‘But why would you do that?’
Heart thumping, Luis gazed down at her. Had she guessed? Could she possibly feel the same way?
For perhaps a fraction of a second he thought about answering her truthfully. Telling her that he couldn’t bear the idea of her not being there, and that he wanted to be there for her when she met her estranged father.
That in fact he wanted to be there for her always.
But, looking into her eyes, he knew it was not the right time. She needed his support—not some out-of-the-blue emotional outburst that he couldn’t really explain to himself let alone her.
He shrugged. ‘I pushed you into telling me about your father. That makes me kind of responsible.’
‘For me?’
Cristina gazed up at him. For so long she’d had to be tough, to fight for what she wanted, and now here was Luis, offering to go into battle with her like some fairy-tale prince.
He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. ‘For what happens next. Now, I think we should go back to the house. You need to pack, and I need to tell Tomas to get the helicopter ready.’
As they walked back up to the house she felt dazed. She couldn’t stop thinking about the look in his eyes as he’d offered to come with her. He had seemed so serious, so intense—it had felt almost as though he was offering her something else…something more than just sex.
Her breath caught.
Like a future together.
For a moment she thought about what that would mean. What it would feel like to have a place in Luis’s life and in his heart.
Her pulse stalled. It would be incredible. He was smart and sexy and sensitive, and she liked him. She liked him a lot. And it seemed like a harsh twist of fate that at the very moment she realised that fact there was no time to think, let alone act on it.
But after so many years of waiting and hoping, and pretending that she didn’t care one way or another, her father finally wanted to see her—and right now that came first.
CHAPTER NINE
‘WOULD YOU LIKE to go round the block one more time?’
Looking up at Luis, Cristina felt her heart thump inside her chest.
Laura had emailed her the address of the private hospital where her father was staying, and up until the moment the limousine had pulled up in a side street she had thought she was making the right decision.
But now even just looking at the gated entrance to the Hospital Virgen de la Luz in Madrid was making her throat constrict, and the palms of her hands felt damp against the leather of the bag she was clutching in her lap.
‘It’s okay,’ Luis said, his voice gentle. ‘I can text Laura…tell her we’re going to be a little late—’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve already messed her around enough. All those days of not picking up the phone—’
‘Come here.’ He curved his arm around her waist and pulled her against the hard muscles of his chest. ‘You haven’t messed anyone around. And another couple of minutes isn’t going to make much difference.’
The tension eased from her face.
‘That’s not what you said this morning,’ she said softly.
Her expression was innocent but her eyes were anything but, and desire rose inside him, swift and strong, his body hardening faster than quick-dry cement as he remembered how he’d pressed her against him in the shower.
Lifting her chin with his hand, he held her gaze. ‘Are you accusing me of being inconsistent?’
‘I think insatiable might be a better fit.’
He grinned, and Cristina shook her head, but she was smiling too. How could she not? He was just so gorgeously handsome and sexy. She liked it that he was wearing a polo shirt again—this time it was grey, perhaps a shade darker than his eyes. Liked, too, the way it clung to the hard definition of his muscles.
But now was not the right time to be giving in to the heat pooling inside her. Laura and her estranged father must take priority now.
Her pulse jumped and a flurry of fear spiralled up inside of her. Was she doing the right thing?
‘Yes, you are.’
She looked up at him, startled.
‘No, I can’t read minds. But I’d have to be completely devoid of feeling not to guess that you’re nervous about this.’
And then before she could respond he bent his head and kissed her, and kept on kissing her until his lips had blotted out the fear and the doubt inside her.
As he lifted his mouth she breathed out slowly. ‘Was that for luck?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I’m just insatiable, remember?’ Leaning forward, he tapped on the glass behind the driver’s head ‘You, however, are the smartest, sexiest and strongest woman I’ve ever met. So come on—let’s go and introduce you to the other side of your family.’
*
As it turned out, even before Laura tentatively stepped forward to greet her, Cristina was surprised to find that meeting the woman she’d alternately envied and despised for so many years was easier than she’d anticipated.
In fact, although both women were clearly on edge, their main reaction to one another seemed to be not resentment and hostility but surprise.
Maybe that was down to the fact that they were alike in so many ways. Weirdly alike. Same height, same eyes, same way of standing with one foot turned out.
It was still awkward, of course—how could it not be? And perhaps if Luis hadn’t been there they might have carried on making polite but wooden conversation about Laura’s hotel and Cristina’s journey. But something in his quiet, calm manner seemed to ease the tension between them, so that both she and Laura began to relax, and the three of them spoke easily for five minutes or so before Laura offered to find a nurse and tell her that Cristina had arrived.
While she was gone, Luis pulled her close. ‘You two seem to be getting along okay.’
Cristina nodded. Her skin felt too tight, and she didn’t seem to be able to breathe properly.
‘I didn’t think I’d like her,’ she said shakily. ‘Or that she’d like me. I was just so hung up on the fact that we were only half-sisters.’
He drew a finger over her cheek. ‘Two halves make a whole.’
Her mouth trembled, but when she looked up at him, his eyes calmed her.
‘It’s going to be all right.’
‘Is it?’
He nodded automatically, but as she looked up at him the expression on her face stayed his heart. ‘Your father has asked to see you, carino. Let’s just start with that.’
‘Cristina!’
It was Laura. Beside her stood a young woman dressed in a pale blue tunic and trousers.
‘We can go in now.’
The short walk to her father’s private room seemed to take for ever. Her heart was beating painfully fast, and if it hadn’t been for Luis’s hand firmly gripping hers she might well have turned and run.
But in him there was something reassuringly solid—not just in his grip but in his manner. It was nothing overt. On the contrary, he was quiet and courteous. There was, though, a subtle natural authority about him that seemed to resonate with those around him.
Watching the busy hospital come to a virtual standstill, she felt warmth swell in her chest. She had never imagined trusting a man—and right now she had never felt more vulnerable—and yet with Luis by her side she felt safe in a way that she’d craved since her father had ripped any ability to trust away from her at the age of thirteen.
And now she was going to see him for the first time in eleven years…maybe for the last time.
She hadn’t seen him since that terrible scene in the hotel. Enrique Lastra had been stocky then, with a broad, square head like a bull and mass of thick black hair that had earned him his nickname—Mino, from minotauro, the half-man, half-bull of Greek mythology.
But there was nothing imposing about the man in the hospital bed.
True, he had that same mass of hair. Only now it was almost white. An ache was building in her
chest and she stared at him dazedly, barely registering Laura’s hand on her arm as her sister pulled her towards the bed.
‘Holà, Papá. It’s me…Laura.’
Cristina felt her stomach clench as her father’s eyes opened, for they hadn’t changed. They were still the same dark brown she remembered, and that only seemed to make her chest ache even more. His eyes might not have changed but everything else had—not just his appearance but in their relationship too.
‘Laura…’ His voice hadn’t changed either. It was still a distinctive rasp—the legacy of a life spent smoking, first cigarettes and then later cigars.
She watched as her half-sister smiled. ‘I’m here, Papá, and I’ve got someone here with me. Someone I know you want to see.’
Cristina’s pulse rippled as her father turned his head slowly towards her. But if she’d been expecting a tearful gasp of recognition she was to be disappointed.
Enrique stared at her blankly. ‘I don’t—’
‘It’s Cristina, Papá,’ Laura said quickly. ‘She’s come to see you.’
His eyes narrowed then, and Cristina waited for him to acknowledge her, but instead he turned back to Laura.
‘What does she want?’
Laura glanced over at her but Cristina said nothing.
It was clear from her sister’s stricken face that Enrique had not wanted to see her at all. Probably it had been Laura’s idea—a misguided desire to reunite her dying father with his estranged daughter—but they both knew without having to say it out loud that he had nothing to say to her.
If only that she could tell him that she didn’t want anything from him, and that he was as big a disappointment to her as she had obviously been to him. But the words stuck in her throat, and she was scared that if she pushed them out then the tears she was also holding back might burst free too.
She couldn’t see Luis’s face, but she felt his hand tighten around hers, could feel the hard breadth of his chest at her shoulder, and more than anything she wanted to turn and bury her head against it. But to do that would mean showing how hurt she was.
How hurt and humiliated.
Biting down on the howl of anguish filling her lungs, she turned and walked swiftly towards the door, just as a nurse pushed a trolley through it. Sidestepping it, she heard Luis curse and Laura call out her name, and then she was running through the corridors and down the stairs, out into the street and then into another street, and then another, tears streaming down her face.
Finally she could run no more and, whimpering, she crouched down in a doorway like a wounded animal and cried—just as she’d cried eleven years ago when she’d realised that her father wasn’t coming back and that he didn’t want or love her.
*
Striding into the living room of his family’s apartment on the exclusive Calle de Velázquez, Luis tugged off his jacket and punched Cristina’s number into his phone for perhaps the twentieth time. His mouth tightened as it went straight to voicemail again and he didn’t leave a message. There was no point. He’d already left a whole bunch of messages and she hadn’t responded to any of them.
Where was she? More importantly, was she okay?
Remembering the look of devastation on her face as she’d left her father’s room, he felt a rush of anger towards the man lying in the bed.
How could anyone be so cruel as to turn away from their own child?
His heart was pounding in time with his headache. It was nearly two hours since she’d fled from the hospital. In between calling her phone he’d tried to find her, stopping in bars and cafés, convinced that he would somehow catch sight of her just as he had that first night.
But he hadn’t and so, knowing that sooner or later she’d have to go back to the apartment, he’d decided to wait for her there.
Too impatient to wait for the lift, he’d taken the stairs three at a time, and as he’d walked in he’d half hoped she might have returned. But she wasn’t waiting for him in the living room, or the bedroom. Nor had Elena, the housekeeper, seen her. Everywhere was silent and empty.
It was a silence that reminded him painfully of his family home in the days and weeks following his brother’s death and, suddenly unable to bear the memories of that time, he reached for his jacket. He couldn’t just stand here doing nothing.
His heart jolted in his chest as somewhere in the building he heard a door close.
‘Cristina?’
He was halfway across the floor when she walked into the room.
‘Cariño. Thank goodness.’ Pulse racing, he pulled her against him, touching her hair with his lips, feeling her exhaustion.’
As his arms tightened around her Cristina leaned into his chest, the scent of his cologne and the warmth of his body enveloping her. It would be so easy just to stay there for ever in an eternal embrace…
But he was not hers to hold.
Breathing out slowly, she shifted backwards.
His arms loosened, and as she looked up at him he said, ‘I went looking for you and I tried calling—’
His voice was steady but she could feel his pulse leaping beneath his skin. He had been worried about her, and the fact that he cared made her want to cry all over again.
But instead she managed a weak smile. ‘I put my phone on silent when we went into the hospital…’ Her voice faltered. Her skin felt numb and her brain seemed to be working at half-speed, but she could picture it still—her father’s face as he’d turned and looked at her. Or rather looked through her. As though she wasn’t there. As though she didn’t matter.
Her stomach gave a lurch.
She had gone to see him, believing that he wanted to see her. That he wanted to talk to her, make amends, maybe even ask for forgiveness.
Forgiveness? What a joke!
Suddenly she was perilously close to tears again.
He hadn’t even known she was coming, and he certainly hadn’t wanted to see or speak to her, much less ask for forgiveness. Nothing had changed. He still didn’t love her or want anything to do with her.
An ache of misery was spreading inside her. It had been crushing to realise that fact when she was thirteen. More crushing still a year later, when he’d turned his back on her in that hotel foyer, for that time his rejection had been public.
But at least then her pain and shame had only been witnessed by strangers. This time Laura and Luis had been there to see that she was not worthy of love—not even from her own father.
‘Cristina?’
She felt Luis’s fingers curl around her hand.
‘You have every right to be upset. But your father’s very ill. He didn’t know what he was saying.’
She shrugged. ‘I know that, and I’m fine. Really, it doesn’t matter.’
Like hell it didn’t.
To Luis, the aftershocks from that encounter with her father were palpable. Her face was pale and set, and she had obviously been crying, His stomach muscles clenched and he felt anger spike inside him for he hated seeing her so upset.
But he was just going to have to keep his feelings under wraps. Right now, Cristina came first.
Realising that he needed to tread carefully, he glanced at his watch. ‘Look, it’s nearly three o’clock Let’s have something to eat now, and then maybe we can pop back to the hospital tomorrow—’
Her head snapped up.
‘Or we could go back today,’ he said.
Slowly she shook her head. ‘I’m not going back today or tomorrow or any other day. Don’t you understand, Luis? I don’t want to see my father again. Not now. Not ever.’
He held up his hands placatingly. ‘I know you feel that now, but—’
‘But what?’ Cristina looked up at him challengingly. ‘Do you seriously think it will make any difference how many times I go back to that hospital? You saw him today—he didn’t even want to look at me.’
‘I know. But he was probably in shock. He wasn’t expecting to see you—’
‘So what are you saying
? That this is my fault, somehow?’
He frowned. ‘No, of course not. I just meant that he’ll have had a bit of time to think—’
She cut him off before he had a chance to finish his sentence. ‘A bit of time? How much does he need? He’s had eleven years.’
She shook her head. She was breathing too fast and the ache inside her chest was building.
‘You just don’t get it, do you? I could wait one hundred years and it wouldn’t change the way he feels about me.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Luis said quietly. ‘You came here to face your past, Cristina, not to run away from it.’
She threw his hand off hers, her eyes blazing with anger and hurt. ‘How dare you?’
Her words were barely above a whisper, but he could feel the force of them as though she were shouting.
‘I was upset—’
‘And you were right to be.’ Reaching out, he grasped her hands in his. ‘Totally and justifiably right. But that doesn’t change the fact that if you walk away now all this will have been for nothing.’
He took a step towards her, keeping his grey gaze steady on her face.
‘I know you don’t want to hear it, but trust me, cariño. You can’t run away from this. I know because I tried.’
She stared at him mutely, the truth of his words silencing her. He was right, but knowing that didn’t seem to make any difference. She still felt sick with fear.
Trust me. It was so easy for him to say, but a virtual impossibility for her to do. She had loved her father, trusted him unconditionally. He had helped her with her homework, dug sandcastles with her on the beach, taught her to ride a bike, and none of it had mattered. When it came to it he had simply turned his back on her.
Her body began to tremble. The first time she had been a child. It had been out of her control, and the same had been true about their meeting at the hotel. But what had happened today at the hospital was different. She was different—older and in control of her life. She was an adult now, and if she let this happen again—if she let him reject her again—then it would not be bad luck, or a mistake. It would be a choice.
Surrender to the Ruthless Billionaire Page 15
