, introducing your ex-lover to your friends.’ Rhianna suggested quietly. ‘I mean, it’s quite scandalous bringing Dylan and me here, surely.’ She pulled free of his arm, folding her own as if she could ward off the malicious gossip that would soon be buzzing because Gabriel had been arrogant enough to think he could bring her to his home. It was his fault that she had been placed in this untenable position. By bringing Dylan and herself to his family’s villa, he had opened the door to all kinds of talk.

‘It is what I chose it to be.’ Gabriel said grimly, reaching out to put firm hands on her shoulders so that she had to look at him. ‘People will say what they must; there is nothing that can be done about that. But my son deserves a true home.’ he told her coolly, ‘As for you; you belong at my side Rhianna.’

There was no point in arguing about her status in his life. That battle was yet to be fought. Her presence in his home, however, was another matter. ‘Your mother does not like me.’

‘You think that I care for my mothers opinion?’ Pulling her close, he ran a hand down her spine, pressing her against him. ‘I told you I would take care of you. There is just one thing that need be of concern to you and that is me. I am your sun, your moon, your stars.’

‘You don’t want much from me, do you?’ she observed bitterly, ‘We’ll stay here for a few days so that Dylan gets to know your home but that’s all, Gabriel. We need a place of our own.’

‘Mi dios
, your place is with me. If I am here, so are you and so is our son. Why do you persist in trying to escape me? You loved me once...’ his voice dropped, ‘and I will not rest until you love me again. It is not enough to possess your body,
mi
Rhianna. I want all of you, every thought in your head, every beat of your heart!’