from not wanting anything to do with him to seeking a passionate affair. He’d thought it had been desire driven, but he’d been wrong. Very wrong.
‘Was that necessary?’ his brother’s voice fired accusingly at him. ‘There was no need to be so hard on her.’
‘Don’t you dare presume that as my older brother you can tell me what I can and can’t do.’ Raul hurled the angry words back at Max. Thanks to Lydia and her indiscretion, this whole meeting had catapulted out of control. He couldn’t even think clearly at the moment, saying the first thing that came to him in such an uncontrolled way, he didn’t even recognise himself.
‘Now we get to the crux of it.’ Max strode towards him, the same purposeful strides he would use if he weren’t rooted to the spot with shock and anger at the sudden realisation that Lydia had gone. Not just left the hotel, but gone. Out of his life for good.
Focus, he demanded himself. Now was not the time to reminisce over a love affair that had ended. Now was the time to focus on his future, to move forward from the lies his father had inflicted on him—and Max. To do the one thing his father had thought him incapable of—welcoming his brother into his life.
‘That minor detail has nothing to do with it,’ he shot back at Max, instantly regretting the anger in his words.
‘Then you had better tell me what the hell it is you want from me so that you can go and sort out your love life.’ Max’s dark eyes, so like his own, pinned him to the spot and he resented his brother’s inference that he and Lydia were lovers.
‘We are not lovers.’ He glared angrily at his brother, refusing to accept that maybe he was right. Damn him, he’d been in his life all of five minutes and already he was telling him what to do.
‘That’s not how it looked to me.’ Max flicked an eyebrow up and a trickle of calm began to defuse the angry tension that arced between them like an ugly steel bridge, connecting them, connecting their past and their future, yet neither daring to cross it.
Raul sighed. ‘I didn’t ask you to come here to talk about me and Lydia—’
‘I should hate you right now,’ Max said, cutting off his words, blatantly attempting to take back control. He also echoed his own feelings exactly. He too should hate Max. Hate him for being the son his father always wanted, hate him for being given his father’s name and most of all hate him for denying him his father’s love.
But Max hadn’t had a father’s love either. He hadn’t seen his father since he was eight years old, if all Carlos had told him was true.
Raul frowned. How did Carlos know so much? ‘And do you? Hate me?’
‘No.’ Max turned and walked away. ‘Neither of us are to blame. There is only one man who can take the blame for this, and, as always, he’s too much of a coward to deal with it himself. He’s left us to deal with the aftermath. Just as he walked away from my mother and I.’
Raul knew he was scowling as he digested this nugget about his brother’s childhood. The tone of his voice, the way he referred to their father gave away so much. Was it possible he too had suffered the effects of being the son of a man incapable of love for his son?
‘Did he ever contact you again?’ Raul had to know, had to hear it for himself.
‘No—and for that I am grateful. My life was better without him.’ Max’s voice was hard. Controlled. But he spoke the truth, Raul didn’t need any convincing of that.
‘So, brother, where do we go from here?’ Raul asked, knowing that whatever he did now he had to get Max on side, had to get him to accept his share of the inheritance his father had left equally between them—especially as he’d turned Lydia out of his life so harshly and she was the only other hope of paying the debt the board wanted settled.
‘I’m not big on emotional commitment.’ Max moved closer to him, echoing his own sentiments exactly. ‘The love of a father, or even a woman, is overrated as far as I am concerned.’
Raul smiled, accepting they were already so alike. ‘My sentiments precisely.’
‘The young lady seemed pretty certain she didn’t sell the story, but someone did.’ Was Max accusing him?
‘I lost a big deal because of it. I’d hardly do that.’
Max’s brows rose, in a way that was like looking at himself in the mirror. ‘Then I suggest we work together to find out just who has it in for us.
‘The media will be watching closely to see what happens next. There are probably bets on somewhere as to what we will do, but I’ll wager that nobody, least of all our so-called father, would expect us to leave the past exactly where it is and move forwards—together.’
Raul held out his hand to shake on the deal Max was offering. It was far more than he’d hoped for, but if Max could put aside the past, so could he. ‘Brothers.’
‘Brothers,’ Max replied and took his hand, their gazes locking. Then to Raul’s relief and shock, Max let go of his hand and slapped him on the back. ‘Brothers.’
* * *
Lydia had known exactly what she needed to do as she left Raul and his brother glaring like angry bulls at one another. She’d hailed a black cab to the station for the next train to Oxford. This time her father would face up to what he’d done. This time she was well and truly in charge. This time he’d pay. Not just for her, but for Raul—and Max.
Meeting Raul for the first time had made her grow up. Spending the weekend as his lover had given her clarity. Thinking of him spiked her heart with pain. How had she fallen in love with a man who could use her as savagely as her father had done?
She pushed the thought aside as the train pulled out of the station and a bitter December wind whistled down the platform as she wondered if she’d done the right thing.
Of course you have. He can’t get away with not paying his debt.
The short taxi ride from the station to her father’s home, one she’d hardly spent any time at recently, gave her just enough time to pull the last bit of confidence she had left and ready herself for seeing her father. Once that was done, she could go home and sleep away the pain of her broken heart, knowing she’d done all she could to make things right. Although they’d never be right for her again.
‘I wasn’t expecting you so close to Christmas.’ Her father’s voice boomed at her as he raised his head from whatever it was he was engrossed in at his desk. She heard the door being clicked shut as his maid retreated. Had she sensed the power of his daughter’s determination?
‘And I wasn’t expecting to be made a scapegoat for your so-called deals.’ She bit back a tirade she’d love to shower on him, wanting the implications of what she’d just said to sink in first. Would he defend himself or her?
‘Ah.’
‘Yes, ah.’ She walked towards the desk, looking him in the eye and not missing the startled widening of his. He might not have been expecting to see her today, but he’d certainly never thought she’d be so mutinous.
‘I thought you’d come to tell me you are about to marry the Valdez heir or, judging by the headlines today, I’d hazard a guess it’s to congratulate me on a cunning plan which has made you a very wealthy woman and saved my neck.’
‘How could you?’ Her anger erupted, mixed together with the pent-up grief of losing the man she loved, even though deep down she knew she’d never had him at all. To him their time together had been merely a diversion. All that hurt tipped out onto her father. ‘You used me. How could you? I will never forgive you.’
‘Now hang on a minute.’ He jumped up from his chair, papers sliding to the floor, his face red with anger. ‘You now have properties worth millions.’
He’d walked right into her trap. ‘Do I?’
‘I did it