Mediterranean Tycoons: Dark & Demanding. Jacqueline Baird

so eager for her to come to Spain with him for the party. Was it just her sex appeal, as he said? Hardly likely, she thought ruefully, because she’d never thought she had much. Plus Nick’s story to his mother about an urgent meeting in Lanzarote with this Carl chap didn’t ring true. Nick had spent almost the whole day and the evening with her. He could hardly have meant the two-minute visit to the building site…could he…?

      ‘Is Carl Dalk in the construction industry?’ Liza asked Anna.

      ‘No.’ Anna grinned, and stretched out an arm to show Liza a brilliant diamond bracelet. ‘This is Carl’s business, diamonds, but I get the impression from Nick all is not—’

      Nick walked up behind Liza just in time to hear Carl’s name mentioned.

      ‘Ah, Mamma. You have met Liza,’ he interrupted quickly, cutting out whatever his mother was going to say. ‘Now, I want to steal her away from you for a moment to introduce her to Uncle Thomas.’

      Liza tensed as his large hand curved around her upper arm in a firm grip. Nice of him to arrive at last, but what had got into him, interrupting the conversation like that? She shot him a puzzled sidelong glance, her resentment rising when she realised he was dressed in a perfectly tailored silver-grey suit, white shirt and silk tie. He looked magnificent and his assured masculinity took her breath away, but when her gaze reached his darkly handsome face she saw he was smiling but the humour didn’t reach his eyes; instead his dark gaze was veiled, masking all expression.

      Anna Menendez, at the age of sixty, was nobody’s fool. ‘You do that.’ Her small head swivelled between the tall, beautiful girl and her huge son. The tension between the two was palpable and she knew her only son too well not to realise he was up to something. If it was what she thought it was she could not be more pleased, but at thirty-five Niculoso was very set in his ways. He had the same charm and charisma as her late husband—more, in fact. But he also had an arrogant, cynical edge where women were concerned that his father, as a happily married man, had never suffered from. ‘But I will speak to you later, Niculoso.’

      Two pairs of identical dark eyes clashed, and Nick was the first to look away.

      Seeing the look between mother and son, Liza knew something was going on here she did not understand. ‘Wait a minute,’ she began, turning a frowning gaze on Nick. ‘I—’

      ‘Later,’ Nick said smoothly, tightening his grip on Liza’s arm. ‘My uncle is dying to meet you.’ And he propelled her across the room in front of him. She looked stunning, and her behind in those trousers was doing wicked things to his libido.

      Nick could not believe it! He had never known a woman in his life take so little time to get dressed, and he had known plenty. It was barely an hour ago when he had left Liza in bed, for heaven’s sake! It never entered his head she would get to his mother before he did. Heaven knew what his mother had said. But he had a damn good idea he was going to find out, and not just from Liza, but from his mother as well. Not something he was looking forward to. He doubted the man was ever born who could hide anything successfully from his own mother.

      Standing at Nick’s side, Liza silently fumed, His uncle was dying to meet her? Since when? she wondered acidly. She didn’t believe it for a minute. Then, running over the conversation with Anna, she suddenly stiffened, shooting Nick an angry glance. ‘You…’ She tried to pull her arm free. He had not wanted her talking to his mother, that much was obvious.

      ‘I said later,’ Nick growled between gritted teeth, and then in a complete turn-about, charm oozing from every pore, ‘Uncle Thomas,’ he addressed the small man in front of them, ‘I want you to meet Liza; she is the daughter of Pamela Summers, Mamma’s English friend.’

      In a flurry of introductions Liza met Thomas’s wife, Ellen, her brother, Paulo, and his wife, and discovered the two young couples were not couples at all, but the sons and daughters of Thomas and Paulo; she caught the name Marco…he looked vaguely familiar, but the rest of the names were lost.

      In the general conversation that followed Liza realised Thomas and Ellen were celebrating their golden wedding. Last night there’d been a dinner at their home in Granada. The dinner Nick had missed… Today a family lunch with Anna and tonight Anna was hosting a party for all their friends and relatives.

      ‘I want to talk to you,’ Liza muttered in a swift aside to Nick as with a hand at her back he led her to her seat at the exquisitely prepared dining table. ‘This is a family lunch and I feel terrible, an interloper…’

      But the hand Nick had at her spine slipped around her slender waist, and halted them both. He stared down at her with intent black eyes. ‘You are not an interloper. I told you before, you’re a welcome guest.’

      ‘So you say,’ she muttered, ‘but you could have told me…I’m not dressed.’

      Nick shrugged a wide shoulder. ‘You look pretty well-covered to me,’ he drawled sardonically.

      ‘That is not the point,’ she snapped crossly, but before she could get another word out Nick had pulled out a chair and, with his hand on her shoulder, urged her down onto it.

      His dark head bent towards hers, and he said with sibilant softness, ‘Behave yourself, Liza…nothing must spoil Thomas’s day.’

      Trust him to think only of the man in the celebration and not Ellen, the wife, the chauvinistic pig… ‘What about…?’ His long fingers dug into her shoulder in a none-too-subtle threat.

      ‘Not now, Liza.’ His look flashed her a warning that she could not fail to recognise. ‘Later,’ he commanded and sat down on the chair next to her, his hand slipping from her shoulder to land on her thigh beneath the cover of the tablecloth.

      Liza tensed in shock at his boldness and her own instant reaction to the long finger that caressed her inner thigh. She knocked his hand away, and glanced warily around, and only then did Liza realise the rest of the company had fallen silent and were watching her and Nick with varying degrees of interest. She wanted to slide under the table with embarrassment.

      Surprisingly the lunch was not as bad as Liza had feared; the food was superb, and she might have quite enjoyed the spirited and lively conversation that ensued, except she could not dismiss from her mind the growing suspicion that somehow Nick’s reason for bringing her to Spain was not just because of his mother and the instant attraction between them, as she had believed.

      Even admitting it had been pure coincidence that Anna had called while Liza was with Nick last night, Nick had deliberately mentioned her presence, knowing his mother would do what she had done and invite her to stay.

      Liza had the nasty feeling she was somehow Nick’s second choice. His mother had thought he was meeting a Carl Dalk and bringing him back to the party. But Liza couldn’t see when Nick had had the time to meet this Dalk chap. Nick had told her he had just come from the airport and then he had spent virtually the whole day with her. Surely in the normal course of conversation he would have mentioned an urgent meeting; instead they had visited a building site for a few minutes. Maybe the two men had had some dangerous, illegal stunt in mind, like bunjee jumping into a volcanic crater in the Timanfaya National Park. According to Anna they were partners in such escapades, and then perhaps Carl Dalk had not turned up.

      ‘More wine, Liza?’

      Liza looked up with a start, her blue eyes searching his handsome face; his expression was bland, his dark eyes revealing nothing. ‘No, thank you,’ she said firmly, recognising Nick was very good at hiding his feelings. But how much more was he hiding…?

      He had been very insistent she come to the party. He had not actually lied and said his mother was ill, but he knew she had thought that was what he meant. She needed to talk to him, and she needed some answers; something smelt fishy, and it wasn’t the steak on her plate. But before she could pursue the subject Uncle Thomas asked her why a lovely girl like her was not married. Which caused great gales of laughter and a sardonic glance from Nick.

      ‘Because I have never found a man that suits me,’ she said with a grin. ‘Until I met you,