The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride by Chantelle Shaw

Scotch.

CHAPTER SIX
    S HE had to go home! Grace’s eyes flew open as the thought filtered into her brain. Last night she had been too tired and emotionally drained to work out what was bothering her, but now she recalled Javier’s satisfaction that the media interest would ensure the story of their engagement would be headline news around the world. What would her father make of it? He wouldn’t understand what was going on and would be desperately worried about her. Knowing his fragile state of mind, that was the last thing she wanted.
    She threw back the covers, frowning at the realisation that she had slept in her underwear rather than a nightshirt. The blue dress Javier had demanded she wear to the banquet was hanging over the back of the chair but she had no recollection of putting it there. The last thing she remembered was sitting in the car, on the way back to Javier’s apartment. She must have fallen asleep, but did that mean that he had carried her up to bed? And who had undressed her? It must have been his housekeeper, she decided, relief flooding through her as she dismissed the disturbing image of his hands easing the blue silk dress from her shoulders while she slept.
    Cursing her overactive imagination, she scrambled out of bed. When they had stopped briefly at her hotel in Granada the previous day she had hurriedly collected her few belongings while Javier settled her bill. Incensed at his high handedness, she had argued with him bitterly for much of the flight to Madrid, but now, as she rummaged through her case, her heart plummeted. Her passport and return flight ticket were missing. Had she put them in the bedside drawer at the hotel and forgotten to pack them? She was certain she’d left them in her case but they weren’t there now, and the only explanation she could think of was that she had left them in Granada.
    In desperation she tipped the contents of her suitcase onto the floor and carefully sifted through everything, but to no avail; the documents weren’t there. Maybe Javier could phone the hotel and enquire if anyone had handed them in, she thought frantically. With no thought in her head other than the urgent need to find her passport, she shot down the hall and rapped on his bedroom door. There was no answer, and she hopped impatiently from foot to foot. She had no idea of the time, but it was imperative that she return to England and speak to her father before he learned of her forthcoming marriage from a newspaper.
    She knocked again and then cautiously opened the door. Javier’s bed was empty and she swallowed at the sight of the burgundy silk sheets in rumpled disarray. His apartment was very much a bachelor pad, and from the look of it this was the seduction suite complete with a huge bed draped with a plush velvet throw and—oh goodness—an enormous mirror on the ceiling. Her wayward mind dwelled on the erotic image of his naked body lying on those sheets, his long limbs entwined with hers while she lay back on the pillows and watched their reflection—dark golden skin sliding against her paler flesh…
    â€˜Good morning, Grace, did you sleep well?’ Javier strolled through from the en suite; rubbing his hair with a towel while another was hitched around his waist, leaving his torso and long muscular legs on display. His skin gleamed like satin, and stray droplets of water clung to the dark hairs that covered his chest and arrowed down over his tight abdomen to disappear beneath the folds of the towel.
    â€˜I…yes…thank you.’ Coherent thought was impossible, and she could only stare at him with wide, stunned eyes. He was so gorgeous it hurt . No man had the right to look so decadently sexy. Her gaze slid to the bed and the mirror above, and her tongue darted out to trace her lower lip in an unconscious invitation.
    â€˜Did you want something?’ Javier’s eyes narrowed at the sight of her in her white bra and