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I blinked as she put what she was carrying down on the bed. Underwear, from the looks of things. ‘But I—’
‘Don’t worry.’ She smiled. ‘Mr Silvera had some things bought for you in Madrid. They’re all your size and will fit a treat. He says you’re to make yourself at home, do some exploring of the manor and the grounds. If you need anything, there’s a bell on the tray in the hall. Just give me a tinkle.’ She gave me the same gentle pat on the shoulder that she’d given Con downstairs. ‘And don’t fret about Mr Silvera. His bark’s worse than his bite.’
I wanted to tell that, yes, I knew that already, but she bustled off before I could.
I stared down at the lovely clothes set out on the bed and let out a breath. Well, I had two choices here. I could refuse the clothing and keep my cheap chain store dress. Call Mrs Mackenzie back and demand to be transported back to London.
Or...
I could put on the dress and find Con, demand that he tell me why he’d kicked down my door. Why he’d kissed me. Why, when he’d taken me so desperately three months earlier, a platonic marriage was all he was offering. Why, when he’d ghosted me for four years, he was so desperate to marry me now.
Ah, but it wasn’t a choice at all in the end, was it? I knew what I was going to do already.
Slowly, I began to dress.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Constantine
ISATINthe chair in the little crofter’s cottage I’d had remodelled into an office, staring out of one of its windows. It gave a perfect view over the lawns and the soft grey stone of the manor house, with the dark green of the loch beyond it.
The crofter’s cottage was ancient, with thick stone walls, and I preferred it to the panelled walls of the den in the manor house since it was very private and there was less chance of someone stumbling accidentally into it.
I allowed no one in here, not even the cleaning staff.
Since there was no service in the valley I’d had it fitted out with a satellite internet link, so I could work, and work was what I should have been doing.
I’d already put in a couple of hours, first making sure news of Valentin’s arrival had been contained, before getting intelligence on what was happening in the Maldives.
Olivia was still being treated well, and was apparently in no hurry to leave. I wasn’t worried about her. Valentin might have stolen her from me while also trying to take my company, but he was my twin. I knew him. And he’d loved her once. If what he felt for her now was even a tenth of what I felt for Jenny, then Olivia was in safe hands.
Valentin was probably expecting me to go after him, however. Which meant I wasn’t going to, especially if Olivia was in no danger. She was a strong woman. That was part of the reason I’d chosen her as a potential wife. She could manage whatever nonsense he was engaging in. Their friendship as children had grown into something more as teenagers, and it had once made me jealous. At least until I’d discarded jealousy along with all the other emotions that used to trouble me.
At least until Jenny had come along.
I’d used to feel nothing at all when I’d thought about my brother, but there were reasons I’d never spoken to her about him, mainly because she would ask questions about him, about our childhood, about Domingo, and I’d known I couldn’t tell her those things. Not when she’d had the uncanny ability to reach inside me and coax emotion out of me whether I’d wanted her to or not.
As if on cue, a small figure stepped out of one of the manor’s doors and stood for a moment, gazing around, a brilliant splash of red against the grey stone walls.
Everything in me clenched tight. Valentin was abruptly forgotten.
Jenny. And she was wearing the dress I’d bought for her.
I gripped the arms of the chair, my fingers digging into the expensive leather as the memory of what I’d done only that morning came flooding back. Of finding the door locked and something in my head exploding. Of kicking the door and watching it crash open. Jenny, white-faced, stumbling back.
I’d still been in the grip of that rage and I’d stormed in there before I’d even known what I was doing, grabbing her by her upper arms and roaring at her.
Her face had gone pale with shock, her dark eyes huge, and while a part of me had regretted scaring her, another had been savagely glad. Because now she would see why being in love with me was such a bad thing, why opposing me, pushing me, was dangerous. I would never hurt her physically, but I had no emotional control around her and I could hurt her in other ways. Ways I’d learned at my father’s knee.
Except then she’d put her hand to my cheek in the gentlest of caresses. And she’d looked straight at me, past the anger, right down to the pain and fear I kept locked away inside. And she’d asked me what was wrong.
She’d always been able to do that. She’d always been able to see past my detachment, see the boy I’d once been years and years ago. The boy who’d rescued chicks from fallen nests and cried over dead kittens. The boy who’d once wanted to be a pirate or a cowboy, who’d loved his twin brother and had tried his best to protect him.
Jenny had reached out to that boy, and that boy wanted to reach out to her in return.
But I couldn’t allow it. My anger and my stunning loss of control had been proof enough of that.
I shouldn’t have kissed her, either. But I’d already been undone by the touch of her fingers on my cheek, and the depths of my own anger and fear had only undone me further.
