by Abby Green
His rage dimmed when he thought of Lexie aged fifteen, a terrified and traumatised schoolgirl. What choice had she had? None.
For the first time in his life Cesar had to concede that by the time his mother had come back for him his grandparents had done such a number on him that he’d had no choice but to reject her.
And he had to concede too that perhaps there had been more to his mother’s motives than pure greed and selfishness. Her distress when she’d said goodbye both times stung him now—hard. Like a slap across the face. This unwelcome revelation brought with it an even stronger feeling that everything he’d always counted on was falling apart at the seams.
Cesar pinched the bridge of his nose. All he could see was Lexie’s face and those huge eyes.
Anger surged again. What had she wanted from him? Damn her! Had she expected him to take her in his arms and soothe her? Promise her that everything would be all right?
Cesar wasn’t gentle. Or sensitive. Or kind. He was black all the way through, and he resented Lexie right then for making him see just how black he was. For showing him how little he could offer comfort. And for making him think of the bleak reality of his childhood, filled with a lifetime of resentment for his two half-brothers. How powerless he’d been under the influence of his bitter grandparents, intent on punishment and revenge.
Rage and a feeling of impotence wound up inside him so tightly that he exploded. He turned and raised the hand holding that heavy crystal glass and with an inarticulate roar of pain and rage flung it with all his might across the room at his stainless steel kitchen. He watched it shatter into a million pieces, amber liquid spraying everywhere.
An echo from a long time ago whispered across his soul, bringing a chill wind. It reminded him that no good came out of this dark, gothic place. And to have imagined otherwise, even for a second, was to have become weak.
Lexie Anderson would be gone in a few days, and right in that moment Cesar hoped he’d never set eyes on her again. Because she’d done the worst thing in the world: she’d made him forget who he really was.
* * *
Lexie was sitting in her chair on the set, waiting while they set up for a new camera shot. People milled around her, working, chatting. But she felt removed. She’d heard the helicopter leaving early that morning.
She’d known that Cesar had left the castillo even before she’d heard one of the producers say something about him having business to attend to in America.
She’d been awake for most of the night, alternating between seething resentment directed at Cesar for having awoken her body from a lifetime of numbness and anger at herself for being so stupid as to fall for him. She’d tried to tell herself that she hadn’t fallen so hard...but the hurt was too real and too deep for feelings not to be involved.
She’d never forget the look on his face when she’d told him about her baby. He’d shut down. Lexie had only ever talked about her baby to her counsellor. No one else knew. It was one of the reasons she was paranoid about press intrusion—in case anyone ever dug deep enough to find out.
Her son would be thirteen now, and every day Lexie wondered about him—wondered how she would cope if he ever came looking for her, asking for information. Sometimes the thought was overwhelming. She went cold inside as something struck her. Had she, on some level, put Cesar in the role of confidante because she’d been so desperate for support?
Even as Lexie felt anger for being so weak she had to acknowledge that she could have asked for help before. She’d just been too stubborn. That had been borne out the previous evening, when she’d gone to find the director to try and explain to him why she’d reacted the way she had.
She’d told him about the rape, knowing instinctively that she could trust him.
He’d shaken his head and taken her hand, his eyes full of compassion. ‘Lexie, you should have told me. If I’d had any idea of how huge that scene was for you I’d have approached it differently. We could even have got it out of the way in the first week...’
He’d humbled her, apologising for unwittingly causing her distress. It was as if another weight had lifted from her shoulders, and Lexie knew that if she hadn’t already told Cesar there was no way she could have confided in anyone else.
That only made her angry with him all over again. He hadn’t been able to get rid of her fast enough yesterday. His face had been hard. Clearly he’d rejected her unwelcome confidences. No doubt his other lovers didn’t come with messy histories, or weep all over him after making love.
She was glad Cesar was gone because she knew all her bravado was very shaky and that if she saw him again her heart would splinter into a million pieces.
* * *
Over a week later Cesar returned to the castillo. It was as if there had never been a film unit on the estate. Apart from the flattened bit of grass where the extras’ marquee had stood everything had been restored to its pristine state—and, perversely, it annoyed Cesar intensely.
For the past week he’d put in long days at board meetings he’d been neglecting. Because of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed temptress. Damn her. Those were his favourite words at the moment, and they beat a constant refrain in his head.
Damn her for coming into his life. Damn her for making him want her so badly that he seemed to have a constant ache in his gut. Damn her for being so light in spite of the horrific things she’d endured.
Just...damn her.
For making him think of things like his brother Alexio’s wedding and how happy both his half-brothers had looked with their wives. And damn her for making him come to the uncomfortable realisation that he had to stop blaming his brothers for living their lives oblivious of his presence.
That realisation had hit him as he’d looked blearily into the bottom of an empty bottle of whiskey in a dingy bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan about two days ago.
Cesar stopped at the entrance of the castillo. It sat there, as forbidding and dark as it ever had been. But for the first time in his life it didn’t feel quite so...oppressive.
It was quiet, though. And that quiet, which had never really bothered him before, seemed to reach around him and squeeze, bringing with it restlessness. Dissatisfaction.
Without even being aware of making the decision, Cesar found himself walking up the main staircase to the first-floor landing. He went and stood at the window where his grandmother had found him waiting, looking for his mother.
He felt the old pain like a bruise that would never fade. But it didn’t bring with it that futile sense of anger. It only brought a sense of melancholy and a growing sense of something else. Loss. Acute, aching loss. Worse than anything he’d ever felt before—worse even the loss he could remember feeling as a child for his mother.
Cesar knew then that as much as his grandparents had all but imprisoned him in this castillo when he was a child, since he’d become an adult he’d happily inflicted the same punishment on himself, and self-disgust filled him.
Lexie’s face and eyes filled his vision. How she’d looked that last time he’d seen her, in the ridiculous period nightgown. Pale. Yet strong. Defiant in the face of his frankly pathetic response to her pain and trauma.
Something had shut down inside him that day, as if to protect him from feeling the pain too acutely. But now that was breaking apart inside him as he stared out at a bleak view that was seared into his consciousness.
He was sick of bleak. He was sick of darkness. He was sick of himself.
Damn Lexie, indeed. Because she hadn’t made him forget who he was at all. She’d shown him exactly who he was and who he could be. If he was brave enough.
* * *
The street was stinking, narrow. Beggars lined it, calling out for mercy or money. Small children darted under people’s feet. Lexie stepped out of the path of a horse and carriage only at the last moment an
d gasped as it whistled past. Her long skirts were splashed with mud. People jostled her. She was going against the tide. And all she could think about, even as the cameras were running, was him. Cesar.
She cursed him for about the hundredth time that day and hoped that her expression conveyed anger at her co-star, who followed her through the streets, tracking her like a hunted animal.
‘Cut!’
Immediately Lexie stopped. All of the extras turned and went back to their first positions on the enormous set that had been built for the film on a back lot in the London studios. A swarm of crew moved in to rearrange things, fix focus marks, touch up hair and make-up.
Lexie felt removed, though. The director approached her and she smiled brightly.
He took her arm and said in a low voice, ‘Lexie, are you all right? You just seem...not that focused.’
She grimaced inwardly, regretting having ever told him what had happened to her. He’d been overly solicitous ever since. ‘Sorry, Richard... I’m fine. It’s just—’
‘Oh, my God.’
‘Sir! Sir! You can’t go onto the set without a pass!’
Richard frowned and looked past Lexie. ‘What on earth is he doing here?’ he said incredulously.
Lexie felt a prickling sensation and turned around to see a tall figure approaching them. But even now she couldn’t really compute that it was him.
Cesar. Dressed in dark worn jeans. A jumper and a battered brown leather jacket. Dark golden hair glinting in the London sunshine. He was almost too gorgeous to be real.
She even heard one of the extras nearby say in an awestruck voice, ‘Who is that?’ and Lexie could almost sympathise with the inevitable impact he would be having on some poor unsuspecting person’s senses.
He looked as intense as she’d ever seen him. A security guard caught up with him and took his arm. Cesar shook him off and kept coming.
Her mouth had gone bone-dry. She wondered if she was seeing things. Damn this corset that constricted her breath...
Cesar stopped just feet away and the security guard came panting up behind him. ‘Now, look here—’
Lexie put out a shaky hand. ‘It’s all right, we know him. I...know him.’
Then all the anger and pain that had been her constant companion for a week now came flooding up, boiling over. She hissed at Cesar, ‘What are you doing here? We’re in the middle of a scene.’
‘So I see,’ he remarked dryly, taking in all the gawping extras and the crew, who were loving the interruption. He looked back at Lexie, and then spoke as if they were continuing a conversation that had stopped only moments ago. ‘The thing is I should never have agreed with you when you said we should end the affair.’
Lexie gulped and darted a look at the avid crowd. ‘Cesar, do we really have to do this here?’
Just then Richard stepped forward. ‘Now, listen, Da Silva—interrupting my set once was—’
Cesar took his eyes off Lexie to stare at the man, and Lexie shivered when she saw the familiar steel in his expression.
‘How much will it cost to shut down production for the rest of the day?’
Lexie blinked. Richard spluttered. ‘I’d have to ask the producer...’
‘Well, why don’t you find him and ask him, and whatever amount he gives you tell him I’ll double it.’
A murmur started through the crew and the extras. Lexie could see the PAs galvanised into action at the thought of an early wrap and a day off. The set started to clear.
Cesar stepped right up to Lexie and she was rooted to the spot. Terrified of the flutters that had started in her belly. Her heart squeezed. She loved this man so much, but he’d hurt her, and if all he wanted was to continue their affair...
‘Cesar, if you’ve come just because you’re not ready to end the affair then I’m not interested.’
His gaze on hers became assessing. Lexie’s body hummed with awareness. With hunger.
‘So what are you interested in?’
She blinked, confused. Fear gripped her... What had she just said? ‘I just told you—I’m not interested in an affair.’
A ghost of a smile touched Cesar’s mouth and she realised very belatedly how dishevelled he was, with stubble lining his jaw.
‘One thing I do know is that I am not ready to end the affair—and I don’t think you are either.’
A ball of pain lodged in her gut. She didn’t have it in her to keep seeing Cesar knowing that it would end. Even one night with this man would kill her, even though every cell in her body was crying out for his touch.
She stepped back, her movement slightly hampered by her long dress. ‘Yes, I am. And you should go and tell Richard you were joking about shutting down the production before too many people leave. You’ve caused enough disruption in my life as it is.’
Lexie went to walk around him, cursing her costume when she couldn’t move more freely.
Cesar caught her and whirled her around, eyes flashing. ‘I’ve caused disruption in your life? What about the disruption you’ve caused me?’ He pointed a finger at his chest and glared at her.
Lexie pulled free, her anger matching his, boiling over when she thought of how naive she’d been, baring her soul to him.
‘I did nothing but warm your bed for a few weeks! I was a convenient lover who also handily deflected some heat from the press about your family issues, and you were quite happy to take advantage of that.’
‘On the contrary—you weren’t convenient at all! The fact is, Lexie Anderson, you have been the most singularly inconvenient lover I’ve ever known.’
Cesar was practically roaring now, and Lexie’s eyes stung with tears. She bit back the lump in her throat to hear Cesar declare so baldly just how much he resented his desire for her.
Her voice was thick. ‘Well, then, what are you waiting for? Leave me be.’
She went to walk away before Cesar could see the extent of her distress, but he caught her again. She cursed out loud, but he had both hands on her arms now.
Lexie felt a tear slip down one cheek and cursed again, struggling against his hold. She stopped and looked up. ‘Just...let me go, Cesar. Please. I can’t do this.’
He paled under his dark skin. ‘I didn’t want to make you cry.’ His hands tightened. ‘The reason you were an inconvenient lover is because you made me face up to myself in a way no one ever has before. Or will again.’
Now Cesar looked almost angry, but something in Lexie went very still.
‘I was doing just fine without anyone challenging my emotionally barren life. And then you appeared, literally like some kind of vision, and from that moment on something broke inside me. Something that needed to be broken.’
Cesar moved his hands up to cup Lexie’s jaw.
‘The truth is that you were...you are...the most beautifully necessary inconvenience, because you’ve brought me back to life. I don’t want to end the affair, Lexie—ever. I want it to last for the rest of our lives.’
Lexie tried to shake her head, as if that might improve her hearing. But Cesar’s hands held her immobile. She had to put her hands out to touch him, barely able to breathe. ‘What are you saying?’
The tendrils of something impossibly light and effervescent were scaring her, beckoning her to a place where surely she would face the most epic fall of all if she was dreaming this.
‘What I’m saying is that I’m in love with you. I think I have been from the moment I saw you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want it all—the picket fence, children, even the damn dog. Everything.’
His mouth twisted.
‘When you asked me about getting married I taunted you because I couldn’t bear the fact that you’d put a seed of something incredibly fragile in my head. A hope for the future I’d never even allowed myself t
o think about or imagine.’
Emotion was blooming inside Lexie’s chest, making it expand, making her dizzy. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. But then she remembered his stark non-reaction that day at the castillo. The way he’d let her go so easily.
One of her hands on Cesar’s chest curled into a fist and she hit him ineffectually. Her voice was choked. ‘You hurt me. I thought you didn’t care.’
Cesar looked pained. ‘I’m so sorry—my response was...pathetic. I cared so much I shut down. I literally didn’t know what to do or say. You were telling me those things...and all I could feel was my own pain. I couldn’t begin to understand the horror of what had happened to you. I wanted to go out and find that man and kill him with my bare hands.’
Lexie paled.
‘For the last week I’ve kept imagining you as a young girl, alone and scared, going through pregnancy and birth without any support.’ He shook his head, his eyes glittering a little too brightly. ‘You’re the bravest person I know. You humble me.’
‘I thought...’ Lexie was whispering now ‘...that you hated what I’d told you because it was too personal. And that you didn’t understand why I had to do what I did. I thought afterwards that it must have reminded you of your mother.’
Cesar’s thumb caressed her cheek. ‘If anything it’s helped me to understand her a little better, because it’s not so black and white any more. She wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt some pain on leaving me behind—and God knows what nefarious bargain my grandparents struck with her to make her stay away.’
Feeling absurdly shy, Lexie said, ‘I thought you resented the fact that I’d told you those things because our relationship wasn’t about anything but...sex.’
Cesar grimaced. ‘At first I did. I was angry because you’d forced me to acknowledge that what I felt for you went a lot deeper than I’d admitted to myself.’
Lexie could see it on his face now—in his eyes. Love. Blasting her doubts and fears. But it was huge. She was scared.
