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‘Oh, no, querida,’ Joaquin cut in brutally. ‘That is my question.’
Kicking the door to behind him with a slam that made her wince in nervous distress, he raked burning eyes from the top of her loose blonde hair, over the pale green silky robe, and down to where her narrow, bare feet rested on the polished wooden floor, toes curled slightly, apparently poised, ready to run if necessary.
‘I have to ask you what the hell you are doing here, in my brother’s apartment—and dressed like that.’
Cassie knew that the robe was fastened firmly across her breasts, but still, when subjected to the cruel scrutiny of those molten eyes, she felt as if the flimsy protection of the delicate material had been torn away from her, leaving her dangerously exposed and vulnerable.
‘I—I live here now…’ she managed shakily, pulling the front of the garment even tighter across her chest, and undoing and then retying the belt in a jerky, nervous movement, more for something to do rather than because it actually needed adjusting.
‘Oh, do you?’
The question scorched across her already sensitised nerves, making her shiver inwardly at the ominous undercurrents that lurked in the depths of his tone, totally at odds with the simple words. They made her think of rocks with jagged edges and unwary boats, torn to pieces, sinking under the weight of water that poured in through holes ripped in their sides.
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
This time she dragged up a touch of defiance from somewhere, injecting it into her tone with an effort. But all the rebellion drained right out of her again as a cynical dark eyebrow lifted, expressing deep contempt without a word needing to be spoken.
‘I’ve moved in with Ramón,’ she declared, pushing the words between them like a shield against him—or against her own most foolish impulses.
It was impossible to think clearly—to think at all. She only wanted him to turn and walk out of here, to go, before she did something really stupid, like fling herself into his arms, telling him that she loved him and if he would only take her back…
I’ve moved in with Ramón.
The words flared behind Joaquin’s eyelids, searing themselves into his brain, blinding him, destroying all hope of thinking rationally.
I’ve moved in with Ramón.
Did she mean—she couldn’t mean what he thought! She didn’t…
But then he remembered the time, just over a week ago. The time when he had arrived home unexpectedly.
Cassandra had been in a strange mood that day. Jittery as a cat on hot bricks and obviously on edge.
And then Ramón had turned up, using her key, obviously expected—and she had smiled, her whole face lighting up…
Ramón, who had a habit of turning up out of the blue. He had done that years before and claimed to be—had been proved to be—his father’s son by another woman. The woman Juan Alcolar had said that he loved, while his legitimate son’s mother had been just a marriage of duty, of convenience. That revelation had destroyed Joaquin’s own belief in love and honesty and fidelity.
In any sort of happy ever after.
And now Cassandra. His Cassandra. His woman.
I’ve moved in with Ramón.
It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t! But why else would she say it? Why else would she be here, in that flimsy slip of a robe, obviously waiting for, expecting Ramón?
When she moved it was blatantly evident that underneath the robe she was wearing nothing at all. Her breasts swung softly, unfettered by any bra, and the smooth line of her hips…
He clenched his teeth together savagely, biting back the vicious outburst he wanted to fling in her face. His breath hissed between them as he struggled to get the worst of his black rage under control enough to speak.
‘You are living here—with my brother? You have been here all this time? While I was looking for you?’
She swallowed hard, seemed unable to speak, but there was no doubting the firmness of her nod of affirmation, the way those blue eyes clashed with his as she destroyed any remaining hope with a single gesture.
‘I see…’
Oh, he saw all right. And what he saw burned in his soul like acid, eating away at him deep inside.
‘So tell me, when did this happen?’
He was proud of that tone. It sounded almost cool, calm, in contrast to the lava-like fury that was boiling up inside him.
‘It’s obviously a very sudden thing.’
‘Not really—it’s been coming for a while.’
‘And you didn’t think to say anything?’
How the hell had he not noticed?
But of course he had. He had seen that something was wrong. It had been obvious that she’d been uneasy, edgy with him, never quite herself. But he had never imagined this.
And what the hell was herself? What was the real Cassandra? The true woman? The woman he’d known—thought he’d known…
‘I did try—but…’
‘You tried!’
The disgust he felt rang in his voice.
‘Oh, yes, lady, you tried. You tried so hard. You complained that I was going to work. Said that you didn’t want to act as my interpreter on Friday—well, you sure as hell got out of that one! By Friday you had disappeared from my life and I had no idea where on earth you were! You’d gone and all you left was that bloody note!’
He swung away from her, pacing the length of the room and back again, his eyes glazed, blurring his vision as he relived the night, a week before, when he had returned home to the empty room. An empty room in a still, silent, empty house.
He had called her name, thinking that she was perhaps by the pool or out in the garden. But there had been no answer. And so he had waited. He had set some wine to chill and he had sprawled on a lounger by the pool—the lounger on which they had made love the night before—and he had waited.
And waited.
And waited.
He had spent a long time thinking over the events of the previous night. Reviewing the things they had said to each other that morning. He had faced the fact that he was, after all, in deeper than he’d thought. Far deeper than he had ever believed was possible. That he had finally met the woman he couldn’t walk away from.
He’d looked at the decision he’d made during the day and known it was the only way open to him. He still hadn’t known if he believed in for ever, only that for this woman he had to give it a try. He’d taken out the ring that he’d bought, spending hours at a jeweller’s when he should have been at meetings. And he had struggled with a sensation that he had experienced only rarely in his life before.
Fear.
The fear that Cassandra might not feel the same way. That her change of mood, her strange behaviour over the past weeks had meant that she was the one who was preparing to turn her back on him. That she was the one who was about to walk. And as the time had dragged on and she hadn’t appeared, that fear had grown worse and worse.
It was when he had come inside again that he had found the note, tucked between two photograph frames on the mantelpiece, in a way that was such a cliché it would have been blackly humorous if it hadn’t been for what it had contained.
That note had taken all his worst possible fear and turned it dark as night.
“‘I’m sorry it had to be this way”,’ he quoted cynically now, “‘but it’s over.” And that was it. Not even a dozen words. Would it have killed you to say why?’
Cassandra flinched. She actually flinched away at his words, the sound of his anger. He couldn’t believe that she was shocked at his vehemence, surprised by his fury.
What the hell else had she expected?
Bitter memories surfaced. Memories of the night before she had left him, the delight he had felt in her then, the passion they had shared.
‘You gave no sign, woman. We slept together that night…’
He knew he didn’t have to say which night. The way her head went back, the brief moment in which she closed her eyes, the way her face whitened, all told him without speaking that his words had hit home.
‘We made love…’
But that brought her eyes open again in a rush, blazing into his in rejection of what he had said.
‘No, we didn’t! We did no such thing! We—we had sex…’
‘Sex—yeah.’
Hearing the way she said it, the use of the basic, blunt term instead of any gentler euphemism, told him just what she had felt about it. All that it had meant to her. The thought burned like acid in his guts.
He knew where Ramón kept the alcohol in his apartment and he headed over to the cupboard, pulling out a bottle of brandy and wrenching open the top of it with a vicious movement. Sloshing an unmeasured amount into a fine crystal glass, he lifted it, tilting it in Cassie’s direction in a mockery of a toast, before taking a deep swallow of the fiery liquid.
‘Yeah, we had sex,’ he went on savagely. ‘Good sex—the best!’
He turned blazing dark eyes on Cassie’s ashen face, fury etched onto his face.
‘Don’t you dare to try to deny that, my darling!’
‘I—wouldn’t,’ she managed to whisper, raw and husky. ‘I couldn’t…’
‘No, you couldn’t, mi belleza,’ he tossed back at her. ‘You most definitely could not. Not unless you are also going to claim to be the greatest actress the world has known. Remember I was there with you every inch of the way that night. I know how you felt; how you responded to me. You were there beneath me; I was with you, holding you, inside you! You can’t convince me that you weren’t out of your mind with wanting me—needing me…’
‘Yes—yes! I mean no…’
Cassie’s hands flew up and outward in a desperate gesture to cut him off when he would have raged on.
‘No, I can’t pretend I didn’t want you—I never have. I told you at the time that it was mutual.’
‘And yet less than twenty-four hours later, you had packed your bags and moved out—running from me—running here—to—to Ramón.’
In his mind he was seeing the day that Ramón had come to the finca, recalling the welcoming smile on her face, the way she had encouraged him into the house. Hell, she had even given him her keys!
The flare of hot jealousy hazed his eyes with red, blinding him as his hand clenched tight on the glass.
‘After what we shared.’
‘I told you at the time that there was more to it than enjoyment—than sex.’
‘And Ramón gives you this more?’
‘Right now, he gives me something that you never did!’
Her voice had lost something of the firmness it had held only moments before. Something he had said had struck home, shaking her conviction, rocking the foundations they were built on. But what? Which particular sentence had hit the target, thudding into the red, if not precisely into the gold?
There was something not quite right about this situation. Something he couldn’t completely work out—but every instinct he possessed told him that something was wrong. Something that raised all the tiny hairs on the back of his neck in warning like the hackles on a wary dog. But the haze of bitterness and shock, the raw agony of disbelief, clouded his brain so that thinking clearly was an impossibility.
Joaquin lifted the brandy bottle again, waving it in Cassie’s direction, lifting one eyebrow questioningly.
‘Join me in a drink?’
‘No—and do you think you should?’
‘Think I should?’ Joaquin echoed cynically. ‘Why not? After all, if my brother can steal my woman from me then surely I am entitled to help myself to some of his brandy in return.’
‘Steal your woman?’ Cassie repeated, actually managing to look convincingly bemused. ‘What are you talking about?’
“‘I’ve moved in with Ramón”,’ Joaquin quoted at her, considering the brandy bottle, then abruptly setting it down again. ‘You’re living with my brother.’
‘You knew that already! I told you…’
The shocking sense of realisation was like a blow to her face, stunning her into silence, shrivelling the words on her tongue.
Too late she realised how he was interpreting her reply. How he was putting far too much into it.
Not ‘you’re living with my brother’, as in you share this apartment with Ramón, but you’re living with Ramón. As she had once lived with Joaquin himself.
‘No,’ she tried but Joaquin wasn’t listening.
‘You said you were fine with what we had—that you didn’t want anything more.’
He slammed his half-empty glass down on the table, heedless of the way that the rich amber brandy slopped over the side.
‘Then Ramón—my brother—crooks his little finger and you’re gone! Without a second thought—leaving me a note!’
‘I-I didn’t have any time to say any more!’ Cassie stammered clumsily. ‘I—’
‘No time?’ Joaquin practically spat the words into her pale face. ‘And why was that, querida? Was your new lover waiting impatiently for you? Are you so insatiable that you’ve gone from my bed to my brother’s in less than a week? Couldn’t you wait to get to him—to Ramón? To mybrother?’
‘No! You’ve got it all wrong! I didn’t—’
‘Didn’t what, my darling? Didn’t leave me and come straight here to be with Ramón? Didn’t move in with him without a backward glance—’
‘Yes! I moved in with him!’ she tried again. ‘But not like that! We’re not lovers!’
Blazing black eyes seared over her from head to foot, taking in the short, clinging robe, her bare legs and toes.
