The Unforgettable Spanish Tycoon. Christy McKellen

agreeing to look at the proposal she’d brought all the way from England, but she’d humiliated and hurt him once and he wasn’t prepared to let her get anywhere near him again.

      A partnership between them—their companies, he corrected himself—could never work.

      For a second he wondered whether his mind was playing tricks on him as a familiar lone figure on the street opposite his building caught his eye. His stomach lurched as he watched her pace back and forth, then throw her gaze up towards Araya Industries and frown, as if hatching a plan to get back in here and torment him again.

      Apparently he couldn’t have been more wrong about having chased Elena Jones away for good.

      Well, he wasn’t having it.

      ‘Hold my calls for a while longer,’ he said to his PA as he swept out of the room past her and headed towards the lift that would take him down to street level.

      Apparently he hadn’t made it clear enough to Elena that there would be no further opportunities to meet with him, so he was going to rectify that right here and now. He was going to tell her to go home and that he wanted nothing more to do with her.

      Storming onto the street, blood pulsing feverishly through his veins, he called out her name and she turned to meet his eye, her expression registering first surprise then hope.

      Hope away, cariño—you’re not getting a thing from me except a wave goodbye.

      The street was quiet as he drew level with where she stood on the pavement opposite and he glanced quickly left, not seeing anything coming his way, anger at her audacity buzzing in his head.

      Elena’s eyes were fixed firmly on him as he began to cross the street towards her but, as he stepped into the middle of the road, something made her glance away then quickly back to him again.

      This time there was an altogether different expression on her face.

      Panic.

      Blood thumping in his ears, he swivelled to look at what had spooked her and time seemed to slow down. There was a motorbike coming towards him at speed and he knew in that moment, with absolute certainty, that there was no way he could get out of its path in time.

      Memories flashed before his eyes: of him and Elena laughing together after one of their classes at university, of her sitting in his room telling him she was thinking about splitting up with her childhood sweetheart, and all the blood rushing from his head as he realised he finally had a chance to have what he’d wanted for so long, of the look of abject hurt and distress on her face just now when he’d told her he wouldn’t partner with her.

      Lights and colours danced before his eyes and a strange kind of euphoria lifted his senses, making his surroundings hyper-loud and vividly real.

      And then the bike hit him, the impact throwing his body into the air, knocking all the breath from his lungs. In a panic he flailed his limbs wildly as he tried to grab hold of something, anything, to anchor him as he spun through the void. A moment later his body made rough, painful impact with the ground, quickly followed by his head.

      And everything went black.