by Natalie Fox
Gemma flashed curious glances at him as she put the coffee jug on the small cooker top. She was always interested in people’s reactions to seeing themselves on canvas, Agustªn’s more than anyone. He was her father, and painting his portrait was having a strange effect on her emotions. Every brush stroke was revealing a little bit more of him, on the canvas and to herself. Here, in this studio, he was different. The rough edges of his temperament had smoothed away. Their conversations had at first been stilted but now they came easily, sometimes not at all, but that didn’t matter; silence too showed an ease between two people.
Gemma poured two coffees. She liked him, she realised, and suspected he liked her. The feeling was good.
‘Does Felipe ever come here?’ he asked unexpectedly as he took the coffee-cup she held out to him. He’d loosened his tie at his throat and removed his jacket, and now he stood leaning back against the studio sink. She wondered what Felipe would think of his father now if he saw him. He was hardly the cold, hard bastard he’d labelled him.
‘No,’ Gemma answered calmly. ‘He’s too occupied with Bianca to bother coming here. You should be happy about that.’
‘But you’re not?’
She smiled at him. ‘Six months ago I thought my world had come to an end when Felipe walked out on me. I recovered and I’ll recover again.’
‘You’re a strong girl,’ he told her, making it sound like a compliment. ‘And why did Felipe walk out on you?’
‘I…I don’t know, but he went to New York with Bianca.’
His eyes narrowed, remembering. ‘Yes, I summoned them both…’ Gemma frowned. ‘They are my only beneficiaries and there were some company papers to go over.’
Felipe should have told her that; instead he had led her to believe…What did it matter now? If he had told her the truth she would have accepted it and they would probably be married now. She gulped at her coffee, a crushing feeling in her chest powering the heat to her face at the thought. No matter how much space she gave to it, no matter how hard she reasoned that what was done was done, she would never get over the fact that Felipe was her half-brother and they had been lovers.
‘In time Bianca will make him a good wife,’ Agustªn told her as if he thought he owed her an explanation. ‘She is young yet, like a colt, but he will soon break her in and tame her. She is South American like him and it’s always best to stick to your own.’ His look was a meaningful reminder of a previous conversation on the subject.
Hurt was beyond her but she could smile at that remark now. ‘Is that why you gave up the European woman you loved to marry a woman your father picked for you?’ She knew she was riding a knifeedge with that question and she didn’t even know for sure if he truly had loved her mother, but this studio was here so his feelings must have been very powerful.
He smiled. ‘After all this time,’ he mused, ‘and still the gossip goes on.’
‘You built this studio for her,’ she persisted, afraid that that was all she was going to get from him. ‘It’s a constant reminder to everyone so the rumours go on and one day they will be legend. Didn’t your wife object to all this?’ She raised her eyes to encompass the airy studio.
‘My wife thought it amusing and didn’t lose an opportunity to throw it in my face.’
She knew him well enough to know that the tensing of his shoulder muscles meant he was controlling his anger.
‘I think we had better get on,’ he suggested stonily, and Gemma knew she wouldn’t get any more out of him today. She wished their conversation hadn’t taken that line because his facial muscles had set determinedly and unless he relaxed the next half-hour was going to be a waste of time.
Gemma knew their routine now and worked her way round it. Felipe and Bianca rode for a couple of hours in the early morning then swam and later, while Bianca sunbathed or painted her nails or hassled Mike the pilot, who seemed to spend a lot of time just hanging around waiting for someone to go somewhere, Felipe worked in the study. They lunched on the terrace and then Bianca slept and Felipe returned to the study to work.
So Gemma fitted a swim in before them and ate lunch in the studio between her morning and afternoon sessions with Agustªn. She took the rest of her exercise, wandering the gardens, when no one was around. She avoided them all as if they suffered from some terminal virus.
Maria and Christina popped in to see her and brought her meals, but never when Agustªn was there, and all in all everything was working out well.
‘I think it’s about time you came to your senses and stopped avoiding us.’
Gemma, who’d been on her tenth length of the pool, trod water, clutched at the rail with one hand and swept her wet hair from her face with the other.
She narrowed her eyes against the sun and looked up at Felipe squatting on his haunches by the pool. He wasn’t smiling. It had been three days since she had seen him and he looked gaunter than when she had first arrived at the Villa Verde. Bianca must be wearing him ragged.
‘Where’s Bianca?’ Gemma asked, striving for normality. It occurred to her that Felipe probably knew her daily routine as accurately as she knew his.
‘Do you care?’
‘No, just passing the time of day.’ She pushed off from the side and got back to her lengths. Felipe slowly paced next to her.
‘I think you should join us for dinner tonight.’
‘I think not,’ puffed Gemma.
‘Why are you being so awkward?’ ‘Why are you being so persistent?’
She stopped at the end of the pool. She couldn’t carry on this conversation and swim at the same time and it was obvious he wasn’t going to go away. His hand reached down to her and she took it, forcing casualness into the situation, and he hauled her out.
Felipe bent down, picked up her towel from a lounger and scooped it around her shoulders.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, taking a step away from him.
‘Agustªn says the portrait is coming along splendidly. I’ll pop in and take a look at it some time.’
‘Don’t bother. You’ll see enough of it when it’s finished. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get showered and changed before your father’s next session.’
He caught her arm and swung her back to him. She didn’t know what his intention was but she was ahead of him whatever.
‘Don’t touch me, Felipe! It wouldn’t do for Bianca to see us together, nor your father, come to that.’
‘Trying to instigate a bit of intrigue, are you?’ he said coldly, his jet eyes raking her, sending a sliver of ice down her spine.
‘No, but you obviously are. It was you who touched me! Now let go of my arm.’
‘I’d rather not,’ he said, gripping her arm tighter. ‘I rather like the feel of you trembling in my grip.’
‘Shuddering, you mean,’ she said sweetly. Though it came out sarcastically it was heavy with the truth. Every time she thought of what they had done, their intimacies, their love, a shudder of dread and fear shook through her.
He dropped her arm as if it was on fire. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
‘The sun, the swim, yes, very much.’
‘You know what I mean,’ he growled. ‘Don’t play games with me, Gemma. It makes me very angry.’
‘Good, I’m glad I can so easily arouse your wrath. I take great pleasure in getting back at you for what you’ve done to me.’
‘Refusing to eat with us and avoiding us is very childish.’
‘I won’t argue with that. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! But if I lived to be a couple of hundred I’ll never match the depth of the de Navases’ childishness.’
‘You’ve surpassed it, sweet one. Even Bianca is showing more maturity than you at the moment.’
‘Well, that’s saying something, isn’t it?’ Gemma sliced back. ‘I was always under the impression she nursed the maturity of a tadpole!’ Gemma shrugged. ‘Have fun in the stagnant pond of each other’s emotions.’
‘Oh, we
are,’ he laughed cruelly before she turned away. ‘Bianca is suddenly very compromising, thanks to you.’
Gemma turned back to him just long enough to throw him a look of disgust. So she was the teaser, after all, brought in by Felipe to make Bianca see what she was missing. Had it all been necessary; surely the girl was already besotted with her cousin? She turned away from him, and, pulling the robe tightly round her, walked away. She didn’t care a damn anyway, she told herself as she broke into a trot when she was out of sight of him. She ran through the cypresses and round the villa to the sanctuary of the studio. They all deserved each other—let the devil rot them.
She stood under the shower and found she was trembling with a mixture of anger and bitter sadness. How had it all come to this? The rage, the hurting, the lashing at each other till their emotions took on the texture of rusted wire wool. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone to get on with her work and then leave her alone to get on with the rest of her life?
A cry of shock caught in her throat as suddenly the shower curtain was stripped aside. If Felipe had been standing there with a knife in his hand ready to emulate Norman Bates in Psycho she couldn’t have been more shocked.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, scaring me like that?’ she croaked. She didn’t know which fear superseded the other, fear of death by kitchen knife or fear of Felipe reaching out and touching her nakedness.
His hand came up and twisted off the shower tap and suddenly the silence was terrifying. Then he leaned on the tiles and let his eyes wander relentlessly over her wet, naked body.
Instantly she recognised the arousal in their black depths. A glint of silver, a flash of fiery red and she knew why he was there.
‘No, Felipe.’ Her words were a whisper in the wind. She lunged at the shower curtain, clutched at it and lashed it around her body. If he touched her, just reached out and tore it from her, she would die.
‘No, Felipe,’ he echoed mockingly and his hand rose terrifyingly and smoothed a wisp of wet hair from her forehead. ‘You mean yes, don’t you, querida?’
Oh, God, she didn’t! Once, but not now, not ever! His fingers caressed the droplets of water from her cheeks, slow, sensual strokes that aroused treacherous thoughts in her mind and body. With the knowledge she possessed, could he still arouse that desperate need inside her? Was it possible she still wanted him, still longed for his touch? The trauma of that thought sickened her till her head swam and she fought it desperately. It was too much to handle, too much for a mind to cope with. In pain and confusion she weakly brought her hand up to push his from her face.
‘How easily I can arouse you,’ he mocked. ‘You struggle to hate me but it is impossible. I struggle to hate you and that is equally impossible. So what is the matter, sweet one?’
Miserably, hopelessly, she shook her head and lowered her eyes. At this moment she knew nothing, even her own name eluded her. She was going mad, losing her reasoning, losing her mind.
His hand moved back to her flaming cheeks and fearfully she grasped his hand, twisted it away from her, her nails biting forcefully into his flesh.
‘When will you get it into your mind that I don’t want you, Felipe?’ she husked drily. She forced herself to look at him, the ultimate in exorcism. It was the only way to do it. Face it, he had said and she was doing just that. Facing the man she illicitly loved, facing the man she knew could never be her own and facing her own disgust and revulsion at what had passed between them. She had loved him, given him her body and soul and now she knew what real torment meant. Ironic that Felipe had willed it on her, but he couldn’t know the depth of all she was suffering now.
‘And when will you get it into your mind that you are fighting a losing battle, querida? It won’t go away, you know. The longing for each other——’
‘Wrong!’ she almost screamed, her eyes ablaze, her face flushed. It had to go away, it simply had to! ‘I don’t want you any more, Felipe. Your punishment was based on the theory that I cared for you, and without that the torment doesn’t exist. I don’t want you, I don’t care for you and no matter what you threaten you can’t do any more damage than you already have.’
‘Can’t I?’ he mocked, his eyes narrowing threateningly. ‘Whether you care for me or not is immaterial. You can hate me down to your fragile little bones but one caress and I can melt those bones. I can reach out and touch you now and the fire will be there, as hot as ever. You can’t deny your body’s needs, sweet one; you can’t switch off what powers your sexuality.’
I can, she thought frantically. But she couldn’t say it. To voice her denial would be a challenge to him, a challenge he would take up just to prove her wrong. If he did touch her, simply reach out and smooth his sensuous fingers over any erogenous zone on her flesh that he wished to name, how would she react? Would she feel the revulsion she ought to feel or would she be faced with some terrible dilemma of need that overpowered her reasoning of right and wrong? Wasn’t what had passed between them enough to cope with without this treacherous feeling that she might not be able to cope if he put her to the test?
‘Agustªn will be here in a moment,’ she told him, praying it would be enough to spur him on his way. Fool. Was she mad? Since when had any threat, disguised or otherwise, rocked Felipe’s world?
His eyes hardened. ‘Is this what this coy little charade is all about—showering for your new lover?’
Gemma tightened the shower curtain around her, twisting the fabric till her fingers whitened. They were on her lips, like lemmings poised over the precipice, the words of truth that would shatter three lives if she let them go. In her mind she said them and pictured the revulsion that would mar his handsome features.
It would kill him. This proud, arrogant, cruel man would die of shame and disgust if she told him she was Agustªn’s daughter and he had made love to his own half-sister. And Agustªn…Oh, God…these two proud, fiery Latins…They would never know. No matter what she had to suffer, they must never know.
Gemma said nothing. Though she knew her confession would end Felipe’s torment once and for all, she couldn’t do it. He could drive her to the edge of her sanity and beyond, but she would never, never tell him her terrible secret.
‘Answer me, Gemma. Is it my father you want?’
She moved then, furiously pushed past him, ripping the shower curtain down in her haste to get away from him. She grabbed for a towel and flung it round her in place of the curtain. There was nowhere to run to! Her eyes flew round the open studio. She turned and faced him, defied him with the cold brutality of her eyes.
‘Leave me alone, Felipe! Stop pestering me! Just get out of my life!’
He didn’t even look surprised at her vicious outburst. Even in the worst of her fury he didn’t take her seriously. Slowly he came towards her, each step a bleeding wound stabbing at her heart and soul. She stiffened as he stopped in front of her, a knowing smile maliciously twisting the corners of his mouth.
‘So you don’t deny it. You simply scream at me to leave you alone.’ He shook his dark head. ‘My father and I might drive each other to distraction at times, but he wouldn’t sink so low as to take my woman.’
‘I’m not your woman!’ Her voice came from somewhere dark and treacherous inside her. It wasn’t her voice but somehow she had spirited it to her lips. She couldn’t take much more of this. She felt the fight going from her and knew that if he kept on she would blurt the truth. Somehow she rallied a sliver of strength. ‘And I never will be!’ she added vehemently because she knew it to be true.
His eyes raked her dangerously. ‘You will be whatever I wish you to be.’
Suddenly his hand snaked out to the towel held protectively round her. It was whisked away in a blink of the eye and Gemma stood naked in front of him, nothing but cold fear glazing her eyes.
For an instant she saw something in his eyes she didn’t understand. Almost as if he’d recognised her fear and acknowledged it within him. Then it was gone and they narrow
ed warningly.
‘Just remember one thing. I know that body better than you know it yourself. I can control it like no other man and don’t you forget it!’ He smiled suddenly and a pulse of triumph throbbed on his jawline. ‘You see, querida, even my searching eyes can arouse you.’
Further shame and humiliation flooded her. She had no control over her own mind, let alone her body. He only had to cast his jet eyes over her and she betrayed herself, afraid or not.
Gemma’s hands came up to clasp over her breasts, the breasts that had swelled, their peaks engorged as he feasted his eyes on her.
His hands shot to hers and he wrenched them away from herself and held them up so he could take his fill of her.
‘You tremble, sweet one,’ he drawled lazily, knowingly, ‘not shudder as you claim to do at my touch.’ He let go of her hands but they stayed where they were, half above her head, as if he was holding a loaded gun to her chest. She was frozen in time, unable to move for the paralysis that gripped her. He grazed the backs of his fingers down over the soft swell of her breasts, circled a persistent thumb round her dark, lust-swollen nipples.
She knew the pain of real torment in that guiltridden moment. The torment of her own mind. She closed her eyes to the man she shouldn’t love but she could never close her mind to her own shame. It flooded her, drowned out what little there was left of her sanity. She still desired him. The thought was too painful to sustain and in sheer desperation she fought it and blocked it out of her reasoning.
The pressure suddenly stopped and she fluttered open her eyes and gazed up at Felipe. Slowly he took her hands and gently lowered them.
‘You see the power I have?’ he husked. ‘Don’t you ever forget it, querida, don’t you ever forget it!’
He turned and left her standing naked in the stifling studio, pearls of perspiration clustered on her feverish brow. Numbly Gemma stared after him and then her hand came up to clutch over the sob that blurted from her mouth. She reached for the towel he had flung away from her and buried her face in it. She sobbed hysterically into the pile, biting and tearing at the loops, trying to abate her anger and shame. It was useless! It would never go away! She hated herself, hated herself more than she could ever hate him. She had lost control…Dear God…She opened her teargritted eyes and stared at the half-finished portrait of her father. He had witnessed her total degradation.
