She beamed. ‘You are welcome, senyorita.’
Rosa left and for long minutes they each concentrated on their meal. Twice Jordan opened her mouth to speak, desperate to break the oppressive silence, but both times she lost her nerve at the last second and shovelled a piece of lamb into her mouth instead. Luckily the meat was exceptional—unlike her floundering conversational skills. But how did one backpedal from loveless marriages and children to polite, inconsequential small talk?
‘Why did you become a nurse?’
Xavier’s deep voice carved through the heavy silence. Jordan lifted her gaze, startled by the fact he’d spoken as much as by the question itself.
‘How do you know I’m a nurse?’
‘Rosa mentioned it.’
‘Oh.’
So he’d had a conversation about her with his housekeeper? Or maybe Rosa had just mentioned it in passing. Rosa had told her that her and Alfonso’s only daughter was a nurse, married and working in Berlin, so Jordan had naturally mentioned that she too was a qualified nurse.
‘It’s the only job I ever wanted to do. Right from when I was a small child,’ she said, smiling because she couldn’t not smile when she talked about her chosen profession.
Taking care of people wasn’t just what she did—it was who she was. Who she had been from the day her mother had walked out and her bewildered father had needed his daughter to step up.
‘I can’t remember a time I didn’t want to be a nurse.’
He picked up the wine bottle and refreshed their glasses. ‘And why trauma?’
She sat back, lifted a shoulder. ‘It’s fast-paced, high-pressure... You’re helping people—that’s the most important thing, of course—but it’s also...exciting.’
Just thinking about it made her blood pump a bit faster. The only time she didn’t love her job were the days when a patient died. Those days were a brutal reminder of the fragility and brevity of life. A reminder that you had to make the most of every moment and appreciate the people you loved, because sometimes they were gone too soon.
Xavier’s voice broke across her thoughts. She blinked and swallowed down the little lump that had lodged in her throat. ‘Sorry?’
‘Do you work in a major hospital?’
‘I did for several years. In Sydney, in one of the country’s best accident and emergency departments.’
She’d loved that job. Had been so proud to work in that particular trauma centre. She’d beaten over a hundred other applicants for the position.
She hesitated before adding, ‘But I resigned a few months ago and returned to Melbourne.’
‘So you have a job there?’
She hesitated again. They were venturing into more sensitive territory now, but this was ultimately what she wanted, wasn’t it? A chance to talk about Camila...? And yet last night she’d lain awake in that beautiful canopied bed, sleep eluding her, and in a moment of gut-wrenching doubt had wondered if bringing Camila’s letter to Xavier had been an act not of kindness but of cruelty.
Because how must he feel? To have learnt of his birth mother’s identity and at the same time learnt that she’d passed away and he’d never have an opportunity to meet her?
And yet what had been the alternative? To throw the letter away? Pretend it didn’t exist? Jordan couldn’t have done that.
She took a deep breath and said quietly, ‘No. I moved home so I could nurse Camila through her final months. She had leukaemia,’ she explained, a sharp ache hitting the back of her throat.
She glanced down, away from his probing gaze. She hated revealing her grief. She preferred people to see her as strong and resilient—because she was.
‘You nursed her full-time? Alone?’ His voice was quiet now, too.
She looked up and tried to gauge his expression, but couldn’t tell what emotion, if any, lurked behind his silvery gaze. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s quite a sacrifice.’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t see it like that. Camila was family. There was never any question in my mind that I would nurse her when the time came.’ She was silent a moment. ‘Camila was so strong and brave. She didn’t want me to give up my job, and was upset for a few days when I did. But I don’t regret it. The time we had together at the end was special. I’d do it again.’
‘A leave of absence wasn’t possible?’ he queried.
‘No. I didn’t know how long I’d need. I couldn’t expect the hospital to hold my job open indefinitely. And I thought I might need a break afterwards, anyway. Time to sort out a few practical things.’
Like the family house, which she’d spent a few weeks clearing and tidying but hadn’t yet decided whether to sell or keep.
‘Before Camila got sick we used to talk about doing a trip to Spain, but we never did. After she died, I decided to come on my own.’
She stopped short of telling him that she’d brought Camila with her. That her stepmom’s ashes were upstairs in a small urn and she planned to scatter them into the vast blue of the Mediterranean Sea as soon as she found the perfect spot. Or that—before she had met him—she’d entertained the possibility of inviting him to join her in that act.
She sipped her wine, put the glass down and pushed it slightly away. Too much alcohol would dull her brain. And there was something niggling in her head, floating at the periphery of her thoughts. Something not quite right...
Suddenly icy fingers of realisation gripped her insides. She looked at Xavier. ‘How did you know I’m a trauma nurse?’
The widening of his eyes was so slight she almost missed it. Then his expression became inscrutable. He put his cutlery down. Slowly.
A sinking sensation slid through Jordan’s stomach. ‘I told Rosa I’m a nurse—I didn’t mention I specialised in trauma,’ she added, the words scraping her throat like coarse sandpaper.
His gaze locked with hers and the look in his grey eyes was unflinching. Unyielding. Unapologetic.
‘You had me investigated,’ she choked out, and he didn’t deny it. ‘Why?’ she demanded—but then she raised her palm in a ‘stop’ gesture. ‘You know what? Scratch that. I already know the answer.’
‘Calm down,’ he said smoothly. Condescendingly.
Which only fanned the flames of her ire.
‘Don’t tell me to calm down. From the second we met you’ve questioned my motives. My integrity. Do you honestly expect me not to feel offended?’ She straightened her shoulders and channelled her indignation into a lofty glare. ‘You don’t even know me.’
‘Precisely, Ms Walsh.’ A hint of steel underpinned his voice. ‘I do not know you. And I will not apologise for taking precautions to safeguard the interests of myself and my family.’
She let out a humourless huff of a laugh. ‘You’re unbelievable.’ She slapped her napkin onto the table, pushed back her chair and stood.
‘Sit down,’ he commanded. ‘We’re not finished.’
She balled her hands into fists. She could feel her anger building now, pushing at the walls of her chest, searing her veins with heat. It strengthened her backbone. Diminished the likelihood of her embarrassing herself with stupid tears.
‘We are finished, Mr de la Vega. Or at least I am.’
She glanced down at her unfinished meal, at the food Rosa had so beautifully prepared and served. With a pang of regret, she turned away and strode into the house.
CHAPTER FOUR
XAV MANAGED TO restrain himself for a full minute before he flung down his napkin with a muttered oath and went after her.
He scowled at his own idiocy. He rarely made mistakes, but he’d blundered right into that one.
Where the hell had his head been at?
He climbed the stairs, trying to recall which guest suite he’d told Rosa to put her in, and then remembered. The suite at the south end of the villa—as far from his o
wn sleeping quarters as possible.
Finding the door shut, he rapped his knuckles twice on the wood and waited.
Nothing.
‘Ms Walsh,’ he called out.
He could hear faint sounds of movement from inside the room, but the door remained closed.
Damn it.
‘Jordan!’
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he raised his fist to knock again.
The door jerked open.
Luminous golden-green eyes glittered angrily at him. ‘I’d be grateful if you or Rosa could please call me a taxi.’
‘No.’
Her eyes narrowed and then she whirled away and strode towards the bed, where a haphazard pile of toiletries and clothes lay next to her open rucksack. ‘Fine,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll ask Rosa myself.’
She was still wearing the outfit she’d worn to dinner, and the swish of gold silk around her long legs and the snug fit of the black top against her high, full breasts stirred the same response of masculine appreciation in him now as when he’d first clapped eyes on her downstairs.
Ruthlessly he quashed his lust and moved into the room. Jordan turned, holding up an envelope, and his gut clenched.
‘I’m not convinced you’re ready for this,’ she said. ‘But it’s not mine to keep. I hope you’ll treat it with the respect it deserves.’
She placed it on the nightstand, then picked up a wallet, pulled out some euros and tossed them onto the end of the bed. ‘For the hostel bill.’
She started shoving items of clothing into her bag, her movements jerky and stiff. The only part of her that didn’t look rigid was the long silken fall of her magnificent copper hair.
‘Stop,’ he said.
But his tightly voiced command fell on deaf ears.
She dropped a pair of canvas shoes on the floor, pulled off her high-heeled sandals and jammed them into her rucksack.
He stepped closer. ‘Jordan.’
She paused and looked up, and for a second he saw everything in those stunning hazel eyes. Everything she was feeling and struggling to hold in: anger, disappointment, hurt.
It made his gut clench again. Hard.
‘I think it’s best if I go,’ she said, her voice quiet, and then she resumed her packing.
Frustration surged and he reached out a hand and grasped her wrist. She froze instantly, her entire body stilling, and he wondered if she’d felt the same jolt of electricity as he.
Gently he turned her to face him, the pulse in the soft underside of her wrist beating erratically against his thumb. ‘Stay.’
Her chin rose in challenge. ‘Why? So you can keep an eye on me?’ Her tone was a mix of hurt and reproach. ‘That’s the reason you invited me here, isn’t it?’
She tugged her wrist but he held firm, not yet ready to let her go. Enjoying the contact too much.
‘I stand by what I said,’ he told her, but in a gentler tone than he had used at the table. He had been harsh, more so than was necessary perhaps, but he hadn’t enjoyed finding himself in the altogether discomfiting position of having to defend his actions. ‘I will not apologise for being cautious.’
She made an indignant sound in her throat and turned her face away.
Lifting his free hand, Xav brought her chin back round with his thumb and forefinger. ‘But I have upset you,’ he continued, ‘and for that I am sorry.’
Her eyes widened, although whether in surprise at the apology or at the dominating touch of his hand, he didn’t know.
Whatever the cause, it didn’t erase the look of stubborn pride from her face. ‘You only want me to stay because you don’t trust me.’
He dropped his hand from her chin, before the urge to drag the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip—to see if it felt as lush and soft as it looked—grew too strong to resist.
‘That’s not true.’
It wasn’t a lie.
She was bold and unexpected. From the moment she’d turned up at his offices the other night, spouting the outrageous claim that she was his stepsister, through to today, when he’d come home and discovered her laughing and dancing with his staff, he’d felt as if his carefully controlled world was shifting beneath him.
And tonight... Somehow she’d turned even the act of sharing a meal into an unpredictable affair. How the hell they’d ended up talking about marriage and children and love, of all things—that singularly destructive emotion he had vowed to avoid at all costs—he had no idea.
Irritation had made him want to reassert control, turn the focus back onto her.
Earlier in the day, when Rosa had delivered his sandwich, he’d casually elicited her opinion of their guest, and in the midst of her effusive praise of the younger woman she had mentioned that Jordan was a nurse. At dinner he’d used that, and then deliberately asked questions that would trip her up if her answers didn’t correspond with what he already knew from the investigator’s report.
Instead he had tripped himself up, and he hadn’t even realised his mistake. He’d been too spellbound. Too captivated by the enthusiasm and passion she exuded when she talked about her work.
And then she’d spoken of her stepmother—his birth mother—and her compassion and the sacrifice she’d made to nurse the woman through her final weeks of life had made him feel unexpectedly tight-throated and humbled.
The gut feeling he’d had this afternoon had strengthened into certainty. This woman was no threat.
She tugged her arm again and he realised he was still holding her. Reluctantly he let her go, and as she stepped back, her arms wrapping around her middle, it occurred to him he could let her go altogether. He could let her pack her bag, put her in a taxi as she had asked him to do and send her on her way. He could write all of this off as an unfortunate disruption and get on with his life.
Simple. Practical. Convenient.
So why could he feel his chest tightening and his body tensing in rejection of the idea?
Why did he feel as if he wanted to soothe the look of hurt and vulnerability from her face while at the same time a part of his mind was entertaining dark, carnal thoughts that involved dragging her onto the bed, stripping her naked and doing things with his hands and mouth that would make her forget about leaving and have her begging him instead to let her stay?
Dios.
Never before had a woman provoked such a tumult of conflicting urges in him. Not even Natasha, the ice-blonde American heiress who ten years ago had left him deeply embittered, determined never again to make himself vulnerable to that kind of humiliation and pain.
Clenching his jaw, he thrust her cold, heartless, duplicitous image out of his head and focused instead on the hot, stubborn, fiery woman in front of him.
‘Then why?’ she challenged. ‘Why do you want me to stay?’
He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, then dropped his hand. ‘Because right now you’re the only connection I have to the woman who gave birth to me,’ he said.
The admission made him feel a little raw inside, even though it was only part of the truth as to why he wanted her to stay—the only part that made enough sense to try to explain. And even that was difficult, because he’d never expected to feel curious about his birth mother. Up until forty-eight hours ago she’d never been anything more to him than a faceless, nameless woman—and then Jordan had walked into his office and shown him a photo. Told him a name. Camila Walsh, nee Sanchez. The woman who’d given birth to him at eighteen and thirty-five years later died of leukaemia. A woman whose stepdaughter had loved her enough to sacrifice her job so she could nurse her through her final days.
He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel about all that. He certainly had no hope of articulating it. So he didn’t even try.
‘I don’t think you want to sever that connection just yet any more than I do,’ he h
azarded instead, and watched a look of telltale uncertainty shift across her face.
Trapping her voluptuous bottom lip between her teeth, she glanced towards her half-packed rucksack, then back to him. ‘If I stay,’ she said, a slight emphasis on the if, ‘would you consider coming somewhere with me tomorrow?’
Had he not been distracted by her mouth again, Xav would have registered the distant clang of alarm bells as he responded. ‘Where?’
There was a pause. ‘I want to visit the village where Camila grew up.’
He jerked his gaze up to connect with hers, the lush perfection of her lips momentarily forgotten.
‘It’s north of here,’ she rushed on, before he could even properly assimilate what she was asking. ‘Up the coast and then inland towards the mountains. About a two-hour drive, according to Delmar.’
His gut suddenly tensed. ‘He knows—?’
‘Of course not,’ she interrupted, frowning at him. ‘That’s your personal business. I would never share that information with anyone else. I just mentioned at lunch that I wanted to visit my stepmom’s village and asked for advice on travel times.’
Advice she could have sought from him instead of Delmar.
If you’d been here.
He clenched his back teeth together.
‘Camila didn’t have any living relatives left in Spain,’ she went on. ‘So you wouldn’t have to worry about...you know... Running into someone you’re related to...’ She trailed off and was silent for a moment. ‘Look, I’ll understand if you’re not interested. But I’m going anyway. I was planning to hire a car, but Delmar has offered to drive me—’
‘No.’ The word shot from his mouth like a bullet from a gun he hadn’t intended to fire.
She blinked. ‘Okay...’ Her voice was tinged with disappointment. ‘I understand...’
He doubted she did, because he sure as hell didn’t. Admitting curiosity about his birth mother was one thing. Traipsing up the country to visit her birthplace was quite another. But the alternative—Jordan spending the day with Delmar...
‘No,’ he repeated. ‘You misunderstand. I mean Delmar will not be driving you. I will.’
A Mistress, a Scandal, a Ring Page 6
