‘I’ve called the cavalry off,’ he said tightly when he’d finished the call.
‘I’ve only been gone twenty minutes,’ she protested, bewildered at his anger.
‘Lottie saw you walk off an hour ago!’ he shouted.
An hour? How was that possible? But any words she could have said in response would have been drowned by the heavens above them finally opening. In seconds she was soaked to the skin.
‘Get in the truck,’ he ordered.
But the emotions she’d fought so desperately hard to restrain suddenly erupted from her with the same force as the lashing rain. Heart pounding, emotions careering violently inside her, she took a step back and shook her head. ‘Go back to the party. I’ll join you when I’m ready.’
‘Get in the damn truck or I will throw you in it.’
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Just leave me alone.’
Features as dark as the storm thrashing down on them, he took three quick strides to her, folded his arms across his chest and leaned down to snarl in her face, ‘In the truck. Now.’
Anger suddenly punched through all the other emotions battering her and she snarled right back at him, ‘Fine,’ before sidestepping around him and marching furiously to the truck. What other choice did she have? Either she got in willingly or he’d carry out his threat.
Emiliano’s legs being so much longer than hers, he reached the passenger door before she did and yanked it open for her. The moment her bottom touched the seat, he slammed the door shut then strode to the driver’s side and climbed in beside her.
Without saying a word, he reached into the compartment behind the front seats and pulled out a towel, which he shoved onto her lap, then turned the vehicle’s heating on.
An age passed where the only sound was the muffled deluge pelting the vehicle and their ragged, angry breaths.
Fury at being treated like a child overriding the despair that had brought her to the stables, Becky was loath to accept anything from him, but her wet skin was starting to feel chilled. Mutely, she rubbed the towel over her sopping hair then leaned forward to wrap it across her back and hold it tightly under her chin like a cloak.
‘Ready to talk?’ he asked roughly.
‘I asked you to leave me alone,’ she snapped. ‘Why couldn’t you respect that?’
‘What, leave the mother of my child to catch pneumonia?’
And that was all he saw her as, she acknowledged with angry pain even though it was confirmation of what she already knew.
He thumped the steering wheel in the silence, making her jump. ‘I want you to tell me why you thought it was a good idea to abandon the party to walk barefoot in the pitch-black in the middle of a storm.’
She’d forgotten about her bare feet. Now he mentioned them she could feel the sting, but it was only a distant, dull ache.
‘It wasn’t raining when I left.’
‘Anything could have happened to you!’
‘On your private estate? Hardly.’
‘Do you think scorpions care about boundaries? Or snakes? Or spiders?’ he snarled. ‘This isn’t England. Our wildlife is dangerous. Damn it, there was a report of a jaguar on land only twenty miles from here recently.’
‘I’m sorry if I caused anyone to worry,’ she said stiffly.
‘Why did you go?’ he demanded. ‘I assume it’s to do with me from the way you just behaved. What made you do something so reckless and stupid?’
And, like a balloon deflating in one long puff, her anger drained out of her. Emiliano had every right to be angry. If he’d disappeared into the dead of night she would have been frantic.
‘I really am sorry,’ she said in a softer tone. ‘I only meant to clear my head. I didn’t realise I’d been gone for so long.’
Knowing he needed to get a handle on his temper, Emiliano pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t remember ever being so gripped by fear. He’d been worried when Becky had gone off for a ride on gentle Bertie but that had been nothing to the icy terror in discovering she’d disappeared into the black void.
‘Just tell me why you left.’
‘I saw you with that woman. At the bar.’
Gobsmacked, Emiliano stared at her, so many thoughts and emotions racing through him that it took a moment to separate them. ‘You’re talking about Jacinda?’
‘I don’t know her name. I’m talking about the woman who was all over you like a rash.’
‘Then you are talking about Jacinda. She’s married to Facundo.’
‘She’s married?’ She covered her face. ‘Does Facundo know his wife fancies you?’
‘I have no idea.’ But he had an idea of what Becky was implying. ‘But let me assure you, when she couldn’t keep her hands to herself I extracted myself from the situation.’
Just as he’d seen Becky neatly sidestep away from an amorous Juan on the dance floor. Had he assumed the worst? he thought angrily. No, he had not. Sure, there had been a tiny hint of something that could be construed as jealousy but at no point had that been directed at Becky herself.
He hadn’t assumed the worst about Becky because he trusted her. It was a revelation that sucker-punched him.
‘I know.’ Her voice was devoid of emotion. ‘I was watching.’
‘If you know I gave her no encouragement, why run away?’
A fresh wave of pain-filled heat washed through her. The first time it had struck, Becky had been on the dance floor. She’d felt someone watching her and that someone had been Emiliano. The expression she’d seen on his face had cut through the noise of the music. There had been so much more than desire in that look. There had been tenderness too, enough to fill her heart with sudden hope. In that one tiny moment of time she’d thought she’d seen her own feelings mirrored back at her.
Which was why the pain of seeing her future had hit her so hard.
‘Because I saw the day when you would want to give encouragement.’ Jacinda had thrown herself at him and the smidgeon of foolish hope in Becky’s heart had died.
‘You think I would have an affair with a friend’s wife?’ he asked through tightly gritted teeth.
‘No, I don’t believe you’d do that but everywhere you go women throw themselves at you. Temptation travels with you.’
‘Right, so you think I’m going to hook up with any woman who bats her lashes as me so long as she isn’t a friend’s wife? How many times have I told you? For as long as we’re together, I will be faithful. Marry me and I will give you fidelity for life. What more do you want? For me to etch it in blood?’
‘But that’s just it.’ She struggled to keep her tone even, every word feeling as if it was being dragged across a jagged blade. ‘And that’s why I can’t marry you, even with that promise.’
His eyes snapped onto hers.
She tried to keep her words on an even keel but they fell from her lips like a runaway train. ‘Sooner or later, all that’s new and fresh and exciting between us will become stale and ordinary, but those women will still be new and exciting, and there are thousands of them scattered across the world, ready to bat their lashes and drop their knickers for you, and you will find yourself bound by a promise you never wanted to make. You said yourself you know it’ll be a hard promise to keep! You’ll want to act but your honour won’t let you and then we’ll be stuck in a marriage that’s the worst of what our parents had—you’ll be compelled to keep our deal just as your parents always stuck to theirs, but you’ll come to resent me for tying you down and clipping your wings, just as my mother resented my father, and then that resentment will turn to hate and all that’s good between us will be gone and our child will be the one to suffer for it.’
There was a long moment of stillness before he thumped the steering wheel again. ‘Dios bendito, you really do think the worst of me. You see a woman approach me and suddenly you’re Nos
tradamus? You can predict my future thoughts and feelings?’ His glare made her quail. ‘You have a habit of doing that and it’s never in my favour. Do you have any idea what that feels like? All my life, my father assumed the worst of me, my brother too, and now I learn that you...you, of all people...that your opinion still is no better than theirs. I have bent over backwards for you. I have treated you with respect and done my damnedest to compromise when others in my position would have used their wealth and power to ensure their child was in their care and under their protection, whatever the mother’s opinion on it. I offer to marry you and when you run out of excuses you invent a future as an excuse.’
‘I’ve agreed to move in with you when you return to England.’ Her head was spinning again at the way the conversation had suddenly turned to be all about her. ‘That hasn’t changed.’
‘Yes, it damn well has. You think I’m prepared to settle for crumbs? Live as a family for a few months each year but only when I’m in your country? Everything has to be on your terms. You’ll have me begging like a dog to see my own child because your precious career comes before everything.’
‘That’s not fair!’ she protested, her own fury regaining a foothold. ‘I would never do that and how you can say that with a straight face when you refuse to consider retiring from a career where you’ve already achieved so much beggars belief. It’s not as if you need to work any more—you have more money than a small country—but I’ve barely started and you want me to throw away all those years of work and dedication for someone who will never love or trust me because he’s too stuck in the past to let it go.’
‘You say I’m stuck in the past when you’ve just spouted all that prophecy rubbish?’
‘None of which you denied! How can we have a real marriage without love? We can’t, and without it we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes our parents made. If you were ever capable of love and trust, Adriana stamped on it and the rest of your rotten family killed it. You’re so damn cynical about everything. You don’t want to marry me. You just want convenient access to our child.’
For the longest time they said nothing more, the only sound in the truck’s cabin their laboured breaths. The fury blazing from Emiliano’s brown eyes would have scorched her if her own fury hadn’t acted as a foil.
And then he whipped his gaze from her and, jaw clenched, turned the engine on. ‘Put your seat belt on.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
REALISING EMILIANO WAS about to start driving, Becky hurried to obey. The moment her seat belt clicked into place, he did a sweeping reverse and set off, windscreen wipers on the fastest setting to fight against the deluge still pouring down.
In caustic silence, they returned to the ranch. He screeched the truck to a stop and got out, slamming his door behind him.
For the first time since she’d met him, he didn’t do the chivalrous thing of opening her door.
Covering her head with the towel for protection from the rain, she hurried up the steps behind him. They both came to an abrupt halt at the noise that greeted them when he opened the door.
Much of the party had moved indoors, out of the rain. People were everywhere.
His eyes briefly found hers. He raised them, indicating they should go upstairs.
Ignoring the people trying to catch his attention, Emiliano climbed the stairs two at a time. Barney and Rufus spotted them and came bounding up to say hello before dashing back off to scavenge more dropped food.
Previous experience had taught him to lock his bedroom when he threw a party and it was something of a relief to get inside and close out the noise of revelry.
Becky hovered by the door, her beautiful green eyes wary. The soaking her dress had suffered had turned it transparent. Through it, her strapless white bra and matching knickers were visible. He wished he’d noticed before and warned her to wrap the towel around herself when they’d cut through the house. She’d be embarrassed if she knew.
Raising his gaze to the ceiling, he took a huge breath. ‘Why don’t you have a shower? You’re soaked.’
She bit into her bottom lip before nodding and disappearing into the bathroom. He closed his eyes hearing the door lock behind her.
Alone, he stripped his own wet clothes off and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. The adrenaline that had pumped so ferociously through his veins while he’d been searching for her, which had ratcheted up while they’d been shouting at each other in the truck, had gone. Feeling weary to his bones, he sank into the armchair and covered his face. His guts had tightened into a knot.
When she emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her, he averted his gaze while she slipped into the dressing room.
His heart squeezed when she joined him, dressed in her usual jeans and a check shirt but still as ravishing as when she’d been dressed so beautifully. She was limping.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.
She gave a rueful smile and perched on the sofa. ‘My feet. Going for a walk in the dark barefoot was not my brightest idea. I’ve cleaned them and put antiseptic on the cuts.’
‘Good.’ He nodded his head and fought to keep all the thoughts that had raced through it while she’d showered in one place. ‘I will arrange a flight back to England for you tomorrow.’
Her shocked gaze shot straight back to him. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘It is for the best,’ he said heavily.
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re right. We’ll end up hating each other.’ He ruthlessly pushed aside the memory of the cold sweat he’d come out in, imagining Becky alone and injured on his estate. ‘If we don’t end it now, it won’t take years. We’ll hate each other before the baby’s born.’
‘But...’
‘Don’t say another word,’ he warned, getting to his feet, averting his gaze so as not to see how quickly the colour had drained from her face. ‘We’ve both made very clear what we think of each other. There is nothing left to say. We’re going to be bound together for the rest of our lives. I would prefer to do that without thinking poison of my child’s mother.’
He didn’t want to hate her. That night he’d come damn close.
She’d accused him of being stuck in the past. Maybe he was. Maybe they both were. But he’d opened himself to her as he’d never opened himself to anyone and she still rejected him and assumed the worst of him. She’d seen all of him and she didn’t want it. If he wasn’t so determined not to hate her, he would hate her for staying these extra weeks when she must have known all along her mind was set.
It was time to let her go, and let go of the stupid dreams he’d had for them. A man had his pride. He wasn’t going to beg. It wasn’t as if he loved her and her return to England would break his heart.
That he’d realised he trusted her... That was a good thing, he told himself grimly. A man should be able to trust the mother of his child. Even if she lived on a different continent to him.
And that she sat there now, mute, not denying his own prophecy for them...
Fighting back the nausea bubbling like a cauldron in his stomach, he rammed his hands in his pockets. ‘I’m going back to the party. I’ll find somewhere else to get my head down tonight.’
‘Okay.’ Her voice sounded very faint and small to his ears.
‘I’ll be in touch soon.’
This time she didn’t even open her mouth to acknowledge him, just gave a faint nod.
It wasn’t until the bedroom door clicked shut that Becky gulped for air. She couldn’t breathe. Oh, God, she couldn’t breathe.
Stumbling to her feet, she staggered to the nearest window and fumbled with the latch to open it.
The rain had stopped. There was a fresh breeze. It kissed her face as she breathed it as hard as she could into her frozen lungs.
Emiliano didn’t want her any more.
She’d pushed him away. She’d
thought the worst of him one too many times and he’d turned from her as he’d turned from his father and brother for doing the exact same thing. He was already on the brink of hating her.
She didn’t want him to hate her. Never that. Not the man who’d made love to her as if she were a precious gem to be cherished, the man who’d become more precious than any gem in her eyes. He’d become her friend as well as her lover. She’d shared things with him she’d never shared with anyone. And he’d done the same with her.
They’d shared something special and that was what she needed to cherish now. The memories. Because he was right, she knew it in her breaking heart. They’d reached the end of the road. Her love had no currency with a man who eschewed love. And her love wouldn’t protect her when the inevitable happened and he grew bored of her.
But God, please help her—the pain.
Not bothering to strip off her clothes, she crawled into bed and tried not to think of the dreamy lovemaking they’d shared in it only hours ago.
‘He still wants you,’ she whispered to the tiny life inside her as she hugged her belly. ‘Don’t worry, your daddy will love you and protect you always.’ Of that she had no doubt. He would support Becky too. If she needed help, he would give it.
The only thing he wouldn’t give her was the one thing she so desperately wanted. His heart.
When the car pulled up outside the ranch the next day, Becky, who’d been hovering by the front door waiting, sank to her knees and cuddled the dogs goodbye. ‘You two be good,’ she said as she kissed their heads. ‘I’ll miss you.’
They nuzzled into her dolefully. If she was to anthropomorphise, she’d say they were sad about her leaving. In truth, they’d been up all night vacuuming any titbit of food they could get their greedy mouths on and having a marvellous time being petted by everyone. When she’d come down that morning, stepping over sleeping bodies strewn here, there and everywhere, she’d found the dogs curled together in the kitchen, too zonked out to do more than open an eye in greeting.
The Cost Of Claiming His Heir (The Delgado Inheritance, Book 2) Page 14
