Don Joaquin's Pride

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‘Sí…’ Joaquin prompted thickly as he lifted his arrogant dark head.

‘Sí…’ Lucy framed without even knowing what she was saying, utterly enthralled by the wash of agonising sensation pulsing up inside her.

He caught her parted lips with his and tasted her. Raw, burning excitement blazed up in a head-spinning tide that swept her away. Just one kiss… She had never dreamt but had often fantasised, never once expecting to experience such a response in reality. But the hard hot heat of Joaquin Del Castillo’s hungry mouth on hers was a passionate revelation to Lucy. The passion he summoned up inside her controlled her utterly. She couldn’t get enough of him even when the need to breathe sobbed in her deflated lungs.

‘The face of a sweet Botticelli angel, the brain of a calculator and the sexual appetite of a natural whore,’ Joaquin spelt out silkily, lifting his head and holding her back from him. ‘It would please me to throw you down and take you here…to use you as you once used poor Mario. But I believe I can withstand the temptation.’

Lucy was shell-shocked, gasping for air. Her every nerve jangled with a sense of deprivation so strong she almost cried out in protest and grabbed him back to her again. Stunned by a complete inability to work out how she had turned into a wanton stranger in Joaquin Del Castillo’s arms, and finally forced to support her own weight again, Lucy reeled dizzily. The sick pounding behind her temples made her weary mouth curl in a little moue of pain.

‘Looking pathetic doesn’t work with me either,’ Joaquin slung down at her with grim emphasis.

Lucy focused on him hazily and noticed, really could not have helped noticing when he wore such close-fitting pants, that he was in a very masculine state of arousal. And so shaken was she by the sight of a male in that condition she stared and abstractedly recalled that he had begun the assault on her senses by doing wildly indecent things to her finger. Suddenly she was undyingly grateful that matters hadn’t proceeded any further than that one breathtaking kiss, for she had no idea, absolutely no idea, just how… Her mother had warned her that what a woman often thought she wanted wasn’t much fun once she actually got it. She was now more than ready to be convinced.

‘I feel ill…’ Lucy confided helplessly, swaying without even realising it and wondering why her skin still felt as if it was on fire when he was no longer touching her.

‘You cannot fool me into removing you from here,’ Joaquin drawled with derisive cool, his lean dark face unimpressed. ‘I fully intend that you should endure the privations of what you would sentence Fidelio to endure when he is no longer fit to work.’

She wasn’t well; that was what the matter was with her. In fact, she felt just as she had felt when she had had the flu a month back, only worse, she conceded absently. Had she imagined Joaquin Del Castillo kissing her? Why would he have kissed her? What sense did that make?

‘Men don’t make sense…men are animals,’ Lucy announced with semi-delirious conviction, without even realising that she was talking out loud. ‘You are the prime example…you are the definitive proof. I should never have argued with Mum—’

‘Madre de Dios…’ He interrupted her rambling spiel with incredulity. ‘What—?’

Lucy groaned, pushing a shaking hand over her wet brow, no longer able to focus properly, just as her knees began to shake and crumple beneath her. ‘Awful…feel awful—’

Joaquin Del Castillo’s dusty black riding boots appeared in her vision. ‘I will not be taken in by this outrageous theatrical display, señora.’

Lucy slumped down on one elbow. And then with a faint moan, as the world swung tipsily and blackness folded in entirely, she passed out altogether.

CHAPTER THREE

LUCY stirred and shifted. An experimental movement of her head confirmed that the awful pounding there had mercifully subsided. But even before she opened her eyes, she was assailed by a bewildering surge of powerful images.

Joaquin looking down at her, fabulous eyes green as jade, his concern palpable. Joaquin murmuring in soothing Spanish as she tossed and turned in a fever. Joaquin laughing. Laughing? But only for a split second. His lean dark face had swiftly shuttered again, leaving her with a sharp sense of loss. So confusing were those pictures flashing through her reawakening brain she blanked them out.

Opening her eyes, she discovered that she had not dreamt up the incredible bedroom in which she had lain since she had succumbed to her second attack of flu. Afternoon sunlight illuminated the exquisite antique furniture and the wonderful watercolours on the walls. It was a huge room. Elegant and unbelievably luxurious, right down to the solid six inches of superb lace edging the sheet beneath her hand. Her fingers stroked the lace and then stilled uncertainly again as Joaquin came back into her thoughts at the speed of a shooting star. Was this his house? If it was, he was a seriously wealthy male. Who was he?

Twenty-two. In spite of all her efforts to the contrary, she had got to twenty-two years of age without meeting one moment of serious temptation, Lucy conceded ruefully. And then the biggest, bossiest creep in Guatemala, who unfortunately happened to enjoy devastatingly spectacular good looks and the kind of sensual technique she had doubted even existed, had made a sexual advance on her finger. She quivered just thinking about that moment and felt her foolish tummy churn and leap at the memory of the kiss which had followed.

A bemused indent forming on her brow as she realised that she was thinking about Joaquin Del Castillo yet again, Lucy sat up and sent her gaze winging round the room. She needed to phone Cindy, but there was no telephone. Sliding out of bed on wobbly legs, she went into the en suite bathroom. Weak though she was, she headed straight for the shower cubicle.

Afterwards, she studied her reflection in the vanity mirror and heaved a sigh over her pale face and the childishly curly torrent of caramel-blonde ringlets forming as her hair dried. She smoothed a hand over the mint-green nightdress she wore. It was beautiful, and, like everything else she had brought to Guatemala, it belonged to her sister. Light as silk and whisper-thin, the fabric moulded every female curve and was a far cry from the cotton jersey nightwear which Lucy usually favoured.

Freshening up had tired her out again. She walked slowly over to the bedroom windows. There she froze in her tracks, for the view beyond those windows made her head swim afresh. She clutched at the tassel-edged curtain to steady herself, shut her eyes and opened them again, but still that breathtaking vision of steep, lush forested green slopes and wildly colourful tropical vegetation confronted her stunned gaze. She could hear but only now recognise the cries of exotic birds which had become eerily familiar during her illness. Surely such a fantastic and exotic landscape could not exist close to Fidelio Paez’s little stucco retirement home? Where on earth was she?

‘Welcome to the most boring place on earth…’ A female voice murmured drily from behind her.

Startled, Lucy spun round so fast she staggered slightly. A tall stunning brunette with smooth black hair and a perfect oval face was studying her from the far side of the room. Her short strappy silver dress and her jewelled choker exuded designer chic and sophistication.

‘Hacienda de Oro…literally the House of Gold. The conservationist’s paradise, the archaeologist’s dream destination…but the It Girl’s living death,’ the self-possessed brunette completed, with a dissatisfied twist of her sultry mouth.

‘The It Girl’s living death…?’ Lucy repeated weakly, not quite sure she had heard her correctly.

‘I’m Yolanda Del Castillo, Joaquin’s sister. Surely you know what an It Girl is?’

Lucy nodded, but only slowly. She had read about the cult of the new It Girls in newspapers. Young, rich, high society British women, who were wildly popular with the media. They partied from dawn to dusk, wore fabulous clothes and dated only the most newsworthy men. Such an existence was so far removed from Lucy’s own that she just stared at Yolanda Del Castillo, who undeniably seemed to possess all the attributes it took to be an It Girl, continually photographed, pursued and envied. Even in daylight, it seemed, Yolanda dressed as if she was about to go to a party.

‘You speak wonderful English,’ Lucy remarked, awkward in the presence of such exoticism.

Yolanda uttered a rueful groan. ‘Where do you think I was educated?’

Most probably in a British school, Lucy gathered, feeling foolish.

‘Where is this house?’ Lucy pressed.

‘You’re still in the Petén, just a different part of it.’

‘So how did I get here?’ Lucy asked.

‘Joaquin had you airlifted in.’

‘Airlifted?’ Lucy interrupted helplessly. ‘Who are you people?’

‘You really don’t know, do you?’ Yolanda rolled her dark eyes in dramatic disbelief, momentarily looking much younger than the twenty-two or twenty-three which Lucy had estimated her to be. She threw the bedroom door wide again. ‘Hang on a minute—’

‘Yolanda…is there a phone I could use?’ Lucy hastened to ask, before Joaquin’s sister could disappear again.

Yolanda’s attention shifted to the vacant spot by the bed. She frowned in surprise. ‘Well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t have a phone!’ she remarked with instant sympathy. ‘You may be a con-artist, but for Joaquin to have the phone removed is total sensory deprivation! I couldn’t exist for five minutes without a phone!’