The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife Read Free

before, he believed them now. Oh, yes, he believed them! He’d just about had confirmation from her own mouth—not of the past perhaps—but of the calculating way she and her father had got together to select their prey, hunt it down, try to capture it.
    ‘How many?’
    ‘Ten.’ It was cold and clear and hard as stone. ‘Before you there were nine others. You’re the tenth.’
    Her head inclined slightly at the sound of his vicious, savage-toned curse, but other than that she showed no sign of reaction.
    ‘I warned you you wouldn’t like it.’
    ‘You’re damn right I don’t like it,’ Ramón growled. ‘I don’t like it and I don’t like you. I don’t like being manipulated.’
    ‘I didn’t manipulate…’ she began, but then her voice trailed off as her wide dark eyes met the anger that he knew must be showing in his face.
    ‘You knew what was going on.’
    ‘I—yes,’ she admitted.
    ‘And you didn’t think it might be—courteous at the very least to let me know that you knew?’
    But that had her lifting her chin again, bringing those dark eyes up to lock with his as if daring him to go on with this line of questioning.
    ‘You’re a fine one to talk about courtesy!’ she flung at him. ‘Or about what I should or should not have said to you! After all, you’re the one who was prepared to go along with my father’s plan!’
    But Ramón was not having that. He had known so clearly what he meant to do from the moment that Alfredo Medrano had made his appalling suggestion. No, it hadn’t been a suggestion, more a command issued from the height of the autocratic older man’s belief in his own superiority. A decree of what he wanted—and he expected that everyone would jump to give him what he demanded.
    And because Ramón had known what he expected, he fully intended to thwart him totally.
    ‘Hell, no!’ he cut in savagely.
    ‘No?’ Estrella questioned ironically, one fine black brow lifting in mocking enquiry. ‘Then what are you doing here?’
    It was a question he was forced to ask himself. What the devil was he doing here, being subjected to a scolding by this dark-eyed harridan?
    This beautiful, dark-eyed harridan.
    This beautiful, sexy, dark-eyed, full-lipped harridan.
    This sexy, dark-eyed harridan whose angry stance had pulled her spine so straight, setting her hands so firmly on her slender hips, that the sensual enticement of her full breasts was thrust forward, impossible to ignore. And whose furious temper had put rich flags of colour on the golden skin of her face, high up on the elegant, slanting cheekbones.
    How could she do this? How did she do it? How couldshe be so aggressive, so cynical, so hostile, so damn infuriating—and still look so beautiful and appealing that he just couldn’t get his mind to work straight?
    ‘You know only too well why I’m here—I came to—’
    ‘You originally came to negotiate the sale of the company, I know that! But you admitted that my father wouldn’t sell.’
    ‘Unless I agreed to his conditions.’
    ‘Unless you agreed to his conditions,’ Estrella echoed mockingly. ‘And then you stayed. I wonder why.’
    ‘You know why I stayed,’ he growled, struggling to keep his thoughts from wandering, fighting against the kick of carnal need that almost had him doubling up in pain. His mouth had dried so suddenly that it made his voice rough and harsh, rasping as if from a sore and inflamed throat. ‘I stayed to talk to you.’
    ‘To follow my father’s orders and get me to marry you!’
    The words came out on a rush of air as she whirled away from him, circling the big leather armchair until she was behind it, the wide, high back acting as a barrier between them and a defensive shield as she faced him once again.
    ‘You can think that if you want.’
    ‘You told me how much you wanted the TV company.’
    With the provocation of her body hidden behind the big chair, it should have been easier to think more clearly, but that