‘But—’
‘Brynne, it has been obvious from the first that you have been under some sort of misapprehension where my relationship with Antonia Roig is concerned,’ he bit out coldly. ‘Considering our own—closeness, the other night, I find the continuance of such a misapprehension highly insulting!’
Brynne looked at him searchingly, remembering all the occasions when she had seen him with the other woman, the amount of time he had spent in the other woman’s company, the fact that Antonia had come here and advised her to leave; what else was Brynne supposed to think but that the two of them were romantically involved?
Even though Alejandro had continuously denied such a relationship …
She gave a puzzled shake of her head. ‘I’m sorry if I was mistaken—’
‘Are you?’ he scorned. ‘I believe I have said this before, but it seems to me that you take some sort of delight in thinking the worst of me!’
There was no delight involved for Brynne at all in thinking of the woman Alejandro had married seven years ago, of his relationship with Joanna and the dozens of women he had probably been involved with since. Heartache better described her feelings where those women were concerned!
‘You’re talking nonsense, Alejandro—’
‘I do not think so,’ he bit out angrily, standing up. ‘I will go and spend time with Michael—he, at least, expresses enjoyment in my company!’ he added scornfully. ‘We will not be returning to Majorca in the next few weeks, so you will need to take everything with you when we leave in the morning—’
‘Excuse me?’ Brynne cut in frowningly.
Alejandro scowled down at her. ‘I am sure I made myself perfectly clear, Brynne,’ he clipped impatiently. ‘All of us will be flying to Spain in the morning.’
Brynne stared at him disbelievingly. He couldn’t seriously expect her to go to his home in Spain with him—
But why couldn’t he?
She had told Alejandro at the onset that she intended staying with Michael for this transitional month.
It had just never occurred to her that part of that month would be spent in Spain with Alejandro’s family.
Or that by the time that happened she would have fallen in love with him …
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BRYNNE swallowed hard, knowing it would be a wrench to be parted from Michael so soon, but also aware that she wouldn’t feel comfortable being anywhere near Alejandro’s family after what had happened between the two of them four days ago, and she wasn’t comfortable being with Alejandro again …!
She drew in a deep breath. ‘Perhaps when you take Michael with you tomorrow to meet your family would be as good a time as any for me to go back to England—’
‘What are you saying, Brynne?’ Alejandro cut in harshly.
She looked up at him with guarded eyes. ‘That this might be a good time for me to go home—’
‘You coward!’ he rasped furiously, kneeling down on the sand beside Brynne to grasp her arms. ‘How dare you just run away like this—?’
‘I’m not the one who ran away!’ she came back just as angrily, her pain still very raw. ‘Perhaps you’ve also forgotten that my parents recently lost their only son? That they need me—’
‘And perhaps you have forgotten that you agreed to stay with Michael for a month, not eight days,’ Alejandro bit out coldly as he glared at her.
Eight days … Was that all it had been? Eight days, when the whole of her life had changed. When falling in love with this man had changed her for ever.
‘You’re hurting my arms, Alejandro,’ she told him huskily.
Alejandro had thought of his abrupt departure four days ago not as the running away Brynne obviously thought it to be, but as a need to be away from her in order to make sense of his own emotions.
His mouth was a thin angry line as he thrust her away from him. ‘You are a coward, Brynne—’
‘That’s the second time you’ve called me that,’ she snapped angrily.
‘Because that is what you are,’ he said harshly as he glared at her in frustration. ‘I do not believe for one moment that you are rushing back to England to be with your parents—’
‘Well, I’m not rushing back to England to be with anyone else, either, if that’s what you’re implying!’ Brynne breathed deeply.
It was not what he was implying. He knew Brynne well enough to realize that she would never have allowed their relationship to have developed in the way that it had if she had already been involved with someone in England.
Although she seemed to have had no trouble believing he could go to bed with her while still involved with Antonia Roig …
He stood up once again, aware that if he didn’t do so he might do something they would both regret. ‘If you wish to go then you must do so, Brynne,’ he told her flatly. ‘But you need to tell Michael you are leaving him,’ he added abruptly before turning away to stride over to the rock-pool where Michael was playing.
Brynne’s eyes were so full of tears that she couldn’t even see Alejandro as he walked away from her.
But she was doing the right thing, wasn’t she? Putting as much distance between herself and Alejandro as she possibly could?
There was no future for them together. No anything for them together. So to stay, to go to Spain with them, to continue to be with Alejandro and continue to play the part of Michael’s aunt, wouldn’t help any of them.
Michael was comfortable with his father now, had talked of nothing else the last four days, and the two of them were chatting easily together as Brynne blinked away the tears to look across at them.
Only it seemed she was now uncomfortable being anywhere near Alejandro …
Because she loved him so much she ached with it, couldn’t even look at him now without being afraid that love shone in her eyes.
Brynne was not leaving Michael, Alejandro knew even as he helped his son to collect shells, she was leaving him, could not even bear to be anywhere near him after what had happened.
Hadn’t he retreated in the same way four nights ago? A decision he now was beginning to regret deeply, as he acknowledged an overwhelming need to keep Brynne beside him. He wanted to know that she would be there for him to talk to, to come home to, to make love to.
But four days of thinking of nothing but her and he had already known that he wanted all of those things with Brynne when he returned to the villa this morning.
And Brynne had made it perfectly clear that she wanted none of them with him.
That she was actually going to leave him tomorrow with the intention of never coming back …
How could he allow that to happen?
Did he have any choice?
‘You have telephoned your parents …?’
Brynne looked across the terrace at Alejandro, her breath catching in her throat at how handsome he looked in the black evening suit and snowy white shirt, the darkness of his hair still damp from the shower he had taken before dinner.
A dinner she would much rather not have joined him for, but she’d known he would only call her a coward again if she attempted to excuse herself.
‘Yes.’ She strolled out onto the terrace to join him, cool and elegant in a fitted cream knee-length dress that showed off the tan she had acquired over the last few days.
Alejandro poured her a glass of white wine before looking up at her. ‘They were pleased to hear of your imminent return?’ he asked.
‘I—didn’t tell them,’ she answered honestly as she sat down.
It was going to take months, possibly years, for her parents to accept Tom’s and Joanna’s death, but they had sounded much brighter when she had spoken to them on the telephone earlier, her father assuring her that her mother was off her medication now, and was even thinking of returning to work at the office where she had been a secretary for the last ten years.
It had been such a positive conversation, including her assurances about Michael’s blossoming relationship with his father, that
she simply hadn’t got around to telling them she was returning home tomorrow.
At least, she had told herself that was what had happened.
In reality, she hadn’t been able to commit herself to leaving once it had come down to it!
To leaving Alejandro …
Alejandro’s gaze narrowed on her searchingly. She looked so cold and distant in her cream dress, her hair secured on top of her head adding to that elegant remoteness. Not at all like the love-tousled woman he had left so abruptly four nights ago!
He shrugged. ‘Does that mean you have changed your mind?’
‘I—no,’ she said firmly before taking a sip of her wine. ‘I don’t know quite how to broach the subject with Michael, and I thought—I should talk to him about it before mentioning it to my parents.’ She grimaced.
Alejandro gave a disgusted snort. ‘It seems then that it is only with me that you are reticent!’
Brynne stiffened. ‘I thought you would be pleased that I’m leaving—relieved, even—’
‘I am not.’ His accent was stronger in his anger, his eyes glittering dangerously. ‘Brynne, you and I have became lovers—’
‘Something that you clearly wanted to forget when you left so abruptly!’ she cut in forcefully, colour warming her cheeks.
‘But I have not forgotten!’ He turned the full force of his attention on her as he sat stiffly in the chair. ‘Neither, I believe, have you?’ he rasped.
She closed her eyes briefly. ‘I’ve—tried,’ she said.
‘But have not succeeded?’ Alejandro prompted. ‘Brynne, it is very important—’ He broke off as the sound of a car could be heard coming down the long driveway to the villa. A scowl darkened his face at the possible interruption to this conversation.
Brynne had heard the car too now. And it didn’t take two guesses to know who their visitor—who Alejandro’s visitor!—was going to be. Obviously Antonia Roig had her own ideas about whether or not Alejandro would see her this evening.
She knew she had guessed the visitor’s identity correctly as she heard the car engine switch off and the click of high heeled shoes on the pathway.
‘It would seem that you have a visitor this evening,’ Brynne murmured mockingly even as she heard Alejandro’s muttered comments in Spanish as he slowly stood up, his face dark with anger.
He looked down at Brynne with glittering eyes. ‘I assure you, she will not be staying,’ he said harshly even as Antonia Roig appeared in the doorway behind a slightly frowning Maria.
Brynne stood up. ‘I think I’ll make myself scarce—’
‘You will stay exactly where you are!’ Alejandro’s restraining hand on her arm reinforced his words even as he looked unsmilingly across at the beautiful Antonia Roig. ‘What are you doing here, Antonia?’ he clipped as the other woman strolled smilingly towards Alejandro with the obvious intention of kissing him.
Brynne felt a slight fluttering in her stomach at the coldness of his tone, knowing she would feel like cringing in a corner if Alejandro ever spoke to her like that.
Not that it seemed to deter Antonia Roig in the slightest as she continued to smile, sure of her own beauty and power in the figure-hugging red dress that showed off her olive complexion and her dark eyes. ‘I would prefer for us to be alone, Alejandro,’ she murmured huskily after giving Brynne a dismissive glance.
Alejandro’s hand tightened on Brynne’s arm as he felt her poised for flight. ‘There is nothing that you have to say to me that Brynne cannot hear,’ he assured Antonia, completely out of patience with this woman’s machinations.
Antonia gave him a confident smile. ‘I am sure that what the two of us have to say to each other can be of no interest to Miss Sullivan, Alejandro—’
‘On the contrary,’ he bit out scathingly. ‘I feel it is very important that Brynne hear exactly what I have to say to you!’ His mouth twisted derisively as he glanced at Brynne and saw how uncomfortable she was, those deep blue eyes pleading with him to let her leave.
It was a plea he could not grant. He had many things he wanted to say to Brynne tonight before she left tomorrow, and unwanted as Antonia’s presence here was, it would help to dispense with one of those things!
He drew Brynne to his side before turning back to Antonia, those deep brown eyes hardening questioningly as she took in that show of intimacy. ‘I have been engaged in a business transaction with your father, Antonia,’ he said coldly. ‘Nothing else,’ he added grimly as she would have spoken. ‘There has never been a relationship between the two of us. Nothing beyond a friendship extended to the daughter of a business acquaintance.’
Up to that point Brynne had been squirming with the need to absent herself from another display of the intimacy between Alejandro and Antonia, but Alejandro’s apparent determination to establish that he had never been involved in any sort of intimate relationship with Antonia Roig made her stop squirming and look up at him searchingly.
Alejandro spared her a glance before turning back to the other woman, his expression becoming cold. ‘But even my business dealings with Felipe were terminated, Antonia, after I learnt of your visit here to talk to Brynne when you knew I was away in Palma at a meeting with your father. A visit during which you took it upon yourself to tell Brynne she was not welcome here,’ he added. ‘English, Antonia,’ he rasped as she began to answer him in Spanish. ‘I want Brynne to know exactly what we say to each other.’
‘Did she tell you I said that?’ Antonia asked, giving a dismissive laugh and shooting Brynne a contemptuous glance. ‘Alejandro, I can assure you that—’
‘There is no necessity for you to assure me of anything, Antonia,’ he replied coldly. ‘I had to choose which one of you to believe, and I chose Brynne—’
‘She has bewitched you!’Antonia said scornfully, her gaze hardening even more as she turned to glare at Brynne furiously. ‘Into her bed, no doubt—’
‘You go too far, Antonia!’ Alejandro rasped icily.
‘Only because I am—concerned, for you, Alejandro.’ Antonia’s voice softened huskily as she looked up at him. ‘I merely suggested to Miss Sullivan that day that she might want to leave, that she is not of our type—’
‘I thank God that she is not of your type,’ he bit out scathingly. ‘You will leave now, Antonia,’ he added coldly. ‘You will not come here again. You will most certainly never speak to Brynne again in the way that you did.’
Brynne felt a shiver down her spine at the cold anger in Alejandro’s voice, knowing by the way Antonia Roig had paled that she was as aware of the implacability of his tone as Brynne was.
But there was only a momentary pause and then Antonia Roig’s chin rose challengingly, her expression arrogantly contemptuous as she looked at them both. ‘You are a fool, Alejandro,’ she told him sneeringly. ‘With my father’s business connections, and the money I will eventually inherit as his only child, you and I could have been a formidable pair. And instead you choose to consort with this—this—’
‘Careful, Antonia,’ Alejandro warned softly. ‘You are talking of a woman I hold in high regard, a woman of integrity and honesty. Attributes that are obviously completely alien to you!’ he added coldly.
Brynne could only stare up at Alejandro in wonder as, after one last sneering glance in Brynne’s direction, the other woman turned on her heel and walked briskly away.
Alejandro held her in high regard …? Believed her to be a woman of integrity and honesty …?
Even more confusing, why had he felt a need to make her a witness to all of those things he said to Antonia Roig …?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BRYNNE continued to watch Alejandro as he started to pace the terrace, his expression making her hesitate to ask any of the things that hovered on the tip of her tongue.
What if Alejandro had just wanted her to know that, as Michael’s father, he was the man of honour he had always claimed to be? That his motives for making her a witness to that conversation with Antonia Roig were that simp
le? What if—?
‘What are you thinking now, Brynne?’ Alejandro paused to look at her, his tone rueful. ‘Do you still remain unconvinced as to the innocence of my relationship with Antonia?’
Brynne shook her head. ‘What I am puzzled about is why you think I needed to hear that …?’
Alejandro looked at her searchingly, wanting to see some sign in her demeanour that his lack of any intimate relationship with Antonia actually meant something to Brynne. But he could read nothing from her expression except that mild curiosity.
But he had gone too far now, was too aware of the danger of Brynne leaving to go back to England tomorrow, to draw back from the decision he had made earlier as he had sat on the terrace waiting for Brynne to join him. He could not let her go without at least telling her something of how he felt. What happened after he had done that was completely up to Brynne.
He was a man used to making decisions, and then acting on them, and it was not a pleasant position to find himself in …
He drew in a ragged breath. ‘We need to go back to the beginning again for me to be able to explain that. To my relationship with Joanna,’ he said as Brynne continued to look puzzled.
She stiffened. ‘Haven’t we already discussed that enough—?’
‘No!’ Alejandro rasped. ‘The relationship, yes. Joanna’s feelings about that relationship, also yes. But my own motivation behind the relationship? The reason that I was married to another woman only three months after that relationship? No.’ He shook his head, his expression grim. ‘I do not think we have discussed those at all.’
No, they hadn’t—and Brynne wasn’t sure she wanted to hear them now, either. Besides, what possible bearing could they have on the here and now …?
Alejandro gave a humourless smile. ‘You would prefer to continue thinking of me as a man who uses and discards women, I think,’ he muttered huskily.
She felt the warmth in her cheeks. ‘I have never said that.’
Mistress to the Mediterranean Male (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 13