Alejandro's Revenge Read Free Page A

doubtful privilege of being seated next to the toilets. ‘Thank you.’
    She glanced round then, expecting to see Lauren, but her sister-in-law wasn’t in the room. Instead she saw an elderly woman seated by an arrangement of potted palms, and behind her, standing in the shadows near the ornate brick fireplace, was a tall man dressed all in black.
    It was strange, but even then she had no inkling that she might know him. So far as she was concerned the only other person she was eager to speak to was Lauren herself. She wanted to find out what was behind Edward’s desperate words. She wanted to know why he’d felt the need to send for her.
    But once again Luis Esquival demanded her attention. ‘We were most surprised when Edward told us you intended paying us a visit,’ he said silkily. ‘As you can see, your brother is recovering very well.’
    Abby was nonplussed. Her eyes sought Edward’s, but he was suddenly intensely interested in the cast on his leg. Belowthe hem of his navy shorts the plaster looked extremely white against his bare skin, and as she watched he shifted a little uneasily in his seat.
    â€˜I—I thought—’ she was beginning, when the man beside the fireplace suddenly moved into the shaft of sunlight slicing through the half-drawn blinds.
    â€˜I am sure—Abigail—was concerned when she heard about her brother’s accident,’ he drawled in the low, seductively sensual tone that Abby remembered not just in her mind but in her bones. And as she swung round, hardly daring to believe he’d have the nerve to come here and face her, Alejandro Varga acknowledged her dismay with an ironic little smile. ‘Abigail.’ He inclined his head towards her with all his old arrogance. ‘What an unexpected pleasure!’

CHAPTER TWO
    Y OU smug bastard!
    For a moment Abby was half afraid she’d said the words out loud. But when she glanced apprehensively about her she saw no look of horror on anyone’s face, no embarrassed apology trembling on anyone’s lips. On the contrary, everyone—excluding Edward—was looking at Alejandro with undisguised approval, and Abby wanted to sink into the floor at the realisation that she was expected to acknowledge him, too.
    â€˜Mr Varga,’ she said tightly, allowing her eyes to drift only briefly over his dark face. She was sure he must know exactly how she was feeling, and the hot colour that she had never been able to control spread revealingly into her throat.
    The fact that she was instantly aware of everything about him, from the sleek smoothness of the hair that brushed his collar at the back of his head to the lean, aristocratic hollows beneath his cheekbones, was irritating. But that was her problem. It would have been difficult to pretend, to herself at least, that his image hadn’t been indelibly printed on her memory for the past two years. Just because she hated and despised him it hadn’t disappeared. She doubted it ever would.
    Narrow arching brows framed eyes so dark she’d once believed they were black. But they weren’t. Close inspection had revealed that they were merely dark brown, albeit shadowed by black lashes that any woman would envy.
    But that was the only feminine thing about Alejandro Varga. Tall for a man whose appearance proclaimed his Cuban heritage, he had evidently inherited his American mother’s genes, too. They were visible in his lean, athletic body, and his long powerful legs. In an impeccably cut suit—Abby guessed it was probably Italian in design—his tie his only concession to colour, he looked strong and invincible, and so painfully familiar that Abby’s heart ached.
    God, she had been such a fool, she thought raggedly. It was obvious that as far as he was concerned he had no regrets about the past. And why should he have? To him she had been merely a novelty, a diversion. Edward’s older sister, who should