Read The Spaniard's Woman - Contemporary Romance for Free Online Page B

and in his bed once again.
    She was staring at him as if he was the devil incarnate and he smiled. ‘My apologies for being late.’
    Rhianna’s expression became even more cautious. ‘Late? I don’t remember inviting you in the first place.’
    ‘You didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘But you must have known I would come, just the same.’
    Enid popped her head around the door. ‘Tea or coffee?’
    Rhianna wanted to say that Gabriel wouldn’t be staying long enough to enjoy either but he preempted her, giving the housekeeper a charming smile. ‘That would be delightful. Coffee, if you please.’
    Rhianna ground her teeth. So much for getting rid of him quickly. She tried to calculate in her head how long Dylan might sleep but there was no way of knowing. His romp on the beach had tired him out and he might sleep for several hours or he might wake at any minute and then he would come looking for her.
    She had to get Gabriel out of the house!
    Gabriel tilted his head, regarding her as a cat - a large, very dangerous cat - would its prey. ‘Are you going to hover by the door the entire time I am here?’ he inquired, ‘Will you not sit down, Rhianna? Look, I will take this chair so that the table is between us.’ And he sat in a chair on one side of the coffee table.
    She knew he was mocking her, mocking her reluctance to go near him and she bit her lip, moving forward to take a seat, grateful that something separated them, although a table hardly seemed adequate. Something along the lines of a brick wall would have been more welcome. ‘Why are you here when I made it quite clear the other night that I didn’t want to see you again?’ she demanded, trying desperately to take control of the situation.
    ‘You words told me one thing but your body told a different story.’ Gabriel leaned back in the armchair, very much at his ease. He was casually dressed today in jeans and a fine woolen cable knit sweater. The navy blue of the sweater suited his coloring, highlighting his dark good looks, the angular cheekbones and square chin and that white, flashing smile. She had always thought that if Gabriel had ever had to work for a living instead of running his families estates in Catalonia, he could have taken a job in modeling. She’d told him so one day, when they’d been walking along the beach, arms wrapped around each other. He had lifted a derisive lip at the suggestion. ‘Such occupations are not for men.’
    ‘And I suppose bullfighting is,’ she’d teased him.
    He had shrugged. ‘I see no sport in killing a beast that has no choice but to defend itself.’ Those words had merely confirmed for her the knowledge that she had fallen in love with the most honorable man in all of Spain... Now, of course, she would have substituted ruthless for honorable.
    ‘Whatever you imagined happened the other night -’
    ‘I do not think,’ Gabriel interrupted her immediately, ‘I know. If I had felt indifference from you do you think that I would be sitting here now? We shared a passionate affair, you and I. I have never stopped thinking about you.’
    ‘You ended our relationship so that you could marry,’ Rhianna reminded him. She moistened her lips and tried to focus on all the anger and pain she had gone through when he had abandoned her. ‘You told me I would not be a ‘suitable’ mistress and you walked out of my life. I feel no passion for you any more.’
    Before he could reply, Enid returned with a tray. She’d made a pot of fresh coffee and had included a selection of her homemade biscuits and cake. It’s always the same , Rhianna reflected grimly, women the world over find a man like Gabriel impossible to resist and do whatever they can to please him ...
    It wasn’t until Enid had left them that Gabriel spoke again, his voice harsh. ‘You say you feel no passion for me... I think we both know how easy it would be for me to prove that is not the case.’
    Stalling for time, Rhianna leaned forward and