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‘I’m not thirsty.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But you’ve bled a little.’
Her face burned. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry,’ she muttered, totally humiliated.
‘Why?’ Diaz dropped a kiss on the top of her head. The kind of caress you’d offer a child. ‘I’m the one who feels like the biggest bastard in the known world.’
He reached for his shorts and zipped himself into them with a kind of finality.
When he returned from the bathroom she’d retrieved the towel from the floor and shrouded herself in it. She held out her hand for the cloth he’d brought, blushing again. ‘Please—I’ll do it.’
His hesitation was momentary, then he shrugged. ‘If that’s what you wish.’ He added levelly, ‘I assume it’s also another way of asking me to give you some privacy?’
She looked away, nodding jerkily, and thought she heard him sigh.
‘Then I’ll go,’ he said, and paused. ‘But it’s not over yet, Rhianna. We still have matters to discuss, you and I. You said so yourself.’
‘But that was—before. I—I don’t see what else you need to know,’ she protested.
‘Something quite simple really,’ he drawled. ‘It’s known as the truth.’
He walked to the door and halted, looking back at her, his mouth twisting in a faint smile. ‘Until later,’ he promised, and went, leaving her staring after him, her eyes stricken.
Once alone, she sponged the tell-tale spots of blood from the sheet, then took another quick shower. Half an hour later, her hair dry, her face made-up, buttoned into the coffee linen dress, she was curled into the corner of the sofa, considering her options.
Which were few, she admitted wryly, and singularly unappealing.
Diaz wanted the truth. But what good could it possibly do—especially now that the marriage had taken place exactly as planned?
And particularly since he knew beyond all doubt that she’d never been Simon’s mistress, or pregnant with his child. Why couldn’t that be enough for him? Why did he need more?
Because nothing had changed. There was still a bitter, devastated girl out there who needed her support, no matter how tired she herself might be of the entire situation. How angry and sick at heart.
‘Donna,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘Donna Winston. Oh, God, I wish I’d never met her. Never known of her existence.’
At the time, of course, it had all made perfect sense. The young actress had just won the role of governess Martha Webb in Castle Pride, and had wanted to move out of the noisy, overcrowded flat she shared with three other girls. Rhianna had had a spare room, which she’d offered as a temporary solution, while Donna looked around for a place of her own.
And at first it had gone reasonably well. Donna was also an only child, and they’d been careful to respect each other’s space, although Rhianna had worked out fairly soon that the other girl, a year younger than herself, would probably never be a close friend. She was altogether too dependent, complaining constantly of being homesick, and spending a lot of time on the telephone to her parents in Ipswich.
One evening, after a hard day’s rehearsal, they’d dropped into a local pizza place, too tired to face cooking at the flat. They’d finished their meal and were about to order coffee when a man’s voice had said, ‘Good God, Rhianna, fancy seeing you here.’ She’d looked up to see Simon smiling at her.
It was far from the encounter of choice. She’d seen him several times when she’d been to Oxford, visiting Carrie, and had learned reluctantly to accept that they were very much an item again.
‘Isn’t this terrific?’ Carrie had said happily one weekend when the three of them had been picnicking by the river. ‘Just like old times.’
And Rhianna had seen Simon’s eyes rest on her with a faint sneer, as if he was remembering that night in the stable yard and daring her to do the same. After which she’d made a conscious effort to time her visits when he was elsewhere.
A policy she’d pursued with reasonable success ever since. And the main reason she’d backed away from being a bridesmaid at the wedding, when Carrie had asked her months before.
‘Simon—hi.’ She tried to sound pleasant, but not unduly welcoming. ‘Didn’t Carrie tell me you were in Glasgow?’
‘A temporary secondment,’ he said. ‘I came back a week ago.’ He looked at Donna, assessing the heart-shaped face and enormous brown eyes, and his smile widened. ‘Won’t you introduce me?
She did the honours briefly, then signalled to the waitress to bring the bill.
