‘Emily,’ he groaned, tangling his fingers into her hair and dislodging a stray clip from her bridal headdress, which he plucked out and tossed to the floor.
She danced her tongue over him, tracing little patterns over his pulsing stiffness, enjoying the way he thrust his pelvis towards her, as if silently begging for relief. But Alej didn’t beg, she reminded herself. He’d told her that a long time ago. She opened her mouth wider because he had suddenly tensed and she felt a rush of something like triumph as he flooded into her mouth. She revelled in the salty taste of him as she raised her head and drew the tip of her tongue over her lips to catch a drop she must have missed, realising that he was watching her intently.
But it wasn’t satisfaction she could read in the suddenly stony depths of his eyes, but a dark anger she’d never seen there before. She blinked at him in confusion, feeling out of her depth. ‘You didn’t enjoy that?’
‘Don’t ask disingenuous questions. You know damned well I did.’
Her confusion deepened. ‘Then why aren’t you smiling?’
‘Because I have something on my mind. Do you want to know what it is?’
Actually, she didn’t, because she suspected she wasn’t going to like it—but she wasn’t a child who could simply run away from things which might be hard to hear. ‘Go ahead,’ she said quietly.
Crossing his arms behind his head, he pillowed his head on his elbows. ‘I’d forgotten just how good you were at doing that. But as you were licking and sucking me with such beautiful precision, I couldn’t help but wonder how many other men you have administered to in such a way.’
Administered to in such a way? Emily recoiled with something like indignation. He was making her sound like some sort of perverted nurse! ‘You’re asking me to tell you how many men I’ve slept with?’ she questioned.
He looked momentarily surprised at her candour before quickly recovering himself, but Emily reminded herself that Alej Sabato didn’t have the monopoly on being ‘blunt’. And wasn’t this something which needed to come out anyway? Hadn’t it troubled her for a long time that the erroneous picture she’d once painted of herself was one she deeply regretted?
His voice was harsh. ‘That’s exactly what I’m asking you.’
‘None,’ she said flatly.
He shifted his position slightly, his eyes narrowing. ‘Excuse me?’
‘None,’ she repeated. ‘Would you like me to say it in Spanish for you? Ninguno! You’re the only man I’ve ever given oral sex to! The only man I’ve ever been intimate with! The only one! Do you understand? I told you I wanted to have sex with other men because it was the only way I could guarantee you wouldn’t come after me. I knew it would disgust you and I was right. But I did it because I thought it was for the best all round. I honestly didn’t think we had any kind of future together, Alej.’
Alej sat up, his heart pounding as the meaning of her words sank into his disbelieving ears. She hadn’t slept with another man in eight long years? Could she be speaking the truth? His gaze swept over her. Her cheeks were flushed, her long fair hair ruffled from where he’d been running his fingers through it and her lips darkened by the pressure of his kisses. On the one hand he was pleased—of course he was—because the thought of her so intimately touching another man was like plunging a dagger deep into his heart.
But on the other...
Anger began to well up inside him, like the slow swell of the ocean when a storm was approaching. Because wasn’t this the greatest sin of all—the one committed by every woman he had ever known?
‘So when you told me that you wanted other men,’ he questioned, his voice unsteady, ‘that you had seen other, more suitable men...’
She shook her head as his words tailed off. ‘It wasn’t true. You were the only man I ever wanted,’ she breathed. ‘The only one I could ever contemplate being intimate with. You still are.’
Alej felt a punch of primitive satisfaction but forced himself to ignore it, because sexual exclusivity wasn’t really what he was focused on, no matter how much it pleased him to realise that he was the only one. Because she was missing the point completely. She was looking at him as if he should be pleased. As if she’d just given him some kind of gift instead of reinforcing the most bitter truth of all. And the most stupid thing of all was why he had thought she was any different from all the rest.
Because all women lied, didn’t they? His mother had lied to him and then Colette had lied about him, but, for some reason, the falsehoods which had sprung from Emily’s lips had been the hardest of all to bear.
And still he didn’t know what to believe.
‘So were you lying to me then?’ he questioned softly. ‘Or are you lying to me now?’
CHAPTER NINE
THEY FLEW TO France the very next morning, to Alej’s apartment in the eighth arrondissement—a sprawling affair at the top of an historic building, situated on a famous street, opposite an equally famous hotel. In the distance the River Seine glinted in the sunshine, and nearby the trees in the Tuileries Garden provided a leafy canopy for wandering young lovers.
But not for her and Alej, Emily reflected a couple of days later, as she looked around at the lavish but unlived-in surroundings of her husband’s Parisian home. They might have been photographed together walking around the city’s famously romantic spots, but it had all been for show. A sham. Just like their marriage.
It made her shudder to think she’d been naively wondering if maybe they could make a go of their marriage, but never again would she be guilty of allowing herself to believe in such an illusion. Why would she when, in Alej’s eyes, she had committed the cardinal sin of lying and he could not—or would not—forgive her for the transgression she had owned up to on the first night of their honeymoon. The memory of it still jarred. It sat like a black cloud on her horizon. He’d accused her of being a liar and she had no defence against his words because they had been true. She had pretended not to care for him and to want other men. But when she’d tried to explain her reasons—maybe even to express all the love and fear which had motivated her actions—his clipped command had cut her short.
‘A lie is just that, Emily,’ he had drawled. ‘There can be no justification. And women lie as easily as breathing. Fact.’
She tried not to care and to throw herself into the role she was being paid for, because surely that should now be her priority. She liaised with his assistant about their travel plans and arranged an in-depth interview with one of France’s most respected journals, in which Alejandro talked with passion about polo. About how the sport had rescued him from poverty and that he wanted more children to benefit from similar opportunities.
Sitting in on the interview, Emily had been confused about why he wasn’t promoting his burgeoning political career, but didn’t dare butt in and prompt him, though she might have done if it had been anyone else. And when the interviewer suddenly asked whether he planned on having children himself now that he was married, Alej had glanced up at Emily, his gaze hard and impenetrable.
‘No plans at present,’ he had replied smoothly.
And Emily had despaired at the stab of pain which shafted through her as she’d heard those words, as once again she’d found herself longing to hold a baby against her breast and to suckle the child of Alej Sabato. Dragging her thoughts back to the present, she turned away from the window, away from the glitter of the upmarket shops and the silver gleam of the river. What a hopeless fool she was.
Only at night did her new husband let his guard down, when an unspoken truce left no room for anything other than mutual delight under cover of darkness. But even then Emily wasn’t safe from her own stupid, see-sawing emotions. Because when they were naked and he was kissing her and moaning out his pleasure, it was all too easy to get carried away. To imagine he felt something other than carnal desire for her. But he didn’t. He couldn’t have made that plaine
r. She was his temporary wife who served a dual purpose in life. Who provided him with respectability and sex. And wouldn’t she have been a hypocrite if she had refused the latter through some kind of warped principle, when she enjoyed it just as much as he did?
They spent several days in the city, trawling through his personal effects while Alej selected items he wished to keep, but there were surprisingly few. A scale model of one of his racing cars. A bronze sculpture of his first polo pony and a framed paparazzi photo of the US president sipping from a can of MiMaté. Everything else—the contemporary furniture, the stunning artwork and a small library of rare edition books—he had dismissed with a careless flick of his fingers.
‘Get rid of them. I don’t want them.’
‘Is there anything of Colette’s here, which she might have forgotten to take?’ She cleared her throat and forged on. ‘Perhaps she...she might want to come and pick something up?’
His smile was knowing, as if he was perfectly aware that her question was a thinly disguised method of gathering information. For a moment she wondered if he was about to withhold it, but, with a look of mockery, he supplied it.
‘Colette never actually lived here, even though she liked to make out she did. There’s nothing of hers here and little else that interests me. So auction it all off. The money raised can go to my charitable foundation.’
Emily supposed it was an admirable way to dispose of his past, if a little cold-blooded.
‘And in case you’re wondering,’ he continued silkily, ‘Colette now lives in New York, so it’s unlikely you’re going to run into her along the Avenue Montaigne.’
Emily found herself expelling a huge sigh of relief because she’d actually been dreading bumping into the glamorous supermodel. Was it that or the fact that their time in Paris was drawing to a close which made her suddenly dare to try to open up some further lines of communication between them? Or because they’d gone to bed soon after lunch and his defences were down? He had seemed very much like the Alej of old as he had explored her body and lazily kissed every inch of her skin and she had found herself revelling in their old familiarity and wishing she could deepen it.
She could hear the sound of the shower being turned off and minutes later he walked into the bedroom, a white towel wrapped around his narrow hips and tiny droplets of water highlighting the honed perfection of his olive skin. She watched his reflection in the mirror. The liquorice-black tendrils of his hair were damp, his buttocks were paler than the dark skin above and below—and wasn’t it predictable that she could feel her body instantly respond, despite the fact that they’d been having non-stop sex all afternoon?
He opened the wardrobe door, giving her a perfect view of that livid scar on his back—a scar he now seemed comfortable about letting her see, though there had still been no explanation about how he’d acquired it. But everyone had scars, Emily realised suddenly. Just not all of them were visible.
In a couple of hours’ time they were meeting a friend of his from way back, an Italian businessman named Salvatore di Luca who was bringing along his latest girlfriend—a neuroscientist who happened to look like an underwear model—which was probably why Emily had allowed Alej to buy her a dress from the Chanel shop, which was situated just along the street from his apartment. She was wearing it now and the deceptively simple cut of the fine black silk was ridiculously flattering, as were the killer heels which were sitting beside the door to be put on at the last possible moment. But her appearance was the last thing on her mind. Suddenly she knew that she wasn’t prepared to be fobbed off with throwaway answers any more. She didn’t care if this relationship of theirs wasn’t destined to last—why shouldn’t she learn as much as she could about the man with whom she was temporarily spending her life?
She waited until he was almost dressed, because his nakedness was distracting, and then she turned from where she’d been seated at the dressing table, applying a light slick of lipstick.
‘Are you ever going to tell me how you got that scar?’ she questioned.
He shrugged as he tugged up the zip on his suit trousers. ‘I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.’
‘I know you did. But I do.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’
‘Because we’re about to have dinner with one of your oldest friends and, unless you want him to guess this is a sham marriage, it might be better if you didn’t come over as a complete stranger to me.’
‘And telling you how I got this thing will help?’
‘I think so. It might help explain some of a past which you seem determined to keep hidden.’
He turned around, the movement seeming slow, his green eyes hard and flinty as they surveyed her.
‘Please, Alej,’ she added quietly.
There was a pause. A long pause. And then he gave a long and ragged sigh. ‘I was attacked,’ he said finally. ‘By a man with a razor. Or, to be more accurate—by several men.’
He saw her flinch, as if a steel blade had penetrated her tender flesh. Her fingers flew up to her lips in shock and she looked about eighteen again.
‘Oh, my God,’ she breathed. ‘What happened?’
He wondered afterwards what made him continue with his story because he’d never told anyone else. Was it the afterglow of the delicious sex they’d recently shared? Or because living with someone was way more intimate than he’d anticipated, with the inevitable erosion of all the barriers you tried to erect around yourself?
Or maybe it was simply because it was Emily and she had always been the one to burrow beneath his skin.
And suddenly he was right back there. A different time and a different place. And a very different man. He unlocked the memory and it floated free.
‘I’d been playing in Argentina and my team had won the last match of the season, as we were expected to do,’ he began slowly. ‘I even scored the winning goal.’
‘That must have been a good feeling,’ she said.
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Not really. I’d been approached to fix that match, but, like every other time it had happened, I’d refused.’ There was a pause as he looked at her. ‘But the offer still left a bad taste in my mouth and it added to my growing disenchantment with some aspects of the sport.’
She nodded, but she didn’t speak. She was an astute woman, he acknowledged—one who had learned to use silence to her own advantage. Because he could have stopped the story there. Told her he’d had a few drinks and got into a fight but didn’t bother reporting it because he didn’t want the negative press of some barroom brawl. Explained how he’d found a backstreet medic to suture it for him on the quiet—hence the resulting scar. All these things were true, and Alej was a man with a powerful aversion to lies. But there had been other reasons for him not wanting the truth behind the brawl to emerge, hadn’t there? He wondered if it was the soft expression in Emily’s deep blue eyes which made him want to confide in her, or the sudden realisation that some secrets were so dark that they had the power to eat away at your very soul, if you let them.
‘I was in a bar,’ he continued. ‘A rough, simple kind of place not far from where I’d grown up, where a man can go unbothered and drink his beer in peace.’ But it hadn’t been like that. Word had got out that he was there and someone had come to find him. The oily thug in the cheap suit Alej had recognised instantly. His face had been ugly with anger, his words uglier still. ‘I was approached by a man,’ he said, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on Emily’s face. ‘The same guy who’d tried to get me to fix the match. He blamed me for refusing and for all the money he’d lost as a result. And then he told me that my mother was nothing but a cheap hooker and that he’d “had” her.’
She flinched again, but this time a dull red flush stained her cheeks and he saw the way she clenched her hands into tiny fists. ‘How dare he say that?’
He almost smiled at the fervour of her insta
nt denial because hadn’t he felt exactly the same, when for a few foolish and naïve moments he’d thought the man was lying? ‘He even tried to explain how and where, in very graphic detail, and that’s when I hit him.’
‘Good! I’m glad you hit him. He deserved it!’
Another sigh left Alej’s lungs. The crack of bone and the pliant dip of giving flesh had satisfied him, but only for a moment. Nothing ever lasted for longer than a moment, he reflected bitterly. ‘And that’s when two of his gorillas came charging in, picked me up and carried me out of there and nobody tried to stop them. And behind that bar, in a dark and stinking alley, they each took turns to trace patterns on my back with a rusty blade, so I would never forget them.’
‘Oh, Alej.’ She jumped to her feet and scooted towards him, the earnestness on her face seeming at odds with the unusual glamour of her new black dress as she put her arms around him. ‘Get off,’ he bit out from between gritted teeth as he tried to shake her away.
But still she held him, rubbing at his shoulders as if he had just come in, frozen from the snow. ‘No, I won’t get off,’ she said fiercely. ‘You let me touch you whenever we’re having sex—well, maybe I want to touch you now, when you need my sympathy.’
‘I don’t need your damned sympathy,’ he growled, dislodging himself from her grip at last, despite her objections.
‘I’ll be the judge of that. Please, Alej. Tell me what happened.’
He walked over to the window and watched as an enormous vintage Rolls-Royce pulled up outside the Ritz hotel opposite. ‘I left polo the very next day.’
‘Why?’ she questioned quietly.
Bought Bride For The Argentinian (Conveniently Wed!) Page 12
