The Ring The Spaniard Gave Her - Lynne Graham Page 0,37

have the final word.’

Suzy lifted her head, green eyes glittering like emeralds, soft pink mouth flattening with tension.

‘You had sex with me for the same reason I had sex with you, querida,’ he imparted softly.

‘Which was...?’ Suzy dared, enraged by the heat she could feel hotly flooding her cheeks.

‘Hombre! Reason had nothing to do with it. We were so hot for each other we couldn’t control ourselves. At least I’m honest about it,’ Ruy told her mockingly.

CHAPTER SEVEN

AS THE LIMOUSINE that collected Ruy and Suzy from the airport pulled away from the kerb, the silence within the vehicle was frigid. Suzy played with her phone and did everything she could to avoid looking in Ruy’s direction while he passed his time with business calls, switching with enviable ease between several different languages. Having no idea exactly where they were heading and still too angry with Ruy to ask, Suzy was exasperated with both him and herself by the time the limo turned off a rural road to move up a long straight driveway. The lane was bounded by tall dark cypress trees that cast spear-shaped shadows across the pale sunlit gravel.

A gargantuan building came into view at the top of the drive. The substantial house in the centre was extended on either side by wings. It was a mansion, composed of several storeys and countless windows.

‘Welcome to Palacio Valiente,’ Ruy murmured as the limousine drove below an archway and came to a halt in a cobbled interior courtyard, adorned with a marble fountain.

An arched veranda with polished floor tiles ringed the entire space. Elegant urns of colourful flowers tumbled from every corner. Suzy climbed slowly out of the car. A hand lightly cupping her elbow, Ruy moved forward to greet the small middle-aged man awaiting them. They moved indoors down a short corridor into a vast echoing marble entrance hall in which life-sized classical statues stood in niches.

‘Manuel is scolding me for bringing you into the house for the first time by the rear entrance,’ Ruy told her with amusement. ‘He manages the staff and the household—’

Suzy was still in shock at the size and style of Ruy’s home while telling herself that she should have guessed by his attitude that he would live in a literal palace. How he had accommodated his pedigreed expectations to that relatively small, if spacious, house in Norfolk she had no idea because by his standards he had been roughing it. Ruy had not only grown up with the proverbial silver spoon, he had grown up with an entire silver canteen. The entrance hall was cool, splendid and thoroughly intimidating, designed, she felt, to remind less high-flown mortals of their lowlier place in life.

A sweeping staircase that split in two higher up to curve in opposite directions sat before her. Suzy thought in sudden horror, Oh, my goodness, my clothes just aren’t going to cut it here! He had said a high-society wedding, but she had seriously underestimated the level of glitz and expense that would be expected. And once again that was all his fault for not being more honest. He had worn an elegant business suit to travel home, she had put on cropped trousers and a tee and that contrast said it all.

Ruy thrust open the door of a room off the landing and stood back. Her delicate profile tight, she moved ahead of him into a breathtakingly magnificent bedroom. A superb canopied and draped ornate bed sat at the far end of the room. ‘This looks like somewhere royalty would sleep,’ she whispered uneasily, feeling as if she should be standing behind a rope reading a guidebook on some official tour.

‘No, this is where we sleep,’ Ruy countered.

‘We?’ Suzy almost gasped.

‘It may be an old house but expectations here are as contemporary as anywhere else. Engaged couples share a bed,’ Ruy informed her smoothly.

‘Even when they’re barely speaking?’

‘Particularly in that case. Never let the sun go down on anger,’ Ruy quipped.

‘Any more clichés to offer?’ Suzy was playing for time because back in England she had become accustomed to having a bed to herself. Ruy had stayed in his studio, she had stayed upstairs. After their fleeting bout of intimacy, that division, that privacy, had provided a welcome escape from the turmoil of emotions Ruy’s presence incited inside her. But whether she liked it or not, he was correct in his assertion that people would expect an engaged couple to share a room.

Ruy crossed the room to tug open a