Nina Milne – Claimed By The Wealthy Magnate (страница 2)

A glance out of the window showed the dusky Barcelona evening. The breeze carried in staccato bursts of chatter, the smell of heat-hazed streets and a hint of sangria. Another glance at the mirror reassured her that her own siblings wouldn’t recognise her.

Well, Cora might, with her twin’s intuition, but Gabriel certainly wouldn’t. A familiar pang of guilt touched her at the thought of Cora—at the knowledge that her relationship with her sister had lost any semblance of closeness. As for Gabriel—right now she didn’t even know where her brother was. The future Duke of Fairfax had disappeared on a prolonged sojourn abroad, leaving behind a supposedly jilted girlfriend and no indication of when he would return.

The Derwent siblings—on the surface they had it all, but in reality...

The impetus of emotion made her decision for her—pent-up energy roiled inside her, making the room’s confines too restrictive, and instinct propelled her to the door, out of the room and down the carpeted stairs towards the lobby.

But as she looked around at the bustle in the marble foyer, the people all strangers, a tsunami of panic welled inside her without warning. Alarm and anxiety crashed in as they hadn’t for—oh, so many years.

Fool that she was.

This had been a mistake. She should never have come here—never have set foot out of her carefully planned life trajectory. At best she should at least have remained in the safety of her room. She needed to retrace her steps. If only her legs would co-operate. Dots danced in front of her eyes and her lungs refused to work.

A last vestige of common sense had her leaning against a marble pillar in the hope of obscurity...

* * *

Daniel Harrington stepped out of the elevator into the hotel lobby. Feelings of futile anger mixed with equally pointless hurt banded his chest.

Stupidity incarnate.

Who knew what had possessed him to attempt a reunion with his family? Ten years ago they had turned their backs on him, refused to countenance his decision to go legitimate, to no longer turn a blind eye.

‘If you walk out of that door, Danny, you don’t get to come back. Ever. You will be dead to us.’

That walk had been the hardest choice he’d ever made. But he’d done it, and he’d been a fool to think there would be any softening now. So he had only himself to blame for this wasted journey. But he had hoped that his mother, at least, would relent, would want to see her eldest son.

Instead his stepfather had sent his deputy in her stead—a man who had delivered his message with a cruelty that had exercised Daniel’s self-restraint to the utmost.

As he strode towards the revolving doors, the message echoed in his ears.

‘Ghosts get no visitors. Dead is dead, Danny boy. Dead is for ever, and you are dead to the Rosso family.’

He nearly missed the movement that had caught at the edge of his vision.

Dyed blonde hair caught back in a messy ponytail, blue eyes filled with anguish... The woman leant against a marble pillar that mostly concealed her from the guests that dotted the foyer. Her breath rasped in heaving gasps that indicated a full-scale panic attack.

With an abrupt turn Daniel veered off and halted in front of her. ‘Are you OK?’

Stupid question, but the words seemed at least to steady her slightly, and she blinked her eyes in rapid succession.

‘I’m fi...’ she began, then gasped out a half-laugh. ‘No, I’m not.’

Daniel gestured to a concierge. ‘Water, please.’ Turning, he held an arm out to the woman. ‘Let me help you. You need to sit down.’

‘Thank you.’

He watched as she visibly pulled herself together, almost as if through sheer will power. Her breathing was still ragged, but no longer desperate as she pushed away from the fluted column and stood with one hand resting on it.

‘I’ll be fine.’ She nodded her thanks to the hotel staff member who came over with a bottle of water. ‘Really.’

‘Is there someone I can call or get for you? Or...?’

‘No!’ The syllable was a touch too sharp. ‘Really, I’m fine now. Thank you for your help.’

‘I’ve hardly helped.’

He studied her for a long moment, saw the vulnerability still in her eyes, along with an anxiety she was clearly doing her best to mask.

‘But I’d like to. How about I buy you a drink? Stay with you until I’m sure you’re OK?’

Surprise touched with an understandable wariness etched a frown on her face.

‘No, thank you.’ The words were polite but final. ‘I don’t drink with strangers.’

‘And I don’t leave damsels in distress on their own in hotel lobbies. We can have a drink here. In the public bar, full of plenty of people. If you’re in trouble maybe I can help you.’

‘What makes you think I’m in trouble?’

Daniel shrugged. ‘Instinct. I’m a lawyer. Lots of my clients are in trouble. You get to know the signs.’

‘Well, in this case you’ve misread the signals. I appreciate your concern, but I’m not in trouble and I don’t need any more help than you’ve already given me.’

The words, though softly spoken, were uttered with determination, and Daniel knew he should go on his currently less than merry way. But his instincts were usually bang on the button, and the idea that this woman was in dire straits of some sort persisted.

Not his business. Though there was more to it than that. Dammit, she was beautiful. Wide blue eyes were fringed with thick dark lashes and unenhanced by make-up. A few tendrils of blonde hair had escaped the ponytail and framed a classically oval face. Slender and long-legged, she held herself with a poise and grace that added distinction to her beauty.

As if made uncomfortable by his scrutiny, she shifted from foot to foot and turned her head slightly to one side.

‘If you don’t need my help then perhaps we could just enjoy each other’s company? You wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I am a scintillating conversationalist.’

He accompanied the words with a wriggle of his eyebrows and to his surprise, and perhaps hers, her lips curved up into a smile. Though she still her shook her head.

‘Humour me. One drink. So I can be sure you are OK. You can ask the staff to keep an eye on us, if you’re worried. In fact I think they already are.’

The smile vanished and her eyes shaded with a hint of anxiety as she glanced round to where the concierge still watched them.

‘OK. One drink.’

He held out a hand. ‘I’m Daniel.’

The woman hesitated a moment before reaching her hand out to his. ‘Lynette.’

* * *

Half an hour later, seated across from Daniel in the cool anonymity of the elegant yet highly functional hotel bar, Kaitlin sipped the last of her pomegranate cooler. The non-alcoholic blend of sweet and sour was exactly what she’d needed to revive her.

Come on, Kaitlin.

It wasn’t the beverage, nor the comfort of the cream-cushioned round-backed seats, nor even the vivid splash of bright yellow flower arrangements—it was the man.

Daniel lacked her brother’s classic handsomeness—the slight crook to his nose indicated that it might well have been broken once, and his features were craggy rather than aquiline—but in sheer presence he could rival Gabriel, even if the latter was the Earl of Wycliffe.

He projected a raw energy—a force that showed in the intense blue of his eyes, the jut of his jaw, the sheer focus he bestowed on her. It was a focus underlain with a pull of attraction that caused a warning bell to toll in the dim recesses of her brain that knew the sheer scale of the stupidity of all this.

Attraction was a tug she couldn’t afford to feel—an emotion that in truth she had never felt. The blight, she assumed, was a result of her childhood trauma.

Stop, Kaitlin. Don’t go there.

The kidnap was an experience she had done her best to suppress, and she had every intention of keeping it buried in the deepest, darkest depths of her psyche, never to surface. After all she had created her safe, controlled Lady Kaitlin persona to achieve that exact obliteration of her memory banks.

‘Another drink?’ he asked, and his deep voice caressed her skin like velvet and decadent chocolate. ‘Or how about dinner?’

‘Thank you.’

But no—they were the words she knew she should say. Each minute she spent with Daniel increased the risk of recognition, the possibility that she would slip up and reveal her true identity. That would be a disaster—her parents would be incoherent with anger if Lady Kaitlin Derwent was revealed to have been picked up by a stranger in a Barcelona bar. Because—and she might as well face it—if she agreed to dinner this would no longer be a ‘medical’ interlude. It would move into different territory altogether. An unfamiliar minefield of a terrain. So...

‘But I don’t want to disrupt your plans. I’m fine now. Thank you for coming to my rescue.’

‘I have no plans.’ There was a bleak note in his voice under the casual disclaimer.

‘You must have had some plans,’ she countered. ‘You were on your way somewhere when you ran into me.’

‘Nowhere specific. Wherever the night took me.’

His shoulders lifted and her gaze snagged on their breadth. Once again awareness struck—an undercurrent that swirled between them across the square glass-topped table.

‘So what do you say?’