He kissed her.

The effect of that wide sensual mouth on hers set off a volcanic explosion deep inside her, pulsing the ripples of aftershock right through every nerve and vein in her body. Had her matching his hungry urgency with a driven desperation that shattered her into launching herself against-his powerful frame, looping her arms around his neck, her avid fingers tangling in the soft midnight darkness of his hair.

He tasted of hot male pa.s.sion and she couldn't get enough of him. He was all she'd ever wanted, the only man she'd ever loved. Her body melted into him, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s peaking with open invitation, her lips matching his ravaging a.s.sault.

Her lips were still tingling, her knees shamefully shaky, when a short time later Diego handed her into the taxi he'd summoned to take her home. Her mind was still sickened by the ease with which he'd held her away from him when her response had threatened to get way out of hand. His coolly delivered, almost uninvolved comment that it was time she went home and a reminder that he'd call for her on Friday morning around seven-thirty was still ringing in ears that burned with shame. All capped off with the flatly delivered threat that he'd find her if she should be misguided enough to flee. It was a timely reminder of the humiliation he would dole out if she ever again was unguarded enough to demonstrate how she hungered for him.

An hour later she fell into bed still in a state of deep shock. Mostly induced by what her own behaviour had revealed about her. Diego Raffacani was a cruel blackmailing louse. So arrogantly sure of himself that he out and out refused to listen to a word she had to say in her own defence. He'd called her a liar and that alone should have put her off him for several lifetimes. But no, oh no! What had she gone and done? Shown him how needy she was, eager and straining against him, possessed by a frantic hunger for him.

She was still in love with him. She sobbed into her pillow. He was the only man she had ever loved. Far from being the promiscuous tramp of his imagining, she was still a virgin. Ben, the only other man she'd ever been involved with, had never inspired this wild yearning.

There had to be something drastically wrong with her if she could be in love with a man who was entirely without scruples or conscience. A man who intended to take her to his bed as an act of revenge, who had convinced himself that the blame for the way she'd insulted his precious pride, when she'd been too young to realise what she was doing, was hers entirely.

The immediate future looked bleaker than the lunar landscape. Lisa had no idea how she would survive it.

His car, a low sporty model, was waiting at the airport, delivered there by his Spanish minions, Lisa deduced grumpily, her spiky mood the legacy of a mostly sleepless night as she'd tried and failed to come to terms with what she was letting herself in for, the alarm clock ringing spitefully just as she had been finally dropping off. Her mood was not lightened by the sight of Diego arriving precisely at seven thirty.

'Ready?' he enquired briskly, looking as if he'd had the benefit of a full eight hours sleep, a revitalising shower and a hearty breakfast.

'I haven't finished packing.' A lie. She hadn't started. Ever since that evening at his hotel suite she'd been hoping that something would happen to make him call this whole thing off. But he hadn't miraculously lost his memory and she hadn't broken a leg!

'Then I suggest you get on with it. The taxi is waiting. If you are always this disorganised I'm amazed that you held down any sort of job at all, even one manufactured by a doting father.'

Her irritation level rose a thousand-fold. What did he know? 'Dad doesn't dote!' she snapped and stamped into her bedroom to drag things out of drawers and cupboards and stuff them into a small suitcase.

Ever since then he'd been irritating the life out of her. Throughout the ride to the airport, the business of checking in and the flight itself he had been coolly polite and dutifully attentive. As if she were a virtual stranger he had found himself dragooned into escorting, when in harsh reality she was the woman he was callously blackmailing into becoming his temporary mistress.

Sub-mistress, she amended on a spurt of irrational anger. Though why she should object to the irrelevant point of being regarded as too low to be afforded even the slightly denigrating t.i.tle of mistress only went to show what a muddle her mind was in. Whereas he, drat it, was calm and collected, single-minded, determined on one thing only-to take her to his bed and punish her for damaging his precious pride.

And then get rid of her.

Now, with the airport an hour's drive behind them, Diego asked, 'What did you mean when you said your father didn't dote?'

Lisa dragged her eyes from the alarmingly twisty narrow road that snaked up into the mountains and fastened her gaze on his impressively chiselled profile. It was the first personal remark he'd made since they'd entered the waiting taxi back in London.

Shrugging slightly, she returned her attention to the view. Now and then she caught the glitter of the sea and, unlike London, the air coc.o.o.ned her in welcome warmth. 'I meant precisely what I said.' Her relationship with her father was something she wasn't prepared to discuss and, turning the subject, she asked, 'So where are we going? How much further?'

Diego's shoulders tautened as he handled the tortuous hairpin bends with practised ease. Who the h.e.l.l did she think she was kidding? She would have been spoiled rotten from birth. What father worth the name wouldn't slavishly lavish all his attention on such an outwardly bewitching little charmer, even more so after she'd been left motherless at a relatively tender age?

A memory from five years ago, as clear as all the myriad others that had haunted him for so long, a.s.saulted him. The day he found he'd lost his watch. She'd held hers out to him. The thing would have cost a small fortune. And when he'd commented she'd simply shrugged. 'My father's birthday gift', as if it were a mere trinket.

The spoiled brat had been given a responsible job on the magazine staff even though the whole enterprise was going pear-shaped and what had been desperately needed was an experienced editor. The fabulous dress she'd been wearing at her engagement party must have cost another small fortune, the wherewithal doubtless supplied by doting daddy.

And that sparked a different train of thought.

'How did Ben take the broken engagement?" He'd noticed the absence of the diamond hoop. He noticed every d.a.m.n thing about her. He remembered his own desperate pain when the spoiled brat had as good as told him to shove off and wondered, guiltily, if Ben Clayton had felt the same, wondered if his initial thought, that he'd actually been doing the poor sucker a favour, still held water.

'That's not really any of your business, is it?' Lisa dismissed edgily. How could she tell him that hers and Ben's would have been a pa.s.sionless marriage, based on nothing more exciting than long-standing affection and mutual respect? That Ben had been wise enough to predict that even that kind of marriage couldn't survive if one partner were still in thrall to a long-ago lost love?

'And you haven't answered my question,' she reminded him snappily. 'I have a right to know where you're taking me.'

Fully expecting him to tell her she had no rights at all and to continue prodding about her broken engagement-did the cruel streak in him want to hear that Ben had been devastated, suicidal?-she was stunned when he answered equably, 'To my favourite hideout. It used to be a monastery. The family rarely uses it these days. The area isn't frequented by hordes of tourists; its beauty and tranquillity remain intact. Unlike Marbella,' he added drily. 'You will find no beautiful people, no glitzy shops, fabulous yachts or smart hotels to claim your attention. You will give it all to pleasing me.'

She should have kept her mouth shut, Lisa recognised sickly. Whatever she said he managed to come back with something designed to put her down.

The next days or weeks promised to be a nightmare of humiliation and pain, she acknowledged, the hauntingly beautiful landscape lost in a sudden blur of stingingly hot tears.

CHAPTER SIX.

LISA couldn't fault the beauty and comfort of Diego's preferred hideout. Built centuries ago of mellow golden stone, the former monastery commanded an impressive view over fertile valleys, thickly wooded slopes and tantalising glimpses of the sparkling blue sea between towering mountain crags.

She couldn't fault Diego's behaviour, either, she told herself edgily as she paced the flagged stone terrace in the soft dawn light.

She almost wished she could.

She would have better understood where he was coming from if he'd done as she had expected and taken her to his bed that first night. She might not have liked it-she might have liked it far too much, she corrected with painful honesty as her restless feet brought her to the end of the terrace-but at least she would have understood it.

What she was at a loss to puzzle out was why she'd been given her own suite of rooms. Beautiful, restful rooms that he had shown no inclination to visit. Why, during her nearly four whole days here now, he'd done nothing more alarming than treat her as a house guest. He had joined her for meals, during which his conversation had entranced her against her willwitty, perceptive and at times, hardest of all to bear, cool and painfully impersonal. And all the-while he had seemed to look straight through her, not really seeing her at all.

Between meals he'd taken himself off to his study, explaining courteously that he had much work to get through, leaving her to her own devices. Her own thoughts.

Her hands tightened on the warm stone of the bal.u.s.trade. She knew what he had planned for her, what she was expected to be. So what was he waiting for? Why was he behaving like a great jungle cat, stalking a prey he was not yet hungry for yet never really letting it out of his sight?

Her whole body was tingling with s.e.xual tension, her mind edgy, her nerve-ends as jumpy as a flea on a griddle.

'Quite the early bird. Couldn't you sleep?'

The unexpected soft laid-back drawl made the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention, made her heart leap to her throat and jump about like a frightened trapped animal.

Lean hands on her shoulders turned her to face him. As always he looked spectacular, she noted with feverish tension. Dressed this morning in stone coloured chinos with an olive-green lawn shirt tucked into his narrow waistline, his shatteringly masculine features were bland, but instead of looking through her as usual his sultry black-fringed eyes were making a slow, devastating inventory of her quivering frame.

This close he was dynamite, always had been. Lisa tried to smother an inrush of sobbing breath as she felt the betrayal of her peaking b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath the checked flannelette shirt she was wearing over an old pair of jeans. His eyes on her body felt like a physical caress. A caress he was denying her.

Because he'd changed his mind and he no longer wanted to touch her?

A hand lifted from her shoulder in answer to the unspoken question that glittered in her eyes, long tanned fingers brushing the fall of her hair away from her face. The backs of his fingers lingered slightly, seductively, scorching her skin.

She was hot all over, so hot, burning up, fiery heat pooling between her thighs, making her legs shake. She was trying to make her face as expressionless as a lump of stone but, in spite of the effort she was making, could he guess what he did to her? He slowly dropped both hands and remarked lightly, 'Breakfast awaits. Pilar saw you were up and about and thought we might prefer to eat in the courtyard. Come.'

Her unfortunately mesmerised eyes on the length of his legs, on his seemingly indolent stride as he led the way, Lisa felt on the point of collapse when she took her seat in the central courtyard, shaded at this time of the morning from the rapidly increasing heat of the sun.

White doves called sleepily from the trees that overhung the high stone walls and the scent of a myriad flowers perfumed the air. In any other circ.u.mstances she would have revelled in this much perfection.

Ever the attentive host, Diego poured juice for her and pa.s.sed her the fruit bowl. Lisa, selecting a peach she had no appet.i.te for, tried not to scream.

If today were to follow the pattern of all the others since she'd been here he would make light conversation while they ate, suggest a walk she might like to take before the real heat of the day, and then excuse himself politely and spend his time shut away in his study.

And she would play the part she had a.s.signed herself, give a bored, dismissive shrug, as if she couldn't care less, and wonder how long she could keep up the act of total indifference.

Asking why he was spending as little time as possible with her was quite out of the question. It would let him know she was hankering for his attention. Desperate for it, even. His twenty-four-hour-a-day intimate attention! It was the reason he'd brought her here in the first place, wasn't it? she thought wildly to excuse her shameless longing to be held in his arms, to have his mouth create havoc with hers, to...

'We'll drive down into Marbella this morning,' Diego imparted as he laid his napkin down. 'You appear to have packed nothing but heavy jeans and shirts.' A censorious glance at the perspiring pallor of her overheated face. 'Suitable for doing the weekend ch.o.r.es in chilly London but not for this climate, this ambience.' He poured them both a second cup of coffee as he stated, 'I'll buy you the right clothes.'

Too dazed by his intention to spend time with her just when she'd been agonising over his four day long disinclination to do any such thing to say a word, Lisa struggled to think of a single thing to say.

Was this the beginning?

Her heart began to race, her breathing going haywire, colour flooding her face. Obviously, the work-a day stuff she'd shoved so carelessly into her suitcase wasn't turning him on. What did he have in mind? Pelmet-sized mini-skirts, black fishnet stockings, sixinch heels and minute crop tops decorated with purple sequins?

Hadn't he as good as said he'd treat her like a hooker, the t.i.tle of temporary mistress being far too good for her in his haughty opinion? Was he expecting her to dress like one too?

The idea was so absurd she didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, just stared at him instead, her pale cheeks blooming with pink, aware that her mouth had dropped open but unable to do anything about it.

Replacing his coffee cup on its saucer with a clatter, Diego got to his feet, noting her wide-eyed, openmouthed look of pleasure with grim distaste.

Greed.

It was the first genuine emotion she'd displayed since they'd arrived here. She'd looked edgy or bored during their carefully rationed meetings. He'd only had to mention buying her a few new outfits to have her lighting up like a Christmas tree. But what else had he expected? he asked himself tersely before telling her flatly, 'Manuel's bringing the car round. I'll see you on the forecourt in ten minutes.'

Ten minutes to get her racing heartbeat back to normal, to calm herself sufficiently to face what appeared to be the next stage of the game.

Because he was playing games, she told herself agitatedly as she exchanged the checked shirt for a marginally more attractive ribbed cotton sweater in a shade of deep raspberry pink and hurriedly applied a toning lipstick. What else could explain the way he'd left her largely to her own devices, never once mentioning the real reason for her being here, much less acting on it?

Today he intended to spend time with her. Today he'd touched her, his hands on her shoulders, his fingers brushing the skin of her cheek as he'd pushed her hair back from her face. The second stage of the game was obviously about to begin.

Which didn't do her pulse rate any good at all, she recognised as she sc.r.a.ped her hair back in a ponytail, acknowledging that she, too, was playing games. Affecting indifference, boredom even, was all very well but she had the sinking feeling that she wouldn't be able to keep it up for much longer because he was turning out to be a real expert when it came to winding her up.

A fact amply demonstrated by the easy way he talked to her as he drove, giving her a potted history of the former monastery, explaining that his grandfather had bought it many years ago, had it restored by experts and turned into a tasteful home without losing any of the atmosphere. 'But my parents rarely use it; they find it far too isolated. If I didn't love it, come here whenever I can, keep on a skeleton staff, it would fall back into dereliction.'

As he talked his features softened, coming to vibrant life. Lisa swallowed thickly, averting her eyes from the intimate warmth of the sideways glittering glance he bestowed on her.

This was Diego as she remembered him. The Diego she had fallen in love with. Charming, vital, fascinating. And dangerous, she reminded herself on a tingling frisson of unstoppable s.e.xual excitement.

The narrow road was descending through a thick belt of woodland, the air just slightly cooler, which hopefully went some way towards excusing the shiver that racketed through her.

'Scared?' he asked softly, his eyes knowing as he glanced at her, his long mouth curving with what looked suspiciously like male satisfaction as he gave his concentration back to the twisting tarmac.

Lisa knew what he was talking about. But no way would she admit to being affected in any way at all by his far more intimate, softer att.i.tude. 'Not at all,' she murmured drily. 'You drive well, so why should I be scared? Just chilly, that's all.'

His open grin told her he didn't believe a word of it. Even beneath the trees the cooler air was still soft and warm. No one could possibly feel chilly!

'But of course,' he murmured tauntingly. 'What else could make you shudder to the soles of your pretty little feet?'

It was time she straightened things out between them, put a stop to this cat and mouse game of his, Lisa fulminated inwardly. Against all common sense she might still secretly and hopelessly love the wretch but she hated the way he seemed to be manipulating her.

As they approached the outskirts of the coastal playground of the seriously wealthy she told him, 'I wasn't thinking straight when I packed. I'd forgotten the huge difference in climate, even at this time of year. My fault,' she admitted stiffly, wishing she hadn't been in such a contrary, ill-tempered mood when she'd thrown just any old thing into her suitcase. 'And I'll buy my own clothes, thanks all the same.'

A couple of cotton skirts and tops would be as much as she could afford. Marbella wasn't the place to come if you were shopping on a budget, she decided wryly, thinking of her tiny bank balance and the fact that she had no job to go back to.

'I wouldn't hear of it,' Diego stated firmly as he found a parking spot. Turning to her, he slid an arm along the back of her seat, deft fingers finding the narrow ribbon that pulled her hair starkly back off her face and removing it. His voice was now a soft velvet purr, making her tremble. 'At the risk of sounding incredibly vulgar, I can afford it. Particularly as the doting daddy isn't with us to pick up your bills.'

'Don't!' Lisa snapped, hot colour flooding her cheeks. The ribbon was disappearing into his trouser pockets; to try to take it back would result in an unseemly tussle which she, of course, would lose. And she'd had more than enough of his mind games. 'If you mention my supposedly doting father one more time I'll-I'll hit you!'

Hard fingers fastened around her wrist as she attempted to scramble out of the car, pulling her back to face him. One ebony brow arched as he murmured, 'Hit me and I'll retaliate.' His eyes dropped to the kissable, trembling pout of her mouth and lingered there. 'But not with physical violence. There are other, pleasanter ways of subduing a woman.'

A stab of satisfaction forked its lightning way through his body. He'd left her to stew for four whole days and nights, keeping her on an emotional knife edge. Her veneer of indifference was cracking up and he was going to make it crumble to dust.

A slow smile curved his mouth as his words brought the frost back into those huge inky-blue eyes, her lips tightening in mute reb.u.t.tal. She was fighting her corner with every atom of her will-power but before too long he would have her as weak as a kitten, begging him to end the impa.s.se, clinging to him, her body on fire for him and only him.

As his loins tightened Diego wiped out that train of thought and slowly released her wrist, frowning at the band of reddened skin. 'A long cold drink's in order before we hit the shops.'

And he would foot the bill for clothes that would be more comfortable and do justice to her ethereal loveliness, in spite of her unexpected refusal to let him. A refusal that was surely just lip-service to the conventions? Easily forgotten in the face of the slightest pressure?

Pondering that, he joined her on the pavement. She was wearing the strap of her shoulder bag across her body. It lay diagonally between the pert perfectly shaped b.r.e.a.s.t.s that were lovingly shaped by the softly clinging pink cotton of the top she'd changed into. The worn denim of her jeans moulded the curve of her hips, the rounded temptation of her thighs.

He snapped his eyes away. Cristo! She was pure temptation. Before he knew it he would be the one down on his knees and begging! That was not part of his plan. She, not he, would abase herself, plead with him-not the other way round!

Fifty yards brought them to the nearest pavement cafe. He led her to a table shaded by an arbour of vines with a panoramic view of the glittering blue sea. Ordering Buck's Fizz for Lisa and plain orange juice for himself, Diego allowed the atmosphere between them to settle before probing something that was beginning to puzzle him.

'Tell me something, Lisa,' he murmured when he noted the signs of the beginnings of relaxation in the easing of her tense shoulders, the way her fingers now lay loosely around her thirstily emptied gla.s.s. 'Why do you get so angry whenever I combine the words daddy and doting in the same sentence?"

'Because you don't know what you're talking about,' Lisa came back without heat. That drink had been delicious, dissolving her annoyance, bringing the ghost of a smile at the thought that anyone could imagine that Gerald Pennington had fond fatherly feelings for his small, insignificant daughter.

'Then why don't you enlighten me?' A click of his lean fingers brought a waiter with a fresh gla.s.s of Buck's Fizz to the table. Diego watched the look of surprise and pleasure cross her lovely face and waited until she'd taken the first appreciative sip before pressing softly, 'I like to know what I'm talking about. It gives me more-' he paused a moment before adding with self-mocking solemnity "more gravitas.'

Her brilliant eyes swept up to lock with his and she giggled softly, just as he'd intended. Diego felt a pang of self-dislike as he remembered that she'd eaten nothing for breakfast, merely mangling the peach she'd taken. Then brushed it aside. He wasn't aiming to get her drunk, just relaxed enough to rid her of that slightly edgy indifference.

'Well!' Her slim shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. She took one more sip then decided to leave the rest. She was beginning to feel light-headed and that wasn't a good idea around Diego Raffacani. She needed all her wits about her.

Pulling in a tight breath, she told him, 'My father showed little interest in me while my mother was alive and even less after her death. When I was home from boarding school I was farmed out on to his partner's family-that's why I'm so close to Sophie and Ben.'

Lisa sucked her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes clouding with regret. Had been close, she mentally amended. Not any more.

Seeing her sudden distress, Diego frowned. His instinct was to take the small slender hands that were lying on the top of the table and enfold them with his. He denied it with difficulty.

'Maybe he was grief-stricken after your mother's tragically early death, but wanted you to be able to move on,' he suggested even-handedly, trying to understand why a man with a needy, fragile girl-child could farm her out to someone else. Where he came from people looked after their own. Family was of the first importance.

Lisa pulled a derisory face. 'You obviously don't know my father!'

Fishing for sympathy, the stock-in-trade of a spoiled brat?

Diego stated softly, 'Maybe not. But I do know he gave you expensive gifts and eventually, probably because he could think of nothing else to do with you, put you in a responsible position on Lifestyle. Did you get your degree, by the way?'