Without even thinking about it, Suzy lifted her hand to rest it soothingly down on a long powerful thigh in disagreement. ‘No. I don’t feel that way. You were very honest with me and I appreciate that but, after all the strife and hassle I’ve brought into your life, I can’t believe that you still want to paint me.’
‘That hasn’t changed.’
‘OK, then,’ Suzy breathed. ‘But I’m not sure about going to Spain yet...although the thought of the locals piling into the pub just to stare at me and speculate about what happened with Percy makes me cringe.’
‘Someone somewhere will talk. They won’t have to speculate for long,’ Ruy forecast. ‘As to Spain, I haven’t been very professional in my approach, but I can assure you that I’m not about to put pressure on you to continue our liaison.’
‘Not sure I can make the same promise,’ Suzy confided without thinking through what she was admitting, because she was thinking that that word, ‘liaison’, had a certain sensual buzz on his lips and lent their brief encounter a distinct sophistication.
Ruy flashed her a startled glance from glittering dark golden eyes and then threw back his handsome head and laughed out loud with appreciation. ‘Suzy...where have you been all my life?’
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ Suzy muttered, her face burning, only then lifting her hand off his thigh where it had lingered. Somewhere deep down inside her she felt extraordinarily comfortable and relaxed with Ruy and she was mortified, particularly after he had declared that sex meant nothing to him.
And she completely understood that attitude if he’d had the amount of practice she suspected. Sex was neither new nor particularly tempting for him. It was an activity he had taken for granted and freely enjoyed, most probably with women who were a great deal more beautiful and sensually talented than she was. For her their encounter had been a major event but it was highly unlikely that it had been equally exciting for him. Why else would he be telling her that he would be putting no further pressure on her to repeat the experience? And why had she said what she had? She had been joking, trying to lighten her embarrassment at the topic being discussed, but that particular joke had backfired on her. Surely, he wouldn’t think that she had meant that seriously?
Back at the house Ellis Johnson explained the non-disclosure agreement to her in fine detail. Signing the document would prevent her from ever speaking or writing about anything relating to Ruy, or indeed posting photos of him or his work, but it didn’t strike her as an onerous promise to make because she had never been much given to gossip or social media. In any case she was fairly certain that, once Ruy had painted her, he would have no further interest in her and, by the sound of it, he spent most of his time in Spain. He would melt back out of her life as quickly as he had entered it, she reasoned ruefully, wondering why that should be a deflating thought. Perhaps prior to meeting Ruy, and even prior to Percy, she had allowed her life to become too boring and predictable.
‘If I could just get my bag out of your car I can go home now,’ she told Ruy as Ellis stood up to leave.
‘You have to stay for lunch. You still haven’t eaten...and your father was planning to call in here to see you this afternoon,’ Ruy imparted while Ellis stared at her and then at Ruy as though he was fascinated by the exchange.
‘Dad’s coming here?’ Suzy said in surprise.
‘When you go through a traumatic event you have to sit down and catch your breath after it,’ Ruy informed her. ‘Now it’s time to rest and relax...’
Her green eyes widened. ‘Is it professional for you to still be telling me what to do?’ she enquired.
Ruy shrugged, impervious to insult. ‘I have more common sense than you do, querida.’
‘Says the man who thinks he knows everything. Why am I not surprised?’ Suzy tossed back, flushing when she noticed Ellis still staring as he departed.
‘If you do decide to come to Spain to accompany me to my brother’s wedding, I will need to know everything about you,’ Ruy admitted over lunch. ‘Your birthday, likes and dislikes, everything a fiancé would be expected to know.’
‘If I decide to go, I’ll draw up a cheat sheet for you and you would need to do the same for me,’ she pointed out. ‘I’m good at memorising stuff.’
‘Why did you choose to stay in the village at the pub instead of moving somewhere that would have offered you more options?’
‘Dad needed me. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. My life’s always been like that. I’ve learned to deal.’
‘Your father adores you,’ Ruy incised. ‘He would hate to know how you really feel.’
‘It’s always been Dad and I against the world...it’s all I know. He has often suggested that I go off travelling or try working somewhere else, but I persuaded him that I was a home bird. I don’t want him to feel guilty about it. How much did you tell him about Percy?’
‘That’s your department. I glossed over the nastier elements, played ignorant. I don’t think your father needs to know that Brenton was blackmailing you right under his nose, but I do think he suspects that you were only marrying the man to help him.’
Suzy gave him a grateful look. ‘Thanks. That was tactful.’
Her father wrapped her into a tight hug as soon as he arrived and studied her with tears shining in his searching gaze. Ruy went into his studio to leave them in peace to talk.
‘I can come home now,’ Suzy told the older man.
Roger Madderton frowned. ‘I thought you were staying on here, because people are asking a lot of nosy questions and—’
‘Don’t you need help at the pub?’
‘I’m managing fine.’ He reminded her that he had hired Flora to cover for her. ‘If you’d married Percy, you’d have been gone for good and as it is now, with that loan off my back, I can afford to pay for any help I need.’
Her father was also keen to share exciting news for the future with her. A stately home a few miles away was opening up to the public for the first time and he reckoned that the pub would gain custom from tourists. ‘Ruy knew about it, of course. He’s very much on the ball when it comes to business,’ he opined with a slow admiring shake of his head. ‘Taking yourself off to Spain with him for a week is a brilliant idea. You deserve a break after what Percy has put you through.’
‘Ruy told you about Spain?’ Suzy gasped in surprise.
‘Getting away is exactly what you need and if he wants to paint you sitting under an orange tree or some such weird arty thing, let him do it...no skin off your nose!’ The older man chuckled, his amusement at such an ambition unconcealed.