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Ice drenched her soul. From her fingertips to her toes, she lost all feeling in her limbs as she stared at him.
The events of the morning after their one-night stand had been bad enough, but this... Carla swallowed. Now she truly understood Javier’s cold fury.
Understood that she appeared to have dealt a far deeper, much more personal injury to his pride.
CHAPTER FIVE
JAVIER WATCHED HER grow paler by the second, her green eyes pools of deep shock as she stared at him.
‘What are you talking about? I-I didn’t say anything about your pedigree...or the low morals thing,’ she stammered.
‘But you admit the playboy thing?’ he drawled.
‘I was just...there were rumours about us after your party. I was just trying to—’
‘Distance yourself from the man who could ruin your “innocent princess” image?’
He watched her jaw tighten. ‘No, I wanted to kill the rumours once and for all. Besides, I didn’t think you’d welcome the association with me.’
‘So you threw me under the bus to save me? How ingenuous—or should I say ingenious—of you.’
She swiped a shaky hand across her forehead. ‘I’m sorry! The reporter caught me off-guard. As for the other thing, I know nothing about it. Even if I did, I’d never say anything like that,’ she implored.
He’d investigated the source of those rumours, knew it was someone in her management team who’d made that damaging statement when questioned about Javier’s association with her. Watching her try to wriggle herself off the hook, he wondered how he could think straight with the fury pounding through his blood.
‘It’s easy to be remorseful after the event, isn’t it? And, sí, Principessa, my parentage is questionable. I’m the bastard son of an aristocrat. It’s a circumstance I accepted long ago. But that didn’t give you the right to go digging for it, then airing it in public for your own petty amusement.’
Her mouth worked, no doubt searching for more lies to excuse her behaviour. He waited for it, detachedly interested to see how she extricated herself from this latest stain on her character. He’d meant the words he’d thrown at her when he’d kicked her out of his house in Miami. At the time, a part of him had reeled at how desperately he’d wanted their one-night stand to continue. She should’ve been forgettable, the decision to create an immediate distance between them the morning after his to make.
Instead he’d kept up with any news on her career and personal life. And reeled even further at her heartless slurs on his reputation.
She cleared her throat. ‘Javier...please—’
He stopped her meaningless words with a dismissive wave. ‘Save it. What puzzles me is how can you be so exceptionally talented in one discipline of your life and yet fail so abysmally in every other aspect?’
She flinched. But slowly her head rose, her eyes meeting his boldly. Hell, she even had the gall to raise one perfect eyebrow at him.
‘So...here we are, Javier. What happens next?’
He took his time swallowing the last of his wine, wishing it were something stronger, more bracing with a numbing after-effect. ‘Don’t worry, querida. The lessons I intend to teach you will be delivered in good time.’
Her swift inhalation allayed a little of his fury. She would never know how damaging the revelation about his parentage had been. It’d handed his father the perfect excuse to deny him the only thing he’d ever asked of him. The one thing he’d promised his mother on her deathbed—a proper burial with the family who’d rejected her because of her affair with his father, who had been a married man.
Bitterness stained the fury, charging through him with renewed vigour.
Unable to sit still, he surged to his feet. Her head snapped up to meet his gaze, an imploration he had no intention of succumbing to gleaming from the green depths.
When she struggled to her feet and faced him head-on, he almost felt sorry for her. ‘I didn’t say those things about your parentage, Javier.’
‘But the anonymous tip came from your management. Therefore the responsibility and the fault is yours. I have every intention of making sure you own up to it.’
She stumbled back a step. He was reaching out for her protectively with his free hand before he’d fully grasped his own instinctive action. Clenching his traitorous fist, he slammed his glass down, and shoved both hands in his pockets.
Her frailty was an illusion. She didn’t need or want his help. She had a backbone of steel when it came to going after what she wanted.
‘It’s obvious something else is going on here other than you’re letting on. Tell me the consequences so I can try and make it right,’ she pleaded.
He froze. Part of him reeled that she would finally acknowledge her actions so openly. But then he remembered it was part of her usual machinations, her ability to disarm him with her words.
