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As she looked at him involuntarily, it was as if a cruel hand squeezed her heart inside her tight chest. Black hair slightly tousled, a dark shadow of stubble accentuating his jaw and sensual mouth, his dark eyes smouldering gold, he was rawly masculine and very much the man she had fallen madly in love with. She had become accustomed to the man in the sharply tailored business suits that he wore with such panache. At first that sophisticated image had intimidated her, and then he had simply become her Ruy and what he wore and where he lived and how much money he had hadn’t mattered to her any longer. When he had rescued her and her father from Percy, when he had supported her through that frightening experience, she had begun to believe that Ruy Valiente was everything she had ever wanted in a man. Discovering that he was not that man had shattered her faith in her own judgement.
She straightened her shoulders, lifted her head, green eyes veiled. ‘Is it true that you slept with your brother’s first wife and that she...er...died when you ditched her?’
As she’d spoken, Ruy had become as still as a statue, his lean dark features wiped clean of all expression, but his healthy colour had evaporated and his shock stabbed her to the heart because she took that reaction as confirmation. He compressed his lips and it took a few seconds for him to master his surprise at that question and respond. ‘In essence the facts can be interpreted in that light. People who know me are aware of the true facts and if you knew me better—’
‘I don’t want to know you any better!’ Suzy let loose at him because her tension had climbed and climbed unbearably while she awaited his answer and the ferocious disillusionment she suffered at his lack of argument did not make her feel generous. ‘What I was told convinced me that I want nothing more to do with you!’
Suzy was devastated when he failed to contradict her. She had hoped against hope that he would have an explanation, a miraculous excuse, but then that weak hope only reminded her of how poor her own judgement was and of how she could not trust her own feelings. She might love him but that did not automatically mean that he was a decent person. Hadn’t she once believed that Percy was decent too? That unfortunate acknowledgement tore her down even further in her estimation.
‘That is, of course, your choice even if I’m surprised that you would be so judgemental when you can be in possession of few facts,’ Ruy retorted icily.
A kind of rage more powerful than anything Ruy had ever felt before was roaring through him. Liliana had forced him to live through a nightmare and she had cost him and his unfortunate brother so much. He refused to believe that her spectre could cost him Suzy as well. ‘You believed whatever seedy gossip you were told, then.’
‘I didn’t want to, but, yes, I believed it because you wouldn’t discuss anything private with me, which implied that there was something shameful in your past.’
‘Everyone’s got something shameful in their past, Suzy,’ Ruy incised with gritty cynicism at such innocence, and his rage was now roaring inside him like a forest blaze. ‘But logic should tell you that things aren’t always what they seem.’
‘I don’t want to hear some devious explanation that paints you white and her scarlet! That such a thing ever happened is unpardonable. It should be enough for me to say that I can’t be with a guy capable of behaving that way,’ Suzy framed in a pained rush.
Ruy was outraged, deeply offended and hurt by her complete lack of trust in him. His deep anger and his ferocious pride drove him, preventing him from making any further attempt to explain himself or reason with her. ‘Then I too have nothing more to say,’ he bit out with savage brevity.
The silence stretched thick as a blanket and it felt claustrophobic. Pain burning inside her, Suzy gazed silently back at him, willing him to pull a miracle out of his pocket and fix everything but somehow knowing now that that wasn’t going to happen. She felt sick and she simply nodded on the least said, soonest mended rule because his past was still not really her business. And any prospect of it being her business had died when that horrible woman had made her sordid allegations and Ruy had then confirmed the facts.
‘I’ll finish packing, then,’ she said jerkily.
He walked out of the door. If he had slammed it, she would have felt a little better, but he didn’t. She removed the diamond ring on her finger and set it on the dresser. She left the green dress and the blue one she had worn that afternoon over a chair because she wanted no reminders. Didn’t need them, she conceded wretchedly. She suspected that it would be a very long time before she forgot Ruy Valiente and the happiness he had given her before she’d discovered that it was all as much of an illusion as their fake engagement.
