The Ring The Spaniard Gave Her - Lynne Graham Page 0,11

hoped, and she slid off the edge of the platform and down into his arms.

Ruy staggered as he caught her because of the force of her fall but she was a slight weight, a small, curvy shape that smelled of oranges and sunshine. Weird, he thought, abstractedly drinking in the scent of her hair, liking it in some even weirder way. ‘I just wanted you down from the tree as fast as possible,’ he murmured soothingly as he tried to put her down again. ‘Winding you up seems to work a treat.’

Her legs buckled and he told her to lean against him while he removed his coat and wrapped it round her before lifting her again.

‘I don’t know why you wind me up so much...well, actually I do,’ Suzy muttered jaggedly, from the depths of his giant warmly lined jacket. ‘If you hadn’t been in the bar last night talking to me, it wouldn’t have happened...but maybe I’m lucky it happened because I had no idea he would do what he did, so maybe I should be thanking you instead of thinking it was all your fault because he thought you were flirting with me.’

‘How was it my fault? And what did happen?’ Ruy pressed, strong arms closed firmly round her and making her feel oddly safe for the first time after long hours of agonising while she had lain sleepless throughout the night.

‘Nothing...nothing happened,’ she muttered, struggling to concentrate.

In the stark harshness of the spring light, Ruy looked down at her and registered the bruise on her cheekbone and the reddening and hint of swelling round her little nose. ‘He hit you? That’s why you left him standing?’ he demanded rawly.

‘Let’s not talk about it. And then he arrived early at the church... I saw him from the window,’ she admitted unevenly. ‘He came over to the flat and Dad was out and I just panicked because I couldn’t face him again. I knew he would pile on the pressure and make threats. He knew what he had done, and he wanted to make sure I would go through with the wedding. He’ll be in a towering rage with me now and I didn’t want to risk that confrontation.’

‘Cabrón!’ Ruy bit out the insult in Spanish, settling her carefully into the passenger seat of his vehicle and tugging out his phone to ring his sister for advice; as a GP, she was generally home at weekends. He spoke to her in French because Cecile’s mother had been French, and he didn’t want to take the chance that Suzy might understand what he was saying. Cecile was shocked and told him what to do best for Suzy while promising to call round to check her over.

‘Shouldn’t we be contacting the police to report the assault?’ Ruy prompted as he turned the car.

‘No...no!’ From the depths of his coat, Suzy shot him a look of pure horror. ‘It would only make Percy more vindictive and I can’t afford to do that.’

‘We’ll see,’ Ruy said lightly, although he had no intention of standing back while the abuser got off scot-free because he had literally terrorised his victim into such fear that she couldn’t currently see the situation as it was. He wanted more information but knew it was unfair to press her when she was in a weakened state of confusion. He was also experiencing an extremely strong urge to protect her from further harm.

‘He has a lot of power,’ she mumbled thickly. ‘You can’t afford to antagonise people like that.’

Ruy was outraged by the depth of her fear of a small-time local businessman. It was the strangest feeling. He could not recall ever being so angry about anything that did not directly affect him. After all, he did not get involved in other people’s problems. On the one occasion when he had abandoned that rule years earlier the situation had blown up in his face when, by trying to help, he had simply done more damage, or so it had seemed. But Suzy was different, he told himself soothingly, because he had no personal or sexual interest in her. She wasn’t his type, absolutely not his type. Ruy was drawn to quietly spoken brunettes, not short, curvy redheads with sharp tongues.

‘Gosh, I’m so sleepy,’ she whispered through chattering teeth.

‘You can’t go to sleep, not yet anyway,’ Ruy responded, ramming the vehicle to a halt in front of his property and racing round to the passenger side to lift her out at