Naive Bride , Defiant Wife

by Lynne Graham

  ‘Were you finished for the day?’ she asked anxiously then. T mean, I didn’t intend to just show up and force your hand.’

  The lift doors whirred back to reveal the basement car park. ‘I was ready to leave. Are you parked here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What brought you to Seville?’ Alejandro enquired as his driver pulled in to pick them up a few yards from the lift.

  Jemima went pink. ‘You…1 wanted to see you.’

  Alejandro lifted a sardonic dark brow.

  ‘Yes, I didV Jemima proclaimed in the face of that disbelief.

  ‘Dios mio—is it possible that you have something to tell me?’ Alejandro enquired silkily.

  Aware of the undertones of tension pulling at her, Jemima shifted uneasily and wondered why he was asking her that. ‘No—what would I have to tell you?’

  ‘Only you can answer that question,’ Alejandro breathed icily.

  Jemima shot him an enervated look and decided that while he always went for subtle she was more at home with being blunt. ‘I’m no good at trick questions. Just tell me what’s wrong.’

  His lean dark features were taut, his eyes shielded. He said nothing. In the humming quiet, she stared out of the window at the crowded streets and waited in vain for his response.

  ‘Well, this will certainly teach me a lesson. Don’t go surprising you at the office…you’re keeping such a distance from me I feel like Typhoid Mary!’ she declared in flippant continuance, struggling to hide her hurt and mortification at the chilly welcome she had so far received from him.

  ‘Exactly what did you expect from me?’ Alejandro shot at her with dark eyes that flashed as golden as the heart of a fire.

  As her bewilderment increased the limo came to a halt. They would walk the remaining distance through the pedestrian zone in the oldest part of Seville. The Vasquez apartment was in a gracious old building that had considerable character.

  The anger that Alejandro could no longer hide was like a blast of heat on her unprotected skin. His driver opened the car door and they climbed out to walk down narrow streets past tall eighteenth-century houses and finally through a familiar flower-filled courtyard. By then her heart was beating as fast and loud as a jungle drum and a sheen of nervous perspiration had dampened her skin. They walked through tall gates and across the cobblestones towards an elegant building. She felt sick with apprehension.

  ‘Why are you angry with me?’ she prompted finally.

  ‘Because you’re a liar and I can’t stay married to a woman I can’t trust out of my sight!’

  That thunderous aside punched through Jemima’s defences like a hard physical blow. As she stepped into the old-fashioned lift fashioned of ornate wrought-iron folding gates she was in shock. She was a liar and he couldn’t trust her? All of a sudden he was threatening to end their marriage? She could think of only one possible explanation for his behaviour.

  Entering the cool, spacious apartment that spanned the equivalent of two buildings, Jemima stole an enervated glance at her tall, well-built husband and said abruptly, ‘You know I’ve seen Marco, don’t you? How?’

  ‘When I phoned to speak to you, Maria mentioned that you were with him.’

  Alejandro strode on into the airy drawing room where the shadows cast by the palm tree in the front courtyard were dancing in flickering spears of ghostly foliage across the pale walls. Once again the decor was new to her, the old darker, richer colours banished and replaced by shades that were light and new. The silence dragged horribly.

  ‘Marco just came up to the castle to speak to me,’ Jemima told him jerkily, giving way first to the dreadful tension. ‘Probably because he texted me and called last night and I didn’t respond in any way.’

  Alejandro rested unimpressed eyes on her, his wide sensual mouth taking on a contemptuous twist. ‘And you didn’t mention that fact to me, either.’

  ‘Be fair,’ Jemima urged in desperation. ‘I didn’t want a stupid text message and a missed call from Marco to cause more trouble between us.’

  Alejandro turned blistering dark golden eyes on her. His fabulous bone structure was set in hard lines of restraint. ‘Without trust I can’t live with you,’ he breathed with a suppressed savagery that raised goosef lesh on her exposed skin. ‘How could it be otherwise? I believed that we were getting somewhere and then today I learned that you were with Marco, in spite of your promise to me.’

  Jemima was trembling, nausea stirring in the pit of her stomach. She had never felt as alone or scared since childhood as she did at that moment. She could feel his strength, his force of will and his immovable resolve. If he decided that walking away from her was the right thing to do, he would do it, no matter what the cost. Unhappily for her she had promised not to see Marco and she had broken her promise. How could she defend herself from that charge?

  It was not the moment, she sensed, to tell him that he was being unreasonable, and that, for as long as Marco was a family member with automatic access to their home, avoiding the younger man would be a challenge. Alejandro was not in a cool, rational state of mind, she conceded inwardly. Indeed he was containing so many powerful emotions that he radiated glowing energy. But she could feel the distance in him, the wall he was already erecting between them. She had wounded him and he had taken a mental step back from her and their marriage. She was so appalled by the awareness that he was talking about a divorce that she could barely think straight. She could not bear to have got Alejandro back, to have tasted that happiness and then lose it and him again; it would be too cruel to bear.

  Too late she saw where she had gone wrong. She had seriously underestimated the damage being done by Alejandro’s conviction that she had been unfaithful. And she had made that cardinal error because she had known that she was innocent and had loftily dismissed the likely fallout from his destructive belief that she was not to be trusted. But she could also be a fast learner. When she feared losing Alejandro, no other loyalty had the power to hold her and she broke the silence in haste.

  ‘There’s never been anything between your brother and me and he will be speaking to you about that by the end of the week,’ Jemima told Alejandro in a feverish rush, too worked up to stop and plan what she had to say before she spoke.

  Alejandro was frowning at her. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Marco informed me that he never actually told you that we had had an affair—he just didn’t deny your accusation. But, by the start of the weekend, you’ll know the truth because either he or I will tell you why there was never any possibility of an affair…’

  ‘Porque demonios!’ Alejandro exclaimed in frustration at that tangled explanation. ‘Stop talking to me in riddles!’

  ‘I gave my word to Marco that I would let him talk to you before I did.’

  Outrage flared in Alejandro’s brooding scrutiny. ‘If there is something that I should know, I demand that you tell me now!’

  The silence closed round them, thick and heavy as treacle.

  ‘Marco is gay.’ Jemima almost whispered the words, conscious of the pledge she had given and even while she refused to be bound by it she felt the bite of guilt and regret all the same. ‘So there was never any question of anything intimate between us.’

  Alejandro studied her in irate consternation. Are you trying to come up with a good cover story now? That’s a despicable lie to tell me about my brother.’

  ‘I appreciate that what I’ve just told you may come as a shock to you, but I’m not lying or trying to come up with a story,’ Jemima protested fiercely.

  ‘My brother has been dating…very extensively…since he was sixteen years old. I think we would know by now if he were gay,’ Alejandro proclaimed very drily, his lean, strong face hard with denial.

  ‘Marco has done everything possible to hide his true nature and he was at university before he reached the conclusion that he was gay. The girlfriends were just part of the pretence he put up. Didn’t you ever wonder why he never hung onto a
ny of them for longer than a couple of weeks?’

  ‘Not many young men in his age group want a serious relationship.’

  An uncertain laugh fell from Jemima’s lips. ‘I’m not getting anywhere with you, am I? You just don’t believe me but I am telling you the truth. Marco didn’t want anyone to know, not you and particularly not his mother. I know Doña Hortencia’s outlook and Marco was afraid she would cut off the allowance she gives him.’

  ‘As there is no question of my brother being gay, we will not discuss the matter further,’ Alejandro pronounced with derision, his sensual mouth curling with disdain. ‘But I would not have believed that even you would sink as low as to tell such lies.’

  Having paled, Jemima took another tack in the hope of convincing him. ‘From what I can understand Marco is still with Dario Ortini,’ she remarked gingerly.

  ‘What has that to do with anything? They were students together. They’re old friends.’

  ‘No, they are much more than that to each other.’ Jemima shook her head slowly, her pale cloud of hair shifting round her strained face as she voiced that confident assurance. ‘They’re a couple, Alejandro. And pretty much inseparable. Didn’t you think it strange that Dario went to New York as well?’

  Alejandro parted his lips as if he was going to speak again to argue with her, and then suddenly he frowned and slowly closed his mouth again. She could literally see him thinking over what she had told him, making the connections, and while the uneasy silence stretched she watched him travel gradually from a state of incomprehension and angry disbelief to one of troubled and stunned acceptance.

  ‘I can hardly believe it,’ Alejandro muttered. ‘Dario, now, he is less of a surprise. But their continuing friendship does stretch credulity too far.’

  Jemima studied Alejandro fixedly, recognising that he was still fighting his astonishment.

  ‘Evidently my brother has been leading a double life for years,’ he intoned between compressed lips. ‘Dios mio. Why couldn’t he just tell me? Did he believe I would think less of him? It doesn’t matter a damn to me—he is still my brother. But why the hell did Marco allow me to go on believing that you and he had had an affair?’

  Jemima brushed her hair off her damp brow with an impatient hand. ‘He’s jealous of you, well, very jealous of everything you’ve achieved in life,’ she divulged reluctantly.

  ‘It is true that he has always been very competitive with me,’ Alejandro acknowledged.

  ‘I don’t know how he could let you go on believing there had been an affair, but that’s something you need to discuss with him rather than me.’

  ‘Right now, what I need is a strong drink,’ Alejandro admitted in a raw undertone, striding over to the drinks cabinet and asking her what she would like.

  She closed a damp palm round the moisture-beaded tumbler he handed to her and pressed the glass against the overheated skin below her collarbone, all the while watching Alejandro, noticing how pale he was beneath his bronzed complexion and how prominent his hard bone structure seemed. His hands weren’t quite steady either: he was really uptight.

  Are you all right?’ she whispered worriedly.

  ‘No,’ he admitted flatly. ‘I’m shattered, absolutely bloody shattered. My brother is gay and I never even suspected the fact.’

  ‘That was how Marco wanted it. He didn’t want his family to know.’

  ‘My stepmother will throw a fit.’ Alejandro scored long brown fingers through his luxuriant black hair, tousling it into disorder and turning his handsome head to study Jemima again with intense dark eyes. ‘But, right at this moment, it is more important that I concentrate on what I’ve done to you and our marriage. I condemned you, misjudged you, refused to accept your word.’

  Jemima gave an awkward shrug. ‘I’m just grateful that you finally know and accept the truth. I can understand that when Marco didn’t deny the affair you found it hard to believe that nothing had ever happened between us.’

  ‘He used you to get at me. I should have had more faith in you.’ Alejandro drained his glass and set it down in a hasty movement. ‘Let’s go out to eat.’

  The abrupt change of mood and focus took her aback but it was very much Alejandro’s way to reclaim his space and self-discipline. She had broken through his reserve with her revelation and he wanted the breathing space to put all those messy emotions back again where she couldn’t see them. He continually frustrated her with his refusal to share what he thought and felt, she thought ruefully. She wanted to throw herself in his arms and tell him that she loved him enough to forgive him, but she sensed that that would not be a comfort. Alejandro was very proud. He had such high standards and, unhappily for him, he had just failed those standards. He had to come to terms with that and deal with it in his own way.

  They dined only a few streets away in a tiny restaurant where the food melted in her mouth to be washed down by the finest wine. Alejandro had reinstated his iron self-control, for not a single reference to his brother passed his lips. In the candlelight she reached for his hand once and he gripped her fingers so tightly he almost crushed them.

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ he urged in a roughened growl that was as much a plea as a command. ‘I would rather have your anger than your pity, tesora mia.’

  Sensing that a change of subject would be timely Jemima asked him when he had had the apartment redecorated.

  ‘Soon after you left Spain, I still imagined you were waiting for me every time I walked through the door. I didn’t like it,’ he confessed, his dark, deep accented drawl as clipped as if he were talking business.

  ‘And when you went into our bedroom at the castle?’

  ‘The same.’ He shrugged a broad shoulder in dismissal, subject closed.

  He was more sensitive than she had ever appreciated, she conceded, and it was a discovery that troubled her more than it pleased her, for it made her think about the trauma he must have suffered when he’d believed she had betrayed him in his brother’s arms. He hadn’t needed to love her to be hurt. Marco had struck at the very roots of his sibling’s pride and possessiveness, and his strong and protective family instincts, and it had been a devastating blow on all fronts.

  Later, she slid naked and alone between the white linen sheets of the king-sized bed in the master bedroom. Alejandro had said he had work to catch up on before morning when they were to fly back home. Work, or a preference for his own company? She tossed and turned, wanting to be with him, refusing out of pride to make that move. He wasn’t weak; why should she be? Giving into love was a weakness when it was for a man who did not love her back and who would despise any attempt to offer him reassurance. Eventually she fell into an uneasy doze, waking again with a jerk. She put on the light to check her watch and the empty bed. It was three in the morning and her resistance to natural promptings was at its lowest ebb. She thrust back the sheet and padded off in search of her missing husband.

  And when she did, she discovered that Alejandro still had the power to surprise her…

  Chapter Ten

  JEMIMA knew drunk when she saw it. An awareness of the signs was etched deep in her psyche after a childhood in which a man’s stumbling steps or a mother’s shrill slurred complaints could make her turn cold with fear or insecurity. And with them went an out-of-control sensation that Jemima herself did not like, which was why she never, ever drank and why she had been happy to marry a man of abstemious habits.

  But undeniably and disturbingly, Alejandro was the worse for wear because of alcohol. He was in the lounge, bathed only in moonlight as the curtains were still open wide. He was barefoot, his jeans unbuttoned at his narrow waist and his white shirt hung open on his bronzed muscular chest. But as he lurched upright to acknowledge her entrance he swayed and almost lost his footing. He steadied himself with a timely hand on a carved lamp table. His ebony hair was dishevelled, his stubborn jaw line rough with stubble and his midnight-dark eyes had a wild glitter unfamiliar to her.

  Alejandro?�
� Her violet eyes were full of concern; it was a question as much as a greeting.

  She watched him struggle to focus and regroup. ‘I can’t talk to you right now—’

  ‘You’re going to talk to me whether you want to or not. Anything is better than you sitting drinking alone!’ Jemima pronounced, a small hand pouncing on the bottle of spirits on the coffee table before he could reach for it again.

  For a split second, outrage flashed over his lean dark features because he had been prevented from doing what he wanted to do. Then he froze as if he was registering that he had been caught in a less than presentable state and wasn’t quite sure how to handle that exposure.

  ‘You’ve been drinking and I want to know why,’ Jemima spelt out.

  With a visible effort, Alejandro squared his broad shoulders, muscles rippling across his flat, hard stomach as he sucked in a shuddering breath. ‘Not now…’

  Her violet eyes softened. ‘I need to understand why,’ she rephrased gently.

  ‘Isn’t that obvious? I got everything in our marriage wrong!’ he launched at her with an explosive wrath that had finally escaped his containment. ‘Everything!’

  Jemima sighed. ‘It happens. You just have to live with it.’

  ‘No sympathy?’ A black brow lifted.

  ‘You put me through hell. You don’t deserve it,’ she told him bluntly.

  ‘You have the power to drive me mad with jealousy—you always did,’ he confided harshly, his lean bronzed profile bleak. ‘I saw you with another man once and I never forgot the way it made me feel’

  Jemima’s brow had pleated. ‘When?’ she cut in.