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‘That hadn’t even occurred to me,’ she muttered. ‘Though if it had, you’d have only yourself to blame. Do you remember what you said to me the second time I called? The last time we spoke?’
His face gave nothing away; his features remained set in an iron-like mask.
‘You told me you’d found someone else to have sex with. That’s how you described it. I sacrificed everything for you and you—’
‘What did you sacrifice for me?’ he demanded.
‘Did you think my life was a bed of roses after I told my father the truth?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘How do you think he reacted? What do you think he did?’
It was obvious that Graciano hadn’t contemplated that. ‘I had no idea that you would tell him the truth after I’d left. You certainly showed no intention of it that morning.’
‘Of course I did,’ she spat. ‘That morning, I was in shock. I was terrified, and ashamed—a lifetime’s conditioning is hard to shake. My father’s messages of purity and innocence were pressed deep into my soul. But I did tell him later, and my world fell apart. I called you because I needed you, Graciano. I needed you.’ It was impossible to keep her bitter resentment from her voice. ‘And you turned what we were, what we’d been, into something so sordid, into an irrelevancy. You’d replaced me. That was that.’
A muscle jerked in his jaw; otherwise, he didn’t react.
‘Is that really how you felt?’
He took a sip of his own wine—his first. ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked after a moment, replacing the glass with deliberate care. ‘After all this time, do you want me to say I lied? That I hadn’t moved on? That I missed you? That I needed you, too?’
‘Only if it’s true.’
He stared at her long and hard and she held her breath, but a moment later, the young woman reappeared, carrying more food—steaks and potatoes and a salad.
When they were alone again, the fight had left Alicia. She felt stunned and numb, too devastated by their conversation to pick it up again.
Evidently, Graciano had the same lack of appetite for continuing that train of thought.
‘There are two options for the party,’ he said, taking a pair of tongs and using them to move food onto her plate first—far more than she could possibly eat, but she sat silently as he heaped steak and potatoes and beans and rocket, then olives and flans in front of her. She finished her wine, then replaced the empty glass.
‘This courtyard makes sense. It’s close to the kitchens, and the ground is steady, which is saying something, as much of this side of the island is mountainous.’
She wondered at the ease with which he’d pivoted to business; then again, none of this really mattered to Graciano. He’d moved on, as he’d been at pains to point out.
‘However, there is a spot down near the beach, also nice and flat, and the drama of the cliffs and the ocean would make a spectacular backdrop as the sun goes down.’
Alicia tried to kick her brain into gear, but she was spinning wildly out of control so one plus one wouldn’t equal two, no matter how hard she tried to make it.
‘I’ll need some more information on the kind of party,’ she said eventually, the words coming out far flatter than she’d realised.
‘Now is your chance. Ask whatever you want.’
The problem was that what she wanted to know had nothing to do with the party. She toyed with her napkin in her lap as Graciano refilled her glass. ‘You said around one hundred people?’
‘Yes. Intimate. The directors of the company I’m buying, the directors of my own company. Some valued staff.’
‘Friends?’ she prompted, curious about the life he was leading.
His brow lifted. He knew what she was asking.
‘Do you mean girlfriends of mine, specifically, Alicia?’
Her cheeks flamed, caught out before she’d even realised what she was asking. ‘Well, you do date.’
‘That’s one way to describe it.’
Heat infused her cheeks. ‘Really? It’s always just about sex for you?’
‘It’s rarely about more,’ he said with a lift of his shoulders.
