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  The door was thrust open suddenly, and she turned to see her husband of hours framed there, strong, dark and virile in a short brown robe of silky material which made it abundantly clear that he was as naked as the day of his birth under it. No gentle poet this!

  A peculiar tightness made her voice high-pitched, like a schoolgirl's. `I—I'm not ready.'

  Without moving, his relentless gaze went over her from silver hair to pink toes peeping from under the white silk of her robe. In turn, her eyes shifted nervously over the deep vee exposed where his robe had been carelessly tied to reveal a smooth-skinned olive chest, and down to the sinewy length of male leg and long feet.

  Her breath drew in on a frightened gasp and she turned blindly to tidy away the evidence of her toilette.

  `Leave that,' he commanded tersely. 'Leave it and come to me.'

  Her fingers froze on the toothpaste tube, its slashing red and white colours imprinted indelibly on her mind. Then, as if his voice was that of her hypnotic master, she went to him fatalistically, as if her whole life had led up to this moment when a pagan stranger would take her in his arms, bruising her soft lips with the hungry abrasion of his, bending the slender line of her body to the demanding arch of his, making her head swim with the blatant force of his masculinity.

  Only the touch of his warmth on her flesh told her that her robe had been discarded, that he had lifted her against his smoothly muscled chest and was carrying her to the bedroom, his mouth hot at her ear pouring out words of Spanish which she was too disorientated to translate.

  He laid her gently on the yielding bed, joining her there, his body warm over the cool shrinking of hers. His mouth seemed to be everywhere at once ...at her throat, her closed lids, the soft line of her cheek, stealing her breath when it finally closed possessively over her trembling lips.

  Her determination to stay cool and ungiving was swept away in the practised assault he made on her senses. His needs suddenly and urgently became her needs, his desire to possess her desire to yield.

  'Amorcita,' he murmured feverishly when her hands ran with a possession of their own across the smooth Old of his shoulders and down the length of his spine, coming back by the same route to mesh her fingers in the thickness of his black hair. 'Te adoro.'

  Her voice murmured too in her own language, words she had no recollection of until Diego's lithe warmth stiffened above her and she heard the lingering echo of her own 'Oh Brent—darling!'

  Then Diego's fingers entwined themselves in her hair, pulling it back painfully from her scalp.

  'What did you say?' he demanded hoarsely, sending a shiver across her heated skin. A shiver that seemed to clear her brain suddenly and make mockery of the golden body pressing hers into the mattress. Here was the perfect solution, the one she had racked her brains to find!

  'Did I say something?' she asked in a breathy whisper.

  'You said the name of Brent,' he accused, black eyes staring hard into the darkened green of hers.

  'Oh.' A small frown creased the smooth area between her brows. 'Well, that's not surprising in this kind of situation, is it? After all, Brent and I were ...' She allowed her voice to trail off delicately, and felt the tremor of anger that rippled through the taut body pinning hers.

  'He was your lover?' Diego questioned with awful quietness.

  Laurel's green eyes met his with purposeful blank-

  ness. 'What do you think?' A throaty laugh bubbled from her lips, the sound tightening his smooth jaw to steel. 'An engaged couple in America has much more freedom than in your country, señor. Did you really think Brent and I would consider marriage without finding out if we were suited in every way?'

  Diego shifted so that his weight was blessedly lifted from her rapidly numbing limbs, but the wild glint in his eyes pinned her just as effectively to the mattress.

  'I cannot take as my wife a woman who has been—used by another man,' he bit off tersely, his clasp tightening painfully on her hair. 'You knew this about me, yet you married me. Why?'

  Laurel managed a shrug, although her scalp pained sharply where he tugged at her hair. 'You gave me little choice, señor. My father—'

  Diego uttered a string of oaths in Spanish and sprang from the bed, mercifully releasing his hold on her hair, and after he had shrugged into the robe he had cast aside, he turned to look coldly down at her.

  'You expect me to help your father after this?' he threw down caustically. 'Think again, Laurel! Your father can stay in prison and rot, as you called it, as far as I am concerned!'

  Laurel stared numbly after him as he strode from the bed, ignoring her state of nudity for long minutes after the door had closed behind him. She had saved her precious virginity, but what had she done to her father?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  'LAUREL!'

  Reluctantly, Laurel forced her heavy lids half open and stared dazedly at a pair of male legs clad in immaculate cream slacks beside the bed. For a moment panic gripped her as she wondered where she was, and fear widened her eyes as they travelled up past the legs to brown knit shirt stretched tautly over smoothly contoured chest muscles. The face above was darkly brooding, the haughtily aristocratic features the ones which had haunted the light sleep she had fallen into just before dawn.

  Diego indicated with one light brown hand the tray that had been placed upon the bedside table.

  'I have brought your breakfast. Juanita would have found it strange that—' His eyes flickered over the unruffled half of the wide bed.

  His gaze returned contemptuously to her, and through his eyes she saw her own sleepily awakened state, hair spilling over the pillows in a spread of pure silver. Her limbs seemed incapable of movement as she stared up at the cold surface of his eyes.

  'Wh-what did you tell her?'

  'What do you think I told her?' Swinging away from her, he went to the windows and pulled the full-length curtains aside, letting in a flood of light that made Laurel put a protective hand to her eyes. 'That I found my wife impure and spent the night apart from her?'

  The words were spoken with such a lack of the savagery Laurel had expected that she felt the unaccustomed prickle of tears behind her eyes There was something so pathetically vulnerable about the proud stance of his virile male body, hands thrust into slacks pockets as he gazed from the window, that she wanted to cry out a denial. A denial that Brent had ever done more than titillate the strong sensual streak she now knew ran deeply, shockingly, through her. And that it had been Diego who had roused that sleeping tiger in her. Most of the reason for her sleeplessness had been because her body, like a separate entity from her mind, had been reacting to the abrupt cessation of his expert lovemaking the night before.

  Struggling to a sitting position, tongue-tied in face of his silence, Laurel glanced at the tray beside her. The tempting aroma of freshly baked rolls coming from the basket where they lay wrapped in stiff white linen mingled with the odour of coffee from the silver pot. Golden curls of butter filled a small dish, but it was the silver bud vase that drew her attention with its single half-opened rose of clear orange red. Its vibrant colour seemed to hold all the warmth and vitality of the land from which it had drawn succour, and Laurel swallowed the awkward lump that had risen to her throat.

  `Th-thank you for the tray,' she murmured as Diego turned from the window and stepped towards the bed, freeing his hands from his pockets. 'The rose is—beautiful.'

  The shrug of his shoulders was eloquent. The tray was not of my doing. You have Juanita to thank for it.' 'Oh.'

  Illogical disappointment surged through her, a state which was not alleviated when Diego drew a small box

  from his pocket and tossed it on to the bed beside her.

  'You might as well have this gift, too. It is a custom for the bride to receive a token of her husband's appreciation for her abundant favours bestowed on the wedding night.' His mouth twisted into a sarcastic line as Laurel stared at the green jeweller's box. 'Open it. I will expect you to wear them at dinn
er tonight.'

  Laurel obeyed his imperative command, her slender fingers shaking as they picked up the box and pressed the catch to open it. Inside lay a pair of exquisitely designed earrings, emeralds surrounded by diamonds to match her engagement ring.

  'They're—beautiful,' she managed, her mouth firming when her eyes met the bleakness in his. 'But you should keep them for your wife.

  'You are my wife. I have told you, I will marry only once in my lifetime.'

  Her eyes widened as the import of his words sank in. Then, her voice a whisper, she said: 'You want to stay married to me, after last night?' She laughed suddenly, mirthlessly. 'You're no monk, senor! I can't see you living the celibate life somehow.'

  One arrogant black brow arched up. 'I said nothing of living a monk's life, mi esposa! Until my distaste for soiled merchandise dissipates, there are other women who can care for my needs.'

  Laurel gasped as if he had struck her, then said bitterly: 'And they're not soiled, as you call it by your double standard?'

  'I have never elevated one of them to be my wife,' he returned evenly, turning on his heel to go to the door. 'Have your breakfast. We will swim in the pool before lunch, and after a rest this afternoon we will visit with your father.'

  With these dogmatic words he went from the room, leaving Laurel seething at his high-handed doling out of orders with no expectation-of dissent.

  Her mouth dry, she poured coffee from the silver pot into the delicate china cup and sipped avidly on its lukewarm comfort. She was no better off than she had been the night before, the only difference being that now she was forced into a game of cat and mouse, with Diego as predator and herself as unwilling victim. At any time, when he tired of the women ready to oblige him, he would pounce on her and make her his wife in every sense of the word. And he would know that she had lied to him.

  But at least he seemed to have reversed his decision to do nothing to help her father, and that was the lifeline she must hold to.

  The morning was well advanced when she went hesitantly into the main part of the house and met a shyly beaming Juanita crossing the hall. An unwitting blush bathed her cheeks when she realised what the housekeeper must be thinking, and the blush seemed to confirm the Mexican woman's surmise of a night spent in the arms of her virile husband.

  `Buenos dins, senora,' the dark-skinned woman said softly, her eyes darting quickly from Laurel's severely bound hair to her long shapely legs under green floral beach jacket.

  Buenos dial, Juanita.' The woman seemed delighted when she asked in Spanish where the Senor was to be found, and replied in a rapid spate that Diego was already swimming in the pool. 'I will bring refreshments there if you would like them, senora.'

  `Gracias. Just some hot coffee if you have it.' `I will bring it at once.'

  Laurel, relying on her hazily remembered sense of direction, went with what she hoped was confidence to the side patio doors, opening one and stepping out on to the coolness of a tiled patio where tubbed greenery flourished despite the wide overhang of the house. Beyond it, the pool sparkled in deep turquoise under a sun that blazed from a perfectly blue sky.

  She had an opportunity to study the olive-toned figure poised on the diving board at one end of the rectangular pool, and despite herself her heart quickened to an erratic beat as she surveyed the long lines of masculine perfection. Blue-black hair glistened in the sun above shoulders moulded in light bronze and muscled chest smoothly hairless leading to flat stomach and hard male thighs tapering to well-formed calves and feet.

  As she watched, unnoticed, Diego raised his arms in a reverentially pagan way, reminiscent of the divers off La Quebiada cliffs in Acapulco, then did a quick jack-knife dive into the pool, his body leaving a wake of froth when he surfaced and swam vigorously to the far end.

  By the time he had swum back the length of the pool's glittering surface, Laurel was ensconced on one of the padded loungers facing the sun, smoothing lotion on the honey-gold skin of her long legs.

  Every sense on the alert, she was aware of his dripping body coming to stand at the foot of her chair, but kept her eyes on the motion of her hand as it smoothed the cream deep into her skin.

  At last Diego said drily : 'With so much rubbing, querida, even our hot Mexican sun would hesitate to penetrate beyond the surface of your skin.'

  While she was still wondering if the words had a

  hidden, snide meaning, Diego took the bottle of lotion from her hand and indicated her shoulders.

  'If you will permit?' he asked, and without waiting for an answer he poured some of the lotion into his hands and began a slow massaging movement over her shoulders, ignoring her initial shrug of rejection and her irritable : 'I can do it myself!'

  But she had to admit, as the supple hands unknotted the lump of tension at her nape, that his touch was far superior to her own. Not, she thought drowsily, that soothing massage was what she had had in mind, but her every sinew ached with the strain of the past twenty-four hours. Added to that was the loss of sleep during the long night, and her lids had already closed when she felt the soothing hands slide with oiled smoothness under the brief covering at her breasts, a male mouth nibbling warmly at her ear.

  She stiffened immediately, pushing away the anguor that had invaded her limbs and jerking upright on the thick cushions. At the sound of Juanita's apologetic: 'Perdon, señor. The Señora's coffee ...' her head whipped round and embarrassment sent guilty colour up over her skin. The housekeeper must have seen Diego's intimate touch under the white swimsuit, the mouth which seemed to have been uttering passionate phrases at her ear. Indeed, the older woman's smile held more than a hint of coy delight as Diego murmured his thanks.

  'How dare you?' Laurel hissed as the plump figure in floral cotton housedress retreated towards the house. 'She must have thought—'

  'That we wish to prolong the sweetness of tilt night hours in each other's arms?' he finished coolly, giving his inimical light shrug as he came round to sit at the

  bottom of her lounger and pour coffee from the tray Juanita had set down on a patio table next to it. 'She has already reported to her husband the success of our coming together, interpreting the shadows under your eyes to mean that I gave my bride little rest.'

  With the sun blazing behind him, his expression was difficult to read, but Laurel raised her hand automatically to accept the delicately shaped china cup from him. He had wanted Juanita to think….

  'Is the opinion of servants so important to you?' she mocked, wanting to hurt him as her tormented nerves had been brought to screaming pitch.

  She saw the proud tilt of his head as he turned it slowly, levelling his gaze on her. 'Si, it is important to me on this matter. When I came here to vacation as a boy, Carlos and Juanita were the only parents I knew. They have waited long for my marriage, and the prospect of caring for my children, and I will not disappoint them.'

  Laurel leaned back against the hot cushion so quickly that a small amount of coffee spilled into her saucer. Diego was at once attentive, taking it from her and cleaning it with a paper napkin before handing it back.

  'Be very careful, querida,' he warned softly, and Laurel sensed that his meaning was far from coffee spills.

  'What's to stop me from telling them that our marriage is no real marriage?'

  His teeth glinted whitely against his dark skin. 'For one thing, they would not believe you. And for another, I would very quickly establish the reality, of our marriage.'

  'Really?' she stabbed waspishly. 'And what would your saintly mother have said about that?' She had had

  no intention of ever letting him know that in an odd way Consuelo's shrewish insinuation regarding her likeness to Diego's mother had any power to hurt her. Now his eyes had narrowed to glittering slits, and she took a hasty gulp of the hot coffee.

  `Who has been speaking of my mother to you?' he demanded grittily.

  'I—I saw her portrait in the Mexico City house. It would have been hard to miss the likeness
between her and myself.'

  His hard gaze went calculatingly over her pale hair and femininely curved body with its long length of leg, then he gave a dismissing shrug. 'There is a slight surface resemblance but there can be no real comparison between you.'

  Of course not, Laurel mocked inwardly. How could any woman be compared to the Madonna-like purity of-his dead mother?

  Diego rose abruptly from the lounger and looked down at her, his face seemingly moulded from hard bronze. 'I am going to swim again before lunch. Will you join me?'

  When Laurel shook her head he turned and strode off to the pool, droplets of water raining on her heated skin when he dived neatly from the side. He seemed as supremely confident in the pool as on land, his dark gold limbs cleaving through the smooth surface water with a graceful economy of movement.

  Perhaps she should have swum in the pool. The sun burned in a red haze through her closed lids and lethargy crept over her, relaxing her body while her mind remained active. On second thoughts, maybe it was as well she hadn't joined Diego in the water. They would inevitably have touched at some point or other,

  and she was at odds with herself as to whether that would be a good thing at this stage in their odd relationship.

  Etched behind her lids now was an involuntary picture of his hard, warm body making love to her in the wide matrimonial bed, and her own shattering response to a man she had thought she hated and feared. Still hated, she reminded herself, though now her fear was more concerned with her own physical reactions than with Diego's ability to hurt her.

  As soon as her father was freed she would be leaving the marriage Diego had forced on her, leaving this tumultuous country where passions ran high and resistance melted in the steamy heat of the ever-present sun. An annulment should be easier to obtain in her own country—without Diego's agreement, it would be almost impossible here, where his influence was so strong.