‘Do you want coffee?’ Jemima asked Alejandro grudgingly. He had taken up a stance by the window and his height and wide shoulders were blocking out a good deal of the light.
‘Sí,’ Alejandro confirmed.
‘Peese,’ Alfie told him helpfully. ‘Say peese.’
‘Gracias,’ Alejandro pronounced in his own tongue, stubborn to the last and barely sparing the attentive toddler a glance.
Once again Jemima was taken aback by that pronounced lack of interest in her child. She had expected Alejandro to be stunned by Alfie’s existence and, at the very least, extremely curious. ‘Haven’t you got any questions to ask me about him?’ she enquired, her attention resting pointedly on Alfie’s dark curly head as he crouched down to take his beloved cars out of the toy box and line them up in a row.
Alfie liked things organised and tidy, everything in its place. She had a sudden disconcerting recollection of Alejandro’s immaculately neat desktop at the castle and wondered if there were other similarities that she had simply refused to see.
‘When the family lawyer engages a solicitor here to represent my interests, they can ask the questions,’ Alejandro responded very drily.
‘So, you’re already convinced he’s not yours,’ Jemima breathed in a very quiet tone, her lips sealing over her gritted teeth like a steel trap.
Luxuriant black lashes swept up on Alejandro’s gorgeous dark golden eyes, his handsome mouth taking on a sardonic cast. ‘How could he be?’
Seething frustration filled Jemima. For a crazy instant, she wanted to jump on him and kick him and punch him, batter him into a state where he would be forced to listen to her. But she wasn’t a violent woman and if he didn’t listen to her, or believe in her, or even trust her, and he never had, at this stage of their relationship he probably never would. Wasn’t that another good reason as to why she had walked out on their marriage? The conviction that she was beating her stupid head up against a brick wall? Not to mention the sheer impossibility of staying married to a man who was utterly convinced that she had had an affair with his brother?
While she waited on the kettle in the galley kitchen, she reached a sudden decision and lifted the wall phone to call Flora, asking her friend if it would be possible for her to look after Alfie for an hour. ‘Alejandro is here,’ she explained stiffly.
‘Give me five minutes—I’ll come down and pick Alfie up,’ Flora promised.
Jemima set a china mug of coffee down near Alejandro. She knew what she had to do next but she just didn’t want to. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and the scars. Flora arrived very quickly, bridging the awkward silence with her chatter while Jemima fed Alfie into his coat again.
‘Alejandro…Flora,’ Jemima performed the introduction stiffly.
‘I’ve heard so much about you,’ Flora said brightly to Jemima’s husband. ‘None of it good.’
Alejandro sent Jemima a censorious look of hauteur and she reddened, wishing that the other woman had kept quiet rather than revealing how much she knew about her friend’s marital problems.
The silence left after Flora’s departure spread like a sheet of black ice waiting to entrap the unwary. Jemima straightened her slight shoulders, her blue eyes so dark with strain they had the glimmer of purple against her skin. ‘I hate that I have to say this again, but you don’t give me much choice—I did not sleep with your brother.’
Alejandro shot her a grim dark-eyed appraisal. ‘At least he had the courage not to deny the charge—’
‘Oh…right,’ Jemima sliced in, rage bubbling and pounding through her like a waterfall that had been dammed up inside her. ‘Marco didn’t deny it, so therefore I have to be lying!’
‘My brother has never lied to me but you have,’ Alejandro pointed out levelly.
Jemima’s hands clenched into fists. ‘What lies? What are you talking about?’
‘You went through thousands and thousands of pounds while we were still living together, yet you had nothing to show for your extravagance and could not even cover your own expenses in spite of the generous allowance I gave you. Somewhere in that financial mess, when I asked you for an explanation, there must have been lies,’ he concluded.
Jemima had turned white as milk, for those were charges she could not deny. She had got through a terrifying amount of money, although she hadn’t spent it on herself. Sadly, she had had nothing to show for it, however, and she had found herself in the embarrassing position of not being able to pay bills during the last weeks of their marriage. All her sins had come home to roost by then, all because of the one seemingly harmless and seemingly even sensible little lie that she had told him when they’d first met.
‘Did you give all that money to Marco?’ Alejandro asked her abruptly, his voice harsh. ‘He often overspent and I was afraid that he might have approached you for a loan.’
For a split second, Jemima was tempted to tell another lie to cover herself and then shame pierced her and she bent her head, refusing to look at him. Although, while on one level she was still angry with Alejandro’s brother for dropping her in the mire by refusing to deny the allegations of an affair, she still retained enough fondness for the younger man not to seek revenge and to tell the truth. ‘No, Marco never once asked me for money.’
Alejandro’s lean, powerful body had tautened. He flicked her a narrowed glance so sharp that she was vaguely surprised it didn’t actually cut her. ‘I assume that you are still in contact with my brother?’
That comment startled her. ‘No, I’m not. I haven’t talked to Marco since I left Spain.’
Alejandro made no attempt to hide his surprise at that news. ‘I’m amazed, when you were so intimate.’
Her teeth clenched at that crack. Not for the first time she was tempted to give way and simply tell him the truth. Unfortunately the repercussions threatened to be too great. Furthermore she had once faithfully promised Marco that she would never betray him. After all, she had seen for herself and on more than one occasion why the younger man was quite so determined to keep that particular secret from his family. Unfortunately, Marco’s selfishness did not release her from her pledge of silence. In any case, she reminded herself ruefully, it was not solely Marco’s fault that her marriage to his brother had broken down.
‘Marco has been working in New York at our art gallery for the past couple of years. You haven’t had any contact with him at all?’ Alejandro persisted in a silky smooth tone, his accent growling along the edges of every syllable.
‘But presumably he is supporting his child?’
‘Alfie is not his bloody child!’ Jemima raked at him furiously.
‘There is no need to swear,’ Alejandro murmured smooth as glass.
Jemima trembled and struggled to master a temper that was threatening to overwhelm her. Two years ago when she walked out on her marriage she had been exhausted and worn down to the bone by the weight of her secrets, but since then she had made a strong recovery. ‘Alfie is not Marco’s son,’ she pronounced flatly.
‘Your child is only the smallest bone of contention between us,’ Alejandro intoned in a driven undertone, his stunning eyes full of condemnation bright as sunlight in his lean, saturnine face.
‘Is that so?’ Jemima asked tightly, ridiculously annoyed that he could so easily dismiss Alfie’s existence as an unimportant element.
Alejandro bit out an unamused laugh. ‘You know surprisingly little about men,’ he breathed roughly. ‘I’m much more interested in what you did in my bed with my brother and why you felt the need to do it.’
In one comprehensive sentence, he tore down the deceptive veil of civility and confronted her with the reality of his convictions and she was shocked