Selena drove slowly back to the nursery in the van. There was nothing more that she could do for her father at present, she thought unhappily. He was going to have to deal with the fact that his life was never going to be the same again, but that would take time. Her brow was pounding out her tension. Reasoning was a challenge when she felt as though the shock of recent events had set up a barrier between her and her wits. She was still struggling to accept that, in the space of ten days, her whole life had fallen down round her like a house of cards and with it the future that she had taken for granted. The village where she had lived from birth would no longer be her home. She would be barred from the gardens where she had grown up and happily worked whenever she had a moment free. The business she had laboured so hard to build would pass on to a stranger and might not even survive. After all, the profit margins at the nursery were low and, with Joy on maternity leave, she was worki

Legs feeling shaky, Selena thanked heaven for her pet’s timely intervention and moved away. Putting Bruno back onto his four stubby legs, Selena straightened with reluctance. She was seriously ashamed of her own behaviour and not enough of a hypocrite to tell off her pet. Not when she was convinced that Bruno had saved her from losing her virginity. She did not believe that Alejandro Perez would have called a decent halt. He did what he liked when he liked. He had hauled her into his arms like a Viking on the rampage. He was violently oversexed. Those daunting truths had sunk in on her. Her mouth felt hot and swollen and she was afraid to look at him. ‘The gardens are a wasteland beyond the wall. There’s really not anything more to show you.’‘The ancestral mansion?’A few minutes later she came to a halt a hundred yards from the large shell of the Regency house where her mother had been born. Its ruinous state had embittered Miranda Gomez, who had never got over the conviction that l

Four days later, Selena was in London. The morning after her arrival, she was met at her hotel by an elegant lady in her thirties. A senior coordinator in Alejandro Perez’s employ, it had been Lorraine Cage who liaised with Selena on the phone and orchestrated all the arrangements to be made on her behalf.‘It’s my job to ensure that you enjoy a smooth transition to city life. You have a full programme of appointments today,’ Lorraine said with a polished smile that displayed her perfect white teeth to advantage. ‘First on the agenda, I’ve organised a viewing of the property Mr Perez has selected for you.’A smooth transition? Selena could have wept at that useful little cover-all phrase that took no account of the drastic upheaval in her once tranquil daily existence. Only now that her contentment had been wrenched from her did she appreciate just how happy she had been pottering about with plants. The same day that Alejandro had visited, her father had signed over all the property h

Selena told the driver to take her to Bruno’s pet hotel. As they sat in the heavy lunchtime traffic she couldn’t help picturing Alejandro’s lean, darkly handsome face, hard with impatience. His compelling image was stuck in her mind like a fixture and she couldn’t push it out again. She realised that she was being torn in two by very different reactions: a sharp and shocking sense of unexpected disappointment, accompanied by a helpless sense of relief. She was startled by that stab of regret. For goodness’ sake, what was the matter with her? Okay, he was incredibly gorgeous and insanely fascinating in the same dangerous way that a sleek man-eating tiger would be. But in terms of compassion and decency Alejandro Perez was an absolute bastard. Knowing that, how could she possibly respond to him on any level?Her phone rang again and she tensed—but it wasn’t Alejandro; this time it was Bryan. ‘I tried to catch you at home and got your stepmother instead. Digging info out of her was not e

Some minutes later, Selena caught an accidental glimpse of herself in the majestic mirror in her bedroom. Dismayed, rudely recalled to reality, she stared at her hectically flushed cheeks and swollen mouth. She looked like a shameless whore. Air cooled her spine as Alejandro ran down the zip on her dress and inched it off her shoulders.‘I feel like a slut...’ she gasped strickenly.Alejandro spun her round, simmering dark eyes pinned to her unhappy face. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard, my beauty,’ he censured. ‘I want you and you want me. What could be more natural than the desire to make love?’A half dozen rude retorts hovered on the edge of Selena’s mind but she kept them there, consciously protecting herself from a pointless outburst that would only upset her more. She was having an affair, nothing more or less, she told herself squarely. Hadn’t she always been a very practical person? Flights of fancy and histrionics were not for her. She would live only in the