She inhaled on her cigarette and her eyes narrowed through the smoke. ‘They look so innocent from the outside, those women, but scheming and deception is in their blood. It’s the English streak in them, I always said. Is it any wonder your mother was driven to drown her sorrows in drink?’
Doña Isabel’s expression became pained as if she had told this story many times before with an equal sense of injury with each telling and, though taken aback by her great-aunt’s account of the past, Luna couldn’t help reading between the lines and wondered how much of it was true. She knew enough about the Spanish side of her family to see that none of them were strangers to deception. Remembering her brief encounters with Ruy’s family, and their instinctive kindness, she wasn’t prepared to credit Isabel’s words as having a great deal of truth to them.
Luna’s brow creased. ‘So you think that somehow Rueda de Calderón is tainted by this so-called bad blood?’
‘How could he not be, my dear? The same blood runs in his veins. Three generations on, and we’re still feuding with the de Ruedas and the de Calderóns. The Herreras have been hurt enough by them, that’s all I’m saying.’
She stubbed out the cigarette impatiently as their dessert arrived: tiny tocinos de cielo, a rich crème caramel typical of Andalucía.
Was Ruy aware that he was the centre of their conversation? He lifted his head and caught Luna’s eye once more. His hooded gaze smouldered over her face with an expression that appeared confused, intense and almost reproachful. Vaina, meanwhile, was smiling languorously, her velvet black eyes turned up to his as she spoke, gesticulating to emphasize some point she was making; but Luna could see he wasn’t listening to her, that his thoughts were elsewhere. Was he, likewise, condemning her now for being related to the Herreras? Her glance fell away from his glowing eyes, and she found herself looking into the enormous, flashing dark orbs of Vaina as she suddenly caught sight of Luna across the room. She then said something to Ruy, who finally tore his gaze from Luna and began whispering a response, which clearly his companion didn’t like.
While they ate, the band played. It was gypsy Tzigane music played by an orchestra of violins and led by Goran Radić, the owner’s son, a tall, handsome, sultry-looking man in his thirties who, judging by the admiring glances from the women in the audience, had his fair share of fans. However, Luna was not paying much attention; her mind was on the Marquesa’s words and the new thoughts they had sent whirling around in her head.
A queer pain tugged at her heart. There were times when Ruy’s eyes had given her a deeper message than just a man’s admiration for a pretty girl, a passing flirtation. Often she had sensed his turbulent emotions running riot, out of the bounds of his willpower. Then there were his kisses that haunted her … Twice now, he had thrown her senses into chaos with that mouth of his; on the first occasion literally making her lose control.
She sighed inwardly. It humiliated her to think how she had allowed him to kiss her … and how she had clung to him. The devastating physical hunger she felt every time she thought of him … the same hunger that made her respond to his violent passion earlier that night. Why was he here with Vaina? As a pang of jealousy stabbed at her again, she tried to stir up resentment against him and, although her mind rebelled at the thought of his arrogance, her body had a mind of its own and only one desire: to be possessed by him.
Her aunt’s voice pierced the haze of her distraction. ‘You know, I’m surprised your Uncle Lorenzo didn’t tell you about these unfortunate chapters in the Herrera family history. He was the only one of us to see you for all those years while you were growing up in California …’
Luna steadied her hand as she raised her glass to her lips and drank her wine. She would not be drawn into conversation about her childhood with her aunt. However, Doña Isabel was now too preoccupied with watching the dark-eyed, flamboyant figure of Goran Radić wooing his audience to notice Luna’s discomfort. She seemed content to keep up a steady monologue.
‘Of course, I don’t expect your father was interested in the slightest about our family’s background after he married Adalia and they were living in America …’ Doña Isabel paused and fixed her pale blue eyes on Luna. ‘So I suppose he never told you much about Juliet’s death. You were a child when it happened, after all.’
‘Juliet died in a car accident.’
‘Yes, of course. What else do you know about the accident, though? Did Lorenzo ever talk to you about it?’
Luna put a hand to her head, which was beginning to ache slightly. She felt as if everything was closing in on her and she badly wanted the evening to end. Having Aunt Isabel dredge up the past, while only a few feet away Ruy was glowering in her direction, was becoming more than she could take.
Now, Goran Radić came down from the platform, playing his violin and threading his way slowly among the tables towards the twosome. He paused in front of Luna and bending towards her, looking soulfully into her eyes, he continued playing while serenading her with a most poignant love song in his own language. Everyone’s heads turned to look at her, especially those of the jealous women in the room.
She smiled uncertainly at the musician and though she wanted to look anywhere but at Ruy, her eyes strayed across the restaurant to him as if programmed to do so.
His jaw had stiffened, dark brows furrowing, and his pale blue eyes had turned steel grey, splintering with cool shards of light, capturing her with their hypnotic gaze. She had never seen them like that before. The explicit stare of anger she read in them brought a flush of warmth to her cheeks. She remembered Charo’s comment at the gallery earlier about Ruy not wanting her to be charmed by other men. He had clearly been angry at her merely talking to Diego Montez. Was he upset at the overtly romantic attention the musician was giving her? Maybe even remembering the night, not so long ago, when he himself had so passionately sung to her?
Yet there he was with Vaina.
This power he had over her was tearing her apart, and at that moment she wanted none of it.
Why was he scowling at her? Was he sorry that he had kissed her again? Did he regret getting caught up with her, now that he knew she was a Herrera? Could Luna help it if she’d been born into a family for which she had no respect, let alone affection? Is that why he was flaunting his relationship with Vaina under her nose, to punish her?
For some irrational reason, Luna wanted to make him angrier still. As the violinist knelt on one knee while serenading her, she bestowed another smile on him, this time brighter, all the while trying to look less self-conscious, as if she welcomed his attentions.
She couldn’t help but dart a glance at Ruy and what she saw gave her some bitter satisfaction. His eyes narrowed and the muscles in his jaw jerked as if something had snapped inside him.
As he stood up, tension radiated from him in waves. He clicked his fingers at the waiter, who hastened over and gave him his credit card. People were watching now. Vaina had also risen from her chair; she looked shocked, a little haggard even. Ruy paid the bill. He glared at Luna once more, his lips pressed together, and then, slipping one hand into his pocket, he took Vaina’s arm with the other and strode quickly out of the club.
Like everybody else in the room, Doña Isabel had witnessed the whole scene. Luna knew that the Marquesa’s sharp eyes had not missed any of the goings-on, neither had her alert mind failed to summarize in one word the silent, electrifying message Ruy’s eyes had conveyed to her great-niece. Luna heard her whisper almost imperceptibly, as though to herself: ‘Passion, the man is devoured by passion.’
She turned her sharp gaze on Luna. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, querida, as idle gossip really doesn’t sit well with someone of our social standing, but I think I should warn you … That man did a very great wrong to our—’
But Luna had had enough and she stood abruptly, pleading a headache. The Marquesa never had the chance to finish her sentence in the hurried departure her great-niece had instigated, and very soon they were back at
Doña Isabel’s chauffeur-driven car, now parked nearby, where Luna said her goodbyes. She was desperate to get home but refused a lift from the Marquesa, hailing a taxi instead before her aunt could protest.
Doña Isabel drew Luna to her and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Well, mi querida, I’m delighted you’re in Spain. I feel we’ve only just begun to catch up.’ Her pale blue eyes fixed on her niece. ‘Do you have my telephone number?’
‘Yes, I think I do somewhere. With the new job, I’ve been rushed off my feet and I just haven’t had time to breathe.’
‘Bueno, I’ll wait for you to get in touch with me, when you have a space in your diary. I know how irritating pushy old aunts can be. But don’t forget to call me.’
Luna gave a wan smile and watched as Isabel Herrera’s car pulled away into the stream of night-time traffic. Her aunt would have a long wait, she thought wryly, climbing into the welcome solitude of the taxi.
* * *
Ruy turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. His head spun with a million questions, none of which made sense. Rubbing a towel roughly over his face and hair, he tied another around his waist, just above the scar that crested his right hip, and went to the kitchen to make himself a large cup of black coffee. He needed to get his mind into gear to work out this confusion – it was as though a dark web were closing around him.
It had been over a decade ago, but he remembered that night as clearly as if it were yesterday. The lights, Carlos’s shout, the screams and then the awful silence. The pain and the waiting, paralyzed. The bitter taste of bile filled his mouth. There was a strange, haunted look in his blue eyes, as if those eyes saw something they wanted to forget. He dressed and went outside into the starry night.
Deep lay the indigo shadows as he sat on his veranda fixing a blank spot on the dark horizon, memories rushing forward, crowding his head with images that unrolled pell-mell in front of his eyes. That night had left him with more than physical scars. A terrible anguish had enveloped him, until he had met Leyla, La Pharaona the gypsy healer, who had saved him from himself and helped him live again.
He had thought the nightmare was behind him, even though he still fought feelings of guilt and self-recrimination, which everyone had long agreed shouldn’t have been his to shoulder. Of course he hadn’t bargained for it to rear its nasty head again, but today the past had come back to haunt him.
He shook his head. It was a small world indeed; he huffed derisively at the cliché. He had never made the connection between Luna and the Herrera family – why should he? It was only after he had heard the Marquesa at the exhibition telling Luna how much she looked like her mother, Adalia, that he made the terrible connection.
It was bad enough that she was half Herrera – that would be a hard one for his family to accept – especially as Lorenzo Herrera was loudly critical of the Institute. But Luna wasn’t like the rest of the Herreras, he told himself. It had been this certainty that had caused him to stop ricocheting between shock, anger and disappointment, as the realization dawned that his feelings ran far too deep for him to care to whom she was related. His thoughts poured into a mass of truths that coursed downhill in a torrent – of her wit and intelligence, her beauty and indefinable allure, what life would be like if he didn’t have her – all rushing and crashing down to their inevitable end point, making him reel with the force of it.
He loved her.
The knowledge came swift and profound, and changed everything. He loved Luna, and that meant that he would do anything – accept anything – to be with her.
So she was a Herrera. Everything was clear now. Luna had known his identity all along and that was why she had been fighting the attraction between them.
Ruy walked over to the veranda’s balustrade, which overlooked the gentle slope of trees, down the hill towards the isthmus. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the pillar, gazing across the water to Cádiz, while he considered how much Luna must know. Why had she never brought it up if his family background was no secret to her?
Perhaps she doesn’t know.
For him to keep this from her was unthinkable. It was a secret that would only fester, and she was bound to find out eventually. Still, what would she say if she knew? Would she understand? Would she forgive him?
He let out a gruff laugh. Was he ‘fortune’s fool’? Fate had brought them together and now it was throwing more obstacles in their path. Playing the Montague to her Capulet was not how he had envisaged their love affair unravelling, but he wanted Luna more than any woman he had ever known, and he’d be damned if he lost her now. How ironic that the discovery she was a Herrera, rather than discourage his feelings for her, instead served to clarify them entirely.
Ruy knew he loved her; the sight of her being fawned over by that slick estate agent Diego Montez and then serenaded by a restaurant violinist had made his passionate gypsy blood boil. Unfamiliar and senseless jealousy rose and fell in his heart like flames in a brazier, devouring and scorching, and threatening to unleash a primitive, unreasoned ardour, the strength of which was alarming. His wild, impulsive nature was his enemy but nevertheless was so out of character, even for him. Ruy could never recall having to pursue a woman. They were always willing and eager to run after him; and in the past he had habitually taken advantage of this by dulling the torment of his inner demons with a constant stream of women.
With Luna, that had changed. She was an unknowing temptress – provocative, elusive, alluring – who made him want to kiss the rebellious, resistant words from her sensual, inviting lips and discover all the secrets of her heart, which she defended so fiercely. Whenever he was in her presence, he had to fight the wild urge to pull her to him and take her wildly, there and then. In the gallery, in a frenzy of lust and something much deeper, he had come close to doing just that.
Ruy sighed and went inside. Timing was everything. He would watch and wait for the moment to speak to her. First, he needed to win her over and then she could be the judge. After that he would let fate do what it might.
Falling down on his bed, he closed his eyes and thought of Luna’s body, rare in its loveliness, ethereal like a moonbeam, and he fell asleep to dream of endless lovemaking in her arms.
* * *
It was a hot night. The moon shone its ghostly white light through the windows and cast sharp shadows in the room. Luna thrashed in bed, unable to sleep, tormented. Half-awake she lay, thoughts churning, stomach in knots and her feelings in tatters. Her greataunt’s words simmered, and by now were slowly fermenting and poisoning her mind. This should have made things easier for her since she had repeatedly told herself she ought not to have anything to do with Ruy; but the mental and physical turmoil she was in was enough to prove the power he had over her. Try as she might, she couldn’t forget the way he had kissed her that evening, so dangerously public and yet the erotic wildness of his mouth on hers, the delicious feel of his hands on her breasts … Just the thought of him made her ache and burn, and that was the hardest part to admit to herself.
She must stop thinking about him – but how, when they were thrown together daily at work?
Her situation was impossible. Not for the first time, Luna inwardly winced. She was falling for a man who was not just her new employer, he was also the focus of her secret investigation.
This was insane!
Soon, she would have to submit her article and Ruy would discover the truth. Still, no one had ever been able to lead her where she did not wish to go. She was here on a job, she repeated to herself for the umpteenth time. Undercover. It was the reason she had come to Cádiz; she must never forget that.
Luna kicked off the sheet and flung an arm over her face, covering her eyes.
Her own deceit in all of this weighed a hundred times heavier, knowing what she had already allowed to happen between them. She was being sucked deeper and deeper into the mire with nothing in sight to pull herself out.
Why had she ever let him pursue her? How could
she have lost control of her feelings in this way?
Luna knew why. She had always regarded herself as strong, and so the awareness that Ruy had reached inside her and made her mindlessly weak with yearning and desire frightened her. She had also never been prone to jealousy, but the thought that he might be tangled up with a wild young gypsy girl with a curious hold on him, added to the fact that one of his old flames was constantly hovering around, now sent an unfamiliar stab of pain to her heart.
Luna’s thoughts returned to her great-aunt’s sudden appearance: something that had been worrying the frayed edges of her mind. She was feeling distinctly uneasy about having met Isabel. However, it was not the curious revelation that Ruy’s family had always been enemies of her own that actually bothered her. After all, her feelings for her Spanish family were not exactly warm; in fact, they were bound up with memories that she had tried to bury for so long.
What bothered her more was what might be going through Ruy’s mind at this moment. It was obvious that he hadn’t known of the connection between Luna and the Herreras until this evening when the Marquesa had suddenly made an appearance.
Now Ruy’s reaction at the restaurant made sense. Perhaps after all it wasn’t jealousy of the serenading violinist that she had seen in his thunderous gaze.
What would his next move be? Would he still pursue her, knowing she was part of a family with whom his own had been feuding for generations? Not just that. She had to admit that her Spanish family weren’t the most savoury of characters. Would she be tarred with the same brush in Ruy’s eyes?
Luna shifted again and stared up at the ceiling. Why are you curious about his next move if you know this is all wrong in so many ways? Oh, the agony of uncertainty: half hoping he would chase her, despite being who she was, and half wanting to run away.
How long are you going to deceive yourself? Face reality: once you reveal your identity and the article is out, he’ll hate you for that alone and you’ll never see him again anyway, she argued cynically.
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