Sarah Morgan - One Night in Buenos Aires - The Vásquez Mistress

‘Why would I have called you?’

His features were set and grim. ‘It should have been obvious to you to let me know that you were safe.’

‘I had no reason to believe you’d even care.’

‘Now you’re being childish.’

‘I’m being honest! Our last meeting was hardly a loving encounter—you hurt me, Raul. You hurt me so much .’

‘I was honest about my feelings.’ His savage rejoinder showed no hint of self-reproach or apology and her shivering intensified, as if someone had dropped her in the Arctic wearing nothing more than her underwear.

‘You don’t have feelings and I can’t do this, Raul. I don’t know you any more. You’re not the man I was with.’ Her head was spinning alarmingly and her stomach rolled and lurched. ‘Go away. Just go away. It’s over, Raul.’

He swore softly and fluently and turned away from her, as if he didn’t trust himself to look at her and not explode. ‘Perhaps you didn’t want to know me. This is who I am, Faith. The real me. You saw only what you wanted to see. What suited you.’

‘That isn’t true. I know you can be ruthless in business, but you’re not cruel, I know you’re not.’ The threat of tears was back with a vengeance and she blinked rapidly to clear her vision. ‘Up until our wedding day you were—’

‘What?’ He turned, his dark eyes glinting hard. ‘I was what? A complete fool? A trusting idiot?’

‘I don’t think it’s foolish to trust the person you—’ She just stopped herself saying the word ‘love’ because she knew now that he’d never loved her. ‘Marry,’ she said flatly. ‘It’s not foolish to trust the person you marry.’

‘Oh really?’ His tone was heavy with sarcasm. ‘Perhaps that depends on the reason for the marriage. In our case it was based on deceit. Hardly a firm foundation for trust.’

‘I did not deceive you! And I don’t even understand why you would think that. Is this because of your money? Is this some sort of billionaire thing? What, Raul? You have so much money and you’re such a fabulous catch that women are going to go to any lengths to trap you? Is that what this is about?’

Raul ran a hand over his face. ‘We will leave this subject aside for now.’ His voice shook with emotion. ‘You’re not up to discussing it and frankly I’m not sure I am either.’ It was a measure of his focus and determination that he was capable of moving on from a subject that was burning both of them up inside. ‘You could have been killed.’

‘And that would have solved your problem, Raul.’

‘Dios mío , that comment is totally unjustified.’ His tone was savage and loaded with contempt. ‘Never at any point in this whole miserable mess have I wished you dead.’

Her head throbbed and her mouth was dry as a desert. Seeking any excuse to look away from him, Faith reached for the lemonade again but her hand was shaking so much that half of it slopped over her dress.

Raul stood still, exasperation flickering across his handsome face as he watched her efforts. Then he gave a soft curse and took the glass from her hand, his mouth compressed into a thin line as he held the glass to her lips. ‘Drink.’ His sharp command made her flinch but although there was no sympathy in his tone, he held the glass carefully, allowing her to take small sips before placing the glass back on the table.

But his attentiveness, albeit reluctantly given, simply made things worse.

He was so close to her and she breathed in his clean, male scent and felt her insides stir. It was as if her body recognised him and despite the heat, her shivering intensified.

Why couldn’t he be less of a man?

Maybe then her brain and body would have worked in harmony instead of battling like opposing forces.

‘Stop shivering.’ Raul delivered the order in a driven tone but when his demand had no effect he reached for his phone. ‘I will get the doctor back up here.’

‘No.’ Her teeth chattering, Faith shrank away from him, exhausted and wishing that he was easier to understand. He’d made it obvious that he bitterly regretted their wedding and yet he’d sought her out and brought her back to Argentina. ‘Why did you bring me back here, Raul? Why?’

‘You’re my wife. You belong by my side and in my bed.’

That simple statement encompassed everything it meant to be married to an Argentine male and she closed her eyes briefly. So it was all about possession. There was no love there at all.

‘I didn’t want this to happen to us—’

‘Yes, you did.’ His words and his tone were brutal, leaving her no escape. ‘You made this decision. You rolled the dice and you gambled. At least have the courage to face what you did to our relationship.’

The sick throbbing in her head intensified. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

He gave a bitter laugh. ‘And that from a woman? Talking is what women are supposed to do best, isn’t it, Faith? You think that every problem can be solved if it’s talked through.’

Not every problem .

‘I have nothing more to say to you, Raul. You’re angry and bitter and I just don’t know you any more.’

Something flickered across his dark, handsome face—dangerous shadows, a suggestion of something ugly lurking deep, deep inside.

‘I can’t be married to a man who doesn’t love me,’ Faith whispered. ‘I want a divorce. Give me whatever you need me to sign and I’ll sign it.’

Her flat statement drew no response from him and in the end she looked back at him, only to find that he’d walked towards the pool and was standing with his back to her.

Faith stared at him helplessly. Even from the back he was spectacular. His shoulders were wide and powerful, his legs strong and well-muscled. He carried himself with confidence, the astonishing success he’d made of his life evident in every aspect of his demeanour and behaviour.

Once, she’d believed he was hers.

She’d truly believed that they shared something special and the knowledge that for him their relationship had been empty hurt more than any of the wounds she’d incurred in the accident.

He turned suddenly, feeling her gaze on him with that instinctive awareness that had always bound them together. ‘You went to all those elaborate lengths to get me to the altar and now you want a divorce?’ His mouth twisted into a mocking smile. ‘You’re giving up extraordinarily easily. Take some advice—if something is worth fighting for, it’s worth fighting to the death.’

It was a remark so typical of him that in the old days— the days before marriage —she would have smiled and teased him unmercifully. She would have told him to chill out and not be so driven. ‘I never saw our relationship as a war, Raul.’

‘You started the war. You manipulated me into marrying you,’ he said coldly. ‘So it seems absurd for you to abandon your goal so easily.’ His supreme self-confidence and the chill in his tone simply added to her pain.

‘I didn’t have a goal, Raul!’ Feeling at an even greater disadvantage lying down, Faith sat up. ‘I’m not one of your companies!! I don’t have a mission statement or a five-year plan! I did not manipulate you!’

‘No? So who’s fault is it that we are in this position? Marriage was not part of my plan. I was clear about that from the beginning.’ He stepped forward, his voice throbbing with emotion. ‘No marriage. No babies. You entered into our relationship with your eyes wide open.’

His words were so uncompromisingly harsh that for a moment she had trouble breathing.

They were so different. How could she ever have thought that their feelings for one another would be enough to bridge the gulf between them?