long will we be staying there?’
‘As long as it takes. If you have any aspirations of escape, kill them now.’
She clasped her hand in her lap, refusing to rise to his baiting. ‘My family will be worried if I don’t let them know how long I’ll be away,’ she tried to reason with him.
Her mother had been confused when she’d called to say she was taking a holiday and had no idea when she would be returning. Stephen had been even more difficult to convince. Jasmine had been avoiding him since her return from Rio, but she knew her stepfather suspected she’d had something to do with him being suddenly free of debt and the prospect of jail.
‘And you always strive to maintain the appearance of a dutiful daughter, do you?’ Scorn poured from Reyes, the naked censure in his voice stinging her skin. ‘Obviously, you’ve succeeded in pulling the wool over their eyes all these years.’
Jasmine bit back her retort to the contrary. It was because of her past that her mother worried when she didn’t hear from her daughter. The past she’d tried so hard to escape from but had stepped firmly back into with her one wrong decision in Rio.
Finding no adequate words to defend herself, she kept silent. With an impatient movement, Reyes ripped the glasses from his eyes and caught her chin in his hand. Jasmine found herself locked into his intense gaze.
‘Are you going to speak or do you intend to play mute?’ he asked.
‘I don’t really have anything to say to you.’
He folded the glasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket. ‘Your father, Stephen Nichols, works for the British government, does he not?’
His announcement startled her. His eyes held rigid ice that threatened to stop the blood flow in her veins. ‘He’s my stepfather, but how...what does that have to do with anything?’ Her instinct warned she wouldn’t like the path this conversation was taking.
‘I’m merely trying to form a picture in my head. And your mother...what does she do?’
Jasmine licked dry lips, her thoughts churning as she debated the wisdom of evading his questions. In the end, she decided withholding the information would serve no useful purpose. ‘She’s his PA.’
‘So to all intents and purposes, they’re both upstanding citizens?’ he asked, one dark eyebrow raised.
Her pulse increased as her gaze followed the graceful arch of his brow. Even when her eyes dropped to encounter his frozen regard, her pulse still thundered. Because deep inside, Jasmine knew his questions weren’t as innocuous as he’d couched them.
She tried not to let him see how much he riled her. ‘If you have a point, please state it.’
‘I’m just wondering how come you’ve strayed so far from the righteous path.’
She flinched. ‘I beg your pardon?’
His teeth bared in a semblance of a smile, but all it did was send a wave of dread over her. ‘I’m trying to understand you, querida. How a woman such as you, with a seemingly stable background and upbringing, ends up being a thief.’
‘You know nothing about me, except for an impression you think you got from us spending a few hours together. I can understand how what I did would colour your judgement, but that’s far from the whole picture.’
His face hardened. ‘I know you were instrumental in demolishing my country’s trade treaty. You don’t think that’s enough?’ he finished on a snarl.
Remembering how she’d felt when she saw the headline announcing the breakdown of talks, Jasmine slid her gaze from his. ‘I’m sorry. But technically, Mendez is also responsible—’
‘And since all evidence points to you working for Mendez, isn’t the conclusion the same?’ he sneered.
Her head snapped round to his. ‘No! You’re wrong. I don’t work for Mendez. I’ve never even met the man!’
‘Really? You work as a broker and a mediator, do you not?’
Puzzled, she nodded.
‘And over the past three years, your specialty has been in brokering agreements in Latin American companies?’
Her frown deepened in direct proportion to the escalation of her dread. ‘How do you know all this?’
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘When we met you told me you’d been watching the Santo-Valderran talks with interest.’
Jasmine found his reasoning difficult to comprehend. ‘And you think by interest I meant to sabotage it? For what purpose?’
‘What other purpose could there be aside from financial?’
‘Feel free to search my finances. You’d be surprised to find I’m not as flush as you think I am.’
‘You’re too intelligent to display the fruits of your duplicity. Are you so confident that I won’t find the evidence I need if I cast my net a little wider, like, say, your parents?’
Jasmine felt the blood drain from her face. Despite her bravado, the last thing she wanted was for Reyes to start digging into Stephen’s affairs. The evidence of his gambling, misappropriation and connection to people like Joaquin Esteban would become public knowledge if Reyes took that route.
Her stepfather had been visibly shaken by his ordeal at the hands of Joaquin’s men, enough to induce an angina attack that had laid him up in hospital for a week.
Unfortunately, it had taken that experience to wake him up to his dangerous addiction. He had just started a programme to help overcome his gambling problem; the last thing she wanted was for his life to be thrown into turmoil by Reyes.
Watching him struggle to overcome his weakness, she’d been reminded of what Stephen himself had said to her years earlier.
Nobody was perfect.
She’d reminded herself of that over and over again in the last four weeks. Except she was sure, when it came to Prince Reyes Navarre, that belief wouldn’t hold water.
She tried to remain calm as Reyes, sensing her turmoil, tilted her face up to his.
‘I see I’ve stumbled onto something. Who were the beneficiaries if not your parents?’ His fingers tightened. ‘Your lover?’
With excruciating effort, she wrenched herself free. ‘What does it matter? I did it,’ she admitted, not seeing the point in prolonging the agony.
Beside her, he tensed. Her fingers clenched in her lap, the rush of memories threatening to eat her alive. Desperately, she tried to push them away, but they pushed back. Hard.
I did it. This wasn’t the first time she’d said those words. But she’d hoped back then it would be the last. How wrong she’d been.
Squeezing her eyes shut for a single heartbeat, she took a deep breath, opened them and tried to plead with Reyes.
