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His face blanched visibly and all too late she remembered her father throwing those words at him back then. But the charge was deserved now. He’d treated her like dirt.
‘You wanted flowers? Perhaps a string quartet to play to you from beneath my window?’
‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ she ground out. ‘You started pushing me away the second you woke up. I don’t care that you’ve been in Barcelona, that you had to work. It’s thewayyou told me. The way you spoke to me. The way you stayed silent while you were gone. What we shared—’
But she was moving into dangerous territory now, as truths she hadn’t even acknowledged to herself seemed to be thrusting forward, demanding to be spoken.
‘Was sex. As inevitable now as it was back then. We both agreed to that.’
Tears filmed her eyes and she blinked furiously, trying to stem their progress. ‘If that’s so, why are you fighting me about leaving? Why would you want to keep me here?’
A muscle jerked in his jaw as her question exploded between them. ‘I’m a man of my word,’ he said finally. ‘I presumed you would also have a personal code of honour. Having agreed to stay for five days—’
‘That’s a load of crap,’ she contradicted forcefully. ‘You know better than anyone that circumstances change. I’m not staying here after what happened with us. I can’t. And I know you’re too good a person to make me.’ Her voice cracked; her heart splintered. ‘So stop arguing and tell your damned pilot to take me to Valencia.’
He dragged a hand through his hair and she waited, her nerves stretching tight, waiting, hoping he’d have something to say that would unlock the pain in her heart, setting it free, high above them, flying out over the ocean and dispersing for good.
There’d been so much pain in her life, and much of it was linked to this man.
Bitterness washed through her, and panic, too, because nothing would be the same after this. The question of Annie could no longer sit in abeyance. Alicia had to work out how to proceed. She knew she couldn’t continue to abide by the decisions she’d made as a scared, lonely sixteen-year-old. Everything was so complicated, and the weight of that complexity pressed down on her now, making breathing almost impossible.
‘Why do you want me to stay?’ she asked when he didn’t speak, and she could feel the situation slipping away from her. ‘And don’t say it’s because we had a deal. The deal was for me to organise your event and that’s well underway.’
‘I want you to stay for the same reason we slept together.’
She held her breath.
‘There’s unfinished business between us.’
‘I think it’s finished now.’
‘Do you?’ He lifted a single brow, mockery in his face. ‘So you’ll fly away and never think of me again?’
Her eyes dropped to the ground between them, everything shifting wildly out of focus. She’d thought of him every day for the last ten years. She knew that wouldn’t change. ‘We’ll never finish this,’ she said after a beat. ‘From the moment my father reacted the way he did, from the moment he made those threats, he set our lives on courses that could never come back together. There’s nothing to be gained by this.’
He moved closer again, so close she caught a hint of his masculine, spiced fragrance, and her pulse went into overdrive, desire lurching through her. ‘I want you out of my head,’ he said finally, the admission wrenched from him, and she closed her eyes on the welling of grief, because she understood how he felt. They were each a torment to the other.
‘So much so you’re willing to keep me here, even when I’ve asked to leave?’ she whispered, knowing the answer, knowing she was moments away from his acceptance.
They were both trapped by the past, by another man’s choices, but one of them had to be strong enough to break free. Staying here wasn’t the answer. Alicia needed to get back to her real life; she needed space to breathe and think, neither of which she could do here, where Graciano filled every single one of her senses—even with his absence.
‘No,’ he said, finally, the word shattering inside of her. ‘I want you to stay, but the choice is yours.’ He took a step back, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at her dispassionately, no emotion visible in his handsome face. His extreme control only underscored her reasons for needing to leave.
He might think she was under his skin, but he didn’t understand what it was to feel, to love, to need, with an all-consuming passion. He couldn’t fathom the torture she’d experienced because of her feelings for this man. She’d triumphed over those feelings once—she’d been strong and resilient and had made a life for herself—but being around him threatened that completely.
‘Staying isn’t an option.’ In the end, it was that simple.
Only then did a flicker of feeling seep into his features, a look in his eyes that she’d seen once before, the morning after they’d slept together, when her father had berated him and thrown him off his property. Betrayal.
She sucked in a breath and spun away from him, blinking rapidly as her attention landed on the helicopter.
‘Come with me,’ he commanded, striding past her, picking up her suitcase, then moving to the helicopter.
It was a done deal; she was leaving. She’d gotten what she wanted and didn’t feel a hint of satisfaction in that. Disappointment jarred her with every step she took, but she knew this was the right course of action. It was as it had to be.
The helicopter was barely in the air before he knew he’d made a rare mistake. Graciano, who was no expert at reading people, at manoeuvring them to do his bidding, had erred. His own feelings had been coursing through him, making it impossible to understand hers, to know how to respond to them, how to give her what she wanted.
He planted his hands on his hips and watched, grim-faced, as the helicopter lifted up, wondering if she was looking down at him, wondering if she was regretting her decision, too.
