‘I’ve talked enough,’ Caitlin muttered, rising to her feet. She felt hemmed in and suffocated by Dante’s oppressive presence and the sheer force of his personality. ‘I’m going to see Alejandro...’
‘No point.’ Dante stood up, dumping money on the table, more than enough to cover the coffee they had ordered. ‘Like I said, he’s having a battery of tests. You won’t be able to see him until tomorrow.’
‘I’d planned on leaving this evening,’ Caitlin reminded him, digging her heels in and refusing to be bullied.
‘That’s the thing about plans. They often have to change.’
For a moment, they stared at one another, and then Caitlin broke eye contact and began walking towards the door, only to stop because she was going to have to return to the house and with Dante, unless he decided to hang around in the city centre for no apparent reason.
‘I’m very sorry about what happened at the pool,’ she said in a stilted voice as they began leaving the city, heading out towards his house. Clear the air, she thought. He had and so should she. ‘I think it’s best if I pack my bags when I get back. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got stuff to do. Tomorrow, I can easily take a taxi in to the hospital and then I can leave for the airport straight from the hospital. I don’t know if I’ll get a flight immediately but...but...’ She ran out of steam and stared straight ahead at the scenery whipping past.
For a while, Dante didn’t say anything.
He could sense her nerves. She had every right to be nervous. She also had every right to apologise about what had happened by the pool. He wasn’t proud of himself, but he wasn’t the one with a ring on his finger, even if the engagement was a complete sham from the sounds of it.
‘I expect,’ he said smoothly, ‘that the touching engagement will now be a thing of the past? Our parents will be bitterly disappointed.’
Caitlin glanced at him.
This engagement was a charade but it was one that had suited both of them. So what happened next? It was something she would have to discuss with Alejandro. Did he still want to buy time? Dante might believe that theirs was just a convenient arrangement but many unions were based on less. She certainly wasn’t going to commit to one thing or the other until she had spoken to Alejandro.
‘Well?’ Dante prompted sharply. They were nearing his house, all signs of habitation falling away to open land with the occasional manor to be glimpsed through imposing gates.
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen.’
‘You don’t love my brother, Caitlin.’
‘But I do.’
Dante killed the engine and swivelled so that he was staring at her with brooding intensity. Frustration soared through him. He’d thought he’d got what he wanted but had he? What did she mean by that?
‘Love without passion is the recipe for an empty marriage. And then there’s us...let’s not forget about that...’ His voice was lazy now and pensive.
‘There’s no us.’
‘No,’ he agreed, ‘there isn’t, but you went up in flames when I kissed you. Don’t worry. It was a mistake to touch you but I won’t be succumbing to the temptation again. It’s not in my nature to pursue any woman who belongs to someone else.’
Caitlin laughed shortly. ‘Belongs to someone else? What era are you living in, Dante? I don’t belong to anyone.’
‘Oh, but you do. Friends or no friends, you’re my brother’s lover—’
‘I’m not!’
Stunned silence greeted this. For a moment, Dante was lost for words. The idea that two people could be engaged without having consummated their relationship beggared belief.
‘And on the subject of lies...’ Did she think he was born yesterday? Was she hoping to airbrush away their little moment of intimacy by pretending that fidelity to Alejandro wasn’t imperative because they weren’t lovers?
‘I’m not lying,’ Caitlin whispered.
‘Tell me my brother isn’t a substitute for your ex-lover,’ Dante said sharply. ‘No man wants to bed a woman who’s thinking of some love she had and lost.’
‘You don’t get it, Dante!’
‘What don’t I get?’
‘I’m not some scarlet woman! I haven’t slept with your brother and...and...’
‘And?’
‘And I don’t have any ex-lovers tucked away in my head, demanding my attention and messing up my life! I don’t have any ex-lovers at all!’
‘I don’t get what you’re saying.’
‘What do you not get?’ Caitlin finally snapped. ‘I don’t have any ex-lovers because I’m still a virgin!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
CAITLIN DIDN’T KNOW who was more stunned by that admission, Dante or herself.
She didn’t wait to find out either, pulling open the car door and leaping out, heading at speed towards the front door.
Dante, on the other hand, took his time getting out of the car, grasping the roof and swinging his long body out.
Virgin? Virgin? Could she possibly be lying about that? No. He had seen the mortified embarrassment wash over her face in a red tidal rush, and he had known that she’d been telling the truth.
But her confession left him more confused than he already was.
Why was she engaged to his brother? What was going on? But then, the cogs in his brain began to crank back into life and he knew that there could be only one conclusion.
Alejandro was very kind, one of the world’s gentle souls. Growing up, he had been the one in the kitchen helping the housekeeper cook while Dante had been kicking a ball outside or climbing a tree. Later, when rugby and black-run skiing had replaced the ball kicking, Alejandro had remained in the kitchen, but this time enjoying the business of preparing food and eating it, happy to read and pursue isolated hobbies. Dante had never really been able to get it.
What he was getting now, though, was the reality that his brother had doubtless found himself in a pickle. Their parents had become increasingly anxious to see their eldest son settle down and produce a few heirs to the throne.
And into this scenario, cue stage door to the left, came Caitlin, wounded by heartbreak, disillusioned with the whole business of love, and yet still desirous of having a family.
Two and two had made four and although she and his brother weren’t in love, they liked each other well enough to do a sensible deal.
Hence Alejandro’s lack of reaction when he, Dante, had mentioned that kiss by the pool.
He truly didn’t fancy Caitlin. That was something Dante simply couldn’t understand because he had never in his life found any woman more alluring.
A virgin!
He looked at her for a second, pausing. She was standing by the front door, every part of her body trembling with the urge to escape as fast as she could after her admission.
She couldn’t have been dressed in an outfit less appealing to Dante. Somewhere along the line, she’d bought two long flowered skirts that harked right back to some distant hippie era. She was wearing one of these now. The mesh of swirling colours would give anyone a headache were they to make the mistake of staring for too long. Twinned with this was a short-sleeved tee shirt that was neither loose nor tight.
And yet nothing could disguise the intense sensuality of her body. He clenched his jaw hard.
Okay, so maybe the situation was a little more blurred than he’d first thought. Maybe what was an engagement, given the weird circumstances, couldn’t be called a relationship at all. Doubtless it was just a matter of time before she broke it off, because all that rot about love and friendship counted for nothing when the shimmer of passion hovered in the background like a steady haze, and he had shown her that shimmer of passion.
Would she easily be able to go back to the empty dryness of a situation in which affection was the sum total of what she felt?
She was glaring at hi
m, her face tight with the strain of suppressing her emotions, her hair all over the place. She looked like a wild cat and he marvelled that Alejandro could ever have thought that such a fiery creature could submit to a non-relationship indefinitely.
Heartbreak or no heartbreak.
Dante strolled towards her. She didn’t have a key or he was pretty sure she would have been firmly locked in her bedroom by now.
He slotted his key in the door, pushed it open and stood aside as she brushed past him.
‘Caitlin.’ His voice was rougher than he’d expected and he felt suddenly awkward.
‘What?’ She spun to look at him, her body taut and straight as an arrow, every nerve in her body still shimmering with heightened emotion. What had possessed her to share that most intimate of secrets with him? What?
‘Join me in the kitchen for something to drink. Maybe eat. It’s been quite a day.’
Caitlin opened her mouth to tell him that she would rather not but then she thought, so she had let slip that detail about herself... What of it? She had simply tried to defend herself against the slur of being a two-timer without a conscience. What was wrong with that? And what was the big deal with being a virgin? Why should she be embarrassed? It was her body to give when she wanted, not when the world deemed it suitable. She would far rather live a life being choosy about the person she chose to share herself with than sleep with any and everyone just because...
Besides, on a more pedestrian note, she didn’t want to spend the remainder of the day hiding away in her bedroom. Why give Dante the satisfaction of thinking that he had got to her?
She could either allow herself to be swept along on a fierce tide of helpless reaction or else try hard and fast to emulate his cool control.
She nodded and forced her reluctant legs to follow him into the kitchen.
Every gadget was high-end and polished to gleaming perfection, including the extraordinary coffee maker, which was a work of art in itself, but Dante bypassed that and headed for the fridge, which was concealed behind the banks of glossy grey cabinets.
It wasn’t quite yet six but he offered her a drink, a glass of wine. Desperate to calm her nerves, Caitlin accepted with alacrity and finished glass number one at speed, instantly relaxing as the alcohol began coursing through her veins. It was easier to talk to Dante when she wasn’t battling low-level panic and sickening awareness of his intense physicality. The wine lowered her defences and muted her nerves and, after a while, she knew that she was relaxing into normal conversation about Alejandro, now that he had regained consciousness, so she was unprepared when Dante suddenly sat forward, his dark eyes pinning her to the spot, his body angled forward so that she felt the heat he emanated.
‘So talk to me. Tell me. I’m curious...’ he said softly.
‘Talk to you about what?’ She had already finished two glasses of wine but as her eyes sought out the nearly empty bottle of Chablis, Dante relieved her of that easy route to Dutch courage by gently moving her glass out of reach.
‘Why you’ve never slept with a guy.’
Instantly Caitlin stiffened. ‘I should never have told you that.’
‘But you did and I’m glad you did. The pieces are falling into place. So talk to me, Caitlin. Tell me why.’
‘I already told you. I was hurt. I picked up the pieces and moved on.’ She looked at him narrowly, alert for any show of mocking cynicism, but he was listening intently, his lean, beautiful face interested and non-judgemental, and she had a sudden fierce urge to confide. When she had left for London, she had locked away her past but now it was clamouring at the door, begging to be released. ‘I just lost faith in relationships.’ She paused. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘You might be surprised. I had a bad experience myself once upon a time.’ Dante was shocked by an admission he had never shared with another living soul.
‘Really?’ Caitlin had never been more curious. ‘Was it Luisa?’
That made Dante laugh, banking down his natural unease with sharing anything of a personal nature with anyone.
‘I was nineteen,’ he mused, ‘and she was...older. With a child. I foolishly flung myself into something I thought had legs only to find out that she was not who she claimed to be. She was after my money and I had a lucky escape because I found out before I’d committed to something that would have ended up more than just a major headache. Nevertheless, I managed to squander a substantial amount of money in the process.’
Caitlin nodded, instantly understanding that, for a man as proud as he was, such a miscalculation would have been a source of bitter humiliation, even though he would never admit as much.
A low stirring began deep inside her. She felt hot and restless, her senses heightened in a way they never had been before in her life.
‘But it wouldn’t have occurred to me,’ he continued, without breaking stride, ‘to have given up on sex.’
‘We’re all different,’ Caitlin said quietly.
‘Know what I think?’
‘I don’t think I want to know what you think.’ But she was frightened at just how much she really did.
‘You know you do.’ Dante tipped his finger under her chin so that she would focus on him and that simple gesture felt like something way more intimate, daringly intrusive even. Mesmerised, she could only stare at him. ‘I think you’re scared,’ he said softly. ‘I think my brother was the easy way out for you. Maybe you want a family and you can just about see your way to coupling with a man who couldn’t possibly hurt you because you’ve handed nothing over to him, at least not the searing passion of real, complicated love. And perhaps my brother, who knows the weight of parental expectation, is prepared to buckle and accept what is on the table... Is that it?’
Caitlin said nothing. He had fumbled his way towards an explanation and, while he had hit the spot with certain assumptions, he was way off target with others, but then he was not to know the complexity of the situation.
One thing she was realising, though, was there was no way she could continue the pretence of an engagement to Alejandro, not to Dante or his family. He had forced her to recognise that passion was there; she had tasted it. The only problem was that the fruit she had tasted was forbidden. Dante was not the man for her.
‘Stop asking me to talk about this,’ she whispered.
‘Are you really going to go ahead with a farcical engagement and a marriage that is going to eventually end in tears, whatever your reasons for instigating it?’
Caitlin could look at him now and say, truthfully, ‘No.’ She sighed. ‘Are you satisfied?’
‘Are you?’
‘I need to go up now. I... I’m tired. I just want to have a long, hot bath and go to sleep.’ She stood up because if she remained sitting, remained in his orbit, she knew that the urge to reach out and touch would be too powerful. ‘I’m going to talk to Alejandro tomorrow and then...then... I’m going to head back to London...’
She talked to Alejandro. She’d thought that she might bump into Dante the following morning, and after the conversation they had shared she had been dreading that, but when, at a little after nine, she stepped into the taxi she had ordered to take her to the hospital, he was nowhere to be seen.
She wasn’t sure what to expect but Alejandro was subdued, though very much with it and itching to leave the hospital. He was going to recuperate at his parents’ house, he told her. The bones would heal and he would be on crutches within a week. Mobile. They got past the formalities of two people circling what they both knew was going to be the main event.
‘I know you must have feelings for him.’ Alejandro was the first to cross the Rubicon. ‘You forget how well I know you. You need to be careful. He has a terrible reputation when it comes to women.’
‘I’m not about to get involved with him, Alejandro.’
‘But you’d like to?’
> ‘No.’ She’d thought of the way her body went up in flames whenever Dante was near her. She thought of those taboo images that had flashed through her head at regular intervals, hot and sharp and leaving her weak.
They’d spoken, Alejandro had said awkwardly. Dante had talked to him, openly and honestly, thinking him to be out of it. He had talked about how much he regretted the passing of time when they had had so little to do with one another. Caitlin could see that the Alejandro who had emerged from his deep sleep was a different Alejandro.
The engagement was no more. He would, he told her, break it to his parents and hang the consequences. But he was still going to send her the money he’d agreed on, even though Caitlin was horrified and downright forbade it.
‘I’ve already emailed my guy at the bank,’ he warned her. ‘A deal’s a deal. Now, you go.’ He smiled wryly. ‘People are queuing to visit, including Luisa, for reasons best known to her. Can’t remember her paying me a scrap of notice and I’ve known the woman since she was twelve.’
Something stirred in Caitlin. She remembered the venom on the other woman’s face when she had bumped into them on the hospital ward not long ago, and shivered. Why would Luisa still be hanging around? Not her business. She was an old family friend. Did those ever really go away?
‘That fall,’ Alejandro’s parting words were, ‘might just have saved my life, Caitlin.’ His voice was pensive. ‘You should do what you feel you have to do. Take it from me, when you have a scare it makes you realise that life is precious and you only get to live it once...’
Her mind was on so many things when, much later, she let herself back into the house, having remembered this time to take a spare key. Two were kept in a metal safe in the kitchen and she had had to sign it out.
Having not seen Dante before she left for the hospital, she had taken it for granted that he would be similarly absent when she later returned.
The Forbidden Cabrera Brother (Mills & Boon Modern) Page 11