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‘You didn’t. I did.’
‘And your permission came from where?’
He sent her one of those seductively appealing lazy grins. ‘I’m not answering that. I daren’t,’ he confided.
She frowned and crossed her arms. ‘I believe there is also a team of surveyors on my property?’
He nodded in confirmation. ‘After we marry. Santa Rosa will be placed in a trust—or have you forgotten about that too?’
‘A trust for whom?’ she almost choked out.
‘Whoever you decide will inherit it from you.’ He shrugged. ‘Since we won’t be able to spend all our time here it seemed sensible to protect Santa Rosa as much as is possible. The surveyors will also be looking at the forest. The Government frowns on deforestation these days. In fact I am amazed a protection order was not placed on it years ago.’
There was so much sense in what he was saying that he could see she was struggling to find an argument—though she did find one.
‘I would have liked to be consulted about all of this before Santa Rosa was invaded.’
‘No time,’ he said. ‘You were asleep and I needed to get things moving. My mother—’
‘Why is your mother here?’
‘She’s not welcome?’
‘Of course she’s welcome.’ Cristina frowned. ‘But I—’
‘She wants to help you choose your wedding outfit. But if you would rather she—’
‘Luis—I am not marrying you!’
‘Not that again.’ He sighed. ‘Which door would you like me to try and leave by, so you can have a running start at barring my way?’
She flushed. And so she should, Anton thought, losing enthusiasm for the provoking game. He had known she would change her mind again the moment she opened her eyes this morning. He had known that the tragic creature he’d loved in every way he could last night had only been recharging her batteries before she went on the defensive again. He’d meant to stay out of her way—had planned to do that right up until the moment he’d stood over her this morning, watching her sleep with his pillow clutched in her arms, and something had hit him.
The sense of honour that Sebastian must have instilled in him—because he sure as hell hadn’t got it from his real father. Cristina deserved to have her say, even if it did mean yet another battle.
‘I’m going to tell you something I had vowed to keep to myself. But having you continually try to make me walk away from you, I’ve changed my mind.’
Her chin came up in defensive readiness. Anton thought about going over there and just kissing her into surrender, then grimly stuck to his guns and pushed himself into speech.
‘When Ramirez tempted me out to Brazil to look for you he did it with just one clever sentence that insisted I “make reparation” to the woman I ran out on six years before, leaving her in dire straits.’
‘But you didn’t do that.’
‘Did I not?’ He looked grimly at her whitened face. ‘I thought I hadn’t. I thought that you should be making reparation to me for the way you kicked me out of your life—but look at you, Cristina.’ He indicated brutally. ‘Look at the prickly, self-defensive, half-empty shadow you’ve become of that wonderful, excitingly vital and light-hearted creature I knew six years ago.’
She went pale. Anton sighed. ‘Would you have become this person if I’d stayed around and fought for what I wanted? No, you would not,’ he declared without expecting a reply. ‘You would not have let your father sell you to some no-good vengeful swine because you didn’t care what happened to you. You would have been mine! And, on being mine, you would have been pulled by your beautiful hair out of your shock and your grief and made to see that you did not need to be anything other than the beautiful person you are—to be loved by me! However, I walked,’ he breathed in contempt. ‘Which makes the accusation Ramirez made against me true. Because I do owe you—for not being man enough to stop still long enough to think why you needed to lash out at me. I owe you, querida, for six long miserable years of existing in a vacuum breaking your poor heart over me!’
She walked out. Anton stood there staring at the door she’d shut behind her. His hand went up to wipe the angry pallor from his face. He didn’t know why she had walked out, or what she was thinking. He didn’t even know if he’d just made the biggest mistake by telling her that he had his own guilt to feed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ORRACA found Cristina in her bedroom, staring out through the window.
‘Enrique Ramirez is the English gaucho’s papa. His mamma has just told me,’ she announced. ‘Enrique is the man who saved your life when I foolishly let go of your hand. He pulled that horse away from you at great risk to himself, never mind that swine Ordoniz. If Ramirez wants you to marry his son, then do it. You owe him that.’
‘Everyone seems to owe everyone something,’ Cristina murmured.
‘Sim,’ Orraca agreed. ‘But a debt only becomes a burden if you do not want to pay it. You want to pay the debt, child, but you are too surrounded here by bad ghosts that tell you to turn the debt into a burden. Get away from here, Cristina,’ the old woman advised. ‘Marry the son of Enrique Ramirez, spit in the eye of the bad spirits and see what life brings.’
