Kitabı oku: «One Night Of Consequences Collection», sayfa 47

CHAPTER THREE

MADDIE didn’t know where on earth she’d got the nerve to say those words when, if anything, they could be more legitimately levelled at her. She hadn’t got over what had happened eight years ago—not by a long shot.

She heard a rushing in her ears, but she ignored it and tossed her head. ‘Don’t worry. You won’t see me again. I think we can safely say this farce is over. I came tonight because I was curious to see what you were up to. You’ve seriously underestimated me.’

She was turning away again when she forgot that she still had one shoe off. She stumbled into thin air, and would have fallen if Nicolás hadn’t caught her and hauled her back against him. One strong arm was wrapped around her ribcage, just under her breasts, and the other was across her shoulders. Adrenalin pumped through Maddie’s veins. She immediately tried to remove his arms but they were like steel bands. And they were completely alone.

She had an urge to shout out, but a hand came over her mouth as if he’d read her mind. Panic gripped her—not at the threat of violence but at the threat of something much more potent. The evidence of Nicolás de Rojas’s hardening body at her back was liquefying her insides. A silent scream sounded in Maddie’s head: No! Not this, please. He would expose her vulnerability in seconds if he touched her.

She bit down on the fleshy part of his hand and heard him curse—but not before she’d tasted the salty tang of his skin. Her belly swooped and fire danced along her veins. He moved her effortlessly in his arms and now she was facing him, his arms manacling her to his body, her hands behind her back. She was completely powerless. And, to her absolute disgust, the predominant thing she was feeling was excitement.

‘Let me go.’

He shook his head, eyes glittering down into hers. Maddie felt as if she’d completely lost her footing. Past and present, everything was mixing, and she felt seriously overwhelmed.

‘I’m not finished with you, Maddie.’

Maddie’s heart lurched painfully at hearing him use the diminutive of her name. She could remember with painful clarity telling him that she preferred Maddie to the more stuffy-sounding Madalena. He had touched her cheek and said, ‘Maddie it is, then …’

He smiled, and it was the smile of a predator, forcing Maddie back to the present moment. ‘One thing you should know is that if I’ve underestimated you, then you’ve seriously underestimated me. We have unfinished business—and ironically enough it’s got nothing to do with business.’

Before Maddie had even properly taken in his words or read his intent he’d hauled her even closer. His head descended and his hard mouth pressed against hers. For a second Maddie had no reaction except numb shock. And then sensation exploded behind her eyes—hot and urgent.

Desperately she tried to cling onto reality and not let that hot urgency take over her need to stay immobile and unresponsive. But she might as well have been hoping that the sun wouldn’t rise in the morning.

Being in this man’s arms again was like seeing a beacon of light strobing across a choppy ocean and reacting to it with an unthinking instinct to seek harbour. Maddie felt the inexorable and overpowering urge to follow it, even as everything rational was screaming at her to stop, pull herself free, not to react. But a much bigger part of her was aching all over with the effort it took not to react.

As if sensing her turmoil, Nic freed her hands and lifted his own to her head, fingers caressing her skull, angling her head so that he could better plunder her mouth. His tongue flicked against the closed seam of her lips and at that touch Maddie felt her resistance falling away. Her free hands hovered for a long moment. She knew in some dim place that she should use them to push him away, but when she put them between their bodies and felt the taut musculature of his torso underneath his thin shirt they clung … didn’t push.

He growled low in his throat at her capitulation and became bolder, his tongue prising open her soft lips to seek the hot interior of her mouth. The devastation of that simple intimacy made Maddie sway against him. She could feel her breasts crushed against the solid wall of his chest.

One of his hands was on her waist, digging into her flesh, anchoring her solidly against him. She could feel the bold thrust of his arousal against her belly, and between her legs she felt hot and moist.

The world was turning into a hot furnace of sensation and desperate wanting—and then suddenly a cool breeze was waking Maddie as if from a drugged trance and she was blinking up into Nic’s impassive face. It looked as if it was carved from stone. Maddie felt like jelly. Her mouth was swollen, her heart beating like a piston. Her hair was tumbling down over sensitised skin.

‘You …’ She couldn’t even formulate a word beyond that.

In a voice so cold it woke her up more effectively than anything else, Nic said, ‘What do you want to say, Maddie? You want me to believe this act? That I’ve effectively rendered you speechless with passion?’

A look crossed his face that was so bitter it took Maddie aback. For a moment she was distracted from her growing humiliation.

‘You forget that you already tried that once with me. I’m not stupid enough to fall for it again. You can’t, however, deny that you want me. As much if not more than when you were hot and trembling in my arms eight years ago. I could have taken you that day and you would have been with me every step of the way. You might have seduced me out of boredom, but there was nothing bored about your response then—or just now. And you’ve never been able to handle that reality.’

The sheer arrogance of his tone and expression revived Maddie from the fugue she’d been in. She moved out of his embrace with a jerky movement and saw dark colour flash along his cheekbones.

‘I am not interested in your hypotheses, or your take on the past. The past is in the past and that’s where it’ll stay. This …’ she waved a hand to encompass what had just happened ‘.is nothing but evidence that physical chemistry can be dismayingly arbitrary. That’s all.’

Nic smiled. ‘If I hadn’t stopped when I had I could be taking you right here, just feet away from one hundred guests, and I’d have had to put a hand over your mouth to stifle your screams of pleasure.’

The sheer carnality of his words made Maddie raise her hand—he’d pushed her too far.

Before it could connect to his smug face he’d caught it in a steel-fingered grip. Shock washed through Maddie in a wave. She’d never raised a hand to anyone in her life. The line of Nic’s mouth was impossibly grim.

‘I was merely proving that you’re no more in control of your desire for me now than you were eight years ago, no matter how much you tried to convince me that you’d found what we had done so abhorrent it made you physically ill. You came here tonight to test me as much as I tested you. My bed is free at the moment … you’re more than welcome to join me there and we can indulge this arbitrary chemistry until you’ve come to your senses and decided to sell the Vasquez estate to me.’

Maddie ripped her hand free of his grip and had to curb the urge to try and strike him again. His version of what had happened that cataclysmic afternoon was very different from hers. She knew she’d given him the impression that what they’d shared had disgusted her … and for a while she had found what they’d done abhorrent. But not for the reasons he obviously believed.

And she couldn’t tell him. As much as she hated him right now, telling him the truth would only expose her even more. He would know that that week had meant everything to her, that she hadn’t set out coldly to seduce him just for her amusement. There was no way she could disabuse him of that belief now. It was her only defence against him.

She stood very tall and said frostily, ‘You seem to have forgotten that your bed was busy enough only two weeks ago. I think I’ll pass, thanks.’

And then she turned and walked out.

To her intense relief he didn’t stop her. It was only when she got outside to the main door that Maddie realised that she was barefoot. She certainly wasn’t going to go back now for her shoes and risk seeing Nic again. She scrambled into the Jeep as soon as the valet brought it round, and as she saw the lights of the hacienda grow smaller in her rearview mirror she finally let out her breath.

She’d been a prize fool to think that Nic de Rojas wouldn’t bring up what had happened in the past. He was a very virile and proud man. She knew she’d damaged his ego then … and she shuddered now when she recalled the bitter look she’d seen cross his face just a short while ago. She’d had no idea it would all feel so fresh and unresolved between them.

Even though the events of eight years before had sent out violent ripples, she would have imagined that the actual week which had led to those events had faded in his memory. That the intervening years and the countless affairs he seemed to have had with beautiful women would have made Maddie’s innocent and gauche charms fade into insignificance …

The way he’d just kissed her, together with the memory of that week—those heady days when desire had tightened like a steel coil in her belly until she’d begged him to make love to her—made Maddie shake so much that she had to pull over on the hard shoulder or risk a crash. She put her head down on the steering wheel between her hands and tried to empty her mind, but it was impossible … the memories were too potent—especially after what had just happened.

She’d managed to evade her mother and father that day, and take a horse out riding on her own. She’d always instinctively hoped for a glimpse of Nic de Rojas on his own estate, and her heart had almost stopped when she’d seen him just metres away. The intensity on his face had scared her and she’d turned her horse to run, not even sure what she was running from. Perhaps it had been the delicious and illicit excitement thrumming through her blood.

She could remember looking back and seeing that he was following with that same intense expression—and her excitement had spiked to almost unbearable levels. Her whole body had gone on fire. The friction of the horse as it had surged powerfully between her legs had nearly made her cry out she was so oversensitised. By the time she’d reached the remote orchard which straddled both their estates her body had been as taut as a bowstring, humming for him.

That orchard was a favourite spot of hers. A secret place. And then he’d been there, swinging lithely off his horse, full of that taut energy. It had been overwhelming to see him up close at last—nothing could have prepared her for his sheer masculine perfection.

He’d touched her so gently. And they’d spoken. Really spoken. After years of feeling as if no one could possibly understand her Maddie had found a kinship with the most unlikely person: the son of her family’s sworn enemies.

That first day when Maddie had tried to leave, her heart had felt heavier than a stone in her chest. Until Nic had asked to see her again the following day. And then the next and the next.

The week had taken on an unreal aspect … dreamy. Those illicit moments under the spreading branches of the orchard trees had become the only reality Maddie wanted. Nic had consumed her, filled her nights with vivid and carnal dreams. By the end of the week she’d been in such physical turmoil—craving him but scared of that craving—that she’d all but thrown herself at him.

He’d kissed her and touched her, and Maddie’s face flamed even now to remember the wanton way she’d writhed beneath his hands, begging for more of something she could only guess at.

And then all hell had broken loose.

Huge looming figures on horseback had appeared and smashed apart the idyll. Evidently their regular absences had been noted by keen eyes. Nic had put Maddie behind him and she could remember doing up her shirt with numb hands, panic-stricken as she’d heard the shouts get louder. And then they’d both been hauled out of the trees and marched away. Maddie could remember looking back to see Nic being coralled onto his stallion, flinging his father’s men off him, snarling at them.

She’d sobbed out loud when she’d seen one of the men land him a blow to stop him hitting out. But by then she’d been unceremoniously dumped onto her own horse and was being led away.

By the time she’d got home her mother had been waiting, white-faced and seethingly angry. She’d asked, ‘Is it true? You were found with Nicolás de Rojas?’

For the first time in her life Maddie had felt the fire of rebellion stir within her, and she had lifted her chin and answered in a strong voice, ‘Yes, it’s true.’

She’d not been prepared when her mother slapped her so hard across the face that her teeth had rattled in her head. She’d felt blood on the inside of her mouth. In shock she’d lifted a hand to her cheek and stared in horror at this woman who, at the most, had only ever touched her in public, to give an impression of a closeness that didn’t exist.

Then her mother had broken down into hysterical tears. Before Maddie had known it, with her face still stinging hotly, she’d been leading her mother into the drawing room and forcing her to take some brandy to calm her down.

Eventually her mother had looked at her and shuddered expressively. Completely bewildered, Maddie had said, ‘Mother, is it really so bad that I was with Nicolás? We … like each other.’

That had set her mother off again, and when she’d finally calmed down once more she’d pulled Maddie down onto the couch beside her. ‘You cannot see him again, Madalena. I forbid it. Think of what it would do to your father.’

That rebellion stirred in Maddie’s breast again—she could no more deny that she wanted to see Nic again than deny her own name. She stood up, agitated. ‘That’s ridiculous. You can’t stop me seeing him. We don’t care about the stupid feud. It’s gone on long enough.’

Her mother stood up too. ‘Madalena, you will not disobey me in this.’

Her mother’s constant use of her full name, Madalena, broke something apart inside Maddie. Years of frustration at having to tiptoe around her father’s mercurial moods, brought on by his abject grief for his dead son and her mother’s blatant self-interest, made Maddie explode. ‘If I want to see Nic de Rojas again there is nothing you can do to stop me.’

An awful stillness came into the room, and Maddie watched as her mother seemed to wither in front of her.

The glass in her hand was shaking so much that Maddie reached out and took it from her, saying with exasperation, ‘Mother, your dramatics won’t work with me. They might work on Father, but—’

‘I’ll tell you why you can’t see him again.’

Maddie stopped talking. Something about the low tone of her mother’s voice had made a shiver go down her spine. ‘What are you talking about?’

And then her mother spoke—and broke Maddie’s world into tiny pieces for ever.

‘Ever since I was a young girl, when our families used to socialise in Mendoza, I was in love with Sebastian de Rojas …’ Her mother’s mouth twisted. ‘I wasn’t from here, so I knew only the vaguest details about the feud between this family and his own …’

Maddie tried to make sense of what her mother had said. ‘You were in love with Nicolás’s father? But what’s that got to do with anything now?’

Maddie’s mother sat down again heavily, wringing her hands in her lap. She avoided Maddie’s eyes. ‘The truth is, I wanted Sebastian to marry me. But I was too young, and his family forced him to marry his wife because she’d been picked by his parents … He married her, and they had their son, Nicolás, very quickly.’ Maddie’s mother’s voice broke. ‘I thought he was lost to me for ever … until I met your father.’ She looked up at Maddie, her eyes anguished. ‘Part of the reason I married him was so I could be closer to Sebastian. When he saw me again he couldn’t resist taking me back into his bed. We met in hotels, whenever we could …’ Her mouth took on a bitter aspect for a moment. ‘I wasn’t under any illusions. Sebastian got a thrill out of taking the wife of his enemy to bed, but he’d never have jeopardised his reputation by revealing it.’

Maddie was feeling increasingly distant from everything, as if her mother’s voice was coming from far away.

‘He went to Europe one winter, to see about extending the business, and when he came back I was pregnant with Alvaro—your brother. He cut off all contact, believing that I’d turned my back on him, choosing my marriage over him.’

Maddie’s mother’s eyes swam with tears—but Maddie couldn’t drum up any sympathy. She felt sick at learning the lengths to which her mother had gone just to get her own way. She’d married a man she didn’t love just to entice another married man away from his wife and son.

‘I don’t see what any of this has to do with me not seeing Nic de Rojas again.’ Maddie turned to leave the room and heard her mother standing behind her.

‘It has everything to do with why you can’t see him again.’

With the utmost reluctance Maddie stopped and turned around.

Her mother swallowed visibly. ‘I didn’t stop seeing Sebastian completely. There were a couple of times when I … I managed to persaude him to meet me.’ Her mother took in a deep shuddery breath. ‘After one of those times I fell pregnant … with you.’ Maddie’s mother’s cheeks flared a deep and ugly red. ‘But in that time I’d also slept with your father. The fact is that I can’t be sure that Sebastian de Rojas isn’t your father.’

Maddie looked at her mother. The words had hit an invisible wall and fallen somewhere between them, where she couldn’t take in their horrible meaning.

Her mother seemed to realise that, and said harshly, ‘You can’t see Nicolás de Rojas again because he could be your half-brother.’

The glass Maddie had taken out of her mother’s hand dropped out of hers to the parquet floor, shattering to pieces. She didn’t even notice. Numb shock was enveloping her.

The only thing that broke through the shock and horror of her mother’s revelations was the inarticulate roar of rage that came from behind them. Maddie’s father stood in the doorway, red-faced, apoplectic. His eyes were mad, and he said in a choked voice, ‘I knew it. I always knew there was something between you. Was my son even my son, or was he also the son of that bastard?’

Maddie’s memory after that was hazy. She remembered a lot of shouting and crying. And being dragged roughly up to her room by her father and shut inside. The following day, after a sleepless night, Maddie had snuck out of her first-floor window and gone to find a horse. She hadn’t even cared about her father’s wrath any more. She’d needed to get out.

To her horror, she’d found that she’d instinctively made for the orchard again. Too overcome with everything, she’d slithered off her horse before she’d spotted that she wasn’t alone. Nic de Rojas had stepped out from the shadows of the trees, his face grim.

Her belly had clenched painfully with a mixture of dread and that awful, illicit excitement. Had she been hoping that he would be here, as he had been every other day, despite what had happened? But what had felt so pure and right the previous day now felt tainted and wrong.

‘Why are you here?’

He smiled but it was tight. ‘I wanted to know if you’d come back.’

Seeing him here like this—when she carried such awful knowledge—was too much. Choking on the words, she said, ‘I came to be alone, actually. I didn’t want to see you.’

His face tightened and Maddie spoke quickly to stop him saying anything, ‘You should leave. Now.’

He came up to her, put his hands on her arms. ‘I don’t believe that you don’t want to see me. Are you going to let them intimidate you?’

His touch was too much. Maddie wrenched herself free, hysteria clawing upwards. ‘Get your hands off me. I can’t bear it if you touch me.’

She’d whirled away from him, bile rising uncontrollably. She was sick all over the grass where they’d lain the day before. Trembling all over, and icy cold, she stood up again to see a white-faced Nic looking at her.

‘Please … just go. I don’t want to see you again.’

‘You could have fooled me yesterday.’

Bile rose again, and Maddie swallowed it down, saying thickly, ‘That was yesterday. This is today. And I don’t want anything to do with you again.’

He wasn’t moving, and Maddie was becoming desperate. She couldn’t bear to look at Nic. Not when he aroused such feelings in her, and not when he could possibly be—

Her stomach cramped with horror and she blurted out the first thing she could think of. ‘I was bored, okay? I was bored and I wanted to see if I could seduce you. You were forbidden. It was exciting. That’s all…’

Maddie lifted her heavy head from the steering wheel of the Jeep. The bright lights of a passing car made her wince. Her head felt thick from the onslaught of memories. She cut them off. She didn’t need to remember the next bit—the way Nic had become so cold and dismissive. The way he’d told her that she’d tasted like poison.

He’d come close and said, with chilling emphasis, ‘I used to think the feud was irrelevant … well, it’s just become relevant again.’

Maddie had just wanted him gone, and when he’d finally left she’d sat down and cried and cried until she’d fallen into an exhausted sleep.

When she’d returned to the house hours later she’d found her bags packed and her father waiting with her mother by the car. Without even a word of explanation he’d driven them silently to the airport and left them there. He’d just said, ‘You are no longer my wife and daughter.’

Maddie and her mother had boarded a flight to Buenos Aires. When they’d reached her aunt’s house in the suburbs she’d turned to her mother and said, ‘I want to know for sure who my father is. I think I deserve that much at least.’

Her mother, tight-lipped, had finally agreed, but one of the conditions of getting the DNA sample from her soon-to-be ex-husband had meant that she’d had to sacrifice a generous divorce settlement—something she’d never forgiven Maddie for.

A month after they’d left Mendoza and her home Maddie had gone to a doctor’s office in Buenos Aires with the DNA sample and submitted to the test. Two weeks after that she’d got the results and found out that she wasn’t remotely related to Nicolás de Rojas, or his father. She was, without a shadow of a doubt, a Vasquez.

The knowledge was cold comfort when she knew that she would take her mother’s sordid revelations to her grave, along with the even more painful revelation that Nic had felt nothing more than lust for her. She’d believed that he’d shared an intimate part of himself with her, but it had all been an act to lull her into a false sense of security. When she thought of how beautifully he’d manipulated her, so that she’d been aching for him after only a few days, she felt shamed.

Maddie eventually felt strong enough to start up the Jeep again and continue the journey home. She’d written to her father to tell him about the DNA result, but he still hadn’t forgiven her for the sins of her mother … until he’d been on his deathbed. Maddie had to honour his wishes now and do everything in her power to forget about Nic de Rojas and get on with saving the Vasquez estate.

‘You left these behind last night, Cinderella.’

Maddie’s back tensed at the all-too-familiar deep and drawling voice. Her skin prickled all over. Slowly she looked up from where she’d been inspecting the vines to see a tall dark shape silhouetted against the sun, holding out a pair of shoes.

For a second Maddie blinked uncomprehendingly. She’d hardly slept a wink last night, as every time she’d closed her eyes lurid images and nightmares had beckoned. So perhaps now she was hallucinating from tiredness.

When the shoes and the shape didn’t disappear, Maddie scowled and stood up. Reaching for the shoes, she said stiffly, ‘You really didn’t need to go to the trouble.’

She was feeling dusty in worn jeans, a plain T-shirt and an old pair of riding boots. Thankfully the gaucho hat she wore shielded her from the intense blue of Nic’s eyes as well as from the sun. She could see very well from under the shaded brim that he too was dressed casually, in a dark polo shirt and faded jeans which clung to powerful thigh muscles.

‘I’m intrigued to know why you’re wearing shoes and dresses a size too large.’

Maddie flushed and glared up at him from under the hat, not wholly surprised that he would know her shoe size. Her breath was taken away by his dynamic magnetism and the sheer force of seeing him in the daylight. The blue of his eyes was stark against the olive tones of his skin.

Without even thinking Maddie muttered, ‘They’re my mother’s.’

He arched a brow. ‘Your luggage got lost?’