The Alcolar Family
But the words stark naked, together with the implication of her just lying there, combined with heated memories of the night before, had served to scramble his brain. That was rubbing his nose in things, reducing his thought processes from efficient to single-minded so that they could run on only one track. And a very basic one at that—one that was in no way conducive to holding a rational argument with an illogically furious woman who was standing right in front of him stark damn naked!
‘What the devil…?’ Cassandra repeated, the words rushing through her teeth on a violent breath. ‘Do you really think that I would be prepared to do that?’
‘Well, you are still here in my room,’ Joaquin pointed out, ‘Waiting for me. And…’
He let his eyes drop, his gaze skimming over the soft curves, the slender limbs exposed to him, the shadow of curls between her legs. He immediately recognised his mistake as his body subjected him to a sharp, stinging twist of desire that changed the fit of his trousers from comfortable to way too tight in the space of a heartbeat.
‘And you are naked,’ he muttered, roughly, struggling with the feeling.
Cassandra’s reaction disturbed him.
For the first time since they had been together, she looked totally shocked, embarrassed at realising that she was wearing no clothes. Her hands came up to cross over her chest, her eyes darkening, and her mouth actually fell open slightly in horror. Not even on the first time they had slept together had she looked like this. This was new. And it was something he didn’t like at all.
‘Here…’
Reaching for the nearest thing to hand, he flung the black cotton robe at her.
‘Put that on.’
As she scrambled into the concealing garment, her haste betraying the way she was feeling, he had to admit to himself that he didn’t know whether he had offered her the robe to ease her evident embarrassment or to soothe his own disturbed state of mind. He just couldn’t think straight with her standing there before him. Totally nude. Indignation had put a spark in her eyes, brought a rush of blood to the surface of her skin—even her body was washed with the flush of pink—and it was damnably distracting.
In spite of the fact that she obviously wished it weren’t, her nakedness was pure provocation to any living, breathing male. Everything that was masculine in him urged him to respond in the most primitive, basic way. But he knew from Cassandra’s expression that to do so would be the most foolish move he could make.
So he had to get her covered up—and fast! And the black robe was the only thing he could find.
Not that it really helped, he acknowledged a moment later as Cassandra pulled the soft cotton firmly round herself, belting it tightly at her waist. The robe was his and it totally swamped her, coming almost to her ankles, the sleeves hanging way down at the ends of her arms, the wrap-over front gaping loosely at her throat and revealing the beginning of the curves of her breasts. In its own way, the item of clothing was a whole new form of torture, making her look even more feminine and vulnerable, emphasising the fragility of her bones at ankle and wrist, the slender, satin-skinned lines of her neck.
But it was the look in her eyes that stung so sharply.
‘Maldito sea!’ he muttered violently as she tied another knot in the belt for good measure. ‘There’s no need to act as if just my look will contaminate you!’
The dark savagery in his tone brought her head up, her eyes widening in shock. He supposed he should explain that his anger was more at himself, and the conflict that was going on between his brain and his groin, than at her. But the truth was that he didn’t think he could put it into words. And besides, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to try to explain something that he really didn’t understand himself. Didn’t want to reveal raw, unformed thoughts when he had no idea at all what her response might be.
‘I—I wasn’t thinking that.’
‘No—then what were you thinking, querida?’
He laced the term of affection with an acid that turned it into something the exact opposite of loving.
‘Why should my seeing your body—the body I have seen, touched, kissed a thousand times before now—why should that suddenly turn into a crime?’
‘I never said that!’
‘No, but you sure as hell implied it!’
His eyes raked over her now carefully concealed body and he didn’t trouble to try and hide the hot anger that was forcing its way up through his control, like lava pushing through the surface of a volcano, and pouring out down the sides.
‘But don’t you think that it’s a little too late to suddenly turn prim and proper? You weren’t so coy about being with me last night.’
‘Last night was last night!’ Cassandra flung at him, blue eyes flashing defiance. ‘It was different!’
‘Different how?’ he demanded. ‘And today is—what? A time for second thoughts?’
Her inability to answer, the way that her eyes dropped away from his, almost destroyed him. Holding on tight to what little was left of his shattered self-control, he forced himself to speak through lips that might have been carved from wood, they felt so stiff and unresponsive.
‘I thought you enjoyed it!’
The need to fight the heavily erotic images that his brain was throwing at him, and the knowledge that his body was reacting hard and fast to just the thought of the things he remembered, the things he had done, the things he would love to do again, loosened his control over his tone. The comment came out harder, coarser than he had ever planned, and to judge from Cassandra’s face that was what she felt too.
‘And enjoyment is everything?’
Blazing defiance burned in her eyes, warning him that he had well overstepped the line, wherever the line that she now laid down might be.
‘It’s a pretty damn important part of things!’ he tossed at her in furious exasperation. ‘I never heard you complain before!’
‘And because I never complained, that means that nothing is wrong?’
‘Cassie, if you mean to complain about something—then at least do me the courtesy of letting me know what I’m accused of.’
Cassie. There it was again, Cassie thought. There was Joaquin’s own particular usage of the shortened form of her name. The one that warned, that spoke ominously of danger to come.
Just the thought of it dried her mouth, shrivelling all hope of an answer into ashes on her tongue. She couldn’t find a word to say to him, no way of broaching the fears that burned so sharply in her mind that she was afraid he might be able to look into her eyes and read them there.
‘Well, Cassie?’ Joaquin asked, the smile that accompanied the words sending a cold, creeping shiver down the length of her spine. ‘Nothing to say? Nothing to complain about?’
What could she say? She had to say something. But with Joaquin in this mood, this dangerous, alien, disturbing mood, she didn’t dare just launch into the real reasons for the way she was feeling.
‘You’re going to work!’ she blustered and heard his short, harsh bark of totally sceptical laughter.
‘I’m going to work,’ he endorsed cynically. ‘As I do nearly every day. Is there a problem with that?’
‘I…’
Cassie pulled the edges of the robe closer together over her breasts, feeling even more than ever the desperate need to hide away from his burning, searching eyes and the way they were fixed on her face, seeming to probe right into her soul.
‘I didn’t think you would—at least not today.’
Coward! she reproached herself. If she was honest, then today was not what mattered—but Friday. The anniversary of the day they had first come together. That was what was really important to her.
‘And why particularly not today?’
Abruptly Joaquin swung away, pushing his hands deep into his trouser pockets as he paced across the floor to the window and back. And then back again. Then just as Cassie, unable to bear the resemblance to the restless prowling of a sleek, caged, restless jungle cat, feared her tongue might run away with her, he suddenly whirled round again and looked deep into her unhappy eyes.
‘Oh, I see—because of last night? You didn’t want me to go because…’
‘I thought we needed to talk!’ Cassie rushed in, desperate to try and bring the conversation round to the topic of their future. Clearly Joaquin simply thought that all she wanted was a long, luxurious day in bed, and that was not at all the way she wanted things to go.
‘And I have to work. If you recall, I came home to work yesterday, but I didn’t get the work I had planned done, did I?’
And whose fault was that? the look in his eyes, the faint curve to his mouth, demanded. Who had distracted him, seducing him away from his desk with the enticement of her body? Who had offered sex instead of work?
‘You don’t need to work,’ Cassie muttered mutinously.
If he never worked again, it wouldn’t matter. The wine business was so firmly established, so hugely profitable, that he could appoint a manager, sit back and enjoy a luxurious income for the rest of his life. She admired the fact that he did work, that he didn’t just live the life of a playboy, but right now she wasn’t prepared to concede that. She wanted to get her point across and, feeling the way she did, she would argue that black was white if that was what was needed to win her case.
‘I want to work.’
Joaquin’s tone had hardened, and the half-smile that had been on his face a moment before had vanished like mist before sun. It was only when she saw how bleak and icy his expression looked without it that Cassie realised just how much easier, more approachable that smile had made him look and found herself wishing for it back.
She was suddenly desperately, painfully aware of the fact that she might have lived with this man for almost a year, but she didn’t really know him at all. Deep down, there was a dark, buried part of him that he kept hidden from her.
‘I have a lot to get done before Friday. You know Friday is a very important day.’
Oh, she knew that all right. But was he thinking of it as important for the same reasons she was?
CHAPTER FOUR
GIVING in to cowardice, Cassie decided she was no longer so sure she wanted to risk finding out. Never ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, her mother always said. And there was one answer to this that she did not want to hear at all.
‘Friday?’ she asked, trying to distract herself with a glance in the mirror and grimacing in distaste as she saw the way she looked.
Swamped by the black robe that was designed for Joaquin’s tall, masculine frame and not her own feminine one, and with her blonde hair tangled into an appalling bird’s nest, she looked a wreck, nothing like the elegant professional woman who had first caught Joaquin’s eye at that first business meeting.
She was going to ask him if they had a future together, looking like this? Where was her pride? Her self-esteem?
Reaching for her hairbrush, she started to pull it through her hair, wincing sharply as it caught in a particularly tight knot.
‘Why is Friday so important?’
She knew she was prevaricating, delaying the moment and the question that would decide her fate. If she really had to ask it? Couldn’t she give it a miss just for today? Couldn’t they go on as they were for a little while yet? Have one more night like last night?
‘What’s happening then?’
‘I’m meeting the buyers from London—we’re meeting the buyers from London,’ Joaquin amended.
‘We?’ Cassie echoed, frowning her confusion at his reflection in the mirror. ‘You want me to be there?’
‘Of course—you’re my interpreter.’
‘But they’re English! You don’t need an interpreter for them! You speak perfect English—quite possibly better than some of them!’
Joaquin’s grin was wide and wicked, a flash of brilliantly white teeth in his darkly tanned face.
‘I know that and you do too. But I don’t necessarily want them to know that. At least, not at this stage of the game. I would prefer them to think that I might not understand everything they say. That way they might not be quite so guarded in their opinions—they might let something slip.’
‘Something you can use to your advantage?’
‘Obviamente. What else?’
What else? Cassie asked herself privately. What else would Joaquin be thinking of but business? What else would matter to him as much as making money, wheeling and dealing?
Why was she fooling herself even trying to hope that he might have something more personal, more emotional on his mind?
Her hair was almost brushed smooth now. Every tangle had been tugged out of it and it was no longer a bird’s nest. But it looked as flat and as limp as she felt deep inside.
To her horror hot tears stung at her eyes and she blinked hard to fight them back, slowly turning to face Joaquin where he stood in the middle of the room, eyes dark, a faint frown on his face, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his trousers.
‘So you want me to come and sit in on a business meeting on Friday?’
‘A business dinner,’ Joaquin corrected. ‘We’re taking them out to dinner in the evening—now what the hell was that look for?’
‘What look?’ Cassie tried to hedge, though she knew from his dark scowl that it hadn’t worked.
He had always been able to see right through her when she tried to avoid telling him the truth. That was why she had had such a terrible time keeping the way she was feeling from him just lately. For once she had had cause to be thankful that he was a workaholic. When he was out of the house, she could let her mask slip, admit to the fears she was facing about the future.
‘What look?’ Joaquin echoed, lacing the words with dark mockery.
He strode across the room towards her, catching hold of her shoulders and spinning her round so that she faced the mirror once more. When she tried to avoid looking at her own reflection, afraid of what she might see, he caught her chin firmly between hard finger and thumb and turned her face so that she couldn’t do anything else.
‘That look! The one that tells me I have committed some appalling sin, one for which I should beg forgiveness on my knees before you, clad in sackcloth and ashes.’
‘Oh, now you’re being ridiculous!’
‘Am I?’ Joaquin questioned darkly. ‘Am I really? Look at yourself, Cassie—look!’ he commanded when she stubbornly struggled to avert her face, not wanting to meet her own eyes in the glass.
Cassie knew what she saw—but what was it that Joaquin saw in her face? Was it really possible that he could have misinterpreted her expression? That where she saw eyes clouded by anxiety, and a face that struggled to hide the pain and fear she had lived with for days, he saw something else? Something that made him think she was angry and distant from him? That she was the one whose mood was likely to prove difficult and disruptive?
Right now, feeling as vulnerable as she did, just the idea seemed like a welcome relief. Clearly the thought that their all-important anniversary was coming up meant little to him. Less than little—nothing at all! He’d even arranged a business meeting for the day. And wanted her to act as his employee!
‘Do you know what day it is on Friday?’
His reaction was so swift, so revealing that it tore at her heart. His head went back, very slightly, his eyes narrowing. And then there was a total blanking out of his expression, all trace of anything wiped from his features so that they were as smooth and unrevealing as those of a marble statue, the dark eyes as opaque as the unseeing sockets in a carved head.
‘Of course I know what day it is. The day we met—a year ago.’
‘Then…’
‘Oh, I see—I’m supposed to go the whole sentimental road, am I? Flowers and chocolates?’
He was taunting her now, provoking deliberately, she knew, but she couldn’t stop herself from rising to the provocation. Besides, it was probably so much better than letting him see how devastated she really was deep inside.
‘Well, I’d expected something!’
Was that cold, tight little voice really hers?
‘What I get is a business meeting! And, what’s more, a business meeting at which I’m supposed to be working!’
‘That meeting has been arranged for a long time.’
‘Oh, I’ll just bet it has!’
And she should know exactly what came first in Joaquin’s mind. Business first and foremost every time. No matter what else might be involved.
‘And even if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t cancel it.’
‘No.’
It was cold and flat and totally unmovable. Of course.
‘I couldn’t cancel it even if I wanted to.’
‘And you don’t want to.’
‘No.’
Damn the woman, what had got into her lately? He never knew which Cassandra would be waiting for him when he got home. Never knew if the Cassandra who had so enchanted and enthralled him from the start would be there, or the difficult, moody, bad-tempered creature who seemed to have taken her place for the past few weeks. The first Cassandra would have understood that this meeting had been set up months ago and even if he wanted to get out of it, there was no way that he could.
This Cassandra didn’t seem to understand very much at all. Let alone the fact that he had been working so hard lately in order to give himself some space, some time to try to get things sorted out in his mind.
‘Look, I know exactly what day it is on Friday—but it’s not as if we have something worth celebrating. If we’d been married it might have been different…’
Her reaction showed how much she disliked his words. Her head went back, her face stiffening. Her eyes seemed darker, sharper, colder, and even the soft fullness of her mouth seemed to have thinned and tightened as if holding back something bitter and harsh that she really wanted to say.
‘Is that it?’ he demanded abruptly. ‘Is that what you want? Is it marriage you’re after?’
If it was possible, she looked even more appalled. Horrified.
‘Marriage I’m… No!’
She shook her head, sending her blonde hair flying as she emphasised the word.
‘No!’ she said again, tossing her brush down onto the rumpled surface of the bed to reinforce the statement. ‘No way! Never! If you’re thinking that I wanted you to go down on one knee and beg me to marry you, then think again.’
So he’d been heading down the wrong road with thoughts like that, Joaquin admitted to himself. He didn’t know whether the feeling that rushed through him was one of relief or savage regret at the thought that he had obviously been so completely wrong. Yesterday he would have said that relief would be uppermost. Today he was not so sure.
‘I told you I don’t do commitment!’ he growled awkwardly.
‘And when did I ever ask you for any such thing?’
‘Then we both understand each other.’
‘Perfectly,’ Cassandra tossed at him, moving to the wardrobe and yanking open the door, staring fixedly inside as she decided what to wear for the day.
‘Bueno!’
‘Yes, bueno!’ she muttered into the wardrobe. ‘We’re both on the same track for once.’
Now relief was very definitely the most forceful feeling he was experiencing. Total, overwhelming, undiluted relief that he hadn’t opened himself up to her.
He couldn’t believe that he had come so close to saying something damned stupid. Something she really didn’t want. Something like. I don’t do commitment, but for you…
For you what?
If he’d started that sentence, then how the hell would he have finished it?
He didn’t know. He couldn’t even have said to himself what he felt—except that right now what he had with this woman was something he wanted to hold onto.
For ever? He didn’t know. He didn’t believe in a forever kind of love. He might have done once—as a child, he would have said that he wanted the sort of marriage that his parents had: perfect, loving faithful. Then, when he was fifteen, he’d found out that that marriage was just an illusion. His father had been unfaithful not once, but twice. And he had a son from each relationship.
Even worse, he had learned that the relationship that had resulted in his own birth and that of his sister had never truly been founded on love, but on duty and expediency, the need to have an heir for the family business, and hard, cold, financial facts.
He had seen his mother’s devastated face, heard her crying in her bed, heard the rows that had raged in the stillness of the night. He had stopped believing in love and commitment and for ever. And nothing that had happened since then had changed his mind.
If anything, his own experience had reinforced the belief he had come to in those long-ago nights. He was his father’s son. Like Juan Alcolar, he wasn’t made for a long-term, exclusive, faithful relationship. No woman he had known had lasted more than a year. He had tired of them and moved on, without even a backward glance, and that had suited him fine.
But he wasn’t tired of this one. No way.
And last night had proved that with a vengeance!
But what about Cassandra? That was a question he had no answer to. Just lately he hadn’t known what her mood would be, couldn’t guess at what she was thinking—feeling. She seemed restless and unsettled. It had crossed his mind more than once that perhaps she was ready to move on.
That perhaps she had already found someone else.
But no—if she had, would last night have been so devastating? So overwhelmingly sensual? Surely if her mind, her heart were already straying, she couldn’t have responded to him in that way?
‘So we are in agreement?’
‘Mmm…’
Cassandra’s head was buried in the wardrobe and as she pulled out a dress whatever she had said in response was hopelessly muffled.
‘Neither of us wants more than we already have?’ Joaquin continued, feeling as if he were inching his way through shark-infested water, not at all sure what he might find. ‘What we agreed on from the start?’
‘No ties, no commitment…’
Cassandra’s attention was on the dress, checking it over with what he privately considered excessive care.
‘Exacto!’
His tone brought her eyes to his face in a rush and just for a moment he wondered… But then she smiled and nodded emphatically.
‘Exactly!’ she confirmed, her voice as firm and unwavering as her wide-eyed gaze. ‘That’s what you offered from the start. You were always straight with me. Have I ever asked for more?’
‘No.’
Joaquin flashed her a quick, wide grin, using it to hide the maelstrom of feeling inside.
‘That’s why we fit together so well—why I’m so comfortable with you. You don’t want any more than I can give.’
‘No,’ Cassandra said, an odd, strangled note in her voice. ‘No, I don’t want anything more than you can give.’
Her eyes moved away from his, glancing at the clock on the bedside table, and when she spoke again that odd, inexplicable note had vanished, so totally that he was forced to wonder if it had ever been there at all. Or if, in fact, he had just imagined it.
‘If you have to go to work, then you’d better get a move on,’ she said unexpectedly casually, her previous annoyance at the prospect seeming to be forgotten. ‘You don’t want to be late.’
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
Moving forward, he planted a quick, hard kiss on her lips, putting into it the relief he felt that, perhaps, after all they had moved past this difficult, uncomfortable stage and into clearer waters. To his surprise she didn’t respond as fervently as she usually did, her mouth remaining stiff and unresponsive under his. Perhaps she wasn’t over her annoyance as much as he had thought.
But he didn’t have time to wonder, or to waste in any more argument. He really was going to be late if he didn’t hurry. Tonight they could talk.