by Natalie Fox
‘For what reason?’ he asked tersely.
‘I can’t stay here, you know I can’t!’ He didn’t know why, though, and he would never know the real reason she wanted to put an ocean between them.
‘Agustªn has taken to you. He wants the portrait and you will paint it.’ He went on with his re-potting as if she were nothing but an irritating fly hassling the progress of his work.
‘I’m not interested in how Agustªn feels about me, or the portrait. I just want to get out of all your lives.’
‘But you can’t. I want you, Agustªn wants you——’
‘Why should you want me, Felipe?’ she burst out bitterly. ‘More punishment? Or perhaps the tactics have changed. Are you tired of Bianca and want to use me to be rid of her?’
‘I don’t need to use you——’
‘No, because you want her. So you just want me around to wind me up further and to taunt your own father. You’re wasting your time with me and I suspect you’re wasting you’re time with Agustªn as well. He appears to be a very powerful and strong-willed man.’
‘And so am I,’ he told her tightly.
‘Look, I’m honestly not interested in your emotional battles. I find you both as slippery and as twisted as boa constrictors and I don’t care if you throttle the life out of each other but leave me out!’
He smiled, and that angered Gemma more.
‘You really aren’t taking all this seriously, are you?’ she stormed.
‘I took our night of love seriously enough…’
Her eyes blinked in suffering. ‘Shut up! All this is your fault and if you were any sort of a man you would put it to rights.’
‘If I was any sort of man I’d thrash you to an inch of your life.’
‘That’s the Latin American way, is it? Well, this isn’t the eighteenth century, though no one would know it round here. The Villa Verde is positively feudal compared to what goes on in normal civilisation.’
‘Different worlds, Gemma,’ he snapped harshly. ‘My God, what a lucky escape we’ve had. Marriage to you would be intolerable.’
‘Ah, so you admit you don’t want to marry me and that stupid proposal was a ploy to get your father’s back up? Great, your words are music to my ears,’ Gemma gushed sarcastically. ‘Now you can think to your future with Bianca—marriage to her is sure to be a bed of barbed wire which no doubt your sadistic temperament will welcome.’
‘I’ll never know. I have no intentions of marrying her,’ he told her levelly, refusing to be aroused by her gibes.
‘Are you sure? I got the distinct impression it was Daddy’s wish.’
She had got to him and his eyes raked her derisively. ‘You wear bitchiness well.’
‘On you, cruelty suits!’
Their eyes locked in silent war. Once they had been lovers—now they were enemies, and thank God, Gemma thought. This was the only way, to refuel their bitterness towards each other.
He turned back to his orchids. ‘Much as I wish you out of my life, I can’t do anything about it. Agustªn wants you here and Agustªn gets what he wants.’
Gemma folded her arms across her chest. ‘That sounds like a contradiction of what you’ve just said.’
‘Marrying Bianca?’ His mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘You have a point. Shall I rephrase that? Agustªn occasionally gets what he wants. And the longer I am in your company, the more marriage to Bianca appeals.’
Gemma sunk her nails into her own flesh. Some time ago his words would have broken her heart. Now she had to suffer them and accept that they were a possibility. Felipe married to Bianca, better than she married to Felipe, her half-brother!
‘Please talk to Agustªn,’ Gemma gently implored. ‘I can’t bear to stay here. You can arrange for me to leave today. You know it is for the best.’
The depth and feeling of her plea had Felipe swinging to her with such concern in his eyes that she wanted to run to him and beg him to tell her this was a terrible nightmare and soon she would wake up and all would be sweet and well with the world.
She stiffened desperately as he closed in on her, his dark eyes searching hers for something she was forbidden to give him.
‘Don’t, Felipe,’ she uttered, terror stiffening her spine. ‘Please don’t touch me.’
‘What would happen if I did, Gemma?’ he said threateningly. ‘Would we come out of this nightmare and love each other again, the way we did the other night?’
So he recognised the nightmare too, but for such different reasons. Did he still love her? It sounded as if he did, and for once in her life she wished he didn’t.
As he stood watching her, searching her misty brown eyes for an answer, she was tempted. Oh, so tempted to tell him the truth, that she had loved him so deeply and completely and she still did but she wasn’t free any more and nor was he. Their love was wrong, forbidden, and could never be and would never be again as long as she drew breath. Living with the past and the horrendous thoughts of what they had unknowingly committed would be traumatic enough, but their future? Their future was non-existent.
With tears in her eyes and her throat raw with pain she mouthed husking words she prayed would end this torment. ‘I don’t love you, Felipe. Maybe that was why I didn’t call you in New York. I didn’t care enough to put myself out. We had an affair and that was all——’
‘We were good in bed, is that what you’re saying?’ he interjected quietly, and she lowered her eyes in such deep shame that she wanted to die with the pain of it all.
What had they done? This was a result of the folly of loving a stranger, not knowing who he was or caring at the time. He’d picked her up at her own exhibition…a pick-up? No, not that…they had loved each other, openly, willingly, without thought that…Oh, God, what punishment, what torment for their urgent impulses. He was her brother…she his sister…
‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying, and that’s all it was, nothing more,’ Gemma husked back coldly.
A nerve pulsed at his throat and for a long moment his eyes never left hers and then he turned away from her and Gemma knew she’d had the last biting cruel words that were to end this torment once and for all.
‘You pack, Gemma? I no understand.’
Gemma jumped and swung to face Maria, hoping she didn’t notice her red-rimmed eyes, her blotchy skin. She had cried herself senseless when she had got to her room and a puffy face was the result. She didn’t feel better for it, though. She still ached all over as if she had been rugby-tackled by her own emotions.
‘I’m leaving, Maria,’ Gemma told her grimly as she snapped shut the catches of her case and stretched her aching back.
‘I no understand,’ Maria repeated plaintively from the other side of the bed. ‘Se?or de Navas, he send me for you. Say you are late.’
Damn Felipe! He hadn’t been to see Agustªn after all and she had thought he would. She had convinced herself that after their painful confrontation in the orchid garden he would want to end this agony and be rid of her?
‘Where is Felipe?’
‘The…the stables with Bianca. They go to ride.’ Maria admitted it so hesitantly that Gemma couldn’t help but smile, albeit grimly. Felipe had wasted little time. Horses they had in common, no doubt, and many other things that weren’t forbidden to them…
‘OK,’ Gemma murmured resolutely. So she had no choice but to stay. She doubted Agustªn would take any notice of any further pleas for her release of the contract. And Felipe…had he more punishment in mind for her? He’d made no attempt to secure her freedom and the reason why wasn’t quite clear but no doubt he would make it so before very long. He was out riding with Bianca. Trying to wound her more or perhaps he simply preferred his cousin’s company? She didn’t know or care because it was all for the best. Meanwhile she had a portrait to paint, and it seemed there was no way she could get out of it. With Felipe back in the arms of his cousin it might just be possible to paint the quickest portrait of her life.
‘OK,’ Gemma
repeated. She was going to cope. She had the strength now and the fight. ‘Could you send Pepe up for my case, Maria? If I must stay, I won’t stay in this house..
‘I no understand…’ Maria eyes were wide.
Gemma smiled. ‘It’s all right, Maria, there isn’t much to understand. I’m moving into the studio, that’s all. Agustªn can have forty fits for all I care but at least I’ll be out of everyone’s way.’
Maria gazed at her in awe for a few seconds and then she shook her head. ‘You crazy, you know!’
‘Yes, Maria, I very probably am!’ Gemma conceded on a deep sigh.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘YOU’RE late, and I would have thought you would have learnt by now that I can’t tolerate unpunctuality!’ Agustªn blazed at her when she eventually got to his study.
Gemma wanted to laugh, hysterically. Everything was going from bad to worse. They were all quite mad, the whole de Navas family.
Gemma stood her ground, across the desk from Agustªn. ‘I don’t want to paint you. I want to leave, but——’
‘And do you want a career to go back to? Because you won’t have by the time I’ve finished with you!’
More threats. This man and his son might have their differences but in temperament they were identical. Bullying, cruel, selfish chauvinists! She didn’t doubt that either of them could destroy her career.
Taking an enormous breath, Gemma cooled herself. ‘Will you let me finish? I don’t want to stay, but as you won’t let me leave I’ll stay on my own terms——’
‘Don’t try and bargain with me——’
‘No bargain, I assure you. I know what I want and I aim to have it,’ Gemma told him severely. ‘You might cow your family, Agustªn, but not me.’
She could almost laugh at that. She was his family, one of his own, and that was why she was standing up to him. It was all about genes. She had some of his.
‘I was summoned here to do a job and I’ll do it but I want nothing to do with any of you on a personal basis. I want to move into the studio, to work there, sleep there, eat there——’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Agustªn sliced in sharply. ‘What studio?’
The studio was Agustªn’s personal folly, the place he had created for a woman he had loved. No one had dared approach it till Felipe and now Gemma knew why he had done it, not to make her work any easier but to hit back at Agustªn. For a swift second her sympathies lay with this man before her. He looked bewildered and hurt.
Gemma nodded towards the double doors, locked since the day she had finished Christina’s portrait. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, ‘I really am. I did a picture of Christina for Maria while I was waiting for you to return from Maracaibo. I did it in the studio because there was nowhere else for me to work. It’s too dark in the house and…’ Her voice trailed away. She waited for the outburst of fury she was sure was hanging suspended from his lips.
Agustªn stared at her, his face pale. ‘Why did you apologise?’ he said quietly.
He hadn’t exploded with rage and to Gemma that said it all. He was more hurt than anything. If that had been Felipe’s intention he had succeeded. Oh, what evil games they all played with each other’s emotions.
‘Because I guessed what it meant to you,’ Gemma told him gently. ‘Someone told me the rumours, why you had built the place…’
He held up his hand to silence her and slowly shook his head in disbelief. He didn’t want to hear any more.
‘Make all the necessary arrangements with Maria. I think in the circumstances it would be better if you did move in there.’ He looked up at her. ‘You’ve had a traumatic time here, haven’t you?’
He was shrewd and had guessed exactly how she felt about Felipe. Gemma held his gaze, father and daughter for an instant bonded, though she wasn’t sure why she had that impression. ‘It hasn’t been easy,’ she admitted, but wasn’t about to admit more. She tilted her chin proudly. ‘If I get settled in today, perhaps we could start first thing in the morning, if that’s all right with you.’
He nodded. ‘Perfectly acceptable.’
‘What’s going on here?’ Felipe thundered as he strode into the studio later.
‘I’ve moved in,’ Gemma told him stiffly. ‘What does it look like?’
She hung the last of her dresses on the pole Pepe had rigged up for her across an alcove. A makeshift wardrobe, fine for the little time she was going to be here. Maria had put linen on the day-bed and towels in the tiny bathroom and stocked the kitchen with tea and coffee. She had everything she needed.
‘And what’s the point of that?’
‘To keep as far away from you as possible.’
‘Don’t be damned childish, Gemma. None of this is necessary.’
‘It is, seeing as you didn’t have a word with your father about me leaving.’
‘I did, but he was adamant about you staying.’
Gemma snapped shut her case and slid it in the corner. So he had wanted to be rid of her. She should be hurt but instead she was afraid. If he hadn’t got his way with his father he would take it out on someone, and at the moment she was the prime target. Her nerves couldn’t take any more. All she wanted in life at this moment was to be left to execute this portrait in peace.
‘Yes, he really does want his portrait painted after all,’ she murmured.
‘I doubt that. I believe he wants you here to rub salt into my wounds.’
‘Well, you would think that, wouldn’t you?’ she retorted. ‘It’s that nasty streak in you that keeps manifesting itself like the spirit of evil.’
‘I know Agustªn better than you do…’
Hands on hips, Gemma defied him across the studio floor. ‘I don’t think you know him at all!’
He gave her a slow smile, a knowing smile. ‘I do believe you’ve bewitched each other. You sticking up for him and him allowing you to violate his lover’s sanctum. Be careful, sweet one, he’ll bewitch you into his bed if you’re not careful.’
She was too far away to deliver a deadly blow for that horrific suggestion. But he didn’t know, she reminded herself, though that didn’t soften the insult. She unclenched her fists at her side and swallowed her fury.
‘After you, Satan himself would be welcome,’ she told him flintily.
The distance between them miraculously disappeared. His fingers of iron gripped her wrist fiercely, shaking her limp hand in front of her face.
‘If I ever thought…’
She balled her fist. ‘Thought what? That I was interested in your father? You’re despicable, do you know that? Now let go of me before I scream and have your bewitched father on our necks.’
He thrust her fist back at her as if it were shoddy goods at sale time. Silently she rubbed away the pain and her eyes locked hatefully with his. This was the base level they had come to, throwing hurtful insults at each other, each vying for the most violent thrust. But it was for the best, she reminded herself. While they were verbally lashing each other nothing else was likely to happen.
‘You’re in my bedroom,’ she informed him stonily. ‘And only people I like get in a second time.’
‘Like my father, perhaps?’
Contemptuously Gemma held his eyes. She thought she had experienced every emotional pain in the book, suffered every last indignity that life could bestow on anyone. This was something new, to be accused of wanting her father. She gave Felipe no credit for not knowing that the man he accused her of wanting was her father as well. So, if he insisted on thinking that way, who was she to deny it? She wanted to punish him, no matter what cost to her own dignity.
She shrugged her shoulders dismissively. ‘He’s a very attractive man——’
His hand shot up to her chin, gripped it so viciously her mouth parted with pain and shock. ‘If I ever thought…’ he repeated. Suddenly his eyes glazed darkly with the tempting fullness of her lips and then his mouth crashed punishingly against hers, grinding hard and agonisingly till she tasted her
own blood. Horror was the worst feeling of all. It shot sickeningly from her stomach to her head, spinning it crazily. Desperately she wrenched her mouth from his and he laughed.
‘Now I know what it’s like to kiss a rabid vixen!’ ‘And now I know what it’s like to be kissed by Mickey Mouse!’ she screamed back at him.
He was laughing as he strode out of the door of the studio, not with mirth but with a satanic rumble that promised more punishing torment. It left Gemma shaking with fear but not the fear he had intended. Disgust powered her hand to rub furiously at her mouth.
‘If I had my way I’d have you sitting in your shirtsleeves tending your orchids. I’m sure you’d feel more relaxed.’
Agustªn laughed. ‘I don’t think the boardroom would appreciate that. Do I look so stiff, then?’ He adjusted the collar of his light grey suit as if by easing it it would relax the whole of him.
‘You did at first,’ Gemma smiled, mixing some cobalt blue and burnt sienna on her palette.
‘It’s not easy, you know.’ He shifted uncomfortably on the straight-backed chair she had him sitting on, in a formal pose which his position on the board of his oil company demanded.
‘I do know.’ Gemma laughed. ‘I did some modelling at art school and found it agonising to sit for so long in one position. I really sympathise.’
She stood back from the easel and with a brush between her teeth made a few adjustments to the canvas with her thumb. It was going well, better than she had ever anticipated. The first session had been stiff and formal and they’d been ill at ease with each other. Now, towards the end of the fourth, they had both settled and relaxed.
‘Stretch your legs and I’ll make some coffee and then I’d like to do another half-hour if you can bear it.’
Agustªn stood up and stretched lazily then walked over to the canvas as he did after every session and studied her work, rubbing his chin and occasionally squinting his dark eyes.
