The Blackmailed Bride

She’d excused herself early from dinner with her parents, pleading a headache, and if Susie had carried on drinking wine at the rate she had been when Kate had left she would now either be dead to the world or dancing the night away in the nearest night-club.

‘I’m going to put you down now. Do not try to escape.’

Kate nodded her head compliantly whilst privately vowing to do just the opposite should the opportunity arise.

Released from the iron grip and with her feet back on the ground, Kate’s knees displayed the consistency of cotton wool. Fortunately her spirit was more resilient. Chin up—not too much: she didn’t want to come across as bolshy, more an innocent victim of circumstance—she turned to face her aggressors.

‘Will you take that thing out of my eyes?’ she appealed, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the torch.

After a moment someone responded to her request.

She could now see, though the loss of her specs meant the one standing some way away was nothing but a blurred outline suggestive of threatening bulk. The one who had held her was another matter! He was close enough for her to see quite well. Like herself, he was clad from head to toe in black. There the similarity ended!

The hard, lean, muscle-packed torso Kate already knew about from her struggles; the rest of the package reduced her to a stunned silence. She blinked several times as she assimilated the attributes of her assailant, who ironically turned out to be the most physically perfect specimen of manhood she’d ever come across. These numerous attributes included ridiculously broad shoulders, snaky slim hips and long legs, and then there was his face…!

And what a face! God I’m thinking in superlatives, some objective corner of her mind observed as she drank in the details of his long, arrestingly attractive, angular features. His was a starkly uncompromising face—a high intelligent forehead, an almost hawkish nose reminiscent of the strong Moorish inheritance she’d seen reflected in many parts of Spain, his beautifully sculpted slashing cheekbones stretched his even golden-toned skin taut and his mouth was an intriguing combination of control and passion. The jutting angles and sculpted planes married sweetly, giving their owner a countenance that could never be overlooked in a crowd, but combined with his incongruously blue eyes, fringed with extravagant lush lashes and slanted ebony brows, the exceptional became the extraordinary.

The deep-set, startling blue eyes narrowed as he subjected her to a scrutiny just as thorough as her own of him—he didn’t appear overly impressed by what he saw. ‘Now, señorita, where is Gonzalez?’ he demanded impatiently.

CHAPTER TWO

MUTELY Kate shook her head.

He subjected her to another glare of biting derision before abruptly firing a quick sentence in Spanish at his companion who immediately extinguished the light.

For a moment there was total inky darkness. Kate, her brain working frantically, began to speculate on her chances of getting to the door before she was caught. It had to be evens or better? What did she have to lose? Quite a lot, actually, came the instant reply, and besides you haven’t got the photos yet.

‘Don’t even think about it.’

She jumped as the wry voice emerged from the inky blackness, slicing through her frantic thoughts of escape.

The owner’s powerful profile that matched the dark dangerous drawl was revealed as the second man pulled back the curtain, allowing the moonlight to filter into the room.

Kate blinked, dazzled, as the flashlight once more swept across her face; it moved past her and she saw the second man shake his head.

‘Are you expecting him tonight?’ The tall one, who had boss written all over him, recommenced his interrogation.

‘I’ve never met Gonzalez,’ she rebutted honestly.

Kate suspected she might be in the middle of a falling out between villains; she didn’t want to accidentally reveal anything that might make her position even more precarious.

Under the circumstances, playing dumb might not be so hard, she decided bitterly, because only someone spectacularly stupid would have blundered in here like this! They must, she reasoned—now I can reason!—have been lying in wait.

Her guileless response evoked no softening in the magnificently moody face of her sinister interrogator.

‘You just wandered in here by accident…?’ His eyes skimmed the outfit she’d chosen for her first foray into breaking and entering. ‘Dressed like that?’ A derisive snort emerged from between those fascinating lips—cruel lips, she thought, unable to control the fearful little shudder that chased along her spine.

‘You’re one to talk,’ she retorted, peering myopically from one man to the other; both their muscular bodies were sheathed in close-fitting black outfits. We must look like a convention of cat burglars; her full lips twitched at the mental image of a social gathering of black-clad thieves.

‘You find something funny about this?’ he grated incredulously.

The second man had faded into the shadows, apparently content to let his partner in crime do all the talking—perhaps he was the muscle. Not that this guy looked like he needed any help in that area, she mused, as her eyes slid over his impressive torso—not an ounce of spare flesh anywhere that she could see. In fact, in that close-fitting top, if she squinted she could just about make out the slabs of individual muscle across… Stop! The warning voice inside her head shrieked.

Kate took a deep breath and pushed her fear and lustful speculation aside as she tried to view the situation objectively—or at least without gibbering fearfully or drooling lustfully. If she was going to get out of this, he was the one she had to talk round, she decided, weighing up her opposition objectively. What she saw was not wildly encouraging. She’d seen rock faces with more give than that chiselled jawline.

‘Oh, yes, I’m just wild about being jumped on in the dark by some stupid big thug,’ she was frustrated into commenting bitterly. She prodded her aching ribs tentatively. ‘I’ll probably be black and blue tomorrow, which isn’t a good look in a bikini…’ she grumbled, even though she favoured one-piece bathing suits. Talking, even if she was talking rubbish, gave her time to think… At least, that was the theory…

‘If I’m such a vicious thug of limited intelligence, shouldn’t you be treating me with a little more respect…?’

The man had a point and, as for the intelligence part, if those alert eyes were any indication at all he had a brain like a steel trap.

‘Is that a threat?’

‘If I threaten you, you’ll know about it.’

‘I see not a threat, just a boast.’ With dismay, she saw a flicker of interest enter those laser-like eyes—she didn’t want his interest. Her release from this depended on him considering her harmless and an air of stupidity wouldn’t do her case any harm either. Despite this conviction, she couldn’t stop herself adding, ‘I’m normally prepared to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, but in this instance I don’t think there’s any if about it. You are a vicious thug and yes, I probably should shut up, but when I’m nervous I babble…always have done…’

‘I don’t think you’re nervous,’ he cut in smoothly. ‘I think that under that wide-eyed candour you’re as hard as nails. Did you arrange to meet Gonzalez here? Or did he perhaps ask you to pick something up for him? Does he know we’re on to him? Well?’

‘It won’t do you any good to bully me.’ She saw a flicker of amazement chase across his strong-boned features and wondered if she was being daring or just plain stupid to antagonise him. The truth was, she couldn’t help herself; something about this man made her want to score points…

‘I am not a bully!’ he refuted in an irritated steely drawl.

She smiled in polite disbelief and heard what might have been his even white teeth grinding. ‘And it won’t do you any good,’ she elaborated. ‘Because I’ve not the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’ She shook her head so emphatically that the hood of her sweat top slipped off her head.

One dark brow rose as her silver-blonde tresses tumbled free from the loose knot she’d hastily confined them in on her head. Her stomach lurched as, with studied insolence, those electric-blue eyes moved over her body pausing overly long in significant areas.

Kate’s first instinct was to cover herself with her hands. She almost immediately saw how ludicrous and demeaning her response to the earthy sexual appraisal was, and let her hands fall away; in doing so she saw the strands of dark hair caught in her fist.

Unobtrusively she wriggled her fingers to dislodge them; it didn’t seem wise to remind someone with such violent inclinations of the no doubt painful moment when her fingers had become blindly entangled in his hair—lush, silky hair, she recalled. Her fingertips tingled uncomfortably as her brain replayed the sensation. With a head of hair like that, she thought practically, he wasn’t going to miss the little bit she had ripped out.

‘Or maybe you knew he wasn’t here… Maybe this is a bit of private enterprise…? You were taking advantage of his absence to help yourself?’ He fired the fresh volley of questions at her like bullets without removing his unnerving gaze from her face for even a second. ‘What was she about to take out of the drawer, Serge?’

It was spooky. This man it seemed didn’t feel the need to blink—but then he probably had iced water running through his veins, not blood, she thought, rubbing her arms where a rash of goosebumps had broken out.

‘It’s true I didn’t come here by accident exactly,’ Kate admitted with discomfort as the silent second man, moving with surprising speed for one so large, headed towards the chest of drawers.

Apprehension made Kate’s pulse rate soar, an acceptable thing to happen to the most cool-headed of individuals, given the circumstances; the problem was, Kate knew it was only part of the story—there was in fact a much more significant factor. The main reason for the state of near-collapse of her nervous system was—that man! She glared angrily up at the stranger’s dark saturnine face and her insides tightened another painful notch.

The man projected raw sexuality like a force field; she’d never come across anything like it! However, now was no time to analyse her curiously strong reaction to her cold-eyed interrogator; she needed to be clear headed and focused.

Being clear-headed wasn’t as easy as it sounded when you couldn’t rid yourself of a nasty, nagging suspicion. What if Susie wasn’t the only Anderson who was attracted by danger…? Especially when it came so spectacularly packaged. Oh, God, I’m so shallow! In the future she definitely wouldn’t be making so free with her superior sniffs and pitying looks, Kate decided, swallowing a large dose of humility.

‘I came here to retrieve something, but it doesn’t belong to this Mr Gonzalez. It’s…mine.’ She kept her voice cool enough but she couldn’t stop her eyes darting nervously in the direction of the bulky figure who was sifting through the contents of the drawer, which were now scattered on the ground.

A combination of nerves and the heat in the room made Kate’s thin sweatshirt cling damply to her back; sweat pooled uncomfortably in the hollow between her breasts. Conscious of the constant presence of those piercing blue eyes drilling into her skull, she licked her lips nervously.

She’d studied enough guilty people to know she was displaying all the classic signs of guilt herself.

‘She was holding this, I think, Javier.’

Kate couldn’t stop herself from lunging wildly forwards for the parcel of photographs as they passed between the two men. ‘They’re mine!’ she yelled.

For several stubborn seconds she resisted the compulsion of fingers like iron which closed mercilessly around her wrist before her stiffly clenched fingers unfurled. Tears of pain and frustration standing out in her eyes, she glared resentfully up at her persecutor.

‘You’ve no right…’ Her voice faded away as the one she now knew was called Javier slid one long finger under the sealed opening of the package. Paralysed by horror, she watched as he withdrew one glossy print and held it up.

Kate’s face flamed as his clinical glance moved from the photo in his hand to her and back again before he slid it back in. He pulled out a strip of negatives and held it up to the light. His nostrils flared and his lips quivered faintly in an attitude of fastidious distaste as he briefly viewed the images revealed.

The other man shot him a question in Spanish which he replied to in the same language—the reply made the other man laugh in surprise. Kate’s hands balled into fists as she gritted her teeth; every natural feeling in her rebelled at the idea of these two sniggering at her Susie’s expense.

‘Do you do this sort of thing for a living, or is it just a hobby?’

He thinks they’re pictures of me! Kate’s jaw dropped. In other circumstances she might have felt flattered to have her body confused with that of her lovely younger sister, but on this occasion it just made her flip. Where moments before she had felt embarrassed and defensively protective of Susie, now she experienced a flash of blazingly hot rage.

If her adversary hadn’t possessed startlingly swift reactions, her closed-fisted blow would have made contact with his lean cheek. Kate, who had never felt the need to resort to anything as crude as brute force in her life experienced a moment of confusion and shock at her actions before the overpowering need to escape overwhelmed her.

‘Let me go!’ she shrieked, landing a kick on his shins before she subsided her eyes flashing, her breath coming in short gasps. Her nostrils quivered; underneath the light expensive male fragrance he wore she could smell the clean-washed, spicy, masculine scent that she’d noticed before she’d even laid eyes on him—it had bothered her then, and it bothered her more now.

‘Now you show your true colours,’ came the disdainful observation. ‘Cool down, little cat. I have no interest in your sleazy snaps; you can have them…’

Kate felt so pathetically relieved by this contemptuous information that she could have wept. Trying to retain a semblance of dignity, still panting from her exertions, she looked pointedly at his dark fingers still encircling her wrist and did her best to ignore the languid contempt in his tone. She couldn’t afford to lose her temper; he had the photos and for Susie’s sake she had to get them, even if this involved a bit of humiliation.

With an unpleasant, sneery sort of smile that made Kate’s fingers itch to remove it from his smug face, he released her hand and mockingly inclined his glossy head. ‘…When I have the information I require,’ he completed the white crocodile smile fading completely.

Kate’s shoulders slumped as her eyes stayed trained on the photos held tantalisingly out of reach. She was fast coming to the conclusion he was playing cat and mouse games with her and, the awful part was, there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

‘I don’t know anything.’ She sighed wearily as she rubbed her tender wrist; the imprint of those strong brown fingers seemed to be branded into her flesh.

‘Cut the innocent act. You obviously know him, unless you send pornographic pictures of yourself to total strangers…?’ he sneered.

Pink spots of outrage appeared on her smooth cheeks. ‘They are not pornographic, they’re…they’re tasteful,’ she finished, unable to repress a weak grimace at the memory of the photos.

‘Sure they’re art,’ he drawled insultingly. ‘What’s the connection? Is he your lover, or your supplier?’

‘Supplier?’ she exclaimed. Her eyes widened as her frown of incomprehension lifted. ‘Drugs!’ Oh, God, what have I walked into? Had Luis Gonzalez tried to muscle in on the big boys? Were these men here to teach him a lesson, or worse…? ‘This is a m-misunderstanding,’ she stuttered. ‘I know nothing about any drugs.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

Her eyes filled with tears of sheer frustration. She blinked hard to stop them spilling over. If she could weep like Susie—it was one of life’s mysteries how Susie cried so picturesquely—tears might get her somewhere, but she couldn’t see this man being touched by her own blotchy face and runny nose.

‘Why won’t you believe me? Do I look like a drug addict or something?’

‘And what do they look like?’ If he’d been so damned good at spotting the signs, Javier reflected bitterly, his sister would have been spared those agonising months of rehabilitation.

‘You should know. It’s your business, not mine.’

He went rigid. Not a muscle in his face moved, but his eyes blazed like twin points of fury. ‘Women like you are incomprehensible! Why do you protect him?’ he demanded. ‘Is it fear, or some misplaced sense of loyalty? A man like that will pull you down to his level, and when you get there he’ll leave you…’

Without any warning he grabbed her arm and, swiftly rolling up the sleeve of her top, ran one long finger softly over the blue-veined inner aspect of her left wrist and forearm. Under the light his accessory helpfully directed over the area, his keen eyes searched her fair blemishless skin for tell-tale marks.

Kate shivered helplessly as tingling arrows of electricity shot up her arm. Instinctively she started to pull back and then stopped as a strange heavy lethargy stole over her. Her leaden-lidded eyes were riveted on the image of his dark fingers on her skin; heat travelled like a flash-flood, bathing her entire body; the distant buzzing in her head got closer.

She only started breathing again when he released her.

‘Satisfied now?’ With dignity she rolled down her sleeve.

‘Not quite.’

Her stomach muscles clenched as she saw his intention. Her angry dark eyes clashed with his emotionless gaze for several seconds before she conceded defeat.

‘Let me,’ she said sarcastically as she turned back the sleeve that covered her right arm. Chin lifted defiantly, she thrust out her arm in front of him.

She waited for him to look away, embarrassed, shocked or maybe repelled—she’d seen all the reactions which, to her mind, were wildly out of proportion to the small puckered area of skin, pinker than the rest of her skin, that lay along the inside of her arm, just above her elbow joint—there was another, smaller and less prominent area on her shoulderblade which the plastic surgery had not quite been able to conceal.

It was amazing how such a small blemish could throw some people and make them look at you differently. Kate had decided a long time ago that other people’s squeamishness was their problem, not hers, and she didn’t go out of her way to conceal or reveal the childhood scars she still bore from a domestic accident.

This man wasn’t thrown. Neither did he fall into the category of those who politely pretended not to notice the marks. Seb had been one of those—Seb who, despite his protests that it really didn’t matter to him, had never been able to bring himself to touch the scarred area.

This man had no such qualms. He took the arm she defiantly offered between his big hands and turned it slightly sideways, rubbing his thumb lightly over the shiny scar tissue as he did so. Kate shivered and the blue eyes lifted momentarily.

‘A burn?’ There was not a shred of pity in his expression and over the years Kate had become something of an expert at detecting it.

She cleared her throat, it felt raw and achey. ‘Are you always this morbidly curious…?’

‘You are not comfortable discussing it?’

Not just mad, bad and indisputably dangerous, he had to turn out to be into amateur psychology—this just got better and better! ‘Not with homicidal maniacs.’

‘Do you know many homicidal maniacs?’

Kate shook her head. ‘Most murders are domestic,’ she announced authoritatively. ‘If you’ve seen enough…do you mind…?’ she added, with a cool nod to her arm. It was hard to project cool when this man’s touch made her shiver.

He straightened up and their eyes met again. Kate had the impression he saw through her bravado, saw right through to the insecure teenager she’d once been, still learning to cope with the occasional stare or rude comment. Disliking the feeling of vulnerability, she shook her head to dispel the scary illusion as she pulled the fabric back down over her arm.

‘I hope,’ he remonstrated severely, touching the stretchy cotton fabric of her top, ‘you do not cover yourself all the time.’

This whole situation, she decided, was getting distinctly surreal. She was getting personal advice from someone who waited in dark rooms for blackmailing drug-dealers. Perhaps working with the criminals had given her a unique rapport with the fraternity; if her mother was to be believed, it had given her a twisted and cynical outlook on life.

‘Only when I’m doing a spot of breaking and entering.’ She bit her lip. Irony was a luxury a person in her position could not afford. Then, emboldened by the unexpected gleam of amusement in his eyes, she nodded towards the photos. ‘Listen,’ she continued in her most persuasive tone—there was no point dismissing out of hand the slim possibility that he was human, after all. ‘I honestly don’t know your friend, so why don’t I just leave and forget I ever saw you?’

‘Friend? Por Dios…!’

Kate backed away from the lash of contemptuous fury in his voice and carried on backing nervously until the sound of the heavy-set second thug clearing his throat significantly brought her to an abrupt halt. She looked over her shoulder and discovered he was positioned, arms folded across his massive chest, in front of the only exit.

‘I tell you, I don’t know him. I’m just a guest here. I only arrived today…’

As she’d appealed to his partner, the second man sauntered up to join him—Kate had almost forgotten his silent presence. She turned her head as the flashlight he carried shone momentarily in her eyes. ‘If we let her go, she could warn him we’re on to him.’

The sinister significance of this observation was not lost on Kate, who paled with alarm. ‘If,’ she exclaimed shrilly. ‘What do you mean, if? You lay a finger or try and stop me leaving and I’ll make so much noise…’

The one in command winced at her shrill tone. ‘Make any more noise than you already are and a concerned guest or member of staff might call the police.’

The best news she’d heard all day—and a long, long day it had been. Had it only been this morning she’d boarded the flight to Palma…? Somehow this wasn’t quite the Sangria and sunset sort of end to the day she’d anticipated.

‘Let’s cut out the middle man,’ she suggested tartly, reaching for the phone and holding it out to him. Her scars might not have fazed him but Kate could tell her response had taken him aback, and maybe he was right. Maybe she was acting foolishly—somehow, though, she didn’t think tears and pleas were going to get her very far.

‘And I would naturally feel obligated to hand over these,’ he tauntingly wafted the pack of photos in front of her nose.

‘And they’d believe your story? I think I might have a little more credibility with the police than you,’ she countered calling his bluff.

For some reason, this claim caused his companion to laugh, though he did sober up fast enough when he was on the receiving end of a silencing glare.

‘You think so?’

He wasn’t to her mind displaying the sort of dismay a shady character like him ought to when threatened with the forces of law. Perhaps he hid his illicit dealings behind a legitimate front, she speculated uneasily.

‘I’m a very respectable person.’

‘Now, I might be swayed by the throbbing note of conviction and the big brown eyes…but the police, they generally like more concrete proof…’

‘You want proof…right.’ With a triumphant smile of pure relief she remembered the card in her pocket. ‘That’s me, K. M. Anderson.’ She shoved her credit card under his nose. ‘I’m sharing one of the bungalows with my—with a friend…’ No need, she decided, to involve Susie.

‘You could have stolen it,’ he replied glancing without interest at her gold card. ‘In fact, under the circumstances, I’d say that’s highly likely.’

Kate’s chest swelled with indignation, a fact that didn’t escape her tormentor’s notice. Kate’s eyes began to sparkle angrily as his eyes dropped with unabashed interest on the heaving contours. To her horror, she felt her nipples harden and peak.

Lecherous creep, she thought, her anger intensified by the treacherous reactions of her body and the accelerated rate of her heartbeat.

‘One of the things I hate most in this world is men who can’t keep their eyes on a woman’s face when they’re talking to her!’ she announced with scornful defiance.

That refocused his attention all right; the astonished blue gaze instantly zoomed in on her face.

The startled gasp, followed by a low chuckle, didn’t come from the man whose enigmatic scrutiny was making her wish like mad she’d kept quiet on the subject, but from his partner.

‘As I was saying,’ she began doggedly, ‘I didn’t steal the card. It’s mine. I brought it along in case the door was…’ She stopped abruptly, her eyes growing round in dismay as she bit back the incriminating explanation.

‘Locked…?’ The fascinating network of fine lines around his cerulean eyes deepened.

Kate felt her guilty blush deepen.

‘What a resourceful woman you are…. You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’

‘Why should I? You haven’t told me why you’re here and I’m pretty sure it’s not by invitation,’ she murmured stroppily.

‘Hush!’ he admonished, cutting her off with abrupt urgency before turning to his companion. ‘Serge, did you hear that?’

The hot flare of anticipation Kate glimpsed in his blue eyes suggested to her that she was dealing with an adrenaline junkie, the type who got high on danger, she speculated. The sort that took risks and got a kick out of doing so. She’d often noted these two qualities, allied with a callous disregard for the law, in some of her clients—men who, had they channelled their talents into less anti-social endeavours, would probably have made very successful businessmen, or even for that matter lawyers like herself.

The other man nodded and replied softly. ‘It could be Gonzalez?’

The light was suddenly doused and Kate’s hopeful ears were rewarded by the sound of footsteps on the paved area outside the window. She didn’t care who it was, it was the chance she’d been waiting for. She opened her mouth to cry for help.

Before she had a chance to raise the alarm, a large hand clamped down hard over her parted lips whilst another twisted her arm behind her back. ‘You want to warn your lover?’ a cold, hateful voice rasped mockingly in her ear, Kate tried to turn her head, hating his contempt, hating the sensation of his warm breath on her neck, and fearing the confusing ripples of sensation it created. ‘I don’t think so…’

Biting his hand as hard as she could was not the most subtle response, but Kate was desperate by this point.

He didn’t cry out, even though she felt the salty tang of blood on her tongue, but his grip did slacken—only slightly, but it was the moment Kate had been tensely waiting for. It was enough to allow her to break free. With a determined, sinuous wriggle, she twisted away from him and even before she was upright began to run. Head down, she hit the floor, running like a sprinter ducking desperately for the winning line.