by Natalie Fox
She called out to him as he reached the door. ‘Agustªn.’
He turned and faced her, her father.
‘If you felt that Isobel had betrayed your love, why didn’t you tear down this place?’
He looked at her hard and his face was drawn, a glint of moisture on his brow the only brightness to his features. He answered at last, his voice echoing in the high, vaulted ceiling. ‘I really don’t know, Gemma.’
* * *
She had to find Maria. Maria knew all the answers in the Villa Verde household. That nagging thought in the back of her mind was swiftly developing into a hefty headache.
Though why concern herself with something that was none of her business? But she’d always been a curious creature, and she longed to know who Felipe’s mother was, for sure as eggs were eggs the woman Agustªn had married wasn’t Felipe’s mother!
She was amazed at herself for not working it out sooner, but hadn’t her mind been otherwise occupied with torture and torment and bitter revenge?
She was twenty-six and Felipe thirty-two and that added up to Felipe being a bastard in the true sense of the word.
‘Gemma, have you seen Mike?’ Christina asked, running up to Gemma in the rose garden.
‘No, I haven’t. In fact I’m looking for your mother—is she around?’ Gemma had ventured into the villa for the first time in days, looking for Maria but not finding her. Now she was searching the grounds and Christina appeared to be doing likewise for Mike, though Christina seemed anxious where Gemma’s searching was marginally more unhurried.
Christina shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I look for Mike.’ She frowned and muttered something in Spanish that Gemma didn’t understand but the tone indicated a few expletives.
‘Have you tried the tennis courts?’ Gemma suggested, remembering she’d seen Mike and Bianca knocking around there earlier but that was ages ago.
‘I look there.’ She ran off and Gemma watched her go, puzzled by her anxiety. Seconds later she understood why.
Gemma stopped dead as she rounded the gardens by the pool and then drew back behind a screen of potted ferns. She hadn’t seen that, surely? It was her eyes playing tricks in the sunlight! She hadn’t seen Mike and Bianca locked in each other’s arms under the shade of the cypress trees, she couldn’t have!
‘You’re putting me in one helluva position, Bianca,’ Mike growled, pulling Bianca’s arms from around his neck. ‘I’ve told you it’s not on——’
Bianca’s eyes darkened furiously. ‘Don’t tell me you prefer a servant to me——’
‘Keep your voice down!’ Mike hissed. ‘Listen, Bianca, you’re a sweet kid but it’s more than my life’s worth to get involved with you.’
‘It’ll be more than your job’s worth if you don’t!’
‘You’re just bored. You don’t need me.’
‘I do. You’re right, Felipe is so boring——’
‘You’re going to marry him!’
‘So! That shouldn’t make any difference to us…’ Gemma turned away, her heart thudding furiously. Was there no one normal at the Villa Verde? Poor Mike, being blackmailed into an affair with Bianca. Did he have the strength to fight it? Resolutely she scooped her heavy hair from her face. She couldn’t begin to take on anyone else’s problems, she had enough of her own to last her several lifetimes. She put off her search for Maria and slowly made her way back to the studio.
Gemma stood back from the canvas. Nightfall was approaching and she had done all she could for the day. She was exhausted. She unclipped the photo of the oil rig she had been referring to from the top of the easel and slid it into the envelope with the other photos. She must remember to return them to Felipe. Because she was tired she started slightly as she heard a step behind her.
‘Mike!’ She smiled, hesitantly. ‘Have you come to look at the portrait?’
Hadn’t everyone? Even the gardeners had peeked in. The studio Agustªn had locked up for so many years was more like a bus terminal now with people coming and going. It saddened her to think that after she’d gone Agustªn would probably shut it up again.
‘It’s great,’ Mike said but there was no enthusiasm in his voice. Gemma suddenly knew why he had come. Her shoulders sagged with weariness. She really didn’t want to be an agony aunt at this time of night.
‘It’s all right, Mike,’ she said quietly. ‘I know why you’re here. I saw you and Bianca in the gardens today.’
Mike gave her a crooked smile and sank down on to a couch. ‘I could do with a coffee,’ he told her, raking his fingers through his spiky blond hair.
‘I’ll put the water on,’ Gemma murmured kindly.
It all came out, the whole story. Mike being Mike, outgoing and sociable, had given Bianca the wrong impression. She had taken his zest for life as a personal zest for her and reacted by throwing herself at him wholeheartedly.
‘I don’t want her, Gemma. It’s Christina I’m crazy about. How can I get out of it and keep my job? She’ll do for me, the spoilt little bitch.’
‘You’ll just have to beat her to Agustªn, that’s all. Go to him and tell him she’s sexually harassing you at work and it isn’t on.’
They both laughed and then Mike grew serious. ‘And if he doesn’t believe me I’m out.’
‘And if you don’t give Bianca what she wants, you’re out! Take your pick—go with your head held high or your tail between your legs. You know what you have to do and really you didn’t need me to confirm it.’
‘I needed to share it, though. There was no one else I could talk to. You’re detached from the whole family and not emotionally involved with them and that’s why I came to you.’
That must be the understatement of the century, Gemma thought dismally. Loneliness engulfed her.
Mike stood up and on impulse leaned forward, gripped her shoulders and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. ‘Thanks for being there,’ he murmured. ‘And I think the picture’s swell.’
Gemma smiled wanly as he strode out of the open door. That was her good deed done for the day, though she wondered if she’d done the right thing in suggesting he go to Agustªn with the problem. It would cause a row and hadn’t there been enough of that lately?
She turned to the sink to rinse out their coffee-cups, dismissing the problem from her mind. It wasn’t hers; why should she lose sleep over it? She heard a step behind her. Who now? She could make a fortune standing on the door taking entrance money.
‘Mike now, eh? Very bloody cosy!’
Gemma didn’t even turn to look at him but she tensed inside. So he’d seen Mike leaving, for all she knew he’d seen that kiss too. More harassment? She couldn’t take any more. ‘Yes, Mike,’ she sighed wearily. ‘Quite insatiable, aren’t I? I wonder where I get the energy from sometimes.’
‘Is that supposed to be funny?’ Felipe swung her round to face him, his eyes silvered with rage.
‘I thought it was pretty hilarious!’
‘Have you no pride——?’
‘No,’ she spat back at him. ‘You wear my pride as a loincloth…’
‘Dear God, but you’re evil!’
‘Dear God, but you’re a damned saint!’ she hit back sarcastically.
‘I don’t take the servants’ lovers!’
‘Well, someone does, but it isn’t me! I suggest you search closer to home!’ Gemma immediately regretted that. Much as she detested Bianca, she had no intention of snitching on her.
‘What do you know?’ Felipe growled.
‘Nothing!’ Gemma told him, tight-lipped, sweeping her hair from her face, at the same time hurling his hands from her arms.
‘Was that why he was here? Confiding in you that he had a new lover?’
‘He loves Christina…’
‘He’s seeing someone else. This is a close community and there’s gossip. If you know something you’d better spit it out.’
She supposed that was something. He actually believed that she wasn’t Mike’s new lover. How she’d l
ove to tell him it was his precious, precocious fiancee seeing Mike behind Christina’s back, but she couldn’t, of course—that would bring her down to their mudslinging level!
‘To hell with you, Felipe. You can think what you please. You’ll get nothing from me!’
‘It’s Bianca, isn’t it?’ he let out on a long breath. ‘My, God, I’ll kill the bastard!’
He went to turn away and Gemma lunged at him and grasped his bare arm. She let it go as quickly as she’d grasped it.
‘Leave it, Felipe.’ She licked her dry lips, wondering why she was bothering, but she liked Mike and the only fault he had was a weakness for allowing Bianca to manipulate him this far already. ‘It’s not Mike’s fault. He really cares for Christina…’ Her voice frayed. That was admission enough that it was Bianca. So what did she care? No one ever took her feelings into account when they were dishing out the dirt.
‘Are you saying that Bianca is making a play for Mike?’ His voice was low and loaded with disbelief.
‘I said nothing of the sort,’ she retorted. Whatever she said she couldn’t win. She was the wicked witch of the north and that was that! ‘I want no part of all this. I’m tired. Leave me alone.’
Felipe snorted with rage. ‘I suppose it’s all I should expect from you. Plant a few seeds of dissent and walk away to let them flourish in someone else’s mind.’
Gemma had to laugh. ‘OK, I take full responsibility. It’s all my fault—now will you get out of here and let me get some rest?’
‘Is Bianca making a play for Mike?’ he repeated, grasping her arm to add weight to the question, as if his tone wasn’t weighty enough.
Gemma’s eyes hardened and defied him. ‘If she is, that would really hit you below the belt, wouldn’t it?’
His eyes pierced hers with such intensity that she blinked painfully.
‘The only pain I suffer in that region is when I’m within striking distance of you, sweet one, and I’m not speaking metaphorically,’ he gibed.
Gemma’s breath caught in her throat. When would this end, this constant pressure on her senses? She tried to wrest her arm from his, resorted to using her free hand to prise his fingers from her.
‘You’re stopping my blood flow…I’ve a portrait to finish tomorrow…’
‘That soon.’ His grip eased but only long enough to manoeuvre her into a more accessible position. Suddenly she was in his arms.
‘Then there is still much to be done,’ he breathed sensuously at her throat.
God, he hadn’t given up! She felt the fiery heat all over her body, from her head to her toes. It tore fearfully through her, scorching every nerve-ending in its path, as his hands lowered and gripped her hips to draw her into him. As their bodies made terrifying, electrifying contact she opened her mouth to scream but nothing happened and then the pressure was off and she felt as if she had been sucked out from an aircraft flying at thirty thousand feet and was hurling through space.
She opened her eyes, dizzily, not sure if she was alive or dead. She saw Felipe’s retreating figure and Maria, God bless her, standing in the doorway with her supper tray.
Life flooded back into Gemma’s veins. Trembling, she turned to the sink as Maria came across the studio floor.
Maria was blushing as she came to stand beside her. ‘I sorry, Gemma. I should bang on the door. I didn’t mean to…’
Gemma forced a laugh. ‘It doesn’t matter, Maria.’ You saved my life, Gemma added inwardly. But what must she be thinking? Gemma thought wearily. She knew the family, knew that Bianca was promised to Felipe, knew that there was something going on between her and Felipe…Gemma exhaled a deep sigh. She wanted to go home, away from all this horror.
‘Is nearly finished,’ Maria commented as she peered at the portrait of Agustªn, and Gemma had to admire her discretion. Maybe that was why she had survived so many years with this twisted family.
‘Is funny.’
Gemma frowned. ‘What do you mean, funny?’
‘Is like you.’
Gemma paled, sank down on to the couch before the weakness in her legs sagged her to the floor. She hadn’t imagined for a minute…She stared at the canvas. No, it wasn’t possible…but it was. Suddenly she saw it, the likeness. Very subtle, something in the eyes, the line of the cheekbones…
‘I think there is always something of the artist in his or her own work,’ Gemma mouthed, her lips working on automatic pilot. She uncovered the tray Maria had brought her, stared at the food unseeingly. Maria had seen it—had anyone else? No, it was impossible. She hadn’t seen it herself till it was pointed out to her…
‘Maria?’
‘Si.’ Maria turned from the canvas. Her eyes looked troubled and Gemma aborted the question that was on the tip of her tongue. Instead she said, ‘Don’t worry about Mike and Christina. They love each other very much and everything is going to be all right.’
Maria nodded and smiled. ‘Si, I know, but…but you and Felipe…’ She shook her head as if it was all hopeless. ‘I see, Gemma, but I no understand. I see the love…’
‘Don’t, Maria,’ Gemma pleaded. How could she have seen love? They had fought non-stop from the minute she had arrived at the Hammer House of Horror.
She resurrected the question she had been about to ask. ‘Maria, you’ve known the family a long time. Who was Felipe’s mother?’ After all that Felipe had dished out to her she was still curious—or did she just want to divert attention away from the treacherous thoughts of her and Felipe that kept flashing across her mind?
Maria shrugged and put the pan on for Gemma’s coffee. ‘I don’t know, no one knows. All we know is that she was a bad woman.’
‘She left her son to be raised by his father?’ Gemma supposed that was bad in this proud country.
‘No, the father he bad too…’
Agustªn, bad? Surely not—he’d given him the best of everything.
‘Felipe’s parents sell the drugs on the streets of Bogota. Felipe, a child, he take the drugs. He sick and thin and poor and he die if Se?or de Navas…’
Gemma eyes widened till they hurt. Something inside her swelled with hope. ‘Maria,’ she husked pitifully, ‘are you telling me Felipe is not Agustªn’s son?’
Maria shook her head and Gemma let go of the straw she had clutched at so desperately.
‘They father and son, is true. Se?or de Navas make the…the adopcªon…’
‘Adopted! Felipe is adopted!’ Gemma cried, grabbing back the straw and clasping it to her heart. She felt sick and dizzy and happy and…‘But I don’t understand…’ Where had her thinking been when all this had cropped up? Felipe wasn’t a de Navas, he was a Santos. ‘But Maria, he is a Santos.’
‘Si, we have many names. Santos is Felipe’s family but he have de Navas too. Felipe’s mother and father they die soon after Senor de Navas take Felipe from the street. He make him his own son, the se?ora have no children, it not possible so Felipe the child he want…’
Gemma felt floaty and weak inside. Felipe wasn’t her half-brother, was no blood relative whatsoever. They had committed no sin. She had nothing to feel guilty or shameful or disgusted about. She was happy, but she wasn’t. Her mind raced frantically. And then as swiftly as her euphoria had risen it deflated like a burst balloon. This dear, sweet, wonderful news was too late. The love she had once shared with Felipe had gone. Torment and bitterness and fear had poisoned it and all that remained was a sourness that couldn’t be sweetened. It was too far gone to be salvaged.
CHAPTER NINE
FELIPE’S mouth was tender and loving, his tongue warm and sensual.
‘This is how it should be,’ Gemma murmured, basking in his caresses, moving languidly against him as his hands smoothed over her hips urging her to his body. ‘No more fighting, Felipe,’ she breathed plaintively.
‘No more torment, querida. I love you, you are my life.’
She guided him into her sweet warmth and he moved gently, pressing into her and covering her face and
neck with erotic kisses. She clung to him, holding him to her body and her heart, never to let him go. He was hers and always would be. His penetration deepened and quickened and suddenly she was in pain. A fierce, cruel, wicked pain.
‘You’re hurting me!’
He laughed, thrust harder.
‘No…no, you mustn’t! Felipe…you can’t…’
She felt him swell inside her and screamed in terror.
‘No…no…you’re my brother…’
Her screams woke her. Perspiration matted the sheet to her trembling body. Her breath came in long desperate gasps of fear. She was so hot and there was no air and that noise…Oh, God, a nightmare…so real…
She held her head in her hands till the sobs receded. He wasn’t her half-brother; she had done no wrong. She had nothing to fear…and yet she had everything to fear. Nightmares had their roots in reality. She hadn’t made love with her half-brother but the shame and guilt were still there because she wasn’t at all sure that she could have resisted him even if he had been. The thought was like a sickness inside her. Felipe’s torment. It would never go away.
Achingly she untangled her legs from the sheet. That noise again, so persistent, a rushing sound. It was light, she realised, sweeping her tousled hair from her damp face. Her head started to clear. It was raining. Water was rushing down the sloping roof.
Gemma went to the window and watched white water lash the windowpane. It was hotter than ever and yet she shivered, not able to shake off the terror of her nightmare. Yesterday she had fought him off thinking their love was forbidden—now she was free to love him but it was hopelessly too late. She’d put an ocean between them all right, an ocean of bitterness. And Bianca…Felipe had been incensed at the thought of Mike pursuing his cousin. Why? Because he cared for her, that was why. But whom did he desire? She knew that. Herself, but sex wasn’t what marriages were about. They were about loving and caring and those were two emotions Felipe hadn’t house room for in his heart.
Gemma showered and dressed in skimpy shorts and the flimsiest cotton top she had. She tied her thick hair back from her shoulders with a ribbon. The humidity was stifling.
