Her heart thumped inside her chest. She could refuse to go, or try and persuade the chauffeur to intervene on her behalf, but somehow she didn’t think either course of action would get her what she wanted. Nor did she want to issue him a challenge, like she had earlier. The last thing she wanted was for Basa to make good on his threat to put her over his shoulder.
She stared out of the window. The instinct to run was nearly overwhelming, but where would she run to?
And yet she couldn’t spend an indeterminate number of days—and nights—with him on an island in the middle of nowhere. Surely there was another solution?
‘Look, we don’t need to go to Patagonia to talk. You want to talk—then, let’s talk now,’ she said quickly. ‘What is it that you want to know?’
‘The truth,’ he said softly.
She stared at him in silence. Somewhere deep inside she could feel a long-buried, festering anger roiling up inside her, after two years of being ostracised and judged and condemned without trial.
He made it sound so simple, but for the last two years there had been no single absolute truth—just a shifting kaleidoscope of other people’s opinions and beliefs that had nothing to do with who she was or what had happened—and not once had he been interested or willing to listen to her version.
‘Don’t make me laugh! You don’t want the truth. You’ve never wanted the truth. You’ve never once given me the benefit of the doubt. You’re just like everyone else. You just want to judge me.’
Her chest pinched as she remembered all the assumptions that people had made about her and her mother. The neighbours and friends and journalists and lawyers and all those people she had never even met, who had read and repeated and believed that she was guilty on the basis of nothing more than whispers and assumptions.
But it was his judgement that hurt most of all.
‘Mimi, listen—’
‘No, you listen, Basa.’
She took a quick breath, pushing past the ache in her chest.
‘If you want to force me to go all the way to Patagonia with you then fine!’ She filled the word with all the frustration and fury that was filling her body. ‘But you’re wasting your time. I’m done talking to you. So I hope you’re comfortable with silence, because that’s all you’re going to get from me.’
CHAPTER SIX
SHE KEPT HER WORD, smiling politely at the crew as they showed her to her seat, and then turning her face towards the window as soon as they were alone. It was deeply childish, she knew, to act that way, and judging by the look on Basa’s face he thought so too, but she’d had enough of worrying about what he thought of her. Accommodating his stupid demands and apologising hadn’t done much to change his opinion of her, so why not just be the rude, self-absorbed little troublemaker he thought she was?
Her head was aching and, overwhelmed with the tension and drama of the day, she leaned back against the leather headrest and closed her eyes.
What felt like thirty seconds later she heard the soft whine of wheels dropping into position and, opening her eyes, realised that she had fallen asleep.
She glanced out of the window and felt her heart bump against her ribs. They were getting ready to land.
Moments later the wheels hit the ground, and then she was climbing into another SUV.
It was late evening, and the sun had only recently set, so there was still a thin ribbon of gold on the horizon. But even with the headlights of the car at full beam she could see that beyond the darkness there was nothing except more darkness. And there was a threatening heaviness to the air, so that the night sky felt as though it was just inches away from swallowing her whole.
It felt as if they had reached the edge of the mapped world, and her stomach flipped over as the reality of her situation hit home.
Why had she allowed this to happen?
She couldn’t be stuck out here with this beautiful, furious man, who disliked and distrusted her in equal measure—the same man she had kissed just hours earlier, without any regard for the consequences, just as she had two years ago.
Shivering against the cool chill of the memory of that night, she steadied her pounding heart. Two years ago she would have followed him barefoot and naked into the wilderness, for then she had been willing—impatient, even—to give him her body and her heart. But back then he hadn’t wanted either, and nothing had changed except that now he wanted the truth.
She knew he was talking about what had happened that night at Fairbourne. But what if in exposing one truth he uncovered the real truth? That everything she touched turned to ashes?
He already knew about her stalled career; he didn’t need to learn that the rest of her life, including her love life, was similarly stunted.
The car stopped, and when she climbed out she saw that they were parked by the side of a lake. A series of low-level lights illuminated a wide wooden jetty, at the end of which was moored a large motorboat.
Refusing to give in to the slippery panic sliding over her skin, she ignored Basa’s outstretched arm and climbed into the boat. Soon they were moving smoothly across the water, the slow tick of the outboard engine blending with the gentle lapping of the water.
Around fifteen minutes later they reached the island. She had a fleeting impression of a curving silhouette of silvered wood and long low windows before Basa hustled her inside.
‘I gave my staff the evening off, but I’m sure there will be something in the kitchen if you’re hungry.’
When she didn’t reply he shook his head.
‘Okay, you’ve made your point, Mimi. Can we stop with all the silent treatment now? It’s not as if refusing to speak to me is going to change anything, or make me disappear. And it’s certainly not going to make our stay here particularly enjoyable.’
Their stay!
His words echoed loudly inside her head as she stared at him in disbelief, curling her toes inside her shoes to stop herself from throwing his remark back in his face—or, better still, throwing him into the lake outside.
He was making it sound as though this was some kind of mini-break, when in fact he’d forced her into coming here against her wishes. And now he had the gall to complain that she was going to ruin the enjoyment of their stay.
A pulse of anger beat over her skin as she met his gaze.
‘So you’re going to keep this up the whole time?’
He was looking down at her with barely concealed impatience, and as she glared back at him his eyes narrowed.
‘Actually, you know what? Forget it. I mean, what was I thinking? How could I even consider having a civilised conversation with someone who was raised by wolves?’
Mimi gaped at him, momentarily winded by the injustice and hypocrisy of his statement.
‘And abduction and coercion are just so civilised, I suppose,’ she snapped, her vow to remain silent forgotten in a white flash of anger that blinded her to everything but the need to wipe that dismissive sneer from his handsome face.
He stared at her, a muscle ticking in his cheek. ‘I am not doing this now. I’ll show you to your room.’
Turning, he picked up her bag. She stared at his broad back and felt her body start to shake. Funny, that. She started talking and immediately he wanted to leave.
Her heart felt like a lump of lead inside her chest. All that stuff he’d said about wanting a conversation had really been about him pulling her strings, making her dance to his tune. He didn’t care about her, or what had happened. Or about the anxiety he’d caused by dragging her out here and holding the threat of an inquisition over her head. And now he thought he could just send her to her room like some truculent child.
‘That’s right. Walk away, why don’t you?’ she snarled. ‘That’s what you do, isn’t it, when you can’t get what you want? Why don’t you pretend you’re looking for a bottle of champagne while you’re at i
t?’
He swung round, his dark eyes glittering with fury. ‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Don’t talk to me like I’m one of your staff.’
‘I’m not. But then, my staff don’t stand around screeching like a fishwife when everyone else is trying to sleep.’
‘I’m not screeching.’ She stabbed a finger in his direction. ‘You’re just so used to bullying people into doing what you want that you can’t bear me standing up for myself! Oh, and by the way, I’m not a fishwife. In fact, I’m not anyone’s wife. I’m actually very happy being single. But if I did get married it definitely wouldn’t be to an insufferable jerk like you.’
He dropped her bag onto the smooth wooden floor, and walked purposefully towards her, his gaze fixed on her face. ‘I wasn’t proposing,’ he said coldly. ‘I’m not looking for a wife right now. And when I am ready to marry, it will be to someone who understands my world. Someone who shares my values.’
She stared at him mutely. For so long, right up until that night at Fairbourne, she’d imagined herself in love with this man. But whatever had possessed her to think that he might love her back? Even before her stepfather and uncle had knocked her life off course they had been from different worlds—his old money versus her newly acquired wealth.
And of course she knew exactly what kind of wife Basa would choose. Beautiful, smart, successful in her own right... And she would also have one of those names that mattered—the kind of name that got you the best table in the restaurant.
In other words, nothing like her. Or the version of her that he and practically every other person except Alicia believed her to be.
Her hands curled into fists. ‘For the last time, I didn’t know what Charlie and Raymond were doing. It was as much a shock to me and my mum as everyone else. You might not want to believe that, but that doesn’t stop it being true, and the truth is what you said you wanted.’
His face looked as if it had turned to stone.
‘Oh, what’s the point? I need some fresh air.’
Fresh air and a much-needed reprieve from his presence.
She stormed back the way she’d come, through the front door and out onto the deck.
* * *
Basa swore with frustration, and then, without having had any thought of doing so, he was striding after her. ‘Why should I believe you?’
A cool breeze accompanied the silence that followed his words and then she spun round, her eyes blazing in the darkness. ‘Why wouldn’t you?’
There was an ache in her voice like a bruise, but he ignored it. ‘Evidence!’
‘What evidence?’ she snapped. She was staring at him as if he’d grown two heads. ‘You mean being related to Charlie and Raymond?’
‘No, I don’t mean that. That would be petty—not to say unfair.’
He shook his head. Tension was swelling around them, crowding them as he had crowded her earlier in the street, and then in the car, and suddenly he was fighting to stay calm.
‘None of us gets to choose our relations, Mimi, but we do get to choose how we act, and that’s how other people judge us. On our actions.’
She breathed in sharply. ‘Well, in that case, if you would stop slinging mud in my direction for a couple of seconds, you should take a good, long look at yourself.’
He took a step forward, his eyes fixed on her small, pale face. ‘Meaning?’
‘You took me to your room and stripped off my clothes and then you lost interest. Only you didn’t even have the common decency to tell me to my face. You just left me lying there, like some half-eaten dessert, while you pretended to go and find a bottle of champagne.’
The ache in her voice made him flinch inwardly, and he felt a dull flush of colour spreading over the contours of his cheekbones as, inevitably, they reached the crux of the matter.
‘But why were you even there? In my room? In my bed?’
He felt a stab of shame. It had been his decision to employ Charlie and Raymond, and his lack of judgement had caused untold suffering to so many people—not least his own father. And yet here he was, fixating on Mimi’s motivation for turning that sweet smile his way.
‘I told you why.’ She stiffened. ‘I wanted to have sex with you.’
His body hardened at the frankness of her words, his eyes dropping instinctively to the lush pink mouth that had spoken them.
‘But you say you were a virgin.’
Her chin jerked up, her eyes widening with shock and hurt, and for one tiny insane moment he wanted to reach out and pull her into his arms.
‘I don’t just say it, Basa, I was. I st—’ She broke off, stepping back unsteadily.
It was the second time she had made that claim, and once again he found himself questioning both her and himself. There had already been so many false positives that he didn’t know whether to believe her. Could she really be telling the truth? Or was she just playing him again? Trying to soften his resolve?
‘So why me? Why that night?’
It was the question he’d asked himself on so many occasions—a question he’d even considered asking his sister over the many months that had passed since that night. A question that seemed to matter even more now that she was claiming to have been a virgin.
‘Why does it matter?’ Her voice was unsteady now too. ‘It was two years ago. Why do you care?’
He took a step closer, the taste of anger and frustration bitter in his mouth.
‘The reason I left you lying there was because I was talking to my lawyer—the lawyer who had been calling me and leaving messages all evening about a “discrepancy” in the accounts.’
She stilled, her blue eyes suddenly like saucers. He could almost track her thoughts as she worked back through the timeline of those hours and days before news of the embezzlement broke.
His own thoughts stalled. No, that didn’t make sense. She shouldn’t need to work back through anything. According to his argument she would already have known that time was running out for her stepfather and her uncle, and that was why she had made a play for him.
Unless... Unless he’d been wrong.
Blanking his mind to that possibility, he leaned forward, the muscles in his arms swelling against the fabric of his jacket. ‘Thanks to you, I never got those calls or messages—because you took my phone and switched it off. Or did you forget that little detail from the night? “Oh, please, Basa, let’s shut the whole world out.”’
Watching the colour drain from her face, he wanted to stop and rewind, erase his remark, but another part of him—the part that still stung from being played—wanted to hurt her.
‘You know, I actually thought it was poetic.’ He shook his head. ‘It didn’t occur to me that you meant it literally—that you were shutting the world out to give Charlie and Raymond time to cover their tracks.’
Mimi stared at him in silence. She looked stunned.
‘That’s not what I was doing,’ she said shakily.
‘Really?’ Basa shook his head. ‘So why didn’t you come and find me to say goodbye?’ He felt a spasm of fury, remembering the moment when he’d seen that nameless guy with his hand resting on Mimi’s back. ‘Oh, sorry—I forgot. I already know the answer to that one. I saw you with him. About five foot eight, stupid floppy hair, even stupider orange car...’
His voice sounded raw, and he hated the note of jealousy that had crept in beneath the anger, but he didn’t care about anything now except getting her to admit the truth and prove he’d been right about her all along.
‘Do you see my problem, Mimi? You want me to believe you wanted me so much you were willing to give me your virginity—but if that’s true, if you really were innocent, why did you sneak off with lover-boy?’
Her face was as white as paper now.
‘I did want you.’ She took a step closer, her hands trembling by her sides.
‘And he wasn’t my lover. I just overheard him saying he was going back to London. I wanted to go home so I asked him for a lift.’
‘Right. So I’m supposed to believe that the pair of you driving off into the sunset was just a coincidence?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t a coincidence. It was a necessity.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Her eyes flared, a sudden flash of blue in the darkness.
‘Of course you don’t. You’re Bautista Caine. You have women chasing you on every continent. Nobody leaves you—nobody walks out of your life as if you don’t matter. When you didn’t come back I thought you’d changed your mind.’ She breathed in sharply. ‘That you’d been curious but I’d been a disappointment. I just wanted to get away.’
She stared past him into the darkness, and through the confused tangle of his feelings for her, the anger and the hurt, he heard the shake in her voice and knew she was an inch from tears.
‘You weren’t a disappointment,’ he said quietly. How could she think that? ‘And I wasn’t just curious. I was captivated.’
He could still remember every pulsing second with punishing clarity. The slow slide of her skin against his, the urgency of her mouth. Had she no idea of how sweet she had been? How desperately he had wanted to fuse his body with hers and the weight of his disappointment when he’d had to bring it to a halt?
But how could she? If she was telling the truth then she’d had nothing to compare it to.
His breathing slowed. He could remember his own first time—how nervous he’d been, how anxious to do it right and to give pleasure as much as to receive it. What would he have thought if he’d been in her position?
He frowned. ‘But why Alicia’s birthday party? If that was to have been your first time, why did you choose that night?’
‘When else was it going to be?’
In the still night air her voice scraped against his senses. Her eyes were deep blue on his, and she was so close now that he could see her whole body was trembling.
Craving His Forbidden Innocent Page 9