Spanish Vengeance

by Diana Hamilton

Put like that, so baldly, didn’t explain her lifelong need to earn her father’s approval and once having got it how she hadn’t wanted to let it go.

  Lisa shook her suddenly aching head. She wished she hadn’t emptied that first glass so rapidly, wished she hadn’t started this. ‘It wasn’t quite like that. You make me sound really hard-hearted. Ben and I never loved each other.’

  Automatically, she glanced down at her ringless finger. ‘We’ve always been fond of each other and I suppose we just drifted into the idea of marriage.’ A tiny shrug. ‘Actually, it was Ben who convinced me that letting Lifestyle fold wouldn’t be the end of the world for our parents, or for the staff. That I could tell you where to put your “demands” with an easy conscience.’

  But she hadn’t, had she? A tide of warmth spread through the entire and towering length of Diego’s body as he stood up from the table and held out his hand to her. Which must mean she had come because she wanted to. Which, in turn, meant that she still felt something for him. Madre de Dios! If the past could be forgiven, the bitter years erased, then…

  ‘I was on the point of phoning you,’ she told him as they reached the sun-drenched pavement and fell in step. ‘And telling you I’d changed my mind and the deal was off, when my father told me he’d already had a meeting with you. I don’t know what you said to him but he’d got the idea that your rescue package had everything to do with our knowing each other in the past.’

  Her mouth curved in a wry smile, aware that her tongue was still running away with her. ‘He told me I’d finally made up for not being the son he’d always wanted. Call me a fool if you like—I probably deserve it. But I couldn’t tell him the whole thing was off and have him go from being indifferent to me to actively hating me, could I?’

  Suddenly, for Diego, the sun went in. His blood ran cold then burned with fire. Imbécil! Had he no more sense than he’d had five years ago? Of course she hadn’t agreed to come because she still wanted him, cared something for him!

  She’d as good as sold herself to him for a period of time to earn her father’s approval.

  He put his jealousy of the other man—her own father, for pity’s sake—down to anger, gritted the hard clean line of his jaw, the bitterness flooding back, and decided to take full advantage of what he’d bought and paid for.

  Lisa.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  EVERYTHING had changed; she knew it had. The smallest shake of the kaleidoscope and a new pattern emerged. Pausing at the head of the wide stone staircase, wearing the ice-blue chiffon slip dress Diego had picked out for her, Lisa pinned down the defining moment.

  It had come when she’d explained exactly why she’d agreed to his blackmail, back in Marbella that morning, when Buck’s Fizz rapidly hitting an empty stomach had loosened her tongue.

  To an onlooker the change in him might have been too subtle to cause comment. But to her, finely attuned to everything about Diego Raffacani, it had hit her like a ton of bricks.

  Autocratic didn’t come near to describing the way he’d stalked the pavements as if he owned the whole town and everyone and everything in it. His dark head high, his handsome face wearing the slightly contemptuous, highly assured expression of a man who knew his smallest whim would be immediately and fawningly catered to, he had ushered her through the plate glass doors of a high fashion boutique, the exclusive sort that had made Lisa feel immediately awe-struck and very out of place in her worn jeans and bright pink top.

  And she had simply, weakly, let it all happen. Attended by a tall, pin-thin gushing thirty-something with a permanent soulless smile, Diego had lounged back in a silk-covered baroque-style chair while garments of unbelievable style and quality had been paraded for his lordly nod of approval.

  Two hours later a fresh faced youth, wearing a formal light grey suit and an aura of his own importance, had carried an armload of classy carriers and boxes to Diego’s car. Lisa had thought let him waste his money if he wants to, and almost had hysterics.

  After a late lunch during which little was said and even less eaten they had begun the long drive back to the old monastery. Gripped with a strange foreboding, due to the new cold-edged authority she detected in him, the sense that he saw her as a mere puppet, bought and paid for and designed to perform whenever he pulled the strings, she couldn’t regret having opened up to him, not only about her relationships with her father and Ben but her reason for agreeing to his demands in the first place.

  It had been a release of sorts, she decided as she began the lonely journey down to the main dining hall. And it was high time Diego opened up too. Ever since they’d met up again they had both been skirting around too many secret thoughts. Condemnatory thoughts coming from both directions, she supposed. Whatever, it would be better if they were spoken.

  Manuel had carried the mountain of carriers up to her rooms on their return and Diego had broken his silence to tell her, ‘Wear something beautiful. Tonight we eat in the formal dining hall and I like my possessions to be easy on the eye.’

  His possession!

  Earlier today that would have made her shudder; now she was able to take it in her stride. And she’d done as he’d asked, picked out this dress from the dozens of garments that Rosa, Manuel’s pretty wife, had taken from the tissue-packed carriers and hung in the walk-in wardrobe.

  High heeled court shoes covered in a matching ice-blue silk gave her much needed extra height. She’d brushed her hair until it fell around her shoulders like a pale blonde waterfall, caught back from one side of her face with a tiny jet clip, and gone to town with her make-up.

  He couldn’t accuse her of being an eyesore, although by the time she’d finished with him he’d probably accuse her of being a pain in the neck. Things couldn’t go on as they were. And tonight she was going to make damned sure that they didn’t!

  Previously they’d taken their meals in the inner courtyard or in the small, homely breakfast room that overlooked the front terraces and the sweeping views of the mountains. If he’d chosen the formality of the great dining hall to humble her he wasn’t going to succeed, she vowed as she opened the heavily carved double doors.

  It was an impressive room by any standards, the carved vaulted ceiling soaring way above, lit by massive wrought metal chandeliers, the frescoed walls punctuated by narrow arched windows, the immense glossy-as-glass table set with two places, one at either end.

  Biting back the flippant comment that they would need walkie-talkies to converse with each other, Lisa walked forward, high heels tapping out a confident tattoo on the wide polished boards. Diego rose from the carved chair at the head of the table, a glass of what looked like whisky in one hand.

  Dressed formally, he all but took her breath away. Elegant, immaculate and as cold as charity.

  During his measured approach his heavily veiled eyes made a lengthy assessment, from the silky fall of her hair, over slender shoulders that the narrow straps of her dress left bare, the pert swell of her breasts and down to the slender length of legs made elegantly longer by the just above the knee hemline and spiky heels.

  It was difficult not to squirm beneath that expressionless scrutiny but Lisa just about managed it, nearly sagging with relief when he dipped his head, maybe in approval, maybe not, and turned to walk to a plain oak side table set near the hooded hearth where logs burned brightly against the evening chill of this immense stone room. Then she stiffened when he returned with a flat leather-covered box in his hands and told her, ‘Not knowing what colour you would choose to wear, I decided diamonds would be the safest selection.’

  The diamonds glittered with cold fire from their bed of faded blue velvet. Appalled, Lisa’s eyes widened as he lifted the choker of magnificent stones in an elaborate white gold setting and moved behind her to fasten it around her neck.

  Her vow to remain steadfastly calm and sensible flew out of her head as she jerked away and blurted, ‘I don’t want them!’

  ‘You’re not getting them, believe me. They are on lo
an for this evening only. To complete the picture and give me the pleasure of looking at outward perfection.’

  Smarting under that deliberate put down, Lisa stood like a stone when he brushed her hair aside and fastened the choker around her neck. Move by so much as an inch and those strong hands would pull her back to him again. The touch of his hands would start her shaking all over. Already, knowing that those long fingers were just a hair’s breadth away from her skin as he dealt with the tricky clasp, a tingling sensation spread all the way through her.

  The bracelet came next. A double row of fine stones in an exquisite setting that matched that of the choker. Diego said flatly, ‘The family jewels my mother finds too old-fashioned for her tastes are kept in the strong room here. She sometimes picks through them when she and my father visit. She says it gives her something to do.’

  Diamond studs with tear-shaped droppers completed the suite. The backs of his fingers brushed the heated skin of her cheeks as he fixed them in place. When he stood back a pace to survey the finished result Lisa, even though her face was flaming as the result of that light, erotic touch, got a little of her own back as she asked with manufactured brightness, ‘How often do they visit? Shall I meet them?’ knowing that in his present mood of icy dignity the question would affront him.

  ‘Hardly. There are women a man would be happy to introduce to his parents. Patently, you are not one of them,’ he replied, a honed edge to his voice, and she knew she’d been right in her assumption and didn’t care because, after what she had to say to him tonight, he wouldn’t be able to hurt her any more.

  At least that was what she told herself as Rosa and Manuel arrived to serve dinner, but when Diego held her chair out for her and murmured softly for her ears only, ‘I will have something beautiful to look at while we eat. The sight of you will give me pleasure,’ she wasn’t so sure. He could hurt her simply by being himself, a man who was loved and loathed in equal and utterly confusing measure. Did she want to give him that kind of pleasure? The cool, objective pleasure of a man who had acquired an expensive artefact. Like the diamonds, a possession to be admired occasionally then locked away again and forgotten. Certainly not the pleasure of passionate possession. And that did hurt although she did her best to convince herself that it shouldn’t.

  Between them, Rosa and Manuel served the baked scallops, poured wine, brought quails with herb dressing and roast vegetable salad, poured more wine and finally left them with coffee and little dishes of cream-filled profiteroles and tiny baskets of fruit.

  ‘You should kit them out with roller skates,’ Lisa said with forced lightness, an attempt to counteract the unnerving effect of having his eyes on her throughout the seemingly interminable meal. ‘They’d get from one end of this mile-long table much quicker.’ She said it partly to amuse herself but most of all to let him know that all this formal splendour, the king’s ransom of diamonds on her neck her arm and in her ears, wasn’t impressing her at all.

  No reaction. Diego leaned against the elaborately carved back of his chair, his hands lightly placed on the armrests, his eyes still on her, considering. So she said firmly, ‘I’m leaving in the morning. Even if I have to walk. Do what you like about the rescue package you put together. This unpleasant charade is beginning to bore me and I’ve decided that if you pull out of your side of the bargain I can put up with my father’s displeasure. After all, I’ve endured it, or something very like it, for all of my life.’

  She hadn’t meant it, any of it, had only said it to jolt him out of this new unbearably autocratic coldness. She didn’t want to leave until they’d talked over the wrongs of five years ago. He didn’t know she’d seen him with that beautiful woman, witnessed so painfully how they’d been together, so he couldn’t know her subsequent bad behaviour had been down to a heart that was shattered and twisted with jealousy.

  It was time the truth came out. All of it. He’d stopped her, back in London, by saying he wasn’t prepared to listen to a ‘tissue of lies’. Somehow she had to force him to hear her side of the story.

  The sudden unwelcome thought that he might be just as bored by the charade as she’d said she was and would immediately agree to her leaving, chilled her for a moment, but the bleak smile he gave her, the softly spoken, ‘If you go, I’ll follow. If you hide, I’ll find you,’ froze her to the very core of her being.

  For all the softening of his voice it sounded menacing but she wouldn’t let it throw her. She said brittly, ‘I’m sure there must be a law against that sort of harassment. And there’s no law that says I have to stay here. However—’ she took a last sip of her wine to bolster the nonchalant image she was desperate to portray ‘—I’ll stay if you agree to answer one or two questions. But not here—it’s far too formal. I’ll be in the courtyard if you think you can go along with that.’

  How she got out of that room without falling down she would never know. And she didn’t know if he would follow, either. But he did, unnumbered, nerve-scratching minutes later.

  He had shed the jacket of his dark immaculate suit and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up above his elbows, his black tie discarded. In the pale moonlight he dazzled her with his physical perfection, with the careless arrogance of the way he moved.

  He had taken his time before joining her but at least he looked far more approachable, Lisa decided thankfully, monitoring the shiver of excited anticipation that quivered down her spine at the thought that at last they could go some way towards sorting out the past, putting it behind them.

  But she changed her mind, realising that nothing concerning him could ever be that easy when he walked over the moon-bathed flagstones to the table beneath the sheltering, shading branches of an ancient fig tree and drawled, ‘Let’s get one thing straight, shall we? You may ask questions but I may not choose to answer them. And you stay here until I say you may go.’ He put the bottle and glasses he carried down on the table. ‘Sit where I can see you.’ He indicated a seat facing the vine-covered wall and miraculously the area was flooded with soft light.

  He must have pressed a hidden switch, Lisa thought distractedly as the diffused light of concealed uplighters and downlighters glowed through banks of lush foliage. He was obviously in no mood for a heart-to-heart, no mood for closure.

  Diego Raffacani was still pulling her strings, she thought sinkingly as she sat where he had said she must. And, to her shame, she was actually letting him.

  Determined to do something about that degrading state of affairs, she sat up very straight and said, ‘You’re treating me like a criminal. You heap the blame for what happened five years ago entirely on me. But consider this—you lied to me from the first time we met. So what does that make you?’

  A liar, she answered inside her head, her eyes lowered as he calmly poured wine into both glasses, pushing one of them across the table to her. And the only man she had ever loved. After him, no other man could hope to hold her stupid heart in the palm of his hand—and she still wanted him, warts and all, she acknowledged unhappily.

  She wanted her Diego back, back the way he had been in those ecstatic days when they had been falling in love with each other. But it wasn’t going to happen. Not a chance. He had not been what she had thought he was. Now she was seeing him in his true colours. And still wanting him, for her sins!

  He lowered himself into the seat opposite hers. That was better because six foot plus of looming, magnificent, sexually charged manhood was more than she felt she could possibly cope with. But it made little difference to the lurching sensation around her heart because, whereas she was illuminated, he was in shadow.

  It was impossible to read his expression, make a stab at guessing what he was thinking. His voice was just slightly amused as he came back with, ‘As a criminal you’re getting five star treatment without receiving your punishment. I really wouldn’t complain if I were you. And—’ his voice hardened ‘—I have never lied to you, so don’t insult me by saying I have.’ He lifted his wine glass and
reflected moonlight shimmered and danced as he idly swirled the contents. ‘But that’s what women do, isn’t it? When they’re cornered they fling out patently absurd counter-accusations.’

  ‘You must have known a few really weird women,’ Lisa replied quietly. If she allowed her voice to rise by the merest fraction she would go out of control, start to rant and rave. ‘So you can take back that sexist remark and explain why you told me you were a humble waiter when all the time you were sickeningly wealthy.’

  She picked up her own glass. Her hand was shaking. She put it down again before she disgraced herself and spilled the lot. Diego, leaning well back in his chair, remarked, ‘You decided I was a humble waiter. I told you, quite truthfully, that I spent almost all of my evenings working in one of the hotel restaurants. You see, my tarnished angel, how I remember every word we ever said to each other? The hotel we were to meet in on that last night was the latest in the family chain. My father, being a sensible man, insisted that I had hands-on experience of each branch of the varied business enterprises. I was acting night manager at that time.’

  Lisa’s eyes filled with emotional tears. She couldn’t help it. Her crazy heart seemed to turn to mush. He’d obviously meant to be scathing and he didn’t realise what he’d just unwittingly given away—that he, too, had remembered every word they’d ever said to each other. That wouldn’t happen, would it, if he’d thought of her as just a casual fling, something to amuse him and boost his inflated male ego?

  She must have meant something to him… ‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’ she asked shakily. ‘I told you all about myself. What I mean is, I answered every question you ever asked. Why did you let me go on thinking you were scraping a living waiting on tables?’ She had believed a lie and he had let her. He must have been laughing at her misconception, thinking she was a real fool. That really hurt. She had been open and frank with him and he…‘Why were you so sly?’