Suzy curled up in a tight ball in her bed, burning tears of regret forcing a passage from beneath her eyelids. Had she realised six months ago just how difficult it would be to marry a man she didn’t love and whom she wasn’t remotely attracted to? No, back then, she’d had no real idea of what she was signing up for and now it was too late. She felt trapped but she had agreed to be trapped. Either she told her father the truth and they ended up homeless and broke or she married Percy. Percy, who was suddenly getting rough with her, which frightened her more than she wanted to admit.
Having parted from his nieces, Ruy climbed back into his vehicle, a purely practical choice that would not attract the particular notice that a fancier car or limousine and driver would. He was still marvelling that a young woman as striking as Suzy Madderton could choose to marry an ignorant loudmouth of a bully such as the man he had met. But it was none of his business and had he not still desired to paint her he was convinced he would have thought no more of her. As it was, however, he was unaccustomed to meeting with the word no and running into an obstacle only made him all the more obstinately determined to get what he wanted. Once he was settled into his new property, he would call into the pub and speak to Suzy alone, he decided with satisfaction. Women who said no to Ruy were so rare as to be non-existent.
For the two days before the wedding, Suzy was run off her feet. There was a final fitting for her gown. She was not having any attendants, no bridal party as such, having decided that the fewer people dragged into her masquerade of being a happy bride, the easier it would be. In any case, all her school friends had long since disappeared to go to college or look for jobs unavailable in a rural village, options that had never really been a possibility for Suzy. Besides the dress fitting, which entailed a long drive into the nearest town and took up the entire morning, she had to call into Percy’s country house hotel, which lay several miles outside the village and where the reception was being held, to check arrangements, and she also had to pick up the cake and deliver it. She was doing the flowers in the church with the florist that evening. All else completed, she returned to the pub and was taken aback to see Ruy Rivera lounging by the fire there with a whisky and a broadsheet newspaper.
The first time she had seen him he had been wearing a beautifully tailored suit and she had wondered vaguely if he had been at a wedding or some similar event, but on this occasion he was casually clad in jeans and a knit sweater the colour of oatmeal. His hair, blue black as a raven’s wing and equally glossy and thick, was ruffled back from his bronzed brow, a little longer in length than was strictly conservative. In that first glance she registered afresh that he was so gorgeous he literally stole the breath from her lungs and made her mouth run dry. Fierce embarrassment claimed her as she glanced down at the sparkling solitaire on her engagement finger. Whatever else she owed Percy, she firmly believed that she owed him her loyalty and respect, and looking with interest at another man, no matter how hot he was, felt entirely wrong.
Her fair skin deeply flushed by guilty pink, she stepped behind the bar to give her father a break.
‘I thought you were at the church doing the flowers,’ Roger Madderton said in surprise.
‘The florist changed the time. She has another booking to cover first,’ Suzy explained. ‘Go and get your tea.’
‘Yes, your bossiness.’ Her father chuckled and sped off through the door into their living quarters.
Ruy folded his newspaper and vaulted upright to approach the bar. ‘I was hoping that you would appear.’
Crystalline green eyes glimmered over him as though reluctant to land or linger. ‘What can I get you? Another whisky?’
‘No, thank you. I’m driving,’ Ruy murmured with perfect diction, his Spanish accent purring along the syllables like an expensive sports car, she heard herself think foolishly of his dark, deep, oh-so-masculine drawl. ‘Would it be rude for me to ask about your Spanish mother?’
Disconcerted, Suzy stilled, her eyes reflective. ‘No, not at all. I don’t remember her because she died in a car crash when I was two. She was from Madrid and she lost her parents when she was quite young. She came to the UK as an au pair and met my father. They were married within months. I took Spanish classes because I wanted to feel closer to her, but it doesn’t really work if you don’t get to practise speaking the language.’ She sighed.
‘You could practise on me,’ Ruy suggested. ‘How long have you been giving dance lessons to the local kids?’
‘A couple of years now, first as an assistant until the teacher, who taught me for years, retired because of her arthritis. Dancing was my only hobby growing up,’ Suzy admitted.
‘I’m still hoping that you’ll act as a model for me. I really would like to paint you.’
‘I’m sorry but it’s not possible. I’m getting married tomorrow and then I’ll be away on my honeymoon for a couple of weeks and, in any case, Percy wouldn’t agree to it.’
‘You don’t strike me as a young woman who always does as she’s told. I’m willing to wait a few weeks to paint you,’ Ruy volunteered.
‘I can’t do it and that’s that. Will you please drop the subject now?’ Suzy shot back at him in exasperation. ‘Don’t you know how to take no for an answer?’
A slashing smile slanted Ruy’s wide mobile lips. ‘No,’ he dared.
Suzy’s teeth gritted. ‘Well, it’s a very annoying trait...yes, sir...what can I get you?’ she asked another man who had wandered up to the bar and went to serve him.
Ruy was unused to being left to kick his heels; it was his turn to grit teeth. Just at that moment faking being a more ordinary mortal wasn’t working well for him. The usual awe, flattery and flirtation that women gave him would have been remarkably welcome just then. Hombre! A barmaid was giving him lip! His half-sister’s voice sounded in his conscience and he knew she would have told him that he was being both snobbish and unjust. Cecile, ignored and hidden by their father as the daughter of his mistress, had had a much rougher ride through life than Ruy had ever had, and he had a sneaking suspicion that his opinionated and down-to-earth sibling would have laughed at seeing him being ignored and cold-shouldered by a woman.
‘One last word on the subject?’ Ruy breathed softly as she moved closer to him while wiping the bar top.
‘Name your price for being my model and I will pay it,’ he murmured in sibilant conclusion.
‘You’re just inviting me to pluck some sum of money out of the air? I haven’t a clue what artists’ models charge!’ Suzy objected.
‘I want you, nobody else, which gives you a truly rare and special value,’ Ruy told her. ‘I will pay a huge sum for you to model for me.’
Suzy dealt him a frowning glance of reluctant fascination. ‘That’s crazy. There has to be a limit.’