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‘Tomorrow, you may feel I took advantage of you. I can wait.’ Wildly impatient and hungry dark eyes slammed into hers and hurriedly veiled. ‘I can give you time. This is not as important as you think to me. You must be very sure that this is what you want.’
‘I want you.’ Dampness stinging her eyelids, she blinked fiercely. ‘I want you so much.’
‘Enamorada…te quiero, te quiero,’ he intoned raggedly, accepting her invitation with an exciting lack of restraint.
He had taught her of pleasure that teased and pleasure that burned and this time he taught her of pleasure that had no limits, pleasure that went on and on and on until she cried out his name, caught up and controlled by the storm of passion and flung gloriously over the edge of the horizon.
He was covering her hot face with kisses when she recovered, talking in a riveting mix of Spanish and English, and there was a lot about how much he loved her, how he couldn’t bear to live without her, how he would never let her out of his sight again. It was heaven, absolute heaven. She lay there drinking it all in, dazed, exhilarated, punch drunk on the amazing knowledge that he was hers, absolutely, irrevocably hers, retrieved at the eleventh hour from the very jaws of death…or whatever you called all those ravenous other women out there, she reflected, feeling a lot more charitable towards those faceless hordes. No competition now.
‘In the morning, we can fly to Madrid,’ he murmured between slightly less teasing kisses, a communicable tension in his hard, muscular length.
‘Madrid?’
‘We have a townhouse there.’ He met her still-dreaming eyes with just the smallest hint of apprehension. ‘Caterina lives and works in Madrid. I would like you to meet her.’
‘Can’t it wait a day or two?’
‘Caterina is not the type to intrude.’ He was practically telepathic in interpreting her lukewarm response and she felt instantly mean and over-possessive. ‘The children can stay here and join us later in the week if they miss us.’
‘If?’ she queried.
‘Our children are very self-sufficient.’
There was no arguing with fact. ‘What age is your cousin?’ she asked curiously.
‘Two years my senior.’
‘She’s divorced, isn’t she?’
He sighed. ‘About eight years ago, she let Lucia browbeat her into marrying a very rich American. She is not like her mother and Lucia has always given her a hard time. Gerry wasn’t much better for her ego. He beat her up regularly.’
‘Oh, lord,’ Sarah breathed in horror.
‘Early in their marriage, his violence cost her the child she was carrying. She had a nervous breakdown,’ Rafael volunteered. ‘She recovered but Lucia didn’t want her to get a divorce. Not only was there the question of religion but also the loss of Gerry’s money. Caterina had signed a pre-nuptial contract. In the event of a divorce, she got virtually nothing. When she confided in me, I persuaded her to leave Gerry. I gave her the strength to do it.’
‘I’m glad. Thank goodness she did listen to you.’ Sarah was warmly sympathetic. ‘Lucia really is a horror, isn’t she?’
* * *
They flew to Madrid on a company jet. Sarah was feeling happy, so happy that she was almost afraid. She had that ‘on a roller-coaster’ sensation and it was a very long time since she had last let her emotions control her to that extent.
‘I ought to tell you about my years in Truro.’ A rueful smile curved her mouth. ‘We shouldn’t have any secrets from each other.’
It seemed to her that Rafael became marginally less at ease within seconds. In fact, come to think of it—and she didn’t really want to think of it—he might be lounging in a relaxed fashion but ever since they had climbed aboard the jet there had been an odd indefinable tension in the atmosphere, a tension that for some reason best known to himself he was working hard to conceal.
‘But you have nothing to explain to me,’ he sighed. ‘I was very much in the wrong and I had no right to speak to you as I did. It was wondrously generous of you to tell me the truth.’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘You did believe me?’
‘You have always told me the truth but I am very stubborn when an idea becomes fixed in my head,’ he acknowledged, tawny eyes resting on her with faint amusement. ‘I am also very jealous and I had never had to be jealous of you before. It did me no harm. Now you can tell me about Truro.’
He was very quiet and low-key. Her brow furrowed. What was wrong with him? And then she felt awful, really awful for forgetting how he felt about flying. Bless him, she thought guiltily, he still hadn’t got over that phobia and he was predictably set on being macho for her benefit. Admitting to fear was Rafael’s biggest problem. Admitting to irrational fear was quite impossible for him. On the first flight she had ever shared with him he had pretended to sleep and she had been fooled until he staggered on to solid ground again, grey-faced and drained. Since then he had improved enormously and she would have liked to tell him that, but felt that tact required her to draw no attention to what he was experiencing.
Instead she began to talk, hoping to take his mind off things. Inconsequential chatter, however, did not provide much of a diversion. His responses were monosyllabic and, in the end, she fell silent. A limousine collected them at the airport. Sarah stole a glance at the tension that was now squarely etched in his features and took a deep breath. ‘You probably don’t want me to mention this but I think it would be easier if you just talked about it.’
A line formed between his ebony brows. ‘Talked about what?’
‘Your phobia about flying,’ she said gently.
‘My what?’ He looked at her in astonishment and then suddenly grinned disarmingly. ‘Sarah, I got over that years ago.’
She had to glue her tongue to the roof of her mouth. If that was how he wanted to play it, she guessed that she was expected to abide by the rules. The townhouse was not what she had naively expected. It was a mansion set behind imposingly high walls, not the convenient little pied-a-terre of her imagining.
A manservant opened double doors that gave on to an impressive marble tiled hall. Marble busts on pedestals and Ionic columns vied for her attention.
‘It’s like a museum,’ Rafael breathed unappreciatively. ‘My grandparents used this house as their permanent home when I was a child. Abuela still prefers it to Alcazar. Felipe also let Caterina stay here until she found an apartment.’ He paused. ‘I’ve invited her to join us here for lunch.’
‘Fine.’ But Sarah’s mind had taken a very feminine jump on to what one might wear to meet a fashion designer. ‘I think I’ll freshen up.’
‘I have some calls to make.’
A maid showed her up to their bedroom. Sarah absorbed the massive baroque splendour of the gilded and heavily draped four-poster bed with wide eyes. It was something of a surprise to find a completely up to date bathroom next door. Laying out an elegant Yves St Laurent suit, she began to undress. She was grateful that she had taken the time in Seville to add a few extras to her wardrobe. The fitted V-necked top and flowing skirt in soft complementary shades of grey, purple and blue were very flattering against her light hair and the tan she had acquired.
As she reached the head of the stairs, she heard the front doors opening and Rafael strode out into the hall. A woman hurried to greet him. He stretched out his hands and she gripped them, leaning forward to kiss him Continental fashion on both cheeks. It was only as she drew back that Sarah drew in her breath sharply.
Her fingers tightened bone-white on the banister. Shock was rippling through her in waves. Her heart was thumping like a trip hammer. It couldn’t be the same woman, it simply couldn’t be. How good could her recall be of a photograph she had only seen once five years ago? This woman looked smaller, thinner. Her tumbled dark curls were shorter, held back by ivory combs. They were still holding hands, talking in low urgent voices, entirely intent on each other.
Very slowly, Sarah released her grip on the banister and retreated several steps back on to the landing. She was terrified of being seen. Caterina. Rafael’s cousin. Once married to an American. His silence now made a horrible kind of sense and of course he didn’t necessarily know that there had been a photograph, did he? Caterina had been the woman with him in that hotel room, the woman who had destroyed her marriage, the woman who had caused her untold pain and suffering. It was definitely her and most ironically she was not as beautiful as Sarah had made her in her memory. Her features were too strong for beauty but she was very attractive.
She made it back to the bedroom without realising that she had gone there. Gazing blankly round the room, she made an effort to pull herself together. It didn’t work. What the heck was going on? What had she got herself into? Rafael expected her to sit down to lunch with this woman. To say that at the very least that was tacky of him was to be generous. Incredibly generous. Her stomach heaved.
‘Aren’t you ready yet?’ Rafael was in the doorway, sleek and elegant in a lightweight dark grey suit. ‘Caterina has arrived early.’
‘I saw her.’ Bitter anger shuddered through her and, with it, a sickening sense of betrayal. ‘And I recognised her.’
‘So there was a photograph,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Papa was most thorough. I should have been prepared for that possibility.’
Wide-eyed with disbelief, Sarah stared at him. ‘You weren’t prepared? May you rot in hell for this!’ she launched in disgust.
