The Spaniard's Love-Child by Kim Lawrence Page A

if your fiancée would like it.’
    â€˜ My fiancée? I don’t have a fiancée, so there is one obstacle removed.’
    â€˜I suppose you’ll say next that Roxie Allan is just a good friend.’
    â€˜No, I’m just sleeping with her.’
    His expression grew faintly amused as her lips moved in a faint moue of shocked distaste.
    â€˜Have I said something to offend you?’
    Nell made a point of taking what she read in the tabloids with a pinch of salt, but this conversation went a long way to confirm the heartless womaniser image the media had consigned to him. His callous attitude to women horrified her.
    â€˜Does the lady in question know she’s just sleeping with you?’
    â€˜Roxie?’
    â€˜You mean there are some others who are planning a spring wedding?’
    â€˜I suspect that Roxie’s publicists are responsible for leaking most of those “exclusives”.’
    â€˜And you don’t care?’ His casual attitude to having hisbusiness, or a version of it at least, plastered over the tabloids perplexed her.
    â€˜The day I do decide to get married the newspapers will not be the first people to know, and, incidentally, I have never had to promise marriage to a woman to get her into bed.’
    His assurance set her teeth on edge.
    â€˜But then you’ve never tried it without the seductiveness of the Carreras millions behind you.’
    Even as she made the sly suggestion, Nell was privately acknowledging that even if Raul had not had a penny to his name he would still have had women falling over themselves to catch his attention.
    What Raul had money couldn’t buy.
    â€˜No, but Javier did.’
    â€˜ You’re not Javier.’
    A flinty gleam entered his eyes in response to her angry taunt. ‘Why do you need to flaunt the fact you were my brother’s mistress every two seconds?’ Anger emanated from every inch of his rigid, disapproving frame.
    Nell shook her head; even by his standards this hypocrisy was breathtaking. ‘You’re the one who introduced Javier into the conversation,’ she reminded him. ‘And I don’t recall saying I was his mistress.’
    The muscles of his strong brown throat worked as he regarded her with extreme distaste. ‘No, you just happened to live in the same house as him for two years. How dare you look down your little nose at someone like Roxie?’
    The insult stung. ‘I was looking down my nose at you, not her!’
    His expressive lips formed the definitive sneer. ‘Are you trying to tell me you didn’t sleep with my brother?’
    â€˜What would be the point?’ she demanded sarcastically.‘A man and a woman can’t have a relationship that doesn’t include sex, can they?’
    Eyes dark as night swept over her face. ‘Not if one of them is Spanish.’
    The throaty observation sent a secret shiver of excitement shuddering through her hopelessly receptive body. ‘Spaniards didn’t invent sex, you know,’ she said through gritted teeth.
    â€˜No, we merely perfected it. You have personal experience—Javier, even without his seductive Carreras millions , still managed to lure one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen into his bed.’
    â€˜Did you know Cathy?’ she began, an eager note entering her voice. She had seen photos of the wife Javier had adored and had thought her very lovely. ‘Kate looks very like her, don’t you think?’
    â€˜No doubt.’ His interest in family resemblance seemed minimal. ‘However, I wasn’t talking about Cathy.’
    â€˜Then who—?’ She stopped, her eyes widening to their full extent when his meaning sank in. Her body went through a series of extreme temperature variations before settling to an all-over tingling glow.
    â€˜Save the tired old chat-up lines for someone who appreciates them, please.’ Nell tried to sound bored