Diana Hamilton - The Last Illusion

And someone had deposited her case on the chest at the foot of the bed. Footsteps firm, she walked over and snapped open the catches. She had brought very little with her, just one or two cotton skirts and tops, a serviceable pair of washed-out jeans, a swimsuit and enough changes of underwear to last the week she had allowed herself.

So if Sebastian still dressed for dinner, tough. He would have to put up with her looking like the budget-class tourist she had planned on being, driving around the province, staying at low-cost hostels or restaurants with rooms, saying goodbye to the places she had grown to love, knowing she would never return.

Selecting a gathered skirt in fine black cotton and a sleeveless cream-coloured cotton top, she laid them on the bed and carried the rest of the things over to the cavernous wardrobe, and felt her heart clench with shock as she dragged open the heavy doors.

All the things she had left behind were still here: the silks, glistening satins, the froths of chiffon and the elegant severity of tailored linen and heavy sleek cotton. Charley stared at the expensive garments, her mouth going tight.

Sebastian had been generous with his money; she could never accuse him of stinginess. But then—her mouth went even tighter—being generous when he had enough to keep him in luxury for half a dozen lifetimes was hardly a big deal!

And she had been so lonely at times—lonely for his company—that she had forced herself to make treats for herself, enlisting the help of one of Teresa’s many nieces, Francisca, arranging for her to accompany her to Seville—even Barcelona or Madrid—staying a few nights in luxurious hotels and buying everything in sight. But no matter how much she’d spent, how beautiful the clothes, she had still felt gauche when Olivia had been around.

Olivia had been so beautiful, so svelte and charming, that Charley had felt like a bunchy, overdressed schoolgirl. So she’d given up trying to compete, had stopped spending Sebastian’s money, and had concentrated fiercely on the language lessons she was having, mostly from Andrés as she pottered around with him as he worked in the gardens, but sometimes from Pilar, Teresa or Francisca—whoever could spare her the time.

She hadn’t told Sebastian she was learning his language; that was to be her big surprise. Olivia was able to converse fluently—a necessity, she had once told Charley, her manner vaguely patronising. For although Cadiz had a longer history than any other city in the Western world it didn’t turn itself inside out to attract foreign tourists. Cadiz stayed exactly as it was because that was the way the Gaditanos wanted it, and very few people spoke English. If you wanted to become accepted, do business with them, or socialise, then speaking the language was essential. The Gaditanos were full of defiant independence.

So Charley had beavered away, and as soon as she had been confident enough she had taken the conversational initiative over the dinner-table, sure that her achievement would be applauded, taken as a compliment, by her very own defiantly independent Gaditano.

But she hadn’t properly thought it out. If she had done, she would have waited until Olivia was back in England, stamping around in her role of manager of the UK branch of the Machado import-export company. Because Olivia had raised one perfectly arched brow, her smile slightly withering as she’d commented, ‘Well done. But what a deplorable accent! Who taught you? A gitano ?’

Sternly ignoring the sudden ache in the region of her heart, Charley pushed the exquisite clothes as far as she could along the hanging rail to make room for the few bits and pieces she’d brought with her.

This room was having a bad effect on her, bringing back floods of unwanted memories. She was going to have to do something about it.

Beginning with getting rid of all those clothes. If Teresa didn’t know someone who could make use of them, then Pilar or Francisca would. She wouldn’t be using them herself. No way. Besides, she thought with a heartening quirk of her lips, nothing would fit.

Getting her act together wasn’t so difficult, was it? she chided herself. It was an easy matter to push all those unpleasant memories aside. As long as she kept reminding herself that she wasn’t the same person she’d been all those years ago she would manage just fine.

But, coming out of the adjoining bathroom after a refreshing shower, coming face to face with Sebastian, she wasn’t so sure.

A mixture of shock and outrage, coupled with something she couldn’t define, had her frozen, her hands above her head as she rough-dried her hair, her fingers turning to stone in the fluffy folds of the towel she was using. Then the sultry slide of his black eyes released her locked muscles and she whipped the towel down, covering her nakedness.

The gall of the man! The utter, utter gall! Oh, how dared he...?

His eyes swept up to meet her own, and the look in the burning depths made hot colour sweep over every last inch of her skin. She hadn’t blushed for years—not since she had taken charge of her own life—and the fact that this ogre had the power to do that to her made her very angry indeed. And her voice was harsh as she hurled at him, ‘Get out of my room, damn you!’

‘You were not always so unwelcoming, Charlotte.’

The velvet, sexily accented softness of his voice, the way he said her name, his despicable reminder of the way she had been, confused her emotions, jumbling them up until she didn’t know whether she was on her head or her heels, and through that turmoil grew the need to retaliate, to hurt him as he had hurt her. And her voice was thin and acidic, and she clutched the towel against her until her knuckles gleamed whitely, telling him, ‘I didn’t welcome you. I just put up with you. There is a difference.’

‘ Mentiras !’ The lithe, powerful body stiffened immediately, his jawline taut with cold aggression as he accused her of lying. He could accuse her, but he could never be sure. The thought was a triumph in itself. She was learning lessons from him and learning them fast. Before she lost the stimulus she manufactured a look of total uninterest and told him coolly, ‘As it’s all well in the past, the subject’s academic, wouldn’t you say?’ She shrugged, taking care not to dislodge the towel by so much as a millimetre. ‘Anyway, what was it you wanted?’

‘Simply to tell you that Teresa will serve dinner in fifteen minutes.’ His voice would have frozen a raging inferno, and the cold breath of his anger touched her, raising goose-bumps. Merely a reaction to the high she’d been on, she told herself, and nothing at all to do with the way he looked.

As if he would like to kill her but wouldn’t demean himself by touching her.

For the first time she noted he was already dressed for dinner, in sleekly fitting black trousers, oyster silk shirt and a superbly cut, colour-toned lightweight dinner-jacket. He was, as ever, spectacular, the icy anger of his wounded Andalucían pride giving a diamond-hard brilliance to his brooding dark male beauty.

It wasn’t outward appearances that counted, she reminded herself, looking quickly away from him, because the merest glimpse of him had always sent her senses haywire. It was what was on the inside that mattered, and inside Sebastian Machado was as rotten as a hundred-year-old egg!

‘You’ve changed your habits,’ she remarked, doing her best to sound offhand, not willing to let him know that being in the same room with him threw up the kind of emotions that were definitely bad for her health. ‘Dinner was never served before ten, and it was more often nearer eleven before we sat down to eat. And I’m not very hungry, anyway.’

‘Hungry or not, you will eat.’ His black eyes glittered into the topaz defiance of hers. ‘The meal was brought forward because you have been travelling for the best part of the day. You must be tired.’