Читать книгу The Alcolar Family: The Twelve-Month Mistress / The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife / Bound by Blackmail - Kate Walker - Страница 9

CHAPTER FOUR

GIVING in to cowardice, Cassie decided she was no longer so sure she wanted to risk finding out. Never ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, her mother always said. And there was one answer to this that she did not want to hear at all.

‘Friday?’ she asked, trying to distract herself with a glance in the mirror and grimacing in distaste as she saw the way she looked.

Swamped by the black robe that was designed for Joaquin’s tall, masculine frame and not her own feminine one, and with her blonde hair tangled into an appalling bird’s nest, she looked a wreck, nothing like the elegant professional woman who had first caught Joaquin’s eye at that first business meeting.

She was going to ask him if they had a future together, looking like this? Where was her pride? Her self-esteem?

Reaching for her hairbrush, she started to pull it through her hair, wincing sharply as it caught in a particularly tight knot.

‘Why is Friday so important?’

She knew she was prevaricating, delaying the moment and the question that would decide her fate. If she really had to ask it? Couldn’t she give it a miss just for today? Couldn’t they go on as they were for a little while yet? Have one more night like last night?

‘What’s happening then?’

‘I’m meeting the buyers from London—we’re meeting the buyers from London,’ Joaquin amended.

‘We?’ Cassie echoed, frowning her confusion at his reflection in the mirror. ‘You want me to be there?’

‘Of course—you’re my interpreter.’

‘But they’re English! You don’t need an interpreter for them! You speak perfect English—quite possibly better than some of them!’

Joaquin’s grin was wide and wicked, a flash of brilliantly white teeth in his darkly tanned face.

‘I know that and you do too. But I don’t necessarily want them to know that. At least, not at this stage of the game. I would prefer them to think that I might not understand everything they say. That way they might not be quite so guarded in their opinions—they might let something slip.’

‘Something you can use to your advantage?’

‘Obviamente. What else?’

What else? Cassie asked herself privately. What else would Joaquin be thinking of but business? What else would matter to him as much as making money, wheeling and dealing?

Why was she fooling herself even trying to hope that he might have something more personal, more emotional on his mind?

Her hair was almost brushed smooth now. Every tangle had been tugged out of it and it was no longer a bird’s nest. But it looked as flat and as limp as she felt deep inside.

To her horror hot tears stung at her eyes and she blinked hard to fight them back, slowly turning to face Joaquin where he stood in the middle of the room, eyes dark, a faint frown on his face, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his trousers.

‘So you want me to come and sit in on a business meeting on Friday?’

‘A business dinner,’ Joaquin corrected. ‘We’re taking them out to dinner in the evening—now what the hell was that look for?’

‘What look?’ Cassie tried to hedge, though she knew from his dark scowl that it hadn’t worked.

He had always been able to see right through her when she tried to avoid telling him the truth. That was why she had had such a terrible time keeping the way she was feeling from him just lately. For once she had had cause to be thankful that he was a workaholic. When he was out of the house, she could let her mask slip, admit to the fears she was facing about the future.

‘What look?’ Joaquin echoed, lacing the words with dark mockery.

He strode across the room towards her, catching hold of her shoulders and spinning her round so that she faced the mirror once more. When she tried to avoid looking at her own reflection, afraid of what she might see, he caught her chin firmly between hard finger and thumb and turned her face so that she couldn’t do anything else.

‘That look! The one that tells me I have committed some appalling sin, one for which I should beg forgiveness on my knees before you, clad in sackcloth and ashes.’

‘Oh, now you’re being ridiculous!’

‘Am I?’ Joaquin questioned darkly. ‘Am I really? Look at yourself, Cassie—look!’ he commanded when she stubbornly struggled to avert her face, not wanting to meet her own eyes in the glass.

Cassie knew what she saw—but what was it that Joaquin saw in her face? Was it really possible that he could have misinterpreted her expression? That where she saw eyes clouded by anxiety, and a face that struggled to hide the pain and fear she had lived with for days, he saw something else? Something that made him think she was angry and distant from him? That she was the one whose mood was likely to prove difficult and disruptive?

Right now, feeling as vulnerable as she did, just the idea seemed like a welcome relief. Clearly the thought that their all-important anniversary was coming up meant little to him. Less than little—nothing at all! He’d even arranged a business meeting for the day. And wanted her to act as his employee!

‘Do you know what day it is on Friday?’

His reaction was so swift, so revealing that it tore at her heart. His head went back, very slightly, his eyes narrowing. And then there was a total blanking out of his expression, all trace of anything wiped from his features so that they were as smooth and unrevealing as those of a marble statue, the dark eyes as opaque as the unseeing sockets in a carved head.

‘Of course I know what day it is. The day we met—a year ago.’

‘Then…’

‘Oh, I see—I’m supposed to go the whole sentimental road, am I? Flowers and chocolates?’

He was taunting her now, provoking deliberately, she knew, but she couldn’t stop herself from rising to the provocation. Besides, it was probably so much better than letting him see how devastated she really was deep inside.

‘Well, I’d expected something!’

Was that cold, tight little voice really hers?

‘What I get is a business meeting! And, what’s more, a business meeting at which I’m supposed to be working!’

‘That meeting has been arranged for a long time.’

‘Oh, I’ll just bet it has!’

And she should know exactly what came first in Joaquin’s mind. Business first and foremost every time. No matter what else might be involved.

‘And even if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t cancel it.’

‘No.’

It was cold and flat and totally unmovable. Of course.

‘I couldn’t cancel it even if I wanted to.’

‘And you don’t want to.’

‘No.’

Damn the woman, what had got into her lately? He never knew which Cassandra would be waiting for him when he got home. Never knew if the Cassandra who had so enchanted and enthralled him from the start would be there, or the difficult, moody, bad-tempered creature who seemed to have taken her place for the past few weeks. The first Cassandra would have understood that this meeting had been set up months ago and even if he wanted to get out of it, there was no way that he could.

This Cassandra didn’t seem to understand very much at all. Let alone the fact that he had been working so hard lately in order to give himself some space, some time to try to get things sorted out in his mind.

‘Look, I know exactly what day it is on Friday—but it’s not as if we have something worth celebrating. If we’d been married it might have been different…’

Her reaction showed how much she disliked his words. Her head went back, her face stiffening. Her eyes seemed darker, sharper, colder, and even the soft fullness of her mouth seemed to have thinned and tightened as if holding back something bitter and harsh that she really wanted to say.

‘Is that it?’ he demanded abruptly. ‘Is that what you want? Is it marriage you’re after?’

If it was possible, she looked even more appalled. Horrified.

‘Marriage I’m… No!’

She shook her head, sending her blonde hair flying as she emphasised the word.

‘No!’ she said again, tossing her brush down onto the rumpled surface of the bed to reinforce the statement. ‘No way! Never! If you’re thinking that I wanted you to go down on one knee and beg me to marry you, then think again.’

So he’d been heading down the wrong road with thoughts like that, Joaquin admitted to himself. He didn’t know whether the feeling that rushed through him was one of relief or savage regret at the thought that he had obviously been so completely wrong. Yesterday he would have said that relief would be uppermost. Today he was not so sure.

‘I told you I don’t do commitment!’ he growled awkwardly.

‘And when did I ever ask you for any such thing?’

‘Then we both understand each other.’

‘Perfectly,’ Cassandra tossed at him, moving to the wardrobe and yanking open the door, staring fixedly inside as she decided what to wear for the day.

‘Bueno!’

‘Yes, bueno!’ she muttered into the wardrobe. ‘We’re both on the same track for once.’

Now relief was very definitely the most forceful feeling he was experiencing. Total, overwhelming, undiluted relief that he hadn’t opened himself up to her.

He couldn’t believe that he had come so close to saying something damned stupid. Something she really didn’t want. Something like. I don’t do commitment, but for you…

For you what?

If he’d started that sentence, then how the hell would he have finished it?

He didn’t know. He couldn’t even have said to himself what he felt—except that right now what he had with this woman was something he wanted to hold onto.

For ever? He didn’t know. He didn’t believe in a forever kind of love. He might have done once—as a child, he would have said that he wanted the sort of marriage that his parents had: perfect, loving faithful. Then, when he was fifteen, he’d found out that that marriage was just an illusion. His father had been unfaithful not once, but twice. And he had a son from each relationship.

Even worse, he had learned that the relationship that had resulted in his own birth and that of his sister had never truly been founded on love, but on duty and expediency, the need to have an heir for the family business, and hard, cold, financial facts.

He had seen his mother’s devastated face, heard her crying in her bed, heard the rows that had raged in the stillness of the night. He had stopped believing in love and commitment and for ever. And nothing that had happened since then had changed his mind.

If anything, his own experience had reinforced the belief he had come to in those long-ago nights. He was his father’s son. Like Juan Alcolar, he wasn’t made for a long-term, exclusive, faithful relationship. No woman he had known had lasted more than a year. He had tired of them and moved on, without even a backward glance, and that had suited him fine.

But he wasn’t tired of this one. No way.

And last night had proved that with a vengeance!

But what about Cassandra? That was a question he had no answer to. Just lately he hadn’t known what her mood would be, couldn’t guess at what she was thinking—feeling. She seemed restless and unsettled. It had crossed his mind more than once that perhaps she was ready to move on.

That perhaps she had already found someone else.

But no—if she had, would last night have been so devastating? So overwhelmingly sensual? Surely if her mind, her heart were already straying, she couldn’t have responded to him in that way?

‘So we are in agreement?’

‘Mmm…’

Cassandra’s head was buried in the wardrobe and as she pulled out a dress whatever she had said in response was hopelessly muffled.

‘Neither of us wants more than we already have?’ Joaquin continued, feeling as if he were inching his way through shark-infested water, not at all sure what he might find. ‘What we agreed on from the start?’

‘No ties, no commitment…’

Cassandra’s attention was on the dress, checking it over with what he privately considered excessive care.

‘Exacto!’

His tone brought her eyes to his face in a rush and just for a moment he wondered… But then she smiled and nodded emphatically.

‘Exactly!’ she confirmed, her voice as firm and unwavering as her wide-eyed gaze. ‘That’s what you offered from the start. You were always straight with me. Have I ever asked for more?’

‘No.’

Joaquin flashed her a quick, wide grin, using it to hide the maelstrom of feeling inside.

‘That’s why we fit together so well—why I’m so comfortable with you. You don’t want any more than I can give.’

‘No,’ Cassandra said, an odd, strangled note in her voice. ‘No, I don’t want anything more than you can give.’

Her eyes moved away from his, glancing at the clock on the bedside table, and when she spoke again that odd, inexplicable note had vanished, so totally that he was forced to wonder if it had ever been there at all. Or if, in fact, he had just imagined it.

‘If you have to go to work, then you’d better get a move on,’ she said unexpectedly casually, her previous annoyance at the prospect seeming to be forgotten. ‘You don’t want to be late.’

‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

Moving forward, he planted a quick, hard kiss on her lips, putting into it the relief he felt that, perhaps, after all they had moved past this difficult, uncomfortable stage and into clearer waters. To his surprise she didn’t respond as fervently as she usually did, her mouth remaining stiff and unresponsive under his. Perhaps she wasn’t over her annoyance as much as he had thought.

But he didn’t have time to wonder, or to waste in any more argument. He really was going to be late if he didn’t hurry. Tonight they could talk.

‘I’ll see you tonight,’ he said. ‘We’ll continue where we left off…’

The swift, burning glance that swung from her face to the bed with its evidence of the passionate night they had shared left no doubt as to exactly what he meant. At least in bed they had no difficulty in communicating with the utmost clarity.

‘Tonight,’ he repeated, already heading for the door.

‘Goodbye…’

Her reply was faint, cut off before it was completed as the door slammed to behind him.

‘Goodbye…’ Cassie repeated on a higher, quavering note, her voice breaking in the middle of the word. ‘Goodbye, my love.’

Tears brimming in her eyes, she pressed her fingers to her mouth as if to crush down the kiss that he had left her with. It might be—had to be—the last kiss she would ever have from Joaquin and she wanted to hold onto it for as long as she possibly could, taste the faint lingering touch of his mouth on hers for as long as she could make it last.

She hadn’t managed to ask her question outright. In the end she’d chickened out, cowardice and the sheer terror of knowing the truth holding her back and preventing her from speaking even though she had resolved to do so.

But she hadn’t needed to speak. As it happened, Joaquin had answered the question completely and honestly, without her ever having to ask it.

‘I told you I don’t do commitment!’

‘Neither of us wants more than we already have.’

‘No ties, no commitment.’

‘You don’t want any more than I can give.’

What else did she need to know? How much clearer could Joaquin make things? He didn’t see any real future for them together. Didn’t want any more than what they already had. And it was obviously only by sheer luck that he hadn’t already imposed his usual twelve-month-cut-off rule to what was left of their relationship.

No, not luck.

Recalling his last words, the way he had looked at her before he’d left, and the way his black-eyed gaze had gone to the bed, Cassie told herself miserably that she knew exactly why he hadn’t imposed that cut-off rule yet.

Sex.

‘We’ll continue where we left off…’

And where they had left off was in bed. Making passionate love…

No! Not making love, but having hot, passionate sex. Hot passionate, unemotional sex.

That was it. That was all he saw between them. All he cared about. All he wanted.

It was not enough for her. It was not all she wanted. Very definitely not all she cared about.

And knowing it was all that he could offer was not something she could cope with.

She loved him so very much. And loving him so much, she couldn’t endure being with him and knowing he felt nothing for her.

So she had to go.

She didn’t want that either, but she had no choice. What Joaquin could give her was not enough to sustain her, or keep her heart happy in any way. It would kill her eventually. It would drain even the deep, deep well of love she had for him in the end. And it would destroy her more completely than leaving now would do.

If she left now, she would have less pain in the long run. It would be a clean, sharp, single blow—over and done with like an amputation. Like an amputation, the wound would scar over, in the end. It would never fully heal. There would always be a part of her, a large piece of her heart, that would be empty and damaged, but she would at least be able to function.

But if she stayed, she might end up totally destroyed, or, even worse, hating Joaquin so much that she set out to destroy him too.

So she had to go. Though she had nowhere to go to.

Now, while she still had the chance. While Joaquin was out of the way and wouldn’t try to stop her. Because if he tried to stop her, for whatever reasons, then she knew she would give in and would lie down and let him walk all over her, emotionally at least. He would only have to say the single word, ‘Stay,’ and, fool that she was, she would stay, clinging on vainly to the hope that there would one day, in her dreams, be something more.

‘And there never will be,’ she sighed aloud. ‘Never. He’s made that quite clear.’

He couldn’t have made it plainer if he’d tried. The axe might not be falling to sever their relationship right now, but she couldn’t delude herself that it wouldn’t fall, hard and fast, in the end when Joaquin decided that he had tired of her in bed too. He’d just about said as much, and, in pain and too scared to show it, she had reacted in instinctive panic. She had played a role, been colder, harder, more demanding than she would ever be capable of being in reality.

When Joaquin came home and found her gone, he would remember only that role. He would recall how she had been angry—at the fact that he wasn’t celebrating their anniversary, he would believe. He would think that that was what had driven her to pack up and leave. It would never cross his mind to think that maybe, after all, she had been lying when she had said that she didn’t want more than he could give.

Cassie shook her head despondently.

She hadn’t been lying.

She didn’t want from him anything more than he could give—and give willingly and happily. If he couldn’t give her his heart, his love, then she wasn’t going to stay around, making it plain that she wanted, needed more, and making him uncomfortable because he didn’t feel the way she longed for him to do.

No, she would go now, quietly and quickly, while he was out. She would take only the basic minimum of things she needed, and she would be gone before he came back. If she could just think of somewhere to go.

The sound of the telephone on the table beside the bed had her whirling and running to snatch it up, unexpected hope making her heart thud in fearful anticipation.

‘Joaquin?’

Had he changed his mind? Rung back to say he was sorry—that he’d said all the wrong things—that what he wanted was to spend the day with her—and say…

But the voice at the other end of the line, although accented and deep, was not Joaquin’s.

‘Wrong brother, sweetheart,’ Ramón drawled lightly. ‘But I was looking for Joaquin, actually. Do I take it from your tone that he’s not there with you?’

‘No—no, he’s not.’

And never likely to be again.

The truth hit home with a shock that turned Cassie’s knees weak and had her sinking down onto the bed before they gave way completely.

‘He’s not here, Ramón. He went into work.’

She had thought that she had controlled her voice well enough. That she had erased the betraying tremor, the faint shadow of tears. But not well enough. Something had given her away, and Ramón had caught it.

‘What’s wrong, Cassie?’ he demanded, his voice sharpening noticeably.

Cassie smoothed her hand over the crumpled pillow where Joaquin’s dark head had rested just a short time before. The fine cotton was cool now, no heat from his body remaining, but the sheets still bore the lingering traces of the scent of his skin, and she inhaled hungrily, desperate to hold onto this one last physical memory of the man she loved.

‘Cassie?’ Ramón said again, more forcefully this time. ‘What’s happened?’

‘It’s—it’s over, Ramón…’

She forced herself to say it though it tore at her heart, ripping it to shreds to hear the words aloud.

‘We’ve broken up. No longer together—I—I’m leaving him.’

‘What?’

Ramón swore violently in explosive Spanish.

‘But I thought you guys were perfect together! Why the—? Oh—don’t tell me—Joaquin and his damn one-year rule again? Is that it?’

‘Something like that,’ Cassie said sadly. It was close enough to the truth and she really didn’t feel up to explaining the whole facts.

‘The man’s mad!’ Joaquin’s brother muttered. ‘Crazy! But, Cassie—don’t let him do this to you! You have to fight him…’

‘No!’ Cassie put in hastily, terrified that Ramón might make her want to weaken, that he might persuade her to stay. ‘It’s not Joaquin’s decision—it’s mine. I’m the one who’s leaving.’

The silence at the other end of the phone line almost destroyed her. Ramón at a loss for words was as rare an event as Joaquin being in the same condition, and it was very nearly as devastating.

‘You?’

‘Joaquin was right, Ramón,’ Cassie put in hastily. ‘This relationship was only a one-year thing. We came to the end of the line—nowhere else to go.’

Nowhere that Joaquin was prepared to go anyway, she told herself miserably, refusing even to look at the hope of what might have been.

‘It’s over, finished. I’m moving out today. I just need to find somewhere to stay until—’

Ramón didn’t allow her to finish her sentence.

‘I’ll be round at once,’ he said decisively, his tone making it clear there was no room for argument. ‘I’ll help you pack and then you can move in here with me.’