Читать книгу The Secret Mistress - Emma Darcy, Emma Darcy - Страница 10

CHAPTER FOUR

LUIS was rock-hard and in pain but the shattered look he’d left on Shontelle’s face was worth every second of the discomfort. No way was she going to turn the tables on him! He hoped the witch was burning with frustration.

He deliberately kept his back turned to her while he talked on the phone to Ramon Flores who could organize any form of road transport in La Paz. It was local courtesy to speak Quechua, the old Inca language, and Luis did so with perverse pleasure, knowing Shontelle would not be able to follow it. Her grasp of Spanish was good, but she only had a sketchy knowledge of the native dialects.

Let her stew in uncertainty, he thought. She was too damned sure of her power to get what she wanted. Before this night was out she’d learn who was master of the situation, and he’d kiss her goodbye with the same brutal finality she’d shown him two years ago.

“The bus is not a problem, Luis,” Ramon said predictably. “But...”

The pause sharpened Luis’ attention. “But what?”

“It would be useless to ask any of my local drivers to deliver it. They would be stopped and arrested before the bus got to The Europa. The military edict is no gathering of crowds. They consider three people together a crowd. A local man taking out a bus...it would not be allowed. Too suspicious.”

Luis frowned. He hadn’t thought of that. Yet if he didn’t deliver...no, he had to. He refused to look weak and ineffectual in front of Shontelle Wright. There had to be a way.

“Your Australian friend...he might get through, being a foreigner,” Ramon suggested. “Since he is prepared to risk his tour group in trying to get out of La Paz, tell him to come to the depot and take the bus himself. It will be fully fuelled, ready to go.”

It made sense, but it wasn’t the deal he’d agreed to with Shontelle. Her words, not his, he reasoned. He didn’t have to toe her line. The essence of the deal was the same. The bus would be available for Alan to take. That was all his erstwhile friend had requested.

“Someone will be at the depot to hand over the bus?” he asked.

“Curfew lifts at six. I’ll have a man at the gates at six-thirty.”

“Thank you, Ramon.”

“Your friend is a fool, Luis.”

“His choice.”

“It’s our bus. This could bring trouble kicking back to us.”

“I’ll wear it. You are simply following my orders, Ramon.”

“As you wish.”

Luis slowly lowered the receiver, his mind engaged in hard reappraisal. This whole enterprise was stupid, inviting trouble. Alan’s tour group was safe at their hotel. What was another week or two out of their lives? Better locked away in luxury than dead. It was just as stupid for him to get involved, putting the Martinez reputation for finely balanced political sense on the line.

For what?

A woman who had used him...a woman worth nothing!

Madness to have been tempted into wreaking some sweet vengeance. It was beneath him. He should dismiss her from his suite right now, send her off with a bitter sense of failure. That was vengeance enough.

He turned to do it.

She stood framed by the blackness of the night beyond the window, the twinkling stars of light from the city surrounding her, lending her an air of etherial mystery. Her long hair gleamed like a stream of moonlight and her golden skin glowed, the perfect foil for eyes that shone like emeralds. Her full lips were slightly apart, as he’d left them, waiting it seemed for another kiss, insidiously beckoning him.

He forced his gaze down the long graceful line of her neck to the blood-red T-shirt. She had no heart, he told himself. No heart. But the lush softness of her breasts moved as though to the beat of one, a beat that tugged on him with inexorable and tormenting strength.

How was it possible, he wondered, to feel such desire for a woman...yet hate her with equal ferocity?

“Is the bus assured for tomorrow morning?” she asked, her voice strained.

The conviction swept into Luis’ mind. This was no fun for her. Which was only right and just. She’d had her fun last time. It was his turn tonight. He could send her away right now, defeated, but what satisfaction was there in that? He wanted—needed—the same physical satisfaction she had taken from him, over and over again.

“Yes,” he said. “You’ll get the bus.”

Which put their deal on the line.

Luis watched her take that in, and all it implied. Her gaze dropped from the hard challenge in his. Her hands interlocked in front of her waist, as though testing how much strength she had, fingers flexing...and he craved their touch on him again. Her breasts and shoulders lifted slightly as she drew in a deep breath. He found himself holding his own breath, waiting for her decision, willing her to concede to him, his whole body focusing energy on her, determined on drawing her into the ring with him.

She spoke, still with her eyes downcast. “If you have a wife, Luis, this is a rotten game you’re playing and I won’t be a party to it.”

Luis clenched his teeth. It was because of her he didn’t have a wife, but he’d rot in hell before she dragged that admission from him.

“If I had a wife, you would have had no access to me, Shontelle,” he stated bitingly.

Her lashes slowly lifted, her eyes meeting his with an oddly poignant expression of irony. He caught a sense of fatalism, yet there was no resignation to defeat in it, more a feeling of being ready to ride whatever outcome ensued from the situation. It disturbed him. It wasn’t what he expected from her. Not what he wanted, either.

“What time should I tell Alan the bus will be at our hotel?” she asked. “He’ll want to have the tour group ready to go.”

The hotel! It was on the tip of his tongue to state that Alan would have to collect the bus from the depot. A surge of pride stopped him. If he didn’t win his ground with this woman, he would always feel whipped by her. Which was totally intolerable. No way would he give Shontelle Wright any cause to scorn him again.

It might be sheer madness to risk his own skin to balance the scales, madness to risk blotting the Martinez reputation for steering clear of trouble, but he would get the damned bus himself rather than give Shontelle a loophole out of this deal. She had to be his for this one night. Somehow it was a need that drove to the very core of his manhood.

“Seven o’clock,” he answered tersely. “Given that it’s not stopped by the military. That I cannot control.”

A sigh whispered from her lips. She nodded acceptance. “Fair enough! I’ll ring Alan now.”

Done!

Yet Luis’ triumph had a bittersweet taste. She had wrung more from him than she was worth. But she would pay, he promised himself. He would strip her of every bit of power she had over him before dawn came. Then he would be free of her. Finally free of her.