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‘I do not have time for this.’ His black gaze flicked up again, meeting mine. ‘I have a situation that needs dealing with.’
‘What situation? What’s happen—?’
‘It’s best if you stay here,’ he interrupted shortly, and strode with his usual predatory grace to the door. ‘A staff member will come for you. We leave within the hour.’
Wait—leave? Leave for where? And why?
I opened my mouth to ask him what he was talking about, but he’d opened the door and stepped through it before I could get a word out. It closed behind him with a sharp click and I was left staring at the white wood in shock.
This was stupid. Did he really expect me to stay here and wait for a staff member? Without any explanation whatsoever? And leaving...? Leaving for where? Why? And why was he being so cold towards me?
Back when I was a child, I’d used to escape into his study with a book and curl up in the armchair he kept in there. The book had been prop, a cover to pretend I was only interested in reading. In reality I’d been waiting for him to turn up so I could talk to him.
I’d been determined to make him if not my brother, then at least my friend.
He’d ignored me at first, but I’d persisted, chatting to him as if I’d known him for years. And gradually, over time, when I talked to him, he’d started to talk back.
At first our conversations had been simple ones, since I was only nine, and had involved school and friends, and reading and TV, but as I’d got older, our discussions had become more complicated. Books, music, politics, science. Nothing had been off-limits except for two things: the brother he’d lost when he was seventeen, and his father.
I’d never pushed, and by the time I was sixteen he’d felt like my best friend.
Until I moved London and he cut me off without explanation. I’d never understood why.
Now he was offering me marriage, and I still didn’t understand why.
I turned from the door and paced over to the chair again, putting a hand to the back of it to steady myself. I still felt sick and confused, and abruptly all I wanted to do was leave.
This whole marriage idea didn’t make any sense. The only reason I could think of that he would offer it was for the child’s sake.
It wasn’t because he loved me.
He’d been clear enough that night three months earlier, when I’d stared up into his beautiful face, seen the remains of passion burning in his eyes, and told him I loved him.
That passion had died instantly, snuffed out like a fire deprived suddenly of oxygen.
He’d ripped himself away from me and looked at me with such betrayal, as if I’d hurt him in some way. ‘Well, I don’t love you,’ he’d told me icily. ‘What a preposterous idea.’ Then his eyes had narrowed. ‘Did your mother put you up to this?’
I’d had no idea what he was talking about, because while my mother had told me about the party, she’d never ‘put me up’ to doing anything. She might have mentioned a couple of times that if I ‘made an effort’ I could ‘snag’ Constantine for myself, but I’d long since stopped listening to her. She might think men were the answer to all life’s problems, but I didn’t.
I’d tried to tell him that no one had put me up to anything, but he wouldn’t listen.
‘If you think I’m going to marry you, Jenny,’ he’d gone on, even though I hadn’t mentioned marriage—even though I hadn’t said anything at all. ‘You’re sadly mistaken. You have nothing I want. Your looks might be passable, and you might be good in bed, but sex is not a basis for marriage.’
He didn’t give me time to speak, finishing me off with, ‘We must never speak of this again, do you understand?Never.’
That was when I’d burst into tears and fled.
My fingers gripped tightly to the back of the chair, more memories of that night filling me. Of arriving in Madrid late, because my flight from England had been late.
‘You must have lost your invitation in your inbox,’ my mother had said. ‘He’ll be very upset if you don’t go.’
I’d eventually arrived at the Silvera mansion, finding it full of beautiful people, famous actors, politicians, models, the great and powerful—all there to celebrate.
As usual, I’d felt out of place. Because I hadn’t been beautiful or great or powerful, and my dress had been from a cheap high street chain. I’d known no one, and I’d spent the first half an hour trying to find Constantine amongst the crowds.
It hadn’t been until I’d stepped out into the ornate gardens at the back that I’d found him, standing near the rose garden, half hidden by a tall hedge. He’d been on the phone, talking to someone in Spanish, and he’d sounded...furious. He’d never usually allowed any emotion to show publicly, so the sound of his fury had shocked me. Then he’d cut the call, slipped his phone into his pocket and covered his face with his hands.
That had shocked me too and, unable to see him in distress and not comfort him, I’d moved across the grass to him, reaching to take his hands.
