Kate Walker - The Alcolar Family

‘Well, Cassie?’ Joaquin asked, the smile that accompanied the words sending a cold, creeping shiver down the length of her spine. ‘Nothing to say? Nothing to complain about?’

What could she say? She had to say something . But with Joaquin in this mood, this dangerous, alien, disturbing mood, she didn’t dare just launch into the real reasons for the way she was feeling.

‘You’re going to work!’ she blustered and heard his short, harsh bark of totally sceptical laughter.

‘I’m going to work,’ he endorsed cynically. ‘As I do nearly every day. Is there a problem with that?’

‘I…’

Cassie pulled the edges of the robe closer together over her breasts, feeling even more than ever the desperate need to hide away from his burning, searching eyes and the way they were fixed on her face, seeming to probe right into her soul.

‘I didn’t think you would—at least not today.’

Coward! she reproached herself. If she was honest, then today was not what mattered—but Friday. The anniversary of the day they had first come together. That was what was really important to her.

‘And why particularly not today?’

Abruptly Joaquin swung away, pushing his hands deep into his trouser pockets as he paced across the floor to the window and back. And then back again. Then just as Cassie, unable to bear the resemblance to the restless prowling of a sleek, caged, restless jungle cat, feared her tongue might run away with her, he suddenly whirled round again and looked deep into her unhappy eyes.

‘Oh, I see—because of last night? You didn’t want me to go because…’

‘I thought we needed to talk!’ Cassie rushed in, desperate to try and bring the conversation round to the topic of their future. Clearly Joaquin simply thought that all she wanted was a long, luxurious day in bed, and that was not at all the way she wanted things to go.

‘And I have to work. If you recall, I came home to work yesterday, but I didn’t get the work I had planned done, did I?’

And whose fault was that? the look in his eyes, the faint curve to his mouth, demanded. Who had distracted him, seducing him away from his desk with the enticement of her body? Who had offered sex instead of work?

‘You don’t need to work,’ Cassie muttered mutinously.

If he never worked again, it wouldn’t matter. The wine business was so firmly established, so hugely profitable, that he could appoint a manager, sit back and enjoy a luxurious income for the rest of his life. She admired the fact that he did work, that he didn’t just live the life of a playboy, but right now she wasn’t prepared to concede that. She wanted to get her point across and, feeling the way she did, she would argue that black was white if that was what was needed to win her case.

‘I want to work.’

Joaquin’s tone had hardened, and the half-smile that had been on his face a moment before had vanished like mist before sun. It was only when she saw how bleak and icy his expression looked without it that Cassie realised just how much easier, more approachable that smile had made him look and found herself wishing for it back.

She was suddenly desperately, painfully aware of the fact that she might have lived with this man for almost a year, but she didn’t really know him at all. Deep down, there was a dark, buried part of him that he kept hidden from her.

‘I have a lot to get done before Friday. You know Friday is a very important day.’

Oh, she knew that all right. But was he thinking of it as important for the same reasons she was?

CHAPTER FOUR

GIVING in to cowardice, Cassie decided she was no longer so sure she wanted to risk finding out. Never ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, her mother always said. And there was one answer to this that she did not want to hear at all.

‘Friday?’ she asked, trying to distract herself with a glance in the mirror and grimacing in distaste as she saw the way she looked.

Swamped by the black robe that was designed for Joaquin’s tall, masculine frame and not her own feminine one, and with her blonde hair tangled into an appalling bird’s nest, she looked a wreck, nothing like the elegant professional woman who had first caught Joaquin’s eye at that first business meeting.

She was going to ask him if they had a future together, looking like this ? Where was her pride? Her self-esteem?

Reaching for her hairbrush, she started to pull it through her hair, wincing sharply as it caught in a particularly tight knot.

‘Why is Friday so important?’

She knew she was prevaricating, delaying the moment and the question that would decide her fate. If she really had to ask it? Couldn’t she give it a miss just for today? Couldn’t they go on as they were for a little while yet? Have one more night like last night?

‘What’s happening then?’

‘I’m meeting the buyers from London— we’re meeting the buyers from London,’ Joaquin amended.

‘We?’ Cassie echoed, frowning her confusion at his reflection in the mirror. ‘You want me to be there?’

‘Of course—you’re my interpreter.’

‘But they’re English! You don’t need an interpreter for them! You speak perfect English—quite possibly better than some of them!’

Joaquin’s grin was wide and wicked, a flash of brilliantly white teeth in his darkly tanned face.

‘I know that and you do too. But I don’t necessarily want them to know that. At least, not at this stage of the game. I would prefer them to think that I might not understand everything they say. That way they might not be quite so guarded in their opinions—they might let something slip.’

‘Something you can use to your advantage?’

‘ Obviamente . What else?’

What else? Cassie asked herself privately. What else would Joaquin be thinking of but business? What else would matter to him as much as making money, wheeling and dealing?

Why was she fooling herself even trying to hope that he might have something more personal, more emotional on his mind?

Her hair was almost brushed smooth now. Every tangle had been tugged out of it and it was no longer a bird’s nest. But it looked as flat and as limp as she felt deep inside.

To her horror hot tears stung at her eyes and she blinked hard to fight them back, slowly turning to face Joaquin where he stood in the middle of the room, eyes dark, a faint frown on his face, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his trousers.

‘So you want me to come and sit in on a business meeting on Friday?’

‘A business dinner,’ Joaquin corrected. ‘We’re taking them out to dinner in the evening—now what the hell was that look for?’

‘What look?’ Cassie tried to hedge, though she knew from his dark scowl that it hadn’t worked.

He had always been able to see right through her when she tried to avoid telling him the truth. That was why she had had such a terrible time keeping the way she was feeling from him just lately. For once she had had cause to be thankful that he was a workaholic. When he was out of the house, she could let her mask slip, admit to the fears she was facing about the future.

‘What look?’ Joaquin echoed, lacing the words with dark mockery.

He strode across the room towards her, catching hold of her shoulders and spinning her round so that she faced the mirror once more. When she tried to avoid looking at her own reflection, afraid of what she might see, he caught her chin firmly between hard finger and thumb and turned her face so that she couldn’t do anything else.

‘That look! The one that tells me I have committed some appalling sin, one for which I should beg forgiveness on my knees before you, clad in sackcloth and ashes.’