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‘The ability to use a veto isn’t dependent on the difficulty of answering.’
She ground her teeth together. ‘You’re not playing the game properly.’
‘You’re right. Let me answer your earlier question better, then. You asked why I brought you here.’
She held her breath, staring at him.
He studied her right back, appraising, and she felt a rush of emotions swamping her, drowning her, so she struggled to stay standing. Perhaps he realised, because a moment later his hand came around her back, supporting her, pressing her forward, no longer in an invitation to dance but in an embrace that made the nerve endings in her body vibrate furiously.
‘And?’ she whispered, glad for his support.
‘I was curious about you.’
‘Angry with me?’ She pushed, because she’d felt it humming off him in waves that night at the charity ball.
‘It was ten years ago,’ he pointed out with a voice that was all reason and calm.
‘You said you’d be honest.’
Silence whipped the air between them, followed by a sharp hiss of breath between his teeth. ‘I was angry,’ he agreed after a beat. ‘Si.I was made to feel worthless for a long time, by many people. Until I met you, no one had ever seen value in me. No one had ever wanted me.’
Her heart twisted painfully in her chest.
‘Butyouwanted me. I didn’t realise how much I cared for your good opinion until it was wrenched away. Do you remember what he said? What he accused me of? The threats he made? And I turned to you, looking for support, sure that you would help me make him understand. You were silent. Worse, you moved to him, put your hand on his arm. I was so angry with myself. I had let down my guard with you. I’d let myself need someone for the first time in my life. I’d let myself believe...’
‘You were right to believe,’ she whispered, the words tortured, her throat heavy with emotion. ‘My father made the situation untenable, but that didn’t change how I felt. I was only sixteen, Graciano. Just a girl.’
‘Not when you were with me.’
‘No.’ A wistful smile twisted her lips. There was so much water under the bridge. ‘With you, I felt like a woman.’
‘I left Seville and swore I would never let another person have the kind of power over me that you did that summer. I lost myself in you,querida, and it’s a mistake I’ve never since repeated.’
Her heart soared even when a rock dropped through her body, landing low in her gut. ‘But when I called to apologise—’
‘I’d learned my lesson,’ he said with a lift of his shoulders. ‘You were dangerous. Quicksand. When I was around you, I wanted only you. I forgot about my brother, my plans for my future, my desire to succeed. There was only you.’ His lips tightened into a grimace. ‘I was too selfish to allow for that.’
Her eyes swept shut at his admission. Was that it? Would their relationship have been doomed to fail anyway? He was an ambitious man—his success proved that—so perhaps he would have moved on anyway, rather than risk his ambitions failing.
‘So you told me you’d moved on—’
‘Oh, no, Alicia. I didn’t lie to you.’
Her chest panged.
‘I wanted to put you from my mind, to erase you from my body. Sex seemed like the most expedient way.’
‘Did it work?’ she challenged, tilting her chin defiantly to cover the shattering of her heart.
‘Yes.’ His eyes glittered with a challenge when they locked to hers. Her skin flushed hot and cold.
‘That still doesn’t explain why you brought me here,’ she said unevenly. ‘If you were angry, why not ignore me? Leave without speaking to me?’
‘Where’s the fun in that?’
She flinched but didn’t back down, didn’t move away. ‘Where’s the fun in this?’
‘Are you not enjoying yourself?’
