Free The Twelve-Month Mistress by Kate Walker Page B

destroy her.
    Joaquin Alcolar in the devastatingly attractive flesh. And just one swift glance at his dark, stunning features undid all the hard work of the week as she had known it would do, leaving her hopelessly weak and totally vulnerable, a prey to all the uncontrollable, utterly irrepressible emotions that rose up from deep inside her heart.
    ‘I’ve tried every damn place I can think of to look and…’
    Belatedly becoming aware of her dazed silence, Joaquin stopped dead too, his black eyes going to her shocked face, and narrowing in swift, stunned response.
    ‘You!’ he muttered, the single word sounding as if it had been forced from a painfully dry throat. ‘No!’
    Cassie’s reaction was swift, purely instinctive. Acting through fear, totally beyond thought, she moved immediately to close the door, wanting to slam it shut in his face before he could have any further effect on her. Before Joaquin could realise just what effect his appearance had already had.
    But she never managed to complete the action.
    Fast as a striking snake, Joaquin’s hand came out, slamming hard against the wood of the door and stopping it in mid-curve. For a couple of silent, awkward seconds the two of them faced each other, Cassie struggling to complete the closing of the door and Joaquin determined to prevent her. At first it seemed as if they were almost equally matched, but then Joaquin exerted just a little more pressure, used a little more strength, and Cassie gave way, falling back with a small cry of despair and panic as the big, dark, threatening figure of the man moved inexorably into the room.
    ‘Go away!’
    It was all she could manage and she knew it was hopeless and totally ineffectual even before he turned on her a blazing look that was so filled with arrogance and scorn that it dismissed her feeble attempt at protest with as much ease as he might flick away a fly that had landed on his arm.
    ‘No chance! I’m not leaving till I find out just what is going on.’
    ‘But—wha-what are you doing here? Why—?’
    ‘Oh, no, querida ,’ Joaquin cut in brutally. ‘That is my question.’
    Kicking the door to behind him with a slam that madeher wince in nervous distress, he raked burning eyes from the top of her loose blonde hair, over the pale green silky robe, and down to where her narrow, bare feet rested on the polished wooden floor, toes curled slightly, apparently poised, ready to run if necessary.
    ‘I have to ask you what the hell you are doing here, in my brother’s apartment—and dressed like that .’
    Cassie knew that the robe was fastened firmly across her breasts, but still, when subjected to the cruel scrutiny of those molten eyes, she felt as if the flimsy protection of the delicate material had been torn away from her, leaving her dangerously exposed and vulnerable.
    ‘I—I live here now…’ she managed shakily, pulling the front of the garment even tighter across her chest, and undoing and then retying the belt in a jerky, nervous movement, more for something to do rather than because it actually needed adjusting.
    ‘Oh, do you?’
    The question scorched across her already sensitised nerves, making her shiver inwardly at the ominous undercurrents that lurked in the depths of his tone, totally at odds with the simple words. They made her think of rocks with jagged edges and unwary boats, torn to pieces, sinking under the weight of water that poured in through holes ripped in their sides.
    ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
    This time she dragged up a touch of defiance from somewhere, injecting it into her tone with an effort. But all the rebellion drained right out of her again as a cynical dark eyebrow lifted, expressing deep contempt without a word needing to be spoken.
    ‘I’ve moved in with Ramón,’ she declared, pushing the words between them like a shield against him—or against her own most foolish impulses.
    It was impossible to think clearly—to think at all. She only wanted him to turn and