by Mary Lyons
Then, almost shocking in its suddenness, she heard the sound of Antonio’s deep voice greeting Harold, and his firm tread as he walked swiftly down the corridor towards the study.
‘I’m sorry to be so late, my darling,’ he said, tossing his briefcase down on to a nearby chair. ‘I’ve been working flat out, and only just managed to catch the plane to London by the skin of my teeth. How have you been?’
‘How have I been?’ Gina gave a shrill, high-pitched laugh. ‘Oh, I’ve been fine! Absolutely full of the joys of spring!’
‘Que…?’ he muttered with a slight frown.
‘Although I must say I paid a very interesting visit to the family lawyer just after you left. And, as I’m sure you know by now, it looks as though you have no need to worry any more about finding the money to improve your wine-making company. Grandfather really kept his word—didn’t he?’ she added grimly.
Antonio shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he told her, before turning to smile at Harold, who had entered the room carrying a tray containing a pot of coffee and two cups and saucers.
‘This is just what I need. It was a long and very boring flight,’ Antonio said, going over to pour himself a large cup of coffee. ‘Would you like some, Gina?’
‘No, thank you,’ she snapped through clenched teeth as Harold closed the door behind him, before sinking quickly down into a nearby chair as she felt her knees beginning to shake uncontrollably.
‘I’m sorry to have left you on your own. I hope it hasn’t been too much of a strain for you,’ Antonio said, turning around and frowning at the stern, tight expression on his wife’s pale face. ‘Are you all right, querida?’
‘No, I’m not all right,’ she snapped tersely, before explaining in detail about her visit to the lawyer, and how the scales had at last fallen from her eyes.
‘Really, Gina! I thought that I’d heard the last of this silly nonsense back in Spain,’ he retorted with exasperation.
‘But not so silly now, it seems!’ she snapped.
‘I chose to take no notice of such an unbelievably ridiculous story,’ he told her grimly, ignoring her interjection. ‘Mainly because I assumed that you’d been upset by some malicious remarks from my troublemaking cousin Carlotta.’
‘With whom, as she informed me, you’ve been having an affair. And you probably are still sleeping together—for all I know!’ Gina ground out furiously.
‘Dios—no! That woman means nothing to me,’ he growled back angrily, before loudly and vociferously denying that he had ever, at any time, chosen to marry her for her money.
‘How can you think that, Gina? How can you possibly be such a blind, total fool?’ he demanded furiously, his fiery Spanish temper by now well out of control. ‘Does our marriage mean nothing to you? Have you so little trust in me that you would believe such…such palpable untruths?’
But as far as she was concerned the facts were irrefutable. And she had documented evidence to back her up.
‘If, as you say, I’m talking complete rubbish, how is it that my grandfather’s codicil was signed and dated on that Monday morning, only hours after you’d asked me to marry you and had just flown back to Spain?’ she ground out bitterly through gritted teeth, her head pounding with a vicious headache and feeling as though it was going to explode at any moment.
‘Are you telling me that everything Carlotta Perez and your uncle Emilio said is a lie? That my grandfather’s will is a fake?’ she continued, in the face of his grim, ominous silence.
‘No, of course I’m not saying that. And if you choose to believe Carlotta and my uncle that is your problem. But what I am saying is that you are entirely mistaken about the money which you say has been left to me by Sir Robert Brandon,’ he told her savagely, pacing furiously up and down the room. ‘I knew nothing about this whatsoever. I did not ask for it. I did not expect it.’
‘Hah! A likely story!’
‘I can only assure you that I have never wanted—or needed—that money!’ he said more quietly, before throwing himself down into an armchair and thrusting his hands roughly through his dark hair.
‘Oh…right!’ She gave a shrill, high-pitched laugh. ‘So, as far as you’re concerned, it’s all just an unfortunate coincidence?’
Having by now wound herself up into a paroxysm of fury, Gina was finding it almost impossible to control herself. Totally possessed by rage and fury, she walked restlessly back and forth over the study carpet, cursing him violently under her breath and waving her hands distractedly in the air.
‘Come! This is enough,’ he told her sternly, swiftly rising from his chair and walking over to place his hands on her shoulders.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she yelled, quickly wriggling away from beneath his grip. ‘You can’t seriously believe that I’m going to fall for that charm of yours yet again?’
‘You must calm down, Gina. All this anger is not achieving anything.’
‘Well—at least we’re facing the truth of the situation at last!’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘Because it’s all clear to me now. I was such a fool, wasn’t I? That silly young schoolgirl with her brain full of equally silly fantasies. She’d fallen madly in love with you once. So why not again, huh?’
‘Please, Gina—this is madness! For God’s sake, calm down!’
‘And I was so easy to manipulate,’ she continued, so consumed by anger and pain that she barely heard him. ‘Did you have fun working it out with my grandfather? But, yes, of course you did! I can see the two of you now: “She’s always been crazy about you, my boy. So why not pop along to Suffolk?”’ she added, cruelly mimicking her grandfather’s voice.
‘That is not what happened,’ Antonio retorted fiercely. ‘Yes, I called to see Sir Robert. And, yes, I did discuss with him, man to man, the state of my current difficulties and also my future hopes for the family business in Spain.’
‘Ah! So we’re getting some of the truth—at last!’
‘However, I can assure you, Gina, that the only time your name was mentioned was in relation to the fact that you were managing the Ipswich office where my shipment of wine was likely to be found.’
‘Oh, really?’ She gave a harsh, derisory hoot of laughter.
‘I swear that what I say is the truth!’ he thundered. ‘In fact, I have only kept one piece of information from you. Which is that, during lunch that day, your grandfather told me that he had not long to live. But he did not want you to know, and so I respected his wishes. And that,’ he added, spinning around on his heel to face her, ‘that is the only piece of information which I have kept hidden from you.’
‘Well, my grandfather is no longer here to prove or disprove what you’ve just said, is he?’ she retorted angrily. ‘And, in any case, the whole scenario which I’ve outlined to you fits together like a glove.’
‘Dios!’ he exploded, before swearing violently in Spanish under his breath. ‘What do I have to do to get the truth into your stupid head?’
‘Oh, it’s all in my “stupid head”, is it? Well, your uncle doesn’t seem to think so. Nor does Carlotta! And since she informed me that she is working so closely with you at the moment—presumably both in and out of bed—I can only suppose that Carlotta knows what she’s talking about!’
‘If a husband and wife do not have any trust in one another they have nothing!’ he told her fiercely. ‘And yet you…you are willing to accept that evil woman’s word over mine?’
‘Damn right I am!’ she lashed out. ‘Because I reckon you two are just as bad as each other. So, don’t you ever lay a hand on me again. Quite frankly,’ she added scathingly, ‘the thought of you touching me after having been with Carlotta makes me feel physically ill!’
He stood staring at her silently for some moments, his dark eyes blank and unfathomable.
‘I ask myself why it is that you set such a very low premium on yourself, Gina?’ he said finally, in a bitterly harsh, cruel voice, heavily laden with contempt. ‘And it seems that you do n
ot think very highly of me, either, no?’
‘I…I think that you are…despicable!’ she cried, her voice still echoing around the room when there came the sound of a sharp knock on the study door.
‘The limousine is here to take you to the memorial service, madam,’ Harold informed her, before taking one quick glance at their stiff, angry figures and quickly withdrawing from the room.
Whenever Gina recalled her grandfather’s memorial service in later years, she was never able to repress a shudder at the memory of what was quite the worst, most desperately unhappy day of her entire life.
Compounding the perfectly normal deep sorrow she felt at the loss of her only relative was the ever-widening gulf which now clearly lay between herself and Antonio.
Forced to leave the house by the arrival of the limousine, she and her husband had no opportunity to talk privately, either in the vehicle itself or before and after the service.
To give Antonio his due, he stood dutifully and conscientiously by her side. But, while he might appear to be supportive, there was absolutely no comfort to be had from his tall, rigidly tense figure, or the austere, harshly forbidding expression on his face.
The journey home from the church was, if anything, even more unpleasant that the one they’d taken earlier that morning. Obviously her accusations and his angry, furious denial of any or all wrong doing, together with his own recriminations concerning her lack of trust in him, appeared to have erected a large barrier between them.
Quite where they went from here, she had no idea. After all, she told herself as they walked silently back into the house, after such a cataclysmic row what could they say to one another? And that was clearly a question which had also occurred to Antonio.
As soon as they had entered the house, she ran quickly upstairs to her bedroom, in search of some aspirins to soothe the deep, painful throbbing of the tension headache which had plagued her for most of the day.
But, having just decided to lie down on her bed for a while, in the hope of giving the medication a chance to begin working, it was only a few minutes later that she heard the door of the bedroom being thrown violently open.
‘There seems no point in me staying in this house any longer. Especially as I am most clearly not welcome,’ Antonio announced in a cold, hard voice.
‘Moreover, I have much to occupy me in Jerez. Many problems which need to be addressed. Which is why I am intending to return to Spain tonight.’
Gingerly sitting up on the bed, and putting a shaky hand to her painful head, Gina muttered helplessly, ‘But…but, we need to talk. I mean, we can’t just…’
‘Oh, no!’ His furiously angry glinting black eyes flicked contemptuously over her trembling figure. ‘I have no intention of listening to any more “talk” from you, Gina. In fact, with your having made plain your feelings about me, I cannot imagine we have anything to say to one another. Either now—or in the future!’
And then he was gone. Leaving only the noise of the door, slammed loudly in his wake, to echo around the bedroom, together with the sound of muffled sobs as Gina wept for both her broken heart and the loss of her husband.
In fact, how she managed to get through the next few days Gina had absolutely no idea. However, the imperative need to get a grip on the business empire left to her by her grandfather in many ways proved to be her salvation.
It was a desperately lonely life, of course. But at least there was little time to think about her own problems when there were so many questions and issues regarding the company to be dealt with.
Unfortunately, as she had always feared, having to take over the reins from someone who’d never been prepared to delegate an inch of his authority was proving to be incredibly difficult. And she had to—right from the start—put up with the fact that she and the general manager of the Pall Mall shop actively disliked each other.
However, she knew that she must ignore that fact—and the frequent, semi-snide remarks of the manager, just this side of outright rudeness. Because all her energies had to be directed into trying to bring some sort of order and method into the company.
All of which meant that she wasn’t just rushed off her feet at work—she was also having to read her way through the files every night in a desperate effort to familiarise herself with the company’s business.
Which at least had the merit of sending her to bed totally and utterly exhausted, with little or no time in which to weep over the cold embers of her very brief, disastrous marriage. Because, since returning to Spain after her grandfather’s memorial service, she’d not heard another word from Antonio.
Well, I hope he’s enjoying himself with that bitch Carlotta! she told herself grimly, very late one night when she’d been unable to sleep, and had gone downstairs to the kitchen, to make herself a cup of tea.
But, despite almost wincing with pain at the thought of her husband and the sexy Spanish girl entwined together, she didn’t really—in her heart of hearts—believe that Antonio had been two-timing her with Carlotta. They might have had an affair in the past, of course. But every ounce of feminine intuition Gina possessed was telling her that during his brief courtship and marriage to her he had not been sexually involved with any other woman.
On the other hand, her wild accusations—made in the heat and torment of their cataclysmic quarrel, and designed to hurt him as much as he’d wounded her—might well have driven him back into Carlotta’s arms. But there was nothing she could do about that. And, after all, adultery was probably a slightly less important sin than falsely pretending to be in love with her in order to gain a large amount of money from her grandfather. The fact that she found the idea of Antonio and Carlotta together far more hurtful only went to prove that she was just a pathetically feeble woman.
However, as the weeks went by, and the new computers, together with upgraded phone and fax lines, were installed in all the offices of the company, Gina felt that she was at least managing to bring some fresh air and modern methods into an antiquated business. And, although she tried to convince herself that she loathed the rotten man who’d clearly married her under false pretences, Gina found herself feeling at least some sympathy for Antonio, who’d faced exactly the same problems when taking over his family company.
She was also aware, of course, that he must be very busy, since the future of his business would rise or fall on the results of the forthcoming grape harvest in Jerez.
Which was one reason, apart from her own stiff-necked pride, why she struggled to cope on her own with some very serious problems of supply and delivery. But when she discovered a massive embezzling of funds, by the general manager whom she’d always disliked and distrusted, Gina knew that she must act quickly to halt the rot. That, in fact, she had no one else to turn to but Antonio.
‘Yes, of course I’m well aware that you’ve got your own problems,’ she ground out through gritted teeth, when at last reaching Antonio by phone at his office in Spain.
‘Believe me—I wouldn’t dream of asking for your help if I could avoid doing so,’ she added bitterly, flinching at the icy chill in his voice, which was positively arctic, before briefly explaining her problem.
‘The fact is…’ She hesitated, before taking a deep breath and admitting the truth. ‘The fact is that I simply haven’t enough experience to know what to do about the situation. My first instinct was to sack the guy outright, and press criminal charges. But I soon realised that it might be disastrous for the business. So, what do I do now? Just let him go quietly, and put up with the loss?’
‘I’m too busy to consider the problem at the moment,’ Antonio informed her. ‘However, I will give it some thought and possibly come back to you later,’ he added, before quickly terminating the call.
‘Well, that was a complete bloody waste of time!’ she ground out angrily, before slamming down the phone. She might have known that forcing herself to eat humble pie—and freely admitting that she didn’t know the answer to a difficult problem—would be use
less as far as Antonio was concerned.
Which was why she was totally astonished, on returning home the next day, to find her husband waiting for her in the study.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she gasped, quickly clutching hold of the back of a chair as she felt herself going unaccountably weak at the knees.
‘I am still your husband—however much you may prefer to forget that fact,’ he told her coldly.
‘I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just surprised…that’s all,’ she heard herself explaining, feeling extraordinary light-headed.
Which wasn’t surprising, she told herself some time later, as they sat in the formal dining room, both hardly touching their food. He had apparently already eaten a meal on the flight from Spain, while she…she was trying to deal with the extremely distressing, highly embarrassing fact that she was still wildly sexually attracted to her husband.
Dashing upstairs to the bedroom earlier, she’d been in a complete panic. Not only trying to think what to wear for dinner, but also attempting to come to terms with the fact that the mere sight of Antonio had set her heart pounding almost out of control. And she’d had no problem in recognising the feelings of sick excitement, and the tight clenching in the pit of her stomach, as hard evidence that she still wanted him—as much as ever.
Luckily—and mostly thanks to Harold, who’d smoothly given the impression that he and Gina were merely welcoming Antonio back from a routine business trip—they’d managed to get through the meal in a fairly civilised manner.
‘You will have to let your manager go quietly and take the loss. Yes, I know it’s maddening,’ Antonio told her now, with a cold, wintry smile, as he picked at a piece of cheese and sipped his glass of red wine. ‘But you must maintain the good name of the company—and make sure it never happens again.’