THE VALQUEZ SEDUCTION Read online

  She gave him a pert look. ‘How do you know I’m pretending?’

  He narrowed his gaze. ‘You’re…you’re not serious?’

  She flashed him a teasing smile. ‘No, of course not. You’re the last person I’d ever fall for.’

  ‘Why?’ You so should not have asked that.

  She put a finger to her lips, tapping them thoughtfully. ‘Let me count the ways…’ She held up each finger as she ticked them off. ‘You’re arrogant. Overly confident. Egotistical. Self-serving. Morally corrupt.’

  Luiz let out a hissing breath, following it up with a choice expletive. ‘I should’ve left you to that sleazeball last night. That’s who I’d be calling morally corrupt.’ Along with her mob-connected father, a fact he declined to mention because, as angry as he was, he wasn’t the type of guy to judge her for who her parents were or what they did.

  ‘Why are you so upset?’ she asked. ‘It’s not as if I’m rushing you to the nearest wedding chapel for an Elvis-themed wedding or something.’

  He swung round to fix her with another glare. ‘I’m the one with the reputation being trashed here. You’re making me out to be some sort of soppy, heartsore Romeo who’s gone gaga over a girl he didn’t know from a bar of soap this time yesterday.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ She flickered her eyelids upwards again. ‘Self-serving and egotistical.’

  He jabbed a finger towards her. ‘Hey, wait a damn minute. I’ve a right to be a little pissed. I did the right thing by you and now it’s coming back to bite me.’

  Her pert look was back. ‘Maybe you should’ve taken advantage of me when you had the chance.’

  A vision of her gloriously naked and trying to climb into his skin flooded his brain. His groin remembered it all too well. It was responding in the only way it knew how. Instinctively. Urgently. He sent her a smouldering look and watched as her cheeks darkened. ‘Don’t tempt me, mi pasión.’

  The tip of her tongue crept out to leave a shiny film of moisture over her youthful mouth. His mouth recalled every passionate movement of hers underneath his: the soft fullness, the sweetness, and the ripeness. ‘It’d be fine if you want to,’ she said. ‘Sleep with me, I mean.’

  He frowned at her. ‘I thought you said I was a self-serving, egotistical jerk?’

  ‘You are, but that doesn’t mean I don’t fancy you.’

  Luiz shook his head, hoping it would get his addled brain in order. ‘Let me get this straight… You want me to have a one-night stand with you?’

  She put her hands on her hips as if she were addressing one of her infant charges. ‘You’re not listening to me, Luiz. I’m not interested in a one-night stand. I’m not that sort of girl. I will, however, agree to a short-term holiday fling.’

  His frown was so deep it was making his forehead hurt. ‘So what was with the sweet little romance thing just now? Why give the press the impression we’re in—’ he refused to say the word love again in case it jinxed him ‘—an item? Why not say we’re having a fling?’

  ‘It’s not just the school board I have to consider. I have my father to think about. If the press wrote that I stumbled out of your suite and never saw you again he’d be after your blood. Not literally, of course. But he’d be furious if I were to waste myself on someone who didn’t appreciate me. He’s old-fashioned like that.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ He sent his hand through his hair again. If this farce got any crazier he’d be pulling it out by the clump.

  ‘I’m only here for four days,’ she said. ‘That’s long enough to have a holiday romance and then move on. Dad will understand these flash in the pan things don’t always last. And hopefully now we’ve made our announcement to the press they’ll leave us alone.’

  He studied her for a long moment. ‘So, let me get this straight. You want to have a fling with me. For four days and nights. No strings?’

  She smiled brightly as if he had just explained relativity to her after a painfully slow lesson. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘I told you before. I like you.’

  ‘Even though I’m a morally corrupt layabout?’

  She gave a tinkling bell laugh that did serious damage to his resolve to send her on her way as soon as he could. It was a champagne laugh. A bubbly, happy sound that made him think of fun and celebration. Her smile was the same—bright and positive, a smile that in full force made the hot Nevada desert sun look dull.

  ‘I guess lust doesn’t discriminate, does it?’ she said.

  It certainly does not, Luiz thought. If he’d known she was going to be this much trouble he would never have asked her to dance, much less come to her rescue.

  Maybe that wasn’t strictly true…

  He could have no more left her in that corridor than fly to the moon on a paper aeroplane. Daisy was the sort of girl he instinctively wanted to protect. His brother had done a good job on him. Alejandro was the master at the white knight gig; the way he cosseted his wife Teddy was proof of it. Luiz was happy for his brother finding love. He hadn’t thought it would ever happen. But that didn’t mean he was looking for a similar happy ending. He didn’t do happy endings. He couldn’t rely on them. He was all about living in the moment.

  And right now he had a hell of a moment to get through.

  Luiz strode over to the window to check if any more press had turned up outside the hotel complex. He could feel Daisy’s clear blue gaze studying him from behind. Never had a woman’s presence disturbed him so much. She was sweet and innocent and yet impossibly sexy, a potent combination he had never encountered before. The taste of her kiss lingered in his mouth like a delectable dessert he hadn’t had enough of. His taste buds were zinging, his lips buzzing, his blood thrumming. Last night had been the first time he had spent the night with a woman without making love to her. The need to do so was still thundering in his body. But it wasn’t just the lust that worried him. The spill-all conversation over breakfast… Why had he done that? What was it about her that made him reveal so much about his past?

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’ she said in an eager voice. ‘What are we doing today?’

  He twitched the curtains back across the window and faced her. ‘How many lovers have you had?’

  She momentarily sank her teeth into the pillow of her lower lip. ‘Depends what you mean by lover.’

  His brows met over his eyes. ‘Have you had sex?’

  ‘Technically, yes, but not with a human.’

  No wonder her old man didn’t let her out without a SWAT-trained security team, Luiz thought. ‘Want to elaborate?’

  Her cheeks were a fiery red but her blue eyes were unapologetic as they held his. ‘A girl has the right to pleasure herself if there’s no one else about. You men do it all the time. It’s perfectly normal. A vibrator is good practice for the real thing…or that’s what I’m hoping.’

  Luiz was having trouble keeping his jaw off the floor. ‘Are you saying you’ve never had sex other than with a vibrator?’

  She gave him a huffy look. ‘What of it? It’s safe. At least I won’t pick up any nasty infections. And he doesn’t cheat on me.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Edward.’

  ‘You called your vibrator Edward?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she said. ‘It’s a good old-fashioned name. I admit it’s a bit on the conservative side but I didn’t want to sleep with a nameless object. It’s…dehumanising.’

  Luiz couldn’t hold back a laugh. ‘You are such a crazy girl. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you.’

  ‘Same goes.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  She gave him a forthright look. ‘You’re so confident and upfront about what you want. Some would say brazen.’

/>   ‘I thought you didn’t like that about me?’

  ‘Not if you were to be my life partner, but as a casual fling candidate you’re perfect because it would be well-nigh impossible to damage your hubris.’

  Luiz wasn’t sure if she was insulting him or complimenting him. He wasn’t sure why he even cared either way. ‘So you ultimately want a life partner?’

  Her expression was completely guileless. ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘Why not you?’

  He lifted a shoulder. ‘You said it yourself. I’d make a terrible husband.’

  ‘You could be trained.’

  He gave a wry laugh. ‘You make me sound like a wild animal.’

  Her beautiful blue eyes twinkled. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t be in your life long enough to domesticate you.’

  Something about the way she was calling the shots sat uncomfortably with him. He was the one who did the checking in and checking out. He didn’t leave it to other people to come and go in his life. That was his prerogative. ‘Why me?’ he asked. ‘Why not the other guy?’

  ‘The Ealing guy?’

  ‘Yeah. Him.’ Luiz could barely think of that creep without wanting to punch something. Preferably him. Hard.

  ‘I can’t have a holiday fling with a compatriot. It’s not half as exciting or exotic.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve been called exotic before,’ he muttered drily. ‘Exciting, yes.’

  She grinned at him. ‘You’re exotic to me because I’ve never even talked to an Argentinian before.’

  ‘I can assure you we’re situated on much the same level on the evolutionary chain as you Brits.’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t implying you’re not civilised,’ she said sweetly. ‘Look at how you conducted yourself last night. You were the perfect gentleman.’

  ‘You only have my word on that.’

  ‘Exactly my point.’

  ‘I could be lying to you,’ he said.

  ‘But you’re not.’

  ‘You can tell that, how?’

  ‘Your eyes,’ she said, looking straight into them. ‘You have the darkest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. But they don’t shift about as if you’re trying to hide something. And they laugh a lot. I find that really attractive. You look like a man who really enjoys life.’

  Yeah, well, I was enjoying it just fine until a few hours ago, Luiz thought.

  But had he?

  Hadn’t he come back to his suite alone because he wasn’t enjoying himself?

  He shrugged the thought aside. He had to find a way to get himself out of this entanglement before some serious harm was done.

  Hadn’t cute little Daisy Wyndham already got more out of him in a few minutes than anyone had in years? He never spoke of his childhood. To anyone. But for some reason he had spilled out his whole back story to her over breakfast. It had come pouring out…sentence after sentence, buried hurt after buried hurt. Little Miss Daisy Wyndham, with her sweet and engaging manner, had stumbled upon his Achilles heel. The pain and bitterness he concealed behind a laugh-at-life façade. He laughed his way through life because it was a damn sight more comfortable than whinging about the stuff he couldn’t change.

  He had been young—only eight years old—when his father had the accident, but not too young to understand that life would never be the same. He had spent day after day waiting for his mother to return from her ‘holiday’, as she’d termed it. He had almost worn out the end of his nose pressing it to the window whenever he heard a car come up the long driveway to the villa.

  But no, each time he’d been bitterly disappointed. He hadn’t shown it on his face, but for years that disappointment had burned and festered inside him like a fetid sore. One conversation with Daisy and it had all come bubbling to the surface. How much more would she get out of him if he let her too close?

  He had watched his older brother painfully struggle to keep the family together, taking on responsibilities that no child of ten should ever have to shoulder.

  He had seen his strong and capable father reduced to a skin-wrapped skeleton in a chair, wearing nappies like a baby. The indignity of it had been stomach-churning. The suffering of his father had been like a brooding presence in the villa—haunting, maudlin, tortured.

  From as young as he could remember, Luiz had chosen to enjoy life in the fast lane because he knew how quickly things could change. He pushed the limits but only as far as he knew he could go. The adrenalin rush of a new challenge energised him. Hadn’t that been the most alluring thing about Daisy? She hadn’t fallen at his feet as he’d expected. Even now she wasn’t playing by his rules.

  What would happen if he dared to relax them just this once?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘OF COURSE, if you don’t think you’re up to the task of taking me on then I’m sure I’ll soon find some other guy to—’ Daisy began.

  ‘No, you won’t.’ Luiz’s tone was strident. ‘From what I’ve seen so far, you’ll probably pick up some sleazy creep who’ll take more than your virginity off you. Your credit card details, for instance. Or your passport. No wonder your old man won’t let you out alone. Do you have any idea of the danger you could get into in a place like this?’

  Daisy was finding his protective streak rather endearing. Underneath that suave and sophisticated über-modern exterior he was as old-fashioned as her father. Which was why she wanted him to be the one to make love to her for the first time. He ticked all the boxes for a holiday fling. He was gorgeous and fun-loving. He was respectably dissolute—a bad boy from a good family. He wouldn’t make demands on her past the time frame of their fling. Who could be better to give her the experience she longed for than a man who was a professional playboy? It wasn’t as if she was in any danger of falling in love with him. He was the total opposite of what she wanted in a long-term partner.

  Besides, Belinda was always ragging her for not stepping outside her comfort zone. A red-hot fling with world champion polo player Luiz Valquez would win her some serious bragging rights.

  Not to mention she was seriously attracted to him.

  Daisy smiled up at him. ‘So you’ll do it?’

  He was glowering as if she’d asked him to skin a spider before swallowing it. ‘Aren’t you being a little cold-blooded about this?’

  ‘What’s wrong? Surely you don’t expect me to wrap it up in flowery language? I bet you don’t when you select your next sleepover partner.’

  He stalked to the other side of the room, one of his hands rubbing at the back of his neck as if he had a knot of tension bothering him. ‘This is crazy. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.’

  ‘Is it because I’m not a supermodel? I’ve heard you’re really picky over your partners.’

  ‘Not picky enough, it seems,’ he muttered not quite under his breath.

  ‘Yes, well, now that you mention it, you were the one who started this by approaching me in the nightclub,’ she said. ‘Who knows? If you hadn’t been so full of yourself I mightn’t have gone off with the Ealing guy and then none of this would have happened.’

  His top lip curled. ‘Is that your version of logic? If so, it’s a little short of the mark.’

  Daisy gave a small shrug. ‘I’m just saying…’

  He came back over to her, standing right in front of her so she had to crane her neck to keep eye contact. His eyes moved between both of hers, back and forth, as if he were waiting for her to reveal some other motive other than pure unadulterated lust. After a moment he lifted his hand and stroked his fingertip across her jawline. His touch was mesmerising, light as air, and yet every nerve of hers twanged with awareness. ‘I should send you packing.’

  ‘That would be the sensible thing to do if I had indeed anything to pack before I left,’ Daisy said. �
��I don’t suppose visiting the Grand Canyon in a little black dress and heels is sensible either.’

  His half smile made her stomach slip. So did his touch as he cupped her cheek in one of his broad hands. His thumb moved over her cheek in a stroking motion that was as hypnotic as his dark chocolate gaze. ‘No. It isn’t.’

  Daisy looked at his mouth, wondering if he was going to kiss her again. Never had a kiss been so exciting. Every pore of her body had responded to him. It was as if he had turned a switch on inside her body. Her inner core pulsated with the need to feel his thick male presence—a real flesh and blood man, not a cold and clinical machine. She could feel the twitching of those delicate nerves in anticipation of his intimate invasion. ‘Maybe I should head back to my hotel and slip into something a little more touristy.’

  ‘You should.’

  She looked at the way his eyes became sleepily hooded, the dark fan of his lashes shielding half of his gaze as it focused on her mouth. ‘Should I bring my things back here, do you think?’

  His eyes sprang open again. ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, if we’re going to hang out together for the next four days it would make sense, wouldn’t it?’

  He frowned as if he hadn’t considered that angle before. ‘How far away is your hotel?’

  ‘It’s down the budget end of the strip. It’s what the girls could afford.’ Daisy nibbled at her lip before adding, ‘I guess I could cab it back and forth…’

  ‘And make me look like a tight-fisted jerk?’ he said. ‘No. You can move in here with me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m not sleeping over in some flea-bitten dive.’

  ‘It’s not that far down the strip,’ Daisy said. ‘Mind you, this place must cost a packet. Do you always stay on the penthouse floor?’

  ‘I like my space.’

  ‘For all your wild parties?’

  He gave her a stern look. ‘I’m a professional sportsman. If I partied as hard as everyone made out in the press I wouldn’t be able to win a single game.’