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welfare is very important to me.’
    The quietly spoken words stirred her sensitised nerve-ends, and she examined his features carefully. ‘I hesitate to think at what cost,’ she ventured slowly.
    Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, a fleeting emotion she was unable to define before it was successfully hidden. ‘I retain eminently qualified personnel.’
    Whose positions within the Santanas corporation Alejandro would instantly terminate should any one of them fail him in any way. The knowledge was an instinctive judgement that needed no qualification, and she was silent for several long minutes.
    ‘It’s difficult to comprehend that there was a time when I knew everything about you,’ Elise confessed.
    ‘While now there are only gaps?’
    ‘A deep, yawning abyss,’ she corrected with a faint grimace.
    ‘Which you would like me to fill?’
    ‘You did that to some extent while I was in hospital.’ Details, facts. Not the personal things she desperately wanted to know.
    ‘So, querida ,’ he mocked gently, searching her intent expression, ‘where would you like me to begin?’
    ‘I think…with you. Where you were born, when. Your family. Things you enjoy doing.’
    ‘An extended biography?’
    ‘The condensed version.’
    His eyes held warm humour, and his soft laughter transformed the hard-chiselled bone-structure, so that for a brief moment he appeared almost human, she decided, as he lifted the glass to his lips and drained the contents in one easy swallow.
    ‘My father was born in Andalucia, the son of a wealthy landowner. My mother was a descendant of the French aristocracy. After their marriage they emigrated to Australia, where I was born. A year later my mother died in childbirth. Papa never fully recovered emotionally, and my paternal grandmother flew out for an extended visit, only to stay on and raise her only grandson. It was because of that good woman’s determined strength that Istayed at school and received the education my father insisted I endure.’
    He paused to shoot her a faintly whimsical smile. ‘I was known to display rebellion on occasion.’
    Elise had a vivid mental picture of a tall youth whose broad bone-structure had yet to acquire its measure of adult musculature.
    ‘At university I acquired several degrees associated with business management and became part of my father’s financial empire. At the lowest level,’ Alejandro qualified drily. ‘A Santanas son was accorded few advantages, and I spent several years proving my worth. A fatal accident ended my father’s life, and I was catapulted through the ranks to a position on the board of directors.’ He spared her a faintly cynical glance. ‘The next few years were—difficult, shall we say? Men with years of experience do not view kindly a young man taking control of a string of multinational companies, or making decisions that oppose their way of thinking.’
    Elise looked at him thoughtfully, seeing the strength of purpose, the chilling degree of hardness apparent, and barely controlled the faint shiver that threatened to slither down her spine. ‘You succeeded.’ As if there could be any doubt.
    His expression did not alter for several long seconds. ‘Yes,’ he acknowledged with wry cynicism.
    Had she been his social equal? Somehow she didn’t think so.
    ‘I have little idea of what my childhood was like,’ she proffered with pensive introspection. ‘The photo albums you brought to the hospital revealevents of which I have no recollection. I can only piece together the visual impression of a happy childhood. A mother I can’t remember, whose passing must surely have caused my father great grief. I don’t even know the extent to which I missed her. Or whether boarding-school was a happy experience or a lonely one.’ She paused, her eyes dark with reflected intensity. ‘I chose paediatric nursing as a career, but I don’t know if I had a boyfriend, or several. Or what sort of life I led before