Page 5 of Modern Romance June 2025 5-8

Dammit.

‘Hola,’ she said softly.

‘Hola,’ he replied.

‘Gracias. Lo aprecio mucho.’

He wondered what she was thanking him for, but then her cheek pressed into his T-shirt and her eyelids drooped. The trusting, strangely intimate gesture had his heart hammering his ribs.

‘Ve a dormir,’ he said, deciding her ability to speak Spanish coherently meant she could not be that concussed.

She sighed, then obeyed his command, dropping back into sleep.

After carting her down to the garage, he buckled her sleeping form into the passenger seat of his convertible. He congratulated himself on a clean getaway as he drove out of the garage and began the night drive to the ancestral estate.

Not so successful was his battle to control the wave of unwanted awareness as the girl’s captivating floral scent filled his car…

CHAPTER THREE

Cerys edged openher eyelids, then slammed them shut again, the blast of sunshine threatening to laser off her retinas.

Why did her face feel as if it were on fire, too?

She touched her cheekbone.

‘Ow.’ She groaned.That hurt!

Then she moved and all the other sore spots on her body wept in unison. Her bum most of all. What had happened to her? Because she felt as if she’d been slam-dunked from a great height, into a soft lavender-scented cloud.

‘Hola, señorita. Estas despierta?’ The bright, excited female voice came from beside her cloud.

Who the…?

She risked opening her eyes again. And turning her head, which amplified the throbbing in her face, and the headache blooming behind her eyes.Fabulous!

A girl—or rather, a beautiful young woman—sat in an ornate chair, staring back at her with wide chocolate-brown eyes, which reminded her of someone, but she had no idea who.

‘Hola! Como estas?’ the girl said, her stunning face breaking into a grin, which only made the combination of thick black hair falling in carelessly perfect waves, striking bone structure, smooth olive-toned skin and those captivating eyes more spellbinding.

‘Hi,’ Cerys replied, hopelessly disorientated. Where was she? How had she got here? And why was the girl speaking Spanish?

Although the girl wore modern clothing—a flattering and expensive summer dress covered in sunflowers—Cerys had the weird thought she had travelled back in time as she took in the huge bedroom. The ornate furniture looked like something from a bygone era, all carved wood and velvet upholstery. While the lavender cloud was actually a magnificent four-poster bed, draped with white linen embroidered with gold. The scent of lavender detergent and fresh earth added to the strange feeling of being cast adrift in someone else’s life.

‘Where am I?’ she managed at last, because the girl seemed to be waiting for her to speak.

‘Castillo de las Vides. The Castle of the Vines, where my family—the De Montoyas—have lived for many generations…’ the girl said in accented English. ‘My brother Santiago isel Duquenow. And the wine we produce here is the very best in Spain.’

‘Sorry, where?’ Cerys asked when the babble of information finally ceased. She’d never heard of this place. Or this family. Had she? What was she doing here?

The girl’s grin widened.

‘We can speakInglés, if you prefer,’ the girl offered, her heavy accent doing nothing to detract from the excitement in her voice. ‘But Santiago told our housekeeper, María, you speak Spanish. I heard him say it yesterday.’

María?Why did she have a vague recollection of being woken in the darkness and asked questions by an older woman in a language she didn’t understand?

The girl pulled her chair closer, the mischievous sparkle in her eyes becoming astute.

‘Santiago drove you here in the middle of the night, and carried you to this bedroom himself. And you were asleep all day yesterday. But he hasn’t told anyone your name. It’s so romantic. He never brings any of hischicashere.’

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