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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SIENNA, ALREADYAWAKE, had dressed quickly when she’d heard voices, and now, as she padded softly, silently, down the hallway, she recognised Luca’s.
‘I asked you to look after Sienna. I asked you to flirt with her. To dance with her at the wedding. I specifically told you not to touch her, but you couldn’t help yourself, could you? Despite the fact I hinted at her insecurities, her family problems, you just saw a willing woman and took her to bed? Accurate?’
They were speaking Italian, but it was one of the languages Sienna had tucked into her arsenal as a teenager. It was, in fact, her favourite. She heard the words without needing to pause and wonder what they meant, and they slammed into her like lead. Luca had asked Alejandro to flirt with her? To dance with her?
Her heart hammered against her ribs. Was that what that first night had been?
She pressed her back against the wall, terrified she might slump to the ground and that they’d find her as a big, blobby mess on the pristine floorboards. She squeezed her eyes shut, listening, concentrating on keeping her breathing quiet.
‘And I did look after her.’
‘You slept with her.’
Alejandro remained silent.
‘Alejandro, I love you like a brother. I know you are a good man. But when it comes to women...’
‘What? What do I do to women that is so bad?’ She heard the hurt defensiveness in his voice and ached for him, because of how hard he tried to fix the lives of all the women who were like his mother.
‘Nothing, when they are your usual type: rich, sophisticated women looking for a quick hit of pleasure and nothing more.’
‘Do you know Sienna so well that you can say with certainty that she doesn’t have those same feminine impulses and needs?’
Her stomach squirmed. She hated this. She hated being spoken about, she hated that they were fighting over her, but most of all she hated, in a way she doubted she could ever recover from, that Alejandro had been babysitting her the night they’d met. He’d walked away when they’d kissed and she’d chased him.She’d been chasing him all along, and now she’d foisted herself on him, in his own damned apartment. Never mind that he was obviously physically attracted to her: the conversation she was overhearing was evidence that he was physically attracted to any woman with a pulse. She was nothing special. But she’d made it impossible for him to say ‘no’, and he’d tried, several times.
‘So you slept with her?’
‘I’m not going to answer that.’
‘I will take that as a yes.’ Luca’s voice was tight with tension. ‘My God. Tell me this then—was it more than sex? Is that what’s going on? Have you fallen in love with her? This would be the only way I could forgive you, you know. Love is different from sex—I understand its ability to change you, to alter what you want from life. Is that what happened?’
Silence stretched. Sienna’s nerves pulled and she wanted, oh, how she wanted, to hear him admit that it was more than a physical thing. But after the longest pause Sienna had ever known, Alejandro’s voice practically growled. ‘We both know love isn’t in my skill set.’
‘So you don’t care about her?’
The pause almost killed her. She held her breath, fingernails pressing into the palms of her hands as she waited, tortured, desperate; and then finally, he spoke.
‘I care about her.’ Her heart stumbled. ‘She is, as you say, a beautiful, kind, sweet young woman. Of course I care about her, which is why you should not worry. I can promise you I have not done anything to hurt Sienna.’
But he was wrong. Pain squished her organs into a funny shape. She saw stars and the familiar sting of tears clawed at her throat.
‘She has been starved for love by her parents, berated and belittled by her mother, insulted at every turn, so I am afraid she would be vulnerable to the first guy who showed any interest in her. Is that what you’ve done, Alejandro?’
Her heart dropped to her feet. Was this how Luca saw her? Olivia? How everyone saw her? How utterly pathetic. Was that what Alejandro had thought, when he’d come to speak to her at the wedding? Had he pitied her then? And when she’d approached him in Barcelona, was that why he’d eventually accepted? Because he felt sorry for her?
She was so hurt, and so angry, and she wasn’t going to stand in the shadows and eavesdrop a second longer. They were wrong about her—all of them. She wasn’t an object of pity—in fact, her pride had been hard fought and she would never let anyone take that away from her. ‘I’ve heard enough.’ Her voice came into the room with only the slightest wobble; she followed a moment later, glad she’d dragged on a pair of jeans and one of Alejandro’s shirts, her hair pulled into a ponytail.
Luca whirled around, his expression unlike she’d ever seen it. She almost felt sorry for him. The panic in his eyes made her want to placate him, because she was every bit as soft-hearted as he’d accused her of being. But then she remembered how they’d been talking about her—Luca with such insulting, patriarchal pity and Alejandro with...cold detachment. She shivered, barely able to meet his look, though she felt his eyes on her, and couldn’t fathom what he was feeling.
‘Alejandro’s right, Luca. This is none of your business.’
Luca’s mouth dropped. ‘I didn’t know you were here.’
‘No, and Alejandro doesn’t know I speak Italian, so I can see why you each might have thought your conversation was nice and private.’
The words cut through the air. Luca’s cheeks darkened. ‘Listen, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you heard...’
