by Anne Mather
‘It was.’ Cassandra sighed again. ‘Here: I’ll put him on. He can tell you about it himself.’
David took the phone eagerly, and before his grandfather could speak, he exclaimed, ‘You ought to see this place, Grandad! It’s fantastic! It’s got a gym and a swimming pool, and as well as the horses that Tio Enrique rides there are about a hundred bulls! They’re great! A bit scary, sometimes, but Tio Enrique says that so long as you’re careful, they won’t hurt you.’
‘David, David!’ Cassandra could hear her father trying to calm him down. ‘Let me speak to your mother again, will you, son? I’ll hear all about the holiday when you get back.’
David’s face dropped. ‘But Grandad—’
‘Not now, David.’ Cassandra knew her father was having difficulty in controlling his temper. ‘Put your mother on. This call is costing me a fortune.’
David handed the phone to Cassandra with ill grace. ‘Here,’ he said, pushing his hands into the pockets of his shorts and staring defiantly at her. ‘Why should I speak to him anyway? He’s never been interested in what I do.’
‘That’s not true,’ protested Cassandra, horrified, covering the phone with her hand. ‘David, your grandfather has always cared about your welfare. Where would we have been without him, that’s what I’d like to know? Don’t be such a baby. He’s worried because we’d left the pensión without telling him, that’s all.’ She paused. ‘Go and get your pyjamas on. It’s nearly time for bed.’
David left the room without speaking and she hoped she was not going to have to mediate between him and her father. She seemed to be spending her time lurching from one crisis to another, and it seemed to be the pattern at the moment for her to be the scapegoat for everyone’s grievances.
Somehow, she managed to placate her father without telling him about David’s letter. She sensed that that would infuriate him still more, and, after assuring Mr Scott that in an emergency she would do as he suggested and use her credit card to get an earlier flight home, she managed to end the call. But he wasn’t satisfied, she knew that, and he would demand a full explanation when she got back. Someone else, she thought drily. How many more explanations would she have to make?
She awakened the next morning feeling more hungover than she’d done the previous day. She had slept; exhaustion had seen to that. But her sleep had been shallow and punctuated with nightmare scenes of David being pursued by one of Enrique’s fighting bulls, its beady eyes red and glittering with malevolence.
She crawled out of bed feeling sick and headachy, her mouth tasting foul, and her skin sticky with the sweat her dreams had generated. Even a shower did little to lift her mood, and when she emerged from her bedroom to find David tucking into butter-slathered rolls and freshly squeezed orange juice, she thought how unfair life was.
‘Hi, Mum,’ he said, his expression considerably more cheerful than it had been the night before. ‘I know where Tio Enrique is. He’s in Seville. He’s gone to fetch Grandpapa home. Isn’t that exciting?’
Cassandra swallowed. Exciting wasn’t the word she’d have used to describe her feelings at the thought of seeing Julio de Montoya again. She couldn’t even claim to have met him before. A stiff black-suited figure at the service Cassandra had held for her late husband, he hadn’t so much as exchanged a word with his daughter-in-law. He’d saved all his comments for the priest who’d conducted the service, and her nerves prickled at the thought of his anger when he discovered the secret she’d been keeping from them all these years.
‘How do you know?’ she asked obliquely, pouring herself a cup of the strong coffee Consuela had provided for them. Carlos had said nothing to her, but then the old man was always excessively discreet where his employer was concerned.
‘Consuela told me,’ David replied at once, helping himself to another roll. ‘They’ll be home later today. According to her, Grandpapa is leaving the hospital this morning. He’ll be surprised to meet me, won’t he?’
‘No doubt.’ Cassandra tried to keep the anxiety out of her voice. ‘Um—just don’t expect too much, will you, David? I mean, your grandfather’s been very ill. He may need a few days to—to recover from the journey.’
David’s eyes darkened with a mixture of doubt and resentment. ‘But Tio Enrique said Grandpapa would be pleased to hear he had a grandson,’ he protested peevishly. ‘Are you sure that’s not just you hoping we won’t get on? I mean he is my dad’s father. I think he’ll be rapt when he knows we’re here.’
Cassandra couldn’t imagine Julio de Montoya being rapt about anything, least of all a grandson who was half her blood. She was still the outsider as far as he was concerned. And nothing that had happened since she arrived in Spain had given her any reason to think that that was likely to change.
Apparently preferring Juan’s company to hers, David disappeared after breakfast and, left to herself, Cassandra decided to start packing their belongings. It would give her something to do, and although there were still a few more days before they were due back at Punta del Lobo to catch the bus which would take them to Seville airport, it made her feel as if she was doing something positive for a change.
It was early afternoon when she heard the car. She didn’t want to admit that she’d been listening for it, but she had. She found herself going out into the sunlit courtyard and staring out across the wide sweep of the valley, wondering with a shameful sense of apprehension if Julio de Montoya would want to see her. Not today, she assured herself firmly. When he was rested, perhaps. She had no illusions as to who would bear the brunt of her father-in-law’s wrath, but he must need time to recover his strength.
In fact it was less than an hour before she heard the sound of footsteps crossing the marble floor of the salón. Cassandra was still in her bedroom, pretending to be engrossed in sorting through the contents of her cosmetics bag, when a shadow filled the open doorway and she looked up to find Enrique standing there, watching her.
He was the very last person she had expected to see. Consuela, perhaps? David? But not Enrique. And yet, why not? It was appropriate, she thought bitterly. He was used to doing his father’s bidding.
All the same, she couldn’t meet his searching gaze for long. His absence had done nothing to damp the leaping fires inside her, and all she could remember was how weak and helpless he’d made her feel.
For his part, Enrique’s face was expressionless, and she had no way of knowing what he was thinking. In a more formal shirt than she was used to seeing—ice-blue silk teamed with an Italian-styled suit in navy blue—he looked darkly handsome, disturbingly elegant. Her nemesis, she reflected a little shakily. Her fate and her temptation, and ultimately her destruction.
‘If you’re looking for David, he’s not here,’ she said, when the silence between them was beginning to strip her nerves. And Enrique shrugged.
‘I can see that,’ he replied, with no apparent inflection in his voice. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing much.’ Cassandra had been sitting on the padded stool beside the vanity, but now she got to her feet. There was no need for him to know she’d started packing. ‘What do you want?’
Enrique rocked back on his heels. ‘What do I want?’ he queried, an edge of sarcasm colouring his tone. ‘Dios, where do I begin?’
Cassandra held up her head, not answering him. ‘I understand you went to Seville to bring your father home,’ she said instead, managing somehow to keep her voice cool and controlled. ‘How is he? I expect he’ll be tired after the journey.’
Enrique swore then. It wasn’t in English, but Cassandra had no difficulty in identifying his intent. So much for hoping they could deal amicably with one another, she thought tensely. Like her, Enrique had not forgotten any part of what she’d said.
‘Let us not pretend that you care how my father is feeling,’ he said at last. ‘And I understand perfectly what you are doing; what you are hoping to achieve. But it is not going to work, Cassandra. You and I are going to talk about what happened
before I went away. You cannot tear my world apart and then behave as if nothing had changed. Even you are not that thoughtless.’
‘Don’t you mean stupid?’ demanded Cassandra, stung by his accusation. ‘And if you are going to talk about worlds being torn apart—’
‘I know, I know.’ Enrique dragged his hands out of his pockets to rake long fingers through his hair. ‘I have had time to think while I have been away and I realise it must have been—difficult—for you, too.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
‘Do not be sarcastic, Cassandra. It does not suit you.’ He drew a steadying breath. ‘In any case, now is not the time to get into this. It will take considerably longer than we have at present to deal with all the repercussions of this situation.’
Cassandra quivered. ‘You’re going away again?’ she enquired tautly, and he uttered another muffled oath.
‘No,’ he said, leaving the door to cross the room towards her. He halted only when she put out her hand to prevent him from getting too close to her. ‘Dios mio, Cassandra, you must know how I feel. When you told me David was my son, I was shocked, yes. But it does not alter the way I feel about you.’
Cassandra moistened dry lips. ‘Am I supposed to understand what that means?’
‘You should,’ he said roughly, taking the hand she had put out to stop him and raising it to his lips. ‘I thought I made the way I felt about you very clear the other evening.’
‘That was—that was before—’
‘Before you told me that David was my son?’ he enquired softly, his tongue devastatingly sensual against her palm. ‘Ah, sí. And you do not think that that would reinforce those feelings?’
‘I—don’t know.’ Cassandra didn’t know what to believe any more.
‘Then I will have to—’
But before he could finish what he’d been about to say, a throat was cleared behind them. ‘Señor!’ It was Consuela. ‘Lo siento, Señor Enrique,’ she murmured with obvious reluctance. ‘Pero, señor, su padre—puede—’
‘Mierda!’
There was no mistaking Enrique’s irritation now. With his jaw compressed in evident frustration, he dropped Cassandra’s hand and turned to confront the red-faced maidservant, giving in to a stream of angry Spanish that was hardly warranted. And, although Cassandra could understand a little of his provocation, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Consuela, too. The Spanish woman wasn’t to blame for the interruption. Someone else had sent her here.
Su padre. Your father. Cassandra translated the words without difficulty and her stomach tensed. Who else?
Enrique had apparently come to the same conclusion. He was being unreasonable, and, taking a deep breath, he shook his head. Recovering his temper, he offered the woman a swift apology, and this sudden reversal of blame brought a relieved smile to her lips. His words were eagerly accepted and Consuela hurried away, her rope-soled mules squeaking on the marble floor.
Listening, Cassandra was amazed they hadn’t heard her coming. But perhaps that wasn’t so surprising. For a few moments Enrique had had all her attention, and she was horrified to find that she was still so easily seduced.
Now, however, she had had time to gather her senses, and when he turned back to her, she was ready for him. ‘I think you’d better go,’ she said, trying not to show how upset he’d made her. ‘I understood a little of what Consuela was saying. Your father is asking for you, isn’t he? You’d better not keep him waiting.’
‘As a matter of fact, it is you he is asking for, Cassandra,’ Enrique declared, and there was an element of resignation in his voice now. ‘He sent me here to bring you to him. He is eager to meet his daughter-in-law at last.’
Cassandra took an involuntary step away from him. ‘He wants to meet me!’ she echoed disbelievingly. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Por supuesto.’ Enrique gave a shrug. ‘You are David’s mother. It is more than time for him to acknowledge your connection to this family.’
Cassandra moved her head from side to side. ‘You did this,’ she said accusingly. ‘You persuaded him to meet me.’ She twisted her hands together. ‘Did you ever consider my feelings? What if I don’t want to meet him?’
Enrique stared at her. ‘You would defy him? Knowing that his health is far from good?’
‘That’s blackmail!’
‘No.’ Enrique was patient. ‘It is—how do you say it?—common sense, no? I thought you would be glad to hear that my father has accepted the situation. It was not easy for me, breaking such news to him.’
Cassandra’s breathing felt as if it had been suspended. ‘You’ve told him David is your son?’
‘Yes.’ Enrique made a dismissive movement with his shoulders. ‘But David himself does not know yet. I thought you would prefer it if I did not tell him.’
‘You got that right.’ Cassandra felt as if her life was moving out of control. ‘I—then it’s David he wants to see,’ she added. ‘Why don’t you admit it? Julio de Montoya does not want to meet me.’
‘He does,’ insisted Enrique inflexibly. He paused and then added reluctantly, ‘He has already met David. The boy was eager to meet his grandfather,’ he continued, before she could make any objection. ‘He saw the car arrive and he came to meet us.’
He would, thought Cassandra tightly. So that was where David had been all afternoon. It hurt a little that her son hadn’t bothered to ask her permission. But, since coming to Tuarega, David had become a stranger to her in some ways.
‘So where is he now?’ she asked, and Enrique expelled a weary sigh.
‘He is with my father,’ he said flatly. And then, ‘Why do I get the feeling that you are going to blame me for what David has done?’
‘Who else can I blame?’ she demanded, not altogether fairly. ‘If you’d never come to find us, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.’
Enrique stiffened, his eyes dark and guarded. ‘Are you saying you would have preferred it if we’d never met again?’
‘Yes! No! Oh, I don’t know.’ Cassandra cupped her hot cheeks in confusion. ‘You’d better leave me.’ And as he arched an enquiring brow, she indicated her tee shirt and shorts. ‘I can’t meet your father dressed like this.’
‘Cassandra—’
His anguished use of her name was almost her undoing. It would have been so easy to give in to his persuasive tongue and let him bear the burden of what came after. But she had the awful feeling that Enrique still had his own agenda. She feared that without the knowledge that David was his son, and not Antonio’s, he would never have attempted to rekindle emotions that had surely been deeply buried in the past.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘SO WHEN is David coming home?’
Henry Skyler, Cassandra’s employer at the bookstore, was nothing if not direct and she gave him a determined smile. ‘At the end of the summer holidays,’ she replied brightly, as if there wasn’t a shred of doubt in her mind. ‘Do you want me to get rid of this dump bin? We don’t have enough copies to fill it any more.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Henry nodded. ‘That thriller did sell rather well, didn’t it? People seem to have an insatiable appetite for that kind of book.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Good for business, of course.’
Cassandra nodded and started taking the few copies of the book that were left from the stand, waiting for Henry to return to his office at the back of the shop. But he remained where he was.
‘You must miss him,’ he said, returning to his earlier topic, and Cassandra’s teeth ground together in frustration. ‘I don’t think I could have abandoned my son with strangers for—what?—three months?’
‘Ten weeks, actually,’ Cassandra corrected him shortly, but it was a moot point. Counting the two weeks they had been on holiday, David would have been away nearly three months by the time he came home. If he came home, she amended tensely. There were no guarantees in the arrangement. So far, she had had one phone call from David, and that was a couple of weeks ago now. Since then, she had
heard nothing.
‘All the same—’
‘Henry, they’re not strangers! They’re his family!’ she protested, desperately wanting to avoid a discussion about the situation. ‘Where do you want me to put these books? Shall I stack them with the new fiction or put them back on the shelf?’
‘With the new fiction, I think,’ said Henry absently, obviously more interested in David’s whereabouts than in that of his stock. ‘And you say you don’t mind? Aren’t you afraid David won’t want to come home?’
Cassandra heaved a sigh. ‘Look, David wanted to stay,’ she said tightly. ‘His grandfather had just come home from hospital and they needed time to get to know one another. The hardest part was getting his school to agree to giving him the last few weeks of term off.’
Liar!
Cassandra was amazed she could make such a statement without her tongue falling out. God! Contacting the educational authorities and arranging for David to miss school for several weeks had been the least of her worries. Returning home to Luton airport without him: that had been the hard part.
‘Well, if you say so,’ said Henry now, realising he wasn’t going to persuade her to part with any juicy gossip about her in-laws. He grimaced. ‘He’s a lucky boy. I wish I could discover I had a wealthy Spanish grandfather.’
Cassandra forced another smile and to her relief Henry left her to get on with her work. But she doubted if it would be the last she’d hear of it. He was intensely inquisitive, and learning that they’d accidentally encountered her late husband’s family while they were in Spain had certainly aroused his interest. And his suspicions, she conceded ruefully. Even to her ears, it had sounded an unlikely scenario.
But she had no intention of telling him about David’s hand in it. As far as Henry was concerned, her son had been as surprised to meet his mother’s in-laws as she had, and she intended it to stay that way.
A customer came in as she was stacking the books, and she was glad of the diversion to take her thoughts from her son. She tried not to think about what he was doing or who he was with too often. Or acknowledge the uneasy belief that she might have made a terrible mistake in allowing David to stay with his father.
