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His irritation was totally unwarranted, and he despised himself for it. But, dammit, he wanted to get to Punta del Lobo before Cassandra had time to disappear again. ‘Look,’ he said reasonably, ‘this does not concern you—us. It is—something to do with my father. A confidential matter I have to attend to.’
Sanchia’s jaw dropped. ‘Your father has been having an affair?’
‘No!’ Enrique was horrified that she should even think such a thing.
‘But you said it did involve another woman,’ she reminded him, and Enrique wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
‘I also said, not in the way you mean,’ he declared shortly. ‘It is just—’ Dios, what could he say? ‘—an unexpected complication.’
‘That involves a woman?’
‘Only indirectly.’
That, at least, was true, although Enrique could feel his stomach tighten as he thought of confronting Cassandra again. Dios, he hated that woman, he thought savagely. If only he could tell Sanchia how he really felt, she would have no further cause for concern.
‘Muy bien.’ She pivoted on her high heels and, waiting for him to fall into step beside her, she started towards her car. ‘But you will ring me later this morning, sí?’
‘Make it this afternoon,’ said Enrique, suppressing a sigh. ‘If I cannot reach you at home, I will call your mobile.’
‘Which will not be switched off as yours was last night,’ remarked Sanchia waspishly, inspiring another twinge of irritation. Dammit, when had they got to the point where every move he made had to be justified?
‘I will ring,’ he assured her, making no promises of when that would be. He swung open the door of the scarlet convertible. ‘Adiós!’
CHAPTER FOUR (#ue7d92631-1f03-5b7e-b3ca-baa4e8dd16f4)
CASSANDRA trudged back to the lodging house with a heavy heart. She had wasted the whole morning waiting to see her holiday representative to try and get David and herself transferred to an alternative pensión, but she was no further forward.
The trouble was, the kind of accommodation she and her son could afford was in short supply and, without paying a huge supplement and moving to a hotel, they were stuck. The young rep who was based at the nearby Hotel Miramar had been very polite, but after spending the morning dealing with other holidaymakers’ complaints, she was naturally puzzled by Cassandra’s request. Particularly as the only excuse she could offer for wanting to leave the Pensión del Mar was because Punta del Lobo was too quiet. The girl had probably thought she was used to frequenting bars and nightclubs, thought Cassandra unhappily. And what kind of a mother did that make her appear to be?
It was all Enrique de Montoya’s fault, she thought resentfully. If he hadn’t turned up and ruined what had promised to be the first really good holiday they had had in ages, she wouldn’t have had to tell lies to anyone, or now have to face the prospect of David’s disappointment when he discovered their options had narrowed. As far as she could see, she only had one alternative: to bring the date for their homeward journey forward. Whatever it cost.
And, as she approached the pensión, she was forced to admit that it wasn’t just the de Montoyas’ fault that she was in this position. David had to take his share of the blame. All right, perhaps she should have been more honest with him right from the beginning, but surely he had known that what he was doing was wrong? Wasn’t that why he had kept the letter a secret from her?
She turned in at the gate of the pensión, tipping her head back to ease the tension in her neck, and then felt a quivering start in the pit of her stomach. As she looked ahead again, she saw a man rising from the low wall that bordered the terrace, where chairs and tables offered an alternative to eating indoors. The striped canopy, which gave the Pensión del Mar its individuality, formed a protective shade from the rays of the midday sun, but it also cast a shadow that Cassandra at first thought had deceived her eyes. But, no, she was not mistaken. It was Enrique who had been sitting there, waiting for her, like the predator she knew him to be.
But, as always, he looked cool and composed, his lean muscled frame emphasised by a tight-fitting navy tee shirt and loose cotton trousers. Despite herself, she felt her senses stir at his dark, powerful masculinity, and it was that much harder to steel herself against him.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, taking the offensive before he could disconcert her, and he gave her a retiring look.
‘Where is he?’ he demanded, looking beyond her, and she was inordinately grateful that the Kaufmans had taken David out for the day.
‘He’s not here,’ she said, deciding to let him make what he liked of that. ‘You’ve wasted your time in coming here.’
Enrique’s eyes grew colder, if that were at all possible. He was already regarding her with icy contempt, and she was unhappily aware that again he had found her looking hot and dishevelled. But after a morning sitting in the open foyer of the Miramar, which was not air-conditioned and where she had not been offered any refreshment, she was damp and sweaty. Her hair, which she should really have had cut before she came away, was clinging to the nape of her neck, and her cropped sleeveless top and cotton shorts fairly shrieked of their chainstore origins.
But what did it matter what he thought of her? she asked herself impatiently. However she looked, he was not going to alter his opinion of her or of David, and, even if she’d been voted the world’s greatest mum, the de Montoyas would still be looking for a way to take David away from her.
‘Where is he?’ Enrique asked again, and this time she decided not to prevaricate.
‘He’s gone out with friends,’ she replied, making an abortive little foray to go past him, but he stepped into her path.
‘What friends?’ His dark eyes bored into her. ‘The Kaufmans?’
‘Got it in one,’ said Cassandra, acknowledging that Enrique never forgot a name. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…’
Enrique said something that sounded suspiciously like an oath before his hard fingers fastened about her forearm. ‘Do not be silly, Cassandra,’ he intoned wearily. ‘You are not going anywhere and you know it.’
She didn’t attempt to shake him off. It wouldn’t have done any good and she knew it. But perhaps she could get rid of him in other ways and she widened her eyes challengingly at him as she opened her mouth.
But the scream she’d been about to utter stuck in her throat when he hustled her across the gravelled forecourt of the pensión, his words harsh against her ear. ‘Make a scene and I may just have to report Señor Movida to the licensing authorities.’
Cassandra stared at him. ‘You can’t do that. Señor Movida hasn’t done anything wrong.’
‘I am sure my lawyers could come up with something, if I paid them enough,’ retorted Enrique unfeelingly, propelling her around the corner from the pensión to where his Mercedes was parked. ‘And you, I am equally sure, would not risk that.’
Cassandra trembled. ‘You’re a bastard, Enrique!’
‘Better a bastard than a liar, Cassandra,’ he informed her coldly, flicking the switch that unlocked the car. ‘Please get in.’
‘And if I don’t?’
Enrique regarded her with unblinking eyes. ‘Do not go there, Cassandra. You are only wasting your time and mine. We need to talk, and you will have to forgive my sensibilities when I say I prefer not to—how is it you say it?—wash my linen in public?’
‘Dirty linen,’ muttered Cassandra, before she could stop herself, and Enrique’s mouth curved into a thin smile.
‘Your words, not mine,’ he commented, swinging open the nearside door and waiting patiently for her to get into the car. And, when she’d done so with ill grace, unhappily conscious of her bare knees and sun-reddened thighs, he walked round the back of the vehicle and coiled his long length behind the steering wheel. Then, with a derisive glance in her direction, ‘Do not look so apprehensive, Cassandra. I do not bite.’
‘Don’t you?’
Now she held his gaze with hot accusing eyes and then experienced a pang of anguish when he looked away. Was he remembering what she was remembering? she wondered, despising herself for the unwelcome emotions he could still arouse inside her. God, the only memories she should have were bitter ones.
His starting the engine caught her unawares. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she cried, diverted from her thoughts, and he lifted his shoulders in a resigned gesture.
‘What does it look like I am doing?’ he enquired, glancing in the rearview mirror, checking for traffic. ‘You didn’t think we were going to sit here and talk?’
‘Why not?’
‘Humour me,’ he said tersely, and although Cassandra was fairly sure that nothing she said or did would change his mind, she bit down on her protests. Why should she object when he was leaving the pensión? She might even be able to persuade him not to come back.
Or not.
‘I’m not going to Tuarega with you,’ she blurted suddenly, and Enrique gave a short mirthless laugh as he pulled out of the parking bay.
‘I have not invited you to do so,’ he observed drily, and she felt the flush of embarrassment deepen the colour in her cheeks. ‘I suggest we find a bar where it is unlikely that either of us will meet anyone we know.’
‘Don’t you mean anyone you know?’ she snorted, and he gave her a considering look.
‘Does it matter?’
‘Not to me,’ she assured him coldly. ‘I just want to get this over with.’
Enrique shook his head. ‘We both know that is not going to happen,’ he replied flatly. ‘You should not have written to my father if you wished to keep your selfish little secret.’
‘I didn’t write to your father,’ Cassandra reminded him fiercely. ‘I wouldn’t do such a thing.’
‘No.’ He conceded the point. ‘I believe that now.’
‘Now?’ Cassandra was appalled. ‘Do you mean you had any doubts?’
Enrique shrugged. ‘I had my reasons.’
‘What reasons?’ Cassandra stared at him, and then comprehension dawned. ‘My God, you did think I’d written the letter, didn’t you? You honestly thought I’d want anything from you! Or your father!’
Enrique didn’t answer her and she was left with the shattering discovery that his opinion of her hadn’t changed one bit. He still thought she was a greedy little gold-digger, who had only latched onto his brother because she’d known what his background was.
Pain, like a knife, sliced through her, and she reached unthinkingly for the handle of the door. In that moment she didn’t consider that they had left the small town of Punta del Lobo behind, that the car was in traffic and that they were moving at approximately sixty kilometres an hour. Her only need was to get as far away from him as possible as quickly as possible, and even the sudden draught of air that her action elicited only made her feel even more giddy and confused.
She didn’t know what might have happened if Enrique hadn’t reacted as he had. At that moment she didn’t care. But, with a muffled oath, he did two things almost simultaneously: his hand shot out and grasped her arm, anchoring her to her seat, and he swung the big car off the winding coast road, bringing it to a shuddering stop on a sand-strewn verge above towering cliffs.
‘Estas loco? Are you mad?’ he demanded, and she realised it was a measure of the shock he’d had that he’d used his own language and not hers. Then, when she turned a white tear-stained face in his direction, his eyes grew dark and tortured. ‘Crazy woman,’ he muttered, his voice thick and unfamiliar, and, switching off the engine, he flung himself out of the car.
He went to stand at the edge of the cliffs, the warm wind that blew up from the ocean flattening the loose-fitting trousers against his strong legs. He didn’t look back at her, he simply stood there, gazing out at the water, raking long fingers through his hair before bringing them to rest at the back of his neck.
Perhaps he was giving her time to regain her composure, Cassandra pondered uneasily, as sanity reasserted itself. But she didn’t think so. Just for a moment there she had glimpsed the real Enrique de Montoya, the passionate man whose feelings couldn’t be so coldly contained beneath a mask of studied politeness, and she suspected he had been as shocked as she was.
Nevertheless, however she felt about him, there was little doubt that he had saved her from serious injury or worse. He’d risked his own life by swerving so recklessly off the highway, taking the car within inches of certain disaster, just to prevent her from doing something which, as he’d said, would have been crazy.
What had she been thinking? She trembled as the full extent of her own stupidity swept over her. What good would it have done to throw herself from the car? What would it have achieved? If she’d been killed—God, the very thought of it set her shaking again—who would have looked after David then? Whose claim on her son would have carried the most weight? She didn’t need to be a psychic to know that in those circumstances her own family would have been fighting a losing battle.
So why hadn’t Enrique let her do it? Or was that what he was doing now? Reproving himself for allowing a God-given opportunity to slip through his fingers? No. However naïve it might make her, she didn’t think that either.
She took a breath and then, pushing open her door, she got out of the car. She steadied herself for a moment, with her hand on the top of her door. Then, closing it again, she walked somewhat unsteadily across to where he was standing. The wind buffeted her, too, sending the tumbled mass of her hair about her face, but she only held it back, her eyes on Enrique’s taut profile.
‘I’m—sorry,’ she said after a moment, but although she knew he’d heard her, he didn’t look her way.
‘Go back to the car.’ The words were flat and expressionless. ‘I will join you in a moment.’
Cassandra caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘You’re right,’ she said, forced to go on. ‘What I did was crazy! I could have killed us both.’
Now Enrique did look at her, but she gained no reassurance from his blank expression. ‘Forget it,’ he told her. ‘I have.’
Cassandra quivered. ‘As you forget everything that doesn’t agree with you?’ she asked tremulously. ‘And everyone?’
Enrique’s features contorted. ‘I have forgotten nothing,’ he assured her harshly, and she shrank from his sudden antagonism.
‘Then how do you live with yourself?’ she was stung to reply, and with a muffled epithet he brushed past her.
‘God knows,’ he muttered in his own language, but she understood him. He headed for the car. ‘Are you coming?’
The bar he took her to was in the next village. A whitewashed building on the road, it was open at the back, spilling its customers out onto a wood-framed deck above a pebbled beach. Further along, a black jetty jutted out into the blue water, and several small fishing smacks and rowing boats were drawn up onto a strip of sand. Old men sat mending their nets, and, judging by the clientele in the bar, this was not a venue for tourists.
Contrary to what Enrique had said earlier, the bartender knew exactly who he was, and it was obvious from the man’s manner that he welcomed his customer. Cassandra guessed, nonetheless, that he was curious about who she was and why Enrique should choose to bring her here, but he knew better than to ask questions. Instead, he escorted them personally to a table on the deck that was shaded by a canvas canopy, and enquired politely what he could get them to drink.
‘Wine?’ suggested Enrique, looking at Cassandra, and at her indifferent nod he ordered two glasses of Rioja. ‘It is served from a barrel here,’ he explained as the man walked away, and Cassandra guessed he was only behaving courteously for the other man’s benefit.
‘What is this place?’ she asked, taking her cue from him, and Enrique glanced towards the jetty before looking at her.
‘San Augustin,’ he said in the same civil tone. ‘I used to come here a lot when I was younger. While I was a student, I worked behind the bar for a while until my father found out.’
‘And stopped you?’ suggested Cassandra unthinkingly, and he nodded.
‘My father said a de Montoya should not—well, it is not important what he said,’ he appended shortly. ‘It is many years now.’
‘Yet the bartender remembers you.’
‘I did not mean it is so many years since I was here,’ he explained. ‘José and I, we know one another quite well.’
Cassandra began to smile and then pulled her lips into a straight line again. She was starting to relax with him and that was not good. She had no doubt it would suit him very well, but she had to remember why he had brought her here and it wasn’t to exchange anecdotes about the past. Well, not that past anyway, she amended, with a sudden spurt of hysteria.
The bartender returned with their wine and a large plate of what she realised were tapas. But not the mass-produced tapas that were available in the bars in Punta del Lobo. Something told her that this was the real thing, the fat juicy olives, spiced with herbs, the batter-dipped prawns, the bite-sized pieces of crisply fried fish bearing little resemblance to what she’d seen so far. They smelled wholesome, too, and in other circumstances the cheese that was oozing out of the paper-thin rolls of ham would have made her mouth water.
‘Is good, señor?’ the man enquired, obviously having heard them speaking in English, and Enrique inclined his head.
‘Muy bien, José,’ he responded in his own language. Very good. ‘Gracias.’
The bartender smiled and went away, and Enrique indicated the food. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Hardly,’ said Cassandra, reluctantly taking a sip of her wine. She hoped it wasn’t too intoxicating. She’d had nothing to eat that day and her stomach was already bubbling with apprehension. ‘Why did you want to speak to me?’
Enrique hesitated. She noticed he wasn’t interested in the food either and, like her, he seemed quite content to concentrate on his wine. His hands, brown and long-fingered, played with the stem of his glass, and she was mesmerised by their sensitive caress. It reminded her far too acutely of how those fingers had felt gripping her wrist, grasping her arm, stroking her naked flesh…
She took a laboured breath as somewhere nearby a guitar began to play. Its music, poignant at times, at others vibrantly sensual, tugged at her emotions, fanning the flames of memories she desperately wanted to forget. She should not have come here, she thought unsteadily. She was still far too vulnerable where he was concerned.
‘I think you know why we have to talk,’ Enrique said at last, his eyes intent. ‘David is a de Montoya. You had no right to keep that from us.’
Cassandra pursed her lips. ‘You’re sure of that, are you?’
‘What? That he is Antonio’s son? Of course.’
‘What makes you so certain?’
Enrique lay back in his chair, giving her a sardonic look. ‘Cassandra, do not play games with me. We both know that he is the image of his father at that age.’
‘Is he?’
‘Do you wish me to produce a photograph as proof? No, I did not think so. The boy shows his Spanish blood in every way. His eyes, his colouring, his mannerisms. His honesty.’
Cassandra stiffened. ‘His honesty?’ she demanded caustically. ‘Oh, right. You’d know a lot about that.’
