Jodie’s passport, having found it in the wallet of

travel documents she had left on the passenger seat

of her car, and he had faxed its details to all three

men. His instructions to his lawyer were that he

should draw up a marriage agreement with the utmost

haste, and at the same time to make arrangements for

the sole ownership of the Castillo to be transferred to

Lorenzo, in accordance with the terms of his grandmother’s

will.

He then left his apartments and headed downstairs,

striding through the warren of unused rooms with

their old-fashioned furnishings and musty air until he

reached the door he wanted. Already the tension was

building inside him, and along with it the excitement;

already his senses were anticipating the pleasure that

lay ahead of him. He would marry a dozen pale-faced,

too-thin English women if necessary, in order to satisfy

the desire that had driven him for so long.

The cramping pain seizing her leg muscles was savage

and unrelenting, wrenching Jodie out of her deep

sleep with a sharp cry of pain.

Lorenzo heard it as he walked out of his bathroom,

his forehead pleating into a frown when it was repeated.

Securing his towel round his hips, he strode

towards the guest room, thrusting open the door and

switching on the light.

Jodie was lying in the middle of the bed, desperately

trying to massage the pain out of her locked

muscles.

Lorenzo recognised immediately what was happening.

Going over to the bed, he took hold of her by

her shoulders, demanding curtly, "What is it? Cramp?"

Jodie nodded her head, and managed to gasp painfully,

"Yes. In my leg…"

The intensity of the pain had turned her face bonegrey,

and Lorenzo could see the small beads of perspiration

forming on her forehead.

"Do you suffer like this often?"

Why was he asking her that? Was he afraid of saddling

himself with a wife who would be a liability

even if she was only a twelve-month wife?

"No, only when I get overtired — oh!" Jodie winced

and cried out as his strong fingers found the exact

spot on her leg where the pain was bunched.

"Lie still," Lorenzo instructed her. "It’s all right."

He added, when she looked warily at him, "I do know

what I’m doing."

Jodie would have continued to resist if a second

bout of cramp hadn’t seized her, leaving her with no

energy to do anything other than focus on coping with

the searing pain. Lorenzo cursed out loud and then

lifted her up, ignoring her protests as he turned her

over and placed her back on the bed.

Now, with her legs exposed by the ridiculously infantile

elongated tee shirt she was wearing, he could

see that he had been right about their length, and that

she had not been wearing heels. He could also see

that one of her legs was slightly more slender than

the other, and that on the inside of its knee there was

a delicate silver tracery of scars.

With the cramp continuing its brutal assault on her,

Jodie wasn’t even aware that she was digging her fingers

into Lorenzo’s arm as she willed herself not to

cry out. This was the worst she could ever remember

it being.

Lorenzo waited until her grip had started to relax

before releasing himself and going quickly to work,

his long, lean fingers probing the knot of locked muscle

until Jodie wanted to scream in agony. She tried

to drag her leg free of his fingers, but then slowly,

blissfully, they started to take away the pain, kneading

and stroking until the muscle began to relax. A tiny

quiver jerked through her muscle and automatically

she clenched it, waiting for a fresh onslaught, her

whole body shaking.

"Relax…" Lorenzo was still massaging her leg, but

now the long, firm strokes of his hands were moving

upwards, and the tension that was gripping her as she

felt his fingers brushing against the hem of her nightshirt

was caused by the cramping sensation in her

stomach, not her leg. And it had nothing whatsoever

to do with over-tiredness.

"To judge from these scars you must have had several

operations?"

Jodie tensed again. She wanted to pull her leg

away, but she was afraid to move in case in doing so

she caused the hem of her nightshirt to ride even

higher. It was too late now to wish she had put on

some underwear as well as the nightshirt.

"Yes," she said briefly.

"How many?"

She exhaled. "Does it matter? It isn’t as if You’re

going to be left having to look after me if I end up

in a wheelchair or anything, is it?"

"Is that a possibility?" He was still massaging her

leg, but now his fingers were slowly stroking over the

tight scar tissue itself. For some odd reason Jodie discovered

that she badly wanted to cry. No one had ever

touched her scars with anything other than clinical

detachment. The long months in hospital had inured

her to physical examinations, to doctors discussing

her as though she were a piece of broken equipment

they were trying to piece together again and put in

working order. Which, of course, to them, was exactly

what she had been. She was grateful to them for everything

they had done for her — how could she not

be? — but at the same time…

At the same time what? Secretly, she had craved a

more personal touch, a comforting, knowing touch

that neither flinched from her scars nor made a dramatic

fuss about them.

But not a touch that made her feel the way

Lorenzo’s touch was making her feel!

"No. My leg is always going to be weak, but it has

healed properly now," she blurted out, then bit her lip,

not wanting to remember those horrifying days when

the doctors had feared they might have to amputate.

"Thank you. You can stop now. The cramp has gone,"

she told him as she forced herself to concentrate on

something — anything — other than on the smooth gliding

stroke of his fingers against her skin. No lover

could have… No lover? Now what was she thinking?

She rolled over so that she could face him, all too

conscious of the warm weight of his hand where it

still lay across her bare thigh, her eyes widening as

she took in what she hadn’t realised before: namely

that all he was wearing was a towel, wrapped low on

his hips, and that the body it revealed was enough to

make any right-thinking woman go weak with female

appreciation. But from now on she was not going to

allow herself to want any man, she reminded herself

fiercely, and certainly not a man like this one. Every

instinct she possessed told her he was far too dangerous.

He was an autocratic alpha male who was

determined to get what he wanted, no matter who he

had to use in order to do so, and it was that she ought

to be concentrating her attention on — not the taut

muscles of his flat belly, or the distracting maleness

of the body hair that arrowed downwards to where

his towel had slipped slightly to reveal where it began

thickening out. Jodie touched her tongue-tip to her

lips and sucked in a shaky gulp of air.

Lorenzo removed his hand from her thigh and

straightened, pausing in the act of resecuring his towel

to watch as Jodie focused on the movement of his

hands, her breathing accelerating.

"If you keep on looking at me like that," he began

in a warning tone, "I’m going to think—"

"What do you mean?" Jodie protested, her face

burning.