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‘Of course I am!’
‘Then what’s the problem?’ He felt like someone swimming upstream against a very strong current and he didn’t care for the sensation. He liked to be in control. It occurred to him that he had distinctly lacked control when he had allowed this relationship to meander through the weeks and months. He had been instantly attracted to her when she had rescued him after his car crash. He had certainly planned on getting her into bed. He had never played with the possibility that a little time out—a few days of harmless pretence, of letting go of the persona he was compelled to be on a daily basis and all the stresses that came with it—would end up lasting over a year.
The thing to do would be to start thinking clearly and regaining some of that lost control. The obvious solution would be to walk away. He certainly had no intention of encouraging anyone to start thinking in terms of diamond rings, churches and flower girls, however good the sex as between them. No way.
He especially would not be going down that route with a woman who was, frankly, as poor as a church mouse. She might be disingenuous charm itself as long as she believed him to be little more than another one of life’s hard workers who saved up to pay the mortgage and grab an annual holiday somewhere cheap and cheerful. But how different would she have been had she known the extent of his wealth? He had been conned once and he had vowed never to allow that situation to happen again.
Step one in the preventative stakes was to ensure that any lifetime partner—and there certainly wouldn’t be one on the horizon in the foreseeable future—would be able to match his wealth. He would only ever marry a woman who didn’t have anything to gain in the financial stakes by marrying him.
Holly George was just not suitable. She had raised an issue and the only way to deal with it would be to dispose of her. It sounded heartless, but in the end he would be doing her a favour. If the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was marriage, then she wasn’t going to get the pot of gold from him, and it was kinder to let her go now. When it came to handling the reins of a relationship, any relationship, he was the one in control.
Holly turned away and began walking towards the sitting room. Her heart was beating very fast. She just couldn’t believe that this conversation was taking place. She had been so secure in their relationship. Had love blinded her to the very real possibility that what he felt for her was nothing more than lust? She couldn’t credit that! Lust became eroded over time, lost its urgency… What they had had just got better and better, deeper and deeper, at least as far as she was concerned…
Luiz watched her leave the kitchen and he wanted to throw things, or at the very least haul her back into his arms and make love to her until her questions had been put to rest. He had become accustomed to her smiling, upbeat, eternally optimistic nature. He was used to her glorious, uninhibited chatter. He luxuriated in the company of someone who didn’t feel as though she ought to be impressing him. Now, he felt like a monster responsible for draining all the sunshine and light out of her. He had to remind himself that there was nothing he could do to alter the situation and to offer her anything beyond his remit would be to make matters worse in the long run.
‘So what are you telling me?’ Holly was standing by the bay window, arms folded, every inch of her body radiating tension. ‘Are you telling me that what we have isn’t going anywhere? Is never going to go anywhere? Because if that’s the case then I don’t see any point to us carrying on. I don’t want to be in a relationship where we just drift along until one of us gets bored and decides to call it a day.’
She could hardly breathe. Her chest felt tight. How could he just stand there, looking at her with an inscrutable expression, not saying anything? A treacherous little voice whispered that perhaps she should have left well alone and not said anything, but as soon as the thought flitted through her head Holly knew that she had had to say what was on her mind. She had been feeling strangely emotional over the past few weeks. Holding things in would only exacerbate those heightened emotions.
‘Why won’t you talk to me, Luiz?’ Her eyes brimmed and she chewed her lip in anguish.
‘Because you’re getting hysterical and you’re not saying anything I want to hear.’
‘I am not getting hysterical! I’m just asking you to tell me how you feel about a future for us.’
‘I don’t think in terms of future when it comes to my relationships.’
‘Because of Clarissa? Is that why?’ Holly knew that she was clinging to this as the get-out clause for him. She could deal with him having been hurt in the past and therefore reluctant to commit in the present. That was a situation they could address, one that could be changed. No one could surely allow a past hurt to rule their life for ever? What she found much more difficult to deal with was a blanket refusal to enter the discussion.
Luiz looked at her with veiled eyes. ‘Let’s not drag history into this, Holly.’
‘But you don’t understand! I would never let you down! You’ve never told me what happened between the two of you. Maybe if you just opened up on the subject we could work our way through this.’
‘I’m not in the mood for psychobabble.’
‘So what are you in the mood for, Luiz?’
‘I wouldn’t say no to sliding between the sheets with you…’
‘Why does it always have to be about sex?’
‘Since when is it always about sex with us?’ It was all he wanted from the relationship and yet he was outraged that she should diminish what they enjoyed.
‘Well, then, if it’s not all about the sex with you, then what else is it about?’
Luiz stared at her, speechlessly aware that she had managed to box him in. Since when did any woman think that she had the right to challenge his decisions, ask for clarifications or demand explanations for his behaviour? And yet, he had been with her for an extraordinarily long time. At least, extraordinarily long as far as he was concerned. Little by little, he realised that she had made inroads into his levels of tolerance. Somewhere along the line, they had stretched and expanded to accommodate her forthright honesty. That was what now gave her the freedom to stand there, glaring, waiting for him to answer her.
Taking advantage of his temporary silence, Holly thought it a good idea to carry on making her point. There was a certain desperation blossoming inside her but she felt as though if she didn’t push as hard as she could beyond that stubborn, autocratic, all-knowing veneer, she would forever rue her hesitation.
‘I’m crazy about you. You know that. And if you haven’t said so to me in so many words, then… then, you must feel… If it’s not just about sex, you must feel…’
In the face of his continuing grim silence, she could feel the confidence leaking out of her. In its place, desperation was giving way to the numbing realisation that perhaps he didn’t feel anything for her, or perhaps what he did feel for her just wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to form a basis for a healthy ongoing relationship where holidays were planned and children were discussed and growing old together was a possibility. If all those things had been on the cards, she thought with a sickening jolt, then wouldn’t he have suggested her going to Brazil to meet his family? She would have asked him to meet hers ages ago! Had they really been operating on two different planes? Had she been so blind that she hadn’t been able to see that what she really wanted was different from what was actually there and, in fact, was leagues apart from what he wanted?
Luiz watched as she stammered her way into silence. ‘I enjoy your company, Holly, and I care about you.’
‘You care about me…’ Her voice was low and dull. She adored him to distraction and would cheerfully have walked on a bed of burning coals for him. He, on the other hand, cared about her. Caring wouldn’t go the distance when it came to the bed of burning coals and it wouldn’t go the distance when it came to planning for a future.
‘Don’t knock it.’ He read the disappointment on her face but there was no way that he was going to be drawn into offering any more on the subject of how he felt. He could have told her that she turned him on more than any woman ever had, that she had certainly held his attention longer than any woman ever had, but he had a feeling that those sentiments would not have met with an enthusiastic reception.
‘I’m not knocking it.’ She stumbled over to the sofa, the same sofa where they had made love only a short while ago, and subsided heavily on it. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.
‘Why don’t we go outside?’ Luiz suggested. Looking at her, he felt uncomfortable in his own skin. ‘You told me on the phone that you’d discovered a new walk.’ She enjoyed the great outdoors. A little bit of fresh air might calm her frayed nerves. He found himself giving her a last chance to climb back from her inappropriate meltdown and he was half-angry at his leniency.
‘I’m not really in the mood to go walking.’ Her voice was barely audible.
‘Well, sitting there sulking isn’t going to solve anything.’
‘I thought I meant more to you.’
Luiz sighed and joined her on the sofa. He had to restrain himself from touching her. It was something he badly wanted to do. ‘I could tell you that you mean a lot to me, but the follow-on isn’t that we’re going to get engaged like your friend. The next chapter in our story isn’t going to be marriage. I’m very sorry, Holly, but the next chapter in our story is never going to be marriage.’
‘I’m not talking about marriage.’
‘Of course you are.’ He had deliberately blinded himself to the fact that she was a romantic. She might work hard in the sanctuary, as hard as any man would in similar circumstances, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t like the picnics in summer, or get teary-eyed during sentimental movies, or lose herself in ridiculous love stories. Now, he thought with regret, was the time to be brutal.
‘You could never tolerate anything less than full commitment and that will not be happening, at least not with me. I should have made myself clearer on the subject from the beginning. I didn’t and I am to blame for that.’ He wished she would make eye contact but she was staring straight ahead and her body was as stiff as a plank of wood. ‘Trust me when I tell you that you’re better off without me,’ Luiz said truthfully, and she looked at him with incredulity.
‘How can you say that? That’s the sort of thing men say when they can’t face having an honest conversation—you’re better off without me, I need a little space. That’s what men say when they’re about to walk out and they’re clearing it with their conscience. I’ve read hundreds of articles on that subject!’
Luiz fought against smiling. She loved reading self-help books and anything to do with emotions and psychology. She had a tendency to answer any quiz in any magazine. Occasionally she had forced him into taking part and then analysed his answers so that she could inform him of the person he was. There was no getting away from the fact that he would miss things like that.
‘There are things about me you don’t know, Holly.’ Luiz hadn’t really considered the possibility of coming clean with her. What would be the point when it wouldn’t change anything? But he now felt that he owed it to her. There was no moral integrity in exiting this relationship in a welter of half-truths. If he did that, he knew that he would, one day, regret the omissions.
‘All that business with your ex… I know it’s not my fault that you won’t discuss any of it with me…’ He must have really loved her, Holly was thinking glumly. She had taken the best of him and had made sure that he would have nothing left to give another woman.
‘Partly.’
Holly barely took that in. She was busily thinking about the bottle of wine growing warmer and warmer outside, along with the shrivelled crudités and the dried-up cheese savouries, all part of her plan to coax him into something he was incapable of giving her. In her mind, she was trying to imagine what life was going to be like if this turned out to be the last time she saw him and she couldn’t get her head round that. She wanted to fling herself at him and tell him that she loved him enough for the two of them.
‘I want you to look at me.’
‘What for? What difference does it make?’ But she shifted until she was facing him and he was so close to her that she could just reach out and run her fingers through his dark hair.
‘Prepare to be shocked. Clarissa wasn’t, as you seem to imagine, the love of my life.’
‘She wasn’t?’ Holly’s heart lifted. ‘I thought you didn’t want to talk about her because you were still in love with her and the memory hurt too much.’
‘I don’t talk about her because she turned out to be a lying, scheming bitch.’
‘Oh.’ Holly was now fully invested in whatever Luiz had to say. In fact, she had completely forgotten her woeful projections of life without him in it. Whatever he had to say to her, she knew that the an unforgettable ex was one difficulty removed from the equation and that could only be a good thing. ‘What do you mean?’ She couldn’t resist extending her hand and running it gently along his arm. She could feel bunched muscle and it sent a pleasurable shiver through her.
‘You might not want to do that…’ Luiz’s jaw tensed and he vaulted upright. The effect of her soft hand on his arm was as dramatic as a white-hot branding iron. He put some distance between them, moving to sit on a chair.
‘Do what?’
‘Touch me. You touch me and I can’t help but touch you back.’
‘You have my permission.’ Holly thought that he might not want to promise her anything beyond today, but she still had a huge amount of power over him. Couldn’t she use that power to make small inroads into that tough fortress he insisted on building around himself to protect his emotions? Maybe it wasn’t the ‘all or nothing’ scenario she had painted. Life wasn’t black and white. It was always full of grey areas…
‘You wanted to talk. We’ll talk.’
‘We can talk and touch at the same time.’
Luiz stifled a groan. His fabled and formidable self-control, on which his empire was built and which had always stood him in good stead when it came to women, was missing in action. But wasn’t it always when it came to Holly? With her, he had never had to use it and lack of use had made it rusty. Her invitation to touch was almost more than he could bear.
‘Fifteen minutes ago you were going to chuck me out because I wasn’t going to propose,’ he said grittily. Holly smiled sheepishly at him and reddened.
‘I was emotional. I’ve been a little emotional recently. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because all my friends seem to be settling down. Maybe I feel like time is racing by. It all seemed to build up inside me. You were… um… telling me about Clarissa…’
Luiz cursed himself for being tempted to accept her explanation and run with it. The promise of the status quo being re-established dangled in front of him, as tantalising as a banquet to a starving man. No more talk of commitment. Back to him having her here, the one window in his life where there was no stress…
He savagely culled the alluring image before it could truly take hold and make him lose sight of the fact that this was not a situation destined to go away. Holly might be prepared to back away from the gauntlet she had foolishly laid down, but the gauntlet would still be there and it would only be a question of time before the inevitable happened. But, hell, she sat there on the couch with her fair hair spilling all over the place and her big blue eyes staring at him, her mouth half-open, as though on the brink of voicing a thought… He had to grit his teeth and push ahead.
‘Clarissa thought that I could be her ticket to the good life.’ He dragged his eyes away from the soft fullness of her lips which mirrored the exquisite abundance of her breasts. Just thinking about touching them again was enough to make him lose focus. On top of all the reasons why this relationship was a poor idea, he ruthlessly added ‘unacceptable loss of self-control’ to the list.
‘It’s understandable,’ Holly conceded reluctantly. ‘I guess that doesn’t make her much different from me…’
‘You’re not understanding.’ He stood up, raked his fingers through his hair and sat back down. Every nuance of expression and every slight movement of his body spoke tellingly of a level of awkward restlessness which was completely alien to the Luiz Gomez Holly knew and loved. While a part of her wanted to jump to her feet, hold him tight and apologise for ever mentioning anything, another part of her was already uneasily accepting that she had started something from which there was no retreat.
Luiz prowled the room before settling for a spot by the bay window and leaning against it.
The fading sun poured through the glass behind him and threw him into shadow. Now, she couldn’t see the expression on his face at all.
‘Clarissa saw me as a passport to the sort of lifestyle she could only dream of.’ He could tell from her silence that she was confused, didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. ‘She wanted me for my money, Holly, and she would have done everything within her power to get what she wanted, including faking a pregnancy.’
‘I’m not following you. What money? What are you talking about?’ Holly felt as though she had stepped into a parallel universe, one in which everything looked the same, sounded the same, but was somehow completely different, altered and reconfigured into the unrecognisable. The Luiz talking to her in that flat, impersonal voice wasn’t her Luiz. She sensed that on a subconscious level and it made her pulses race with sudden, gripping apprehension.
‘Tell me who you think I am.’
‘You’re Luiz Gomez. You work as a salesman. Computers… Why would anyone think that you could be a passport to… to…? How much do salesmen get paid, for goodness’ sake?’
‘My name isn’t Luiz Gomez.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Holly could only stare. She half-stood up, mouth agape, wondering if she had heard correctly. ‘If you’re not Luiz Gomez, then who the heck are you?’
‘Sit down, Holly!’ He barely had time to make it across the room and catch her before she hit the ground.
Holly came to quickly, but it took her a few seconds to reorient and when she did his words came rushing back at her in a poisonous flood that threatened to make her black out again. She squirmed away from him, eyes wide with horror and incomprehension.
‘What are you talking about? Don’t come near me! Who are you?’
‘I’m going to get you a glass of brandy. It’ll calm you down.’
‘I don’t want any brandy. I just want you to tell me what’s going on!’
‘I’m not a travelling salesman, selling computers and saving up to buy a house. My name isn’t Gomez, my name is Casella—Luiz Casella—and I’m worth more than most people can only dream about. Clarissa wanted the lifestyle I could give her. She faked a pregnancy to rope me into marriage, the plan being that she would suffer a “miscarriage” shortly after the wedding. I finally and completely opened my eyes to the level to which people will sink in an effort to secure financial security. I understood once and for all the concept of gold-diggers.
‘I made up my mind on the spot that, if the consequence of taking a chance on a relationship might result in another Clarissa moment, then no relationship with its promises of happy-ever-after would be worth it. And if I ever were to go for the long-term choice, then I would do so with a woman of independent means, someone to whom my money would be an irrelevance. It would be a marriage of mutual convenience. I have neither the time nor the inclination for emotional risk-taking.’
Holly heard what he was saying but was suffering from information overload. Her mind had stuck on the very first revelation that he wasn’t who he said he was.
‘But why? You lied. I don’t get it.’
Luiz could feel her withdrawal from him. He could detect that light in her eyes that spoke of suspicion and mistrust. She hadn’t yet reached the point of anger and bitterness, but those two emotions would come and he had to remind himself that life was a cruel place and being toughened up by unpleasant, unexpected situations was always, in retrospect, character building.
Right now, though… He flushed darkly and flung his arms out in an exotically foreign gesture.
‘Why would you lie to me? How could you do that? I helped you and you… you lied to me about who you were and I just don’t understand that! I don’t get it.’
‘Then you haven’t been listening.’
‘And you can stop treating me like an idiot, Luiz! Or are you lying about that as well? Is Luiz really your first name or will you come clean about that in a little while? Will you tell me that you’re actually called Richard, or—or Tom, or Fred? And that you’re not really from Brazil at all? You’re from East London and your father worked on a market stall!’
‘You’re upset. I understand.’
‘How can you tell me that you’ve spent the last year and a half lying to me and be so… so calm?’ She knew why. It was because she had fallen head over heels in love with a man whose core was a block of ice.
‘Would you like to listen to what I have to say or would you rather I leave?’
Faced with that stark choice, Holly bit back the onset of tears gathering pace and remained silent. She was numb all over. ‘I want to know why. I deserve to know.’
‘When I crashed my car…’
‘The car you couldn’t even be bothered to recover. You didn’t even go through the insurance company to see what money you could get back… I should have twigged that normal people don’t write off cars just like that. It wasn’t some old banger, was it?’
‘No. No matter. It was still disposable.’
Like a computer, suddenly rebooted and finally working to full capacity, Holly was adding up all the things that should have tallied and opened her eyes to a man who wasn’t just an ordinary Joe Bloggs. His casual way with money; the ease with which he accepted subservience as his due; his in-built self-assurance; his assumptions that he was always right…
‘When I crashed and you rescued me, I wasn’t in a particularly good place. I had just closed a deal in Durham and was on my way back to London. I came here and in a split second I made the decision that it would be an idea to take time out from being a Casella. Chances are you wouldn’t have heard of me anyway, but there was a chance that you might. The Durham deal was all over the newspapers. I never foresaw that we would still be in a relationship a year and a half later.’
‘But why wouldn’t you have wanted me to know your real name? Why would you think that it would have made a difference knowing who you were and… and…?’
‘Experience has taught me that people are rarely open and spontaneous when they know the extent of my wealth. They pander, they fawn, they even fake pregnancy… It’s just the way it is.’
Holly’s sluggish brain was reaching its inexorable conclusions and she was dismayed, hurt and horrified. The man she loved was rich. She didn’t know how rich, but if he could dismissively shrug off the loss of an expensive car without a backward glance, then very. Clarissa had hunted him down and tried to trap him because of his money. No doubt he was right when he told her that people adapted to please him.
But how could he ever have thought that she would be one of those people? Because he was suspicious. Whilst she had thrown herself into an open and honest relationship, there had been a part of him always holding back, always keeping her at arm’s length.
