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“Carlos? Timid?” Addie clarified.
“Not in social situations, but in business. He lacks the instincts that are necessary, perhaps because he wasn’t interested in sharpening them.” Guy shrugged. “The corporation should not be a noose. It is large enough that it can operate with paid executives, outside the family. I work at it because it is my passion; because, as you say, it is in my blood. But my father had every right to choose a different path for himself.”
“Of course he did.” Addie said softly, the water lapping around them in soft, gentle undulations. “What path did he choose?”
“He and my mother are art investors – world renowned. They sponsor several artists, enabling them to work when they otherwise would struggle. They have a galleria in Barcelona and one in Florence.”
“You never mentioned that before,” she said.
“It didn’t come up.” The tightness was back, the remembering of differences, pushing her away, even when their bodies were melded as one. “Put on your swimsuit, Ava. We should get back.”
“Why do you do that?” She asked softly, not moving away from him.
That same muscle jerked in his jaw, and she lifted a finger to it. His whole body tightened. “Do what?”
“Use that name?”
“It is the name you gave me,” he said with a dark undercurrent. “Why should I not use it?”
“Because I hate it,” she said softly, refusing to avoid his gaze even when the intensity of his probing stare was making her heart wobble. “You don’t know how much I came to loathe hearing it on your lips. How I ached to hear you call me Adeline instead.” Her eyes swept shut and she pulled in a breath. It was tainted by the thickness of the salty cave air. “Please, call me Adeline. Or Addie. Not Ava. Not when we’re alone.”
His smile was tight. Dismissive. And his eyes were ice-cold. “Let’s go.”
“Guy,” it was a softly issued word, but it held a challenge. “You’re pushing me away.”
His expression, if possible, tightened further. “How can I push you away, Ava? You are not close enough to me to require it.”
Her ears hummed the whole way back to the boat, as they swum side by side, her stride every bit a match to his, though she suspected he was swimming slower than usual to allow her to keep up with him. Addie wasn’t going slowly. She was tearing through the water, her mind racing, her heart pounding, her blood gushing hard through her body, tormenting her with its rapid infusion, her memory replaying his constant rejections like explosions of angry confetti, littering her consciousness with a reality she loathed to contemplate.
She’d bargained on Guy remembering all the reasons he had to love her, this week. She’d banked on their desire overcoming all the obstacles he was determined to keep in their way.
She hadn’t bargained on his determination to forget. His determination to keep her at arm’s length in all ways but one.
A white ladder ran down the side of the boat, and as they approached it, Guy reached for the bottom two steps and flicked them, so they fell lower, into the water, then turned to face Addie. “Remember, querida, so far as Santiago knows, there is nothing between us but love.”
Addie nodded, but it was a weary nod. How could she convince him? Remind him of what they’d once been? How could she make him understand?
“Guy,” she curved her fingertips over the lower rung, but hovered there, facing him, watching him thoughtfully. Water had turned her hair into a dark curtain that fell down her back and her eyes were a fierce, burning caramel, spiked by clumped, black lashes. Without makeup, without shields, she was completely herself before him. “Please, let me try to explain to you.”
His expression was an implacable mask; a physical rejection. “Explain then, Ava. Tell me why you spent a month in my bed, claiming to be an actress. Tell me why you lied to me again and again. Packed house tonight! I forgot a line, though.” His eyes narrowed and shame pinkened her cheeks. “You didn’t lie to me once, but again and again and again.”
“Once I’d started, I didn’t know how to stop. I just couldn’t…”
“Of course you could,” he denied firmly. “You could have told me the truth at any time. You let me continue calling you Ava, believing you to be every lie you told me. You say you loved me, but you did not know me. Not really.” His accent was thickened by the intensity of his mood, his Spanish vowels ringing with conviction. “Do I seem like a man who would forgive anyone this? Like a man who will accept such dishonesty and deceit?”
His words did something Addie hadn’t expected. She had been fighting him so hard, and now, something like acceptance began to work its way into her gut. Acceptance of the truth of what he said. How could she expect him to forgive her? Any other man might have been desperate to hear her apology and explanation, to allow her the space to make everything better. But not Guillem Rodriguez. He was as hard-headed as he was ruthless, as dictatorial as he was arrogant. She’d fallen in love with him without realizing that the man she loved would never accept her circumstances.
Wasn’t that why she’d carried on the lie? Once she’d realized who he was, how could she tell him of her financial situation? Of the mother who had gambled away a once-sizeable nest-egg? Of the fact she scrubbed office floors for a living? Her eyes prickled with tears but they were indiscernible amongst the ocean’s spray.
“No,” it was a whisper. “But I am sorry, Guy. And I wish… I wish you would see that I had no choice.”
He brought his face closer to hers then, and his dark eyes bore into her caramel ones. “We all of us have choices, Ava. Every moment of every day.” He lifted a finger to her bikini strap, straightening it but leaving his fingers to linger a moment on her soft, damp flesh. “I choose to enjoy your body, knowing that I will let you walk away at the end of this week with no regrets. I choose to enjoy this – you – sex, without thinking of what we seemed to be, at one time. I have let the past go, Adeline. You should too.”
She bit down on her lip to stop a sob from escaping. Hearing her name on his lips, for the first time, spun her insides around, filling her with a delicious, confusing pain, an ache that trembled low in her gut.
“Remember why you are here. You want money from me, and I want your acting skills to settle my grandfather’s worries with regards to my sex life.” He brought his face closer, so close that she could feel his breath against her cheeks. “End of discussion.”
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