The Twelve-Month Mistress Read Online Free

arrival at the finca . That he’d enticed Cassandra out of her difficult mood, charmed away the un-characteristic coolness and distance in her attitude—seduced it out of her. And he had believed that she was ready, as she had always been in the past, to put their differences behind them, and do their making up where they always did it so well—in bed.
    But Ramón’s arrival had interrupted all that. Broken the mood totally and left him fuming with frustration whilehis woman and his half-brother made coffee and chatted affably.
    It seemed that Ramón had a habit of turning up unexpectedly, just when he was least wanted. After all, hadn’t he arrived on their father’s doorstep, unannounced, nothing known of him until then, just at the moment when Juan Alcolar and his son by marriage had been at the lowest point of their relationship together? And now here was Ramón, the illegitimate son— one of the illegitimate sons, Joaquin corrected, because there was Alex too. But Ramón was the son who was everything that his father would have wanted—who had everything going for him—except that he was not Juan’s legitimate heir. ‘No!’
    He muttered it aloud to emphasise the word, driving it home to himself.
    It wasn’t Ramón’s fault that he was who he was. Not Ramón’s fault that their father was a philandering womaniser who couldn’t keep his trousers on when he was with another female. He was their father’s son after all; no one could have any doubt about that. You only had to look at the three of them together and it was as plain as could be.
    And it wasn’t Ramón’s fault that he had wandered in on the awkward, uncomfortable confrontation between his brother and Cassandra.
    The sort of awkward, uncomfortable, uneasy confrontation that was becoming more and more common between them. So much so that the nagging unease was the norm rather than the rare occurrence it had been at the beginning of their relationship.
    At the beginning…
    Joaquin’s hard features softened from the taut, harsh lines into which they had been drawn, and a smile of memory played over his sensual mouth.
    At the beginning— Oh, their relationship had been amazing then. Amazing, fantastic—mind-blowingly sensual.They had been caught up in a whirlwind of sexual desire and passion, unable to keep their hands off each other, not daring even to kiss in public for fear of the blazing, hungry desire such a small caress might spark off. If they had been in the house, then they had been in bed. It seemed that they had never left the bedroom, except occasionally to eat, for almost all of the first six months.
    But that had changed so much lately.
    The frown was back, creasing his forehead harshly.
    The sex was still great—the best, for him at least. Cassandra turned him on as no other woman had done in his life before. But out of bed, so often he had the uneasy feeling that her mind was somewhere else. And…
    But at that moment his thoughts stopped dead, his rational process arrested by the sight beyond the window.
    ‘Cassandra!’
    Where he had opted for a shower to wash away the heat of the day and freshen up, Cassie had decided to go for a swim. So now he stood transfixed, his ebony gaze caught and held by the tall, slender figure making her way down the path towards the cool, inviting water of the pool. Her long blonde hair was caught up in a high pony-tail at the back of her head, and she wore a hot pink bikini, fastened at the back and the sides by shoestring laces.
    ‘Bella!’
    It was a fervent, almost reverent exclamation, expelled on a low, sighing breath. He had thought that after their twelve months together the effect her beauty had on him might have lessened, not hitting home quite so hard. But now he found himself caught and held unmoving by just the sight of her, and the sensation deep in the pit of his stomach felt as if someone had just punched him there, very hard.
    The hot pink bikini might not be as microscopic as