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His mouth tightened. ‘The questions are already being asked, it seems,’ he commented. ‘Pilar tells me there were four telephone calls from my aunt yesterday, all bordering on the hysterical.’
Rhianna gasped. ‘Even while the wedding was still going on?’ She paused. ‘Have you called her back?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘She may be my mother’s sister, but she has no jurisdiction over my life.’
Rhianna said awkwardly, ‘Perhaps she’s just being protective—thinking how your—how Mrs Penvarnon would feel if she knew about us.’
‘They’re hardly close,’ he returned drily. ‘It suits my aunt to play lady of the manor at Polkernick, while my mother lives in St Jean de Luz, but there are no family visits—not even for this wedding, as you may have noticed.’
‘Maybe that’s why Mrs Seymour’s so upset?’ Rhianna suggested. ‘Because you weren’t there either?’
‘I made it totally clear to her that could happen,’ he said. His eyes met hers. ‘I was there for one reason only, if you remember, and it wasn’t to see Carrie throw her life away on that waste of space.’
‘And then you found there wasn’t really a reason after all.’ She tried to smile. ‘It’s a pity that virgins can’t be issued with some kind of barcode. Think of the problems that would have saved you.’
He pushed his chair back with such force that it fell over with a clatter, then came round the table to her, pulling her to her feet.
‘Don’t say that,’ he muttered roughly. ‘Don’t even think it. Dear God, Rhianna, this may not have been what I intended, but it was what I wanted. You were what I wanted, and I need you still—for whatever time we have left.’
And she went trembling into his arms, closing her mind to everything but the passion of his kiss.
They spent a quiet afternoon by the pool. Rhianna ventured into the water once, but found it cold, much to Diaz’ s amusement, and retreated back to the padded sun mattress under the huge striped umbrella.
She turned her head, beginning to smile as she watched him emerge from the water.
‘For a moment,’ she said, ‘I thought I was a teenager in the cove at Penvarnon again.’
‘My God,’ Diaz said, as he towelled down before stretching out with a sigh of pleasure on the adjoining mattress. ‘One of my life’s most difficult moments, and you still remember it.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You were the first naked man I’d ever seen.’
He grinned at her. ‘I thought you didn’t look.’
‘I certainly tried not to,’ she said demurely.
‘I see.’ He paused. ‘And has your attitude undergone any significant change since then?’
She propped herself on one elbow, her eyes openly caressing him, while her free hand began to stray, taking whatever liberties it chose.
‘Now,’ she said softly, ‘now I could look at you for ever.’
‘Take all the time you need,’ he said lazily, his eyes half closed, magnificently unselfconscious as his body quickened and hardened at her touch, before pulling her to him and making slow, sweet love to her in the drowsy afternoon.
But as they lay together afterwards Rhianna became aware that the breeze had freshened, and shivered suddenly.
Diaz sat up, looking at the sky. ‘The weather’s changing,’ he said. ‘See the clouds gathering above the mountains? It’s going to rain.’ He sighed. ‘We’d better go in anyway. I think I heard the car, so Pilar will be back.’
It was, she thought, the end of an idyll…
And the end of everything.
‘I hate to think what she’ll say if she sees me wearing your shirt.’ She kept her tone light.
‘Well, she’s unlikely to say it to you.’ His mouth twisted in amusement. ‘I’m the one who gets the full force of her disapproval. She loves me, but she thinks I’m a bad influence on her menfolk.’ He added wryly, ‘Juan and Enrique are her cousins, and Felipe is her grandson, so she takes their moral welfare very seriously.’
He shook his head. ‘She’s always said that I’ll—’ He stopped abruptly.
‘That you’ll—what?’ she queried, then realised. She said hesitantly, ‘That you’ll break your mother’s heart?’
His mouth tightened. ‘Something of the sort.’ He zipped himself into his shorts, then held the shirt for her to put on.
Pilar was indeed back. They did not see her, but her voice could be heard in the distance, shrilly upbraiding someone.
‘Felipe, no doubt,’ Diaz muttered as they escaped upstairs. ‘He wants to go south to Marbella, to earn lots of money and have fun with foreign girls. Pilar, as you can imagine, is against the idea. War is intermittent, but fierce.’
