Читать книгу The Holiday Escapes Collection - Сандра Мартон - Страница 79
ОглавлениеRAÚL SAT IN Sol’s with the music pumping and stared at the heaving dance floor.
A vineyard.
A vineyard which, if he sold it, wouldn’t even pay for his yacht for a year—would Estelle stick around then?
Yes.
He had never doubted his ability to start again, but he doubted it now—could not bear the thought of letting her down.
‘Te odio.’ He could hear his five-year-old voice hurling the words at his mother, telling her he hated her for missing his play.
He’d been a child, a five-year-old having a row, yet for most of his life he had thought those words had driven his mother to despair that day.
Could he do it?
Whisk Estelle away from a family that loved her to live in the hills with a man who surely wasn’t capable of love?
Except he did love her.
And she loved him.
He had done everything he could think of to ensure it would not happen, had put so many rules in place, and yet here it was—staring at him, wrapping around him like a blanket on a stifling day.
He did not want her love, did not want the weight of it. Did not want to be responsible for another’s heart.
She would stand by him, Raúl knew, but the fallout was going to be huge. The empire was divided. He could smell the slash and burn that would take place and he did not want her exposed to it.
His phone buzzed in his pocket but he refused to look at it, because if he saw her name he would weaken.
Raúl looked across the dance floor, saw an upper-class hooker, ordered her a drink and gestured her over.
He took out some money and as she opened her bag made his request.
‘Lápiz de labios,’ Raúl said, and pointed to his neck.
He did not have to explain himself to her. She delivered his request—put her mouth to his neck and did as he asked.
‘Perfume,’ he ordered next, and she took out her cheap scent and sprayed him.
‘Gracias.’
It was done now.
Raúl stood and headed for home.
