Chapter 4

Out of the corner of his eye Alejandro saw one of his security team hurrying towards him to provide the usual barrier between his employer and the rest of the human race.

Alejandro raised his right hand to keep the man at a distance. The rays of the sun were picking out streaks of pure gold in her hair. Even though that blonde waving mass was confined in a band at the nape of her neck, it was still long enough to trail down her narrow spine. In his mind’s eye he was still picturing her face and already questioning why she had had such an impact on him. He was fiercely craved for her to look up again.

‘Bruno, you little rascal...I’m so, so sorry,’ Selena declared feverishly, clipping Bruno’s lead to his collar and rising. ‘He didn’t bite you, did he?’

Even while Alejandro marveled at the impact of her beautiful eyes, wide cheekbones and generous mouth, he was also registering that the world of fashion and style was foreign territory to her.

Her faded blue summer dress hinted at the lush curve of her breasts before billowing out in shapeless folds that revealed only her slender ankles. ‘Bite?’ he queried, his lean, powerful frame poised with natural elegance while he waited for her to respond to him as women always responded, with widened eyes and smiles and a host of flirtatious signals.

‘Bite? He didn’t, did he? He has teeth like needles.’ Intimidated by his sheer size, for he was well over six feet in height, Selena kept her distance. It was impossible though to avoid noticing how extremely handsome he was. That awareness, not to mention the weird compulsion she had to stare at him, was sufficiently unlike her to make her feel distinctly unsettled in his presence.

‘He didn’t bite...’ Alejandro watched and waited in vain for the female sexual response that was so predictable, he expected it and took it for granted. Instead her long silky brown lashes screened her expressive gaze and she evaded his scrutiny. It annoyed him even while he was absorbing the fact that, in spite of the unforgiving brightness of the light, her skin retained the luminescent sheen of a pearl. He wondered if she was that same pale-as-milk shade all over and almost smiled.

‘Thank goodness...Billy...Bob!’ Selena was anxiously looking back to see where the boys had got to and eager to focus her attention elsewhere.

Two ginger heads popped out from behind the hedge that bounded the grounds of the church.

Alejandro froze. She had kids? He scanned her hand. Her wedding finger was bare.

‘Chase us, Selena!’ Billy begged.

‘Are you their nanny?’ Alejandro enquired.

Selena blinked in surprise at that unexpected question. ‘No, I’m not...I’m just looking after them for an hour. Excuse me,’ she added, glancing up without meaning to and discovering that his dark golden eyes held a light that made her tummy clench and her throat tighten.

Hurriedly she screened him out again and grabbed up the basket of flowers that she had set down.

‘Perhaps you could tell me how far Paragon House is from here.’

Selena came to a halt again, for any appeal for assistance was a sure path to her full attention. She glanced across the green but there was no sign of the car he must have arrived in. ‘It’s a good five miles. If you go down the fork behind the church, you’ll see a sign for the hotel,’ she told him. ‘People don’t often come this way.’

‘I wonder why not,’ Alejandro drawled softly. ‘The scenery is quite exquisite. Will you dine with me tonight?’

Taken aback by that smooth invitation, Selena flashed him a surprised glance and soft pink warmed her cheeks. ‘But I don’t know you...’

‘Seize the opportunity,’ Alejandro advised silkily. ‘No...thank you, but I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

Other men invariably retreated at the first hint of refusal. That bold demand for an explanation startled her. ‘Well, er...’

‘Boyfriend?’

Embarrassed and loss for words, Selena shook her head and wished she found it easier to tell lies. ‘No, but...’ Her full, soft mouth folding, she dipped her head and fell silent.

She had turned down the only excuse that Alejandro could have accepted. Even then he would only have sought another angle of approach, for he had yet to meet a woman capable of resisting what he offered. Fidelity, he had long since discovered, was usually negotiable. The silence lingered. He could not credit that, for the very first time in his life, he was meeting with a flat refusal.

‘Excuse me,’ she muttered again, her eagerness to be gone yet another rebuff to the male watching her. ‘I have to go.’

Alejandro stood in mute disbelief as she walked away from him and through the church gate. His gaze tracked her every move as he had a perverse need to know if she would look back; she did not.

Breathless and tensed, Selena secured the dog lead to the wooden bench that sat to one side of the arched wooden door and stepped gratefully into the cool dim interior of the old church. Billy and Bob chattered while she set about her task of arranging the flowers for the christening that was to take place the following morning.

It was quite some time since anyone had asked her out; she met very few fresh faces. She could not understand why she was so flustered. Or why she had the most peculiar desire to creep back to the door to peer out and see if the handsome stranger was still there, which of course he wouldn’t be. He would now be well on the way to his incredibly posh hotel, which was probably hosting an international business conference or some such thing.

There had been a slight inflection on certain words that had suggested that English might not be his first language. Certainly men with that kind of gloss and sophistication were scarcer than a chicken’s teeth, locally.

What was the matter with her? Why was she even curious? She dashed impatient fingers through the strands of fair hair clinging to her damp brow. She didn’t date.

There was just no point when it couldn’t go anywhere. She had learned the hard way that even when men said friendship was fine, they always wanted more and more always involved sex. But she didn’t want physical intimacy without love, which would leave her feeling just as empty and alone when it was over.

The taunts she had endured as she grew up had convinced her that old- fashioned values could provide a whole lot of protection from the worst mistakes. She was painfully aware that her own mother had paid a high price for flouting those same principles.