Yes, that’s what he wanted, he realized with a clarity that was blinding and urgent.
He didn’t want her emotionally. He wanted more of this.
Of convenient sex, of a woman in his bed and his life who demanded nothing of him beyond what he was willing to give.
His lips were a grim slash in his face. Ava was mercenary; he’d seen that for himself. Though she was very, very clever. During their month in London, she’d never once made a play for the luxurious gifts he had wanted to give her. She hadn’t particularly liked the elite restaurants and bars he preferred, nor holidays – she’d always had an excuse when he’d suggested a getaway; she hadn’t wanted jewelry or any other token of his wealth.
Of course she had, though. She’d just known to keep her true colours hidden from him to avert suspicion. She’d been playing for keeps. And he’d been so close to rewarding that. To giving in. Thank God he’d found out in time.
But now? She’d put a price on her head and he’d been willing to pay it.
And after this? What amount would make it worth her staying?
He drained the beer but continued to hold the bottle at its base, his eyes following Ava languidly as she moved closer to the boat.
The conversation with Santiago had unsettled him, mainly because the ruse was failing because of his behavior. Ava had played her part perfectly; Guy not so much.
Santiago was right. Guy was not a man to let the woman he loved slip through his fingers.
Splashing noises moved closer to the boat. He leaned over a little, watching as she climbed the ladder, her head bent. She hadn’t seen him.
A fierce burst of something had him moving closer to the ladder, so that when she stepped on the deck he was right there. She smelled so good. Like the ocean and the sun, like desire and need.
“Oh!” She startled visibly, reaching for the railing to steady herself. “You’re back?”
“As you see,” he tilted his head. The words were colder than he’d intended. If she became his mistress, he would have to find a way to treat her more cordially. It would truly be a fresh beginning.
“We skipped lunch,” he tried again. “Shall we eat an early dinner now?”
Her surprise was obvious. “Dinner?”
“Yes, querida. You know, a meal? Food? A table? Sometimes some wine? A candle?”
Her face paled before his eyes and her head shake was infinitesimal. “No, thank you,” she said, not bothering to smile. “I’ll just eat in my room.” She cleared her throat and moved past him, her head bent.
That same rush of fierce heat shot through him like the flames for Las Fallas.
“Running away from me, Ava?”
She froze, spinning around, and there was matching heat in her eyes, as though fireworks were tormenting her. “I told you, my name is Addie.”
“Fine, Addie,” he deliberately rolled her name with his tongue. She’d told him once that his accent was her ultimate aphrodisiac. “Eat with me.”
The request, such as it was, had her sobering once more. “Why?”
“Because it’s what people do,” he said with a shrug. Her eyes followed the gesture with uncertainty. “Why eat in your bedroom when there is this blanket of stars? Come on, Ava.” Her eyes narrowed. “Adeline,” he corrected. “Just dinner.”
The thin column of her neck moved as she swallowed and he felt her hesitation; he felt it and wondered what he could do to relieve it.
“No one’s here to see it, though,” she said haltingly. “And I’d prefer to keep things between us… business-like.”
Irritation – no, irritation was too mild a word for it. A chasm of rage opened up in his chest. “Business-like?”
“You’re the one who keeps reminding me that you’re paying me to do a job. That job is simple. When we’re with your family, I’ll play the part, but here on the boat, I think we should keep our distance.” Her eyes were fixed over his shoulder, and her delivery would have been perfect, if it weren’t for the fact that her voice was wobbling with emotion.
“A job,” he murmured, taking a step closer, then another, until their bodies were close. Her flesh was covered with fine goosebumps, despite the warmth of the night, and her nipples were tight against the fabric of her bikini. “Tell me why you are a cleaner, and not an actress?”
Her cheeks flushed with colour. Fascinating. Was she embarrassed of her occupation?
“Why?”
“Call it curiosity,” he said. “I’ll even pay you for the information. Shall we say another five thousand pounds?”
He’d thought her pale before, but she was as white as a sheet ass he digested his words.
“You’re unbelievable.” It was a hollow whisper. She turned away, even her hair somehow defiant as it hung down her back. She walked away from him, but slowly, as though her spirit were broken, as though she was utterly defeated. He watched her go without realizing he was holding his breath, until he released it on a single exhalation of relief.
She hadn’t gone downstairs, to the solitude of her bedroom. She’d taken a seat at the table Santiago had been using earlier, her legs crossed neatly, her hands clenched on the tabletop, her eyes staring straight ahead.
Something squeezed in his chest at the sight of her, so obviously miserable and emotional, but not running from that.
Or was it just that she wanted the money so badly that she’d face up to whatever he asked of her?
Another reason he had to control the parameters for whatever they were. He’d never trust her. Not in a million years. He would never give her more than money – why risk it?
He pulled a folded towel from one of the drawers and handed it to her as he passed, moving into the kitchen and assembling a platter of all the antipasti the yacht was always stocked with. Olives, jambon, cheese, dips, breadsticks, and he grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses as he came onto the deck.
“Well?” He placed the platter down, looking at her.
“Fine,” she sipped her wine, then sipped it again, shutting her eyes as the alcohol found its way to her belly. “Let’s have dinner.”
“And you will answer some questions I have.”
“Only if you answer mine.”
His laugh was a whip. “I am paying you for your answers. What are you going to give me?”
Her eyes met his with visible effort. “I’m not for sale.”
His lifted brow was mocking, and Addie shifted in her seat, lifting her fingers to reach for an olive before clasping her hands back in her lap. “What do you want to know?”
“Why cleaning?”
“I like the hours.”
He considered that, taking the seat opposite. “You work at night?”
“Yeah.”
“There are lots of jobs that involve these hours, many of them less…”
“Menial?” She supplied, her eyes challenging his. “Embarrassing?”
“Arduous,” he corrected, sipping his wine without looking away from her.
“I don’t mind hard work,” she said, shrugging her slim shoulders. And they were slim. That same fragility he’d sensed in her on the day she’d come to him, asking for help, he felt now. Saw now, as she sat opposite him, her body curled in on itself, her face wearing wounds he couldn’t fathom.
He didn’t care about her problems. She was simply an equation he wanted to understand; that was all.
“I like order,” she said after a moment, so quietly he almost didn’t catch the words. “I know it might seem hard for you to understand, but I get a lot of satisfaction out of taking clutter and making it neat again.”
“Again, there are many jobs…”
Ava’s eyes had a hint of defiance when they met his. “I don’t want another job. I have no problems with the fact I’m a cleaner. I’m sorry if it disappoints you to realise that the woman you were sleeping with does something so… beneath you… but that’s what I am. Who I am.”
“You think I have a problem with your occupation?”
<
br /> She leaned closer, her eyes narrowing. “I think you’d have found it harder to bring me here and introduce me to your family if you told them, in the same breath, that I’m responsible for sanitizing the restrooms on the thirty second floor of The Walsham Tower.”
Guy couldn’t explain how that made him feel. Nothing good, but not for the reasons she thought. It wasn’t snobbery that motivated his reaction. So? What was it?
“You are wrong.” His nostrils flared as he exhaled. “I would have brought you here and introduced you to my family, irrespective of what you do for a living. If you had been the woman I thought you were, instead of the illusion you turned out to be.”
She recoiled from him, and again, he couldn’t help but note the disparity in how her reaction of pain affected him. The satisfaction he’d felt in Madrid was gone, completely. Now, there was only a deep sense of regret at the ease with which he could discomfort her.
But Ava rallied, her face lifted, and she reached for her wine for another sip before she spoke to Guy. “Why don’t you come to the island more often?”
He shook his head. “That’s not how this works. I’m asking the questions.”
Addie nodded, a small shift of her head, and then she stood. “Fine. Then enjoy your platter.” She stood and took one step away from the table but he snaked his hand out, curving it around her wrist, jerking her towards him.
“Sit down, querida. We’re not finished.”
“Yes, we are,” she muttered, blinking furiously to stem the tears that were close to overflowing. “We’re so finished.”
She glared at him and he felt her anger and hostility, her hurt and her pain, and the grip on her wrist softened, so that his thumb was stroking her soft, sensitive flesh. He saw the way her pupils widened, darkening her eyes.
“You can’t buy me,” she said softly, but with a strength that cut through him. “I’m here, talking to you, because I want to. I wanted to. But not if you’re going to treat me like some kind of possession.”
His gut twisted. She was right.
“There is no sinister reason,” he heard himself say, releasing her wrist and waving his upturned palm towards the seat opposite. “I like it here, but I do not often have the time a visit requires.”
Her expression softened, but he had no idea if she was going to stay or go, and found himself holding his breath.
Finally, though, with a small nod, she said, “Why not?”
“To bring the yacht, it takes at least a weekend.” He didn’t let his relief show.
“Your parents are flying in a helicopter,” she murmured. “They’re going to the mainland just for one night. So that can’t be it.”
Her perceptiveness was as unsettling as it was familiar. Hadn’t she always been able to see beneath his words and find the heart of what he was feeling? Even before he realized it?
“So why do I visit so rarely?” He leaned back in his chair. “In your opinion.”
“In my opinion?” She lifted a brow quizzically. “You’re sure you want it?”
He tilted his head forward.
“You adore Santiago, but you know you disappoint him. He wants something from you you’re not capable of giving him. So you hide from him. You avoid him. You don’t want to disappoint him.”
Guy didn’t speak; what need was there for his words when hers had been so accurate?
“You brought me here to fool him, but he’s not fooled, Guy.”
“I know that.” His eyes glittered.
Addie’s eyes jarred with his. “What?”
“He accosted me on the drive back; he was full of questions as to why I had not proposed marriage to you.”
Addie’s cheeks flushed pink. “He asked me that, too. I said we’d only been together a short while…”
Guy shrugged. “He knows me, as you say. He knows that if I ever met a woman I truly loved, I would ask to marry her within a day. I would never risk losing someone I cared for by dragging my heels. That is not the way I operate.”
She dipped her head forward, so he couldn’t see her face, but he knew that his words had stung. No satisfaction. Nothing. Just a strange sense that he was digging a deep hole he would find it difficult to climb out of.
“I love this place, though. I wish, sometimes, that I could come back more often.”
Addie tilted her head. “It’s beautiful.”
“It isn’t just an island, to me. It is …my childhood. So many of my memories live in this water, drift on this sand, fill these skies.” He shifted his shoulders. “I cannot walk the paths without some memory leaping out at me. I broke my wrist over there,” he nodded towards the shore. “I learned to swim here. I hid in those caves for a whole day, once. Santiago was furious when I eventually returned.” He winced.
Addie was thoughtful as she digested his words, and then, she spoke warily, as if feeling her way through the sentence. “That’s exactly how I feel about my home.” Her smile was tinged with sadness.
“I take it you don’t live in Holborn, as you claimed?”
“No,” she didn’t rise to the bait and defend herself, as he’d expected. “I live in a small village on the outskirts of London.” She was looking straight at him, but her eyes had assumed a faraway look. “It’s a big old, Tudor place and my brother and I used to play hide and seek in the garden all day long. No matter what the weather, we were always outside. Though the attic was for days when mum absolutely forbade us from venturing outdoors – which she did from time to time.” She cleared her throat, and Guy saw that her eyes were suspiciously moist.
Memories, nostalgia, these were funny things, capable of inspiring emotional eddies at the strangest times. “I feel just as you do. I see ghosts of our childhood everywhere. My brother and me. Our house is … it means everything to me.” She blinked again, and then, abruptly changed the subject. “Your turn.”
Her sentence surprised him, and it took him several moments to comprehend what she meant. “To ask a question,” she prompted, the words a little uneven.
“Have you been with anyone since me?”
He hadn’t expected to ask that; he hadn’t even known, until he heard the words come from his mouth, that he cared. But suddenly, his whole body was alert, his spine straight, his everything paused, waiting for her to speak. Would he believe her anyway?
“No.” She swallowed. “Have you?”
Guy’s chest was heavy, his eyes gave nothing away. “You need to ask?”
“No,” she swept her eyes shut. “I just wanted to show you how it feels to be asked something so invasive.”
“I see.” He frowned. “You don’t think I have a right to be curious?”
“Why? When you’ve made it abundantly clear you don’t want me?”
He leaned forward and beneath the table, he placed his hand on her knee, his eyes holding hers. “Does it seem like I don’t want you?”
She spun her head, her lips parted as breath pushed from her. “I… you’ve said it yourself,” she said eventually. “In two days this arrangement will be over and you’ll be glad for that.”
He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. “I have another… proposition for you. A new arrangement; one that I think you will like.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I have another… proposition for you. A new arrangement, one that I think you will like.
HIS WORDS, SO CALMLY delivered, had chased themselves around Addie’s head all night, stirring her to a fever pitch. She was both angry and dismayed, as their conversation ran around and around her memory, prodding her from new, more painful angles with each reflection.
Conversation?
Try ambush!
She had never been more offended in all her life.
Nor more tempted.
Become my mistress, and I will make sure you never have another worry in your life. Not just for the time we are together, but for all time.
It wasn’t the idea of financial security that had filled her up with little bubbles
of anticipation. It had been the idea of more Guy. More beyond this island trip. Of having longer to convince him. To win him over.
But she never would.
If she accepted his offer, if she let him pay her to be in his bed – which was essentially what he would be doing – then he would never be able to look beyond it.
And he probably couldn’t, even now. They were already trapped in a disaster of their own creation.
But at least now Addie knew the truth. She loved him, and she was here because of that.
We will live in Madrid, I will make sure you have everything you could ever want. I will buy you an apartment of your own. Clothes. Spending money. Believe me, you have never known generosity like what I can offer.
Indignation ripped through her anew as she remembered that last little salvo, intended to be reassuring, which had in fact cemented her hatred. Not for him, but for the way he viewed her. He really thought he could buy her, body and soul.
Admittedly, he was willing to pay handsomely for the pleasure of her body, and she’d tried to take comfort from that, but it had offered none.
Her body?
Sex?
When she wanted his heart and mind? When she wanted it to be like it was in London? How could she live with him once more, knowing that they were forever limited? How could she live with him, waiting for his attention to stray, for his interest to wane, for his sense that she was worth such a heavy price to diminish and for her to be cast aside? Albeit with a nice little stipend…
Sleep on it. Tomorrow is the party. You can tell me then.
He’d been so confident, despite his suggestion that she ruminate on the idea. He had seemed to have little doubt that she would accept.
And, in a part of her mind, she knew that to be the case. She was crazy to turn this down. She was crazy to say ‘no’, knowing that it would probably be the death knell to any future with Guy.
But she had to.
She had to tell him she loved him. That she couldn’t accept a relationship with him in which he would hold all the cards; she couldn’t accept a relationship with him that was so completely unequal.
Blackmailed by the Spaniard Page 12
